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Amid a crisis in recruitment, the U.S. military has found a new way of convincing a war-weary Generation Z to enlist: thirst traps. Chief among these attractive young women in uniform posting sexually suggestive content alongside subtle ... calls to join up is Hailey Lujan. In between the thirst traps and memes, the 21-year-old makes content extolling the fun of Army life to her 731,000 TikTok followers. Lujan is a psychological operations specialist with the Army. Her [job] is to convince, persuade and propagandize in creative new ways. The Army recruitment website description of the role sounds eerily similar to her own content. "As a Psychological Operations Specialist, you'll be an expert at persuasion," it reads, adding: "You'll assess and develop the information needed to influence and engage specific audiences. You'll broadcast important information through various mediums and assist U.S. and foreign governments, militaries, and civilian populations." Lujan is far from the only serviceperson on military TikTok (#MilTok) promoting military life, however. Juliana Keding – a military policewoman with over 900,000 followers – regularly combines thirst traps with videos about Army life. TikTok is not the only battleground for young people's minds, however. In the last year, a significant portion of the Biden administration's record-breaking $857 billion defense budget went on advertising. The Army in particular has spent large sums of money collaborating with some of YouTube's biggest stars.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in the military and media manipulation from reliable sources.
Thousands of Covid-19 vaccine injury allegations have been submitted to the federal government and are unlikely to be reviewed any time soon without intervention by the Biden administration and Congress, according to attorneys whose potential clients feel they have nowhere to turn. Appendicitis, cognitive difficulty, abdominal pain, and abnormal heart rhythm are just some of the Covid vaccine-related injuries cited by the 8,208 individuals who have filed requests for benefits with the Health and Human Services Department's Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program. The CICP has reached only 749 decisions on claims related to Covid treatments, with four cases resulting in compensation. Now, with the public health emergency officially over, attorneys say it's time for the administration and Congress to move Covid vaccine injury claims to a program they say is better suited for addressing them. But doing so would require lawmakers to tackle some much-needed reforms. "It doesn't have the infrastructure yet," Renee Gentry, director of the Vaccine Injury Litigation Clinic at the George Washington University, said of the ... Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. Even half of the Covid caseload "would double the size of the vaccine program. It would come to a crashing halt." "A lot of these people have devastating injuries, and they need at least a fair shot at compensation," Gentry said.
Note: Although significant evidence reveals how COVID vaccines harmed more people than what was announced by US government agencies, the FDA recently refused to improve COVID vaccine safety labeling despite calls from current and former FDA officials. For more along these lines, watch a powerful documentary that follows the lives of people significantly harmed by the vaccine, yet were discredited and abandoned by the medical and media establishment.
Recycled and reused food contact plastics are "vectors for spreading chemicals of concern" because they accumulate and release hundreds of dangerous toxins like styrene, benzene, bisphenol, heavy metals, formaldehyde and phthalates, new research finds. The study assessed hundreds of scientific publications on plastic and recycled plastic to provide a first-of-its-kind systematic review of food contact chemicals in food packaging, utensils, plates and other items and what is known about how the substances contaminate food. "Hazardous chemicals can accumulate in recycled material and then migrate into foodstuffs, leading to chronic human exposure," the study's authors wrote, noting bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic as a common example. The study ... identified 853 chemicals used in PET recycled plastic and many of those have been discovered during the last two years. The most commonly detected were antimony and acetaldehyde, while potent toxins like 2,4-DTBP, ethylene glycol, lead, terephthalic acid, bisphenol and cyclic PET oligomers were also most frequently found. The review also highlighted widespread "illicit" recycling in which industry uses non-food grade plastic made with flame retardants and other toxic compounds in recycled food packaging. Despite strict regulations on which types of plastic can be used for food contact, studies identified [contaminated materials from] recycled electronics in the US, South Korea and European markets.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption and health from reliable major media sources.
