If not us, who?

I disagree.

 

sorry, you are wrong bucko

 

I agree.

 

No it isn't. I believe that book was written around a decade later. The conspiracy became obvious almost immediately after the election and has never been proven to be false. To the contrary, a multitude of top military, intelligence, and world leaders and journalists have insisted it's true. Several seem to have been murdered to silence them.

One of the leading, national issues during that year was the release of 52 Americans being held hostage in Iran since November 4, 1979.[1] Reagan won the election. On the day of his inauguration, in fact, 20 min after he concluded his inaugural address, the Islamic Republic of Iran announced the release of the hostages. The timing gave rise to an allegation that representatives of Reagan's presidential campaign had conspired with Iran to delay the release until after the election to thwart President Carter from pulling off an "October surprise".

According to the allegation, the Reagan Administration rewarded Iran for its participation in the plot by supplying Iran with weapons via Israel and by unblocking Iranian government monetary assets in US banks.

After twelve years of mixed media attention, both houses of the US Congress held separate inquiries and concluded that the allegations lacked supporting documentation.

Nevertheless, several individuals—most notably former Iranian President Abulhassan Banisadr,[2] former Naval intelligence officer and National Security Council member Gary Sick; and former Reagan/Bush campaign and White House staffer Barbara Honegger—have stood by the allegation. There have been allegations that the plane crash that killed the Portuguese Prime Minister, Francisco de Sá Carneiro, in 1980 was in fact an assassination of the Defence Minister, Adelino Amaro da Costa, who had said that he had documents concerning the October surprise conspiracy theory and was planning on taking them to the United Nations General Assembly.

Danny CasolaroIn 1991, freelance writer Danny Casolaro (among others)[18] claimed to be almost ready to expose the alleged October surprise conspiracy, when he suddenly died a violent death in a hotel bathtub in Martinsburg, WVA, raising suspicions. He appeared to be traveling on leads for his investigation into the Inslaw Affair. His death was ruled a suicide.

And many Portland posters should recall this:

On September 23, 1988, Brenneke, a Portland, Oregon, property manager and arms dealer, voluntarily testified at the sentencing hearing of Heinrich Rupp. In his Denver deposition, Brenneke testified that on the night of October 18, 1980, Rupp had flown Reagan-Bush campaign director William Casey from Washington's National Airport to the Le Bourget Airfield north of Paris for a series of secret meetings. According to Brenneke, it was at these meetings—held on October 19 and 20, at the Waldorf Florida and Crillon hotels—that members of the Reagan-Bush campaign secretly negotiated an "arms-for-no-hostages" deal with representatives of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Brenneke testified that he was present at only one meeting. He indicated that his participation was at the last of three, working out the details of a cash and weapons transaction. Also present at this meeting, Brenneke said, was William Casey, who was eventually appointed Reagan's CIA director. It was in that latter capacity that Casey masterminded the arms-for-hostages deal with Iran that would eventually be known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Also in attendance at the meeting, according to Brenneke, was Donald Gregg, a CIA liaison to President Carter's National Security Council. Gregg, a CIA operative since 1951, later became National Security Advisor to Vice President George H.W. Bush. A third person Brenneke identified as present was George H.W. Bush, however, a month after his Denver testimony, Brenneke wrote a letter to Judge Carrigan amending his statement. In the letter, Brenneke explained that he had no first hand knowledge of Bush being in Paris, but had been told by Rupp that Bush had been spotted on the tarmac at Le Bourget, so could have flown to Paris without himself attending the secret meetings.

For his role in the Rupp trial, Brenneke was tried for perjury. On May 4, 1991, after only five hours of deliberation, the jury found Brenneke "not guilty" on all five counts. Following the trial, jury foreman Mark Kristoff stated, "We were convinced that, yes, there was a meeting, and he was there and the other people listed in the indictment were there.... There never was a guilty vote.... It was 100 percent."

