Captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 he wouldnt let them determine what was happening domestically, only focused on the soviet union. So, the cia was hobbled in its ability to inform the white house and the president what was actually happening. Its totally fanciful that the cia was using u. S. Government money to pay off the opposition. You mentioned jimmy carter in essence being held hostage because of the crisis. In december of 79, he was on the mall, he did not like the National Christmas tree as a symbol of those held hostage. Did that become another metaphor how this became allconsuming of him leading up to the election in 1980 . It was. And i talked in the book, a number of your colleagues, woodruff, peter glass, people who were reporters at the time. They all said that carter called and hes admitted to me in interview for the book, that he gave too much attention to it. He could have said, weve made an offer to the iranians about negotiating this. They are res
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, i
The Public Policy program here at the center. Thank you for joining us today for this Panel Discussion on the 40th anniversary of the iran hostage crisis. On november 4th, 1979, 52 american diplomats and citizens were taken hostage by a crowd of ukrainian studeniranian studentd the u. S. Embassy in the wake of the iranian revolution in february of 1979. Even though the crisis ended with the release of the hostages on january 20th, 1981, after an incredible ordeal that lasted some 440, some 444 days, it has had a lasting influence on the relationship between the two countries. Images of students shoutinging antiamerican slogans and tauntingly burning the American Flag traumatized a nation and presidency. They live on in popular consciousness here with such movies as the 2012 movie, argo and they continue to weigh on the public discourse. So here, today, we want to explore this Lasting Impact on the hostage crisis a bit further and we have convened a panel of distinguished experts which
Attack began. They were over the walls and soon the chain on the main gate was cut. This was filmed by a student. Here showing the area being overrun. The motor pool was behind the main gate to the embassy compound. To their right was the chancellory. The operational hub of the embassy that housed the Sensitive Communications systems. The heavy front doors of the chancellory had been bolted shut. Inside were 45 americans and plus iranian staff and some visitors. The marine guards inside fired tear gas to buy time. When it was realized help wasnt coming, one of the chancellory Security Officers went outside to try to persuade the students to leave. He was immediately captured. The besieged staff retreated floor by floor. One american, john limbert, who spoke farsi went out to try to save the life. He was immediately blindfolded and threatened with death. The americans surrendered. Just a portion of a canadian documentary which will be seen on cspan3s American History tv later on today.
Insurgentsy within iran, the soviet union was trying to foster a communist insurgents in iran. We thought about that and sided with the shah of iran in part because he crushed that communist dissent in iran. I dont think most person political elites thought too much about the islamic disdents in that state. It was just kind of off the radar. Part of the reason i wrote the book i did was i was really trying to get across how reasonably so but nair rowly americans looked at 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 developed. We hoped for Democratic Development we didnt see the islamic, the green revolution that was coming. The United States and iran have had a complicated fraught relationship a long time. Really since the 1950s. Up until the 1950ss iran was a client state of great britain. But when wourmd ended and britain moved back to the colonial periphery. United states stepped