House October Surprise Task Force

The House October Surprise Task Force was a panel of thirteen members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that investigated allegations that the 1980 Reagan campaign had dealt with Iranian representatives to delay the release of the American hostages. It was chaired by Lee Hamilton (D-Indiana), with Henry Hyde (R-Illinois) as ranking Republican member. Its chief counsel was E. Lawrence Barcella, Jr., and its report was dated January 3, 1993.¹

Creation (1992)

The House adopted House Resolution 258 on February 5, 1992, by a recorded vote of 247 to 158. The resolution created the task force of thirteen members, appointed by the Speaker, with the chairman designated by the Speaker. Its mandate covered communications between the 1980 Reagan presidential campaign and representatives of the Iranian government or of the persons holding Americans as hostages, efforts to delay the release of the hostages, activity by the campaign to acquire or disseminate information about the hostage situation, arms sales or transfers to Iran, and efforts to keep any such communications from the government and the American people. The resolution authorized the task force to hire experts, consultants, attorneys and investigators, and to take depositions under oath.¹²

The task force adopted its rules on March 11, 1992. Rule 9 required each staff member or consultant to surrender classified material on leaving the task force and allowed the chairman or the task force to refer an unauthorized release to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Rule 6 allowed the chairman to rule that a witness's counsel represented a conflict of interest.³

Staff and counsel

Barcella and Richard J. Leon, the chief minority counsel, selected the legal staff. Majority staff included Michael F. Zeldin, formerly special counsel for money laundering in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, as deputy chief counsel, and two associate counsel from the Washington office of Katten Muchin Zavis & Dombroff. Minority staff included Greg Kehoe, deputy chief minority counsel, who had been first assistant United States attorney for the Middle District of Florida and joined the task force on June 18, 1992. Associate staff were designated for individual members, among them Lester Munson for Hyde and Stanley Roth for Solarz.¹

The Senate report on the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, published in December 1992, stated that Barcella had been hired by the House Foreign Affairs Committee to investigate the October Surprise allegations, and that Kehoe was on leave from the Justice Department to assist him.⁴

Extension (1992)

On October 2, 1992, the House considered House Resolution 585, which authorized the task force to file its final report with the Clerk after adjournment sine die and before noon on January 3, 1993, and limited its expenses to the amounts in House Resolution 512. Representative Anthony C. Beilenson (D-California), introducing the resolution, said its purpose was to make clear that the investigation "may continue after we adjourn, but no later than the end of this year," with a budget no higher than $1.35 million. A member speaking for the resolution in the same debate said that Hamilton and Hyde had told the Rules Committee that the work would be finished "by probably the middle of November."⁵

Report (January 1993)

The task force approved its report on December 10, 1992. The transmittal letter to Speaker Thomas S. Foley is dated January 3, 1993, and states that the report was approved unanimously on December 10, 1992. The report concludes that the allegations were either "wholly insufficient or no credible evidence exists to substantiate" them, and states that the task force "interviewed and/or deposed more than 230 people." Hamilton's January 24, 1993 New York Times op-ed states that the staff "conducted over 230 formal interviews and depositions."¹ It presents findings on the Casey and Bush alibis, the Hashemi wiretaps, the Madrid and Paris allegations, and the Ben-Menashe testimony.¹

The report states that Representative Mervyn Dymally had declined to sign it, and it includes additional minority views. Dymally later told Robert Parry that he knew of no unanimous vote on December 10, 1992, or on any other date. A House Foreign Affairs Committee spokesman, David Barnes, wrote to Parry that "From the records we have there is no evidence of a recorded vote."⁶

A Russian report addressed to Hamilton had been requested by him on October 21, 1992, and was forwarded to the task force on January 11, 1993. Parry wrote that the report, provided by Sergey V. Stepashin, chairman of the Supreme Soviet's committee on defense and security, described the 1980 hostage negotiations as a competition between the Carter administration and the Reagan campaign. Hamilton held a press conference on January 13, 1993, dismissing the allegations.⁷

Disputed records

Parry wrote that a December 8, 1992 memo from Barcella to his deputies proposed language that would serve as a "trap door" in case later disclosures contradicted parts of the report.⁸

Parry also reported that Barcella told him that the task force received substantial new evidence in its final month and that Barcella asked Hamilton to extend the investigation three months, and that Hamilton declined. Hamilton told Parry that he had no recollection of such a request.⁹

In 2005 Parry wrote that the printed report's account of the October Surprise Group, the informal Reagan campaign advisory group of 1980, lists ten members, and that a draft named six informal members, among them Michael Ledeen, whom the final report omitted.¹⁸

A CIA memorandum in the CIA reading room, undated, refers to the House Banking Committee's investigation of BCCI and to the task force, which had requested information on arms sales to Iran from November 1977 through August 1985. The memorandum states that the agency was prepared to resist Banking Committee demands for access to sensitive operational information, and that "A similar concern could also arise with the October Surprise Task Force investigation."¹⁰

Spencer Oliver and the Stoffberg letter (1992)

On February 4, 1992, the day before the House debate on House Resolution 258, Representative McEwen of Ohio announced a privileged resolution about a letter written on January 10, 1992, by Spencer Oliver, chief counsel of the Foreign Affairs Committee, to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The letter requested leniency for Dirk Stoffberg, an arms dealer, on the ground that he had provided the committee with information about the 1980 events. The sentencing judge, Jack Weinstein, cited the letter in reducing Stoffberg's sentence. Hyde asked, in a published account reprinted in the Congressional Record, "By what authority did Spencer Oliver intervene in this case, and why wasn't the minority notified?"¹¹