WILLIAM CASEY'S INVOLVEMENT IN IRAN HOSTAGE ISSUE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100050012-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 23
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: June 20, 1991
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO TV REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
Nightline WJLA-TV
June 20, 1991 11:30 P.M.
Washington, D.C.
William Casey's Involvement in Iran Hostage Issue
TED KOPPEL: The President of the United States says
it's outrageous.
PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH: I don't think I'd deserve to be
in this office if for one minute I suggested a person be held
hostage so I could get political gain.
KOPPEL: The ex-President of the United States says
PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: Absolute fiction. I did some
things actually the other way, to try and be of help in getting
those hostages. I felt very sorry for them.
KOPPEL: But did any of his campaign aides make contact
with Iranians back in 1980.
PRESIDENT REAGAN: I can't get into details. Some of
those things are still classified.
MAN: Thank you very much, Mr. President.
KOPPEL: For eight of the hostages held by Iranians
for 444 days a dozen years ago, the story has become serious
OFFICES IN WASHINGTON D C. ? NEW YORK ? LOS ANGELES ? CHICAGO ? DETROIT ? AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES
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enough to need a real airing.
MOORHEAD KENNEDY [former hostage]: We are simply saying
that there is evidence that something might have happened of such
a serious nature that it should be investigated right away.
Thank you very much.
ANNOUNCER: A Nightline/Financial Times of London
investigation. Tonight, the October Surprise.
Here is Ted Koppel.
KOPPEL: To this day, even though he has been dead For
two years, the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran holds a special plac -
in America's cultural gallery of villains. And why not? He ro l
others acting in his name held 52 Americans hostage for 4a~
humiliating days. The resentment toward Iran lingers on in thy.
country even though almost 12 years have passed since the U.`~.
Embassy in Teheran was seized.
But there is a related story that has never been
adequately addressed, the charge that Americans acting in behalf
of the Reagan-Bush campaign back in 1980 conspired with agents of
the Ayatollah Khomeini to hold those U.S. hostages past election
day to the very hour that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as
President of the United States.
If true, it would be an act of political treachery
bordering on treason. If untrue, then those whose names have
been linked and smeared in association with this story deserve
nothing less than a total clearing of the air.
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In either case, what has long seemed unacceptable is the
unsubstantiated fog of rumor and gossip and innuendo that
prevails to this moment. Some of those who have kept the story
alive, who have continued to fuel it with intriguing scraps and
unsubstantiated morsels come to the table with what can most
charitably be described as questionable motives. What is
extraordinary is how little effort has been expended by those
most directly implicated to clear their names in any convincing
fashion.
Tonight, an effort to do some accounting on both sides
of the ledger.
President Bush has expressed his personal anguish over
this story. He has asked whether a formal investigation i,
justified by the evidence now available. Tonight we will set
forth just how much new information yields to even a few weeks of
intensive reporting, and leave to your judgment the question of
how much more conclusive evidence could be produced by a more
formal investigation with the powers of subpoena and witnesses
answering questions under oath.
At the center of this controversy, of course, is a man
who died in 1987, William Casey. He can no longer answer the
charges that are leveled against him. But what about those who
were close to him: his family, friends, former members of his
staff? They have provided an unusual degree of cooperation. But
what we have learned from them simply adds more fuel to the
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allegation that Mr. Casey could indeed have participated in
negotiations with Iranians in Madrid during the Summer of 1980.
What we'll be adding tonight rests on a lot of
preliminary work that was done by the PBS program Frontline and
on years of reporting and research by Gary Sick, a former Navy
captain, Iran specialist, and top staffer at the National
Security Council in Jimmy Carter's White House. It was that
reporting which first focused public attention on those Madrid
meetings.
All previous stories had been centered on Paris ire
October and the allegation that George Bush himself was present.
