Guests Of The Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis by Mark Bowden Page A
Authors: Mark Bowden
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the highest levels of the American government. White House staffers, generals, and diplomats were awakened before dawn. Word reached out and down to those who would need to know immediately. The train of early morning calls eventually found U.S. Army Colonel Charlie Beckwith in a hotel room in Hinesville, Georgia.
He was awakened by Delta’s CIA liaison, Burr Smith.
“I thought you’d like to know, Boss,” he said. “The American embassy in Iran has gone down. The entire staff is being held hostage.”
Beckwith, who had slept only two or three hours, got dressed, checked out, and pointed his car north on Interstate 95. It was a five-hour drive to Fayetteville, to the Stockade, the unit’s headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. As he drove through sunrise over the spectacular fall display, the colonel, who had once been a lineman at the University of Georgia, thought, What a great day for football!
I Told You So
Farouz Rajaeefar was elated. An engineering student at Amir Kabir University, she had been among the first wave into the compound. Raised in a secular family, she had spent time in the United States and in fact had been enrolled earlier that year at the University of Texas. But she hadn’t made it back to the States for classes. Swept up by the revolutionary and religious fervor at Amir Kabir, she had joined the embassy invaders as a translator. Her English was fluent.
She was thrilled with their success. The demonstration was similar to ones she had heard about in the United States and in Europe, where young people had seized campus or government buildings in order to publicize their grievances. She marched that morning dressed in a long pullover and blue jeans, with her Khomeini picture pinned to her chest, waving her fist in the air and chanting anti-American slogans. The takeover had gone more smoothly than they had dared to hope. Many of the men felt sure there would be shooting, and that there would be martyrs, but the whole invasion had succeeded without anyone firing a shot, so far as she knew.
On the chancery second floor, in the heart of the evil beast, she and the others stared in amazement at the piles of shredded documents they found on the floor of some offices. What more proof of American plotting and trickery was needed? What were these spies trying so desperately to hide? This would be the students’ next great task, to piece together not just these documents but the whole place, who was who, what work was going on in these offices, what secrets were hidden in these files. They would study this den of espionage and piece it all back together and reveal its evil machinations to Iran and to the world.
But first Rajaeefar had to call home. How should she tell her parents that she had taken part in invading and occupying a foreign embassy, and not just any embassy but a superpower’s?
She picked up one of the embassy phones and dialed home. Her mother answered.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Listen to the radio,” Rajaeefar said triumphantly, and, with a goodbye, she hung up.
Other excited occupiers were using the phones in the chancery, calling family and friends to boast of their success. One of the young women involved phoned a local radio station, which at first refused to believe her when she said she was calling from “the former American embassy, the present Den of Spies.” She directed them to phone the main number for the U.S. embassy and ask for the extension of the phone she was using.
The students had prepared a communiqué, which was read over the phone to the radio station. It reflected the full idealistic and naive sweep of the students’ intentions, which were nothing less than to ignite a worldwide spiritual uprising of the virtuous oppressed masses.
“In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate,” it began, and then quoted from the imam’s recent speech urging students throughout Iran to “forcefully expand their attacks against America and
He was awakened by Delta’s CIA liaison, Burr Smith.
“I thought you’d like to know, Boss,” he said. “The American embassy in Iran has gone down. The entire staff is being held hostage.”
Beckwith, who had slept only two or three hours, got dressed, checked out, and pointed his car north on Interstate 95. It was a five-hour drive to Fayetteville, to the Stockade, the unit’s headquarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. As he drove through sunrise over the spectacular fall display, the colonel, who had once been a lineman at the University of Georgia, thought, What a great day for football!
I Told You So
Farouz Rajaeefar was elated. An engineering student at Amir Kabir University, she had been among the first wave into the compound. Raised in a secular family, she had spent time in the United States and in fact had been enrolled earlier that year at the University of Texas. But she hadn’t made it back to the States for classes. Swept up by the revolutionary and religious fervor at Amir Kabir, she had joined the embassy invaders as a translator. Her English was fluent.
She was thrilled with their success. The demonstration was similar to ones she had heard about in the United States and in Europe, where young people had seized campus or government buildings in order to publicize their grievances. She marched that morning dressed in a long pullover and blue jeans, with her Khomeini picture pinned to her chest, waving her fist in the air and chanting anti-American slogans. The takeover had gone more smoothly than they had dared to hope. Many of the men felt sure there would be shooting, and that there would be martyrs, but the whole invasion had succeeded without anyone firing a shot, so far as she knew.
On the chancery second floor, in the heart of the evil beast, she and the others stared in amazement at the piles of shredded documents they found on the floor of some offices. What more proof of American plotting and trickery was needed? What were these spies trying so desperately to hide? This would be the students’ next great task, to piece together not just these documents but the whole place, who was who, what work was going on in these offices, what secrets were hidden in these files. They would study this den of espionage and piece it all back together and reveal its evil machinations to Iran and to the world.
But first Rajaeefar had to call home. How should she tell her parents that she had taken part in invading and occupying a foreign embassy, and not just any embassy but a superpower’s?
She picked up one of the embassy phones and dialed home. Her mother answered.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Listen to the radio,” Rajaeefar said triumphantly, and, with a goodbye, she hung up.
Other excited occupiers were using the phones in the chancery, calling family and friends to boast of their success. One of the young women involved phoned a local radio station, which at first refused to believe her when she said she was calling from “the former American embassy, the present Den of Spies.” She directed them to phone the main number for the U.S. embassy and ask for the extension of the phone she was using.
The students had prepared a communiqué, which was read over the phone to the radio station. It reflected the full idealistic and naive sweep of the students’ intentions, which were nothing less than to ignite a worldwide spiritual uprising of the virtuous oppressed masses.
“In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate,” it began, and then quoted from the imam’s recent speech urging students throughout Iran to “forcefully expand their attacks against America and
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