The Rest Is History - 638. Revolution in Iran: The Hostage Crisis (Part 3)

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Why and how was the American Embassy stormed in 1979, at the height of the Iranian Revolution? Did America respond when large numbers of American civil servants were taken hostage? And, would a science fiction film called Argo save the only 6 Americans able to escape…? Join Dominic and Tom, as they discuss the defining event of the Iranian Revolution: the invasion of the American Embassy on the 4th of November 1979, when American citizens were taken hostage in Tehran… _______ Become a member today and join us at The Rest Is History Festival at Hampton Court Palace on the 4th and 5th of July 2026. This is a members-only event. Join the Athelstans for guaranteed entry or become a Friend of the Show to enter the ballot. You'll also get ad-free listening, bonus episodes, exclusive mini-series and more. Sign up now at ⁠therestishistory.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Video Editors: Jack Meek + Harry Swan Social Producer: Harry Balden Producers: Tabby Syrett & Aaliyah Akude  Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello everyone and we have some unbelievably exciting news for you all. Tom, if anything, you are underselling it because this is truly spectacular. On the 4th and 5th of July this year, we are going to be hosting the inaugural. Rest is History Festival. Out of all places, Hampton Court Palace. And crucially, this is just for the people who mean most to us. That is the members of the Rest is History Club. Tom, am I right?

You are so right, Dominic. So if you want to access tickets for the festival, then you will need to become a member of the Restless History Club, which is so easy to do. All you have to do is go to therestishistory.com, and it's a matter of seconds. Okay, so remember, by becoming a member of the Restis History Club, you will be able to enter that much prized ballot

for tickets to this thrilling festival. But of course, on top of that, you'll get all our episodes ad-free. You will get early access to our epic series. You will get weekly bonus episodes. You will get access to our exciting new exclusive mini series. Most of all, you'll get an entree to our much love chat community and many more such exciting benefits. So if you want guaranteed access to two tickets, you can join the very top tier of the club and become an Athelstan.

You will also get the exclusive opportunity. to upgrade to a VIP ticket, which includes a range of special perks, including, and this is so exciting, unlimited food and unlimited drink. So go to the restishtisthistory.com and sign up immediately. It is going to be the most extraordinary weekend. There'll be talks, there will be thrilling special guests, there will be historically themed music, there'll be all kinds of treats, there'll be all kinds of action, and there might even be some battles. But above all, it'll be a time for friendship to get to know your fellow members

and to get to know Tom and me in a very, very special place, Hampton Court Palace. And I know that I speak for Dominic as well as for myself when I say, we cannot wait to see you there. Like in the name of God, the merciful, compassionate. We Muslim students, followers of Imam Khomeini,

have occupied the espionage embassy of America and protest against the ploys of the imperialists and the Zionists. We announce our protest to the world, a protest against America for granting asylum and employing the criminal Shah while it has its hands in the blood of like tens of thousands of women and men in this country.

So we protest against America for creating a malignant atmosphere of biased and monopolized propaganda and for supporting and recruiting counter-revolutionary agents against the Islamic Revolution of Iran. And finally, for its undermining and its destructive role in the face of the struggle of the peoples for freedom from the chains of imperialism, wherein thousands of revolutionary and faithful people have been slaughtered. So that, of course, was a student,

and it was a female student, and she was phoning into a Tehran radio station on the afternoon of Sunday the 4th of November, 1979, and she was speaking on behalf of a radical student group called themselves the Muslim students following the line of the imam. And what had prompted this call was a very dramatic development in the ongoing momentum of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Because a few hours earlier, several hundred Iranian students had broken into the United States Embassy, Compound, in downtown Tehran. Their plan was, I mean, it's what students do all the time.

They wanted to do a brief kind of symbolic occupation, but it very rapidly turned into something much, much more serious with seismic geopolitical implications. Because within a few days, they had taken 66 Americans hostage, including Marine Guards, CIA officers and operatives and US diplomats. And Dominic, this crisis escalated very, very rapidly and would become one of the most dramatic humiliations in the whole of American history. Definitely, yes.

So, hello, everybody. What an extraordinary reading that was. At one point, I thought you might be accused of punching down. against female students. And then it occurred to me that your female student voice is actually just a little bit along from your Mick Jagger voice.

Anyway, yes, this is an extraordinary story. It's a defining episode in the Iranian Revolution and it's an absolutely catastrophic moment for Jimmy Carter. Poor old Jimmy Carter, he's been through the ringer in the rest of history.

I mean, he was humiliated when he appeared in our episode about Love Island. So people may remember he was a contestant on historical Love Island. And who did he end up with? Can't remember.

I don't think it was a good match, was it? No, it wasn't. I think was he dumped by Marcia Williams for Judas Ascariot? Yeah, I think something like that happened. He's had a terrible time because last week he collapsed on a run, watched by you at the time, remember? Yes. He was attacked by a killer rabbit. He was upbraided by us for not pursuing peanut diplomacy with the Ayatollahs.

I mean, it's such an open goal. And now he's paying the price for his folly. Because this week we are telling the story of the seizure of the U.S. Embassy, the ordeal of the hostages and Carter's absolutely disastrous attempt to rescue them. And we will be welcoming back in the next episode, an old friend and associate to the rest of his history. Yeah, Ronald Reagan will be returning to the show. Very exciting times.

So let's remind ourselves where we got to. So there'd be months of street protests, rather like the street protest, Tom, that we are witnessing right now. And I know you're keen, aren't you, to bring out the extraordinary resonances between the late 1970s and the 2020s. Yeah, so we're recording this on the 9th of January and who knows what may have happened

by the time you get to listen to this. So after street protest, the last Shah, Mohammed Rizhar Pahlavi, had fled Iran on the 16th of January, 1979. 16 days later, the Ayatala, Ruhola Khomeini, returned this extraordinary moment when he returns to the airport.

And then there's a period of total chaos, street battles and paramilitary violence and whatnot. But by the spring of 1979, it's pretty clear the Ayatollah has the initiative. Parameditaries who associate themselves with him control the streets. There's been a referendum and a massive majority for an Islamic Republic. There are Sharia courts that are trying and executing former Shah loyalists. And Dominic, it's not yet institutionalized, is it? But there is increasing pressure on women to start bailing, covering their hair. going into hijab. Yes. Women's rights and other symbols of westernisation have been put into

reverse, really some of them have. And there's still a power struggle going on. So there is an interim government relatively moderate under this guy Merti Bazagan. So he's a weedy beard and moustache. Yes, he's a sort of intellectual goatee beard and moustache. But power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of people with much more luxuriant beards. Huge be it, who are the Council of the Islamic Revolution, and this is dominated by clerics who associate themselves with Khomeini. What nobody knows at this point is where all this is going. It's a situation in great kind of fluidity in flux. So no one knows really what Khomeini wants. He has gone off to the holy city of Gom, which is where he'd been at the seminary, and he's sort of

hunkered down there, praying and meditating and whatnot. And whatnot. Yeah, there's a whatnot as well. I think he's probably writing mystical poems, isn't he? Isn't that what he enjoys doing? He would imagine so. Yeah, he's thinking about poetry and that's nice. But what the Islamic revolutionary state under clerical guardianship will mean in practice remains very unclear. Because of this sense of uncertainty, there is a deep fear, even paranoia, among Khomeini's partisans, that the forces of Satanism are going to strike back against their revolution.

and it reminds me a lot of the French Revolution. So in the French Revolution, 1792, 1793, people were convinced that emigres and foreign agents were plotting against the revolution. And guess what? They were. They were right. I mean, I suppose also, we call it the Islamic Revolution,

but the notion of overthrowing a king because he's a king is pretty alien to Islam. I mean, there's a precedent for this in Islamic history, but there is, of course, in European history. So there is a slight irony there that the point, process of institutionalising a republic is of necessity importing certain Western ideas. I guess it is. But also no one knows that the Republic will actually last, right?

