Guests Of The Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis (78 page)

In a series of simultaneous strikes against Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport and air force facilities in six other cities, Iraq has suddenly escalated what has been for several weeks a low-level border conflict into a full-scale invasion. Saddam Hussein’s purpose appears to be to demonstrate, by a quick and successful military assault, that Iraq is now the dominant military power in the Persian Gulf region—taking advantage of Iran’s weakened military strength and its self-imposed political isolation intentionally to accomplish that purpose.

Laingen went on to describe the 1975 Iran–Iraq border accord, which Saddam Hussein had signed with the shah, and surmised correctly that, with Pahlavi dead and with Iran having cast off its alliance with the United States to pursue its divine destiny, Saddam had seized the moment to grab contested lands along the Shatt al-Arab (the Arab River) and possibly steal some of Iran’s oil-rich territory in Khuzestan. The attacks prompted a surge of patriotism and calls for glorious martyrdom from Khomeini—“Everything we are doing is for Islam. What matter if we die? We shall go to Paradise.” The imprisoned American, even with his professional objectivity, couldn’t help but express a little satisfaction over Iran’s predicament.

Not a few Iranians, we suspect, recall that during the Shah’s period, whatever his faults, such an attack by Iraq would have been out of the question, given the sheer preponderance of Iran’s military power, real or imagined (in any event, untested)…. To what degree did Iran’s international isolation, itself certainly a consequence of the hostage affair together with the other internationally perceived excesses of the Revolution, figure on the timing and degree of the Iraq attack? As a speaker in this week’s Friday prayers in Tehran reportedly said, “Oh, Blind World! There is not a single country which defends us. It is a veritable crime.” Indeed, it is, but self-imposed.

There was evidence that at least some Iranians recognized this. One of the kitchen workers delivering a meal told Tomseth, “All this mess is Khomeini’s fault.”

“Yes, and someday the people will recognize that,” said the American.

“Ha!” scoffed the Iranian. “The people—they are cows!”

What Iran lacked in military force it was making up for with its zeal. One night early in the war, Tomseth translated a plea heard on the radio:

“Heroic people of Tehran, especially those living in the vicinity of Mehrabad Airport. Please allow the aircraft to land. The aircraft is one of ours. Stop shooting at it!”

None of the hostages guessed that this outbreak of war might prolong their captivity. In Komiteh prison, John Limbert knew that Iran’s relations with Iraq had been deteriorating, and that its new isolation made it vulnerable, so he felt a certain satisfaction in knowing that the country had finally paid a price for thumbing its nose at the rest of the world.

When there was an air attack, the guards at the Evin prison would run from room to room shouting, “Turn off your candles!” Bill Belk wondered, How do you turn off a candle?

After the first few days the attacks tapered off, then stopped. Several days and nights had passed with not a sound from the sky when one afternoon a lone jet streaked in low over the city and launched a rocket. It was a daring assault; a single aircraft had penetrated the city’s air defenses by flying close to the ground to deliver a single large weapon, which exploded somewhere near the prison with enough force to shake its walls. From up and down the gray corridor on the hostage wing of Komiteh came sounds of delight. There was clapping, cheering, and shouting.

“Give ’em hell!” said one.

“Buy Iraqi war bonds!”

At the near-empty chancery, Kathryn Koob and Ann Swift were terrified when they heard the eruption of ground fire that accompanied the first raid, thinking that the guards were fighting off angry mobs who were coming after them. They were reassured by one that the shooting was only “practice air raid drills.” The immediate assumption was that they were anticipating an American assault. Koob and Swift had learned months earlier about the failed rescue attempt in a letter that had slipped past the censors from a Vermont schoolgirl, who had written, “Dear Kathryn, How are you? My name is Jennifer Wilcox. I am ten and in the fourth grade and I’m writing this letter to cheer you up. I’m sorry that the rescue attempt didn’t succeed. I hope they try again. I have no pets…”

During the night they could see shell bursts in the air and hear bombs dropping. There was a rhythm to it. The sounds of jets, antiaircraft fire, and then the guards unloading their weapons into the air for long stretches.