March 1980: Jamshid Hashimi, international arms dealer, is visited by William Casey at Washington's Mayflower Hotel, who asks that a meeting be arranged with "someone in Iran who had authority to deal on the hostages".[3]
March 21, 1980: Jamshid Hashimi and his brother Cyrus Hashimi meet at the latter's home.[4]
April 1980: Donald Gregg, a National Security Council aide with connections to George Herbert Walker Bush, meets Cyrus Hashimi in New York's Shazam restaurant, near Hashimi's bank.[5] Former Iranian President Bani-Sadr said in his 1991 book My Turn to Speak that he had "proof of contacts between Khomeini and the supporters of Ronald Reagan as early as the spring of 1980.... Rafsanjani, Beheshti, and Ahmed Khomeini [the Ayatollah's son] played key roles."[6]
Last week of July 1980: At a meeting in Madrid arranged by the Hashimi brothers that includes Robert Gray, a man identified as Donald Gregg, and Mahdi Karrubi, William Casey says that if Iran could assure that American hostages were well treated until their release and were released as a "gift" to the new administration, "the Republicans would be most grateful and 'would give Iran its strength back.'"[7] Karrubi says he has "no authority to make such a commitment."
About August 12, 1980: Karrubi meets again with Casey, saying Khomeini has agreed to the proposal. Casey agrees the next day, naming Cyrus Hashimi as middleman to handle the arms transactions. More meetings are set for October. Cyrus Hashimi purchases a Greek ship and commences arms deliveries valued at $150 million from the Israeli port of Eilat to Bandar Abbas. According to CIA sources, Hashimi receives a $7 million commission. Casey is said to use an aide named Tom Carter in the negotiations.[8]
September 22, 1980: Iraq invades Iran.
Late September 1980: An expatriate Iranian arms dealer named Hushang Levi claims he met with Richard V. Allen, the Reagan campaign's national security expert, Robert "Bud" McFarlane, and Lawrence Silberman, and discussed the possible exchange of F-4 parts for American hostages, but Lavi says they asserted they "were already in touch with the Iranians themselves". (Silberman, Allen, and McFarlane deny they met with Lavi, but reporter Robert Parry obtained a copy of Lavi's 1980 calendar after Lavi's death, which corroborated the Iranian's account.)[9]
October 15–20: Meetings are held in Paris between emissaries of the Reagan/Bush campaign, with Mr. William Casey as "key participant", and "high-level Iranian and Israeli representatives".[10]
October 21: Iran, for reasons not explained, abruptly shifts its position in secret negotiations with the Carter administration and disclaims "further interest in receiving military equipment",[11]
October 21–23: Israel secretly ships F-4 fighter-aircraft tires to Iran, in violation of the U.S. arms embargo, and Iran disperses the hostages to different locations.[12]
January 20, 1981: Hostages are formally released into United States custody after spending 444 days in captivity. The release takes place just minutes after Ronald Reagan is officially sworn in as president.
July 18, 1981 The USSR's TASS news agency reports the emergency landing near the USSR/Turkish border of an Argentine-registered transport aircraft leased and flown by Israelis, carrying a full load of US weaponry and military spare parts. The US Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East, Nicholas Veliotes, investigated this occurrence and concluded that the downed aircraft was on its third such flight in a series of shipments of US weapons to Iran which had been authorized by high officials in the Reagan Administration

Your characterization of Gary Sick is ludicrous, BTW.

Gary Sick wrote an editorial[12] for The New York Times and a book (October Surprise)[15] on the subject. Sick's credibility was boosted by the fact that he was a retired Naval Captain, served on Ford's, Carter’s, and Reagan's National Security Council, and held high positions with many prominent organizations; moreover, he had authored a book recently on US-Iran relations (All Fall Down). Sick wrote that in October 1980 officials in Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign including future CIA Director, William Casey, made a secret deal with Iran to delay the release of the American hostages until after the election; in return for this, the United States purportedly arranged for Israel to ship weapons to Iran.
Here's a wikibio:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Sick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise_conspiracy_theory

 

OOPS! You "accidentally left out the next 2 sentences:

But his presence at this meeting was not confirmed by those in attendance including historian Robert Dallek. Newsweek never printed a correction.

 

Here are the 22 professions included in the Gallup poll ranked by the percentage of Americans who gave its practitioners a “low” or “very low” rating for honesty and ethical standards:

1. Members of Congress (55%)
2. Car salesman (51%)
3. Senators (49%)
4. Stockbrokers (46%)
5. HMO Managers (43%)
6. Insurance salesmen (42%)
7. Lawyers (40%)
8. Advertising practitioners (38%)
9. Business executives (38%)
10. State governors (35%)
11. Bankers (33%)
12. Journalists (31%)
13. Psychiatrists (15%)
14. Chiropractors (12%)
15. College teachers (11%)
16. Clergy (10%)
17. Policemen (10%)
18. Dentists (7%)
19. Medical doctors (7%)
20. Pharmacists (5%)
21. Engineers (4%)
22. Nurses (2%)

 

No similarities at all.

Probably closer to a combination of teacher and engineer, and sometimes tour guide (which is not on the list).

 

Since nearly all congressmen are also lawyers, or have been in the past, that's a combined 95% mistrust.

 

Clearly.

The things I know about realtors. Seriously, a pretty scummy business.

 

Your comment makes it abundantly clear you are 100% clueless as to what a Realtor does.

Realtors are not banks. They are not lenders. They are not financial advisors. They are not appraisers. They are not credit assessors.

Realtors are in fact prohibited by law from offering financial and/or legal advice of any kind.

I speak only of Oregon Realtors, as the title means completely different things in other, far less regulated states.

Your experience, if you have any, with Realtors no doubt comes from Realtors in some less regulated state and you can only blame yourself because you are adamantly for less government involvement/regulation and believe in a free market.

Be careful what you wish for.