Ironically, our key witnesse in tonight's report clears L
President of that charge. Mr. Bush, he says, was not at tlhHH
Paris meeting. He insists that in Paris, as in Madrid, the U.S.
delegation was headed by William Casey. Our witness, an Iranian
arms dealer, claims to have been in Madrid at those meetings
between Casey and a close associate of Ayatollah Khomeini.
We will present for the first time independent documen-
tation that supports the premise that such meetings may well have
taken place. Where charges previously made are not substanti-
ated, we'll tell you about those also.
It was five years ago that I first met an Iranian arms
dealer by the name of Jamshid Hashemi. The account of what
happened in Madrid between William Casey and a leading Iranian
cleric by the name of Mehdi Karubi (?) is Hashemi's story. To
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this day, he will not talk about it on camera, but he insists
that he was there together with his brother Cyrus.
When we come back, I'll give you Hasheini's version of
how the deal between the Reagan-Bush campaign and the Ayatollah
Khomeini was struck.
KOPPEL: Jimmy Carter claims no independent evidence of
his own on a Reagan campaign hostage deal. He didn't want to be
interviewed on the subject. He did let me join him, however, on
the banks of a favorite trout stream for an informal on-camera
conversation, questions limited to matters of public record:
context, a sense of the times. Events, for example, that led up
to the failed hostage rescue mission.
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: We had been working with the
Iranians ever since quite soon after the hostages were taken the
previous year. And we had gone up to April, early April, I
think, if my memory's right, working with the President,
Bani-Sadr, and we had arranged a secret code whereas if the
Iranians agreed to let the hostages go, Bani-Sadr would say a
certain paragraph that was innocuous in nature in one of his
public statements, and then I would respond five hours later with
another paragraph that the public wouldn't think was important
that would confirm our end of the deal. Bani-Sadr gave the
positive paragraph in his speech, and at noon that day in
Washington I gave the positive response in my speech.
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PRESIDENT CARTER [delivering speech]: As you know, the
President of Iran announced early this morning that the American
hostages will be transferred from the militants to the care and
the protection of the Iranian government. This action, if taken,
will be a positive step.
PRESIDENT CARTER: But then we were informed by Presi-
dent Bani-Sadr later that the Ayatollah Khomeini had reversed the
decision and the hostages would not be released. This was early
in April.
So, it was after that that we put into effect the first
hostage rescue mission, knowing that they would not be released.
KOPPEL: It's within that general time frame, late
March, early April of 1980, that preliminary discussions are said
to have taken place between William Casey on one side and two
Iranian arms dealers, brothers, Cyrus, who is now dead, and
Jamshid Hashemi. Casey, says Jamshid, was looking for a contact
with a high-ranking Iranian, someone close to the Ayatollah
Khomeini. The Hashemi brothers agreed to act as go-betweens.
As Jamshid recalls it, the response from Teheran came
very quickly. The Ayatollah Khomeini had authorized an old
associate, a senior cleric by the name of Mehdi Karubi, to meet
with Casey. But the meeting that was approved in April didn't
occur until late July. The failed hostage rescue attempt may
have been a factor.
What follows is Hashemi's story. I met with him earlier
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this month for four hours. These are his recollections of what
transpired at the end of July in Madrid.
The Iranians stayed in two hotels, the Plaza and the
Ritz. On the Iranian side, Mehdi Karubi and his brother, Hassan.
The Hashemis, Cyrus and Jamshid, acted as interpreters. On the
American side, William Casey and two other men, unidentified.
The first meeting took place in Cyrus Hashemi's suite at the
Ritz.
