Iran hostage crisis

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Iranian militants escort a blindfolded U.S. hostage to the media.

The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis that lasted from November 4, 1979, through January 20, 1981. Members of the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, a group of militant university students who were supported by the new Islamic regime, held 63 diplomats and three additional U.S. citizens hostage inside the American diplomatic mission in Tehran, Iran.

The captors released several captives, but 52 hostages remained until the conclusion of the crisis.^[1] During the crisis the United States attempted a rescue operation, Operation Eagle Claw. The operation failed and resulted in the deaths of eight American Marines.

Some political scientists argue that the crisis was one of the primary reasons for U.S. President Jimmy Carter's loss in the U.S. Presidential Election of 1980.^[2]

The crisis reached its conclusion with the signing of the Algiers Accords. On January 20, 1981, the hostages were formally released into U.S. custody after spending 444 days in captivity. The release took place just minutes after Ronald Reagan was officially sworn in as president.

[edit] Background

For several decades, the United States of America had been an ally and backer of Iran's Shah, or monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. During World War II, Allied powers Britain and the Soviet Union occupied Iran to keep it from joining the Axis, and forced the reigning monarch, Reza Shah, to abdicate in favor of his son.^[3] After the war and during the Cold War, Iran allied itself with the U.S. against Russia, then the Soviet Union, which was Iran's neighbor and some-time enemy and occupier. America provided the Shah with military and economic aid, while Iran provided the United States with a steady oil supply and valuable strategic presence in the Middle East^{[citation needed]}, since Iran shared borders with both the Persian Gulf and the Soviet Union.

In 1953, Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, a nationalist and political enemy of the Shah, nationalized Iran's foreign-owned-and-managed oil producer, the Anglo Iranian Oil Company. The company's furious British owners withdrew employees, and ceased oil production and royalty payments to the Iranian government. The American CIA and British intelligence launched Operation Ajax, orchestrating a coup d'état to overthrow the popular prime minister. In subsequent decades, this foreign intervention, along with issues such as unequal development, political repression, corruption, cooperation with Israeli, and the un-Islamic, Westernized lifestyle of the Iranian elite, united Islamists and leftists against the Shah and led to his overthrow. The Shah's regime fell in the Iranian revolution of 1978-79 and the Shah left the country in January 1979.^[4][5][6]

Main article: Iranian Revolution

The U.S. attempted to mitigate the damage by finding a new relationship with the de facto Iranian government, but on October 22, 1979, the Shah, ill with cancer, was brought to the U.S. for medical treatment. This caused widespread anger in Iran. Furious at what he called "evidence of American plotting," revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini heightened rhetoric against the "Great Satan," i.e. the United States.^[7]

[edit] Events

[edit] Planning

The original idea to seize the American embassy was concocted by Ebrahim Asgharzadeh in September 1979. After he came up with the idea, the heads of the Islamic associations of the main universities of Tehran, including University of Tehran, Sharif University of Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology (Polytechnic of Tehran) and Iran University of Science and Technology, gathered.

According to Asgharzadeh, there were five students at the first planning meeting. Two of them wanted to target the Soviet embassy, because, they felt, the USSR was "a Marxist and anti-God regime." But two others — Mirdamadi and Habibolah Bitaraf — supported Asgharzadeh's choice. "Our aim was to object against the American government by going to their embassy and occupying it for several hours," Asgharzadeh said. "Announcing our objections from within the occupied compound would carry our message to the world in a much more firm and effective way."^[8] According to Masoumeh Ebtekar, those who rejected this plan didn't participate in the following events.

To begin, the group denied that Khomeini had put them up to it.^[9] The group members wanted to inform Khomeini through Ayatollah Musavi Khoeyniha; they thought he knew their plan. Musavi Khoeyniham, however was unable to inform Khomeini, and Khomeini only became aware of the plan when hostages were actually taken. Later, Khomeini supported the seizure and called it, "The second revolution: the take-over of the American spy den in Tehran."

