Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam (Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America)

224 Pages·2004·1.24 MB·English

by  David Farber

PoliticsandSocietyinTwentieth-CenturyAmerica
SeriesEditors
WilliamChafe,GaryGerstle,LindaGordon,andJulianZelizer
Alistoftitlesinthisseriesappearsatthebackofthebook
DAVID FARBER
THE IRAN HOSTAGE CRISIS AND AMERICA’S
FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH RADICAL ISLAM
PRINCETONUNIVERSITYPRESS
PRINCETONANDOXFORD
Copyright2005byPrincetonUniversityPress
PublishedbyPrincetonUniversityPress,41WilliamStreet,
Princeton,NewJersey08540
IntheUnitedKingdom:PrincetonUniversityPress,
3MarketPlace,Woodstock,OxfordshireOX201SY
AllRightsReserved.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Farber,DavidR.
Takenhostage:theIranhostagecrisisandAmerica’sfirstencounter
withradicalIslam/DavidFarber.
p. cm. — (Politicsandsocietyintwentieth-centuryAmerica)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0-691-11916-3(alk.paper)
1.IranHostageCrisis,1979–1981.2.UnitedStates—Foreignrelations—Iran.
3.Iran—Foreignrelations—UnitedStates.4.UnitedStates—Foreign
relations—1977–1981.5.Islamandpolitics—Iran.I.Title.II.Series.
E183.8.I55F372004
955.05′42—dc22 2004046639
BritishLibraryCataloging-in-PublicationDataisavailable.
ThisbookhasbeencomposedinSabonandHelveticaNeueFamily
Printedonacid-freepaper.∞
www.pupress.princeton.edu
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
Chapter1 Crisis,Chaos,andJimmyCarter 9
Chapter2 TheShah,Khomeini,andthe“GreatSatan” 35
Chapter3 TakeoverinTehran 73
Chapter4 ShaslikNergBessawariAzerbaiyanor
“TheRedBlindfoldWouldBeLovely” 102
Chapter5 444Days 137
Epilogue 181
Notes 191
Index 205
This page intentionally left blank
THISBOOKwouldnothavebeenpossiblewithoutthesupportand
encouragement of many people. First, my thanks to the talented
team of archivists at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. With-
outtheirhelpfulsuggestionsthisbookcouldnothavebeenwritten.
Thanks,too,tothelibrarystaffatZimmermanLibrary,University
ofNewMexico,whokeptfindingthebooksandjournalsIneeded.
Diplomatic historians Fred Logevall and Richard Immerman
read the penultimate draft of this book and pushed me to think
harderabouttheCarteradministrationforeignpolicyteamandto
understand the context of U.S.-Iranian relations. I am honored to
havehadthesetwosuperbscholarsreviewthiswork.Iamindebted
to all the readers selected by Princeton University Press to review
themanuscriptandtotheserieseditors,whosupportedthisproject
throughoutthepublicationprocess.Theproseisstronger,theanal-
ysis keener, and the facts straighter because of their efforts. This
projectwouldneverhaveflownwithoutthecommitmentofPrince-
tonUniversityPresseditorBrigittavanRheinberg.Hercarefulread
ofthemanuscriptwasimmenselyencouragingandhelpful.Iwould
also like to thank my international colleagues, especially Jun Fu-
ruya, Fumiaki Kubo, Melani Budianti, and Pia Alishibana, who
haveoverthelastfewyearsinvitedmetogivetalksonrecentAmer-
icanhistoryandpoliticsinFrance,Japan,andIndonesia.Inpartic-
ular, questions I received from Islamic students in Padang, West
Sumatra,aboutAmericanpolicyintheMiddleEastinfluencedmy
viewsoninternationalperceptionsoftheUnitedStatesandcontrib-
utedtomydesiretowritethisbook.Ialsothinkthemanystudents
Acknowledgments
whoaskedsuchprobingquestionsatKeioUniversityinTokyoand
attheUniversityofIndonesiainJakarta.MythankstotheCentre
National de la Recherche Scientifique, the Fulbright Commission,
theOrganizationofAmericanHistorians,andtheJapaneseAssoci-
ation for American Studies.
My son, Max, read several sections of the manuscript and in-
sisted that I keep the prose taut. Having someone read the manu-
script who does not remember the 1980s (except Teenage Mutant
NinjaTurtles),letaloneJimmyCarter’spresidency,wasquiteuse-
ful in historicizing the story. Once again, Beth Bailey read every
word of the many drafts of this book and thought through every
aspectoftheprojectwithme.Sheurgedmetospendasmuchtime
asIneededinAtlantaattheCarterLibraryandtotakesometime
offtobicyclethroughVietnam.Nineteenyears,fourteenhomes(a
conservativeestimate),thirteenjobs,thirteenbooks,andcounting.
IdecidedtowritethisbookaftertheSeptember11attack.Iwas
scheduled that day to give a lecture about race in early twentieth-
centuryAmericanhistory;instead,mystudentsandImainlytalked
aboutwhatdrivespeopletocommitsuchcruelanddespicableacts
and what, if anything, history could tell us about such horrors.
Thehostage-takingthattookplaceonNovember4,1979,andthe
terror that was unleashed on September 11, 2001, are very differ-
ent kinds of events. Nonetheless, this book does aim to explain
howonekindoffierceanti-Americanism developedinonepartof
the Islamic world and, in turn, how Americans responded to it.
Seeing the Iran hostage crisis as the first major act in an interna-
tional struggle might, I hope, help us all gain perspective on the
tortured relationship between the United States and the forces of
political Islam.
viii