Taken hostage: The Iran hostage crisis and America's first encounter with radical Islam

Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam

Volumn , Issue , 2009, Pages

  Farber, David ^a  

^a NONE

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References (276)

1. This account is taken from William Daugherty's compelling memoir, In the Shadow of the Ayatollah: A CIA Hostage in Iran (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2001), 103-8.
2. One can hear Walter Cronkite intone those words at the CBS Web site: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/01/19/iran/main265565.shtml
3. Massoumeh Ebtekar, as told to Fred A. Reed, Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2000), 51-52. This memoir by one of the key student militants is written for maximum political utility-all quotes and accounts have to be taken with a mound of salt.
4. For the women's movement in the 1970s, see Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open (New York: Viking, 2000), pts. 3, 4
5. For statistics on African American progress and controversies in the 1970s, see Stephan Thernstrom and Abigal Thernstrom, America in Black and White: One Nation Indivisible (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), especially 288-89.
6. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Packaging the Presidency (New York: Oxford, 1996), 326.
7. I have pulled the facts and statistics from the U.S. Census BureauWeb page, census.gov. The dollar figure is, as reported in Household Income Tables, in constant 2001 dollars.
8. Examples taken from Haynes Johnson, Sleepwalking through History (New York: Anchor Books, 1992), 116-17.
9. For an overview of the nation's economic plight in the 1970s and the regional dislocations produced, see Bruce Schulman, The Seventies (Cambridge: De Capo, 2001), chaps. 4, 5
10. For the poll data, see http://www.gallup.com/poll/state Nation/default.asp?Version=p
11. Judith Jones Putnam and Jane E. Allshouse, "Food Consumption, Prices and Expenditures, 1970-97," April 1999, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/sb965, table 96.
12. The statistics are drawn from Norman Rosenberg and Emily Rosenberg, In Our Time (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995), 206-07
13. John C. Barrow, "The Quest for a National Energy Policy," in The Carter Presidency, ed. Gary Fink and Hugh Davis's Graham (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998, 161.
14. Quoted in David Frum, How We Got Here (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 313.
15. Barrow, "The Quest for a National Energy Policy," 160-67.
16. Nicholas Lemann, "How the Seventies Changed America," in A History of Our Time, ed. William Chafe, Harvard Sitkoff, and Beth Bailey (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 110, and, for an overview of conditions, 109-11.
17. Barrow, "The Quest for a National Energy Policy," 169-71.
18. Quoted in Michael Barone, Our Country (New York: Free Press, 1990), 545.
19. Quoted in William Leuchtenberg, "Jimmy Carter and the Post-New Deal Presidency," in The Carter Presidency, ed. Gary Fink and Hugh Davis Graham (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 11.
20. Chris Matthews, Hardball (New York: Vintage, 1989), 33-34.
21. Sidney M. Milkis, "Remaking Government Institutions in the 1970s: Participatory Democracy and the Triumph of Administrative Politics," in Loss of Confidence: Politics and Policy in the 1970s, ed. David Brian Robinson (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 59. Watergate-era Congresses had passed numerous bills, most importantly the Budget Control Act of 1974, which was aimed at reducing the power of the so-called imperial presidency.
22. James Fallows, "The Passionless Presidency," May 1979, Atlantic Monthly, http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/pres/fallpass.htm. The piece remains the most illuminating sketch of Carter written.
23. All quoted in the useful compendium, Mark Rozell, The Press and the Carter Presidency (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), 125.
24. Quoted in Burton Kaufman, The Presidency of James Earl Carter, Jr. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 137. I rely, in this section, on Kaufman's analysis of the 1979 crisis. In general, I have been guided by Kaufman's compelling Carter biography.
25. Rosalyn Carter, First Lady from Plains (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), 302.
26. The quoted words are Jimmy Carter's paraphrase in his aptly titled memoir, Keeping Faith (New York: Bantam, 1982), 115.
27. Carter, Keeping Faith, 115-20;
28. Kaufman, Presidency of James Earl Carter, 144-45. Clinton is quoted in Leuchtenburg, "Jimmy Carter and the Post-New Deal Presidency," 21.