[edit] Public opinion in Iran

A week following the admission of the Shah into the United States, on November 1, 1979, Iran's new leader, Khomeini, urged his people to demonstrate against United States and Israeli interests. Khomeini denounced the American government as the "Great Satan" and "Enemy of Islam." Islamist, leftist and even liberal activists in Iran competed with each other in denouncing the U.S.^{[citation needed]}

On November 3, Radio Turkey aired an analysis predicting that within weeks CIA agents would conduct another coup, similar to Operation Ajax, to reinstall the Shah.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] November 4th

For several days before the takeover, Asgharzadeh dispatched confederates to rooftops overlooking the embassy to monitor the security procedures of the U.S. Marine guards. Around 6:30 a.m. on the day the hostages were taken, the ringleaders gathered 300 selected students, thereafter known as Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line and briefed them on the battle plan. To break the chains locking the embassy's gates, a female student was given a pair of metal cutters that she could hide beneath her chador.^[10]

They knew they could reach the embassy easily. The embassy grounds had been briefly occupied before, during the revolution, and protest crowds outside the fence were common. Iranian police had become less and less helpful to the embassy staff.

[edit] 444 days hostage

A group photograph of the former hostages in the hospital. The 52 hostages are spending a few days in the hospital after their release from Iran prior to their departure for the United States.

The hostage-takers, declaring their solidarity with other "oppressed minorities" and "the special place of women in Islam," released 13 women and African-Americans in the middle of November 1979. One more hostage, Richard Queen, was released in July 1980 after he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The remaining 52 hostages were held captive until January 1981 and were often paraded blindfolded before local crowds and television cameras. The crisis led to daily, seemingly unchanging news updates.^[11]

Although the initial plan was to hold the embassy for only a few hours, it soon changed. Khomeini made no comment on the occupation for several days, waiting first to gauge American reaction to the hostage taking, which he feared might be violent.^[12] It was not. Some credit the soft line of American President Jimmy Carter, whose immediate response was to appeal for the release of the hostages on humanitarian grounds and his hopes of a strategic anti-communist alliance with the Islamic Republic for the Iranian decision not to release the hostages quickly.^[13] Iran's moderate prime minister Mehdi Bazargan and his cabinet resigned under pressure on November 6, just days after the event. Bazargan was attacked for meeting with American official Zbigniew Brzezinski and was unable to muster support for the release of the hostages.^[14]

In the United States, the public was all but unanimously outraged against the perpetrators' taking hostages. The action was seen "not just as a diplomatic affront," but as a "declaration of war on diplomacy itself,".^[15] U.S. President Jimmy Carter applied economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran: oil imports from Iran were ended on November 12, 1979, and through the issuance of Executive Order 12170, around USD 8 billion of Iranian assets in the U.S. were frozen by the Office of Foreign Assets Control on November 14, 1979. A number of Iranians in the U.S. were also expelled.

The Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line justified taking the hostages as retaliation for the admission of the Shah into the U.S., and demanded the Shah be returned to Iran for trial and execution. The U.S. maintained that the Shah — who died less than a year later in July 1980 — had come to America only for medical attention. The group's other demands included an apology by the U.S. government for its interference in the internal affairs of Iran and for the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh, and that Iran's frozen assets in the U.S. be released. Revolutionary teams displayed secret documents taken from the embassy, sometimes painstakingly reconstructed after shredding,^[16] to buttress their claim that "the Great Satan" (the U.S.) was trying to destabilize the new regime, and that Iranian moderates were in league with the U.S.

The duration of the hostages' captivity has been blamed on internal Iranian revolutionary politics. As Ayatollah Khomeini told Iran's president:

This action has many benefits. ... This has united our people. Our opponents do not dare act against us. We can put the constitution to the people's vote without difficulty, and carry out presidential and parliamentary elections. ^[17]

Theocratic Islamists as well as leftist political groups like radical leftist People's Mujahedin of Iran^[18] supported the taking of American hostages as an attack on American imperialism and its alleged Iranian "tools of the West." By embracing the hostage-taking under the slogan "America can't do a damn thing," Khomeini rallied support and deflected criticism from his controversial Islamic theocratic constitution, a referendum vote on which was less than one month away.^[19] Following the successful referendum, both radical leftists and theocrats continued to use the issue of alleged pro-Americanism to suppress their opponents, the relatively moderate political forces, including the Iranian Freedom Movement, National Front, Grand Ayatollah Shari'atmadari,^[20] and later President Bani Sadr. In particular, "carefully selected" diplomatic dispatches and reports discovered at the embassy and released by the hostage takers led to the arrests and resignations of moderate figures^[21] such as Premier Mehdi Bazargan. The political danger of any move seen as accommodating to America, along with the failed rescue attempt, delayed a negotiated release. After the hostages were released, radical leftists and theocrats turned on each other, with the stronger theocratic group decimating the left.

