House October Surprise Task Force

Background

The House October Surprise Task Force followed investigation of related matters in the Iran-Contra affair by the Tower Commission, in which the October Surprise allegations had already been aired, and rejected. Media investigations of the October Surprise allegations took off in 1991 following the publication in April of a New York Times editorial by Gary Sick and a PBS Frontline documentary, and there were calls for a Congressional investigation.

In October 1991 the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee approved an investigation; but the bill for the $600,000 budget was filibustered by Republicans. Some hearings were held by the Sen. For. Relations Subcmte on Near East and South Asian Affairs (then chaired by Terry Sanford) in November 1991 until an unnamed senator, invoking a rarely used rule requiring Senate permission for committees to hold formal hearings, filed an objection, bringing the hearing to a close whilst Gary Sick was testifying. In December 1991 Senators Terry Sanford and James M. Jeffords appointed a special counsel to investigate. This report, published on 19 November 1992, concluded that there was probably no Republican deal to delay hostage release, but that William Casey (Reagan's campaign director) "probably 'conducted informal, clandestine and potentially dangerous efforts' on the campaign's behalf to monitor the hostage situation."

In early February 1992 the House of Representatives voted to launch an investigation, with no Republican support and 34 Democrats opposing. This became the House October Surprise Task Force.

Personnel

The Task Force was run by people with experience of the related Iran-Contra affair. It was chaired by Rep Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind), who had chaired the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran; Vice-chairman was Rep Henry Hyde (R-Ill), who had been a member of the Committee. The Committee's 1987 report (jointly with a Senate committee, as the Congressional Committees Investigating The Iran-Contra Affair) covered the October Surprise in a paragraph footnote, concluding that Iranian representatives had approached the Republican campaign, but that no deal was made. The Task Force's Chief Minority Counsel, Richard J. Leon, had been Deputy Chief Minority Counsel in the Congressional Iran-Contra investigation.

The Task Force's Chief Counsel, Lawrence Barcella, was a former federal prosecutor best known for the Edwin P. Wilson case; in 1985 Barcella had (in a highly unorthodox move for a federal prosecutor) given a legal opinion to an unnamed government official on giving the go-ahead to an Iran-Contra-related private weapons shipment. Barcella had also been a partner at law firm Laxalt, Washington, Perito & Dubuc, where, according to the Senate Bank of Credit and Commerce International report, Barcella worked directly with Paul Laxalt, then a partner in the law firm and previously chairman of the 1980 Reagan election campaign, on the BCCI account after BCCI was charged with money-laundering. BCCI had been used by Oliver North as part of the Iran-Contra operations. Hamilton blocked the proposed appointment to the Task Force staff of R. Spencer Oliver, then Chief Counsel of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, after Hyde objected. Oliver had pressed for the investigation and suspected the claims were true, which "raised a red flag with the minority", Hamilton later explained.

For the month of June 1992 Peggy Adler, who had been employed by Richard Brenneke to write his autobiography, was employed by the Task Force as an Assistant Investigator.

Process

The Task Force had a bipartisan staff of lawyers and investigators, which "conducted over 230 formal interviews and depositions, many with witnesses whose statements had never been taken under oath... analyzed hundreds of thousands of documents, including raw intelligence information... [and] reviewed thousands of records held by individuals, including ex-Iranian officials." In an interview in 2010 Task Force member Mervyn Dymally said that "there was never a 'consultative' process between the task force members and the lead investigators about the inquiry. Mostly, he said, a couple of members might show up for a closed meeting and get 'a slight briefing' from Barcella."

The Senate report in November 1992 said it hoped the House Task Force would be able to address various unanswered questions. Associated Press noted that "circumstances 'suggest a willful effort to prevent' investigators from having timely access to other papers, the report said." In the case of some classified documents relating to the National Security Council, this included the recommendation from the National Security Council that they be provided only to Barcella and Leon, and that members of Congress wanting to view the documents would have to submit a request in writing. Barcella and Leon would be "permitted to read relevant portions of the documents and to take notes, but ... the State Department [would] retain custody of the documents and the notes at all times." The strategy also included media aspects, including "mounting a public relations campaign attacking the investigation's costs and encouraging friendly journalists to denounce the story."

The Task Force was only authorised by Congress to operate until the end of the Congressional session (early January 1993). As evidence came into the inquiry in December 1992, following a lengthy strategy of delay from the White House, the Task Force's chief counsel asked for a 3-month extension, which was not granted. Lee Hamilton later said he did not recall the request, but might have explained the issue of the authorization limit, which would have required Congressional approval to extend. Late-arriving evidence included a letter dated 17 December 1992 from Abolhassan Banisadr, who had become President of Iran after winning the Iranian presidential election, 1980. The letter described Banisadr's conflict with the Ayatollah Khomeini over the negotiations with the US government and with the Reagan campaign, including an episode where Banisadr had called a public meeting in September to expose the affair, which he called off after Khomeini passed a new offer to the US (which was ultimately derailed by the Iranian parliament).

Published report

On 3 January Task Force member Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally submitted a dissenting opinion to the final report, declaring, in relation to the report's treatment of evidence for the crucial Madrid meeting, that "just because phones ring and planes fly doesn't mean that someone is there to answer the phone or is on the plane." Dymally said that in response Rep. Lee H. Hamilton had warned him that if he did not withdraw his dissent "I will have to come down hard on you." The following day Hamilton (in a move he later insisted was unconnected) "fired the entire staff of the Africa subcommittee, which Dymally had chaired before his retirement from Congress which had just taken effect." Hoping to save his former staffers' jobs, Dymally agreed to withdraw his dissent, but refused to put his name to the official report. Dymally later said that he only found out years later that in forwarding the report to House Speaker Thomas Foley, Hamilton and Hyde had claimed unanimous approval of the findings in a vote on 10 December. Dymally said he had never participated in any such vote, and Congressional records show no evidence of it. Dymally's refusal to sign the report was relegated to a single sentence on page 244.

Conclusions

The final report, published on 13 January 1993, concluded “there is no credible evidence supporting any attempt by the Reagan presidential campaign—or persons associated with the campaign—to delay the release of the American hostages in Iran”. The task force Chairman Lee H. Hamilton also added that the vast majority of the sources and material reviewed by the committee were "wholesale fabricators or were impeached by documentary evidence". The report also expressed the belief that several witnesses had committed perjury during their sworn statements to the committee, among them Richard Brenneke, who claimed to be a CIA agent. The report did acknowledge that the Republican campaign had had an "October Surprise Group" responsible for preparing for "any last-minute foreign policy or defense-related event, including the release of the hostages, that might favorably impact President Carter in the November election".

At the news conference presenting the report, copies were not made available to reporters until afterwards, and Hamilton published an editorial in the New York Times declaring "case closed" on grounds of Casey's supposed alibis.

Documentary evidence

The documentary evidence collected by the Task Force was put into storage near the Rayburn House Office Building.