Now that 98-year-old Jimmy Carter is in palliative care, Ben Barnes, who was a prominent figure in American politics, has wanted to make peace with his conscience and with the historical memory of one of the unluckiest presidents in the White House.
At the age of 85, Barnes confesses to The New York Times a secret kept for more than four decades and which confirms for the first time that there was a conspiracy to sabotage the re-election in 1980. The Democrat was in the government besieged by the hostage crisis in Iran, the 52 citizens of the United States still held in the embassy of the United States in Tehran, a circumstance that had paralyzed his mandate.
The campaign team of his rival, Republican Ronald Reagan, feared that days before the November 4 election the president would pull an ace and announce an agreement with the Iranian regime. This would boost him decisively at the polls. There they coined the term “October surprise”.
The suspicion that there was a plot to delay the release and that Carter could not play that card has been the reason for investigations and extensive literature, without results.
But Barnes, in his confidence, reveals that he, who was a Democrat, accompanied his political mentor, John B. Connally Jr., on a trip to the Middle East. He says that only later did he understand that the purpose of that trip was to dynamite Carter’s re-election campaign by getting the Ayatollahs not to agree on the release of the hostages with the White House.
Shortly after returning, Barnes claims that Connally reported the details of the trip to William J. Casey, Reagan’s campaign manager and, later in his administration, director of the CIA. Carter’s aides always suspected that Casey or someone in Reagan’s orbit secretly torpedoed any negotiations.
Connally, now dead, a former Texas governor who had served under three presidents, was a Democrat who had changed jackets. He lost the Republican nomination against Reagan, but decided to help the governor of California in exchange for aspiring to a high position in his administration, as Secretary of State or Defense. He never got that reward. However, he never commented on the operation, despite the fact that there were commissions to investigate the matter of electoral sabotage.
“History needs to know what happened,” says Barnes to the Times. “I think it’s very significant and I guess knowing that the end is near for President Carter made me think about it. I felt I had to explain it”, he emphasizes.
The route, according to Barnes’ description, confirmed by documents from President Johnson’s library, began in Houston, Texas on July 18, 1980. They visited the capitals of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel. In all, except the last one, the objective was to get Tehran to maintain the captivity. The Iranians announced the release after Reagan’s victory and their return, after 444 days, did not occur until, on January 20, 1981, Carter left Washington.
September 1980 is when the meeting with Casey took place. Madrid also plays a role, as Casey allegedly met in August 1980 with Iranian representatives in the Spanish capital.
With many of those involved already dead, the possibility arises that Barnes’ memory is failing. Connally’s son, among others, does not remember his father saying anything of that nature, nor that he left any documents.
But Barnes gave the Times the names of four people still alive to whom he once confided his secret and who corroborated his version. And an intriguing note appeared in Connolly’s files, under the title “Governor Reagan.”
It was written by one of his collaborators and notes that there was contact with the Republican candidate before the trip. “Nancy Reagan called, they’re at the ranch and they want to talk about strategic meetings.”
Years later, Barnes’ intention is to make amends for history. “I just want it to be reflected that Carter had it very bad with the hostages. He didn’t have a chance to fight for those in the embassy”, he admits. His confession has the merit of allowing Carter to go to his grave knowing the truth about that ambush.
A tribute in life.
