Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic crisis between Iran and the United States that was triggered by a group of militant university students who took over the U.S. diplomatic mission in Tehran on November 4 1979. The students were supported by Iran's post-revolutionary regime that was in the midst of solidifying power. The students objected to U.S. influence in Iran and its support of the recently fallen Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had been installed by a CIA funded coup in 1953. Pahlavi had replaced the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh, one of the most popular political figures in Iran to this day. They held 63 U.S. diplomats and three other U.S. citizens hostage until January 20 1981. Of those captured, 52 were held hostage until the conclusion of the crisis 444 days later.^[1] These actions are often considered a violation of the long-standing principle of international law that diplomats are immune from arrest.

The ordeal reached its climax when the United States military attempted a rescue operation on April 24 1980. The failure of Operation Eagle Claw resulted in the deaths of five United States Air Force Airmen and three U.S. Marines. Some political analysts believe the crisis was the primary reason for U.S. President Jimmy Carter's defeat in the U.S. presidential election in November 1980.^[2]

The crisis ended with the signing of the Algiers Accords in Algeria on January 19 1981. The hostages were formally released into United States custody the following day. The release took place just minutes after Ronald Reagan was officially sworn in as Carter's successor.

Background

For several decades, the United States had been an ally and backer of Iran's Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. During World War II, Allied powers Britain and the Soviet Union occupied Iran to keep it from joining the Axis Powers, and forced the reigning monarch, Reza Shah, to abdicate in favor of his son.^[3] After WWII and during the Cold War, Iran allied itself with the U.S. against the Soviet Union, Iran's neighbor and occasional enemy and occupier. America provided the Shah with military and economic aid.

In 1953, Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, an Iranian 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 CIA and British intelligence launched Operation Ajax, orchestrating a coup d'état to overthrow the elected prime minister. In subsequent decades, this foreign intervention, along with issues such as unequal development, political repression, corruption, cooperation with Israel, 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]

The Carter administration attempted to mitigate the damage by finding a new relationship with the de facto Iranian government and by continuing military cooperation in hopes that the situation would stabilize. On October 22 1979, however, the U.S. permitted the Shah, who was ill with cancer, to come to the Mayo Clinic for medical treatment.

The American embassy in Tehran had vigorously opposed the request, understanding the political delicacy, but after pressure from influential figures including former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Council on Foreign Relations chairman David Rockefeller, the Carter administration decided to grant the Shah's request.^[7]

Among the revolutionary factions, this caused anger and rumors of another U.S.-backed coup and re-installation of the Shah. Furious at what he called "evidence of American plotting," revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini heightened rhetoric against the "Great Satan," the United States.^[8] Khomeini had been exiled by the Shah in 1964, living primarily in Iraq during the intervening period.

Although the hostage takers were "convinced that the embassy was a center of opposition to the new government," later study found that there been no plots for the overthrow of the revolutionaries by the United States, and that a CIA intelligence gathering mission at the embassy was "notably ineffectual, gathering little information and hampered by the fact that none of the agents spoke the local language, Farsi." Its work was “routine, prudent espionage conducted at diplomatic missions everywhere.”^[9]

According to conspiracy theorists, connections of Chase Manhattan Bank and its chairman, Rockefeller, to the Shah played a role in the hostage-taking.^[10][11]

Planning

The seizure of the American embassy was initially planned in September 1979 by Iranian politician Ebrahim Asgharzadeh. He consulted with the heads of the Islamic associations of Tehran's main universities, including the University of Tehran, Sharif University of Technology, Amirkabir University of Technology (Polytechnic of Tehran) and Iran University of Science and Technology.

Asgharzadeh later said there were five students at the first meeting, two of whom wanted to target the Soviet embassy because the USSR was "a Marxist and anti-God regime." But two others, Mirdamadi and Habibolah Bitaraf, supported Asgharzadeh's chosen target—the United States. "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."^[12] Masoumeh Ebtekar, spokewoman for the Iranian students during the crisis, said that those who rejected Asgharzadeh's plan did not participate in the subsequent events.

The group denied that Khomeini had incited the plan,^[13] but they wanted to inform him through Ayatollah Musavi Khoeyniha. They said they thought he already knew their plan. Khoeyniha, however, was unable to inform Khomeini, who only became aware of the plan after the hostages were taken. Later, Khomeini supported the seizure and called it "the second revolution" and a take-over of the "American spy den in Tehran."

One week after the Shah was admitted into the United States, Khomeini urged his supporters to demonstrate against United States and Israeli interests. Khomeini denounced the American government as the "Great Satan" and "Enemy of Islam."

The takeover was aided by revolutionaries who observed the security procedures of the U.S. Marine guards from nearby rooftops overlooking the embassy. They also used experiences from the recent revolution, during which the U.S. embassy grounds were briefly occupied. Notably, protest crowds outside the fence were increasingly common, and Iranian police had become less and less helpful to the embassy staff.

Takeover

Around 6:30 a.m. on November 4, the ringleaders gathered between 300 and 500 selected students, thereafter known as Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, and briefed them on the battle plan. A female student was given a pair of metal cutters to break the chains locking the embassy's gates, and she hid them beneath her chador.^[14]

The crowd overran the soldiers and staff and paraded them blindfolded in front of photographers. Six American diplomats avoided capture when the embassy was seized and found refuge at the nearby Canadian and Swedish embassies in Tehran for three months. They fled Iran using Canadian passports on January 28 1980.^[15]

444 days hostage

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.

