Guests Of The Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis (59 page)

This was language that the students understood.

“We need not say that you are good,” Sheikh-ol-eslam told Rupiper. “God knows that. We have a similar way of opening the Koran and finding God’s will.” Nevertheless, they turned his offer down.

“We see you as a member of the American nation,” one of the other student leaders told him. “But we saw them [the hostages] not as members of the American nation but as individuals who were plotting against us.”

Another explained that substituting the priest for Miele would “confuse the identity of the American embassy as a center of evil activity.”

Despite his concern for Miele, the priest’s good impression of the hostage takers was reinforced during this visit, and he once again brought back a glowing report on their kindness and compassion.

“They [the hostages] have exercise bicycles, Ping-Pong, watch TV, see movies, videocassettes,” he said. “The food is fine. They say that the students are treating them correctly.”

Since they were the last to visit the clergymen, Queen, Hall, Lee, and Englemann were allowed to hoard whatever remained of the candy, cake, and fruit that had been placed out for the occasion. Queen piled a paper plate high and stuffed his shirt and pants pockets with candy. He worried as he was doing it that he might be caught on camera—how would that look, him greedily making off with a mountain of treats? Back in their room, he satisfied his urge to organize things by sorting the candies into Krackle bars, peanut butter cups, and almond bars, and stashed them in a drawer out of sight—otherwise the guards would pick at it. He and Hall ate the cake first and then portioned out the candy over days, debating every evening which kind of treat to have with their tea.

As they sorted through the goodies in their room, Koob and Swift began to second-guess their behavior at the televised session. On reflection, they felt they had behaved like schoolgirls at a sleepover. Swift felt worse about it than Koob, who figured any chance she had to communicate with her family was worth whatever downside, but they both agreed that if fate handed them another turn before the cameras they would try to maintain a more sober demeanor.

In their room, Hermening and Golacinski were congratulating themselves for slipping the note to Rupiper when a guard burst in with the note in his hand. They concluded that instead of taking it home Rupiper had handed it over.

Hermening admitted that he had passed it and braced himself for punishment.

The successful, stealthy incursions into Iran of John Carney and Dick Meadows had a big effect in Washington. Both men returned to brief their superiors on the readiness of the desert landing strip and the various hide sites, trucks, and equipment. It all awaited just outside Tehran. The ease of their success made a rescue mission seem less like wishful thinking and more like a real option. December’s preposterous plan suddenly seemed doable.

President Carter’s crackdown in the first week of April had proved nothing more than his futility. The break in diplomatic ties was dramatic but clearly overdue, and a decision to cancel all entry visas for Iranians was perceived as primarily symbolic, because most such travel had come to a halt anyway. His call for allies to break ties and join in a trade embargo succeeded only in exposing a distressing lack of unanimity: England’s response was lukewarm; Canada promised to consult with other nations first; Japan said it would “carefully study” the idea; West Germany declined outright; Denmark announced it was “hesitant” to break ties; Italy called such punitive steps “a mistake.” All of these nations, of course, publicly deplored the taking of hostages but none decided to join the United States in pressuring Iran for their release.

America’s toothlessness was embarrassing. An article on the front page of the Christian Science Monitor suggested that Carter’s new “tough” tactics “were apparently designed more for public relations than to have any real impact. They are not expected to have any immediate or tangible effect.”

Khomeini scoffed. He publicly welcomed the break in diplomatic ties, suggesting that it was what Iran had had in mind all along.

“It is the one thing in all his life Carter has done in the interests of the oppressed,” the imam said, noting that it marked the end of ties between “a risen country and a world-devouring plunderer. This is the beginning of the dawn of final victory of a nation against the bloodthirsty superpower which was forced to cut relations.”

Ronald Reagan, now the clear Republican front-runner for president, dismissed the president’s actions as “more of the same, and it’s been wrong from the first. There will be no impact on Iran at all.”

Richard Hermening, father of the hostage marine, was publicly underwhelmed. Asked to comment on Carter’s moves, he said, “It’s things he had said he was going to do, but kept backing off.” It still seemed to him that the president “just seems like he says one thing but never follows through on anything he says.”