“You have to understand,” one of the older guards explained. “These kids have been carrying guns for a long time with no excuse to use them.”

During the day their windows were now draped with black plastic, which blocked the view of the snowcapped northern mountains. Outside there were air-raid sirens and the broadcast of martial music. Koob and Swift were delighted one day when a rousing rendition of John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” blasted out over Tehran.

They didn’t learn what was going on until the chief hostage spokesman Nilufar Ebtekar inadvertently informed them. She stopped by to chat in her flawless English and complained that the “Iraqis” had stooped to an all-time low. They were dropping fancy table napkins over the city contaminated with a virus that would cause cancer. Swift and Koob were shocked that she would believe such a thing, which was both wildly impractical and technically impossible, but delighted with the information. So Iran was at war with Iraq.

The window to the cell at Evin shared by Al Golacinski and Dick Morefield was painted black, but whoever had done the job had applied the paint on the inside, so Golacinski could scrape a little from one corner to peek out. Morefield wasn’t that interested in looking out, but Golacinski spent hours with his eye pressed to that tiny portal, peering out over a gray stone courtyard and at the sky. At night he saw antiaircraft fire.

One morning there was a commotion below. A group of armed guards assembled and formed themselves into a line, and a bedraggled, bearded prisoner was dragged out and left standing alone against a wall before them. He was a young man, very thin, wearing what looked like rags. He was blindfolded and his hands were tied behind his back. He was violently shaking.

Then he was shot. It happened just like that, no final words, no ceremony, no swell of music like in the movies. The weapons cracked sharply and their echo bounced around the enclosure for a few moments. The victim slumped lifelessly to the ground and the firing squad walked off. Blood pooled on the pavement beneath the lifeless form. Golacinski watched dumb-struck. It had happened in less than a minute, a loud crack and a life abruptly ended. He could see it happening to him, just like that.

A few hours later two men in gray clothes came into the courtyard, one of them pushing a cart. They lifted the body and tossed it on the cart and rolled it out. The blood on the pavement dried black.

Tom Ahern was being kept in an administrative building of some kind on the outskirts of the Komiteh prison. In the next room were Don Sharer and Chuck Scott, who tried to communicate with him using a tap code. Ahern didn’t know the code.

One day, to the CIA station chief ’s amazement, his guard began allowing him to visit with his military colleagues. He spent the week playing cribbage with Sharer, whom he especially liked. His relationship with Scott was testier. Scott was surprised when Ahern told him about the information he had given up in interrogation. The ramrod army colonel had endured what he considered great hardships trying to protect Ahern, Daugherty, Kalp, and whatever he knew about their efforts. That Ahern himself had, as he saw it, “rolled over” came as a shock.

Ahern felt very conflicted about how he had handled himself, but he did believe he had done the best he could, and he felt sure he had held out long enough to allow his Iranian agents to flee. The old name-rank-serial-number approach to interrogation was unrealistic, he felt, and he was gratified when both Sharer and Scott reassured him that he had done fine—Scott kept his reservations to himself. They agreed that his interrogation had been the worst, and Ahern took comfort in it.

The hiatus ended abruptly about a week after it had started. An older Iranian guard appeared one day in the open doorway staring at the three of them. He turned without saying a word and walked away. After he left a guard came and removed Ahern from the room and placed him back in solitary.

One sweltering night in late September, Bill Keough banged on his cell door in Komiteh because he had to use the toilet, or what the hostages called the “Khomeini Hole.” No one answered. He banged again more loudly. Nothing.

“Esspeak more esslowly,” one of the marines called out, imitating the guards who would say “slowly” when they meant “softly” and would not accept correction from American devils.

“Who’s that?” Keough asked.

“Where in the hell is the guard?” called out the marine.

“He’s right outside the door,” Keough answered, apparently having pulled his tall frame high enough to look down into the hall, “but he’s dead.”

Everyone laughed. This got everyone’s attention, and prisoners began pulling themselves up to the transom to see into the hall.

“Christ, he’s fallen asleep out there!” someone else said.

