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Juncture point in how the United States as people thought about political islam, the nation of iran, and lets be honest, how they think about us. There were two powerful movements in iran, both of which worried the United States, but one more than the other. There was a communist insurgency in iran. We worried a lot about that. We sided the shah of iran in part because he crushed that communist dissent in iran. I dont think most american political elites thought too much about the islamic dissidents in that state. It was kind of off our radar. Part of the reason i wrote the book i did called taken hostage which i was trying to get across how reasonably so but narrowly slow americans tended to look at our alliances in that part of the world. We didnt think of islam as a political force. We feared communism. We cheered on what we thought as capitalist development. We think didnt see the green revolution that was coming. The United States and iran have had a complicated relationship for a long time. Really since the 1950s. Up until the 1950s, iran was kind of a client state of great britain, but when world war ii ended and britain moved back from its colonial periphery, the United States stepped forward. One of the things we did is we became very involved, the iranians would say too much involved in their affairs. In 1953, the United States, using its brandnew cia helped engineer a coup in iran. After that coup that the United States helped support in iran, the iranian people were of two minds, those that were pro shah. That would be well to do people, they tended to look favorably upon the United States. Fair to say that a fair number of other iranians did not look so favorably on the United States. Really from that coup forward from 1953 until the Islamic Revolution in 1979, there were a lot of people in iran who looked at the United States and i guess the phrase would become the great satan who did not think we had the right to interfere in their internal affairs. Its interesting to think about when the United States realized they didnt have a good handle of what was happening in iran. There were signs of it in the 1960s. We had a great relationship in iran in terms of training their new elite. If you were a bright iranian man or woman, mostly men, you probably came to a u. S. University. This starts in the 1960s. Think about that. Think whats happening in the United States in the 1960s. These young iranians are exposed not just to the wonders of the american university, but to the dissidents of the 1960 student movements. This radicalized some iranians. It made them think about their own voices and set of concerns. This was a complication for americas relationship with iran. The shah of iran did not expect his young people to come home with a political consciousness. He wanted them to come home with a technocratic consciousness. Oil engineers, doctors, not threats to his regime. The iranian revolution, like any revolution is a messy affair. Its not clear to those who are revolting whats going to happen. They dont know the end point. Theyre living through chaos and violence and turmoil and theyre all vying for legitimacy. So the iranian revolution starts to break out at the cusp of 1978, 1979, its not clear who is going to take control. Theres all kinds of factions. Theres a communist faction. Theres a democratic liberal faction. Theres a kind of parliamentary republican faction. Theres an islamist faction. Its not clear who is going to win. Theyre all trying to find tools for legitimacy. When ayatollah comes back from exile, its not clear hes going to become the theocratic leader of his country. There are people who were cheering that on. So by the summer of 1979, his faction, the more islamist faction, the theocratic faction is gaining power and prominence. But young people in particular were trying to figure out what kind of government did thaipey t to liver in. You start to see, unfortunately, i guess from an american perspective, a decision by some young people to unify their country, they hope they dreamed in a way by creating an external enemy. By unifying the iranian people who are factionalized remember, at this time around one big enemy. We in the United States really almost none of us knew about the 1953 coup. We thought of ourselves as a benign, maybe good progressive force for the iranian people. Again, many of them did not see us that way. They had the memory of the coup seared into their minds. This is part of their historical memory. So were a potential enemy. Were the ones who kept the shah in power, were the ones who kept the military in power. We gave the internal force their authority. These students decide, they begin to plan. Lets protest against the u. S. Embassy. It was feared the u. S. Might engineer a coup, a countercoup against the automomy of the people. One group of students in the midst of many protesters students decide that theyre going to make a powerful protest against the u. S. Embassy. And, again, were still even all these decades later not 100 sure what happened or who thought what. Theres a strong argument to be made that a group of these students from tehran, universities in tehran, decide to kind of emulate the africanamerican civil rights struggle. Theyre going to have a sit in at the u. S. Embassy to demonstrate the illegitimacy of the American Governments presence in their country. And kind of a witness against american power. When those iranian students decided to make their protest, to witness against power, to plausibly hold a sit in, i think all along there was some who knew they were going to go further. What happens is really a catastrophic affair from so many angles. There were thousands of people protesting outside the u. S. Embassy. This one group decides, this group of students, to climb the fence to come into the u. S. Embassy. Maybe to hold a sit in, maybe to do more. And for the American Government it wasnt clear what to do even at that moment of crisis. Whats the job of the u. S. Marine core who are supposed to secure the embassy . Its not to face off mobs of people. We know this, you have to count on local governments to protect the International Diplomatic immunity of your embassy personnel. The iranian government didnt do that. And those students who jumped the barricades, climbed into the u. S. Embassy suddenly realized they kind of had Carte Blanche to do what they wanted. Instead of a peaceful sit in, very quickly it devolved into a hostage taking situation. In which the americans did not fight back with weapons. They ceded to this takeover, assuming it would be short lived. It wasnt short lived, was it . It was 