Guests Of The Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis (27 page)

“What could they be afraid of?”

“They are afraid of this,” said Daugherty, lifting his bound hands.

He told them they could learn more about the CIA by reading the various books that had been published about it than by interrogating him.

But Sheikh-ol-eslam seemed to have even more information about Daugherty. In the fifth interrogation they asked him about specific nights in the previous months. Where had he been on this night? With whom had he spoken? What Iranians did he know? This was homing in on one of the few areas of local information that Daugherty felt most obliged to conceal.

So far he had been a bust as a spymaster. He had been given two Iranian agents to contact when he arrived, and one, a woman who worked in the foreign affairs ministry, did not even regard herself as a spy and didn’t appear to have access to any interesting information. The other was a military officer with access to Khomeini’s inner circle and potentially a valuable source. The agency was depositing money in a Swiss bank account for this contact, a lieutenant colonel or colonel. Daugherty wasn’t even sure of the man’s rank. The military had not yet been completely purged, and there were still some very-high-ranking officers who were pro-American. Daugherty had arranged several message drops for him, parking his car in a business district in northern Tehran and leaving the window slightly open. When he returned there would be a letter on the seat, which, when opened, looked like a simple missive, a letter written to a sister or daughter. But written in invisible ink on the same sheet was a message to the embassy. He had met with the man twice at night. They had driven around Tehran talking, occasionally parking in isolated areas so he could take notes. Daugherty had never been able to arrange a real sit-down, where he could sit and interview him and takes notes at length, develop the kind of information he could use to really steer the spy, and though he had hopes for this contact so far he had learned little of consequence from the letters or meetings.

Other than those two, Daugherty had been expected to cultivate sources on his own, through people he met in his “official” job as a political officer, the same job held by Limbert and Metrinko. He had attended high-level meetings at the Ministry of Defense and the Foreign Ministry, looking for people with whom he could develop a rapport, maybe invite to play tennis or for a meal. The idea was to nurture a personal relationship, one that might evolve into a more serious professional one. He had reached out to one Iranian official who had met in the past with one of his predecessors. When he finally got the man on the phone, the man swore at him in Farsi and hung up. At this point most people in Tehran assumed their phones were tapped, and any connection with Americans was considered dangerous—thousands had been executed by the revolutionary regime. Taking a call from the U.S. embassy could mean serious trouble. Another potential contact, an army colonel, agreed to meet Daugherty for dinner after he learned they had mutual friends. At the restaurant the colonel was arrogant and condescending. He had apparently expected someone a lot older, somebody more befitting his own rank, and he made it pretty clear to Daugherty that he didn’t want him wasting any more of his time.

His one other attempt to recruit a spy had not so much fallen flat as left him feeling confused. He had invited to dinner a man who was working in Prime Minister Bazargan’s office. The man seemed well disposed toward the United States, and after that first meal he invited Daugherty to dinner at his house.

This source seemed so promising, and Daugherty was so eager, that he had actually made a pitch for the man to work for him. He explained that it was very important for the American government to know what the Iranian government was doing in order to improve relations. So such information would benefit both countries. His effort to spin the job as a patriotic act was unnecessary.

“The Soviets made me the same offer last week,” the man said.

Daugherty didn’t know what to say. No one had ever mentioned this scenario in training. They had told him how to deal with a “yes,” a “no,” and even a “maybe.” They had talked about the possibility of the offer being met with a hug and a “What took you so long to ask me?” or even by a punch in the nose. But no one had coached him on what to do with a potential source trying to start a bidding war for his services.

“You didn’t take them up on it, did you?” was the best he could think of to say.

He laughed and they dropped the matter. They had agreed to meet for dinner again. That had been ten days before the embassy was taken.