29. Jimmy Carter, "Energy and National Goals," July 15, 1979, http:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/site/media/play.php?id=135.
30. Hamilton Jordan, "A New Approach and Attitude about Government and Governing," July 16, 1979, box 34, Office of the Chief of Staff Files (hereafter OCS), Jimmy Carter Presidential Library (hereafter JC);
31. Jimmy Carter to Senior Staff, July 24, 1978, box 34, OCS, JC.
32. Fallows, "The Passionless Presidency."
33. Hamilton Jordan to Jimmy Carter, "Change Analysis," July 16, 1979, box 34, OCS, JC.
34. My account closely follows the version narrated in James A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 180-82.
35. This chapter draws on Bill's outstanding analysis. Material on David Rockefeller comes from David Rockefeller, Memoirs (New York: Random House, 2002), 356-58. Rockefeller devotes a chapter to his relations with the Shah but chooses not to mention the Tehran Investment Seminar.
36. Gary Sick, All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounter with Iran (New York: Penguin, 1986), 5. Sick's book is the best of the insider accounts of the Iran hostage crisis; not only did Sick have the advantage of personal experience and contacts, he did a great deal of research.
37. Marvin Zonis, Majestic Failure (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 222. Zonis is referring more generally to Iranians' views of the West, but I think the focus, here, on the United States is accurate for the late 1970s era.
38. Kermit Roosevelt, Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran (New York: McGraw Hill, 1979), 199.
39. The Religious Community of the City of Isfahan to President James Carter, May 16, 1977, file CO-71, Box CO-31, White House Central Files (hereafter WHCF), JC.
40. Department of State memo for Zbigniew Brzezinski, June 23, 1977, file CO- 71, box CO-31, WHCF, JC.
41. Quoted in Peter N. Carroll, It Seemed Like Nothing Happened (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1982), 168-69.
42. All quotes are found in Gaddis Smith, Morality, Reason, and Power (New York: Hill and Wang, 1986), 29-30.
43. The quote and background on the Trilateral Commission come from its Web site: http://www.Trilateral.org;
44. Especially the section titled "FAQ." For Carter's invite to the commission, see Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle (New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1983), 5.
45. Quoted in Hamilton Jordan, Crisis (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1982), 45.
46. Zbigniew Brzezinski, exit interview, JC;
47. Gerry Argyris Andrianopoulos, Kissinger and Brzezinski (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991)
48. Walter Issacson, Kissinger (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992).
49. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 7.
50. Marilyn Berger, "Cyrus Vance, a Confidant of Presidents, Is Dead at 84," January 13, 2002, New York Times, http://www.nyt.com/2002/01/12/obituaries/13.vanc.html
51. Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983),
52. George Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern (New York: Norton, 1982).
53. "Overview of Foreign Policy Issues and Positions," appendix 1, in Vance, Hard Choices, 441.
54. Vance, Hard Choices, 30.
55. Peter Goldman, "Mr. Carter Goes to Washington," Newsweek, December 6, 1976, p. 21.
56. The Shah of Iran (Reza Shah Pahlavi) to President Roosevelt, Tehran [August 25, 1941, 10 p.m.?], translation, in The United States and Iran;
57. A Documentary History (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1980), 77-78.
58. Much of this section is derived from the compelling account offered by Barry Rubin in Paved with Good Intentions: The American Experience in Iran (New York: Penguin, 1981), chap. 1.
59. Both quotes are taken from Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions, 39, 41-42.
60. I rely on the epic history by Daniel Yergin, The Prize (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991), 134-64, 450-53.
61. Again, I am relying on Yergin, The Prize, and should point out that my sentence on the British perspective is similar in nature to a sentence composed by Mr. Yergin
62. It appears on page 433 when he discusses oil companies' perspectives on profit distributions. I've also relied on Bill, The Lion and the Eagle, chap. 2
63. The Fraser quote appears on page 72.
64. For the Mossadegh remark to Harriman, see Bill, The Lion and the Eagle,
65. For the public Mossadegh statement, see Yergin, The Prize, 455. Both books supply the underlying narrative here.
66. Bill, The Lion and the Eagle, 78.
67. For the Harriman remark, see Yergin, The Prize, 462
68. page 463 for the "day of hatred." The Boston Tea Party remarks are from Bill, The Lion and the Eagle, 76.
