US Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis
US Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis

Author: David Patrick Houghton

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-05-21

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780521805094

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Why did a handful of Iranian students seize the American embassy in Tehran in November 1979? Why did most members of the US government initially believe that the incident would be over quickly? Why did the Carter administration then decide to launch a rescue mission, and why did it fail so spectacularly? US Foreign Policy and the Iran Hostage Crisis examines these puzzles and others, using an analogical reasoning approach to decision-making, a theoretical perspective which highlights the role played by historical analogies in the genesis of foreign policy decisions. Using interviews with key decision-makers on both sides, Houghton provides an analysis of one of the United States' greatest foreign policy disasters, the events of which continue to poison relations between the two states. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of foreign policy analysis and international relations.

Taken Hostage
Taken Hostage

Author: David Farber

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-01-10

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1400826209

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On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took sixty-six Americans captive. Thus began the Iran Hostage Crisis, an affair that captivated the American public for 444 days and marked America's first confrontation with the forces of radical Islam. Using hundreds of recently declassified government documents, historian David Farber takes the first in-depth look at the hostage crisis, examining its lessons for America's contemporary War on Terrorism. Unlike other histories of the subject, Farber's vivid and fast-paced narrative looks beyond the day-to-day circumstances of the crisis, using the events leading up to the ordeal as a means for understanding it. The book paints a portrait of the 1970s in the United States as an era of failed expectations in a nation plagued by uncertainty and anxiety. It reveals an American government ill prepared for the fall of the Shah of Iran and unable to reckon with the Ayatollah Khomeini and his militant Islamic followers. Farber's account is filled with fresh insights regarding the central players in the crisis: Khomeini emerges as an astute strategist, single-mindedly dedicated to creating an Islamic state. The Americans' student-captors appear as less-than-organized youths, having prepared for only a symbolic sit-in with just a three-day supply of food. ABC news chief Roone Arledge, newly installed and eager for ratings, is cited as a critical catalyst in elevating the hostages to cause célèbre status. Throughout the book there emerge eerie parallels to the current terrorism crisis. Then as now, Farber demonstrates, politicians failed to grasp the depth of anger that Islamic fundamentalists harbored toward the United States, and Americans dismissed threats from terrorist groups as the crusades of ineffectual madmen. Taken Hostage is a timely and revealing history of America's first engagement with terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, one that provides a chilling reminder that the past is only prologue.

Mediation in International Relations
Mediation in International Relations

Author: J. Bercovitch

Publisher: Springer

Published: 1994-01-13

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 0230374697

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This collection of articles examines mediation in a range of situations including international relations, informal mediation by private individuals and by scholars and practitioners, as well as the superpowers as mediators.

Rescue Mission Report
Rescue Mission Report

Author: United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Special Operations Review Group

Publisher:

Published: 1980

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13:

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In May 1980, the Joint Chiefs of Staff commissioned a Special Operations Review Group to conduct a broad examination of the planning, organization, coordination, direction, and control of the Iranian hostage rescue mission, as a basis for recommending improvement in these areas for the future. The Review Group consisted of six senior military officers three who had retired after distinguished careers, and three still on active duty. The broad military experience of the group gave it an appropriate perspective from which to conduct an appraisal. Details on the participants, the Terms of Reference they operated under, and their approach to the subject are contained in this document. The Review Group has made its final report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Copies have been forwarded to the Secretary of Defense, as have the related, early recommendations of the Joint Chiefs. A highly classified report also has been transmitted to appropriate committees in the Congress. Because it is important that as much detail as possible be made available to the American public, the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has conducted a declassification review to produce this version. The issues and findings have been retained in as close a form as possible to the original, classified version. In particular, the Executive Summary, Conclusions, and Recommendations remain virtually the same as in the original.

Our Man in Tehran
Our Man in Tehran

Author: Robert Wright

Publisher: Other Press, LLC

Published: 2011-01-11

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 1590514130

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For the true story behind Argo, read Our Man in Tehran The world watched with fear in November 1979, when Iranian students infiltrated and occupied the American embassy in Tehran. The Americans were caught entirely by surprise, and what began as a swift and seemingly short-lived takeover evolved into a crisis that would see fifty four embassy personnel held hostage, most for 444 days. As Tehran exploded in a fury of revolution, six American diplomats secretly escaped. For three months, Ken Taylor, the Canadian ambassador to Iran—along with his wife and embassy staffers—concealed the Americans in their homes, always with the prospect that the revolutionary government of Ayatollah Khomeini would exact deadly consequences. The United States found itself handcuffed by a fractured, fundamentalist government it could not understand and had completely underestimated. With limited intelligence resources available on the ground and anti-American sentiment growing, President Carter turned to Taylor to work with the CIA in developing their exfiltration plans. Until now, the true story behind Taylor’s involvement in the escape of the six diplomats and the Eagle Claw commando raid has remained classified. In Our Man in Tehran, Robert Wright takes us back to a major historical flashpoint and unfolds a story of cloak-and-dagger intrigue that brings a new understanding of the strained relationship between the Unites States and Iran. With the world once again focused on these two countries, this book is the stuff of John le Carré and Daniel Silva made real.

