{"id":14486,"date":"2023-03-20T02:11:23","date_gmt":"2023-03-20T09:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14486"},"modified":"2023-03-22T02:32:06","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T09:32:06","slug":"message-of-the-day-human-rights-economic-opportunity-war-hunger-environment-disease-population-personal-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14486","title":{"rendered":"Message of the Day: Human Rights, Economic Opportunity, War, Hunger, Environment, Disease, Population, Personal Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A Four-Decade Secret: One Man\u2019s Story of Sabotaging Carter\u2019s Re-election<\/em>, 3.19.23<\/p>\n

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Today is the Spring Equinox in the northerm hemisphere. The first day when just a tiny bit more light than dark occurs in the day, and which will keep increasing in light over dark until the day with the most light in the year, the Summer Solstice.<\/p>\n

We’ve used these moments as metaphors for reality in momentous ways more than once.<\/p>\n

This may be one as momentous as any.<\/p>\n

The front page story in yesterday’s Sunday New York Times could not be more explosive or potentially history-altering.<\/p>\n

A witness to attempts to influence Iran in 1980 to refuse to make a deal with then President Jimmy Carter to release American hostages until after the election between him and Ronald Reagan makes clear this may have lost Carter the election.<\/p>\n

The source of the story, Ben Barnes, is nearly universally considered to be as credible as it gets.<\/p>\n

“With Mr. Carter now 98 and in hospice care<\/a>, Mr. Barnes said he felt compelled to come forward to correct the record,” the article states.<\/p>\n

We will have much more to say about President Carter soon.<\/p>\n

For now, suffice it to say that had he been re-elected to a second term, the entire arc of history would have been changed in ways and to degrees impossible to overstate on every important issue which has and does face the nation and the world.<\/p>\n

For now, the article follows:<\/p>\n

“A Four-Decade Secret: One Man\u2019s Story of Sabotaging Carter\u2019s Re-election”<\/a><\/p>\n

By Peter Baker, Cover Story, March 19, 2023, Sunday New York Times<\/p>\n

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A prominent Texas politician said he unwittingly took part in a 1980 tour of the Middle East with a clandestine agenda.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cHistory needs to know that this happened,\u201d Ben Barnes now says of his trip to the Middle East in 1980.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Christopher Lee for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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WASHINGTON \u2014 It has been more than four decades, but Ben Barnes said he remembers it vividly. His longtime political mentor invited him on a mission to the Middle East. What Mr. Barnes said he did not realize until later was the real purpose of the mission: to sabotage the re-election campaign of the president of the United States.<\/p>\n

It was 1980 and Jimmy Carter was in the White House, bedeviled by a hostage crisis in Iran that had paralyzed his presidency and hampered his effort to win a second term. Mr. Carter\u2019s best chance for victory was to free the 52 Americans held captive before Election Day. That was something that Mr. Barnes said his mentor was determined to prevent.<\/p>\n

His mentor was John B. Connally Jr.<\/a>, a titan of American politics and former Texas governor who had served three presidents and just lost his own bid for the White House. A former Democrat, Mr. Connally had sought the Republican nomination in 1980 only to be swamped by former Gov. Ronald Reagan<\/a> of California. Now Mr. Connally resolved to help Mr. Reagan beat Mr. Carter and in the process, Mr. Barnes said, make his own case for becoming secretary of state or defense in a new administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The hostage crisis in Iran hampered Mr. Carter\u2019s effort to win a second term.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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What happened next Mr. Barnes has largely kept secret for nearly 43 years. Mr. Connally, he said, took him to one Middle Eastern capital after another that summer, meeting with a host of regional leaders to deliver a blunt message to be passed to Iran: Don\u2019t release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n