Guests of the Ayatollah

Although I have drawn from a large collection of work about the Iranian hostage crisis, most of the information in this book is based on interviews with the participants. I owe a great debt to the many in-depth hostage interviews conducted by Tim Wells in preparation for his book 444 Days, material that Wells donated to the Duke University library and graciously allowed me to pillage. In the case of some of the hostages who have died, Wells’s interview was my only source for that person’s experience. Included in his collection was the unpublished diary of the late Bob Ode. I reinterviewed most of the hostages, but even in those cases the Wells interviews, which were conducted so soon after the events, were invaluable.

In the notes that follow, the reference to “news reports” refers to a fifteen-volume collection of newspaper articles printed out, collated, and bound for me by Terrence Henry, my tenacious researcher. The articles consisted of reports from the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, Associated Press, and United Press International and abstracts from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. I have not noted in every case the exact date and title of each article, because often the stories on given days were very similar and, frankly, I drew on so many that sorting it all out at this point would be tedious and (I think) unnecessary, especially with the easy search capabilities of electronic databases.

The Carter Center in Atlanta provided me with copies of dozens of videotapes, almost forty hours of news programming (local and national) through the fifteen-month standoff. Again, I have not in each instance referred to the exact date, time, and source of each report, because the timing of the report in the context of the larger story is obvious, and the same material was broadcast on all of the networks and local stations. In certain instances, where the report or comment was particularly noteworthy, I have indicated the reporter and network in the text of the story. Some of the interviews for this book were done on my behalf by Terrence Henry, Aaron Bowden, David Keane, Arcadia Keane, Kaveh Ehsani, and the intrepid Christina Asquith, who tracked down former hostage Joe Subic in Baghdad.

INTERVIEWS

Hostages: Tom Ahern, Bill Belk, Don Cooke, Bill Daugherty, Billy Gallegos, Al Golacinski, Joe Hall, Kevin Hermening, Don Hohman, Joan (Walsh) Howland, Mike Howland, Charles Jones, Morehead “Mike” Kennedy, Kathryn Koob, Rick Kupke, Bruce Laingen, Steve Lauterbach, John Limbert, James Lopez, Michael Metrinko, Mike Moeller, Dick Morefield, Greg Persinger, Dave Roeder, Bill Royer, Chuck Scott, Don Sharer, Rocky Sickmann, Joe Subic. Tim Wells interviews: Cort Barnes, Belk, Cooke, Bob Englemann, Gallegos, Bruce German, Golacinski, John Graves, Hall, Hermening, Hohman, Lee Holland, Charles Jones, Malcolm Kalp, William Keough, Steven Kirtley, Bruce Laingen, Gary Lee, Paul Lewis, Mark Lijek, Limbert, Lopez, Metrinko, Morefield, Paul Needham, Bob Ode, Richard Queen, Barry Rosen, Royer, Thomas Schaefer, Scott, Sickmann, Victor Tomseth.

Rescue mission: Ken Bancroft, Joseph Byers, Bob Brenci, Fred Brooks, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Bucky Burruss, John Carney, Dave Cheney, Dave Doroski, Ray Doyle, Logan Fitch, Eric Haney, Jim Hughes, Reed Hughes, Wade Ishimoto, Rod Lenahan, Wayne Long, Bob Mingo, Keith Nightengale, Chuck Pittman, Jody Powell, Tim Prater, Frank Rotundo, Jesse Rowe, Taco Sanchez, Carl Savory, Jim Schaefer, Jim Scurria, Pete Schoomaker, E. K. Smith, Gerald Uttaro, Jim Vaught, Lyle Walton.

Iran interviews: Abbas Abdi, Alizera Alavitabar, Ibrahim Asgharzadeh, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr (in Paris), Massoud Dehnamaki, Nilufar (Massoumeh) Ebtekar, Reza Golpour, Mohammad Hashemi, Taha Hashemi, Morteza Kavakebian, Mousavi Khoeniha, Mohsen Mirdamadi, Mohammad Naimipoor, Farouz Rajaeefar, Saeed Razavi-Faqih, Hossein Shariatmadari, Sadegh Tabatabai, Mostafa Tajzadeh, Hossein Valeh, Ibrahim Yazdi.

Other: Cynthia Dwyer, Hershel Jaffe, Stephen Kinzer, Penne Laingen, Darrell Rupiper, Behrooz Sharsar, Zena Sheardown, Stansfield Turner, Richard Valeriani. Tim Wells interview: Cheri Lee, Parvaneh Limbert, Dorothea Morefield, Rita Ode, Barbara Timm.

Official State Department interviews: John Graves, Bruce Laingen, Richard Morefield, Henry Precht, Harold Saunders, Ann Swift.

BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS

In the Shadow of the Ayatollah: A CIA Hostage in Iran, William Daugherty. Naval Institute Press, 2001.

The Ayatollah in the Cathedral: Reflections of a Hostage, Morehead Kennedy. Hill and Wang, 1986.

Guest of the Revolution, Kathryn Koob. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1982.

Yellow Ribbon: The Secret Journal of Bruce Laingen, Bruce Laingen. Brassey’s, 1992.

Iran, At War with History, John W. Limbert. Westview Press, 1987.

Inside and Out: Hostage to Iran, Hostage to Myself, Richard Queen, with Patricia Haas. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1981.

The Destined Hour, Barbara and Barry Rosen, with George Feifer. Doubleday, 1982.

Iranian Hostage: A Personal Diary, Rocky Sickmann. Crawford Press, 1982.

Day-by-day chronology of the U.S. hostages crisis in Iran, The Associated Press, January 8, 1981.

The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations, James Bill. Yale University Press, 1988.

Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983.

Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, Jimmy Carter. Bantam, 1982.

Chances of a Lifetime: A Memoir, Warren Christopher. Scribner, 2001.

American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis, Warren Christopher et al. Council on Foreign Relations, 1985.

U.S. Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis: Cambridge Studies in International Relations, David Patrick Houghton. Cambridge University Press, 2001.

The Iran Hostage Crisis, a Chronology of Daily Developments: Report, U.S. Congress, House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Library of Congress. Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division. Government Printing Office, 1981.

Crisis: The Last Year of the Carter Presidency, Hamilton Jordan. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1982.

No Hiding Place: The New York Times Inside Report on the Hostage Crisis, Robert D. McFadden et al. Times Books, 1981.

Freeing the Hostages: Reexamining U.S.-Iranian Negotiations and Soviet Policy, 1979–1981, Russell Leigh Moses. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996.

Microfiche Collection: Iran, the Making of U.S. Policy, 1977–1980 (Spy Den Documents), National Security Archive. George Washington University, 1990.

The Other Side of History, Jody Powell. William Morrow, 1984.

America Held Hostage: The Secret Negotiations, Pierre Salinger. Doubleday, 1981.

All Fall Down: America’s Tragic Encounter with Iran, Gary Sick. Random House, 1986.

Inside the Iranian Revolution, John Stempel. Indiana University Press, 1981.

Embassies Under Siege: Personal Accounts by Diplomats on the Front Line, Joseph G. Sullivan, ed. Brassey’s, 1995.

Nest of Spies: America’s Journey to Disaster in Iran, Amir Taheri. Adler & Adler, 1988.

Hard Choices: Critical Years in America’s Foreign Policy, Cyrus Vance. Simon and Schuster, 1983.

Delta Force, Charlie Beckwith and Donald Knox. Harper Collins, 1983.

No Room for Error: The Story Behind the USAF Special Tactics Unit, John Carney and Benjamin Schemmer. Presidio Press, 2003.

The Holloway Commission Report, Department of Defense, 1982.

Inside Delta Force, Eric L. Haney. Delacorte Press, 2002.

The Guts to Try: The Untold Story of the Iran Hostage Rescue Mission by the On-Scene Desert Commander, James Kyle. Crown, 1990.

Crippled Eagle: A Historical Perspective of U.S. Operations, 1976–1996, Rod Lenahan. Narwhal Press, 1998.

“Inside the Rescue Mission,” David Martin. Newsweek, June 12, 1982.

The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA, Antonio J. Mendez. Perennial, 1999.

The Iranian Rescue Mission: Why It Failed, Paul B. Ryan. Naval Institute Press, 1985.

Terrorism and Democracy, Stansfield Turner. Houghton Mifflin, 1991.

The Takeover in Tehran, by Massoumeh Ebtekar, as told to Fred Reed. Talon-books, 2000.

The Spy Den Documents, National Security Archives.

The 444-Day Crisis in Tehran, Amir Reza, Sotoudeh Hamid Kaviani, trans. Nikki Faratsatpour.

Iran and the United States, Richard W. Cottam. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988.

Nationalism in Iran, Richard W. Cottam. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1979.

The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict, Dilip Hiro. Routledge, 1991.

All the Shah’s Men, Stephen Kinzer. Wiley, 2003.

The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran, Charles Kurzman. Harvard University Press, 2004.

Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi. Random House, 2003.

An Islamic Utopia: A Political Biography of Ali Shariati, Ali Rahnema. I. B. Taurus, 2000.

Prophets Without Honor: A Requiem for Moral Patriotism, William M. Strabala and Michael J. Palecek. Algora, 2002.

444 Days, The Hostages Remember, Tim Wells. Harcourt, 1985.

DOCUMENTARY AND VIDEO

444 Days to Freedom: What Really Happened in Iran, directed by Les Harris. View Video, 1998.