There's a lot of palavi loyalists out there. The Shah are still out there, as we will discuss. You know, rather like in the French Revolution, people were worried that the king would strike back. Of course. This is what people are thinking right now. What is more, as in the French Revolution, the chaos in the capital has triggered revolts all over the country. So Iran, remember, is not a nation state. Iran is multi-ethnic.

And in, you know, for example, the southwestern province of Kuzestan, there has been a revolt by the Arab population. The revolts all over Iran. And actually, that revolt in Kuzestan is the rebellion that inspires the takeover of the Iranian embassy by separatists in London in 1980. So this is the embassy siege that ended with the SAS storming the building. On top of this, there's a very tense relationship with Iran's neighbor, Iraq, because Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi strong man, has been very alarmed by this talk of exporting the Islamic Revolution. Because, of course, he lives in the country, as we discussed, a majority Shiite population. And he is a Sunni. So Saddam Hussein is thinking, hmm, you know, maybe I should strike first and profit from Iran's. fragmentation, which of course he will do triggering the Iran-Iraq war.

And that goes well. Yeah, for nobody. And finally, Khomeini and his supporters remember that in 1953, the British and the Americans had carried out a coup against Mohammed Mossadegh. And they're very worried that the Americans might be planning another coup. Well, they are, aren't they? And they are, yes. Was it Zubritsky?

Zubigny of Brzezinski. He sent orders to the American ambassador. He's constantly ringing him up and saying, get that coup going. Come on, where's the coup? So one of the students, Massimu Ebdekar, we quoted her before, as she said later on, we were sure that foreign elements were actively involved in attempts to weaken and undermine our young republic. So French Revolution, isn't it?

Yeah, it is very French Revolution. And as in the French Revolution, it's A, it is paranoid, but B, it's also true. They are trying to undermine the revolution. So people like Massamu Ebikar and other students, They come to focus on one place above all, and that's the US Embassy. So this is the twillery of the Iranian Revolution. The den of spies, as they called it, the centre of counter-revolutionary intrigue. So the US Embassy, to give people a sense of the place because it's so important.

It's a two-story brick building. It was finished in 1951. It's in this kind of wooded compound. Americans used to say it looks just like a high school. And it kind of does when you look at photos of it. It looks like the high school in stranger things or something. Or the Simpsons. or indeed the Simpsons, exactly, or indeed any American TV series.

So because of the relationship with the Shah, the US diplomatic corps always knew the embassy might be a target. And actually, they were first attacked on Christmas Eve, 1978, before the Shah had even left. There was a crowd outside the compound, and they were repelled by US Marine guards with tear gas and by an Iranian army unit, then loyal to the Shah, which defended the US embassy.

Then after the Shah has gone and the Ayatala has returned, there is a second attack on the 14th of February 1979. So this is in the context of the sort of chaos in the streets, the street battles after Khomeini's return. And this was much more serious. So this time the attack was led by Islamic militants with automatic weapons. At the time, Ambassador William Sullivan, people may remember him, he's a Serbic,

he has white buffoon hair, he's always arguing with the White House. He handled it really well. He said to the Marines, hold your fire, don't shoot back against these blokes, retreat to the Chancery Building, put down some tear gas, sort of retreat behind this cloud of tear gas.

The attackers got through the gates, but Sullivan himself went to meet them, and he kept them talking until intermediaries could arrive sent by Khomeini's Revolutionary Council. And Khomeini's men actually had a massive row with the attacker, said, what are you doing? Why are you here?

No one told you to break him. They cleared the compound, and this will surprise some people. Chomini sent a group of clerics a couple of days later to see Sullivan and to say, we're dreadfully sorry that this happened. If this happens again, you know, you have my personal assurance that I will help you. You know, let me know if this happens again. This is all from Sullivan's memoir, mission to Iran, I think it's called.

So the obvious question is, once this has happened a couple of times, why do the Americans not close the embassy? I suppose it's so important, isn't it, Iran? I mean, it's the fulcrum of its. position in the Middle East. Of course. You're not going to run away, right? And especially if you've got the Iotler's personal guarantee that you'll be safe. And also they want to keep talking to moderate element. They want to swing the government, you know, away from extremism. They want to keep talking to them. Of course, the moderate elements. The one thing of American diplomats love,

it's a moderate element in an Islamic regime. Well, also, the CIA have listening posts on the border with the Soviet Union, on Iran's northern borders. They don't want to give them up, right? They're really important. Now, That said, the Americans are not complete idiots. So they start to wind things down at the embassy. By the spring of 1979, most American nationals have been flown out of Iran. And from about 1,000 and a half thousand people, there are now fewer than 100 people working at the embassy. So if you go to the compound in the middle of 1979, there's a handful of Marines.

I mean, we're talking about a dozen, maybe, maybe between a dozen and 20 Marines. I mean, that's a hard posting, isn't it? Yeah, you don't really fancy that. There are about 80 local sort of armed men who have been sent by Iran's provisional government. But these blocs just spend a lot of time drinking and squabbling around themselves. So they're clearly not going to be much use in a fight. However, after February 1979, all the militant factions on the streets, they're more worried about fighting each other than they are fighting the Americans.

So the Americans are kind of left alone. So a couple of months later, Sullivan has finally recalled to Washington. As we talked about before, Carter has been itching to sack him for months because he thinks he's insubordinate. The State Department do not rush to replace him. They say, look, the situation in Iran is so chaotic. We don't even know, you know, who's in charge. So we don't really know who we should send. We'll get this bloke's deputy who's called Bruce Lengen.

He can stay on as the caretaker kind of head of mission until we send out a proper. ambassador later on. Dominic, can I just ask, if they had sent out an ambassador, would that have been an indication to the new Iranian regime that the United States recognized it as the legitimate government? Yes, undoubtedly it would. So that would actually maybe have made a difference, do you think? But in much better.

So a lot of people, some people at least in the State Department, certainly in the US embassy, including Bruce Langen himself, thought, you should send another ambassador because that will send a signal to the Iranian regime. We accept you. We will work with you. We're going to find a way through this. But actually not sending an ambassador at all is a really bad sign. It's a snub.

Yeah, it's seen as a bit of a snub. Sullivan gets back to Washington. The first thing he does when he gets back to Washington, he says to Cyrus Vance, who is the patrician kind of Ivy League, boarding school educated, secretary of state. Sullivan says to Cyrus Vance, I'd like to see you because I'm actually really worried about our embassy.

He says, there is one thing that you could do that would be bound to provoke an attack. And that would be if you ever allowed the Shah of Iran into the United States. So that's his message. Whatever you do, don't allow the Shah of Iran into the United States. Whatever you do, whatever you do, do not do that. So let's get on to the Shah. The Shah, remember, left in January,

and the original plan was to him to go to this estate in Palm Springs that has been visited by Tom Holland, Walter Annenberg's estate. But the Shah has not done that. he has hung around and dalled in North Africa with his pal, President Sadat in Aswan in Egypt, and then he's gone to see another mate of his King Hassan of Morocco in Marrakesh. The Shah is now a very sickly, gaunt and miserable figure.

