Iranian Hostage Crisis

This is what happened to sixty-six of American diplomats and United States citizens that began on November 4, 1979 and lasted through January 20, 1981.  This hostage situation occurred when members of the Muslin Student Followers of the Imam’s Line, a group of militant university students, who were supported by new Islamic regime, held the hostages inside the American diplomatic mission in Tehran, Iran. Fifty-two hostages remained until the conclusion of the crisis.  Thirteen hostages were released who were women and blacks.

On that infamous day in November, the Islamic students scaled the U.S. Embassy walls and overran the compound.  The U.S. Marine attachment did not fight back fearing they would be killed by the students.  The embassy workers destroyed the documentation before the students could obtain them. 

What brought on this hostage situation began on October 22, 1979.  The Shah, who was the dictator of Iran backed by the United States and Great Britain, ruled with an iron fist to stabilize the Mid East.  The Shah, ill with cancer was brought to the United States for medical treatment.  The Iranian people were afraid that the Shah would return to power since he had fled after the Islamic Revolution earlier that year. Furious of what he called “evidence of American plotting”, revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini heightened Islamic rhetoric against the “Great Satan”-the United States.

While in captivity the hostages were often paraded in front of television cameras as a media stunt that the students had captured American “spies”.  The Iranians insisted that the captives were treated very well going so far as to show the hostages enjoying a Christmas dinner.  In truth they were beaten, starved, interrogated and placed in isolation for most the crisis.  Most of the time the captives made a hard time dealing with the students.  One captive found a knife and would every few minutes short circuit the electricity in the building where they were being held.  The United States Marine Corp also made life miserable for the hostage takers by passing gas when they were near the Iranian guards.

American citizens were outraged by the perpetrators taking hostages.  The action was seen “not just as a diplomatic affront”, but as a “declaration of war on diplomacy itself”.  Diplomatic and economic pressure was put on Iran by U.S. President Jimmy Carter.  Oil imports from Iran were ended on November 12, 1979 and through the issuance of Executive Order 12170, around USD eight billion of Iranian assets in the United States were frozen by the Office of Foreign Assets Control on November 14, 1979.  A number of Iranians were also expelled from the United States.