Campaign manager William Casey was in London less than two weeks after Ronald Reagan accepted the Republican presidential nomination, a scholar says, but it remains unclear whether he made a quick side trip to Madrid to negotiate a hostage deal.
An Iranian arms dealer has said Casey arranged to delay release of the 52 American hostages held in Tehran, in exchange for the promise of arms after Reagan was elected.Historian Robert Dallek said Tuesday he had his photograph taken with Casey at the London conference the evening of July 28, 1980, and sat down with him at breakfast, probably the next morning.
The two chatted about politics and about Reagan's acceptance speech 10 days earlier at the Republican National Convention, recalled Dallek, author of a forthcoming biography on President Lyndon Johnson.
Arms dealer Jamshid Hashemi alleges that Casey was in Madrid in late July, holding secret talks so that U.S. hostages in Iran wouldn't be freed until after Election Day.
Hashemi's allegations have been aired by public television's "Frontline" program and ABC-TV's "Nightline."
Casey's campaign schedule in the United States was blank for July 27-29.
Casey spoke to the London conference the morning of July 29 about secret operations during World War II, participants told "Nightline" last week.
It is a two-hour flight by commercial airliner from London to Madrid.
"Where he was before and after the conference I don't know, but I know he was in London" starting late on July 28, Dallek, a history professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, said in an interview.
Congressional staffers are looking into allegations that the Reagan-Bush camp dealt with Iran to avoid what it feared could be an October Surprise - success by the Carter White House in negotiating the release of the 52 U.S. hostages held in Tehran.