UFOs have been reported by almost one-fifth of academics a new survey reveals. Out of the 1,460 academics asked, 19 percent said they or someone they knew had witnessed an unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) – an observation in the sky that cannot be explained. The findings reveal that some of the brightest minds are interested in uncovering the mysteries of our skies, with 37 percent saying they have a degree of interest in conducting research into UAP. The survey was taken by 1,460 academics from 133 US universities across 14 academic disciplines in 2022. The participants, who were 62 percent male and 80 percent white, were asked about their perceptions and opinions of UAPs, formerly known as UFOs, as well as their experiences with them. Of the 14 different disciplines represented, 10 percent of people worked in political science physics and psychology, while six percent worked in engineering. These phenomena can leave even the cleverest of people baffled. Out of the academics, 39 percent said they did not know what could explain these sightings.
Note: Watch the engaging trailer of Accidental Truth, a new film on UFO revelations featuring exclusive interviews with some of the most respected researchers in the field of UFOs. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on UFOs from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our UFO Information Center.
In 1979 the Sandinista revolution overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. As a Spanish speaking Latino, [Enrique] Prado ... was recruited as a CIA officer responsible for overseeing the development of the Contra army based in Honduras and conducting cross border attacks on communities in Nicaragua. Prado believes they [were] the "good guys". The International Court of Justice thought otherwise. In 1986 the court ruled the US attacks on Nicaragua were violations of international law. The Reagan administration and media largely ignored the ruling. Later, journalist Gary Webb documented the catastrophic social damage inside the US caused by the cheap cocaine flooding some US cities. Webb was attacked by establishment media. In 1998 the CIA Inspector General acknowledged, "There are instances where C.I.A. did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug-trafficking activity, or take action to resolve the allegations." The US deployed Nicaraguans, Afghans and extremist Arab recruits in proxy wars across the globe. "The attacks of September 11 descend in a direct line from events in 1979, the year in which the CIA, with full presidential authority, began carrying out its largest ever clandestine operation - the secret arming of Afghan freedom fighters (mujaheddin) to wage a proxy war against the Soviet Union," [said author Chalmers Johnston].
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption from reliable major media sources.
On April 20, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell admitted he orchestrated the joint letter that torpedoed the New York Post's bombshell reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop in the weeks leading up to the November 2020 US Presidential election, at the direct request of Joe Biden's campaign team. That letter ... asserted the leaked material bore unambiguous hallmarks of a Kremlin "information operation." In all, 51 former senior intelligence officials endorsed the declaration. This intervention was sufficient for Twitter to block all sharing of the NY Post's exposĂ©s and ban the outlet's official account. Twitter's public suppression of the NY Post's disclosures was complemented by a covert operation to identify and neutralize anyone discussing the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop, courtesy of Dataminr, a social media spying tool heavily connected to British and American intelligence services. In-Q-Tel [is] the CIA's venture capital arm. In 2016, The Intercept revealed In-Q-Tel was financing at least 38 separate social media spying tools, to surveil "erupting political movements, crises, epidemics, and disasters." Among them was Dataminr, which enjoys privileged access to Twitter's "firehose" – all tweets published in real time – in order to track and visualize trends as they happen. [In 2020], the U.S. was ... engulfed by incendiary large-scale protests. Dataminr kept a close eye on this upheaval every step of the way, tipping off police to the identities of demonstrators.
Note: While Hunter Biden was indicted for three felony gun charges and nine counts of tax-related crimes, his laptop also revealed suspicious business dealings with corrupt overseas firms. Learn more about the history of military-intelligence influence on the media in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and media manipulation from reliable sources.