The pressure to use America’s military strength was becoming inexorable. The country braced for war. Carter told reporters, “We have been trying to avoid [military action] and we are still attempting to avoid that kind of action,” but the “availability of peaceful measures, like the patience of the American people, is running out.” An unnamed government official told the New York Times that it seemed as though the country were marching helplessly, “with the best of intentions,” into a “Greek tragedy.” Demands for action came from both sides of the political aisle. Democratic senator George McGovern, a former bomber pilot in World War II whose opposition to the Vietnam War had defined his presidential candidacy in 1972, joined conservative Republicans in calling for military action. The student hostage takers sensed something was coming. They announced that any military action by the Carter administration, or by Saddam Hussein, whose forces continued to harass Iranian forces along their shared border, would be met by execution of the hostages.

Months of careful calculation had reduced the military options to rescue or a naval blockade. Anything more violent than a blockade would invite retaliation against the hostages, and even a blockade made the prospect of public executions more likely. Rescue was enormously appealing. For the beleaguered White House, the prospect of a precise, relatively bloodless liberation from this dilemma was a joy to contemplate. Success would demonstrate remarkable daring, capability, and resolve and would in one deft stroke deprive Iran of its trump card. It was eminently justifiable in the eyes of the world, because it was a response gauged perfectly to the provocation. Americans would rejoice. Carter’s second term would be virtually assured.

Yet as delightful as success was to contemplate, failure was correspondingly calamitous. The jury-rigged mission plan contrived by the Pentagon’s plotters would be, without a doubt, one of the boldest and most complex military missions in American history. Potential disaster lurked at every step. What if the small armada of planes and helicopters was discovered as it moved into Iran, alerting the country’s air force and armies? What if the force failed to rendezvous and refuel successfully at Desert One, a task that required elaborate choreography in darkness over unfamiliar terrain? What if the force was stumbled upon in its mountain hiding place outside Tehran on the mission’s second day, or stopped and attacked on its way into the city on that night? There was a permanent checkpoint on Damavand Road on the way into the city. If the rescuers were stopped, they would try to talk their way past, but if that didn’t work they planned to just grab the guards and take them along. What alarms would that raise? What other hazards awaited on the drive in? What if the guards at the embassy put up a terrific fight and began slaughtering the hostages once the raid began? What if army and police units near the embassy responded more rapidly than anticipated, or if angry crowds massed at the scene while the rescue operation was under way? What if the occupied soccer stadium was attacked by Iran’s American-trained and -equipped air force or by an Iranian armored unit? What if Beckwith’s men managed to chopper themselves and the freed hostages to the seized Mehrabad Airport only to face a determined Iranian assault there? What if Iranian jets attacked the American planes on their way out of Iran? Any one of these entirely plausible setbacks could mean the deaths of all or many of the hostages, and possibly the loss of the entire American force. Most failure scenarios led to a large military clash between America and Iran, with the incumbent loss of life, no doubt mostly Iranian, and not just dozens or hundreds but potentially thousands. What would happen then? It might well provoke an all-out war. What would the Soviets do? And these were just the bad consequences that could be readily foreseen. Anyone familiar with military missions knew there would be unforeseen ones. There always were.

Nevertheless, both Hamilton Jordan and Defense Secretary Harold Brown, talking on the phone on April 10, agreed that it was the right move.

“Neither the naval blockade nor mining the harbors will bring the hostages home, except in boxes,” said Brown. “And if they begin killing our people, then we’ll have to take punitive measures, and God only knows where that would lead. The rescue mission is the best of a lousy set of options.”

Carter surprised Jordan by talking about blockade instead of rescue at the next morning’s policy breakfast, but it was just because the president was hiding his bombshell. The chief of staff was on his way to the airport later that morning when he was summoned back to the White House for an off-the-books lunchtime meeting with the president, Brown, Vice President Mondale, Brzezinski, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher (Secretary Vance was vacationing), CIA director Stansfield Turner, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Jones, and press secretary Jody Powell, whom Carter had invited to attend only if he felt comfortable keeping an important secret.