What is intriguing, even compelling, about Hashemi's
account is that neither Casey nor Karubi is portrayed as a
with an agenda. These are two men trying to feel each other )u''
Karubi opening the session with a half-hour attack on t
policies of the United States in general and Jimmy Carter 1,,
particular. Casey silent, very cool, not reacting to the oth-i
man's anger. When he did speak, he simply discussed the relative
records of the Republican and Democratic Parties. The GOP, Casey
argued, traditionally had better relations with Iran than the
Democrats did. When Casey did raise the subject of the hostages,
Hashemi remembers, there was no suggestion that their release be
delayed. Indeed, Casey simply asked what Iran's intentions were
toward the hostages and what it would take to get them out as
quickly as possible. Karubi said nothing could be done without
the explicit approval of the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Including translation time and a break for coffee and
sandwiches, the meeting lasted less than three hours. When it
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was over, the parties agreed to meet again the next day. Karubi
was curious, even a little befuddled. What, he asked the
Hashemis, had been the point of all that? What had the purpose
of the meeting been? What did Casey want?
That, in fact, was the way Karubi began the next day's
session. What was the point of these meetings? What was Casey
authorized to say on the subject of the hostages and the release
of Iran's frozen assets? The United States, at that point, was
also holding large shipments of weapons that had been bought and
paid for by Iran's previous government headed by the Shah.
Karubi acknowledged that it might be difficult to arrange for trie
release of those weapons, since the Republicans were, after a11,
not in power. But he wanted to know if weapons could somehow be
transferred through a third country.
And it is here, for the first time, that Hashemi alleges
any suggestion on Casey's part that the release of the hostages
might be delayed.
Casey had some questions: Was Iran ready to deal with
the Republicans and hand over the hostages? Was Karubi empowered
to confirm a deal in Khomeini's behalf? Could he give assurances
that the hostages would be well treated? And would they be
released to President-elect Reagan after the election? If that
happened, said Casey, the Republicans would be grateful and would
arrange for the release of Iran's frozen assets and the military
equipment that had been held up.
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Karubi said he would need time to get specific confirma-
tion from Khomeini. Then, in an asside to the other Iranians in
the room, a comment that was not translated into English. Karubi
said, "I think we're now opening a new era, and we are now
dealing with someone who knows how to do business."
A fascinating story, rich in detail, and possibly even
true. But what, if anything, can independently be confirmed?
Casey is dead. Cyrus Hashemi is dead. The two Karubi brothers
in Teheran have not responded to our inquiries. We don't know
the identities of the other two Americans allegedly with Casey.
We decided to focus on what could be traced.
Here's Nightline correspondent Jeff Greenfield.
JEFF GREENFIELD: Jamshid Hashemi tells a fascinating
story, and there are plausible aspects to it. For instance, why
Madrid? Because, it turns out, it was a convenient place for
Iranians to travel to. Starting in June of 1980, there were two
flights weekly direct from Teheran to Madrid. And Spain was a
country that required neither visas nor even passports from
Iranians.
But what about the story of summer meetings with William
Casey? To find out, we looked for evidence to prove or to
disprove the tale that did not rely on allegations or memories.
We looked for records, for documents. And we found them.
Through sources in Madrid, we found eleven-year-old
hotel records listing the names of hotel guests registered at the
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old Plaza Hotel. We matched those lists against the dates of the
alleged meetings, looking for names that appeared American,
Iranian or Israeli. One of those names raised a lot of eyebrows,
Robert Gray. That's a common name, except that Robert Gray is
also the name of a powerful, influential Washington public
relations executive who in the Fall of 1980 became a top deputy
to William Casey in the Reagan-Bush campaign.
So we asked Robert Gray whether he was in Madrid in the
Summer of 1980. His first response was confusing.
ROBERT GRAY: I was in Madrid, I believe, maybe in that
time frame, in connection with my old firm. We had an office in
Madrid. It was nothing political. And I hadn't joined the
campaign, or even met with Casey about joining the campaign.
GREENFIELD: But then we reminded Gray that his old
company wasn't even in existence in 1980.
GRAY: Ahh, wait a minute. Let me check. You're right.
I'm thinking in terms of the last -- of the '88 election, not --
oh, I think that's the first time I was ever in Madrid. I don't
believed I was in Madrid before. I was remembering the grain
company business that I was there, and that would have been in
'87 or '88. I've got years just eight years off. That's all.
