BREAKING: Witness Ben Barnes confirms Reagan campaign collusion with Tehran to delay hostage release
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  BREAKING: Witness Ben Barnes confirms Reagan campaign collusion with Tehran to delay hostage release
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Author Topic: BREAKING: Witness Ben Barnes confirms Reagan campaign collusion with Tehran to delay hostage release  (Read 2020 times)
BG-NY
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« on: March 18, 2023, 08:25:45 PM »
« edited: March 18, 2023, 08:34:03 PM by BG-NYC »

Quote
WASHINGTON — It has been more than four decades, but Ben Barnes said he remembers it vividly. His longtime political mentor invited him on a mission to the Middle East. What Mr. Barnes said he did not realize until later was the real purpose of the mission: to sabotage the re-election campaign of the president of the United States.

It was 1980 and Jimmy Carter was in the White House, bedeviled by a hostage crisis in Iran that had paralyzed his presidency and hampered his effort to win a second term. Mr. Carter’s best chance for victory was to free the 52 Americans held captive before Election Day. That was something that Mr. Barnes said his mentor was determined to prevent.

His mentor was John B. Connally Jr., a titan of American politics and former Texas governor who had served three presidents and just lost his own bid for the White House. A former Democrat, Mr. Connally had sought the Republican nomination in 1980 only to be swamped by former Gov. Ronald Reagan of California. Now Mr. Connally resolved to help Mr. Reagan beat Mr. Carter and in the process, Mr. Barnes said, make his own case for becoming secretary of state or defense in a new administration.

What happened next Mr. Barnes has largely kept secret for nearly 43 years. Mr. Connally, he said, took him to one Middle Eastern capital after another that summer, meeting with a host of regional leaders to deliver a blunt message to be passed to Iran: Don’t release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal.

Then shortly after returning home, Mr. Barnes said, Mr. Connally reported to William J. Casey, the chairman of Mr. Reagan’s campaign and later director of the Central Intelligence Agency, briefing him about the trip in an airport lounge.

Mr. Carter’s camp has long suspected that Mr. Casey or someone else in Mr. Reagan’s orbit sought to secretly torpedo efforts to liberate the hostages before the election, and books have been written on what came to be called the October surprise. But congressional investigations debunked previous theories of what happened.

Mr. Connally did not figure in those investigations. His involvement, as described by Mr. Barnes, adds a new understanding to what may have happened in that hard-fought, pivotal election year. With Mr. Carter now 98 and in hospice care, Mr. Barnes said he felt compelled to come forward to correct the record.

Source (NYTimes)
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Alben Barkley
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« Reply #1 on: March 18, 2023, 08:40:09 PM »

Jimmy Carter will get to not only outlive the two men who sabotaged his re-election (Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan), he will also get the satisfaction of being totally vindicated in the public eye before his death.

God bless you, Jimmy.

You were too good for us.
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Libertas Vel Mors
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« Reply #2 on: March 18, 2023, 08:43:45 PM »

Ben Barnes...the top Kerry donor and Democratic politician? Why would we believe him? His explanation for not revealing it at the time doesn't make sense either.

Quote
Mr. Barnes said he did not reveal the real story at the time to avoid blowback from his own party. “I don’t want to look like Benedict Arnold to the Democratic Party by participating in this,” he recalled explaining to a friend. The headlines at the time, he imagined, would have been scandalous. “I did not want that to be on my obituary at all.”

How would Barnes have looked like a Benedict Arnold for having revealed Connolly's treachery?
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Libertas Vel Mors
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« Reply #3 on: March 18, 2023, 08:45:19 PM »

Jimmy Carter will get to not only outlive the two men who sabotaged his re-election (Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan), he will also get the satisfaction of being totally vindicated in the public eye before his death.

God bless you, Jimmy.

You were too good for us.

Jimmy Carter was a terrible President and a terrible man. Most Americans will never read or hear this account, and if they do they will rightly not believe it.
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BG-NY
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« Reply #4 on: March 18, 2023, 08:45:31 PM »

Ben Barnes...the top Kerry donor and Democratic politician? Why would we believe him? His explanation for not revealing it at the time doesn't make sense either.

