consequence of the hostage affair together with the other internationally perceived excesses of the Revolution, figure on the timing and degree of the Iraq attack? As a speaker in this week’s Friday prayers in Tehran reportedly said, “Oh, Blind World! There is not a single country which defends us. It is a veritable crime.” Indeed, it is, but self-imposed.
There was evidence that at least some Iranians recognized this. One of the kitchen workers delivering a meal told Tomseth, “All this mess is Khomeini’s fault.”
“Yes, and someday the people will recognize that,” said the American.
“Ha!” scoffed the Iranian. “The people—they are cows!”
What Iran lacked in military force it was making up for with its zeal. One night early in the war, Tomseth translated a plea heard on the radio:
“Heroic people of Tehran, especially those living in the vicinity of Mehrabad Airport. Please allow the aircraft to land. The aircraft is one of ours. Stop shooting at it!”
None of the hostages guessed that this outbreak of war might prolong their captivity. In Komiteh prison, John Limbert knew that Iran’s relations with Iraq had been deteriorating, and that its new isolation made it vulnerable, so he felt a certain satisfaction in knowing that the country had finally paid a price for thumbing its nose at the rest of the world.
When there was an air attack, the guards at the Evin prison would run from room to room shouting, “Turn off your candles!” Bill Belk wondered,
After the first few days the attacks tapered off, then stopped. Several days and nights had passed with not a sound from the sky when one afternoon a lone jet streaked in low over the city and launched a rocket. It was a daring assault; a single aircraft had penetrated the city’s air defenses by flying close to the ground to deliver a single large weapon, which exploded somewhere near the prison with enough force to shake its walls. From up and down the gray corridor on the hostage wing of Komiteh came sounds of delight. There was clapping, cheering, and shouting.
“Give ’em hell!” said one.
“Buy Iraqi war bonds!”
At the near-empty chancery, Kathryn Koob and Ann Swift were terrified when they heard the eruption of ground fire that accompanied the first raid, thinking that the guards were fighting off angry mobs who were coming after them. They were reassured by one that the shooting was only “practice air raid drills.” The immediate assumption was that they were anticipating an American assault. Koob and Swift had learned months earlier about the failed rescue attempt in a letter that had slipped past the censors from a Vermont schoolgirl, who had written, “Dear Kathryn, How are you? My name is Jennifer Wilcox. I am ten and in the fourth grade and I’m writing this letter to cheer you up. I’m sorry that the rescue attempt didn’t succeed. I hope they try again. I have no pets…”
During the night they could see shell bursts in the air and hear bombs dropping. There was a rhythm to it. The sounds of jets, antiaircraft fire, and then the guards unloading their weapons into the air for long stretches.
“You have to understand,” one of the older guards explained. “These kids have been carrying guns for a long time with no excuse to use them.”
During the day their windows were now draped with black plastic, which blocked the view of the snowcapped northern mountains. Outside there were air-raid sirens and the broadcast of martial music. Koob and Swift were delighted one day when a rousing rendition of John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” blasted out over Tehran.
They didn’t learn what was going on until the chief hostage spokesman Nilufar Ebtekar inadvertently informed them. She stopped by to chat in her flawless English and complained that the “Iraqis” had stooped to an all-time low. They were dropping fancy table napkins over the city contaminated with a virus that would cause cancer. Swift and Koob were shocked that she would believe such a thing, which was both wildly impractical and technically impossible, but delighted with the information. So Iran was at war with Iraq.
The window to the cell at Evin shared by Al Golacinski and Dick Morefield was painted black, but whoever had done the job had applied the paint on the inside, so Golacinski could scrape a little from one corner to peek out. Morefield wasn’t that interested in looking out, but Golacinski spent hours with his eye pressed to that tiny portal, peering out over a gray stone courtyard and at the sky. At night he saw antiaircraft fire.
One morning there was a commotion below. A group of armed guards assembled and formed themselves into a line, and a bedraggled, bearded prisoner was dragged out and left standing alone against a wall before them. He was a young man, very thin, wearing what looked like rags. He was blindfolded and his hands were tied behind his back. He was violently shaking.
Then he was shot. It happened just like that, no final words, no ceremony, no swell of music like in the movies. The weapons cracked sharply and their echo bounced around the enclosure for a few moments. The victim slumped lifelessly to the ground and the firing squad walked off. Blood pooled on the pavement beneath the lifeless form. Golacinski watched dumb-struck. It had happened in less than a minute, a loud crack and a life abruptly ended. He could see it happening to him, just like that.
A few hours later two men in gray clothes came into the courtyard, one of them pushing a cart. They lifted the body and tossed it on the cart and rolled it out. The blood on the pavement dried black.
Tom Ahern was being kept in an administrative building of some kind on the outskirts of the Komiteh prison. In the next room were Don Sharer and Chuck Scott, who tried to communicate with him using a tap code. Ahern didn’t know the code.
One day, to the CIA station chief ’s amazement, his guard began allowing him to visit with his military colleagues. He spent the week playing cribbage with Sharer, whom he especially liked. His relationship with Scott was testier. Scott was surprised when Ahern told him about the information he had given up in interrogation. The ramrod army colonel had endured what he considered great hardships trying to protect Ahern, Daugherty, Kalp, and whatever he knew about their efforts. That Ahern himself had, as he saw it, “rolled over” came as a shock.
Ahern felt very conflicted about how he had handled himself, but he did believe he had done the best he could, and he felt sure he had held out long enough to allow his Iranian agents to flee. The old name-rank-serial- number approach to interrogation was unrealistic, he felt, and he was gratified when both Sharer and Scott reassured him that he had done fine—Scott kept his reservations to himself. They agreed that his interrogation had been the worst, and Ahern took comfort in it.
The hiatus ended abruptly about a week after it had started. An older Iranian guard appeared one day in the open doorway staring at the three of them. He turned without saying a word and walked away. After he left a guard came and removed Ahern from the room and placed him back in solitary.
One sweltering night in late September, Bill Keough banged on his cell door in Komiteh because he had to use the toilet, or what the hostages called the “Khomeini Hole.” No one answered. He banged again more loudly. Nothing.
“Esspeak more esslowly,” one of the marines called out, imitating the guards who would say “slowly” when they meant “softly” and would not accept correction from American devils.
“Who’s that?” Keough asked.
“Where in the hell is the guard?” called out the marine.
“He’s right outside the door,” Keough answered, apparently having pulled his tall frame high enough to look down into the hall, “but he’s dead.”
Everyone laughed. This got everyone’s attention, and prisoners began pulling themselves up to the transom to see into the hall.
“Christ, he’s fallen asleep out there!” someone else said.
The guard, one of the youngest and smallest, was sprawled with his head down on a table in front of his chair. Suddenly the hallway was alive with conversation. Each of the prisoners knew only who was locked up with
