Den of Spies: Reagan, Carter, and the Secret History of the Treason That Stole the White House

Argo meets Spotlight, as journalist Craig Unger, New York Times bestselling author of American Kompromat and House of Bush, House of Saud, reveals his thirty-year investigation into the secret collusion between Ronald Reagans 1980 presidential campaign and Iran, raising urgent questions about what happens when foreign meddling in our elections goes unpunished and what gets remembered when the political price for treason is victory. 

It was a tinderbox of an accusation. In April 1991, the New York Times ran an op-ed alleging that Ronald Reagans 1980 presidential campaign had conspired with the Iranian government to delay the release of 52 American hostages until after the 1980 election. The Iranian hostage crisis was President Jimmy Carters largest political vulnerability, and his lack of success freeing them ultimately sealed his fate at the ballot box. In return for keeping Americans in captivity until Reagan assumed the oath of office, the Republicans had secretly funneled arms to Iran. Treasonous and illegal, the operationplanned and executed by Reagans campaign manager Bill Caseyamounted to a shadow foreign policy run by private citizens that ensured Reagans victory.

Investigative journalist Craig Unger was one of the first reporters covering the October Surpriseinitially for Esquire and then Newsweekand while attempting to unravel the mystery, he was fired, sued, and ostracized by the Washington press corps, as a counter narrative took hold: The October Surprise was a hoax. Though Unger later recovered his name and became a bestselling author on Republican abuses of power, the October Surprise remained his white whale, the project heas well as legendary investigative journalist, the late Robert Parryworked on late at night and between assignments.

In Den of Spies, Unger reveals the definitive story of the October Surprise, going inside his three-decade reporting odyssey, along with Parrys never-before-seen archives, and sharing startling truths about what really happened in 1980. The result is a real-life political thriller filled with double agents, CIA operatives, slippery politicians, KGB documents, wealthy Republicans, and dogged journalists. A timely and provocative history that presages our Trump-era political scandals, Den of Spies demonstrates the stakes of allowing the politics of the moment to obscure the writing of our history.