The October bore

National Review, Dec 2, 1991

THE October Surprise was the subject of cover stories in both The New Republic and Newsweek, timed to precede the publication of a book by former Carter aide Gary Sick.

This is the October Surprise theory: that the Reagan campaign colluded with Iran to delay the release of the hostages until after the 1980 election; that William Casey-then campaign manager, later head of the CIA-went to Madrid in July to negotiate the deal; and that George Bush went to Paris in October to nail it down. Originally floated by Lyndon LaRouche and dismissed in a footnote by the HouseSenate Iran-Contra committee, the theory remained the preserve of the loony Left-until Mr. Sick became a believer. Frontline, Nightline, the New York Times, and other major media organs all climbed aboard.

But according to Newsweek and The New Republic, Mr. Sick had better send his book straight to the remainder shelves. They destroy the credibility of the October Surprise witnesses. They also prove beyond any reasonable doubt that when Casey was supposedly in Madrid, he was actually in London, and that when Bush was supposedly cloak-and-daggering in Paris, he was campaigning in America.

The two articles, in short, confirm what Richard Brookhiser wrote in NATIONAL REVIEW months ago (see "The Prequel," May 27). This is not to scant the industry of the journalists publishing now. That deserves praise both for itself, and because it had become necessary to refute in detail a series of allegations that had been widely accepted by the mainstream media. What we would question is the integrity of a journalistic culture which requires such elaborate refutation of an obviously absurd and mendacious story. The charlatans and psychos who duped Sick had been given a free ride by newspapers and television, partly from a partisan desire among liberal journalists to discredit the Reagan era, and partly from a mass-journalistic imagination which, weaned on Watergate, is hospitable to the most absurd conspiracy theories. Major apologies are in order, in the interests of hygiene.