Guests of the Ayatollah

Barbara Rosen had been in Bonn for her meeting with Chancellor Schmidt when news of the rescue attempt broke. She closed herself in her hotel bathroom and cried. She was terrified about what might now happen to her husband Barry and the rest, appalled at the display of American military ineptitude, and felt personally betrayed by Carter’s decision; did he still have the photos of her and Barry’s daughters she had given him in that first meeting with the families in December? But when she faced a large crowd of reporters later at the American embassy she took Schmidt’s advice and bit her lip. She declined to criticize the president or the military. She met up with the other members of the FLAG European mission in Paris the next day and together they went to Rome for an audience with Pope John Paul II. They had hoped to talk with the pope and solicit his aid in resolving the crisis, but instead they were put in a long line of ceremonial visitors and were ushered before the pope only for a few moments. He told them he would pray and work for the hostages’ release and gave each a set of rosary beads.

The Timms were not allowed to leave Tehran on Friday as scheduled. Barbara spent a long and difficult Saturday wondering if she and her husband would ever be permitted to go. She was further shocked to learn that an angry reception now awaited them at home. Phone calls from Milwaukee revealed that her “apology” had set off a furor in the United States. Threatening phone calls had come to their house and there were police stationed outside it. Timm felt that she was at the center of a colossal worldwide misunderstanding, and whatever she did or said just seemed to make it worse. She kept playing over in her mind the moment Ebtekar had said, “Time’s up,” and her son had been pulled from the room.

Permission to depart came on Sunday, and when their plane lifted into the air Timm collapsed into tears. She felt helpless and angry and guilty and terribly relieved all at the same time. As she cried, a journalist on the same flight took a picture of her. McAfee lost his temper, grabbing the camera and tearing the film out of it.

They stopped in London and ignored the press there, and when they landed in Chicago the next day there was another press mob waiting. It was not friendly.

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Most Americans heartily approved of the rescue attempt, and were saddened and disappointed by its failure, but they did not condemn the president. Polls taken in the days afterward showed that while a substantial majority disagreed with the handling of the hostage crisis overall—Ronald Reagan called it “a national disgrace”—a full 66 percent agreed with the president’s decision to launch the mission. His approval ratings for handling the hostage crisis fell, but not precipitously, from 47 percent to 42 percent. Overall, Carter still led Reagan in the polls.

In the final meeting before Carter had given the go-ahead to the mission, Brzezinski had brought up the possibility of failure. He had suggested, in keeping with his aggressive posture, that the military draw up a plan that would, in a way, cushion the blow. If it became apparent that the mission was going to fail, then the United States should attack Iran from the air, destroying key oil facilities. The president could then go on television, Brzezinski said, and announce that his patience with Iran had been exhausted by its blatant disregard for international law and its refusal to negotiate in good faith and, as a result, he had authorized a hostage rescue mission and a variety of retaliatory air strikes.

“Then you could say, ‘I regret to say that the rescue mission has failed, but we have struck and destroyed the Abadan oil refinery,’” Brzezinski offered. “You could then warn Iran that if any harm comes to the American hostages, ‘This is just a foretaste of what is coming.’”

Carter had dismissed the suggestion. “We’ll discuss that later,” he told his national security adviser and had not followed up. Now there was just the cold fact of failure to report, and the president’s stolid, grim face appeared on television screens to deliver the news straight.

Across a wide, disappointed nation, the president took a predictable beating from the pious second- guessers of the nation’s editorial pages.

The News-Tribune of Tacoma, Washington, boldly concluded, “It may be too early to make a judgment, but first impressions are that the U.S. badly bungled the rescue mission. Further, although Carter certainly deserves the benefit of the doubt at this point, it appears he failed miserably in judgment and leadership.”

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch predicted that the mission’s failure would deepen Iranian distrust of the United States, and that it “cannot have beneficial consequences for ending the hostage situation. To be sure, they now know that Mr. Carter is capable of rash action, but America’s failure is more likely to strengthen the Ayatollah’s hand than to persuade him to bring the crisis to an end.”

The Phoenix Gazette accused Carter of undermining the mission by trying to manage it himself from Washington instead of leaving decisions to men in the field. The Baltimore Evening Sun offered the remarkable opinion that authorizing the mission had been wrong because there was a chance it might not succeed: “Any possibility of failure should have ruled it out. We remain unconvinced…that the decision to resort to military action was in fact a wise one. On the evidence thus far, it was not.” The paper presumably remained solidly behind missions entailing no risk whatsoever.

The San Diego Evening Tribune objected to the unilateralism and secrecy of the mission: “Military action may ultimately become necessary. But it should not be undertaken without full consultation with Congress, with our allies, and with other nations in the Middle East.”

The Daily Mail of Charleston, West Virginia, was bewildered: “It is incredible, in the first place, that the president ever supposed that a commando raid into downtown Tehran would ever have a chance…. How could Mr. Carter, who for nearly six months has done virtually nothing to obtain the hostages’ release, attempt such a foolhardy operation as this? Having failed to consult with Congress, as the War Powers Act would appear to require, he can scarcely share the responsibility with anyone else…. Mr. Carter has contrived to make matters worse.”

The New York Daily News complained that the mission “entailed risks out of all proportion to the likelihood of success.” In Chicago, the Sun-Times editorialized, “In his aborted effort…President Carter shockingly overcame the charge that he is super-cautious. He is exposed instead as a crap-shooter, willing to gamble away the lives of Americans and the security of the country and its allies to reassert U.S. power against long odds. Before the failure, the U.S.—in the eyes of our friends as well as our enemies—was merely frustrated…. Now it has been demonstrated to be impotent.”

The Chicago Tribune was one of the only newspapers to offer unqualified words of support: “We believe, and the nation must believe, that President Carter made the right decision in sending the rescue team to Iran. It is wrong to criticize him now for making the decision. It is wrong to criticize him for failing to consult in advance with Congress or with the allies…. There are but three proper emotions for Americans in the tragic aftermath of the mission’s failure: gratitude to the brave volunteers who undertook it; grief for the eight who died in it; and intense disappointment over the bad luck that aborted it.”

There was a mixed response from the families of the hostages. Those who had become outspoken critics of the administration, like Timm and Bonnie Graves, were publicly appalled. “Eight deaths for what?” said Bonnie Graves. “I hope to God the Iranians are capable of restraint.”

“It’s a bumbling error by the president,” said Zane Hall, the father of Joe Hall. “We didn’t approve of it. We don’t know what this could lead to.”

Richard Hermening, Timm’s former husband and Kevin’s father, who just weeks earlier had lamented Carter’s slowness to act and lack of follow-through, now criticized the president’s “timing.”

However, most of the families, who had a ready and waiting press audience for their every utterance, were sympathetic to the president and respectful of the courage and sacrifice of those who had made the effort.

“I understand why he [Carter] had to go to this point in time,” said John W. Limbert, the hostage’s father. “He had to take action.”

A grieving but proud George N. Holmes, father of the Pine Bluff, Arkansas, marine crewman who had perished at Desert One, told reporters, “I think it was fine. It was a risk worth taking. That’s what I thought beforehand. I don’t change it now.”

* * *

It was a dejected group of Delta soldiers who reassembled at Wadi Kena after the mission, and none was more depressed than Beckwith, who treated his pain with booze. The colonel realized that the chance of his lifetime had been blown, badly, and he was liberal and unsparing in apportioning blame. He let it be known that he never again wanted to work with the mission’s commanding general, James Vaught, and in one tirade he placed