He has seen the footage of Khomeini's return, and he was really shocked by it. He's gutted about what's happened to Iran. He can't believe it. Of course, he was so out of touch. And he's really disappointed. Now, meanwhile, in Morocco, because, of course, that the Islamic revolution

has caught the world's imagination. And because the Ayatollahs have made it very clear they'd like to export the ideals of their revolution, King Hassan and Morocco thinks, I don't know that having the Shah here is a very good idea. I mean, there are Islamist groups in Morocco. You know, I don't want them all kicking off because the Shah's here.

So by, after a few weeks, he says to the Shah, I'd really like it if you moved on now. You know, you've kind of outstayed you're welcome. Now, the Shah at this point, this would be the point for him to go to California. However, the Americans have now slightly changed their mind. First of all, there were reports that the Revolutionary Committees in Iran have started arresting foreigners. But also, the National Security Council says to Carter, if we admit the Shah, it would mean, and I quote, mass arrests of Americans in Tehran

and almost certainly another attack on the embassy. Now, Jimmy Carter, people may recall, is an evangelical. local born again Christian. So you would think he is a kindly man, a man of his word, who would want to honour his promise to the Shah, wouldn't you, Tom? Well, and also, he's gone over to Tehran and toasted the Shah and said how he's his best mate and how he loves him. Yeah, correct.

Very publicly. Yes. But do you know what? Jimmy Carter now shows perhaps less Christian side to his character. when they meet in Washington, he says, I think we should forget about the Shah, let's cut him loose, let him twist in the wind. And Brzezinski, who's the hard man, he's really shocked by this. And he says, I think it would be repugnant to cancel our invitation.

It would violate our loyalty to our friend. And Carter says, very curtly, I don't want the Shah playing tennis in the United States while Americans in Tehran are kidnapped or killed. Well, it would be very easy for Carter to stop the Shah playing tennis, wouldn't it? Yes. Doesn't put him on the booking list for the White House. Right.

Yeah. If there's anyone, it's funny. It's so revealing that Jimmy Carter reaches for that image. Right. So anyway, the Shah's now in a mess. Jimmy Carter doesn't want him. So where can he go? Now remember, he has a house in our own beloved country.

But the weather's terrible. But he said the weather was terrible. Now he gets that idea back. And Jim Callahan, still prime minister, says, no, you're not coming. And then there's an election in Britain. Britain. And Margaret Thatcher, big fan of the Shah, she also says no. I mean, she's the Iron Lady. She's not going to be swayed by obligations to a sick king, is she? Well, do you know what? She actually did. She actually felt really bad about it. But she was told,

you know, security on the Shah's estate, which is just outside London, will be a nightmare. Like, we're not convinced. It'll be very difficult to protect this country estate from attackers, but also we will put our own Britain's embassy into Tehran at risk. And they're right. Because actually, I mean, we know that American diplomats are going to be taken hostage. British diplomats are not. And in a sense, bearing in mind the notoriety of Britain in the Iranian demonology, I mean, that is a dog that doesn't bark in the night, isn't it? It is, although there are a massive protest outside the British embassy, but it's not invaded. And they changed the street name, don't they, from Winston Churchill Avenue to

Bobby Sands Avenue. Bobby Sands is an IRA hunger striker. Exactly, they do. So the Shah can't go to Britain. He goes off to the Bahamas in the end, and he gets a house on the beach, and he spends his time praying and reading the newspapers, and he rings up foreign diplomats to reminisce about the good old days,

about food from Maxims of Paris and Don Perignon, Champagne and stuff. Great days. And then after that, he goes to Kenavaka in Mexico, and both of these boltholes have been arranged by two American pals of his. So specifically, his great chum, Henry Kissinger, and Kissinger's mate, David Rockefeller of oil family fame, who is the president of the Chase Manhattan Bank. So useful friends.

Yeah, good contacts. And Kissinger and Rockefeller take it upon themselves to be the Shah's great champions. And they think it's terrible that the United States has abandoned him. And all through 1979, Kissinger and Rockefeller are pestering the Carter administration, allow in the Shah. You're letting America down. This is really poor. Come on. And does Carter respond to this in a tone of Christian obligation? Carter, Tabby, get your bleeping machine ready. Carter says, and I quote, F*** the Shah. I'm not going to welcome him when he has other places where he'll be safe.

This is not what Jimmy Carter says when he's teaching a Sunday school in Plains, Georgia, surely. Anyway, the decisive factor is the Shah's health. So basically, his doctors have been visiting him, is French doctors and they can see that his cancer is spreading. He's losing weight. He looks terrible. He's turned yellow with jaundice, all of this. And eventually, David Rockefeller sends his own medical team to Mexico to inspect the Shah, and they go back to Washington and they report to the administration.

And in October, 1979, so the 19th of October, there's a meeting at the White House to discuss this. And Carter's aide say to him, I think you should let him in. He's, you know, he's dying. You should definitely let him in. Cyrus Vance, the Secretary of State, says, common decency and humanity demand that we allow the Shah to have treatment in New York. He was our ally.

He was our man. We can't abandon him now. Carter's chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, a Georgian like Carter, he points out to the Carter. He says, if the Shah dies in Mexico, Henry Kissinger will go around the world saying, first you caused his downfall and now you've killed him. That's a bit harsh.

It's the cancer that kills him, surely. Yeah, but that is what Henry Kucenthal would have said. Yeah, okay. So, you know, Hamilton-D Jordan is right. And Carter eventually gives in, but at the end of the meeting, Carter, and we've painted Carter as in some ways, you know, we've perhaps been a bit unfair to Jimmy Carter in some ways. Here, Jimmy Carter shows his shrewdness.

Because Jimmy Carter says, at the end of the meeting, does somebody have an answer as to what we would do if the diplomats in our embassy are taken hostage? And there's a long silence and nobody says anything. And Carter says, I gather not. that day we will all sit here with long-drawn white faces and we will realize that we have been had. So if he's alert to that, why doesn't he withdraw the diplomats before allowing the Shaheen? That's a good question.

Where they don't want to withdraw their diplomats, they think it's so important to have diplomatic representation and keep talking to these fabled moderate elements, I think. If Carter ran away from Iran, he would be accused of completely losing Iran, I think. So he doesn't want to do that. Yeah, invidious situation. Anyway, he doesn't handle it well, as we will see. So three days later, the 22nd of October, the Shah and Empress Farah arrive in New York,

and they are rushed straight to the Cornell Medical Center so that he can have emergency surgery. There's no attempt, really. Everyone knows they can't keep this a secret. So even as the doctors are operating on the Shah, there are crowds outside the building chanting against him. And are these Iranian? Iranian students.

Iranian students. So there were tens of thousands. of Iranian students at American universities. They tend to be anti-Shah, and by this point, when they demonstrate against the Shah or whatever, they often get attacked by Americans or there's scuffles on campuses and things like this, and which will worsen, of course, once the Hostas crisis begins.

But there are also lots of pro-Shaer Iranians in America. There are the exiles. So increasing the exile groups who've arrived since 1978, settled in places like Florida and California, still exile communities of Iranians in America today. So in Tehran, when the U.S. embassy staff hear the Shah has arrived in New York, oh God, they're not happy. So Bruce Lengen, who is the acting ambassador, had already said to Washington,

please do not do this. Do not do this. And if you are going to do it, clear it with the Iranian provisional government beforehand. Like, explain to them what you're doing. You know, try to smooth the ground. Please send a new ambassador to show that you accept the new regime. And please do something to arrange proper security for Americans in Tehran. And as throughout this story, too many people in Washington just don't listen to the signals they're getting from their embassy.

