Okay. Im john limbert. I was in the Foreign Service for 34, 35 years. Ed served in the middle east or islamic africa. During that time, i didnt see what you would call a lot of big successes. There was not a lot of saving the world. Stop iping a coup. Averting a humanitarian disaster, stopping a war, the kind of thing you might seema dam secretary accomplish in her half hour series. I was the opposite. Trouble seemed to follow me where i went. I saw a lot of military mutinies. A lot of coups. I served in iraq. I served in iran. I served in sudan. None of which places were you would call a triumph for american di ploplomacy. But thinking about, think bing about this, i want to tell a story from iran in 1980. I lived in iran as a teacher. As a researcher. My wife was iranian. Is iranian. And so i felt i knew the country fairly well. And i went the there as a diplomat in august of 1979. That was about six months after the fall of the, after the fall of the shah and as some may remember, it was also about two and a half months before president carter decided to admit the deposed shah and two weeks after that, a group of, a group of iranian militants, young people, stormed the, storm ed the embassy. Thats where the story starts. At the time, we all thought this was something vaguely like a student sit in that, that this would last a day. It would last 48 hours. And that the adults in the room would eventually get together and straighten it all out. Well, one day we came two, became a week, became a month. It clearly, that was not going to happen. And i understood it was not going to happen. About a month into these events, month, month and a half, when i received a care package from home, with some clean underwear in it, some clean socks. I got some books. Included were war and peace and middle march. You can see, there was a message there. Average length, b about 1,000 pages. Youre not going anywhere for a while. Youre going to have time to do a lot of reading. As a footnote, war and peace is wonderful, magnificent. Brothers karismazof. Middle march has to be the most boring book written in the english language. I have since realized many people share my view of middle march and even under those circumstances where you think you would be able to read anything, i couldnt read it. I bogged down about 200 pages into it and never got back to it. In any case, forward about four months to april of 2000, sorry, april of 1980. About somewhere around the 12th, 13th, 14th of april. And that morning, we had had a visit from two gentlemen, two swiss gentlemen from representatives from the International Committee of the red cross. Doing what they do. What they do. Which is visiting prisoners. And in the afternoon, without any notice, a, an iranian clergyman came in. A and he was about my age, maybe older. I was 36, 37 at the time. Maybe he was 40 years old and i was told that this man was not an ayatola. He was a lower rank clergyman but he was the friday prayer leader of tehran, which made him a major figure and his name was ali ko mainy. He later went on to be the president of iran and is currently the supreme leader. At that time, he was an influential person but a lower ranking cleric and a young cleric by the standards of the time. So he came into the room where i was. Where i was in solitary confinement. I spent 14 months there. Without thinking about it, he and i entered a kind of interaction, iranian interaction between host and guest. He was a guest in my space. I was the host. Therefore, i have certain obligations as a host and he had certain obligations as a guest and we fell very easily into this pattern of interaction. So i insisted he sit down. I excused the fact i had nothing to off him to eat or drink because every host has to do, has to not do that as a host. Serious shortcoming and we began to talk. And he asked me do you have any problems . Anything that you are missing . I said sir, not really. I really have no complaints except one. He looked at me and said what was that. I said that we are here and that is a problem. And he said, well, if the oppressive rule ers of the worl would wake up and come to an understanding, that problem would be solve d. You know, i agree with you, but i think we have a different understanding of who the oppressive leaders of the world are. Iranian are very hospitable people. A guest comes and they do not want the guest to leave. If a guest wants to leave, the iranian host will say oh, no, its too soon. You must stay longer and they again, this is, these are the ritual things that one says and does. This politeness which the iranian call taruf, no real good translation of it, but this kind of interaction should have limits. It can be overdone. In this case, our hosts here have overdone it. They have kept us beyond what is reasonable and too much hospitality can be annoying. And he immediately knew what i was getting at. He is not a stupid personment because of course what i was getting at was my point was, what you have done, sir, is outrageous. What you have done is shameful. What you have done is disgraceful. And you have violated not only the tenants of international law, of religious law, of custom, but your own culture. Because nothing, what says in your culture that permits you to host, to detain a guest against his will. But i did not rail at him. I did not belittle him. I did not use bad langage with him, as tempting as it was. I simply said it in this way and he understood it immediately. What i discovered later on was that that interview had been filmed by Iranian Television and it was shown on Iranian Television and people later said when i came out in 1981, they said we saw that interview. You really put it to him. They understood immediately what i was getting at. You never broke politeness. You never broke courtesy. You never broke courtesy, but you made your point very clear. That this was outrageous. The Old Washington paper, the evening star, pick ed up the story. They had a good correspondent in tehran and reflected the story. But i never thought much about it until the year 2009. So about 30, almost 1980, almost 30 years later. When the story resurfaced. And with the video. With a videotape now on the internet. Of this interview. On of all places, his weapbsite. And to this day, i, when ever i go into an iranian store here in washington. When ever i meet iranian friends, sometimes ill travel abroad. And there might be some iranian there. This happened i think at took kapi palace in istanbul. People will say, oh, i remember you. Youre the one who met with hom nee and told him x, y and z. This is very much preeappreciaty iranian and instructors many persian tell me they used this interview as a mixture of the use of language and culture to make a very strong point. This was a small triumph. It was not, i did not save the world. I did not solve the hostage crisis. But i think what i was able to do was to uphold the values of her service and profession. Which are that there are certain norms and rules of interaction and to violate those to go against those, violates thousands of years of rules of human interaction. Interaction. So when i think about that story, i still get some satisfaction from it. All week, were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats b available every weekend on cspan 3. Lectures in history. American artifacts. Real america. The civil war. Oralri oralri rr rry histories. The presidency. And special coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan 3. 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. Hi, im adam cook and im 2018 student cam winner and im here to encourage you to wrap up this competition as the deadline is getting close but dont worry. Youll still have time. This is about the time i started filming my documentary the first year i entered. Im in the d. C. Offices right now and im just going to tell you that cspan student cam was an Incredible Opportunity for me to express my thoughts and views about the Political Climate in the current day as well as connect with some local and state leaders in political office. Im extremely excited that youre interested in this and are pursuing this pause its a once in a lifetime opportunity and im so excited that you all are taking it. Theres still time to enter the cspan video cam competition. You have until january 20th to create a five to six minute documentary that explores an issue you want the president ial candidates to address in 2020. Were giving away 100,000 in cash prizes with a grand prize of 5,000. For more information, go to studentcam. Org. From 1979 to 1981, 52 americans were held hostage in the u. S. Em bassy in tehran. Next, the Wilson Center hosts a panel discussing how the iran hostage crisis has impacting u. S. Foreign policy since then. Welcome to the Wilson Center. My name is christian osterman. I have the il