As the Official Story of the 1980 October Surprise case crumbles with new revelations that key evidence was hidden from investigators of a congressional task force and that internal doubts were suppressed history must finally confront the troubling impression that remains: that disgruntled elements of the CIA and Israel's Likud hardliners teamed up to remove a U.S. president from office.
Indeed, it is this disturbing conclusion perhaps even more than the idea of a Republican dirty trick that may explain the longstanding and determined cover-up of this political scandal.
Too many powerful interests do not want the American people to accept even the possibility that U.S. intelligence operatives and a longtime ally could intervene to oust a president who had impinged on what those two groups considered their vital interests.
To accept that scenario would mean that two of the great fears of American democracy had come true George Washington's warning against the dangers of "entangling alliances" and Harry Truman's concern that the clandestine operations of the CIA had the makings of an "American Gestapo."
