-Caveat Lector-
from:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/
<A HREF="http://www.consortiumnews.com/">The Consortium</A>
-----
May 15, 1999
Russia's Prime Minister and October Surprise
By Robert Parry
On May 12, U.S. reporters rushed out stories about Russia's new prime
minister-designate Sergey V. Stepashin and the new crisis confronting
Russia's democracy.
But the reporters didn�t mention Stepashin's role in a troubling chapter
of American "lost history," an omission suggesting that Russia's is not
the only democracy in trouble.
In 1992-93, as chairman of the Supreme Soviet's Committee on Defense and
Security Issues, Stepashin oversaw an official investigation into what
Moscow's intelligence files revealed about Republican secret activities
in 1980 aimed at undercutting President Carter's desperate efforts to
free 52 American hostages held in Iran.
The long-simmering allegations of Republican sabotage were known as the
"October Surprise" controversy, named after GOP suspicions that Carter
was hoping to free the hostages right before the November elections.
Instead, according to a variety of Iranian officials and foreign
intelligence operatives, Republican emissaries, led by Ronald Reagan�s
campaign director William J. Casey, negotiated a secret deal to delay
the hostages' freedom. The hostages were freed on Jan. 20, 1981, minutes
after Reagan was sworn in.
Stepashin undertook the review of Russia's intelligence files at the
request of Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., who was head of a congressional
task force assigned to examine the controversy in 1992. Hamilton sent
Stepashin the request on Oct. 21, 1992, presumably because some members
of the bipartisan House task force suspected that the October Surprise
story might have originated as Soviet "disinformation."
By fall 1992, under pressure from then-President George Bush and other
Republicans, Hamilton already had settled on a finding that there was
"no credible evidence" to support the charges that the Reagan-Bush
campaign had sabotaged Carter's hostage negotiations.
But on Jan. 11, 1993 -- just two days before Hamilton was scheduled to
announce his conclusions -- Stepashin reported back with the results of
his internal Russian investigation.
Translated by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and forwarded to Congress,
Stepashin's six-page report stated that Moscow possessed detailed
information about secret initiatives undertaken by the Reagan-Bush
campaign to negotiate a delay in the hostages� freedom.
Stepashin�s findings implicated George Bush, Ronald Reagan, William
Casey and Robert Gates in the pre-election machinations. "William Casey,
in 1980, met three times with representatives of the Iranian
leadership," Stepashin's report read. "The meetings took place in Madrid
and Paris."
At the Paris meeting in October 1980, "R[obert] Gates, at that time a
staffer of the National Security Council in the administration of Jimmy
Carter, and former CIA director George Bush also took part. � In Madrid
and Paris, the representatives of Ronald Reagan and the Iranian
leadership discussed the question of possibly delaying the release of 52
hostages from the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran."
Stepashin's report also described President Carter's secret offers to
Iran. One key meeting occurred in Athens in July 1980 with Pentagon
representatives agreeing "in principle" to deliver "a significant
quantity of spare parts for F-4 and F-5 aircraft and also M-60 tanks �
via Turkey," according to Stepashin's report.
In return, Iranians "discussed a possible step-by-step normalization of
Iranian-American relations [and] the provision of support for President
Carter in the election campaign via the release of American hostages."
Stepashin wrote matter of factly about this geopolitical bartering. He
observed that both the Reagan campaign and the Carter administration
"started with the proposition that [Iran's leader] Imam [Ruhollah]
Khomeini, having announced a policy of 'neither the West nor the East,'
and cursing the 'American devil,' imperialism and Zionism, was forced to
acquire American weapons, spares and military supplies by any and all
possible means."
The Republicans just won the bidding war. Nevertheless, President Carter
had the constitutional authority to conduct negotiations with foreign
powers. The Republican campaign did not.
Stepashin also described how the Reagan administration fulfilled its
debt to Iran. "After the victory of R. Reagan in the election, in early
1981, a secret agreement was reached in London in accord with which Iran
released the American hostages, and the U.S. continued to supply arms,
spares and military supplies for the Iranian army," Stepashin wrote.
The deliveries were carried out by Israel, often through private arms
dealers, his report said. Spares for F-14 fighters and other military
equipment went to Iran from Israel in March-April 1981 and the arms
pipeline stayed open into the mid-1980s.
"Through the Israeli conduit, Iran in 1983 brought surface-to-surface
missiles of the 'Lance' class plus artillery of a total value of $135
million," Stepashin's report stated. "In July 1983, a group of
specialists from the firm, Lockheed, went to Iran on English passports
to repair the navigation systems and other electronic components on
American-produced planes."
The tap for Iranian-bound arms opened wider in 1985, with the
Iran-contra shipments.
