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The John Batchelor Show

HEADLINE: Desert One Tragedy and the Geopolitics that Set the Stage for the October Surprise AUTHOR: Craig Unger SUMMARY: Craig Unger details the tragic failure of the April 1980 Desert One rescue attempt for 52 American hostages held by Iranian militants

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Books, Society & Culture, Arts, News

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2025

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

HEADLINE: Desert One Tragedy and the Geopolitics that Set the Stage for the October Surprise AUTHOR: Craig Unger SUMMARY: Craig Unger details the tragic failure of the April 1980 Desert One rescue attempt for 52 American hostages held by Iranian militants, resulting in eight American deaths. This failure, occurring during an election year, virtually guaranteed Jimmy Carter's inability to recover and made the hostage crisis the central issue of the 1980 presidential campaign against Ronald Reagan.

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:02.0

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0:04.0

But winning back time and growing your business,

0:06.0

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0:07.0

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0:10.0

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0:13.0

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0:15.0

you'll always know when you're running low on your best-selling blends.

0:18.0

Visit sumup.co.uk to learn more.

0:34.0

I'm John Batchel with my colleague Craig Unger. His new book, Den of Spies, Reagan, Carter,

0:39.2

and the secret history of the treason that stole the White House. This is the October surprise legend.

0:45.1

And when facts replace the legend, you print the legend is the Hollywood recommendation.

0:47.1

We're doing the other way around.

0:50.2

When facts replace the legend, you print the facts.

0:51.9

And that's where we're going.

1:07.5

You can't solve everything immediately, but we need to go to the Reagan election campaign, watching these events, the takeover of the embassy, the Ayatollah's rise, the death of the Shah, and now Desert Ward.

1:14.4

Ronald Reagan is running strongly for president, but he fires his campaign manager,

1:20.6

man named John Sears, and hires Bill Casey. Who is Bill Casey that Ronald Reagan reached for him at this point in his campaign? Casey's a very interesting choice as a campaign manager, because he's

1:26.9

not doing the things that normal campaign managers do.

1:31.2

Normally, it's about raising money.

1:33.0

And Casey did some of that.

1:35.0

But Casey was also, to me, one of the great American spies.

...

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