69. Quoted in Bill, The Lion and the Eagle, 80.
70. Quoted in Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions, 59.
71. Quoted in Chester Pach and Elmo Richardson, The Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 76.
72. Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions, 84
73. my account is primarily based on chapter 3 of Rubin's work
74. For a rich overview of the coup, see Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah's Men (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2003).
75. Zonis, Majestic Failure, 103.
76. Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions, 89.
77. My summary of the coup is based on Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions, chap. 3, and Bill, The Lion and the Eagle, chap. 2.
78. Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions, 87.
79. Bill, The Lion and the Eagle, 98-99.
80. Zonis, Majestic Failure, 107.
81. I am following the argument made by Bill, The Lion and the Eagle, chap. 4.
82. Baqer Moin, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), 88.
83. I am following the analysis of Daniel Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), chaps. 1-3
84. For a more personal account of why Iranians found Khomeini's Islamic message powerful, see Ebtekar, Takeover in Tehran, 42-45.
85. Moin, Khomeini, 60-62.
86. Moin, Khomeini, 122-27. The lengthy speech is quoted at great length.
87. "National Security Council Report on United States Strategy for Iran," undated [circa 1963], in The United States and Iran, 353-61.
88. Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern, 435-36. Barry Rubin states that per capita income in Iran in 1971 was $350. Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions, 133.
89. The party is described by William Shawcross, The Shah's Last Ride (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 38-48, and by Bill, The Lion and the Eagle, 185, which is the source for the Khomeini and the Shah quotes.
90. I am following Rubin's narrative in Paved with Good Intentions, 15.
91. Sick, All Fall Down, 16. I am also relying on Bill, The Eagle and the Lion, 200-214; and Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions, 129-57.
92. Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions, 128-37, and Bill, The Eagle and the Lion, 200-204, 208-209. A little authorial perspective as well; I draw on my 1996 Fulbright experience living in Jakarta.
93. Yergin, The Prize; the quotes appear on pp. 582, 585.
94. Quoted in Yergin, The Prize, 626.
95. Mozaffar Firouz, interview by Habib L. Adjevardi, December 6, 1981, Iranian Oral History Project, Harvard University Center for Middle Eastern Studies, http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~iohp/firouz.html. The quote appears on pp. 12-13 of transcript 2. The Khomeini middleman piece comes from Abol Hassan Bani- Sadr, My Turn to Speak (New York: Brassey's, 1991), 62.
96. Mozaffar Firouz to Jimmy Carter, December 6, 1979, File 60-71, CD-31, WHCF, JC. In this letter he quotes generously from his 1977 letter.
97. The 60 Minutes piece aired March 6, 1977.
98. Carter, Keeping Faith, 65.
99. Frank Moore, Dan Tate, and Bill Cable, Memo for the President, July 27, 1977 (the date is scrawled and might be July 29), box 34, OCS, JC. The administration's congressional problems are ably analyzed, if not solved.
100. Jimmy Carter, inaugural address, January 20, 1977.
101. See the nuanced treatment of Carter's Soviet human rights views in Robert A. Strong,Working in theWorld: Jimmy Carter and theMaking of American Foreign Policy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press), chap. 3. Strong makes a useful case for Carter's reliance on earlier foreign policy initiatives, in general.
102. Strong, Working in the World, chap. 6; the Reagan quote is on page 154. Carter comments on the political price in Keeping Faith, 184.
103. Carter, Keeping Faith, 273.
104. Vance, Hard Choices, 318-19.
105. Jimmy Carter to Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, November 28, 1977
106. Regarding oil prices, Arthur Burns to Jimmy Carter, November 28, 1977
107. For Mondale, Suggested Toast for Vice President and Mrs. Mondale's Luncheon for the Shah and Shahbanou of Iran, November 16, 1977, all located in folder CO- 71, box CO-31, WHCF, JC. The Religious Community of the City of Isfahan to President James Carter, May 16, 1977.