GREENFIELD: Gray later allowed us to photograph his
passport, which shows no foreign travel anywhere around late July
or August of 1980. Gray also put us in touch with bill Casey's
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former secretary and with a member of Casey's family. More about
that later.
But what about the Hashemis? Here, the old 1980 hotel
records prove telling. They show that one Jamshid Kalaj and one
A. Hashemi checked into the Plaza in late July. Those names
confirm Jamshid Hashemi's recollection that he and his brother,
both international arms dealers, often used aliases using their
first and last names. And in August of 1980, when the second
series of meetings allegedly took place, hotel records show that
the name Ali Balnean appears on the Hotel Plaza guest list. Now,
we know, independent of these hotel records, that this name has
long been used by Jamshid Hashemi. Indeed, he even had
business card with that alias.
What can be said, then, is that, based not on anyone's
word, but on the documented record, Jamshid and Cyrus Hashemi
were in Madrid when Jamshid says they were.
But what do the records show about Bill Casey? More on
that later.
Ted?
KOPPEL: When we come back we'll bring you Hashemi's
account of what happened at the second set of meetings in Madrid.
KOPPEL: It was about eight days after the first set of
meetings in Madrid ended that Jamshid Hashemi claims he heard
again from Mehdi Karubi. Karubi wanted another meeting with
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Casey in Madrid. Jamdshid Hashemi contacted his brother Cyrus,
who passed the message to William Casey. The next round of
meetings was set up for the second week in August.
The negotiating teams were the same, although it is
Hashemi's recollection that a number of other Americans and
Iranians were present in the hotels, the Ritz and the Plaza.
As he had the first time, Karubi began the discussions.
The Ayatollah Khomeini had accepted Casey's suggestion. All the
hostages would henceforth be treated as guests rather thar;
prisoners. The protocols, or arrangements, for releasing
hostages would be handled through third governments. Karubi
already talking as though Reagan's election was a foregor
conclusion. As a gesture of good will to the future U.',.
government, he said, the hostages would be released on the d=i
that Reagan was inaugurated. In exchange, however, even though
Casey was not at that time in the government, the expectation on
the Iranian side was that he would help Iran get certain arms and
information.
Casey thanked him. Casey said that even though he was
not in the government, he had friends, and within the next day or
so he would get back to Karubi with certain suggestions regarding
arms and ammunition.
The two men then discussed, again according to Jamshid
Hashemi, details on how to delay the release of the hostages.
Casey was told that if delivery of weapons was not arranged, the
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hostages would not be freed.
The meeting was adjourned.
On the next day, Casey told Karubi that Cyrus Hashemi
would be introduced to a gentleman who was in Madrid and who
would help Hashemi receive and execute orders on weapons. It is
Jamshid's recollection that his brother was introduced to an
Israeli general. As a result of that meeting, Cyrus purchased a
5000-ton Greek freighter for a million dollars. Jamshid Hashemi
does not recall -- and his brother is now dead -- precisely when
the shipmentgs were made, but he says between August of 1980 dno
late January of 1981 the freighter made four round-trips betNee!i
the Israeli port of Elat and the Iranian port of Bandar-Abbas.
each time the ship left port the name was changed while it was if1
passage, so that on paper, at least, the ship that left Israel
was never the one that arrived in Iran, or vice versa.
A high-ranking military officer from Israeli Defense
Industries ultimately sold a total of $150 million worth of
weapons and ammunition to the Iranians. The material was
Israeli-manufactured under a U.S. license: 105- and 155-milli-
meter artillery shells, 100-millimeter tank ammunition, also
106-millimeter anti-tank guns and ammunition. Payment was made
to an Israeli company in Switzerland through a letter of credit
at a Swiss bank.
