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ISRAELIS HOLD THE KEY TO OCTOBER SURPRISE |
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by Harry V. Martin An Addendum in Two Parts Copyright, Napa Sentinel 1991 EDITOR'S NOTE: On Friday morning, the publisher of the Napa Sentinel said on a Houston radio talk show that if anyone could break the Bush-Paris allegations, it would be the Israelis. The following article is an addendum to the eleven part series run in the Sentinel since May 3. If there is a smoking gun in the Bush-Paris affair, it will certainly have to come from the Israelis, they are the key to the entire October Surprise package. The Israelis initiated arms shipments to Iran as a counter to Iraq. When President Jimmy Carter ordered a halt to the Israeli weapons sales the Israelis may have set up the October Paris meeting that William Casey, Donald Gregg and George Bush allegedly attended in 1980. The known facts leading up to this scenario are as follows: 1. In March 1980, a meeting took place at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, attended by William Casey and Cyrus and Jamshid Hashemi. The two brothers were cooperating with the Carter administration, yet Casey told them he did not want President Carter to receive a political advantage by the release of 52 American hostages. Cyrus Hashemi reported the meeting to the CIA. He died suddenly after revealing the information. 2. In July 1980, Casey, a U.S. intelligence officer and Mehdi Karrubi (now speaker of the Iranian parliament) met in Madrid. Karrubi is reported to have agreed to cooperate with the delay in the release of American hostages. 3. On October 2, 1980, a meeting took place at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C. The participants of that meeting including Richard Allen (later named head of President Ronald Reagan's National Security Council), Marine Lt. Col. Robert McFarlane (then an aide to Texas Senator John Tower and later a national security advisor to President Reagan), Lawrence Silberman (an aide to Allen and now a Federal Court of Appeals judge in Washington, D.C.), Iranian Jewish arms dealer Hushang Lavie. In the alleged Paris meeting, those in attendance are reported to be: George Bush, candidate for Vice President. William Casey, Reagan's campaign manager. Donald Gregg, a member of the CIA. Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian born Mossad agent and arms dealer. Mohammad Ali Rajai, the future president of Iran. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the speaker of the Iranian parliament. The Israelis, because of their role of mediator between the United States and Iran and also as the deliverers of U.S. weapons to Iran after the conclusion of the meetings, are believed to have arranged the meetings in the first place. Right after the alleged Paris meeting, the Israelis sent a shipment of spare parts to Iran for their American-built F-104 fighters, which was in contravention of U.S. regulations requiring U.S. approval of any shipments of U.S.-made arms to third parties. Right after the alleged Paris meeting, the Iranians not only backed away from negotiations with the Carter administration for the release of hostages, but they also dispersed the hostages throughout Iran to prevent a second rescue attempt, a rescue attempt that was apparently leaked to them from the Reagan campaign headquarters and probably by Richard Allen. After the hostages were released on January 20, 1981, Israel signed an agreement to ship arms to Iran. Former Iranian President Bani Sadr has verified the Israeli shipments to Iran. Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon has consistently stated that all Israeli shipments of arms to Iran were sanctioned by the U.S. government. In 1982, Israel's ambassador to the United States is quoted in the Boston Globe as stating Israeli arms shipments to Iran were sanctioned and coordinated by the United States government "at almost the highest level". Several Israeli Mossad agents have come forward to indicate full knowledge of the Paris meeting and subsequent shipment of arms to Iran. One of those agents is Ari Ben Menashe. (His testimony is in part two of this addendum to the October Surprise series.) If the Paris meeting did take place, the Israeli government may have been able to blackmail the Reagan and Bush administrations. Richard Curtiss writes in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, "Whenever the Reagan administration and the hard-line Israeli governments of Menachem Begin and his successors went eyeball to eyeball, it was always the U.S. that blinked. The U.S. declined to press Begin on such topics as the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, the invasion of Lebanon, the occupation of West Beirut, the Sabra-Shatila massacres, and even the Reagan Plan for Middle East peace. The Reagan administration apparently was vulnerable to highly damaging Israeli blackmail, and at least some top officials of both governments knew it." He adds, "It also explains how and why the Reagan administration so easily fell into the catastrophic series of arms-for-hostages blunders, clearly instigated as well as carried out by Israel, that became known as Irangate, or the Iran-Contra scandal. The renewed arms shipments in 1985 and 1986 were initiated by reopening exactly the same channels used in 1980 and 1981 by some of the same principals on both sides.." Curtiss, a retired U.S. foreign service officer, feels that the Israelis hold the upper hand and can blackmail Bush or, if Bush was not involved in Paris, could create disinformation about him being in Paris, anyway. "If Israel's disinformation squad has its way, the worst is yet to come." But at the same time Israel does not wish to be painted with the same political brush and would by leery of opening up such a scandal. It has also been noted that the Israeli lobby is making moves on Capitol Hill to prevent the opening of any investigation. Also, Israel is very dependent on U.S. military and economic aid and would not wish to jeopardize its close association with the United States. However, Bush is putting a lot of pressure on Israel for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement and the possibility of yielding Israeli-captured lands. How hard Bush pushes will determine how much the Israelis will reveal about the alleged Paris meeting and arms shipments to Iran. Israel holds the key to the October Surprise.
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