"We speak to Gary Sick of Columbia University. He served on the National Security Council under Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis":

AMY GOODMAN: Speaking of history—you know, you wrote the October Surprise—do you still believe that Reagan had something to do with holding on—working a deal with Iran to hold onto the hostages so that Jimmy Carter would fall?

GARY SICK: Well, you know, this was looked at by two congressional committees, and they concluded—and I agree with them—there’s no smoking gun. We have a lot of circumstantial evidence. I continue to believe that the circumstantial evidence is very, very powerful. But the committees decided they are not going to, in effect, come down on the side of treason, if you like, without some hard evidence. So, we don’t have—

AMY GOODMAN: Treason against, well, President Reagan.

GARY SICK: We don’t have a picture of Bill Casey sitting around with the Iranians doing a deal. We don’t have any paper that says this is what they agreed. So, it is circumstantial evidence that has been put together. I wrote my book basically pulling together as much of that circumstantial evidence as possible. I think it’s still quite convincing. But it isn’t the sort of—it isn’t absolute proof. And until we have a deathbed confession or something else happens, it remains a matter to be argued about.