Guests of the Ayatollah
Guests of the Ayatollah

Author: Mark Bowden

Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

Published: 2007-12-01

Total Pages: 710

ISBN-13: 1555846084

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The New York Times–bestselling author of Black Hawk Down delivers a “suspenseful and inspiring” account of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 (The Wall Street Journal). On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans captive, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days. In Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages’ cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides. Guests of the Ayatollah is a detailed, brilliantly recreated, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world. “The passions of the moment still reverberate . . . you can feel them on every page.” —Time “A complex story full of cruelty, heroism, foolishness and tragic misunderstandings.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Essential reading . . . A.” —Entertainment Weekly

US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution
US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution

Author: C. Emery

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-10-15

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1137329874

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This book provides a fresh perspective on the origins of the confrontation between the US and Iran. It demonstrates that, contrary to the claims of Iran's leaders, there was no instinctive American hostility towards the Revolution, and explains why many assumptions guiding US policy were inappropriate for dealing with the new reality in Iran.

October Surprise
October Surprise

Author: Gary Sick

Publisher: Three Rivers Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13:

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The explosive book that sparked a congressional investigation is now in paperback and updated with new testimony from key participants. Naval veteran Gary Sick was the principal White House aide for Iran during the hostage crisis of 1979-81 and is the author of All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounter with Iran. Photographs.

In the Shadow of the Ayatollah
In the Shadow of the Ayatollah

Author: William Daugherty

Publisher: Naval Institute Press

Published: 2016-08-15

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1612516548

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Still vivid in many Americans' memories are the 444 days of 1979 when Islamic militants held U.S. diplomatic personnel hostage in Iran. Though their story has been told before, never has it been related from such a perspective. Unique among the hostages, the author was an officer for the Central Intelligence Agency serving at the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Once his CIA connection was discovered, Bill Daugherty became a special target of his captors and was subjected to extraordinarily harsh treatment. He managed to survive the ordeal by relying upon his Marine Corps training and combat experience and his remarkable inner reserve of fortitude. Ultimately he was awarded the State Department Medal of Valor and the CIA Exceptional Service Medal. Drawing on intelligence information not readily available to previous writers, recently declassified materials, interviews with such key government officials as former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and former CIA director and ambassador to Iran Richard Helms, and to his own firsthand knowledge, Daugherty sheds light on this disturbing event, particularly with respect to the decision-making process in the White House. Among his revelations is the involvement of the Soviet Union. Despite his personal involvement, Daugherty has produced an impressively objective account of the tragedies and triumphs that marked this black time in U.S. history. It is both a harrowing adventure story and a serious look at U.S.-Iran relations. The pivotal event continues to evoke emotions and begs careful analysis for potential lessons learned.

U.S.-Vatican Relations, 1975–1980
U.S.-Vatican Relations, 1975–1980

Author: P. Peter Sarros

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess

Published: 2020-01-31

Total Pages: 628

ISBN-13: 0268106835

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This book explores the bilateral relations between the United States and the Vatican from 1975 to 1980, a turbulent period that had two presidents, three presidential envoys, and three popes. This previously untold story shows how the United States and the Vatican worked quietly together behind the scenes to influence the international response to major issues of the day. Peter Sarros examines the Iran hostage crisis, the tensions of the Cold War, the Helsinki process, and the Beagle Channel dispute, among other issues. These interactions produced a tacit alliance in the foreign policies of the United States and the Vatican even before the establishment of full diplomatic relations. This unique book is based largely on official documents from the archives of the Office of the U.S. Special Envoy of the United States to the Vatican, supplemented by Sarros's contemporaneous diaries, notes, and other unpublished sources. The confidential consultations at the Vatican by three special envoys and by Sarros in his role as chargé and ambassador at the Vatican were critical in obtaining Vatican support on major international issues. The Vatican also derived substantial benefits from the partnership through U.S. support of Vatican initiatives in Lebanon and elsewhere, and by U.S. policies that gave Vatican diplomacy the flexibility to play a larger role in the international sphere. Sarros concludes that American diplomacy was successful at the Holy See during this period because it took advantage of the Vatican's overarching international strategy, which was to increase its influence through support for the global balance of power while blocking the expansion of Soviet power and communism in Europe. U.S.-Vatican Relations, 1975–1980 will be of interest to students and scholars of history and political science, especially in the fields of diplomatic relations and church history.