CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

HISTORICAL EVENTS OCCUR IN a cause-and-effect sequence, one leading inexorably into the next. History has a way of taking events and applying to them unexpected consequences.

As America continued to try to pull back into its shell, it elected in 1976 President Jimmy Carter, a pacifist president who exemplified America’s longing for isolationism and its eagerness to avoid confrontation by compromise.

On his second day in office, Carter unconditionally pardoned all Vietnam War draft dodgers. He returned the Panama Canal Zone to Panama, and concluded Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) with the USSR by making concessions. Perceived U.S. weaknesses under President Carter emboldened terrorists and lent impetus to communist aspirations of expansion.

In February 1979, the hard-line Iranian Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi fled to France while Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from France, where he had been exiled for the past fifteen years, to assume power in Iran. The Shah had been allied with the U.S. for decades. President Carter further angered anti-Shah Iranians with a televised toast to the Shah and a declaration of how beloved he was by his people.

Days after the coup, on February 14, in an incident known as the “Valentine’s Day Open House,” Fedayeen militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Teheran and took U.S. Marine Kenneth Kraus hostage. Rocks and bullets shattered most of the embassy’s front windows. Upon Carter’s advice, Ambassador William Sullivan surrendered the embassy to the militants in order to save lives.

Kraus, who had been injured during his kidnapping, was tortured, tried in a kangaroo Sharia court, convicted of murder, and ordered put to death. Only the intervention of Iranian foreign minister Ebrahim Yazdi saved the Marine’s life and returned him and the embassy to American control by the end of the week.

For the next eight months the embassy remained on alert and under a state of near constant siege. On October 22, 1979, Carter permitted the Shah to come to New York to be treated for cancer. This intensified anti-American sentiment in Iran and spawned rumors of a U.S.-backed coup and reinstallation of the Shah. Khomeini heightened rhetoric against the “Great Satan” and spread talk that he possessed “evidence of American plotting.” He called for street demonstrations.

Beginning at 6:30 a.m. on November 4, Fedayeen ringleaders herded approximately five hundred Muslim students to the American embassy. A female student with metal cutters concealed beneath her chador snipped the chain locking the gate. Embassy guards brandished firearms, but it quickly became apparent they were ordered not to shoot.

Occupiers ended up with fifty-two hostages, whom they bound, blindfolded, and paraded in front of photographers. Large, angry crowds congregated to jeer the Americans and cheer the occupiers. Ayatollah Khomeini issued a statement on Iran radio supporting the seizure and calling it “the second revolution.” The American embassy, he charged, had been an “American spy den in Teheran.”

President Carter called the hostages “victims of terrorism and anarchy.” He vowed the United States “will not yield to blackmail.” However, the only direct action he took was to appeal to the ayatollah for the release of hostages on humanitarian grounds.

Days dragged by with nothing done. CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite began ending each of his newscasts by noting the number of days the hostages remained in captivity.

* * *

Things were happening in the world. I simply could not stay out of the fray.

“I’m not cut out for the civilian world,” I complained to Barbara.

“Bill, you ninny. I knew that when I married you.”

“But … but, Barb, I’ve lost three wives because of it. I couldn’t stand to lose you too.”

“You’re not going to lose me, Bill. That I promise.”

Barbara was a confident, independent, self-sufficient woman. We made a good team.

The next day I walked into BUPERS (Bureau of Naval Personnel) at the Pentagon and filled out paperwork to return to active duty in the U.S. Navy. In short order, I was assigned to the CNO’s office in the Pentagon as a Special Warfare Officer in the Special Operations Division, refining proposed protocols for unconventional warfare.

I was back in the game.