Skip to content
It has been a year of milestone anniversaries both personal, national and universal. While reflecting on some of them this morning I vividly recalled what happened forty years ago today on the other side of the globe. After years of undemocratic despot governance by the autocratic Shah of Iran, low popularity and critical illness necessitated his departure from that nation earlier in the year. The Shah’s departure left a power vacuum into which stepped a popular Shi`ite Muslim cleric. This spiritual leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, became the symbol of Islamic pushback against Western, especially American, corporate and diplomatic malfeasance in that nation.
A series of events ending with the admission of the deposed Shah to a New York hospital for medical treatment of terminal cancer provided the Iranian unrest critical mass. On November 4th, 1979 a mob of Islamic Revolutionaries, mostly students, began a mass sit-in protest which culminated with the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the taking as hostages all 60+ members of the Embassy staff. All American citizens, especially those serving in the Armed Forces, had this brazen act of unlawful hostility shoved in our collective faces for the following 444 days.
In the era before the Internet and instant access to information, most people depended on network news for up to date happenings. The late-night ABC news show Nightline grew out of a program originally named The Iran Crisis-America Held Hostage hosted by Ted Koppel. As the crisis dragged on, an American public still smarting from what was an ultimate failure in Vietnam not yet half a decade in the past rapidly developed a pervasive sense of impatience and frustration with the lack of immediate results in resolving the crisis. Many, especially those serving on active duty, wondered why the full weight of American military might was not being brought to bear on a rogue regime that had no bones whatsoever with storming a U.S. Embassy and holding its personnel as hostages in blatant disregard of numerous international laws.
Some foreign news agencies, especially those with a vested interest in opposing American interests worldwide, made it clear to their audience and readers that America had been rendered impotent by a group of radicalized Islamic students. The longer it dragged on the louder the Iranian spiritual leadership became in calling the USA “The Great Satan” and asserting that America was a “paper tiger” incapable of supporting its allies. To make its point to the World, all the Iranian signage in English promoted sentiments such as, “America is powerless” and other such phrases to that effect. This became ever so apparent in April the following year when a military rescue attempt ended in disaster in the Iranian desert with a human cost of eight U.S. service personnel.
President Jimmy Carter, who became the face of the Great Satan America that Islamic Iran hated so much, was questioned daily by many as to his competence in dealing with such a situation that was making the nation at the least look bad and at the worst making us a target for every radical chanting “Death to America.”
What more could President Carter have done? I can’t help but wonder looking back what would have happened had he traded arms for hostages? Prior to this event, the U.S. had a very cozy relationship with the Shah and his armed forces. The Shah, as a critical ally in the region, had purchased most of his nation’s military hardware from the U.S. There were also agreements with the U.S. Military to train Iranian soldiers, sailors and airmen. Indeed, during my time in Navy Recruit Training in San Diego in early 1978 there was a company of Iranian Navy recruits undergoing much of the same training me and my fellow U.S. Navy recruits were at the time. After this takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, this relationship with what passed for the government of the nation of Iran was promptly terminated and President Carter expelled all Iranian military personnel from the USA. There was a nasty backlash against all things Iranian as is usual in such situations.
The seeming ineptitude of President Carter was a political card played early and often in the 1980 Presidential campaign by his General Election opponent, the eventually victorious President Ronald Reagan. Right or wrong, this entire crisis is the one thing the 39th President is remembered for the most. For all who were so impatient awaiting for a favorable resolution, in the end all 52 remaining hostages were on their way home, ALIVE, shortly after President Reagan was inaugurated on January 20th, 1981. It may have taken 444 days but in the end there were no fatalities among Embassy staff held hostage for the entirety of the crisis. This is one factual result for which President Carter never got full credit.
As it turned out, the hostages returned home about the same time Yours Truly returned from a WESTPAC deployment. I vividly recall attending the big homecoming celebration held in San Diego’s Balboa Park that last Saturday of January 1981. The Embassy’s consul general, Richard Morefield, was from the San Diego community of Santee. His in-person presence was tangible proof for all in attendance that negotiated resolutions are in fact possible.
Moving forward from this ordeal with a new administration in power, there was a new sense of no-nonsense U.S. foreign policy beginning with a huge refurbishing and build-up of the nation’s military. Whereas it did not make the World any less dangerous, the stated goal of a 600-ship Navy and the mere talk of a Star Wars missile defense system ultimately forced our Cold War adversary into financial, political and moral bankruptcy by the end of the decade. Sometimes it is hard to believe all this happened before the advent of cyber warfare as it is currently waged. Let it never be said we who remember every one of those 444 days as they happened have not lived in interesting times.