Of all these contacts, the one Sheikh-ol-eslam seemed to have the most information about was the woman at the Foreign Ministry. Her name was Victoria Bassiri, and she had a job overseeing the progress of Iranian students who were receiving government money to study overseas. It was not an especially sensitive position, but there was a chance she would eventually be promoted and the agency was desperate, so she had been considered a source worth cultivating. Bassiri had recently returned to Iran from India, where she had been recruited by another CIA officer, the idea being that she might be able to provide useful information once she returned to her job in Tehran. Daugherty had followed up on the contact and met with Bassiri four times at her home. She was a pleasant, middle-aged married woman with children who, like many middle-and upper-class Iranians, had little affection for the emerging theocracy. He had the impression that she had been marginalized in the Foreign Ministry because of her gender, which had made her angry but which also had removed her from the ministry’s inner circle. Over dinner with Bassiri and her husband, a poet, Daugherty discussed the chaotic circumstances of Tehran and listened to talk about office politics in the ministry. It was clear after their second meeting that she had little information that was useful, but Daugherty offered to pay her $300 a month for her continued assistance. His impression was that she did not see herself as a spy; she preferred to see it as more of a consultancy, a high-level social and diplomatic connection. The money was always presented to her as a gift, not a fee. Inflation was a problem for most Iranians, and every little bit extra helped. Daugherty did not regard her as a committed clandestine asset, and he had the impression that if he ever asked her to do something that was unmistakably spying she would have refused. Still, she would have to have been foolishly naive not to know that she was playing a dangerous game, especially after the embassy was seized. Daugherty assumed she would have been smart enough to flee.

It was clear from the questions that Sheikh-ol-eslam was asking that he knew a lot about Bassiri. He knew the dates the two had met. He showed Daugherty patched-together documents, reports he had written about his meetings with Bassiri, and though she was not named in them, the description of her and her job was specific enough to readily identify her. Concluding that the woman’s cover was already blown, Daugherty decided to admit his relationship with her in hopes of bringing out how insignificant it had been.

“Your story must jibe with hers precisely or she is going to be in real trouble,” Sheikh-ol-eslam said.

“I want to help her because she’s a very nice lady,” Daugherty said. “And, I’ve got to tell you, she didn’t give me any secrets.”

“I don’t care what she told you,” Sheikh-ol-eslam said. “Tell me the nights and times you met.”

Daugherty explained that they had met at her home. The times varied, anywhere from seven to nine in the evenings, mid-week. Sheikh-ol-eslam wanted exact dates and times, and they tried to work that out. The Iranian scribbled notes furiously as Daugherty spoke. This went on for ten minutes, twenty minutes.

“Then, after the second meeting, we skipped a week,” said Daugherty. He stopped. “No, maybe it was after the first meeting that we skipped the week.”

Sheikh-ol-eslam erased and rewrote.

“No, wait a minute. What time did I say we had that second meeting?”

Sheikh-ol-eslam consulted his notes. “Seven-thirty,” he said.

“I think the third meeting was at seven-thirty and the second meeting was at nine.”

More erasing and rewriting.

“No, now you’ve got me confused,” Daugherty said. “The first meeting was at nine and the second meeting was at seven-thirty.”

By now the annoyed Sheikh-ol-eslam realized that Daugherty was playing with him. He balled up his notepaper, threw it across the room, and said, “Get him out of here!”

He was taken to the toilet and then brought back for more tea. When he returned he resumed “sorting out” all the dates and times, confirming some of the information they had pieced together in the shredded files but sowing more confusion in the process. That was his goal. He hoped that Bassiri was long gone, and figured if she wasn’t, then whatever happened to her was her own fault.