On 7 October 2022, the United States government implemented export controls in an effort to hinder the development of China's semiconductor industry. The next day, China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said: "... By politicising tech and trade issues and using them as a tool and weapon, the US cannot hold back China's development but will only hurt and isolate itself when its action backfires." Under the Trump and Biden administrations, the US has placed hundreds of Chinese companies on trade and investment blacklists. These restrictions have banned any company in the world that uses US products – effectively every chip designer and manufacturer – from doing business with Chinese tech firms. The US has also pressured governments and firms around the world to impose similar restrictions. Washington fears that China's technological development will lead, through trade and investment, to the dispersal of advanced technologies more broadly throughout the world, namely, to states in the Global South that the US sees as a threat. This would be a significant blow to the US's power over these countries. The scale of the developments in digital technology is staggering. Earlier conflicts took place over energy and food, but now this conflict has heated up ... the resources of our digital world. This technology can be used to solve so many of our dilemmas, and yet, here we are, at the precipice of greater conflict to benefit the few over the needs of the many.
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U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared loneliness as an epidemic in the country on Tuesday, outlining a series of actions Americans can take to address the growing issue. "Our epidemic of loneliness and isolation has been an underappreciated public health crisis that has harmed individual and societal health. Our relationships are a source of healing and well-being hiding in plain sight – one that can help us live healthier, more fulfilled, and more productive lives," Murthy said in a statement. Murthy issued an advisory laying out the consequence of loneliness, which can include a 29 percent increased risk of heart disease, a 32 percent increased risk of stroke, a 50 percent increased risk of developing dementia for older adults, and an increased risk of premature death by more than 60 percent. Strengthening social infrastructure, like building more parks and libraries, and enacting pro-connection policies, like having accessible public transportation or paid family leave, are two of Murthy's pillars he says will help overcome loneliness. He also said reforming digital environments is a pillar of his plan, saying people must be aware of how online environments may negatively affect their social connections. The other pillars of his plan include mobilizing the health care sector, deepening knowledge of loneliness and social connections, and cultivating a culture of connections. The advisory said everyday practices, like acting kind and respectful toward one another, can help strengthen social connections.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health from reliable major media sources.
Few people think of the FCC as an environmental cop. It's known for regulating television and radio and overseeing the deployment of communications technology. But the agency also has a broad mandate to ensure that technology doesn't damage the environment. This role is particularly critical now, as the FCC presides over a nationwide buildout for 5G service, which will require 800,000 new "small cell" transmitters, those perched on street poles and rooftops, often near schools, apartments and homes. But even with this massive effort underway, as ProPublica previously reported, the FCC has refused to revise its radiation-exposure limits, which date back to the era of flip phones. In addition, the agency has cut back on the environmental reviews that it requires while also restricting local governments' control over wireless sites. The agency operates on the honor system, delegating much of its responsibility to the industries that it regulates. It allows companies to decide for themselves whether their projects require environmental study. And if the companies break the rules, they're expected to report their own transgression. Few do. In the rare instances in which the FCC investigates, even brazen illegality is often met with a minor fine, a scolding "admonishment" or no action at all. Just 10% of FCC enforcement cases between 2014 and 2016 resulted in a monetary penalty, while 40% ended with a warning and the rest resulted in no action.
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An AI-based decoder that can translate brain activity into a continuous stream of text has been developed, in a breakthrough that allows a person's thoughts to be read non-invasively for the first time. The decoder could reconstruct speech with uncanny accuracy while people listened to a story – or even silently imagined one – using only fMRI scan data. Previous language decoding systems have required surgical implants. Large language models – the kind of AI underpinning OpenAI's ChatGPT ... are able to represent, in numbers, the semantic meaning of speech, allowing the scientists to look at which patterns of neuronal activity corresponded to strings of words with a particular meaning rather than attempting to read out activity word by word. The decoder was personalised and when the model was tested on another person the readout was unintelligible. It was also possible for participants on whom the decoder had been trained to thwart the system, for example by thinking of animals or quietly imagining another story. Jerry Tang, a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin and a co-author, said: "We take very seriously the concerns that it could be used for bad purposes and have worked to avoid that. We want to make sure people only use these types of technologies when they want to and that it helps them." Prof Tim Behrens, a computational neuroscientist ... said it opened up a host of experimental possibilities, including reading thoughts from someone dreaming.