But in the first few days, Lengen thinks, you know what, we might just get away with this? There is no attack on the embassy. There are marches. But by Iranian standards, the streets feel reasonably calm. So maybe things are going to be all right. what he doesn't know is that at Tehran's University of Technology there are students who have been plotting for weeks to attack the embassy Now there are different groups of students who kind of claim credit for this

The name that comes up most often is a guy called Ibrahim Ashgazada Who later on actually ended up being a reformist Iranian politician And was actually arrested in the 2000s Oh, so a moderate element Moderate element but not in 1979 He was an engineering student He was absolutely typical of the students who were We're very excited about Khomeini's return.

See it as a chance for a new start, banishing the corruption and the frustrations of the 70s. And he meets up with some friends of his cafe in Tehran one day in the autumn. And they say, we would love to kind of demonstrate our, you know, it's classic student stuff. Let's make a stand, you know, let our voices be heard, all of this kind of thing. Strike at the imperialists. Strike at the imperialists. Why don't we break into the U.S. embassy and from there, proclaim our message to the world? Brilliant idea. They meet up with students from other Terran colleges and they form this group

with the catchy name Muslim student followers of the Imam's line. Love it. And their plan is they will occupy the embassy for a few hours, maybe a few days, and they will broadcast the message that you read out. We don't like the Shah, we don't like America, we don't like imperialism, you know, Hazar, Hazar, end of story. So it's a sit-in in exactly the way that sit-ins from 1968 onwards have operated in the West and presumably inspired by them. Yes, that's the funny thing, isn't it about the Iranian Revolution? That in some ways, you know, it was often described in the West as backward looking, as medieval, all this kind of thing.

And yet it's very modern. And it's informed both by, you know, Shia tradition and also by the Ayatollah's radical vision, but also there's hints of the 1960s and 1968 in there too. Yeah, and that's what people on the left in the West, who are enthusiastic initially, for the Iranian Revolution are picking up on. That's what they liked, exactly. So now we come to the fateful day, Sunday the 4th of November, 1979. It is exactly one year to go until the US presidential election.

I mean, you could not make this up. So 365 days' time, Jimmy Carter will face the American voters. And about dawn, 300 students gathered near the embassy. And at least one of the female students, they're wearing these black... Chadors. Yeah, Chadors, black robes. and they have bolt cutters hidden under their chadors. And they're brought enough food for three days.

That's as long as they think the occupation will plausibly last at the outside. They go through the streets towards the embassy. Remember that Tehran, there are always street protests and stuff, so people don't think anything of it. And inside the embassy, nobody really has any idea what's happening. There's a brilliant book on this by an American writer called Mark Bowden called guests of the Ayatollah, all about the siege and the hostage experience, which I heartily recommend to the listeners. And one of the people he talks about in this book is the press attache,

who was Barry Rosen, who was a big sort of Iranophile. He'd been a peace corps volunteer in Iran. He spoke farcee, all of this. He's in his office. It's nine o'clock. He's typing a report, and he hears shouting at the window. He goes to the window with his secretary. There's this huge crowd. Men with a lot of stubble shouting, death to Jimmy Carter, death to America, women in their chadours, fists pumping, hurrah for the Ayatollah, all this kind of thing. Standard stuff. And he watches it for a little while.

And then to his horror, he sees they're starting to climb the gates. And I guess if you're an American diplomat in the 70s, seeing people climb over the walls of American embassies, it's not a good sign. You're absolutely right. it is only four years since the fall of Saigon. You know, the scar of South Vietnam's fall has not healed by any means. And those scenes that the US Embassy must be, I mean, they are very fresh in people's minds. And there are no helicopters on hand.

There are no helicopters cut. Well, as yet. Rosen goes back in, he says, bar the door, you know, I need to get rid of any sensitive papers. But actually, before he can do that, men are already forcing their way into his office. And he shouts at them in Farsi, get out or whatever. but more and more of them are coming in and one of them says to him leave immediately or you will be hurt

we are in control and Rosen can see they're very young they're very disorganised they are frightened of course and they're angry they're in a terrible state and he thinks well I'll just give in because this will be over soon I know how these things work

I'm just going to have to set this up for the time being and he's led outside by these blokes and there are already hundreds of people pouring into the compound and they are moving around the buildings, they're going through all the cupboards, they're pulling out documents, all of this kind of thing.

In the Chancery building, the students demand that the staff open the safes. The staff don't have the combination. Some of the students start hitting them, and then they drag the staff outside, they bind them, they blindfold them, and this happens in every building in the compound.

It's a very confused and dramatic scene, but it all happens pretty quickly. An obvious question is why the Americans don't fight back. Why is there no shooting? And there are a couple of explanations. One is that not all the students are violent. So some of them carry signs in English that say, don't be afraid we just want to sit in.

Right. So this is like Berkeley. This is like a student sit-in in California. Right, exactly. Or the London School of Economics or the sit-ins that have been so familiar in the 60s and 70s. Secondly, an obvious point, the Marines are massively outnumbered. I think there are about just over a dozen Marines in the compound.

There are 300 students. You know, you're not going to shoot them all. So they're overwhelmed. But crucially, everybody thinks this will be over within hours because there have been attacks on the embassy before. You know, it's scary and it's, you know, traumatic, but it's not going to last forever. So by lunchtime, it's all over.

The compound is now full of hundreds of Iranians and about 60 Americans have been taken prisoner. Most of them have been blindfolded or bound. Some of them are really, you know, they've been hit. They're bruised. They're battered. Some of them are terrified. They're going to be shot.

Some of them are saying to their friends, don't worry, it's fine. We'll probably be one of a plane going home tomorrow. This is how these things work. The chief diplomat, Bruce Lengen, and two of his senior officials are not there. They had a meeting at the Iranian Foreign Ministry. They went to the Foreign Ministry. Lengen found out what was going on. And he said, I want to see the Foreign Minister.

And they basically showed him into a dining room. And he was there for hours. And then he was there overnight. and then he was there for another day and then he basically realized I'm never getting out of this room and then does he get taken to the back to the embassy? No, they get shut up

in the foreign ministry forever forever. Well what happens to them? Do they get out as well in the end? Well they're hostages they're hostages but stuck in the foreign ministry not even with their maids back in the embassy well as we will see the hostages end up a lot of them end up getting spit up against solitary confinement and so on and so forth

so they're all prisoners they've ended up as prisoners of the Iranian revolution. Of the 72 embassy staff, only six of them avoided capture. And this is an extraordinary story. Yeah, because this is the film, isn't it? This is Argo. There were five of them, Mark and Corolliak, Joseph and Kathleen Stafford, and Robert Anders, who were working in the consulate. The consulate building had a separate exit onto the street, so they were able to sneak out. Their original plan was to go to the British embassy, but there was a massive crowd outside the British embassy, so they had to abandon that. And after,

of various goings on, they end up being taken in by the Canadians, as well as the sixth guy called Henry Lee Shats. And the story of how they're taken in by the Canadians, and then they get out of Iran, is the Ben Affleck film Argo. This extraordinary story, just to cut it a very long story short, the Canadians, who are the great heroes of this story, teamed up with a CIA agent called Tony Mendez, of course he was called Tony Mendez, and he created full-sight entities for them. They pretended they'd been working as Hollywood film scouts, checking out locations for a science fiction film called Argo. And the CIA went to the lengths of opening Hollywood studio to make this film. They made posters. They ran ads in variety in the Hollywood

reporter to create a cover story for them. And Mendez, in January 1980, flies into Iran with his forgery kit to basically get these guys out. It's such a good film. Yeah. Canadian-Ca-Cat. paper it was called at the time. An amazing story. I mean, the fact that I'm telling the story, if you haven't seen the film, you can probably guess whether they get out or not, but it is still worth watching the film. I mean, I've got to say Tehran is an excellent place for thrillers. There's also a tremendous Israeli spy series called Tehran.

