In between the imam’s meeting with Yazdi and the radio broadcast, several things had happened in Qom. Ahmad Khomeini, the imam’s son, had received a phone call from his friend the popular young Tehran cleric Mohammad Asqar Mousavi Khoeniha, the students’ “spiritual leader.” He had assured the younger Khomeini that the
Arriving on the scene, the younger Khomeini had literally been carried away by the rapture of the mob dancing in the streets. He was lifted bodily over the embassy walls, his presence alone interpreted as the imam’s imprimatur. The young cleric briefly lost his black turban and a slipper in the excitement. After touring the embassy and viewing the captive Americans he had returned to Qom with a glowing report on the students and the suspicious American spy documents and equipment they had seized. When it was clear that what had happened was enormously popular, and that the action had the support of influential clerics like Khoeniha, the imam understood that what to Yazdi was a nuisance was in fact an opportunity.
As he prepared finally for bed, Yazdi knew there was now nothing he or the provisional government could do. The matter was out of their hands.
13. Wheat Mold
Before he was blindfolded again, John Limbert watched from a chair at the residence as the twilight faded, sitting alongside the Filipino cashier, whom the students had not yet decided whether to consider an American spy or an oppressed Third World national. Limbert had given his name and job title when asked and had refused a cigarette. He had learned that these protesters called themselves “Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line,” and understood that they were religious and more aligned with the mullahs than the leftists, who predominated on the college campuses. Most of those he had talked to so far were more curious than hostile. Some were from rural areas, small towns, and they reminded him of the students he had taught in Shiraz. He saw that they were in over their heads but didn’t know it yet. They had been brought up with a very narrow idea of the world. Most of them probably had no idea where America was on a map, much less any understanding of U.S.–Iran relations. For most, this was probably their first encounter with Americans and, given the ridiculous propaganda in the previous year, they were no doubt surprised to find that the embassy personnel didn’t have horns. Limbert couldn’t help himself; he liked them.
As soon as he figured out who they were the events of the day came into better focus. It wasn’t clear if they were acting with the approval of the imam, as their name implied. Limbert suspected not. The atmosphere in the crowded residence was strange. Some of the initial tension evaporated for the Americans when it was evident that they were not going to be harmed, at least not immediately. Captors and prisoners were talking freely to each other, and at one point a student brought a radio into the room, and everyone sat together listening eagerly to hear how the day’s event was reported. They listened to Radio Tehran and the BBC international report, and he could see that the students seemed a little disappointed when the embassy takeover was treated in the London report as a relatively minor story. The students considered their “victory” nothing short of miraculous. They had stormed the American fortress and overrun it without a casualty! In one sense it was too good to be true, and in another…what were they supposed to do now?
He heard the guards whispering excitedly among themselves about the visit of Ahmad Khomeini, and then, passing the word from guard to guard, they removed the blindfolds from Limbert and the other hostages in the room. They apparently did not want the imam’s son to see that they had blindfolded the hostages. When Limbert’s came off he saw that seated alongside him was Charles Jones, who kept trying to tell his captors that he had high blood pressure and needed his medicine. Jones asked Limbert to explain in Farsi. The two of them started nagging the guards, in English and in Farsi, pleading for the medication, which worked, although it took a few tries. The guards kept coming back with the wrong medicine, and each time Limbert complained to them about the seriousness of Jones’s condition. Were they trying to kill him?
Limbert sat up late in a downstairs bedroom talking earnestly with his young captors. They said they were staging the demonstration in order to force the United States to return the shah in order to stand trial for his crimes.
“I don’t think you have much of a chance,” said Limbert.
They tried to engage him further in a political discussion but Limbert avoided it. The little training he had been given about being taken captive warned against getting drawn into political discussions. So he kept changing the subject, asking questions. They were shocked at how well he spoke Farsi, and how much he knew about their country, its history and literature—more than they themselves did.
Throughout the residence, Americans were bound to chairs. Joe Hall, the warrant officer who was convinced his capture meant he would be sent home early, was in the basement TV room, which had a door to a storage area stocked with sodas, canned goods, and candy. He watched as a procession of the young Iranians raided the stash. One came out grinning, and with hands that seemed grubby to Hall he popped a piece of candy into the captive American’s mouth.
The same young Iranian who had earlier posed with a knife pressed against the side of marine guard Rocky Sickmann’s head now offered him candy.
“No, I don’t want your fucking candy,” said Sickmann.
“I’ll take it,” said vice consul Richard Queen. “I’m hungry.”
“The shah didn’t feed prisoners,” said one of the Iranians, who nevertheless placed a date in Queen’s mouth and then held up a small plastic bowl for him to spit out the pit.
As the hours dragged on, Hall’s hands, which were tied behind his back, began to hurt, and he asked if the cloth could be loosened.
“They’re cutting off my circulation,” he said.
A young Iranian bent over and removed them, and for a while Hall sat with his hands in his lap. Then an older student saw him untied and angrily instructed the others to retie him. This time his hands were bound in front, which was a little more comfortable.
In the room with him was an angry little guard with a big nose whom Hall dubbed “Rat Face.”
“You are See-ah [CIA],” he sneered at the bound American.
“I am not CIA.”
“Yes, you are all spies here.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” said Hall facetiously. “I’m See-ah.”
Rat Face brightened at this, accepting it as an admission.
“What was your job?” he asked.
Hall thought for a moment, and then said, again facetiously, “I was in charge of wheat mold.”
“What is wheat mold?”
“You know the wheat that grows and that you use to make bread?” Hall explained, warming to the joke. “Well, mold is something that happens to the wheat that makes it no good. I did all that. I was the CIA agent in charge of wheat mold.”
The young Iranian absorbed this intently—indeed, the CIA plot to destroy Iranian crops would become part of the list of “revelations” later claimed by the hostage takers.
“How long is this stuff going to go on anyway?” Hall asked. “You guys aren’t going to be able to carry this off very long.”
“Maybe one year,” said Rat Face.
He then bent over and removed one of Hall’s shoes. He pulled the TV cord from the wall, doubled it over, and, grabbing Hall’s foot by the toes and pulling it up, slapped the cord across the bottom of his foot.
“This is the way the shah’s army tortured innocent Iranians,” he said, and he slapped the cord across Hall’s foot again.
He didn’t hit Hall hard enough for it to hurt. When he dropped his foot, Hall slid it back into his shoe.
Later, he was taken upstairs, to one of the residence’s larger rooms, where the Iranians were intrigued by
