Robert Dornan: “tonight I noticed in my clippings that the one businessman who was held hostage in Iran from Sherman Oaks, CA, Mr. Jerry…”

“tonight I noticed in my clippings that the one businessman who was held hostage in Iran from Sherman Oaks, CA, Mr. Jerry Plotkin, died. He said, when Mayor Tom Bradley called Jerry Plotkin Day in Los Angeles, after his return from 444 days of captivity, that the treatment under the Ayathollah's henchmen in Tehran was horrible from the first day. He lost 40 pounds, began smoking again, and it obviously shortened his life. He died younger than I am. I looked at that figure, the Election Day was on November 4. They had been in captivity for 444 days. It cost a good man his Presidency, Jimmy Carter, a moral man, a decent man, a man who always tried to tell the truth, unlike some leadership now. I looked at that clipping about Jerry Plotkin's death and I said, as good a man as Jimmy Carter was personally, he deserved to lose. When the leader of the world's greatest free superpower cannot get American citizens, one businessman and 51 marines and other Government employees and high-ranking State Department people, when he cannot get them out of captivity, he deserves to go down to defeat.”