Quote
Mr. Barnes said he did not reveal the real story at the time to avoid blowback from his own party. “I don’t want to look like Benedict Arnold to the Democratic Party by participating in this,” he recalled explaining to a friend. The headlines at the time, he imagined, would have been scandalous. “I did not want that to be on my obituary at all.”

How would Barnes have looked like a Benedict Arnold for having revealed Connolly's treachery?
Genetic fallacy. Reagan and Connally were both former Dems.

The national GOP owes Carter an apology.
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No War, but the War on Christmas
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« Reply #5 on: March 18, 2023, 08:48:40 PM »

Just another reason to add to my list of why Reagan is the worst President we've had in modern times; in many ways, worse than even Trump. Glad that POS is long gone and even the GOP has dumped his legacy into the trash, especially among the base.
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Libertas Vel Mors
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« Reply #6 on: March 18, 2023, 08:51:36 PM »
« Edited: March 18, 2023, 08:54:56 PM by North Carolina Conservative »

Ben Barnes...the top Kerry donor and Democratic politician? Why would we believe him? His explanation for not revealing it at the time doesn't make sense either.

Quote
Mr. Barnes said he did not reveal the real story at the time to avoid blowback from his own party. “I don’t want to look like Benedict Arnold to the Democratic Party by participating in this,” he recalled explaining to a friend. The headlines at the time, he imagined, would have been scandalous. “I did not want that to be on my obituary at all.”

How would Barnes have looked like a Benedict Arnold for having revealed Connolly's treachery?
Genetic fallacy. Reagan and Connally were both former Dems.

The national GOP owes Carter an apology.

...what? How does Reagan and Connally being former Dems negate Barnes being a life-long Dem, or the illogicity of Barnes's explanation? And genetic fallacy is irrelevant here: it is totally fair to note that a partisan liberal might lie to smear a conservative in a way that someone not a partisan liberal wouldn't.
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Joe Republic
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« Reply #7 on: March 18, 2023, 08:58:52 PM »

You mean the hostages being released a few minutes after Reagan was sworn in as president wasn't a totally innocent coincidence? Shocked Shocked Shocked
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John Dule
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« Reply #8 on: March 18, 2023, 09:00:46 PM »

You mean the hostages being released a few minutes after Reagan was sworn in as president wasn't a totally innocent coincidence? Shocked Shocked Shocked

Yeah, this was already obvious, but I’m always glad to have more proof that Ronald Reagan was the devil.
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Mr. Smith
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« Reply #9 on: March 18, 2023, 09:03:23 PM »

Meh. Just like Nixon's r%^f&*king in '72, it wasn't going to seriously change anything as Tehran wasn't playing ball no matter what.

What? Anderson stands down and Carter loses by 6 instead?
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« Reply #10 on: March 18, 2023, 09:03:44 PM »

Ben Barnes...the top Kerry donor and Democratic politician? Why would we believe him? His explanation for not revealing it at the time doesn't make sense either.

Quote
Mr. Barnes said he did not reveal the real story at the time to avoid blowback from his own party. “I don’t want to look like Benedict Arnold to the Democratic Party by participating in this,” he recalled explaining to a friend. The headlines at the time, he imagined, would have been scandalous. “I did not want that to be on my obituary at all.”

How would Barnes have looked like a Benedict Arnold for having revealed Connolly's treachery?

This was also investigated multiple times and found to be bunk .


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Computer89
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« Reply #11 on: March 18, 2023, 09:09:15 PM »

Just another reason to add to my list of why Reagan is the worst President we've had in modern times; in many ways, worse than even Trump. Glad that POS is long gone and even the GOP has dumped his legacy into the trash, especially among the base.

The GOP politicians haven’t dumped his legacy as Trump still governed as a Reaganite despite all that rhetoric
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Frodo
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« Reply #12 on: March 18, 2023, 09:10:22 PM »

It's reminiscent of Richard Nixon interfering in peace negotiations to end American involvement in the Vietnam War in 1968 to aid his election campaign.  
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BG-NY
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« Reply #13 on: March 18, 2023, 09:10:29 PM »

Ben Barnes...the top Kerry donor and Democratic politician? Why would we believe him? His explanation for not revealing it at the time doesn't make sense either.