Note: This technology has advanced considerably since Jose Delgado first stopped a charging bull using radio waves in 1965. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on mind control and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.
The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) prohibits the production, use, development, stockpiling, or transfer of biological toxins or disease-causing organisms against humans, animals, or plants. More than 180 countries are party to the pact, which came into force in 1975 as the first multilateral treaty to ban an entire class of weapon. And in the years since, the taboo against state use of biological weapons has largely held. Yet a volatile geopolitical environment, combined with the rapid advance and increased access in the ability to edit and engineer pathogens, is straining and testing the nearly 50-year-old BWC as never before. From the BWC's beginnings, critics have said it lacked vital elements, like a verification mechanism to make sure everyone is following it. Global tensions, scientific advances, and the ever-expanding repertoire of what is possible with both biology and chemistry are making those flaws and cracks ever more visible. Some high-profile mishaps linked to the US chemical and biological weapons programs ... along with public anger over the use of herbicides like Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, prompted Congress to pressure the Nixon administration to review the biological and chemical weapons programs. Contagions are hard to control and contain, and the same pathogens that can infect your target can also sicken you and your population. This is also why they tend to be used as a stealth agent of war. "The holy grail that we've struggled with with the Biological Weapons Convention is how do you verify that the countries that have signed up to the treaty are not making biological weapons?" said Kenneth Ward, US special representative to the Biological Weapons Convention.
Note: Watch our latest Mindful News Brief series on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19. Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on science corruption from reliable major media sources.
Senior members of Congress have spoken to as many as six whistleblowers who claim they worked on Roswell-style UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering programs. Congress passed a law last year creating whistleblower protections for anyone who has worked in such mind-boggling secret programs. Daniel Sheehan said he is in contact with at least six former government officials or military contractors who say they worked on just such a program. Sheehan says witnesses who allegedly know about Roswell-style programs, including a former Defense Intelligence Agency director, have been referred for interviews with the Pentagon's UFO office, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). Immunologist and Nobel Prize nominee Dr. Garry Nolan was commissioned by the CIA to investigate cases of the mysterious Havana Syndrome inflicting embassy officials worldwide, and has conducted experiments analyzing material allegedly jettisoned in UFO flyovers. He claims to be in contact with several former staffers of extraordinary UFO 'reverse engineering' programs. Another Nobel Prize nominee and CIA scientist Dr. Hal Puthoff, who worked in the government's 2008-2012 UFO program called AAWSAP, told DailyMail.com that he had briefed congress on classified information about reverse engineering programs, and knew of whistleblowers who had worked in the alleged programs. AARO has 72 hours to report to Congress any program discovered that has not been properly reported.
Note: Watch the engaging trailer of Accidental Truth, a new film on UFO revelations featuring exclusive interviews with some of the most respected researchers in the field of UFOs. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on UFOs from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our UFO Information Center.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has in effect ignored a 2020 federal court order prohibiting the use of Monsanto and other producers' toxic dicamba-based herbicides that are destroying millions of acres of cropland, harming endangered species and increasing cancer risks for farmers, new fillings in the lawsuit charge. Instead of permanently yanking the products from the market after the 2020 order, the EPA only required industry to add further application instructions to the herbicides' labels before reapproving the products. A late 2021 EPA investigation found the same problems persist even with new directions added to the label, but the agency still allows Monsanto, BASF and other producers to continue using dicamba. The EPA's pesticide office is included in allegations that career managers are influenced by or have colluded with industry, and in some cases falsified science to make dangerous substances appear less toxic. About one-third of the pesticide office's funding comes from industry fees. The agency in 2016 approved the dicamba-based herbicide developed by Monsanto, which was to be used on genetically modified soybean and cotton crops. The herbicide can damage or kill neighboring crops and plants that are not engineered to be dicamba-resistant. The results are "devastating" and destroying millions of acres as "as never before seen in the history of US agriculture", the plaintiffs said. In some cases, direct dicamba exposure can kill insects, mammals and other animals.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the food system from reliable major media sources.