108. R. Carter, First Lady from Plains, 305-6.
109. Quoted in Smith, Morality, Reason and Power, 186. According to Sick, All Fall Down, 405n. 7, the overripe language was the result of a rewrite penned by a Carter speechwriter on Airforce One just before arrival in Tehran.
110. Gary Sick to Zbigniew Brzezinski, November 30, 1977, folder CO-71, box CO-31, WHCF, JC.
111. Sick's concerns had appeared in Carter's briefing book-and Carter read his briefing books; Sick, All Fall Down, 35.
112. The preceding paragraphs draw on Kaufman, Presidency of James Earl Carter, chap. 8.
113. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 354-55
114. For an overview in the archival record, see the fascinating, recently declassified State Department Evening Reports (hereafter SDER) for summer and fall 1978 in box 39, Plains File (hereafter PF), JC.
115. Jordan is quoted in the memo from Frank Moore to President Carter, August 8, 1978, box 99, Staff Offices, Office of Staff Secretary, JC.
116. Cyrus Vance to Jimmy Carter, August 15, 1978, SDER, box 39, PF, JC.
117. Paul Hoffman, "Behind Iranian Riots, a Web of Discontent," New York Times, March 5, 1978, p. 7
118. Nicholas Gage, "Shah of Iran Facing Growing Opposition," New York Times, May 18, 1978, p. 1
119. Nicholas Gage, "Shah of Iran Faces Challenge Headed by Moslem Clergy," New York Times, June 4, 1978, p. 1.
120. Senators in 1977 and 1978 kept pressuring the White House, on behalf of defense contractors in their states, to sell weapons to the Shah; see "Trade" TA- 9, folder TA 3, CO-71, box CO-31, WHCF, JC. File CO-71 also contains letters mixed in from senators on behalf of Iranians living in the United States.
121. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion, 234.
122. Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini, 62-63.
123. I follow Ebtekar's own story as told in her memoir, Takeover in Tehran, 40-45. The Shari'ati material is drawn from Moin, Khomeini, 172-74. Ebtekar does not mention the anticlerical aspects of Shari'ati's teachings, nor his emphasis on democracy. According to Moin, Shari'ati did not urge people to follow the line of Khomeini, as Ebtekar writes, but to pursue instead a radical Islam that did not give clerics overriding authority. Again, Ebtekar's memoir is a politically loaded document.
124. Material is drawn from the SDER written at this time by Warren Christopher to Jimmy Carter, August 7, 1978, September 8, 1978, and September 13, 1978, box 39, PF, JC.
125. Alas, these documents are declassified only through February 1, 1979.
126. Sick, All Fall Down, 44-45.
127. For the Shah's health, see Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Answer to History (New York: Stein and Day, 1980), 19
128. For Vance's view, see Christopher to Carter, September 9, 1978, SDER, JC.
129. Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions, 207.
130. Warren Christopher to Jimmy Carter, October 24, 1978, SDER, JC.
131. This dialogue comes straight from Zonis, Majestic Failure, 90. Zonis had amazing access to key figures in the Shah's regime both during the late 1970s and after, while he was researching his psychobiography. The quoted passage is based on an interview he did in 1982.
132. Carter, Keeping Faith, 438.
133. Ahmad Mohamadi to Walter Mondale, September 12, 1978, and Peter Tarnoff, memo for Christine Dodson, September 30, 1978, file CO-71, box CO- 31, WHCF, JC.
134. Taken from November and December, SDER, JC.
135. The November 6, 1978, edition of the New York Times is loaded with Iranian news. The NSC followed the domestic response to the Iran debacle
136. Gary Sick to Zbigniew Brzezinski, November 11, 1978
137. For the "heartland" quote, see Samuel Hopkins to Zbigniew Brzezinski, December 4, 1978, CO-71, box CO-31, WHCF, JC.
138. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 367-68;
139. Sick, All Fall Down, 80-84.
140. "Shah Addresses Nation," November 6, 1978, Tehran Domestic Service, box 38, Zbigniew Brzezinski (hereafter ZB), JC.