Quote
Mr. Barnes said he did not reveal the real story at the time to avoid blowback from his own party. “I don’t want to look like Benedict Arnold to the Democratic Party by participating in this,” he recalled explaining to a friend. The headlines at the time, he imagined, would have been scandalous. “I did not want that to be on my obituary at all.”

How would Barnes have looked like a Benedict Arnold for having revealed Connolly's treachery?

This was also investigated multiple times and found to be bunk .



Previous investigations didn't touch on Connally's involvement:
Quote
Suspicions about the Reagan camp’s interactions with Iran circulated quietly for years until Gary Sick, a former national security aide to Mr. Carter, published a guest essay in The New York Times in April 1991 advancing the theory, followed by a book, “October Surprise,” published that November.

The term “October surprise” was originally used by the Reagan camp to describe its fears that Mr. Carter would manipulate the hostage crisis to effect a release just before the election.

To forestall such a scenario, Mr. Casey was alleged to have met with representatives of Iran in July and August 1980 in Madrid leading to a deal supposedly finalized in Paris in October in which a future Reagan administration would ship arms to Tehran through Israel in exchange for the hostages being held until after the election.

The House and Senate separately authorized investigations and both ultimately rejected the claims. The bipartisan House task force, led by a Democrat, Representative Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana, and controlled by Democrats 8 to 5, concluded in a consensus 968-page report that Mr. Casey was not in Madrid at the time and that stories of covert dealings were not backed by credible testimony, documents or intelligence reports.

Still, a White House memo produced in November 1991 by a lawyer for President George H.W. Bush reported the existence of “a cable from the Madrid embassy indicating that Bill Casey was in town, for purposes unknown.” That memo was not turned over to Mr. Hamilton’s task force and was discovered two decades later by Robert Parry, a journalist who helped produce a “Frontline” documentary on the October surprise.

Reached by telephone this past week, Mr. Sick said he never heard of any involvement by Mr. Connally but saw Mr. Barnes’s account as verifying the broad concerns he had raised. “This is really very interesting and it really does add significantly to the base level of information on this,” Mr. Sick said. “Just the fact that he was doing it and debriefed Casey when he got back means a lot.” The story goes “further than anything that I’ve seen thus far,” he added. “So this is really new.”
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Computer89
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« Reply #14 on: March 18, 2023, 09:18:44 PM »

Ben Barnes...the top Kerry donor and Democratic politician? Why would we believe him? His explanation for not revealing it at the time doesn't make sense either.

Quote
Mr. Barnes said he did not reveal the real story at the time to avoid blowback from his own party. “I don’t want to look like Benedict Arnold to the Democratic Party by participating in this,” he recalled explaining to a friend. The headlines at the time, he imagined, would have been scandalous. “I did not want that to be on my obituary at all.”

How would Barnes have looked like a Benedict Arnold for having revealed Connolly's treachery?

This was also investigated multiple times and found to be bunk .



Previous investigations didn't touch on Connally's involvement:
Quote
Suspicions about the Reagan camp’s interactions with Iran circulated quietly for years until Gary Sick, a former national security aide to Mr. Carter, published a guest essay in The New York Times in April 1991 advancing the theory, followed by a book, “October Surprise,” published that November.

The term “October surprise” was originally used by the Reagan camp to describe its fears that Mr. Carter would manipulate the hostage crisis to effect a release just before the election.

To forestall such a scenario, Mr. Casey was alleged to have met with representatives of Iran in July and August 1980 in Madrid leading to a deal supposedly finalized in Paris in October in which a future Reagan administration would ship arms to Tehran through Israel in exchange for the hostages being held until after the election.

The House and Senate separately authorized investigations and both ultimately rejected the claims. The bipartisan House task force, led by a Democrat, Representative Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana, and controlled by Democrats 8 to 5, concluded in a consensus 968-page report that Mr. Casey was not in Madrid at the time and that stories of covert dealings were not backed by credible testimony, documents or intelligence reports.