The neoliberal globalizing paradigm is now the old. Economic nationalism is the new. Neoliberal globalization ... celebrated the profits and growth brought to both private and state-owned/operated enterprises around the world. It downplayed or ignored the other sides of globalization: (1) growing income and wealth inequalities; (2) the shift of production from old to new centers of capitalism; and (3) faster growth of output and markets in new centers than old centers. Instead of a mostly private capitalist system (like that of the U.S. or UK) or a mostly state capitalist system (like that of the USSR), places like China and India produced hybrids. Strong national governments presided over coexisting large private and state sectors to maximize economic growth. The days of the U.S. dollar as the supreme global currency are numbered. U.S. supremacy in high-tech industries must already be shared with China's high-tech industries. The U.S. empire's decline raises the question of what comes next. The most interesting possibility and perhaps the likeliest is that China and the entire BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) grouping of nations will undertake the construction and maintenance of a new world economy. The war in Ukraine has already enhanced the prospects of such an outcome by strengthening the BRICS alliance. They have the population, resources, productive capacity, connections, and accumulated solidarity to be a new pole for world economic development.
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The U.S. has not engaged in a defensive war for nearly 80 years, instead destabilizing governments worldwide in Vietnam, the Korean Peninsula, Iraq, Afghanistan, throughout Africa and across Latin America. Although all weapons of mass destruction in space are technically prohibited by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, it isn't without precedent for major military powers to withdraw from such treaties. In 2019, President Donald Trump diverged from President Barack Obama's promise he would "not weaponize space," and created an official Space Force. Countersurveillance and counter-communications have been central goals of U.S. military space operations since the 1990s, alongside attaining U.S. "full spectrum dominance" of all potential conflict sites – including space. Space infrastructure ... increases the risk of global nuclear war by presenting new opportunities for armament and hostility. The government's ability to militarize this technology is strongly related to investment and development in the private sector through companies such as Boeing, SpaceX and Blue Origin. The commercial arm of the military-industrial complex is extending into space. Along with Blue Origin, SpaceX has collaborated with DOD in developing rapid global military cargo delivery systems, which the DOD hopes will make for global military logistics – delivery of supplies, weapons and even human soldiers anywhere on earth – in under 60 minutes.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.
We have long known about the F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover's animus toward the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Hoover built an extensive apparatus of surveillance and disruption designed to destroy King. It's time to ... recognize the power structure that supported the F.B.I.'s campaign. Many Americans – starting with the president – thought movement activists like King posed threats to the established order and needed to be watched and controlled. Members of the press could have exposed the bureau's campaign. And many government officials who could have stopped, curtailed or exposed the F.B.I.'s attack on King instead enabled or encouraged it. F.B.I. records declassified in the past several years and documents from the Johnson archives released in 2022 force us to reconsider the nature of Johnson's involvement in the F.B.I.'s campaign against King. White House documents ... suggest that Johnson, from the beginning of his presidency in 1963 to King's assassination in 1968, was apprised almost weekly by Hoover himself on the F.B.I.'s surveillance of King. Johnson did nothing to stop or rein in the F.B.I., even after at least one top administration official expressed concern. In addition to the president and the media, other officials at the F.B.I. ... worked to ruin King. Scores of ranking officials and agents at the F.B.I., dozens of elected officials and several informants embedded in King's inner circles knew what was going on, and none, as far as the public records indicate, blew a whistle on the campaign.
Note: Few people know about the 1999 King Family civil trial in Memphis, where it took a jury only one hour to find the U.S. government guilty for the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and the erosion of civil liberties from reliable major media sources.