141. Cyrus Vance to Jimmy Carter, December 26, 1978, SDER, JC.
142. On January 11, 1979, the Shah basically conveyed these feelings to General Robert Huyser;
143. Robert E. Huyser, Mission to Tehran (New York: Harper and Row, 1986), 78.
144. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 370-71;
145. Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern, 457-59.
146. Blumenthal's account appears in Shawcross, The Shah's Last Ride, 22. The list of people appears in Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions, 229. The Byrd quote and story come fromWilliam H. Sullivan, Mission to Iran (New York:W.W. Norton, 1981), 196-98.
147. Haig wrote a blistering attack on the Carter policy in the introduction to Huyser's memoir;
148. General Alexander M. Haig, introduction to Mission to Tehran, vii. The more genteel quoted language is from "The Huyser Mission in Iran, January 4 to February 4, 1979," a briefing paper presented at a spring 1980 meeting-no date given-of Vance, Brzezinski, and Brown, file 3/80-9/80, box 34, ZB, JC.
149. Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 32-35.
150. Huyser's information about the military leaders' coup plans was not as timely as the reports the president was receiving through other channels. The president was well aware of coup plans by January 5, before Huyser had even had a chance to meet with the Iranian generals
151. For Carter's awareness, see "(in Guadeloupe, January, 1979)," January 5, 1979, Iran 6/75-12/79, box 23, PF, JC; for Huyser's discoveries, see Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 21-76.
152. Pravda quoted in Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 2
153. For the coup talk, see, for example, the bottom of page 57 and the top of page 66.
154. As late as October 28, 1978, Sullivan had strongly opposed any overture to Khomeini; Carter, Keeping Faith, 439.
155. The last-minute dickering over policy options is smoothly summarized in A. Moens, "President Carter's Advisors and the Fall of the Shah," Political Science Quarterly 106, no. 2 (summer 1991): 211-38. Like much of the academic literature on the Carter administration and the fall of the Shah, Moens blames feuding officials for the policy mess. He singles out Brzezinski for not giving Carter a clearer sense of the policy options available. While I amnot particularly concerned with the presidential policy advice debate, I would argue that Vance could have presented the State Department position more forcefully to the president. Also, Carter was well aware that his administration was divided over policy and it was finally his decision to make. He chose, essentially, to muddle through rather than make a clear and decisive policy choice. In Carter's defense, often enough muddling through works.
156. "(in Guadeloupe, January, 1979)" In the document, Carter used a shorthand symbol for the bracketed word with.
157. Incoming Telegram, Sullivan, William H., to Secretary of State, January 10, 1979, Iran 6/75-12/79, box 23, PF, JC. Sullivan explains his views in Mission to Iran, 221-25.
158. Carter, Keeping Faith, 446.
159. "Khomeini Hopes to Be Iran's 'Guide'," January 10, 1979, 1/79-12/79, box 11, ZB, JC.
160. Background on Robert Ode is supplied in box 11, Robert Ode Collection (hereafter RO), JC.
161. The Jonestown events are summarized on Court TV's excellent Web site, Crimelibrary.com.
162. The Jonestown Memorial Project, http://www.Jones-town.org.
163. Carter received quotes from these editorials while he was in Guadeloupe monitoring the Shah's travails; newspaper editorial summaries, Iran 6/75-12/79, box 23, PF, JC.
164. Moin, Khomeini, 190-91.
165. Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, NSC Weekly Report #87, Weekly Report 12/78-3/79, box 42, ZB, JC.
166. The general American image of Arab terrorism was not invented during the hostage crisis. During the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich, Palestinian guerrillas took a group of Israeli athletes hostage and killed them. But mass media coverage placed that event squarely in the geopolitical realm and did not suggest that Islam was somehow connected to the events. 8. Both of the preceding quotes appear in Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions, 249.