His interrogation continued off and on for two more days, but after the session concerning Bassiri it seemed Sheikh-ol-eslam was running out of questions. Daugherty was immensely relieved not to have been asked about his contacts with the military officer, the one serious agent he had. He assumed that his reports of those meetings and letters had been burned in the incinerator. As Sheikh-ol-eslam fished for a new direction, Daugherty seized every opportunity to ask questions, to engage him and the others in political debate, or to provoke them, and they were undisciplined enough to fall for it again and again. He made no headway in these discussions, of course. His younger captors had virtually no knowledge of history or experience in the larger world—Sheikh-ol-eslam was the exception—but they were completely and serenely convinced that they were right about everything. They believed, simply, that the United States government was controlled by a rich Jewish cabal that acted, in Iran, in Vietnam, in the Middle East, strictly out of corrupt self-interest and often for the sheer pleasure of torturing and killing Muslims and other “inferior” races. America was responsible for plagues, famine, war, and even natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes, which were manipulated by its evil scientists. Whatever examples of American contributions to the world—the Salk vaccine, the Peace Corps, billions in disaster assistance, etc.—were dismissed as ploys or sinister plots to further subjugate the planet. America had been Iran’s enemy for four hundred years! one of his captors lectured and then waved a hand dismissively when Daugherty told him that the United States had been founded only two hundred years ago. It was so because Khomeini had said it was so.

Their pomposity encouraged Daugherty’s wit. He especially enjoyed baiting the big Kurd, whose pride was easily wounded. When he mentioned, in passing, that he had once ridden an ass from Qom to Isfahan, Daugherty quipped, “How did people know who was riding and who was being ridden?” The Kurd leapt at him and began swinging, but Sheikh-ol-eslam pulled him off. When Daugherty learned that the younger questioner, a pious Muslim, had spent some time in Pensacola, Florida, an area known for its wide beaches and college spring break, Daugherty teased him about how much he must have enjoyed getting drunk and ogling the coeds in their bikinis.

The young man flew into such a rage that Sheikh-ol-eslam told him to leave the room. At one point his interrogators grew so frustrated that they beat him. His wrists were bound so tightly that the skin of his hands turned white and became extremely sensitive. Sheikh-ol-eslam ordered Daugherty to place them palms up on the desk and produced a length of heavy rubber hose. Demanding an answer once more, and dissatisfied with the response, he had the Kurd rap Daugherty’s tender palms with the hose.

It was the worst pain Daugherty had ever felt, a blinding shot that kept hurting well after the initial blow. He would have told them anything they wanted to know, but he genuinely did not know the answer to the question he was being asked.

“Believe me, if I knew I’d tell you!” he pleaded.

The students realized soon enough, of course, that their prize catch was Tom Ahern, the CIA station chief, who watched from an upstairs room at the ambassador’s residence as one after another of his colleagues was taken away. He assumed that they were being taken off for interrogation, and that they were saving him for last. Given his role in Tehran, he was clearly the person in the most jeopardy, and he knew his wife and daughter at home in Virginia would be terrified for him. The pattern seemed to confirm that they knew who he was. And as the number of colleagues around him dwindled, he grew more resigned. From time to time his guards would bring him graphic photographs of freshly severed human body parts, claiming it had been the handiwork of SAVAK. How could he willingly associate himself with an organization like that? Their tone was one more of reproach than accusation. He denied that he worked for the CIA, and denied that the agency had anything to do with such things. The language barrier constrained any serious dialogue.

When his turn came for interrogation he was walked across the compound to the chancery and taken up to the bubble, where he was placed in a chair before a table. Across from him was an unkempt synod of inquisitors, five students who were apparently the ringleaders of this fiasco. In the relatively soft light inside the bubble they were arrayed like the apostles in Leonardo’s Last Supper, which is the image that popped into Ahern’s head. They began questioning him as though they didn’t know who he was. The lead questioner was Sheikh-ol-eslam, whose thick black beard and missing tooth made him look to Ahern like a mad prophet.

“What was your job?” Sheikh-ol-eslam asked.

Ahern stuck with his cover story. He was the embassy’s antinarcotics officer.

“What have you been doing?”

He went through the meetings he had held with Iranian police and government representatives in his “official” capacity. Ahern had always considered the cover story half-assed, but once he got into it he was moderately impressed at how flexible it could be. Sheikh-ol-eslam and the others asked a lot of questions, which he easily answered, and as he warmed to the exchange he grew more confident. Still, in the back of his mind he remained convinced that they knew perfectly well what his real job was, so the whole exercise had the feel of play-acting. It went on for about an hour.