Jamshid Hashemi says he is sure that all the shipments
were delivered before Inauguration Day because by then his
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brother had been paid in full, and the Iranians only paid his
brother on delivery.
Again, a story rich in detail, all but impossible to
confirm. So let's focus for a moment on the central figure in
this mystery. No one, not William Casey's friends, and certainly
not his critics, thinks him incapable of bringing off a clandes-
tine meeting with the Iranians.
First, a friend. Jeff Greenfield spoke with Bob Gray.
GREENFIELD: Should it disturb us if Bill Casey met with
Iranians at the end of July, beginning of August? I man the
accusation is, the claim is that it wasn't just a meeting, thil
he was cutting a deal.
GRAY: Well, you'd nave to make lots of assumptions.
And one of those is that you have to assume that ne's meeting f),_
that purpose with them. I assume there are a lot of things he
could have done. He was an intelligence officer, obviously.
GREENFIELD: Well, not in 1980. He was Reagan's
campaign manager.
GRAY: Well, we had been an intelligence officer all his
life. You know, he was very big with Donovan in World War II as
the security force in the war.
KOPPEL: And one of Casey's critics, the man who
preceded him as Director of the CIA, Stansfield Turner.
Can you see, in your wildest imagination, Bill Casey
operating as campaign manager the way he later operated as CIA
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ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER: Yes. Yes. I think
arranging a deal, as suggested in what's called the October
Surprise, is entirely within Mr. Casey's scruples, or lack
thereof.
KOPPEL: But let's work backwards. If Casey wasn't in
Madrid, where was he?
Here once again is Jeff Greenfield.
GREENFIELD: Ted, for weeks ABC News has been talking
with Casey's ex-secretary, Barbara Hayward, with family members,
with ex-Reagan-Bush campaign officials, in an effort to track
down Casey's movements during the critical periods of late July
and mid-August of 1980. We've also searched every print and
broadcast reference we could find.
Turning first to August. Between August 8th and August
13th, the time frame of the second set of meetings in Madrid, the
public record is barren. There are no recorded appointments for
Casey that his former secretary could find. More puzzling, there
are no references to Casey in any of the newspapersor video logs
we searched, no interviews, no sightings. His first appearance
is on ABC on August 14th, the last day of the Democratic conven-
tion, when Casey talks about Carter's alleged failures as
President.
WILLIAM CASEY: He can't campaign on his record. His
record is a record of failure in the White House and leadersh
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in the presidency. And there are no credible new programs that
he has to offer.
GREENFIELD: For late July, the record is fuller. Some
of the missing dates can be filled in. On July 22nd, for
example, Casey opened Reagan campaign headquarters in Virginia.
On July 23rd, according to his former secretary, Casey was in Los
Angeles. The next day, according to press reports, Casey was in
Washington, where he received a check from the Federal Election
Commission. On July 26th, says his former secretary, Casey can
be located in Washington. And on July 30th, Casey was in Reagan
campaign headquarters in Virginia, being interviewed by ABC news
correspondent Barry Serafin. Indeed, Casey's former secretary
was also able to locate his whereabouts for the evening of July
30th. And just to show that reality is sometimes better than
fiction, she told us that on that night Bill Casey was having
dinner with GOP vice presidential nominee George Bush. Where?
At an exclusive private Washington establishment named the Alibi
Club.
But an alibi is exactly what is missing for three
crucial days: July 27th, July 28th and July 29th. On these days
there is no trace of Bill Casey. His former secretary, Barbara
Hayward, can find no record of any transaction, no meals, no
appointments. There are no interviews with the Reagan campaign
chairman in any newspapers we've been able to trace. None of his
aides has any record of any meeting or conversation with Casey
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during that time.
So, what's the significance? In late July and in
mid-August, William Casey's whereabouts cannot be confirmed. And
both of those times correspond to the times that we know the
Hashemi brothers were in Madrid.