167. Shawcross, The Shah's Last Ride, 106-7.
168. Television news coverage can be followed by searching the Vanderbilt University on-line archive of television:http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu. Word searches provide the exact dates, segment time, and summary of every news story.
169. Besides reading the New York Times, for mass media treatment of Iran and the Iranian revolution I rely on information distilled from Hamid Naficy, "Mediating the Other: American Pop Culture Representation of Postrevolutionary Iran," and David Detmer, "Covering Up Iran: Why Vital Information Is Routinely Excluded from U.S. Mass Media News Accounts," both in the very useful collection, Yahya R. Kamalipour, ed., The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1995).
170. I am also indebted to the farranging analysis provided by Melanie McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945-2000 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
171. I encountered more coverage by the television networks of Iran, beginning in November 1978 right through November 1979, than some scholars' treatments suggest. Stories included U.S. government involvement with the Shah's regime, especially as it related to arms sales and SAVAK.
172. "AM-Iran-Kissinger," Iran Meetings, 11/2/75-1/31/79, box 12, ZB, JC.
173. Carter, Keeping Faith, 202.
174. Tim Wells, 444 Days (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985), 10.
175. Kaufman, Presidency of James Earl Carter, 131. I am drawing, generally, on Kaufman's history of events in 1979.
176. See David Farber, "The Torch Has Fallen," in America in the Seventies, ed. David Farber and Beth Bailey (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004).
177. Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, NSC Weekly Report #109, September 13, 1979, box 42, ZB, JC.
178. I write these sentences in early 2004 while awaiting the unfolding of the Bush administration's Kurd policy.
179. Sick, All Fall Down, 221-22.
180. Rockefeller provides a rich insider account of these events in Rockefeller, Memoirs, chap. 24; the quoted memo appears on p. 368.
181. For McCloy, see Kai Bird, The Chairman (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 646-54.
182. John McCloy to Warren Christopher, April 16, 1979.
183. Warren Christopher to John McCloy, April 18, 1979, CO-31, CO-71, WHCF-Staff Files (hereafter SF), JC. George Will is quoted in Bird, The Chairman, 646. I also rely on Sick, All Fall Down, 207-12.
184. Michael Ledeen and William Lewis, Debacle (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1981), 216-19.
185. The quotes are from Bird, The Chairman, 648-49.
186. Ashraf Pahlevi to President James Carter, March 21,1980, box 20, ZB, JC-the letter summarizes her letter of August 10, 1979. Also see Bird, The Chairman, 651.
187. Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, October 20, 1979, box 23, WHCFSF, JC. Brzezinski recommends letting the Shah in for medical reasons.
188. One of the NSC advisor's aides provides a handwritten outline of events in the margins of the memo. The Vance quote is from Bird, The Chairman, 651.
189. The Jordan quote is from Jordan, Crisis, 31.
190. The Reed quote is from Bird, The Chairman, 652.
191. Wells, 444 Days, 17-18.
192. Ebtekar, Takeover in Tehran, 51. I rely on this problematic memoir to reconstruct the student radicals' thoughts and acts before and during the takeover.
193. Ebtekar, Takeover in Tehran, 58.
194. Wells, 444 Days, 39.
195. Ebtekar, Takeover in Tehran, 67, and for Gallegos, Wells, 444 Days, 61.
196. Harold Saunders, "The Crisis Begins," in Warren Christopher, Harold H. Saunders, Gary Sick, Robert Carswell, Richard J. Davis, John E. Hoffman, Jr., and Robert Owens: The Conduct of a Crisis: American Hostages in Iran (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 35-37.
197. Gary Sick describes this problem in All Fall Down, 223-25.
198. Almost all of this is taken from the priceless oral history compiled byWells, 444 Days, 55-83.
199. Richard Queen, Inside and Out (New York: G. P. Putnam's, 1981), 50-53.
200. Ebtekar, Takeover in Tehran, 69-70.
201. Quoted in Marc Gunther, The House That Roone Built: The Inside Story of ABC News (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1994), 18. Arledge's bio is drawn from Gunther's rich account, 8-30.
