You Did What__ Mad Plans and Great Historical Disasters - Bill Fawcett [95]
PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER
IRAN, 1979
Robert Greenberger
Jimmy Carter’s first term as president was not going well. He accused the country of suffering a malaise as the economy was just beginning to show signs of life after years of turmoil sparked by oil shortages. In fact, oil was very much on his mind throughout the term, winding down in 1979. Carter’s intense foreign affairs efforts were focused on bringing peace to the Middle East, culminating in the historic 1977 meeting between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat. His diplomacy was widely praised, even though it angered many in the region who harbored deep hatred for the Israelis and their supporters.
In 1979, America was shocked to learn that over sixty hostages were taken when Iranian militants suddenly stormed the embassy in Tehran. Protests against America were nothing new, but the vehemence and frequency of these events had increased under the spiritual leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who earlier in the year had returned to his native land from exile.
His return was made possible by the absence of the shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who began his rule in 1941. Anger toward America started developing in 1953 when the shah sought U.S. support halting the nationalization of Iran’s oil business. In return, America supplied the shah with dollars and military aid, something that lasted from President Eisenhower through Carter.
Secure in his position, a decade later the shah announced social and economic reforms but refused to grant broad political freedom. Nationalists objected to such “Westernizing” of their homeland and riots broke out in 1963. Some of those leaders, including Ayatollah Khomeini, were arrested and deported from their own country.
As the country beefed up its military and continued to do business with the Western powers, the support of the people was eroded. In December 1977, President Carter toasted the shah at a state dinner in Tehran, calling him “an island of stability” in the troubled Middle East. He glossed over the growing number of reports about the people’s frustration with their leader. Finally, the citizenry revolted and on January 16, 1979, the shah fled. America refused him entry, so the shah settled in Egypt. A month later, Khomeini triumphantly returned and the volume of protests against America was raised. He gained further influence by refusing to join the new government being formed, seeming to respond more to the people’s will.
The final straw for many was when the shah, suffering from cancer, came to America on October 22 for treatment. Khomeini used that to whip his people into a frenzy, and the embassy was assaulted just weeks later.
Carter was reluctant to let the shah fly to America for fear of exacerbating a tense situation. “He went around the room, and most of us said, ‘Let him in,’ ” Vice President Walter Mondale said sometime later. “And he said, ‘And if [the Iranians] take our employees in our embassy hostage, then what would be your advice?’ And the room just fell dead. No one had an answer to that. Turns out, we never did.” A short time later, the radical students in Tehran rioted, stormed the embassy and the “if” came true.
Carter knew enough to ask the question since months before Iranians briefly held the U.S. ambassador hostage until Khomeini insisted he be freed.
Never before had so many citizens been held hostage in a foreign land under peacetime conditions. Nor was it even certain that the new government in Iran had control of the radical students holding the embassy staff. Carter vowed on television that the hostages would be freed and America would not bow to such dangerous zealots. The students who stormed the embassy insisted that America return the shah to them for justice and send a few billion dollars, too. They believed the shah had stolen this money from the people but had no evidence.
Carter needed to shake off the malaise he accused his fellow countrymen of operating under and act. He recognized this could be a defining moment of his first term, and with the