Powell had given the matter some thought. He concluded that he was comfortable lying to the press in order to protect a state secret and figured that, if the occasion demanded it, knowing the truth would make him a more effective liar.

“If you lie to the press, I may have to fire you before all this is over, you know,” Carter teased his longtime friend.

“It would be doing me a real favor,” said Powell.

The meeting began with the president announcing, “Gentlemen, I want you to know that I am seriously considering an attempt to rescue the hostages.”

Jordan knew immediately that the president had made up his mind. The rescue option had been regarded as a last resort, a drastic step to be avoided, and all the efforts the White House had made since the embassy takeover were toward that end, but as the president launched into a list of detailed questions about how it was to be done, his aides knew he had mentally crossed into new and dangerous territory. He had met the outrage in Iran with tremendous restraint, equating national interest with the well-being of the remaining fifty-three hostages, and his measured response had elicited a great deal of admiration, both at home and abroad. Carter’s approval ratings had doubled in the first month of the crisis. But as the months wore on, restraint had begun to smell like weakness and indecision. Three times in the past six months carefully negotiated secret settlements had been unilaterally ditched by the inscrutable Iranian mullahs, and each time the administration had been made to look more inept. Carter’s formidable patience was badly strained. He had a long list of questions about the proposed mission, but his mind was set. Jones unrolled a big map and walked the meeting’s members through the raid’s elaborate course, pointing out the location of Desert One and the various hide-site locations, the embassy in central Tehran, the soccer stadium, and the airfield from which everyone would escape. Christopher said he had not discussed the rescue option with Vance, so he couldn’t speak for the secretary, but everyone else in the meeting was in agreement.

“It’s time to bring the hostages home,” Carter said. He deferred making a final decision until he had a chance to talk directly to Vance.

“The president is going to go through with this thing,” Powell told Defense Secretary Brown. “I can sense it. If we can bring our people out of there, it will do more good for this country than anything that has happened in twenty years.”

“Yes,” said Brown, “and if we fail, that will be the end of the Carter presidency.”

“We don’t really have much choice, do we?” said Powell.

In order to maintain appearances, Carter sent Jordan back to Paris for a scheduled second secret meeting with Ghotbzadeh at Hector Villalon’s apartment. The Iranian foreign minister was deflated. He complained that the White House decision to break diplomatic ties had been a tragic mistake; it would drive his country into the arms of the Soviets. Ghotbzadeh confirmed the intractable nature of the impasse, predicting now that it would be many months before the hostages would be released. He was apologetic, but explained that to take a “soft” position on the hostage issue in Iran at that point was tantamount to political, if not actual, suicide.

“I just hope your president doesn’t do anything rash,” he said, “like attack Iran or mine our harbors.”

“Don’t worry,” said Jordan. “He won’t. President Carter is not a militaristic man.”

That conversation itself, however, further hardened the decision to send Delta Force. Ghotbzadeh’s prediction of “many months” confirmed the White House’s grim assessment. At that point, the only things that might have averted the rescue was word that release was imminent.

Vance was alarmed when he learned of Carter’s thinking. The president listened coolly to his secretary of state’s impassioned argument against going, which Vance delivered in person when he returned from vacation. He pointed out that in just about any projected scenario some of the hostages would be hurt or killed and reminded the president of his pledge to the families. There were hundreds of American journalists in Tehran—they had been allowed back in after a brief period of exile. Even if the rescue mission was successful, what was to stop angry Iranians from seizing them? They might end up with more hostages and an even more volatile situation. There was some consideration given to taking a number of Iranians hostage and bringing them back as bargaining chips in the event more Americans were kidnapped in Iran, but this tack led to increasingly un-seemly scenarios. What would the United States do with its captive Iranians if the radical students began defiantly executing American reporters? Brzezinski responded with the kind of joke a man makes to poke fun at himself, exaggerating his own perceived worst tendencies: “They could always just fall out of a helicopter over the Red Sea,” he said.