Stepashin's report matched other information that the House task force
possessed. The Israelis, indeed, had shipped U.S. military spares to
Iran in the early 1980s, with the acquiescence of senior Reagan
administration officials.
But the task force finessed the evidence of secret Reagan-approved arms
shipments in the early 1980s by arguing that the deliveries did not
prove a "quid pro quo" dating back to 1980.
Hamilton�s task force also had received multiple corroboration about
October Surprise meetings from senior Iranian officials, French
intelligence officers and intelligence operatives from Israel and other
Middle East nations.
[Since then, Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat has admitted to former
President Carter that Republicans also approached the Palestine
Liberation Organization with a plan to delay the hostages' release.]
Still, the House task force rejected the October Surprise charges,
accepting the denials -- and strained alibis -- of senior Republicans,
including President Bush, who was running for vice president in 1980 and
was seeking reelection as president during the task force investigation.
By early January 1993, Hamilton had shipped the dismissive findings to
the government printing office. The task force report was slated for
release on Jan. 13.
So, the arrival of Stepashin's report on Jan. 11 added a new
complication. The two days offered inadequate time for any serious
examination of the Russian material. The record shows only that a U.S.
Embassy political officer was dispatched to press the Russians for more
details.
The Russians stood by their report, but would not divulge the
intelligence sources and methods. They simply declared that the
information came from Stepashin's Committee on Defense and Security
Issues, roughly the equivalent of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Offering Hamilton a possible way out, the U.S. Embassy officer
speculated that Moscow's report might be "based largely on material that
has previously appeared in the Western media."
Though supported by no evidence, the embassy speculation was included in
the "confidential" cable to Hamilton. The suggestion was quietly
accepted by the task force.
Still, nearly as serious as the October Surprise charge was the fact
that the Russians were claiming that they held sensitive evidence
implicating two U.S. presidents [Reagan and Bush] and two CIA directors
[Casey and Gates] in serious crimes of state.
If true, the Soviets were in a position to blackmail top U.S. officials
for 12 years. The full October Surprise story also remains politically
sensitive today given the status of Bush�s son, Texas Gov. George W.
Bush, as the Republican front-runner for the 2000 election.
But Stepashin�s report did not change Hamilton�s plans. On Jan. 13,
1993, Hamilton and other task force officials announced the "debunking"
of the October Surprise story. No one made any mention of Stepashin's
report or the other evidence that contradicted the official findings.
The task force simply stuck Stepashin's report into a box that was
stored away with other documents from the October Surprise
investigation.
In late 1994, nearly two years later, I received permission to review
the unclassified records from the task force.
I was led to dozens of boxes stored in a former Ladies Room of an
obscure office off the Rayburn House Office Building parking garage. In
the boxes, I found not only the unclassified records, but a number of
secret documents that apparently had been left behind by accident. One
of the classified records was the "confidential" embassy cable
containing the translation of Stepashin's report.
While a stunning example of secret U.S.-Russian cooperation in the
post-Cold War era, the Stepashin report still begged the larger question
of whether it was based on solid intelligence from the KGB�s own sources
in Europe, North America and the Middle East, or whether it was simply
"blow back" from Western media reports as the U.S. Embassy speculated.
In the weeks after discovering Stepashin's report, I contacted a
well-placed government source in Europe who had close ties to senior
Russian officials. At my request, the source inquired through his Moscow
contacts about the basis for Stepashin's report.
Later, the source called me back. He said the Russians were insisting
that the intelligence was their own and that the information was
reliable. The source chuckled at the notion that the Russians would just
repackage some Western news clips and palm them off on Congress.
Noting the Russian need for U.S. financial assistance in early 1993, the
source added that the Russians "would not send something like this to
the U.S. Congress at that time if it was bullshit." Instead, the
Russians considered the Stepashin report "a bomb" and "couldn't believe
it was ignored."
Little did the Russians know that not only did the House task force
ignore the Stepashin report, but actually stuck it in a box that was
piled unceremoniously on the floor of a former Ladies Room off a
congressional parking garage.
With President Boris Yeltsin's decision to appoint Stepashin as Russian
prime minister, the Stepashin report is relevant again today. The
questions now are twofold:
--Did the House task force behave irresponsibly in 1993 by ignoring an
important piece of evidence in a major federal crime -- a conspiracy
between senior Republicans and Iranians to prolong the captivity of
kidnapped American diplomats, a move intended to fix the outcome of a
presidential election?
--Or did the now-designated prime minister of Russia unfairly lodge
false allegations against presidents Reagan and Bush as well as CIA
directors Casey and Gates?
The answers could be important not only as a test for the health of the
Russia's democratic institutions but those of America as well.
[For details on the House task force report and its unusual logic, see
Robert Parry�s Trick or Treason. For the full text of Stepashin�s
report, see Parry�s The October Surprise X-Files.]
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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