As We Say Goodbye to President Carter, Let's Not Forget Republicans' Treason to Deny Him a Second Term
Don't assume the mainstream corporate media is going to share this amid all the obligatory tributes to one of this country's most under-appreciated leaders.
Amid all the obligatory tributes to former President Jimmy Carter today as we lay him to rest, did any of them happen to mention how Ronald Reagan’s campaign committed treason—yes, treason—to deny the 39th president a second term?
Of course there is no shortage of reports of the 52 American hostages held captive in the Iranian embassy for 444 days, and how President Carter failed to rescue them with Operation Eagle Claw that saw the death of eight American servicemen who were killed a military helicopter crash.
But conveniently omitted is how Carter had effectively worked out a hostage-release deal with newly-elected Iranian President Abdolhassan Bani-Sadr, who had won the Iranian election on a platform of releasing the American hostages.
But behind the scenes, Carter’s opponent was working on other plans.
The campaign of Carter’s republican challenger, California Gov. Ronald Reagan, violated the Logan Act when it secretly began negotiating with the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini to hold onto the Americans a little longer. If Reagan won, they promised, they would supply Iran with weapons for its war against Iraq.
Carter was leading in most polls, but his perceived inability to free the hostages after Reagan’s clandestine dirty deal made him appear feckless.
We all know what happened.
Ronald Reagan won the 1980 election.
Up to the last minutes of his presidency on January 20, 1981, Jimmy Carter was still trying to free the Americans. But Iran had made its decision, and at exactly the moment Ronald Reagan placed his hand on the Bible to take the Oath of Office, the hostages were freed in the most humiliating presidential “Fuck you!” of the last four decades.
Abdolhassan Bani-Sadr admitted as much in a telling op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor in 2013 after the film Argo, based on the Iran hostage crisis, won the “Best Picture” award at that year’s Oscar ceremony.
He wrote:
Ayatollah Khomeini and Ronald Reagan had organized a clandestine negotiation, later known as the “October Surprise,” which prevented the attempts by myself and then-US President Jimmy Carter to free the hostages before the 1980 US presidential election took place. The fact that they were not released tipped the results of the election in favor of Reagan.
Two of my advisors, Hussein Navab Safavi and Sadr-al-Hefazi, were executed by Khomeini’s regime because they had become aware of this secret relationship between Khomeini, his son Ahmad, the Islamic Republican Party, and the Reagan administration.
Reagan went on to use the money for the weapons we sold to Iran to fund the Contras in Nicaragua who were fighting the left-wing Sandinista government, ignoring a congressional ban on military aid.
What became the “Iran-Contra Affair” consumed Reagan’s second term and nearly got his successor, his vice president George HW Bush, thrown in prison if it hadn't been for Bush’s attorney general—a man name William Barr.
Yes, that same William Barr.
Did the media cover any of this amid the coverage of Carter’s legacy?