Oh, yeah, I remember you're telling us about that, yeah. Mossad agent who goes undercover in Tehran. It's actually very kind of Le Carre. Both sides are morally ambivalent. I really commend it. And it's intense. Particularly the first two episodes is incredibly tense in exactly the way that Argo is tense.

And tense, Tom, I would like to believe in the same way that this episode is tense, no? Yeah, absolutely. Because 66 hostages have now been left in captivity and Jimmy Carter now has a massive headache. So he's at Camp David, his sort of retreat. It's 4 o'clock in the morning and he gets the call from the State Department

that the embassy has been taken and people have been taken hostage. And he puts the phone down and he tries to get back to sleep. but he can't sleep for obvious reasons. He had specifically asked his advisers what they would do if this happened and they had not given him a clear answer. And he must know, even at this stage,

that if he can't find an answer, then he and his presidency are heading for the dustbin of history. Not the dustbin of history. Do you know what? It's a Ronald Reagan image. That's why I chose it. Dominic, well, you said tension. Yeah, tension, we've got it. come back after the break to find out if Jimmy Carter can get out of the bin.

Hello and welcome back to the rest of history. We left you with the United States Embassy in the hands of student militants and some 66 American hostages from that embassy being held hostage. So, Dominic, what happens to these hostages? So at first, remember the hostages don't think they're going to end up as long-term hostages. They think they will be out within hours, maybe a day, worst case, two or three days. At first, they are held in the embassy compound. And they were held there for a very long time, for weeks and months, until the Iranians became worried that the Americans might try to rescue them and they moved them to prisons.

They spit them up and moved them to prisons around Tehran. I mentioned Mark Bowden's book, Guests of the Ayatollah. This was an expression used by the Iranians. They said these people are the guests of Arias. But they weren't treated like guests. They were blindfolded. They were regularly interrogated. They were bullied.

They were beaten. People would put guns to their heads. They would pretend to play Russian roulette with them. They would threaten to shoot them unless they admitted that they were spies and handed over secrets. I'm surprised they would use the word guests, actually, because hospitality is such a big deal in Islam. It's a joke, isn't it?

There's something mocking about the attitude of the Iranians. during this crisis. But the rules of hospitality are so important. Well, I mean this is not a great advert for Iranian hospitality. Not least because the hostage takers themselves, of course they're young, they're in their early twenties. They themselves are frightened, overexcited, disorganized,

bad tempered. They spend a lot of time screaming at each other and at the hostages. Some of the hostages, the women and African Americans, were released before the end of November after a few weeks, obviously because the captors wanted to make a political point. This is the sort of 1968 side of the Iranian revolution. So that left 52 of them still in captivity.

And their story is a pretty grim one. I mean, a lot of them had a really, really terrible time. They were regularly beaten. They were regularly bound for days. They were brought out before jeering crowds. They were split up and put into solitary confinement and so on. And they're always wearing blindfolds, aren't they? So all the photographs, they're always.

I mean, just awful. And when they were moved to prisons, they had a really, really tough time. And the prison guards, so who were not students, the prison guards, they beat them, they tortured them, all of this kind of thing. And, of course, the greatest torment of all is just how long this goes on for. So a huge spoiler alert now.

These guys are going to be in captivity for 444 days. So far, far longer than they had envisaged or indeed the students had envisaged. I mean, this is the interesting thing. So the question is, why? This was never part of the student's plan. Why didn't they let them go? And what about the Ayatollah's promise that, you know,

just get on the phone to me and I'll sort it out? Well, this is where we get to the nub of the story, the Ayatollah. So Homini, despite what was often said in, you know, particularly American newspapers in 1979 and 1980, hominy almost certainly knew nothing about their plan or if he did know anything, the vaguest possible intimations of it because we know that when his foreign minister went to him

and said, this is what has happened. Homini was really surprised and he said, and I quote, who are these people? Why have they done this? Go and kick them out. So that was his initial reaction, sort of midday or so on the 4th of November. But by that evening he already seems to have changed his mind.

And there are some suggestions that this has been, because his son was in Tehran and his son went to the embassy and reported back. He said, the students are massive fans of yours. They're doing this in your name. And people love it. The reaction on the streets of Tehran is one of delirium, of joy, of ecstasy. Everybody thinks this is the most tremendous coup. And what is more, actually, within days, the embassy becomes a massive tourist attraction.

Great crowds will go. They're celebrating and cheering. There are people selling tapes of Khomeini's sermons. Are they kind of taking souvenirs? Yeah. There are people selling souvenir hats and stuff. I mean, I read this. And I did some Googling, enthusiastic Googling.

I don't know what a souvenir U.S. Embassy seizure hat would look like. A Stetson? No, I don't. Well, would they be Stetsons? I mean, who's making Stetsons in Tehran? Baseball caps? Maybe baseball caps. I mean, are these hats that the...

The Iranians are wearing? They're not hats that they've taken from the US embassy. No, how many hats could there have possibly been in the US embassy? I imagine it's obligatory for a US ambassador to have a Stetson. Surely, but I mean, that's only one Stetson. They're selling loads of hats. Anyway, we've got sidetracked into this hat issue, millinery. We're not the rest as millinery, Tom.

So to go back to Chomini, this is a good example, I think, of his political skill, his underrated political skill, because he sees this is the perfect symbolic issue to maintain his hold on the streets. because the longer he can spin all this out, the better for him. It makes the sort of so-called moderates in his interim government look a bit weak and feeble, and it allows the more extreme elements, the hardline elements, the revolutionary committees, to build support. So Bakr Mowin's biography of Khomeini quotes him talking to a friend.

We keep the hostages, finish our internal work, then release them. This is united our people. We can put the Constitution to the people's vote without difficulty and carry out the presidential and parliamentary elections. And when we've finished all these jobs, then we can let the hostages go. So in other words, we keep them for as long as we need to cement our control of Iran. And do you think also the optics of it is that you keep a hostage to ensure that your enemy won't do anything? And even though perhaps the United States were not planning by this stage a military. invasion or anything, it might generate subliminally in the minds of Iranian revolutionaries

the sense that their revolution is under threat by holding the hostages. Yeah, possibly, possibly, and of course might give you a little bit of security, you know? Yeah. The Americans won't attack us now because we have 52 of their people held hostage. Now, the hostage takers did have a list of demands. They wanted the United States to hand over the Shah for trial. They wanted the Americans to issue a formal apology for the coup of 1953. so that sort of sense of history again,

and they wanted American banks to release all Iran's frozen assets. But I think these demands are completely beside the point, and this is something that Americans never really realized that the White House, the State Department, could never quite get into their heads, that the demands were irrelevant because Khomeini and the clerics didn't want to release the hostages. They were too useful, because right away he gets results.

