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The ordeal reached its climax when the United States military attempted a rescue operation on , January 21 2001 The crisis ended with the signing of the Algiers Accords in Algeria on January 19 1981 . The hostages were formally released into United States custody the following day. The release took place just minutes after Ronald Reagan was officially sworn in as Carter's successor. BACKGROUND For several decades, the United States had been an Ally And Backer of Iran's Shah , or monarch, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi . During World War II , Allied powers Britain and the Soviet Union occupied Iran to keep it from joining the Axis , and forced the reigning monarch, Reza Shah , to abdicate in favor of his son.Abrahamian, ''Iran Between Two Revolutions'', (1982), p.164 After WWII and during the Cold War , Iran allied itself with the U.S. against the Soviet Union, Iran's neighbor and occasional enemy and occupier. America provided the Shah with military and economic aid, while Iran provided the United States with a Steady Oil Supply and valuable strategic presence in the Middle East , since Iran bordered both the Persian Gulf and the Soviet Union. The Carter administration attempted to mitigate the damage by finding a new relationship with the '' De Facto '' Iranian government and by continuing military cooperation in hopes that the situation would stabilize. On October 22 1979 , however, the U.S. permitted the Shah, who was ill with cancer, to come to the Mayo Clinic for medical treatment. The American embassy in Tehran had vigorously opposed the request, understanding the political delicacy, but after pressure from influential figures including former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Council On Foreign Relations chairman David Rockefeller , the Carter administration decided to grant the Shah's request. {Link without Title} Among the revolutionary factions, this caused anger and rumors of another U.S.-backed coup and re-installation of the Shah. Furious at what he called "evidence of American plotting," revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini heightened rhetoric against the "Great Satan," i.e. the United States.Moin ''Khomeini,'' (2000), p.220 Khomeini had been exiled by the Shah in 1964, living primarily in Iraq during the intervening period. According to conspiracy theorists, connections of Chase Manhattan Bank and its chairman, Rockefeller, to the Shah played a role in the hostage-taking. David Farber detail Planning The seizure of the American embassy was initially planned in September 1979 by budding Iranian politician Ebrahim Asgharzadeh . He consulted with the heads of the Islamic associations of Tehran's main universities, including the University Of Tehran , Sharif University Of Technology , Amirkabir University Of Technology (Polytechnic of Tehran) and Iran University Of Science And Technology . Asgharzadeh later said there were five students at the first meeting, two of whom wanted to target the Soviet embassy because the USSR was "a , spokewoman for the Iranian students during the crisis, said that those who rejected Asgharzadeh's plan did not participate in the subsequent events. The group denied that Khomeini had incited the plan, {Link without Title} but they wanted to inform him through Ayatollah Musavi Khoeyniha . They said they thought he already knew their plan. Khoeyniha, however, was unable to inform Khomeini, who only became aware of the plan after the hostages were taken. Later, Khomeini supported the seizure and called it "the second revolution" and a take-over of the "American spy den in Tehran." Buildup to the takeover: Khomeini's protests One week after the Shah was admitted into the United States, Khomeini urged his supporters to demonstrate against United States and Israeli interests. Khomeini denounced the American government as the "Great Satan" and "Enemy of Islam." On November 3 , Radio Turkey aired an analysis predicting that within weeks CIA agents would conduct another coup, similar to Operation Ajax, to reinstall the Shah. The takeover was aided by revolutionaries who observed the security procedures of the U.S. Marine guards from nearby rooftops overlooking the embassy. They also used experiences from the recent revolution, during which the U.S. embassy grounds were briefly occupied. Notably, protest crowds outside the fence were increasingly common, and Iranian police had become less and less helpful to the embassy staff. The Takeover Around 6:30 a.m. on November 4 , the ringleaders gathered between 300 and 500 selected students, thereafter known as Muslim Student Followers Of The Imam's Line , and briefed them on the battle plan. A female student was given a pair of metal cutters to break the chains locking the embassy's gates, and she hid them beneath her Chador . Radicals Reborn Iran's student heroes have had a rough and surprising passage The crowd overran the soldiers and staff and paraded them blindfolded in front of photographers. Six American diplomats avoided capture when the embassy was seized, and found refuge at the nearby Canadian and Swedish embassies in Tehran for three months. They fled Iran using Canadian passports on January 28 1980 . Jimmy Carter Library 444 days hostage The hostage-takers, declaring their solidarity with other "oppressed