But is it really possible that the campaign chairman for
the Republican presidential nominee would leave the country at
such a time? One source that confirms just such a possibility
comes from the 1980 Reagan campaign itself. We found this story
buried on an inside page of the New York Times of July 30th,
1980. The story is about the complaints of a New York right-t)-
life g roup over George Bush's selection as Vice Preside,.
What's the significance? The story quotes a Reagan spsokesm
who says William Casey plans to open negotiations with this gruu,,p
"when he returns today from a trip abroad." This from a news-
paper story eleven years ago, when no one dreamed that the
question of Bill Casey's travels would ever become the subject of
controversy.
Ted?
KOPPEL: When we come back we'll hear once again from
former President Jimmy Carter as he reflects again on two
historical events, events that we know happened: Israeli arms
shipments to Iran and his sown loss to Ronald Reagan in the 19d0
presidential election.
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KOPPEL: A lot of unanswered questions, several of which
we directed to the Iranian government. And this afternoon we got
a formal reply transmitted through the Iranian Mission to the
U.N. The statement neatly sidesteps all the specific questions,
referring instead to a remark made in late 1980 by Hashemi
Rafsanjani, then-Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, now Presi-
dent, insisting that it makes no difference for the Islamic
Republic of Iran who won the presidential election.
It's what we like to call a non-denial denial. The
question is not what the Iranians did to help the Republicans or
the Democrats, but what they did to help themselves. Indeed, Hie
closing paragraph of their statement suggests just that. "The
nature of the current controversies in the United States ii
absolutely domestic, and the Islamic Republic of Iran sees n.,
benefit to involve itself in this matter."
Other questions: A name you haven't heard yet in this
broadcast, Donald Gregg, now U.S. Ambassador to South Korea,
onetime CIA officer who was detailed to the National Security
Council in the White House and who then became Vice President
Bush's national security adviser. Several witnesses place Gregg
at a Paris meeting between Casey and the Iranians in October of
1980. Our witness, Jamshid Hashemi, says Gregg may have been one
of the unidentified men with Casey in Madrid.
Jeff, what do we know?
GREENFIELD: We know that in April of 1990 Gregg tried
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to prove that he wasn't in Paris at a trial out in Portland and
failed to persuade the jury. However, in the last 48 hours,
through his lawyer, he has provided to us detailed diaries of
exactly where he was during this October weekend, which if
confirmed would make it impossible for him to have been in Paris
during that weekend.
KOPPEL: Jeff, without getting into the issue of how
conclusive that kind of information is, shouldn't there be some
kind of way for the Casey estate or former colleagues of William
Casey to come up with similar kinds of documentation that wou Io
clear his name?
GREENFIELD: I think that's the $64,000,000 question.
There are, to be sure, hundreds of uncataloged boxes of Reagan
campaign material awaiting cataloging out in California. They
can be gone through with respect to Casey. I believe Casey's
family ought to be sifting through the material they have in
their home to try to nail down these stories: credit card
receipts, telephone logs. If Casey wasn't in Paris or in Madrid,
it ought to be provable.
KOPPEL: Now, who's in charge of those boxes?
GREENFIELD: Ed Meese is in charge of the Reagan
campaign material that's waiting for the Reagan library.
KOPPEL: Much of this story, of course, rests on the
question of whether there actually was a quid pro quo, whether
the Iranians got weapons in exchange for releasing the hostages
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when they did. We've told you Jamshid Hashemi's story of the
four shiploads going from Elat in Israel to Bandar-Abbas in Iran.
There's no independent confirmation of that, yet. But it's a
matter of record that in late October of 1980 the Israelis did
fly some critical F-4 tires to Iran.
Jimmy Carter remembers that he was furious about that
shipment and raised the issue with Israeli Prime Minister Begin
during a Begin visit to Washington in mid-November.
