friends to get back in their car and leave.
They watched and listened as Bani-Sadr and Ghotbzadeh staged a vain last-ditch effort to salvage the previous month’s negotiated solution.
In a flurry of activity, the ministry staff had actually begun preparing the third floor to receive all of the hostages. President Bani-Sadr and his foreign minister Ghotbzadeh were such intense political rivals that they would not speak to each other, but in this effort they were together. They pressed to get formal custody of the hostages, realizing that so long as the captive Americans remained in the hands of the students at the occupied embassy, where they could rally public demonstrations of support that swayed Khomeini, there was no way the newly formed government could release them. It was a straightforward power struggle, and the new government was confident that Khomeini would not twice undercut them so blatantly. Ghotbzadeh told a reporter from the
Laingen watched with excitement when Ghotbzadeh, accompanied by the chief of the Revolutionary Guards and a security escort, conducted an inspection of the upper-floor rooms. It was clear they were evaluating the space as a holding area for all of the hostages. That surmise was confirmed later in the morning when Ghotbzadeh asked to see Laingen and explained what was going on. The Revolutionary Council had instructed the students to hand over the hostages. He said those Americans being held at the embassy would be sharing space with Laingen and the others within twenty-four hours. The foreign minister said that he would need Laingen’s help in managing the group and caring for them, which confirmed for the charge the wisdom of the decision he, Tomseth, and Howland had made early on—that they would stay in the ministry in the hope that they might become useful to their colleagues. Laingen was ecstatic. Ghotbzadeh did not say how much longer they would all be held. The imam had stated that the hostages’ fate would be decided by the
But then a student spokesman announced that before handing over the hostages to the government, the hostage takers demanded a “hearing” before the Iranian people. Crowds formed outside the embassy walls, as thousands of religious hard-liners expressed their opposition to the move. As the number of demonstrators swelled, so did the students’ defiance. Scrambling to save face, the Revolutionary Council agreed to give them another twenty-four hours to comply. Another day went by, and the students still refused. Then the imam spoke again.
Laingen, Tomseth, and Howland listened to the radio on March 10, as Khomeini, in his cryptic way, doused the last embers of hope for an early solution.
“The crimes of the shah and America need no proof. We fight against America until death,” he said. “We shall not stop fighting until we defeat it and cut its hands in the area and lead weak people to victory…. We are sure of victory because right always is victorious. Be careful. There are long years of struggle ahead because the big powers scheme daily to pounce on you.”
Ghotbzadeh was crushed and went on television to denounce the students for sabotaging an agreement that he said was clearly in Iran’s best interests. Laingen was disappointed and angry and guessed that the same mood prevailed in Washington. The charge’s mood was darkened further by new televised propaganda statements from Joe Subic, the renegade sergeant who, by all appearances, had gone fully native in captivity. On a day when the students threatened to kill all the hostages if America took any military action, Subic appeared on a late-night Iranian TV show to confirm that the embassy had, indeed, been a den of spies. Laingen wrote in his journal:
Why? Someday we may know, but someday, as a result, what charges face him? What burden will he carry in his own heart and mind for the rest of his life? It was a cold and chilling performance, to see a young American so clearly used by his militant captors to further their cause, whatever the cost to this man’s future.
Ministry officials from time to time made a show of treating Laingen and the others as official emissaries, despite their de facto hostage status. Observing from the windows on the evening of March 22, Laingen saw a steady stream of limousines arriving at the ministry flying flags from various nations, and watched as formally dressed diplomats filed into the building. There was obviously a formal diplomatic event that evening. How could Iran and other nations maintain the pretense of diplomatic normalcy with the U.S. embassy forcibly occupied, its staff imprisoned, and the head of the mission held hostage upstairs?
Later that evening, however, Ghotbzadeh sent for the three, and they were escorted, with shaggy hair and rumpled clothes, before eight of their dapper colleagues and allowed to sit and talk about their predicament for more than an hour. Laingen later wrote in his journal:
The whole affair is incongruous—the magnificent hall, now empty save for us and the eight, the [Iranian] chief of protocol staying discreetly out of earshot (he is a professional, too), our colleagues sympathetic but powerless to help. Diplomats in the ministry of the country to which they are accredited, “allowed” by a possibly embarrassed foreign minister to meet with fellow diplomats held hostage, in total violation of international law and practice…. Yet we conduct ourselves as if nothing had happened, sharing impressions and keeping our emotions under full control, despite our anger and frustration. After an hour or so, we bid our visitors goodbye under the enormous chandelier in the mirrored reception rotunda, acting almost as if we were the hosts of the glittering affair rather than the hostages generously allowed briefly to resume our diplomatic careers!
America’s highest-ranking diplomat in Iran, still washing his socks and underwear in the Foreign Ministry bathroom every morning, assembling jigsaw puzzles, reading books, and walking up and down a closed staircase for exercise, composed yet another futile, angry letter to the president after seeing news reports of Bani-Sadr giving a speech from the outer wall of the occupied embassy.
Dear Mr. President,
As you know, it is the view of my government, a view overwhelmingly supported by world legal and public opinion, that the seizure of the Embassy in Tehran and the holding of all its personnel hostage for political purposes was and is a flagrant violation of all precepts of international law and practice.
I must therefore record my deep sense of regret that by the use of the walls of that Embassy as a podium for yesterday’s National Mobilization Week march-past, the dignity of your office was so directly and graphically linked to the situation affecting the Embassy and the personnel still held there as hostages.
He was repeating himself and he knew it. Laingen sent off the letter, signed “Charge D’Affaires ad Interregnum,” feeling like the one sane person in a world gone mad.
10. The Atmosphere of Restraint Cannot Last Forever
On March 13, in a hotel room in Bern, Jordan wrote out a three-page letter to Bani-Sadr in his cramped handwriting, a blend of cursive and printing. He discarded the third page and rewrote the final three paragraphs to get them right.
Dear Mr. President,
I am taking the liberty of sending you this personal and private message through a mutual friend, Mr. Hector Villalon. The only copy of this letter is in the possession of President Carter.
Because we have reached a critical point in this process of trying to peacefully resolve the differences which face our countries, I thought it was important that I convey my thoughts to you personally and in complete frankness. I would welcome your reaction to these suggestions.
…I believe that we share a single objective: to put an end to the present crisis and build a new relationship