202. I continue to rely on Gunther, The House That Roone Built, but am more directly drawing here from Ted Koppel and Kyle Gibson, Nightline (New York: Times Books, 1996), 4-6.
203. Koppel and Gibson, Nightline, 8-9.
204. On March 24, 1980, the show was retitled Nightline-the hostage graphic and numbering of the days of captivity continued.
205. Jordan, Crisis, 19.
206. Ebtekar, Takeover in Tehran, 74.
207. Sick, All Fall Down, 242.
208. All quotes are from the indispensable Rozell, The Press and the Carter Presidency, 143-44.
209. President Jimmy Carter to the Ayatollah Khomeini, November 6, 1979, Alpha Channel (Misc), 1/80-3/80, box 20, ZBc, JC.
210. I am quoting from Sick, All Fall Down, 246.
211. All quotes come from "Foreign Media Reaction," Morning Digest, November 8, 1979, Weekly Reports, 7/79-12/79, box 42, ZB, JC.
212. The broadcast quotations, translated into English, are from [Redacted] to Paul Herze, NVOI Transcripts and Summaries, November 15, 1979, 11/79, box 4, National Security Affairs Staff Material (hereafter NSC), JC.
213. "PBH" to "ZB," November 9, 1979, 11/79, box 4, NSC, JC.
214. Zbigniew Brzezinski to the Vice President, n.d. [circa November 28, 1979], 11/79, box 4 NSC, JC. Other material in this box explores the radio broadcasting issue in detail.
215. Carter, Keeping Faith, 458.
216. Hamilton Jordan to President Carter, November 8, 1979, Iran 11/79, box 34, OCS, JC.
217. For these activities and press coverage, see boxes 61 and 62, Jody Powell (hereafter JP), JC.
218. The press coverage problem is discussed by Harold Saunders, "Diplomacy and Pressure," in American Hostages in Iran, 76-77.
219. ALM Notes for the Files, 11/8/79, Iran 11/79-12/79, box 13, Al McDonald, JC.
220. The Iranian student protester issue is copiously documented in boxes 86 and 87, especially the file titled "Demonstrators 11/79," box 87, Lloyd Cutler Papers (hereafter LC), JC. For the plight of young men who appeared to be Iranian students, I rely on the firsthand account provided to me by Daniel Frank, a Chicago resident in November 1979.
221. Pat Boone to "Dear Family," January 21, 1980, box 13, RO, JC. In the same box is a list of twenty-five recorded songs about the hostages.
222. Quoted in Gerald Parsons, "How the Yellow Ribbon Became a National Folk Symbol," American Folklife Center, http://www.loc.gov/folklife/ribbons/ribbons. html. The article was originally published in Folklife Center News 12, no. 3 (1990); 9-11.
223. Barbara and Barry Rosen, with George Feifer, The Destined Hour, (New York: Doubleday, 1982), 161.
224. The Newsweek story was in the December 17, 1979, issue, and the New York Daily News article appeared on December 12, 1979. The New York Times article ran on December 13, 1979.
225. McAlister, Epic Encounters, 208, and the second set of quotes appears on p. 201.
226. Gunther, The House That Roone Built, 99.
227. Ebtekar, Takeover in Tehran, 86.
228. The letter is quoted in the New York Times, November 11, 1979; the story is included in the Cravath, Swaine, and Moore Chronology (hereafter CSM), 3/ 3, box 86, LC, JC.
229. Both hostages statements and the general scene are covered in Tehran Domestic Service, November 18, 1979 and November 19, 1979; the Quarles quotes are from the New York Times, November 19, 1979; all are included in CSM, box 85, LC, JC. The entire "Vernon Jordan statement," November 19, 1979, is in box 62, JP, JC.
230. Moin, Khomeini, 227.
231. Khomeini interview text, November 18, 1979, CSM, box 85, LC, JC.
232. "Excerpt from Statement No. 45 of the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Policy," November 21, 1979, CSM, box 85, LC, JC.
233. "Excerpts from Khomeini speech," November 20, 1979, CSM, box 85, LC, JC.
234. "On the Rights of American Hostages in Iran," December 16, 1979, CSM, box 85, LC, JC.