The interim government of Barzagan, the goatee-bearded guy and all these people, they resigned days after the embassy seizure. They were shocked by the embassy seizure. They resigned and Khomeini thought, well, brilliant, because basically now the hardliners are left unchallenged to wield power in my name, which is what he wanted. But the Americans, I think, didn't really realize this.

Most people in Washington thought that the Iranians would be keen to negotiate. And in the State Department, the working assumption was, probably this is all about money and we can do a deal, we can release frozen Iranian bank assets and that way we'll get the hostages back and this will take weeks, worst case months, but it's perfectly doable.

And in fact, the mad thing, some of Carter's re-election team thought this would work in his favour. So he's going to be facing a challenge from Chappaquiddix, Ted Kennedy. And they think, well, this will allow Carter to wrap himself in the flag. Kennedy is playing politics. Well, you know, the president is doing all he can for the hostages. And Carter's chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, said,

let's keep this on the front pages. That's mad. That's the worst strategy. I know. I know. It is a mad strategy. He said, I quote, it will provide a nice contrast between Carter and our friend from Massachusetts and how to handle a crisis. Oh, God. I mean, neither of them are very good in the crisis. That has to be said. No. So Carter takes this. whole of business incredibly seriously. He can't sleep. He's always going off to prayer meetings. He insists him personally meeting the families of all the hostages. His aides become quite worried about him. They say, you know, he's just constantly going on about the hostages, having all these meetings. And a lot of this, I think, is guilt. Because when he was asked by congressional leaders,

you know, is this kind of our fault for admitting the Shah? He snapped at them in a very, I don't give a damn whether or not you like the Shah, he said. And the tetchiness suggests to me that he feels personally responsible because he admitted the Shah, he didn't really want to do it, he gave in, he let the Shah in, and this is the result. However, in the short term, oddly, it does work in his favour because this is a thing that's often sort of elided in accounts of the hostage crisis. There was a big jump in his approval rating in November 1979. Well, because you rallied to the flag, don't you? Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's like in the wake of 9-11, disastrous, intelligent failure. Everyone thinks Bush is brilliant. Yes, exactly. But this sort of spike in his popularity

will only be sustainable if he gets the hostages out. If he doesn't get them out, it's bound to fade. And the other thing is, what he wants to do and what his chief of staff wants to do, they want to make his presidency now all about getting the hostages home, because they think it will work in his favour. But that's so reckless. because if he's mortgaging his presidency to the decisions of people in Tehran that he doesn't understand. Now, the other thing is,

I say people he doesn't understand, nobody in Washington still understands the Ayatollah Khomeini. I mean, you were talking in our previous episodes about the Ayatollah's, his apocalyptic sense, his, you know, the sort of, the red, raw intensity of his eschatological, theological vision. No one in Washington has the slightest sense of this.

I mean, the National Security Council's Iran specialist guy called Gary Sick wrote afterwards. Gary Sick. Gary Sick was his name. Nobody knew what kind of person Khomeini was. He was simply beyond the experience, if not the imagination of anyone in the United States government. They have no sense of this. And what Khomeini then does, which they didn't expect, he loves this. and he personalises it

and he makes it into a duel between himself and Jimmy Carter. So Khomeini gave interviews to all three American networks pretty much straight after the seizure of the US embassy. He was completely unflappable. He was completely unrepentant. He said the hostages were spies. This is all Carter's fault. It's Carter, who's the criminal breaking international law

by admitting the Shah. And he mocked Carter. This is, again, you think of the attaerola as so grim and formidable, which of course he was. But there is a sort of, there's a bit of the school bully in him, I have to say. He says explicitly, Carter is beating an empty drum.

Carter does not have the guts to engage in military action. Weak, weak, week. Yeah. But I wonder also, though, whether there isn't, you know, we talked about this apocalyptic vision that the Ayatollah has.

And Iranian Shiasam, I think, is massively influenced by this kind of the dualist traditions of Zoroastrianism and manicureism, this sense of the world divided into rival forces of good and evil. And he's not just demonizing Carteries. He is also literally demonizing America, because the day after the students occupy the U.S. Embassy, he coins this phrase, the great Satan. And I'm sure most of our listeners will have a sense of the great Satan as the phrase that is most often used by Islamic militants to describe America.

And the thing is that this isn't a Quranic phrase. The Ayatollahs basically seems to have made it up. And in the, I mean, in the Quran, the figure of Satan isn't the figure that would be familiar to kind of Christians, the sense of a terrifying demonic figure, contesting the rule of the world with, you know, the divine forces of good. But Satan is a kind of a tempter. He's the person who seduces devout Muslims from, from the path of righteousness.

But I think the Ayatollah is kind of making the figure of Satan into a kind of, you know, a Manichaean figure of evil. And that's what America becomes for him. And of course, in America as well, you also have this Manichian sense of good and evil. And both sides now are starting to think of the other as a literal cosmic representation. of evil.

Yeah, I think that's true, because remember that in America, we were saying in a previous episode, American TV networks previously devoted five minutes a year to Iran. To the Shah going skiing. I mean, now this becomes this huge TV spectacle. So we've talked in previous series, for example, the Jack the Ripper series, about how important the media can be in kind of framing a crisis and creating a story and how important is that mediating all these things, constructing stories. I suppose. And this is a really good example because the American networks all start running special

programs about the hostage crisis. So ABC led the way they had a show called America held hostage. It ran every single night. And every edition of this show began day 57, day 58. You know, the sort of sense of a ticking clock. I think the whole thing is incredibly unsettling. And the scenes from Iran seem much more alien to American views. viewers, then say the scenes of Red Square. Yes, because they're in military uniforms, like kind of Western uniforms. There was something unbelievably alien, I would say. You're watching it in, you know, Wichita, Kansas or something.

This might as well be happening on an alien planet as far as you're concerned. And you talked about the Maneism. The good versus evil sense of it is so important. We already mentioned this is only four years after the fall of South Vietnam, after the end of a story that was so confused and grubby and morally ambiguous in which America was often painted as the villain. And many Americans believe that they were the villains. And this is a story in which it seems to Americans, this is clear cut, good versus evil.

There are clean cut hostages, many of whom are in their 20s, and there are these howling mobs shouting about the great Satan. I mean, it's a story. It had colossal cut through. the families, the mothers of the hostages, became TV stars. So when a particular hostage might be dragged out on TV, on American TV, his mother would then be dragged out, and she would be crying for the cameras and whatnot.

There was a mother who went to Iran called Barbara Tim. Her son, Kevin, was the youngest hostage. She was a Marine. She got into Tehran. She got to see him for 45 minutes and talked to him about the fortunes of his high school basketball team, who had made, I believe, the Wisconsin State. Championships.

That must have cheered him up. That's what they talked about. I mean, there also, I have to say, some very, mentioning Vietnam, you know, there is that tradition of the anti-war left. There are some, so we say, colourful visitors to Tehran. Jane Fonda doesn't go. No, but some Vietnam, some clergymen, some lefty clergymen go. So at Christmas, the hostages had the treat of a visit from these clergymen led by a veteran

peace activist called William Sloan Coffin. And he, so you've got diplolyn. Matt's called sick. You've got clergyman called coffin. But wait for it. This is unbelievable. This bloke turned up and he met the hostages and he said to them, you know, they were hoping for an inspiring message from an American priest and he said, stop feeling sorry for

yourselves. He said, I envy you having an extended period of peace and quiet to rest and think. And their hostages listen to this in stupefaction. And then when the meeting was over, he went to front of the cameras and he said on American TV, yeah, we scream and shout about the hostages. but very few Americans heard the screams of tortured Iranians. And this kind of thing, obviously, the hostages don't want to hear this. And then actually, it possibly even worse than this.