Although the hostage takers declared that the hostages were actually "guests of the Ayatollah", the "guests'" treatment was not always kind. They were often paraded blindfolded before local crowds and television cameras, "experienced long periods of solitary confinement, and for months were forbidden to speak to one another."^[16]

The initial takeover plan was to hold the embassy for only a few hours, but 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.^[17] It was not. Some attribute the Iranian decision not to release the hostages quickly to the soft line of U.S. President Jimmy Carter; his immediate response was to appeal for the release of the hostages on humanitarian grounds and to share his hopes of a strategic anti-communist alliance with the Islamic Republic.^[18] Iran's moderate prime minister Mehdi Bazargan and his cabinet resigned under pressure just days after the event.

In the United States, the crisis led to daily news updates.^[19] Public opinion was almost 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."^[20] 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 US$8 billion of Iranian assets in the U.S. were frozen by the Office of Foreign Assets Control on November 14. Many 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 they demanded that 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 that the U.S. government apologize 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,^[21] 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.^[22]

Theocratic Islamists, as well as leftist political groups and figures like radical leftist People's Mujahedin of Iran,^[23] 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 thing," Khomeini rallied support and deflected criticism from his controversial Islamic theocratic constitution, which was due for a referendum vote in less than one month.^[24] 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, which included the Iranian Freedom Movement, National Front, Grand Ayatollah Shari'atmadari,^[25] and later President Abolhassan Banisadr. In particular, carefully selected diplomatic dispatches and reports discovered at the embassy and released by the hostage takers led to the disempowerment and resignations of moderate figures^[26] such as Premier Mehdi Bazargan. The political danger in Iran of any move seen as accommodating 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.

Canadian Caper

On the day the hostages were seized, six 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.^[27]

Laingen dispatches

During the hostage crisis, several foreign diplomats and ambassadors including Taylor came to visit the American hostages. The diplomats and ambassadors helped the American government stay in contact with the American hostages. Through these meetings with foreign governments, the "Laingen dispatches," made by hostage Bruce Laingen, were conveyed to the American government.

Rescue attempts

Rejecting Iranian demands, Carter approved an ill-fated secret rescue mission, Operation Eagle Claw. On the night of April 24 1980, several 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.^[28]

A second rescue attempt used highly modified YMC-130H Hercules aircraft. Outfitted with rocket thrusters fore and aft to allow an extremely short landing and takeoff in a soccer stadium, three aircraft were modified under a rushed super-secret program known as Operation Credible Sport. One aircraft crashed during a demonstration at Duke Field 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 following the November election led to an abandonment of this project. The two surviving airframes were returned to regular duty with the rocket packages removed. One is on display at the Museum of Aviation located next to Robins Air Force Base in Georgia.

Final months

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, "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 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, New York, 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 heroes' 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.

Aftermath

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 since it did not meet any of Iran's original demands.^[29] But the crisis strengthened Iranian radicals who supported the hostage taking. Anti-Americanism became even more intense, and anti-American rhetoric continued unabated. ^[30] Radicals such as Musavi-Khoeniha and Behzad Nabavi^[31] 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 league or Major League Baseball game.^[32]

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 a 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]}

October surprise conspiracy theory

Various allegations have been made over the years. Some believe Carter prolonged the hostage crisis because it helped him beat Ted Kennedy in the primaries. The crisis made the president seem more presidential.^[33] Another theory concerns a purported deal between high-level Reagan campaign operatives (such as campaign manager and future CIA Director William J. Casey) and representatives of the Iranian government to delay the release of the hostages until after the 1980 U.S. elections. Although United States 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 unsupported conjecture. 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 suspicion was the seeming coincidence of his inauguration and the hostages' release six minutes after Reagan was sworn into office on January 20 1981, as well as the Reagan administration's later decision to provide arms to the anti-U.S. Iranian government, allegedly in return not for freeing the hostages, but for delaying their release.^[34]

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 operatives of the CIA,^[35] which had previously worked with Iran's SAVAK intelligence agency.^[36]

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 (announced across the Capitol grounds twenty minutes after the swearing in of the new President) on Reagan's Inauguration Day, January 20 1981.

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

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

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)

52 remaining hostages released

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

Servicemen awarded

For their service during the hostage crisis, the US military later awarded 20 servicemen the Defense Meritorious Service Medal. The only serviceman not to be issued the medal was Staff Sgt. Joseph Subic, Jr. The reason given was that Subic did not behave under stress the way noncommissioned officers are expected to act, i.e. he cooperated with the hostage takers according to other hostages [4].

Civilian hostages

A little-noted sidebar to the crisis was that a small number of hostages 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.
• Electronic Data Systems employees Paul Chiapparone and Bill Gaylord rescued by Ross Perot-funded operation (see Arthur D. Simons) in 1979.
• Four British missionaries

See also

• 2006 US raid on Iranian diplomats
• 1992 US Kidnapping of Iranian Businessman
• US attack on Iranian consular office in Arbil
• Baghdad kidnapping of Iranian diplomat (February 2007)
• Iranian diplomats kidnapping (1982)
• List of hostage crises
• Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America's War with Militant Islam (2006)
• International crisis
• Controversies surrounding Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
• October surprise conspiracy
• Iran-Contra affair
• Hussein Sheikholeslam
• Student Day in Iran
• Haleh Esfandiari

Notes

References

• 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: Talonbooks; 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
• 444 Days to Freedom: What Really Happened in Iran (1997). DVD UPC 033909253390

Further reading

• Ebtekar,Masoumeh and Fred Reed (January 20, 2001). Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture, 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 0898030846.

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