PRESIDENT CARTER: At the end of the conversation, since
I was very adamant and somewhat angry about it, he promised me
that there would be no shipment of those tires or any other
military supplies to Iran. And as far as I know, from November
until I left office the following January, there were no further
military shipments from Israel to Iran. But I've learned since
then that almost immediately after I did leave the White House,
that those supply parts and other military equipment shipments
did resume.
KOPPEL: It's worth remembering that the war between
Iran and Iraq began in late September of 1980. And regardless of
any private deal between the Reagan campaign and the Iranians, it
would have been very much in Israel's interest to help anyone who
was fighting their archenemy, Iraq.
When we come back a few more questions and some closing
thoughts.
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KOPPEL: In early November 1980, two days before the
election, Jimmy Carter was on the campaign trail. He got a call
well before dawn that the Majlis, the Iranian parliament, was
about to vote on releasing the hostages. He got on Air Force One
and raced back to Washington.
PRESIDENT CARTER: By the time I got back to Washington
and got to the White House, the Majlis had gotten very uncertain
about releasing the hostages, and eventually I was notified that
they adjourned without voting. And, of course, this was a very
serious disappointment to us. And I informed the American
public, who had known something about the prospective vote, that
the news was indeed bad. The hostages would not be released.
PRESIDENT CARTER [delivering speech]: I wish that I
could predict when the hostages will return. I cannot.
PRESIDENT CARTER: So by the time Tuesday came along,
election day, President Reagan got almost 50 1/2 percent, not
quite 51 percent. But my support had dropped about ten
percentage points. And this was obviously, you know, a very
serious disappointment.
KOPPEL: It is perhaps only human nature that Carter
supporters would think the hostage issue cost him the election.
But, Jeff Greenfield, you have been in politics or
covering politics most of your adult life. How accurate a
perception do you think that is?
GREENFIELD: In 1980 there was rampant inflation, there
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was an industrial recession. Almost half the Democratic Party
didn't even want Jimmy Carter to be their nominee. So you could
argue the hostage release would not have decided the election.
But it is clear, Ted, looking back, the Reagan campaign was
obsessed with the issue. They believed a hostage release was the
only way Jimmy Carter's election could be saved. Indeed, they
believed him capable of playing politics with that issue. And
they had an intelligence operation literally looking at airports
around the country and around the world for signs of movement of
spare parts to Iran as a sign that hostages were about to 5-
released.
KOPPEL: Who was running that operation?
GREENFIELD: Well, it was set up, it was annountP
originally in July by William Casey.
KOPPEL: There is one other issue that I've already
mentioned but want to spell out in greater detail: the question
of George Bush's involvement. Specifically, whether he was in
Paris with William Casey in October. Jamshid Hashemi, who claims
that he attended the summer meetings in Madrid, does not claim to
have been at the Paris meetings. He does say, though, that his
brother Cyrus was there and that Cyrus later told him that George
Bush took no part in the meetings.
I'll have some closing thoughts in a moment.
KOPPEL: So what, when all is said and done, can we
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claim? Have we proved the existence of a conspiracy between
agents of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the chairman of the
Reagan-Bush presidential campaign? No. And if you judge this
broadcast by that standard, we never had a hope of meeting your
expectations. All we could do was ask questions, follow leads,
check records, and request the cooperation of those with access
to documents that are not accessible to us. That and listen to
literally dozens of conspiracy theories, most of which we haven't
even mentioned tonight.
Jamshid Hasheini, the only man alive who claims to have
attended those Madrid meetings and is willing to talk about then,
may not be the most credible witness in the world. But he toll
us where he was staying in Madrid and when, and the hotel record,
bore him out. We tried to prove that Bill Casey couldn't have
been in Madrid at those times, but no one could tell us where he
was. And a New York Times story written long before there was
any breath of a conspiracy quoted a Reagan campaign official as
saying Casey was out of the country.
An official inquiry would cost a lot of money, but it
might tell us if some of the people who led this country during
the 1980s stole an election and broke the law. It might also
tell us that they didn't. And that would be worth a lot.
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