the hostages in order to embarrass the Carter administration. Silberman later wrote: "Ironically, it was I who unwittingly initiated the so-called 'October Surprise' story, which grew into an utterly fantastic tale". An article by Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus a few days later in the November 29, 1986 The Washington Post said that United States officials tied to Reagan, well before the Iran Contra affair, considered an initiative to sell US-made military parts to Iran in exchange for the hostage held there. The House October Surprise Task Force credited the Woodward/Pincus article as raising "claims that would become keystones in the October Surprise theory". The Miami Herald published an article by Alfonso Chardy on April 12, 1987, that McFarlane, Silberman, and Allen had met with a man claiming to represent the Iranian government and offering the release of the hostages. Chardy's article also quoted exiled former Iranian president Abolhassan Banisadr who said he had learned that Beheshti and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani were involved in negotiations with the Reagan campaign to delay the release of the hostages until Reagan became president. Chronology The House October Surprise Task Force outlined as "principal allegations" three supposed meetings between representatives of Reagan's campaign and Iranian government officials in the summer and fall of 1980 to delay the release of the hostages: 1) a meeting in Madrid during the summer, 2) a meeting at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington, D.C that autumn, and 3) a meeting in Paris in October. The Task Force characterized three other alleged meetings or contacts as "ancillary allegations": 1) a meeting at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. in early spring 1980, 2) a meeting at the Churchill Hotel in London in the summer of 1980, and 3) a meeting at the Sherry Netherlands Hotel in New York in January 1981. March 1980: Jamshid Hashemi told Gary Sick he was visited by CIA director William Casey and Roy Furmark while staying at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. in March 1980. Hashemi claimed Casey was aware of his contacts in Iran and wanted to discuss the American hostages held there. He told Sick that he then reported the meeting to his "intelligence contact" Charles Cogan, then a senior official within the CIA's Directorate of Operations. Hashemi later testified that he was alone with Casey and denied telling Sick that Furmark was present, and that the meeting with Casey occurred