235. "Today Program," November 29, 1979, transcript, box 61, JP, JC.
236. Financial Times, December 9, 1979, clipping, CSM, box 86, LC, JC.
237. Quoted in Kaufman, Presidency of James Earl Carter, 162.
238. President with Select Members of Congress, December 5, 1979, transcript, pp. 4-5, 10, box 61, JP, JC.
239. ABC News-Harris Survey, January 7, 1980, box 63, JP, JC.
240. Brzezinski quotes himself in Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 427.
241. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 428.
242. President James Earl Carter, "State of the Union," January 23, 1980, http:// jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/speeches/su80jec.phtml.
243. Kaufman, Presidency of James Earl Carter, 165.
244. Harold Saunders, To the Secretary [Cyrus Vance], January 28, 1980, box 34, OCS, JC.
245. A fascinating series of documents declassified and redacted mostly in 1997 provide a detailed narrative of the secret communications between Bani-Sadr and Ghotbzadeh and the various intermediaries and the subsequent discussions within the Carter White House and the State Department. They are located in the folders titled Iran 1/80 and 2/80, box 34, OCS, JC.
246. Brzezinski is quoted in Jordan, Crisis, 122.
247. Hedley Donovan, To Mr. Jordan, February 15, 1980, box 34, OCS, JC.
248. George F. Will, "What Next on the Agenda of Appeasement?" February 21, 1980,Washington Post, andWilliam Safire, "Terrorism Triumphs," February 21, 1980, New York Times.
249. "For persons of the American Persuasion traveling to or in Iran," 11-12/ 79, box 95, LC, JC.
250. "Foreign Policy: Coherence and Sense of Direction," March 25, 1980, SCC 293, box 32, ZB, JC.
251. Quoted in Sick, All Fall Down, 341. I am relying on Sick's account of the final decision-making that led to the rescue operation attempt, on pp. 338-48.
252. Hamilton Jordan to President Carter, n.d. [late November 1979?], box 34, OCS, JC.
253. "Remarks of the President at the Dinner for Radio and Television Correspondents," March 9, 1978, box 63, JP, JC.
254. Colonel Charlie Beckwith and Donald Knox, Delta Force (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983), 128-29.
255. Beckwith and Knox, Delta Force, 226-29.
256. This account of the conversation is provided by Beckwith and Knox, Delta Force, 6.
257. Again, I rely on the version of events provided by Beckwith and Knox, Delta Force, 8-9.
258. Beckwith and Knox, Delta Force, 259.
259. "Rescue Mission Report," Special Operations Review Group, August 1980, box 92, LC, JC; August 24, 1980, box 79, Presidential Diary, JC; Sick, All Fall Down, 338-48.
260. Rozell, The Press and the Carter Presidency, 164-65.
261. Quoted in "Carter Ready to Commit Any Crime for Election," Tehran Times, April 26, 1980, p. 1, box 23, WHCF, JC.
262. Ebtekar, Takeover in Tehran, 210-15.
263. I use the helicopter rift in my essay on political leadership in the 1970s, "The Torch Has Fallen," 9-10.
264. Ronald Reagan, "Acceptance of the Republican Nomination for President," July 17, 1980, Detroit, http://www.tamu.edu/comm/pres/speeches/ rraccept.html.
265. Gary Sick, October Surprise (New York: Random House, 1991).
266. Carter, Keeping Faith, 568.
267. Wells, 444 Days, 431.
268. Christopher, Introduction, to American Hostages in Iran, 9.
269. Ebtekar, Takeover in Tehran, 234.
270. Jordan, Crisis, 415, 416.
271. Robert B. Owen, "Final Negotiations and Release in Tehran," in American Hostages in Iran, 298.
272. Wright, In the Name of God, 108.
273. Barry Rosen, The Destined Hour (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1982), 101-2.
274. Samuel F. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" Foreign Affairs 72, no. 3 (summer 1993): 22-49.
275. Chalmers Johnson, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York: Henry Holt, 2000), 13.
276. Huntington, "The Clash of Civilizations?" 25.