A man holding a sign during a protest of the crisis in Washington, D.C. in 1979. The sign reads "deport all Iranians" and "get the hell out of my country".

[edit] Canadian Caper

On the day the hostages were seized, many American diplomats evaded capture and remained in hiding at the Swedish and Canadian Embassies. In 1979, the Canadian parliament held a secret session for the first time since World War II in order to pass special legislation allowing Canadian passports to be issued to some American citizens so that they could escape. Six American diplomats boarded a flight to Zürich, Switzerland on January 28, 1980. Their escape and rescue from Iran by Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor has come to be known as the Canadian Caper.^[22]

[edit] Laingen dispatches

During the hostage crisis, several foreign diplomats and ambassadors came to visit the American hostages. Ken Taylor of Canada was one of the ambassadors who visited the hostages. The foreign diplomats and ambassadors helped the American government stay in contact with the American hostages and vice versa. Through these meetings with foreign governments, the "Laingen dispatches," made by hostage Bruce Laingen, were conveyed to the American government.

[edit] Rescue attempts

Rejecting Iranian demands, Carter approved an ill-fated secret rescue mission, Operation Eagle Claw. On the night of April 24, 1980, as the first part of the operation, a number of C-130 transport airplanes met up with eight RH-53 helicopters at an airstrip in the Great Salt Desert of Eastern Iran, near Tabas. Two helicopters broke down in a sandstorm and a third one was damaged on landing. The mission was aborted, but as the aircraft took off again one helicopter clipped a C-130 and crashed, killing eight U.S. servicemen and injuring several more. In Iran, Khomeini's prestige skyrocketed as he credited divine intervention on behalf of Islam for the mission's failure.^[23]

A second rescue attempt was planned using highly modified YMC-130H Hercules aircraft. Outfitted with rocket thrusters fore and aft to allow an extremely short landing and take-off in a soccer stadium, three aircraft were modified under a rushed super-secret program known as Credible Sport. One aircraft crashed during a demonstration at Duke Field, Florida, at Eglin Air Force Base Auxiliary Field 3 on October 29, 1980, when its landing braking rockets were fired too soon. The misfire caused a hard touchdown that tore off the starboard wing and started a fire. All on board survived. The impending change in the White House led to an abandonment of this project. The two surviving airframes were returned to regular duty with the rocket packages removed. One [3] is now on display at the Museum of Aviation located next to Robins Air Force Base in Georgia.

[edit] Final months

The hostages come home, as celebrated on the streets of Washington, D.C.

The death of the Shah on July 27 and the invasion of Iran by Iraq in September 1980 made Iran more receptive to the idea of resolving the hostage crisis. In the U.S., Carter lost the November 1980 presidential election in a landslide to Ronald Reagan.

In the days before Reagan took office, Algerian diplomat Abdulkarim Ghuraib, opened fruitful, but demeaning, negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. This resulted in the "Algiers Accords" of January 19, 1981, which entailed Iran's commitment to free the hostages immediately.

Point I: Non-Intervention in Iranian Affairs was essential to the Algiers Accords, and was reportedly considered a non-negotiable requirement by Iran. The Carter Administration reluctantly conceded Point I, which read, "The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs." Other provisions of the Algiers Accords were the unfreezing of $8 billion of Iranian assets and immunity from lawsuits Iran might have faced. On January 20, 1981, minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president, the hostages were formally released into U.S. custody, having spent 444 days in captivity. The hostages were flown to Algeria as a symbolic gesture for the help of that government in resolving the crisis. The flight continued to Rhein-Main Air Base in West Germany, where former President Carter, acting as an emissary for the Reagan administration, received them. After medical check-ups and debriefings, they took a second flight to Stewart Air Force Base in Newburgh, N.Y., with a refueling stop in Shannon, Ireland where they were greeted by a large crowd. From Newburgh they travelled by bus to the United States Military Academy, receiving a hero's welcome all along the route. Ten days after their release, the former hostages were given a ticker tape parade through the Canyon of Heroes in New York City.