The story of Bruno BrĂ©guet, one the most enigmatic figures of the shadowy battle between western security services and international violent extremists during the so-called "golden age of terrorism" in the 1970s and 1980s, has been given a new twist. A new book has revealed that in his later years BrĂ©guet served not only the infamous Illich RamĂrez Sánchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, but the US government too. BrĂ©guet's spying for the CIA earned him tens of thousands of dollars, and contributed to the capture of his erstwhile boss by French secret services in 1994. The news that the CIA was prepared to hire as an agent a man like BrĂ©guet, who had been twice convicted by Israel and France for his terrorist activities and is believed to have bombed a pro-democracy radio station in Munich funded by the US government, underlines the moral and ethical questions facing intelligence services when it comes to recruiting such individuals. If anyone in the CIA balked at employing BrĂ©guet as an agent, there is no record of their concerns. For the next four years, BrĂ©guet appears to have supplied information to the CIA, possibly indirectly contributing key elements to the French intelligence operation that successfully grabbed Carlos from a clinic in Khartoum in 1994. Breguet's final mystery remains unresolved however. In 1995, the veteran extremist turned CIA agent disappeared definitively after boarding a ferry from a Greece to Italy. Was he murdered? Or did he commence a new life under a false identity?
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When Stephen Buchmann finds a wayward bee on a window inside his Tucson, Arizona, home, he goes to great lengths to capture and release it unharmed. This March, Buchmann released a book that unpacks just how varied and powerful a bee's mind really is. The book, What a Bee Knows: Exploring the Thoughts, Memories and Personalities of Bees, draws from his own research and dozens of other studies to paint a remarkable picture of bee behavior and psychology. It argues that bees can demonstrate sophisticated emotions resembling optimism, frustration, playfulness and fear, traits more commonly associated with mammals. Experiments have shown bees can experience PTSD-like symptoms, recognize different human faces, process long-term memories while sleeping, and maybe even dream. Approximately one-third of the American diet, including many fruits, vegetables and nuts, relies on bees for pollination. In the past, bee research has focused on their role in crop pollination, but the work being pioneered by Buchmann and his contemporaries could force an ethical reckoning with how the animals are treated. Can large-scale agriculture and scientific research continue without causing bees to suffer, and is the dominant western culture even capable of accepting that the tiniest of creatures have feelings, too? Buchmann hopes an ethical shift will happen as details about the emotional lives of invertebrates – especially bees – are shared with the public.
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Two international legal agreements [are] currently working their way through the World Health Organisation: a new pandemic treaty, and amendments to the 2005 International Health Regulations, both due to be put before the governing body of the WHO, the World Health Assembly, in May next year. As concerned scholars and jurists have detailed, these agreements threaten to fundamentally reshape the relationship between the WHO, national governments, and individuals. They would hardwire into international law a top-down supranational approach to public health in which the WHO, acting in some cases via the sole discretion of one individual, its Director General (DG), would be empowered to impose sweeping, legally binding directions on member states and their citizens. A global system for digital â€health certificates' for verification of vaccine status or test results would be routinised, and a bio-surveillance network ... would be embedded and expanded. The WHO has fallen largely under the control of private capital and other vested interests. Over 80 percent of the WHO's budget is now â€specified' funding by way of voluntary contributions typically earmarked for specific projects or diseases in a way that the funder specifies. The WHO [is] ordaining itself as the exclusive global controller not just of the identification of pandemics and potential pandemics but of the design and execution of pandemic responses, while also granting itself a vast health surveillance network and a global workforce.
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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. 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's 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. His mentor was John B. Connally Jr., a titan of American politics. Now Mr. Connally resolved to help Mr. Reagan beat Mr. Carter. 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't release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal. Mr. Connally's files indicated that he did, in fact, leave Houston on July 18, 1980, for a trip that would take him to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel before returning to Houston on Aug. 11. Iran did hold the hostages until after the election, which Mr. Reagan won, and did not release them until minutes after noon on Jan. 20, 1981, when Mr. Carter left office.
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