George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

The first of these watched the Carter White House, the Washington bureaucracy, and
diplomatic and intelligence posts overseas. This group was headed by Reagan's principal
foreign policy advisor and later NSC chairman Richard Allen. Allen was assisted by Fred
Ickle and John Lehman, who later got top jobs in the Pentagon, and by Admiral Thomas
Moorer. This group also included Robert McFarlane. Allen was in touch with some 120
foreign policy and national security experts sympathetic to the Reagan campaign. Casey
helped Allen to interface with the Bush campaign network of retired and active duty
assets in the intelligence community. This network reached into the Carter NSC, where
Bush crony Don Gregg worked as the CIA liaison man, and into Carter's top-secret White
House situation room.
During these very months there was a further influx of retired intelligence officers into
the Reagan-Bush machine. According to Colonel Charlie Beckwith, who had led the
abortive "Desert One" attempt to rescue the hostages during the spring of 1980, "The
Carter Administration made a serious mistake. A lot of the old whores--guys with lots of
street smarts and experience--left the agency." According to another CIA man, "Stan
Turner fired the best CIA operatives over the hostage crisis. The firees agreed among
themselves that they would remain in touch with one another and with their contacts and
continue to operate more or less as independents." [fn 38]
Another October Surprise monitoring group was headed by Admiral Robert Garrick, who
was assisted by Stephan Halper, Ray Cline's son in law. The task of this group was the
physical surveillance of US military bases by on-the-ground observers, often retired and
sometimes active duty military officers. Lookouts were posted to watch Tinker Air Force
Base in Oklahoma, Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, McGuire Air Force Base
in New Jersey (where weapons already bought and paid for by the Shah were stockpiled),
and Norton and March Air Force bases in California.
Garrick, Casey, Meese, Wirthlin and other campaign offocials met each morning in Falls
Church. Virginia, just outside of Washington, to review intelligence gathered. Bush was
certainly informed of these meetings. Did he also attend them?
This group soon became operational. It was clear that Khomeini was keeping the
hostages to sell them to the highest bidder. Bush and Casey were not reticent about
putting their own offer on the table.
Shortly after the GOP convention, Casey appears to have travelled to Europe for a
meeting in Madrid in late July with Mehdi Karrubi, a leading Khomeini supporter, now
the speaker of the Iranan Parliament. Jamshid Hashemi said that he and his late brother
Cyrus were present at this meeting and at another one in Madrid during August which
they say Casey also attended. The present government of Iran has declined to confirm, or
deny this contact, saying that "the Islamic Government of Iran sees no benefit to involve
itself in the matter."
Casey's whereabouts are officially unknown between July 26-27 and July 30. What is
known is that as soon as Casey surfaced again in Washington on July 30, he reported