[edit] Aftermath

A defaced Great Seal of the United States at the former US embassy, Tehran, Iran, as it appears today

In Iran the crisis was a failure for the Islamic Republic in some respects. Iran lost international support for its war against Iraq, and the settlement was considered "almost wholly favorable to the United States" as it did not "meet any of Iran's original demands." ^[24] But domestically the crisis strengthened radicals who supported the hostage taking. Anti-Americanism became even more intense and "fierce" anti-American rhetoric continued unabated. ^[25] Radicals such as Musavi-Khoeniha and Behzad Nabavi ^[26] were left in a stronger position, while those associated or accused of association with America were removed from the political picture.

In America, gifts were showered upon the hostages upon their return, including lifetime passes to any Minor or Major League baseball game. [4]

In 2000, the hostages and their families tried to sue Iran, unsuccessfully, under the Antiterrorism Act. They originally won the case when Iran failed to provide defense, but the U.S. State Department tried to put an end to the suit, fearing that it would make international relations difficult. As a result, a federal judge ruled that nothing could be done to repay the damages the hostages faced because of the agreement the U.S. made when the hostages were freed^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] October surprise conspiracy theory

Further information: October surprise conspiracy

Various allegations have been made over the years concerning a deal between the Reagan Kitchen Cabinet and Iran that delayed the release of the hostages until after the 1980 U.S. election. Although U.S. Senate and House of Representatives investigations in the 1990s declared the allegations to be unfounded, the conspiracy's existence or lack thereof remains a subject of debate. The exact nature of the allegations lies in a potential violation of the International Commerce Acts of 1798, which prohibit any private citizen or party from negotiating with a foreign power in matters of national policy or military action. It is alleged by political opponents that the Reagan campaign, or one of Reagan's election campaign staffers, communicated with the Iranian government and asked them to extend the hostage crisis long enough to ensure that he won the 1980 elections. The main cause for inquiry was the seeming coincidence of his inauguration and the hostages' release on the same day, January 20, 1981^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Hostages

November 4, 1979 - January 20, 1981 - 66 Original Captives - 63 from and held at Embassy, three from and held at Foreign Ministry Office.

At least three of the hostages were CIA operatives ^[27] at a time when the CIA was working with SAVAK ^[28].

Thirteen hostages were released from November 19-20, 1979 and one was released on July 11, 1980. Fifty-two remaining hostages endured 444 days of captivity until their release on Ronald Reagan's Inauguration Day, January 20, 1981.

[edit] Six diplomats who evaded capture

• Robert Anders, 34 - Consular Officer
• Mark J. Lijek, 29 - Consular Officer
• Cora A. Lijek, 25 - Consular Assistant
• Henry L. Schatz, 31 - Agriculture Attaché
• Joseph D. Stafford, 29 - Consular Officer
• Kathleen F. Stafford, 28 - Consular Assistant

[edit] 13 hostages released

From November 19-20, 1979, thirteen women and African-American personnel that had been captured and held hostage were released:

• Kathy Gross, 22 - Secretary
• Sgt. James Hughes, 30 - USAF Administrative Manager
• Lillian Johnson, 32 - Secretary
• Sgt. Ladell Maples, 23 - USMC Embassy Guard
• Elizabeth Montagne, 42 - Secretary
• Sgt. William Quarles, 23 - USMC Embassy Guard
• Lloyd Rollins, 40 - Administrative Officer
• Capt. Neal (Terry) Robinson, 30 - Administrative Officer
• Terri Tedford, 24 - Secretary
• Sgt. Joseph Vincent, 42 - USAF Administrative Manager
• Sgt. David Walker, 25 - USMC Embassy guard
• Joan Walsh, 33 - Secretary
• Cpl. Wesley Williams, 24 - USMC Embassy Guard

[edit] Richard I. Queen released

On July 11, 1980, 28-year old Vice Consul Richard I. Queen, who had been captured and held hostage, was released because of a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. (Died 8/14/2002)

[edit] 52 remaining hostages released

The following fifty-two remaining hostages were held captive until January 20, 1981.

[edit] Civilian hostages

A little-noted sidebar to the crisis was a small number of hostages who were not connected to the diplomatic staff. All had been released by late 1981.