minorities" and "the special place of Women In Islam ," released 13 women and African American s in the middle of November 1979. One more hostage, Richard Queen , was released in July 1980 after he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis . The remaining 52 hostages were held captive until January 1981. Although the hostage takers declared that the hostages were actually "guests of the Ayatollah", the "guests'" treatment was not always kind. They were often paraded blindfolded before local crowds and television cameras, "experienced long periods of solitary confinement, and for months were forbidden to speak to one another." review of “Guests of the Ayatollah” By Mark Bowden The initial takeover plan was to hold the embassy for only a few hours, but it soon changed. Khomeini made no comment on the occupation for several days, waiting first to gauge American reaction to the hostage taking, which he feared might be violent.Moin ''Khomeini'' (2000), p.221 It was not. Some attribute the Iranian decision not to release the hostages quickly to the soft line of U.S. President Jimmy Carter ; his immediate response was to appeal for the release of the hostages on humanitarian grounds and to share his hopes of a strategic anti-communist alliance with the Islamic Republic.Moin ''Khoemini'' (2000), p.221; 'AMERICA CAN'T DO A THING' by Amir Taheri ''New York Post,'' November 2, 2004 Iran's moderate prime minister Mehdi Bazargan and his cabinet resigned under pressure just days after the event. In the United States, the crisis led to daily news updates.The ABC late-night program ''America Held Hostage'', anchored by Ted Koppel , later became a stalwart news magazine under the title '' Nightline ''. Public opinion was almost unanimously outraged against the perpetrators' taking hostages. The action was seen "not just as a diplomatic affront," but as a "declaration of war on diplomacy itself.""Doing Satan's Work in Iran", ''The New York Times'', November 6, 1979 Carter applied economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran: oil imports from Iran were ended on November 12 1979 , and through the issuance of Executive Order 12170 , around US$ 8 billion of Iranian assets in the U.S. were frozen by the Office Of Foreign Assets Control on November 14 . A number of Iranians in the U.S. were also expelled. The Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line justified taking the hostages as retaliation for the admission of the Shah into the U.S., and demanded that the Shah be returned to Iran for trial and execution. The U.S. maintained that the Shah, who died less than a year later in July 1980, had come to America only for medical attention. The group's other demands included that the U.S. government apologize for its interference in the internal affairs of Iran and for the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh, and that Iran's frozen assets in the U.S. be released. Revolutionary teams displayed secret documents taken from the embassy, sometimes painstakingly reconstructed after Shredding , {Link without Title} to buttress their claim that "the Great Satan" (the U.S.) was trying to destabilize the new regime, and that Iranian moderates were in league with the U.S. The duration of the hostages' captivity has been blamed on internal Iranian revolutionary politics. As Ayatollah Khomeini told Iran's president: :This action has many benefits. ... This has united our people. Our opponents do not dare act against us. We can put the constitution to the people's vote without difficulty, and carry out presidential and parliamentary elections.Moin, ''Khomeini,'' (2000), p.228 Theocratic Islamists, as well as leftist political groups and figures like radical leftist People's Mujahedin Of Iran ,Abrahamian, Ervand (1989), ''The Iranian Mojahedin'' (1989), p.196 supported the taking of American hostages as an attack on "American imperialism" and its alleged Iranian "tools of the West." By embracing the hostage-taking under the slogan "America can't do a damn thing," Khomeini rallied support and deflected criticism from his controversial Islamic Theocratic Constitution , a referendum vote on which was less than one month away.Moin, ''Khomeini'' (2000), p.227 Following the successful referendum, both radical leftists and theocrats continued to use the issue of alleged pro-Americanism to suppress their opponents, the relatively moderate political forces, which included the Iranian Freedom Movement, National Front, Grand Ayatollah Shari'atmadari,Moin, ''Khomeini'' (2000), p.229, 231; Bakhash, ''Reign of the Ayatollahs'', (1984), p.115-6 and later President Abolhassan Banisadr . In particular, "carefully selected" diplomatic dispatches and reports discovered at the embassy and released by the hostage takers led to the disempowerment and resignations of moderate figuresBakhash, ''Reign of the Ayatollahs'', (1984), p.115 such as Premier Mehdi Bazargan. The political danger in Iran of any move seen as accommodating America, along with the failed rescue attempt, delayed a negotiated release. After the hostages were released, radical leftists and theocrats turned on each other, with the stronger theocratic group decimating the left. in 1979. The sign reads "deport all Iranians" and "get the hell out of my country".]] The Canadian Caper |
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