A few weeks later, another group of radical activists visited the embassy, and they were led by a guy who was a Native American activist with the unimprovable name of John Thomas. And John Thomas, he'd previously occupied Wounded Knee in 1973. And now he led the Iranian crowd chanting death. DeKata. I thought you were going to say death to custer. Yes, well, yeah, that's at the US embassy.

So maybe he was misheard. Maybe he was shouting death to custer, who knows. Anyway, the peak of all the sort of interest in the hostages came at Christmas. So I mentioned Bruce Lengen, who was the most senior diplomat taken hostage in the foreign ministry. His wife, Penny, gave a very moving interview to the Washington Post. Does he get special treatment or not? Perhaps slightly better treatment, but still not great. Yeah, okay.

I think the fact that they're in the foreign ministry meant it wasn't quite as bad as elsewhere, but it wasn't a bundle of laughs. So his wife Penny said, you know, it's a very kind of, as long as you're not too cynical, it's a very touching interview. She says, I'm going to be decorating our house with a wreath and advent candles as normal because that's what Bruce want me to do. She says, I take comfort in Bruce's captivity from reing the bells at my local church. I hope other people will do the same. I think it's such a lovely symbol. It conveys hope and joy. Like Joan of Arc.

Well, a bit like Joan of Arc. And people did do this, actually. People were very moved by this. And then she says, we've got an old oak tree in the garden, and I've tied a yellow ribbon around it. And she's inspired, she says, by a number one single from 1973,

which was tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree by Tony Orlando and Dawn. Because I don't want to be too cynical, I can't bring myself to listen to it because I'm worried that if I listen to it, you'll sob. No, I'm worried I will scoff in a cruel and an unfeeling way, and I don't want to do that. So this song was inspired by stories about the US cavalry in the American Civil War.

Women whose sweethearts were cavalrymen would wear yellow ribbons in their hair. So it is said. How did the old oak tree come into it? Well, Penny Langan tied a yellow ribbon around this oak tree. Yeah, but in the song. No, she was inspired by the song. I know, but if the women are tying yellow ribbons in their hair, how did they come up with the idea for the oak tree in the song?

It's her idea. That's her idea. No, it's not. It's the idea of Tony Orlando and Dawn. You'll have to ask Tony Orlando and Dawn how they made the leap from the ribbon in the hair to the ribbon around the tree. I mean, it's quite a leap. If there are any musicologists out there, let us know.

The important fact is that she tied the yellow ribbon around her oak tree And then she said, one of these days, Bruce is going to untie that yellow ribbon and it's going to be out there until he does. And Tom, if you don't have a tear in your eye listening to this, there's something wrong with you. Lots of people did anyway, even if you didn't. Hey, I do find that affecting. They tied it to trees. They tied them to lamp post. They tied them to flags.

Jimmy Carter put a yellow ribbon on his Christmas tree. You see, that's a political error, isn't it? Well, he said he also, this is typical miserableism from Jimmy Carter. He said, I'm not going to turn on the lights on the Christmas tree. Or the heating. Yes. His thermostat is set at zero or whatever. He's traveling on the bus to save energy.

He doesn't turn on the, he says, I'm not going to turn on the lights on the Christmas tree until the hostages come home. He says they don't come home. Does that mean he's got to leave the Christmas tree up until they come home? No, I don't think he does that. Tabby is pointing out that Jimmy Carter's cardigans would keep him warm. So no wonder who's got the thermostat down. Actually, there was a yellow ribbon.

So at the Super Bowl, Steelers versus Rams. There was a huge yellow ribbon tied around the stadium. Wow. Americans must think it's mad that we're laughing at this. But anyway, I'm not laughing at it. You are. So, I mean, I don't want to laugh at the hostage crisis, obviously. There are some mad things connected with it, though.

So there were pro-war demonstrations on college campuses. So there were students, for example, Ohio. State chanting Nagasaki Hiroshima, why not Iran? I mean, that's a change from the Vietnam War protests. Princeton, students waving bed sheets in which they'd written Newk the Ayatollah. There were some mad songs. So I know you like a song. Are you familiar with Take Your Royal and shove it by Bobby Baker? No, Dominic, I'm not, but I am familiar with that great song by the Baratone dwarfs. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran. Yes.

Based on Barbaran by the Beach Boys. Do you know, there were more than, I think there were six different Balmiran songs done by different bands, all based on the Beach Boys, Barbara Ann. Not good news for the hostages if Tehran gets nuk. No, it wouldn't be good news. And also, you know, I mean,

you can kind of understand the Aetollahs wanting their own nuclear weapon. Nuclear weapon. Well, they've been provoked because American toy companies have started selling dolls of the Ayatollah. You've seen this? And I'm going to read you the advertising copy. Available for those who want to strike back. Make him you're a prisoner.

Act now. Get rope, pins, other torture equipment. Oh, God. And then the words. And then the words, fabulous gift item. Imagine your child opening that at Christmas. Oh, thanks, mommy. But then my favorite story, there was a brothel in the arena.

called the Mustang Ranch. And they put up a sign on the door that said, no more Iranian students will be permitted on these premises until the hostages are released. How many Iranian students were going to the Mustang Ranch? I mean, I don't know how much custom they were losing through that making a stand. Now, on a more serious note,

what's happened to the most controversial Iranian living in America? Not, I think, a client at the Mustang Ranch. they're somebody who was not a stranger to the escort industry. And this is the Shah. The Shah, you may remember, had arrived at the Cornell Medical Center for Emergency Treatment. He had complications from the surgery. The cancer didn't go away. There was more suffering ahead because he had to endure bedside visits from Henry Kissenter and Frank Sinatra.

Will the torture never end? Well, it didn't actually. What's Frank Sinatra doing turning up? I mean, I actually quite like Frank Sinatra if I was in hospital. Really? Well, you see me, so, yeah. Yeah, I think Frank Sinatra at this point, has moved to the right, I'm guessing, because he's quite pallied with Reagan.

So, and maybe showing solidarity with the Shah is part of Frank Sinatra's vibe. Maybe he's just a hospital visitor. Maybe. So the Carter administration, still not terribly keen on the Shah. They basically kicked him out again. They said, we want you to go. And in December they array, said, we've arranged for you to go to Panama. So he moved to Panama.

And the dictator of Panama at the time, General Torrijos, was not a good host. he charged the Shah $21,000 a day for bored and lodging, which seems harsh. And he also, I think the expression is, trolled the Shah by appointing to supervise him in his Exar a Marxist sociology professor. That's the worst kind of professor. Exactly. And the worst kind of Marxist, the worst kind of sociologist, the worst kind of professor. Every day the Shah would get up feeling incredibly sorry for himself and ill,

and this bloke was hanging around lecturing him about the evils of him. imperialism. The Shah was still, he still thought he would get back to Iran. So General Tarrios in Panama, as part of his sort of winding the Shah up, said to him, you're a bit like Napoleon in exile, aren't you? You're like Napoleon on St Helena. And the Shah said no, because Napoleon never got back. But I will. My dynasty will prevail. Well, time will tell, I guess. As we record this, who knows? So he ends up, finally he moves on from there to Egypt. He's very, very ill indeed. The cancer was spread and the Shah died on the 27th of July 1980. His last words supposedly, which he whispered again and again, were Iran is Iran, which is exactly what, you know,

you would want him to say, I suppose. The reaction from the Islamic Republic, probably not as gracious as one would hope. Right. So the official Iranian news agency issued a statement, he died in disgrace, misery and vagrancy. And Radio Tehran, the bloodsucker of of the century has died at last. So that's harsh. I mean, he was a bloodsucker, to be fair. He was? Yeah.