• Mohi Sobhani, an Iranian-American engineer of the Baha'i faith. Released 2/4/1981. (Died 7/12/2005)
• Zia Nassery/Nassri, an Afghan-American Released 2/4/1981.
• Cynthia Dwyer, an American reporter, was eventually charged with espionage and expelled 2/10/1981.
• Four British missionaries

[edit] See also

• United States-Iran relations
• 2006 US raid on Iranian diplomats
• 2007 Iranian seizure of Royal Navy personnel
• US attack on Iranian consular office in Arbil
• Canadian caper
• List of hostage crises
• Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam (2006)
• Iranian diplomats kidnapping (1982)
• International crisis
• Controversies surrounding Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
• October surprise conspiracy
• Iran-Contra affair
• Hussein Sheikholeslam
• Death to America Day

[edit] Further reading

• Ebtekar,Masoumeh and Fred Reed (January 20, 2001). Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture (Paperback), Publisher: alonbooks; ISBN 0-88922-443-9
• Bowden, Mark (2006). Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 0-87113-925-1
• Engelmayer, Sheldon D. (1981). Hostage: a Chronicle of the 444 Days in Iran. New York: Caroline House Publishing. ISBN: 0898030846. 

[edit] External links

• The Memory Hole hosts a gallery of photographs taken from inside the U.S. Embassy during the crisis.
• List of Hostages and Casualties
• Remembering the Iran hostage crisis, BBC's interview with Ebrahim Asgeh, a hostage-taker, and Bruce Laingen, a captive
• hostage list source
• "Learning to Keep a Secret"
• Documents Seized From the US Embassy in Tehran

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Iran-U.S. Hostage Crisis(1979-1981)
2. ^ Reagan's Lucky Day: Iranian Hostage Crisis Helped The Great Communicator To Victory, CBS News, January 21, 2001
3. ^ Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions, (1982), p.164
4. ^ Iran's century of upheaval. BBC. Retrieved on 2007-01-05.
5. ^ 1979: Shah of Iran flees into exile. BBC. Retrieved on 2007-01-05.
6. ^ January 16 Almanac. CNN. Retrieved on 2007-01-05.
7. ^ Moin Khomeini, (2000), p.220
8. ^ Among the Hostage-Takers
9. ^ [1]
10. ^ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,992548,00.html Radicals Reborn Iran's student heroes have had a rough and surprising passage]
11. ^ The ABC late-night program America Held Hostage, anchored by Ted Koppel, would later become a stalwart news magazine Nightline.
12. ^ Moin Khomeini (2000), p.221
13. ^ Moin Khoemini (2000), p.221; 'AMERICA CAN'T DO A THING' by Amir Taheri New York Post, November 2, 2004
14. ^ Moin Khomeini (2000), p.221
15. ^ "Doing Satan's Work in Iran", New York Times, November 6, 1979
16. ^ [2]
17. ^ Moin, Khomeini, (2000), p.228
18. ^ Abrahamian, Ervand (1989), The Iranian Mojahedin (1989), p.196
19. ^ Moin, Khomeini (2000), p.227
20. ^ Moin, Khomeini (2000), p.229, 231; Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, (1984), p.115-6
21. ^ Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, (1984), p.115
22. ^ The Canadian Caper. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved on 2006-04-25.
23. ^ Mackey, Iranians, (2000), p.298
24. ^ Modern Iran : Roots and Results of Revolution Keddie, Nikki, Yale University Press, 2003, p.252
25. ^ Bakhash, Reign of the Ayatollahs, (1984), p.236
26. ^ Brumberg, Daniel Reinventing Khomeini, university of Chicago Press, (2001), p.118
27. ^ Journal of Homeland Security review of Mark Bowden's “Guests of the Ayatollah”. Retrieved on 2007-02-25. “routine, prudent espionage”
28. ^ Torture’s Teachers. Retrieved on 2007-02-25. “the C.I.A. sent an operative to teach interrogation methods to SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police”
29. ^ US HOSTAGES' CRIMES COVERED UP BY MEDIA. Retrieved on 2007-02-25. “use of a false passport nullifies diplomatic immunity”

[edit] Bibliography

• Bakhash, Shaul, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution, Basic Books, 1984
• Moin, Baqer, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah, Thomas Dunne Books, c2000
• Ebtekar,Masoumeh and Fred Reed (January 20, 2001). Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture (Paperback), Publisher: alonbooks; ISBN 0-88922-443-9
• Bowden, Mark (2006). Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. ISBN 0-87113-925-1