The two OPS were conducted and covered up by the same crew,
https://deeppoliticsforum.com/fora/thread-13302-post-119628.html#pid119628https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/azcentral/name/ruth-downs-obituary?id=7657393Ruth Downs Obituary (2017) - Phoenix, AZ - Legacy.com
Apr 2, 2017 — Downs, Ruth Shaheen The beloved wife of broadcaster, Hugh Downs,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1981/02/28/british-lace-and-grace/9a190983-619a-4f54-8075-9b02dec12b13/February 28, 1981
"Other congressional leaders included ..John Shaheen of New York, chairman of
Shaheen Natural Resources Co., was probably the only guest who had known Reagan as a boy in Tampico, Ill. ..."Television correspondent Barbara Walters relayed secret ...
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/03/16/Television-correspondent-Barbara-Walters-relayed-secret-messages-from-an/2777542869200/Mar 16, 1987 — Television correspondent Barbara Walters relayed secret messages from an Iranian arms merchant to President Reagan in violation of network ...
Barbara Walters as secret messsenger -
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/03/16/Barbara-Walters-as-secret-messsenger/7000542869200/Mar 16, 1987 — Veteran ABC correspondent Barbara Walters acted as an agent for secret messages from an Iranian arms merchant to President Reagan shortly ...
https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/2433/30th Anniversary Issue / Barbara Walters:
When I finally was put on the air, it was with Hugh Downs, and he was a ... Those specials have been on for 21 years now, and they've made a fortune for ABC ...
... and,
https://www.kaibird.com/news/details/58Some 'October surprise' conspiracies turn out to be true
Aug 21, 2018
"We Americans love conspiracies. They are like good spy stories: entertaining, intriguing and tantalizing. But historians learn to hate conspiracy stories. The evidence is often circular, circumstantial and infuriatingly slippery. And usually, the simplest explanation — not the conspiracy theory — turns out to be the best.
....
As a historian, I am always skeptical of conspiracies. But as McCloy blurted out in 1963, some plots do exist..."
Kai Bird sues State Department for 1980 'October Surprise ...
https://www.rcfp.org › bird-october-surprise-foia
Oct 29, 2019 — The complaint calls out the State Department's failure to respond to a records request submitted more than three years ago.
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/October_surprisehttps://wikispooks.com/wiki/Document:October_Surprise_Memo
Guess who picked Sally Buzbee...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_BuzbeeSally Streff Buzbee[1] is an American journalist and editor and the executive editor of The Washington Post.[2]
Before joining the Post, Buzbee worked at the Associated Press for more than three decades,[3] serving as executive editor and senior vice president for the last 4 1/2 years of her tenure.[4]....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_RyanFrederick Joseph Ryan Jr.[1] (born April 12, 1955) is an American media proprietor, political adviser, and lawyer
who serves as the publisher and chief executive officer of The Washington Post. He was the president and chief operating officer of Allbritton Communications Company and founding chief executive officer and president of Politico.
He was the chief of staff for former President Ronald Reagan from 1989 to 1995, and is chairman of the board of trustees of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.https://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/080510.htmlBy Robert Parry - August 5, 2010
"Lawrence Barcella, who was chief counsel of the October Surprise investigation, has accused me of lying about him when I wrote that he decided to “hide” a report from the Russian government that contradicted his conclusion of “no credible evidence” that Ronald Reagan’s campaign sabotaged President Jimmy Carter’s attempts to free 52 Americans held hostage in Iran in 1980....
....So, I believe the use of the verb “hide” to describe Barcella’s handling of the Russian Report was fair and accurate. He certainly didn’t advertise the existence of the remarkable document, nor did he make it easy to find.
However, in an e-mail last weekend, Barcella suggested that he could have made finding the Russian Report even harder if not impossible. “Trust me Bob, if I didn't want that rpt to surface, you wouldn't have found it,” Barcella wrote.
Still, it seems pretty clear that Barcella really “didn’t want that rpt to surface.” He might reasonably have thought that sticking it in a box that would likely disappear into some government warehouse was a pretty safe way to make sure that it wouldn’t.
Except for my unlikely trip to the Ladies Room, it probably would have remained safely outside the public domain, possibly forever.
Defenseless Logic
Yet, more troubling in my view than a dispute over my choice of the verb “hide” is Barcella’s continued refusal to address specific criticisms of the logic behind the task force conclusions, which he has insisted represented “meticulous” investigative work and analysis.
In one of my e-mails back to him last weekend, I wrote:
“As for the investigation, as reflected in the report, it is anything but meticulous. Indeed, many of the alibis are laughable. Surely, you don't think that Dick Allen's writing down Bill Casey's home phone number on one day is proof that Casey was at home, especially since Allen told the task force he had no memory (or record) of calling Casey that day.
“Surely, you were aware that Larry Casey was lying when he concocted another alibi for his uncle, after presenting Frontline with an entirely different (and provably false) alibi.
“Surely, as a seasoned prosecutor, you would not accept an agreement from someone who identifies an alibi witness but then forbids you to speak with the alibi witness. Even a rookie cop would laugh at that one.”
However, Barcella responded,
as he has previously, rebuffing the opportunity to explain how these and other judgments could be defended.“I told you I'm not going get into a point by point with you,” he wrote. “Time is too precious to me right now than to deal with your obsession.”
