The 2020s began with such a hair-raising blitz of Iran-related news that you probably missed the bombshell revelation about US-Iranian relations that came with the end of the 2010s. Rather than a potential US-Iran war today, this particular story transports us back to a more innocent time, when politics was about principles and Republican presidents were decent men: the beginning of the Reagan era.

At question is the 1980 presidential election between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, specifically the “October Surprise” that is alleged to have handed Reagan the election, long dismissed as a conspiracy theory. The whole saga is lengthy and convoluted, but the core allegation is this: that in the middle of the Iran hostage crisis, the Reagan campaign made a secret deal with the new rulers of Iran to delay the release of the hostages until after the election, dooming Carter’s chances of victory.

The allegation, doggedly pursued by the late investigative journalist Robert Parry, spawned books and even a 1992 congressional investigation, which determined there was “no credible evidence supporting any attempt or proposal to attempt by the Reagan Presidential campaign . . . to delay the release of the American hostages in Iran.” Parry and others looking into the case were attacked in the media, with much of the issue revolving around whether or not Reagan’s campaign manager and (later) free press–hating CIA director William Casey had traveled to Madrid on a particular date to meet with Iranian government representatives.