Still, a White House memo produced in November 1991 by a lawyer for President George H.W. Bush reported the existence of “a cable from the Madrid embassy indicating that Bill Casey was in town, for purposes unknown.” That memo was not turned over to Mr. Hamilton’s task force and was discovered two decades later by Robert Parry, a journalist who helped produce a “Frontline” documentary on the October surprise.

Reached by telephone this past week, Mr. Sick said he never heard of any involvement by Mr. Connally but saw Mr. Barnes’s account as verifying the broad concerns he had raised. “This is really very interesting and it really does add significantly to the base level of information on this,” Mr. Sick said. “Just the fact that he was doing it and debriefed Casey when he got back means a lot.” The story goes “further than anything that I’ve seen thus far,” he added. “So this is really new.”

Sure but how do we know this testimony is even credible cause an investigation would have found out any unusual trips that were made . This seems more like just a way to try to give credibility to a a conspiracy theory as the fact is you would need far more than this statement to claim the Reagan camp sabotaged the hostage release .

Nixon was outright cause on tape and LBJ is recorded calling it treason which is why their is evidence of that .
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kyc0705
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« Reply #15 on: March 18, 2023, 09:18:45 PM »

"It wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election" badly misses the point of why this article is worthwhile. Having an actual timeline on the record that can be read and discussed is far preferable to four decades of idle speculation.
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Computer89
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« Reply #16 on: March 18, 2023, 09:19:28 PM »

"It wouldn't have changed the outcome of the election" badly misses the point of why this article is worthwhile. Having an actual timeline on the record that can be read and discussed is far preferable to four decades of idle speculation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_theory#Background

Investigations page of this
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oldtimer
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« Reply #17 on: March 18, 2023, 09:33:49 PM »

You mean that something that everybody knew, but was brushed off officially as a conspiracy theory, was true ?

What's next ?
CIA agents killed JFK ?
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DrScholl
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« Reply #18 on: March 18, 2023, 09:40:25 PM »

Just confirmation of what everyone already knew to be true.
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Suburbia
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« Reply #19 on: March 18, 2023, 09:45:40 PM »

Jimmy Carter will get to not only outlive the two men who sabotaged his re-election (Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan), he will also get the satisfaction of being totally vindicated in the public eye before his death.

God bless you, Jimmy.

You were too good for us.

He was a good man, a mediocre president. Presidents have to deliver economically and have to be strong on the world stage. He didn't do that. Hence why Kennedy primaried him in 1980 and Reagan won in 1980 and 1984.

You think Carter could have ended the Cold War in the 80s?
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jfern
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« Reply #20 on: March 18, 2023, 10:27:53 PM »

You mean the hostages being released a few minutes after Reagan was sworn in as president wasn't a totally innocent coincidence? Shocked Shocked Shocked

Hey, they waited for him to finish his speech first so that there wouldn't be a sudden breaking news in the middle of his speech.
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TheElectoralBoobyPrize
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« Reply #21 on: March 18, 2023, 10:31:13 PM »

Man says another man did something bad over 40 years ago. Man who did alleged bad thing has been dead for 30 years. Makes sense.
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Ferguson97
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« Reply #22 on: March 18, 2023, 10:36:15 PM »

Jimmy Carter will get to not only outlive the two men who sabotaged his re-election (Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan), he will also get the satisfaction of being totally vindicated in the public eye before his death.

God bless you, Jimmy.

You were too good for us.

Jimmy Carter was a terrible President and a terrible man. Most Americans will never read or hear this account, and if they do they will rightly not believe it.

A terrible man? Say what you will about his presidency, but he's obviously a wonderful person. What's your argument that he's a bad man?
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Beet
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« Reply #23 on: March 18, 2023, 10:44:59 PM »

In 1968, Nixon made a deal with South Vietnam to torpedo a peace agreement until after the election on the promise that the South would get a better deal with him. That one worked as well, and may even have decided the election.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/notes-indicate-nixon-interfered-1968-peace-talks-180961627/
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Bismarck
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« Reply #24 on: March 18, 2023, 10:47:30 PM »

What a joke. Just because the red avatars so badly want this to be true doesn’t make it so.
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