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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Gary Sick's latest book, October Surprise, has been frequently cited, less widely read, guardedly praised and savagely criticized in the last year, during which it has also led to two ongoing Congressional investigations. Such a book was undoubtedly the farthest thing from his mind when he retired from distinguished service with the U.S. Navy and began to write his first book, All Fall Down. First published in 1985 (it was republished in 1986 with a 15-page introduction), All Fall Down chronicled, on the basis of Sick's first-hand experience as the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis, and following his subsequent research into the question, the most complete and accurate account to date of the Carter administration's policies toward Iran. All Fall Down was voted one of the eleven best books of 1985 by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Gary Sick, All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounter with Iran, with a new introduction by the author (Harrisonburg, Va.: Penguin Books, 1986), xiii + 432 pp.; October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan (New York: Times Books, 1991), 277 pp.
1. See Stanley Hoffman, The New York Times Book Review, 16 June 1985; Shaul Bakhash, The New York Review of Books, 8 May 1986.
2. See, for example, Bill, James, The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American- Iranian Relations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 243, 249, 409- 10Google Scholar, who describes Sick as a nonexpert, having little background, little inclined to consult with outsiders, having a condescending view of the Department of State, and, along with his boss, Brzezinski, Zbigniew, being “in over their heads“; his book, Bill further argues, is slanted. While Bill has written a very thoughtful book (see my review, The International History Review 11.2 [1989﹜: 394—6)Google Scholar, his pointed criticism of Sick is at least in part a response to Sick's discussion of the view of some “experts” such as Bill whose “rosy” views regarding the clergy's unwillingness to participate directly in the formal governmental structure he compares (in their determined rejection of unpleasant realities) with the institutional myopia of the U.S. government in persuading itself of the “stability” of the shah prior to the revolution (see Sick, All Fall Down, 131-2). Bill acknowledges his mistaken view, and notes that the unprecedented nature of the Iranian revolution falsified what would otherwise have been a historical lesson (pp. 279-80), which is, of course, one of Sick's points. The different responsibilities of academics and policy-makers, it seems, particularly when tested by unprecedented situations, occasionally create such frictions, even among the best of them.
3. Sick, All Fall Down, 44-9.
4. Ibid., 193-4.
5. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion, 279-80.
6. Sick, All Fall Down, 355-6.
7. Sick, October Surprise, 13, 98-100, 132, 234.
8. Sick, All Fall Down, 3-7, 226.
9. Sick, October Surprise, 13.
10. Ibid., 58-9.
11. Ibid., 228.
12. Frank Snepp, The Village Voice, 10 September 1991; “One Man, Many Talcs,” Newsweek, 4 November 1991; “Making a Myth,” Newsweek, 11 November 1991; “A Case of Confused Identity,” Newsweek, 18 November 1991; Steve Emerson and Jesse Furman, “The Conspiracy That Wasn't: The Hunt for the October Surprise,” The New Republic, 18 November 1991.
13. “Frontline,” 7 April 1992.
14. Sick, October Surprise, 85-6.
15. Ibid., 82-6, 250 n. 24.
16. Joseph E. Persico, The New York Times Book Review, 22 December 1991.
17. Mark Hosenball, The Wall Street Journal, 26 December 1991.
18. Sick, October Surprise, 149-50, 215, 221; “Frontline,” 7 April 1992.
19. Sick, October Surprise, 52-3, 109, 214-5.
20. Sick, October Surprise, 225.
21. Richard Ryan, National Review, 20 January 1992.