The guard, one of the youngest and smallest, was sprawled with his head down on a table in front of his chair. Suddenly the hallway was alive with conversation. Each of the prisoners knew only who was locked up with them in their own rooms. Some had heard no news of their friends and coworkers since the day of the takeover. Questions and information started flying back and forth.

“Hey, what do you know?”

“Did you hear that the shah died?”

“Did you hear about the rescue attempt?”

CIA officer Bill Daugherty was alone in his cell, standing on a chair and looking out the open vent over the steel door. When he whispered out there was a momentary hush. Everyone was surprised to hear his voice. Some thought he might have been executed.

“How are you, Bill?” several shouted happily.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Keeping myself very busy. The only thing is the food. Is there still something in the world to eat besides bread?”

Barry Rosen heard his old roommate Dave Roeder’s voice and they exchanged greetings.

Information was pooled in those minutes of hurried, hushed conversation. Limbert explained to those who had not figured it out that the jets dropping bombs were Iraqi, and that Iran was now at war with Saddam Hussein. In overlapping whispers hostages compared notes about whom they had seen, what they had heard. Daugherty was delighted to find his friend Colonel Schaefer in the cell directly across from his. Schaefer told Daugherty all about the failed rescue attempt, which explained why they had been so suddenly moved and scattered in April. He told about Richard Queen’s serious illness and his release. Daugherty was enormously pleased to hear that at least one of them had gotten home, and was both stunned and heartened by news of the rescue effort.

One of the men asked, “Hey, did any of you guys see that film of Rupiper, the one that priest did?”

Everyone had. The guards were especially proud of it and showed it repeatedly.

“They must have given him a blow job before he made that film,” the voice said, and everyone collapsed into laughter.

Then the guard woke up.

“No speak!” he shouted, and silence returned. Moments later, Keough started banging on the door. He still had to use the toilet. For some reason everyone up and down the hall started to laugh.

The guard Abbas liked to debate with his captives and instruct them in language borrowed from the common rants about the evil practices of the United States.

Vice consul Donald Cooke looked up once from his book and said, “You know, Abbas, you’re right. Even before I was born my parents decided that what they wanted me to do was to become a ruthless exploiter of the oppressed people of the third world. And from the time I was small I can remember them teaching me how to be a ruthless exploiter of the oppressed people of the third world. And when it came time for me to decide what kind of job I was going to get, I said to myself, I know what I want. I want to become a ruthless exploiter of the oppressed people of the third world. And here I am. I got a job with the United States government as a ruthless exploiter of the oppressed people of the third world and my parents, they’re so proud of me they thank God every day. They get up in the morning and say thank you Lord for making our son a ruthless exploiter of the oppressed people of the third world.”

Even Abbas was laughing by the time he was finished.

“I see we are being facetious today, Mr. Cooke,” he said.

When Abbas lectured about racial, ethnic, and religious oppression in the United States, Cooke went off.

“Abbas, you have got to be kidding me,” he said, and asked the guard, “In your embassy in London, how many Jews do you have serving there? How many Christians? How many Baha’i?” In contrast, Cooke noted the ethnic and racial mix among the embassy employees they had kidnapped. “My embassy looks like my country,” he said. “Do your embassies look like that overseas?”

Abbas had to admit that they didn’t.

Wound up now, Cooke described the fear he had seen in the eyes of visa applicants who had lined up by the thousands before the embassy seizure to apply for visas to escape Iran. “These were people trying to escape,” he said.

“Tell me there’s a long line outside of the Iranian embassy in Washington of blacks and Indians or Hispanics and whatever, seeking to try to escape the United States in order to come to Iran, you know, for their protection. Well, by God, there was a line half a mile long outside of my embassy the day we opened, of people who were just that. Religious and ethnic minorities trying to escape your government. Real oppression. Firing squads, executions.”

As time wore on in the prison, Abbas was among those guards who became openly disgusted with their role in this hostage taking. He admitted that the whole standoff had gotten tiresomely bogged down. He said he and the others who had been involved from the beginning were weary of it and powerless to end it. He complained that the students had lost control of the protest right at the start, and that ever since they had become nothing more than jailers, trapped in a crisis of their own devising.