Guests of the Ayatollah

abruptly announced that the United States had failed to fully live up to its part of the bargain. The accusation was bewildering. “We’re not sure what he’s talking about,” said Jody Powell, the president’s press secretary, when reporters asked what Bani-Sadr meant.

Sensing an advantage, the Iranian president once again had changed the rules at the last minute. He now sought various new assurances, among them official recognition by Washington that the appropriate venue for resolving the hostage question was Iran’s parliament, the as-yet unformed Majlis. Moving the hostages to the Foreign Ministry was understood to be a step toward their rapid release, but what Bani-Sadr now asked for was, in effect, American approval of a plan that would leave the hostages in Tehran for another month or two, until after the Majlis was elected and convened. He also wanted Carter to refrain from making “hostile statements.” In other words Iran, having kidnapped American diplomats, was entitled to imprison them until it decided upon the terms of their release, and the United States should agree not to publicly complain. Carter acquiesced to even these galling demands. A message essentially complying to them was drafted and sent to Iran but to no avail. Before it reached Bani-Sadr, the effort to move the hostages was again vetoed by Khomeini, and the slippery Iranian president gave up. He announced that he was henceforth “washing his hands” of the hostage mess. Disgusted and dismayed, Carter called Bani-Sadr “gutless.”

News stories in America speculated that the president had concocted the “hostage transfer” story to boost his chances in the Wisconsin and Kansas primaries.

Carter vented to Jordan.

“He had a chance to move the hostages and he didn’t do it,” the president said, tossing aside a news account of Bani-Sadr’s latest sidestep. “The council approved the transfer, the militants agreed to do it, and then nothing happens! I don’t know what we do now. I really don’t.” Jordan began to describe what his contacts Bourget and Villalon now suggested, and the president cut him off. “Ham, the only people in the world who think we’re going to get our people back soon are you and your French friends.”

Carter said again that he had been made to feel “foolish” and doubted any hope of a negotiated solution remained. He would take the expected beating for this latest bait and switch. The Iranians, in Reagan’s analogy, had sliced the salami yet again. A pattern had developed: Carter would latch on to a deal proffered by a top Iranian official and grant minor but humiliating concessions, only to have it scotched at the last minute by Khomeini. The White House was feeling pressure from both sides, from those who thought it hadn’t done enough to comply with Iran’s demands and those who felt the president had gone too far.

Helping to lead the charge for more conciliation were some of the hostages’ families. Several had become public figures over the previous four months and, as family members will in hostage situations, they urged the White House to meet the kidnappers’ demands. Bonnie Graves, the wife of hostage John Graves, and the parents of hostage Joe Hall joined former hostage William Quarles, one of the African-Americans released in November, and Congressman George Hansen at a press conference calling for a congressional investigation of America’s role in “the crimes of the shah.”

Such a probe would not be “appeasement,” said Hansen, although he acknowledged that a probe would meet one of the students’ demands.

“I think it would be very important in getting them out,” said Quarles, who since his release had effectively become a spokesman for the hostage takers.

The drumbeat for a more aggressive response was also growing louder, and not just from conservatives and Republicans. So far, Carter’s patience had seemed only to reward Iran for this outrage. Among other things, he had agreed to approve creation of the ill-fated UN commission, urged a judge in New York to postpone hearings on seizing Iran’s assets, postponed the imposition of economic sanctions, acquiesced in Khomeini’s decision to refer the hostage question to the Majlis, and agreed to refrain from making hostile statements about Iran…and what had come of it?

“There comes a time in negotiations with people of this kind that you have to say, ‘No, this is our last offer,’” said presidential candidate Reagan.

The Washington Post editorialized:

The United States, far from earning respect for its restraint and forbearance, is increasingly seen as a country that shrinks from asserting what even its enemies recognize as a legitimate interest in protecting its diplomats from a mob. The latest sequence of negotiations between Washington and Tehran puts the issue beyond argument. The United States has made concessions of the sort one might expect from a nation that had lost a war. Each concession has been met with a demand for another. The divisions and disputes within Iran that are responsible for the impasse seem almost self-perpetuating…. The only reasonable conclusion is that this string of diplomacy has been played out…. Fresh sanctions are being weighed by the administration. Good. They should be applied…. They should be direct and consequential.

The newspaper mirrored Carter’s thoughts. His mood had changed. At another NSC meeting at the end of the first week of April, the president announced that negotiations were over, that he was going to act, and that it had been a mistake not to act sooner.

Bani-Sadr had become a joke, even to Secretary of State Vance, who continued to urge moderation. Henry Precht, the head of the State Department’s Iran desk who had worked closely with Jordan through all the secret negotiations, walked into the secretary’s office on Easter Sunday to find a large stuffed pink and yellow rabbit.

“Henry,” said Vance, “I’d like you to meet Bunny Sadr.”

It was the only time Precht had ever heard the earnest Vance make a joke. One of Carter’s “acts” was to finally expel Iran’s diplomatic mission and to break all formal ties, a step so unsurprising that many Americans were startled to learn it had not been done already. In fact, Carter had deliberately delayed closing Iran’s embassy because American eavesdroppers had broken Iran’s codes and considered the “secure” communications between the Iranians in Washington and their bosses in Tehran to be a useful source of intelligence. The task of formal eviction fell to Precht, who invited to his office Ali Agah, the Iranian charge d’affaires. Agah arrived with his deputy, not knowing the purpose of the summons. Chatting with them while he waited for the formal note of expulsion to be drafted—Deputy Secretary Warren Christopher was supposed to arrive with it at any moment—Precht expressed irritation over a small group of Iranians who had mounted another pro-Khomeini demonstration outside the State Department building.

“Why do you suppose these guys don’t go back to Tehran and rebuild the country?” he asked. “Why are they wasting their time here when their countrymen are mistreating our people over there?”

The Iranian deputy, whom Precht would later describe as “snake-like,” countered, “We are not mistreating the hostages. They are being very well taken care of in Tehran. They are our guests.”

“Bullshit,” said Precht.

Agah stood up and declared, “I’m not going to stay here and have my country, my government, insulted by you. We are leaving.”

The Iran desk chief bolted into the hallway after them. His job was to keep them occupied until they could be formally expelled.

“Ali, I apologize,” he said. “I retract my statement. Come back and let’s just chat a little more.”

“No,” said Agah.

Precht raced ahead to intercept them at the elevator door. He was now creating a scene in the fifth-floor hallway. The Iranians stepped around him into the elevator, but Precht wouldn’t let the doors shut.

“Ali, let’s sit,” he urged.

“You are holding us hostage in this elevator,” said Agah. “Get out of the way and let us out of here.”

Precht relented. The last thing he wanted was to make it appear the United States had gone into the business of reciprocal hostage taking. Outside the State Department building, Agah complained angrily to Marvin Kalb, the CBS reporter, that he had just been insulted by an American official. Kalb then phoned Precht.

“Henry, what did you say?” he asked. “What did you do to Ali?”

Precht explained, and that night’s lead news item became the flustered Iranian diplomats leaving the State Department in a huff. It could not have played out better in millions of impatient American living rooms. The formal message was delivered by a junior official who chased Agah’s car across the city. Within twenty-four hours, after the State Department rejected several last-minute appeals from some in the Iranian mission who were especially