444 days of the seizure of the United States embassy. People understood in the embassy that trouble was brewing in iran. There was a revolution going on. There had been attempts to fortify the embassy but you can only do so much. Because there was a sense that there was troubles in iran, the u. S. Embassy, which had been a massive affair with huge numbers of personnel had cut back to only the absolute necessary folks. At the moment of the iranian takeover, there were 66 people still working at the embassy. This is an embassy that could have had hundreds of people in it. So the people who were there knew they were in a risky position, they knew it was a dangerous post. But i dont think any of them expect what was going to happen to them. This is occurring in november 1979, one year before the 1980 president ial election. President carter is in the final year of his presidency. He knew he was going to run for reelection. So this was a difficult, arguably catastrophic event for his president ial administration. I think when it first happened, when he was first alerted he was alerted very quickly to what was going on, he probably saw it as an opportunity. So carter was being criticized from several directions for economic reasons, for political reasons, for cultural reasons, Foreign Policy reasons, as a weak leader. And he knew if he was going to get reelected he was going to have to convince the American People that he was strong, he was capable, and that he could take care of americas business. So i think at the very beginning when this took off, carter saw perhaps a chance to show leadership. He was these thugs trying to take over a u. S. Embassy in the midst of turmoil. Cha carter would negotiate his way out of this, it would be a happy ending. It couldnt have gone worse. Carter did something that in retrospect probably wasnt wise. He took upon himself the leadership for solving this, what he thought was probably a shortterm crisis. And he went out in front, he talked to the American People about it. He certainly struinstructed his staff he wanted to be hands on. He was not a delegator like Ronald Reagan would be. He thought by taking care of this trouble the American People would see him as a strong leader. He basically did everything right. Thats the irony of this situation. He quickly got ahold of the iranians, he talked to people who he thought were responsible figures in the iranian government. Remember, again, the iranian government is not clear who is in charge of what, the ayatollah was seen as a figurehead. Who exactly to talk to was a problem for the American Government. Carter hes that kind of mind. He kind of step by step moved through the process to resolve this issue. What he didnt realize was that there was factions in iran that did not want to resolve this issue. That this crisis was good for the iranian factions wanting to create an islamic state. They wanted to maintain a crisis with the United States. Youve got an American Government trying to resolve an unpleasant diplomatic problem and factions in iran who want to foster and inflame this crisis to gain legitimacy for the islamic faction were trying to really see total control by that time. Two negotiating partners who have very different interests. In terms of the takeover of the u. S. Embassy, religion had always been an factor. There was a strong sense many of those protesting outside the embassy remember, it doesnt happen in one day. It takes place over time. There were strong islamic presence in those protests. Again, big faction of the revolutionary movement are students and islamists of all kinds, older folks as well. So the United States government is conscious of that, but doesnt really see them as a primary threat. Were still thinking soviet union. Were still thinking communisco. Thats the real feel, iran could become a proxy state of the soviet union. The gulf, under the control of the soviet union. We never really take as seriously as we needed to the islamic presence. It was there. It was obvious. Cia knew, National Security council knew. It wasnt foremost in their minds. So what happens when those students come in and despite the fact they claim it was peaceful, a few of them at least had weapons. So something was off from the beginning about their socalled peaceful intent. And they do, though, at first seize the hostages in a sense thinking it might only be a day, two days, a few days. Its not exactly clear whats going to happen. And as time goes on and things dont get resolved, decisions are being made in all parts of the iranian government. One decision thats made is fascinating, is the iranians decide that because theyre good islamic people, its not right to keep women as hostages. This is inappropriate. So they give the women members of the delegation the right to leave. Almost all of them do. There was a couple women left. That was an interesting political decision. Who are their iranian revolutionaries . Were in solidarity with third world people all over the place. All the black members of the delegation, theyre not our enemies. Theyre all free to go. Several of the marine guards were africanamerican. So theyre allowed to leave. Not all take up this allowance. You suddenly go from 66 down to 53 at this point. So theyre playing a political game. This is done in full view of the cameras. Meanwhile, the iranian government is trying to decide what the heck is going on here, is this good, is this bad . Theres factions within the government trying to resolve this. The ayatollahs faction, they see this as useful. These students are ones who say were the students in line with the ayatollah. People are responding positive to this. Not everyone, but a lot of iranians are like were showing those americans what for. Were the ones who are a victim of america, now were in control of america. This gave the ayatollahs faction a lot of credibility. A lot of legitimacy. And so, huh, maybe we shouldnt let them go. So suddenly you get stalemates. Fairly quickly, black americans are given the permission to leave if they chose, women are given the permission to leave if they choose. The others, no. Theres a side story to this, which is at the moment of takeover, a few American Embassy personn personnel escape. Six americans have escaped and run through the streets. Thats a whole other story. Theres hostages escaping, some who were released. But the others are sitting there blindfolded in squalor. At this point, not being tortured or anything like that, but by no means being housed comfortably as the days start to tick onward. So for the American Government, it was a really hard set of decisions as to whats the leverage point, how do you fix this situation . Jimmy carter as i said is a very methodical thinker in a good sense. He s he goes through every plausible situation. Theres economic sanctions placed, those will play a vital role in Donald Trumps considerations many years later. We use the u. N. , we use every possible ally we have. Theyre all on board. The u. N. s on board, our nato allies are on board, our regional allies are on board. None of it works. All along the military has been planning for alternative scenarios. But, gosh, what is it . Five months go on, yeah, five months go on before carter finally says, well, weve now ticked through every possible point of pressure and none of them are working. Gentlemen, is there anything else we can do . And the pentagon steps up and says, yes, sir, weve been practicing, we have a plan. The plan is to take a few helicopters, fly them in, having already placed personnel some of this is still secret. We literally to this day dont know every detail. People have been placed securely near the Embassy Grounds to facilitate the release. But the idea was helicopters would fly in, come onto the Embassy Grounds, at this point theyre called delta force, special operators would come in and free the hostages. The United States military has tremendous capacities. We didnt necessarily have tremendous capacities in 1980 o. This is 1980. To engineer this kind of clandestine special operator israelis had done Something Like it in the 1970s. We trained and learned from the israelis, but had never really done anything like this before as a military. It was really hard. Operating desert conditions. Enemies everywhere. No clear support system. There were a lot of reasons this wasnt going to go well. From the iranian perspective, it didnt go well by the will of al harks ah. The helicopters began flying in through tehran. They have fly low to escape supervision and surveillance and just terrible luck. A dust storm. Sand storm blows up. And does a number on the mechanical components of the helicopters and all hell breaks loose. Helicopters are grounded. They crash into each other. The operation doesnt even get to tehran. It just fails. And they die and so the one military operation thats tried is just a disaster and boy, does that hurt jimmy carters chances for reelection. So the iranian hodge hostage crisis never resolves in an exdishs way. It goes on month after month after month so after a year, things are still terrible. But a new attempt had been made to bring in a kind of third party mediator. The algerian government. So the algerian government was not friendly to the United States. A revolutionary government in its own right but Good International players, legitimate International Players say we think we can help in this situation. And theyre right. The iranian look at them as fellow revolutionaries. Its a predominantly islamic country and the algerians kind of go in there like good, like we sometimes think of switzerland. Go in there and do a really good job. Slowly working through the problems, negotiate iing issuesd its the algerians who get a lot of credit for finally resolving this issue. The iranian play one last, hard joke on president carter. Theyre fed up the him. They were furious about the military rescue attempt. They refuse to allow the algerians to resolve the issue and to free the american hostages until l cater is out of office and rag b ben is sworn in so its not until the inauguration of reagan, 444 days after the hostage taken, that finally those americans are let go and can come home. Its 1981 and reagan is the president of the United States. An interesting moment. You might think the Reagan Administration can look toward this new islam presence and growing presence in the region and say weve got a new threat, a new challenge. How are we going to revolve this issue . Thats not where reagans head is at. Hes an old, cold war war r yor. Hes focused on the soviet union. So islamist presence. The challenge it presents is basically put way deep in the background. We have a terrible relationship with iran. We dont resolve it during the Reagan Administration. We dont recognize their government. We keep as donald trump would tell us later, a huge hunk of their money hostage in their banks. We dont give it back to them and we just have a deteriorating back story relationship with iran. And of course the irony is is that the same time reagan sees an opportunity with a different group. A group we call al qaeda in afghanistan. Because hes just a fierce anti communist warrior, he decided to side with the revolutionaries in afghanistan. Provides them weapons, training, money. So rather than say islam presents an interesting challenge, we dont treat it seriously. We embrace it in afghanistan. Because theyre anti soviet. Anticommunist. That didnt turn out so well. I believe there was a change in temperament. We had people who could speak arabic. But still didnt treat it as a central problem. So when 9 11 occurs in 2001, i think overwhelmingly for americans and even government elites, it was a shock. Why has this happened to us . The kind of anger and disrespect that many people in the middle east had for people in the United States was misdirected to us. So while we had increased our capacities, we never took it as seriously as we might have. That growing kris in that part of the rld wo. So even know, 17 years later, ipg were still trying to figure out who our friends and enemies are in the middle east and how do we keep the islamist challenge manabgeable and as recent events have shown, were still struggling to find that answer in the right part of the world. Its the a challenge. Poor carter understood back in 1979. All week, were featuring American History tv programs of o whats b available. Lectures in history. American artiing facts. Real america. The civil war. And special event coverage. American history tv products are now available at the new cspan online store. Go to cspanstore. Org to see whats new for American History tv and check out all of the cspan products. The house will be in order. For 40 years, cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country so you can make up your own mind. Created by cable in 1979. Cspan has brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan. Your unfiltered view of government. Were looking back to 1979 when iranian students seized the u. S. Embassy in tehran and took 66 americans hostage. Next, former u. S. Foreign Service Officer john limber talks about his time as a hostage in iran including a mem b rabble visit from an iranian clergyman. This is from the association for diplomatic studies and training oral history collection

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