That's harsh. Well, he's suck. I mean, he lavished masters of money on ludicrous French food in celebrating Cyrus the Great. He did, but I think it's harsh to go from that to call him a blood sucker. It's a metaphor. Okay, fine. I mean, I think you're...

I'm not saying he's literally a vampire. If there are any Shah-friendly, a Iranian exiles listening, I'm distancing myself from Tom here. He did. I mean, he did loot Iran. Well, he was very corrupt. He was very corrupt. He was weak. He had loads of palaces.

And he was foolish, I think. But I don't think he's one of the worst tyrants of the century. I mean, he had a pretty hideous secret police. I mean, this is a mad thing to say, given that they were a hideous secret police, but they weren't as hideous as some. On the hideous mistakes, how do you think they compare to the Islamic Republic's secret police? This is very rare for the rest of history. I'm just going to come out and say, I don't know.

Okay. Well, I suppose it depends. Which side you're on, probably. I'd be more likely, I think, to end up on the wrong side of the Islamic Republic's secret police. I definitely would. Well, you definitely would, no question. Anyway, the Egyptians organised a state funeral for the Shah. President Sadat was the chief mourner.

Jimmy Carter, do you think he went? No, I don't think he did. Of course he didn't go. By this point, he's in his effing and blinding against the Shah. Does Frank Sinatra go? No, but I tell you who did go. He flew economy, and that shows his commitment. Friend of the show, Richard Milhow,

Nixon. He flew economy to Cairo to give the eulogy. And do you know what he said of the Shah? He said, he was a real man. Unlike who? Unlike, unlike Jimmy Carter, obviously. Had Nixon gone to the Cyrus Great Party? No, I don't think he did. I'd like to think that Spiro Agnew, his vice president, went, but I'm not certain. I'd have to check. Anyway, Nixon said, the Shah was a real man and Jimmy Carter's treatment of the shah is one of the black pages of American history. I mean, that's really poor for Carter, isn't it? Because on the one hand, he's let the shah in and all the hostages have been taken. And on the other hand, he doesn't get any credit for it at all. He's lost every way, exactly. Now, actually, by this point, Carter's got bigger things to worry

about. So he hasn't been able to turn on the White House Christmas lights. That's one thing. Because, of course, the hostages have not been released. And the longer this has gone on, the rallying around the flag has weakened. And the people, and the people, perception of weakness has built and built. And it's not just about Iran. We talked about the inflation, and this is, the economy has got worse and worse. So the Federal Reserve, under its new monetarist boss, Paul Volker,

a really important figure in economic history in the last 50 years or so. They've put up interest rates to squeeze inflation. So interest rates will peak at almost 18% in the spring of 1980. Really, really punishing. The result is the American economy. in January 1980 goes into a deep recession. A million jobs in manufacturing alone are lost in the next few months. And that's the picture at home.

The picture abroad is even worse. Carter was getting a hammering for being too weak even before the Iranian revolution. All this talk about, you know, communism in the ascendant America going backwards. But now it seems like actually just as people have predicted, the Islamic revolution is spreading. So two weeks after the American embassy seizure, Islamist militants seized the grand mosque in Mecca, and as you will know, Tom, that is the one place in Islam that matters more than any other, effectively.

It's literally Mecca. There's two weeks of fighting before they're evicted by Saudi troops. Hundreds of people are killed. Khomeini from Tehran says, this occupation was a false flag operation. It was the work of criminal American imperialism and international Zionism. and as mad as it sounds, a lot of people believe them. So there are demonstrations against America after this,

everywhere from Turkey to Indonesia and the Philippines. In Islamabad and Pakistan, in Tripoli, in Libya, mobs literally burn the U.S. Embassy to the ground. They raise it to the ground. There is a sort of sense, and this is unprecedented, that the Muslim world has risen up and is in, is in, a war against the United States. Well, against the Great Satan.

I mean, I think that phrase is really taking fire. Yes. I mean, Time Magazine, a couple of days after this, announced that Khomeini was its man of the year. And Time Magazine, which speaks, of course, so often for kind of middle America, said, you know, his revolution matters more than any political event since Hitler's conquest of Europe. And now that may sound overblown to some listeners, but that was the thinking in 1970. And actually, were they necessarily wrong when we look at the last, you know, 40 years or so? And then I'll tell you who's been absent from this conversation finally about to enter the chat,

the Kremlin. Because on Christmas Day, 1979, the policymakers in the Kremlin are themselves very alarmed about radical Islam. Of course, because they have a lot of Muslims within the borders of the Soviet Union in Central Asia. And they decide they're going to intervene in Afghanistan to support their communist client regime in Kabul against the Majahadine, the insurgents who are already being funded, ironically, by the Americans. And Jimmy Carter is at Camp David. He's watching a film called The Black Stallion with his daughter, Amy.

When he gets a call, Soviet troops have crossed the Amudaria River, the Oxus, once crossed by Alexander the Great, and they've gone into Afghanistan. And he thinks, oh my God, like, it couldn't get worse. And he tells Congress a few days later, we are now facing the Great. threat to peace since the Second World War. It's as though all across this kind of what they call the crescent of crisis going through the Middle East into kind of Central Asia and beyond. Communism, radical Islam are on the march and Western democratic capitalism is embattled.

So what's a poor peanut farmer to do? Right. So there's a real sense now among the American people of retreat and failure. Carter's approval ratings are tanking. and a lot of his advisors, don't forget, the election is in November, only months to go now. And a lot of his advisors are thinking, if we do not do something now, we are doomed. His chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, I mentioned him a couple of times. There's a story in his memoirs.

One day, his nephew, who is 12 years old, said to him, why doesn't the president actually do anything? Why doesn't he do anything? And Hamilton Jordan said to him, well, like what? And this kid said, bomb their arm, wipe them all out. a lot of my friends at school say that Jimmy Carter doesn't have their guts to do anything. You know who they need? Yeah. General Curtis LeMay.

The guy who thought nuclear war was a good thing. In an alternative universe where George Wallace had become president in 1976 with Curtis B. LeMay as his running mate. The Iranian Revolution, things would have taken a very different turn, I think. But actually, do you know what? This little brats, mates are wrong. Jimmy Carter does have. have the guts to do something. Because on the 22nd of March 1980, Carter summons his national security team to Camp David and he says, okay, fine, it's time to consider a really drastic option.

And he turns to the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his military chiefs now unveil the plan for one of the most daring gambols in American history, a plan for an elite special forces unit to fly into the heart of Iran to make their way into Tehran and to rescue the hostage. It's an unbelievably jaw-dropping the audacious plan. But Tom, will it work? Well, you'll have to wait until the next episode to find out. Cliff Hangers, we've got them. And if you want to hear, well, you can join our very own elite special forces unit,

the Restis History Club. And by doing that, you'll be able to hear that last episode right away. And of course, you'll get a whole host of extra benefits as well. And you can sign up, of course. at the rest is history.com. Dominic, thank you. Thank you, everyone for listening. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.