Reagan Asks for Document Search in Hostage Dispute

Former President Reagan wants his 1980 campaign files searched for documents that might shed light on charges that his campaign officials conspired to delay American hostages’ release from Iran.

“Although I firmly believe these charges are groundless, I feel we should do all we can to clear the air of this unsubstantiated allegation,” Reagan said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Associated Press.

In the letter mailed Friday, Reagan asked Ralph Bledsoe, director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, to conduct the search with the help of an unnamed senior archivist from the National Archives.

Congress is considering a formal investigation into allegations that Reagan campaign officials might have dealt with Iranians to delay the release of 52 American hostages until after the 1980 election in exchange for the promise of arms.

Reagan requested that any pertinent documents be made public when the search is complete.

Reagan asked Bledsoe to look for records indicating that “anyone associated with my campaign had contacts with Iranians or other foreign representatives in which a delay in the release of the hostages was discussed.”

In his letter, Reagan repeated earlier denials of the allegations.

“To think that anyone acting on my behalf would delay the release of the American hostages for one minute is outrageous, offensive and would not have been tolerated,” Reagan wrote.

Reagan spokesman Bill Garber said that the former President wants to settle the question once and for all.

“The biggest thing is, as the letter said, he wanted to clear the air, and the air wasn’t clear,” Garber said in a telephone interview from Reagan’s Los Angeles office.

The former President also asked specifically for a search for records relating to the schedule and overseas travel of his campaign manager, William J. Casey, who Reagan later named to direct the CIA.

The charges, which surfaced periodically during the 1980s, made their most recent appearance in a New York Times article by former Jimmy Carter Administration official Gary Sick and in a book by former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr.

Both men contend that the Reagan-Bush campaign feared the release of the hostages before the election would damage Reagan’s bid to unseat Carter.

The hostages were released minutes after Reagan took office on Jan. 20, 1981. The arrangements had been made by the Carter Administration in negotiations using Algerian representatives as intermediaries.

Garber said that he did not know when the search would be completed. He said that there is no detailed index for the campaign papers, which fill hundreds of boxes at the presidential library in Simi Valley.