A Reagan campaign ally allegedly worked to convince Iran not to release their American hostages until after Reagan defeated Carter.
during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.)
The infamous hostage crisis, which began on November 4, 1979 and lasted 444 days, was an open political wound for Carter, who went on to lose his reelection bid to Reagan. After Iran released the hostages on Reagan’s Inauguration Day, there were immediate suspicions among Democrats that the Reagan team had somehow sabotaged the Carter administration’s efforts in order to deny Carter a late-campaign political win — which Reagan advisers famously dubbed a potential “October surprise.
Mr. Barnes said he was certain the point of Mr. Connally’s trip was to get a message to the Iranians to hold the hostages until after the election. “I’ll go to my grave believing that it was the purpose of the trip,” he said. “It wasn’t freelancing because Casey was so interested in hearing as soon as we got back to the United States.” Mr. Casey, he added, wanted to know whether “they were going to hold the hostages.
[When they met with the first of several Arabs leader on the trip,] Mr. Connally said, “‘Look, Ronald Reagan’s going to be elected president and you need to get the word to Iran that they’re going to make a better deal with Reagan than they are Carter,’” Mr. Barnes recalled. “He said, ‘It would be very smart for you to pass the word to the Iranians to wait until after this general election is over.
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