During the Iranian Revolution the U.S. Embassy compound in Tehran was attacked by revolutionaries, on November 4, 1979, and the staff taken hostage. The hostages that were not released were being held during the 1980 election, which Carter lost to Ronald Reagan. What many people, including me, found really spooky is that the hostages were released just minutes after Reagan's inauguration, in January 1981.
The Hostage Crisis is widely believed to be what cost Jimmy Carter the election. The story soon emerged that Reagan's team had communicated with the Iranians to get them to continue holding the hostages until after Election Day, so that Reagan would win the election. An investigation by the U.S. Congress didn't find anything amiss but the President of Iran at the time, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, said that this story was true and the Reagan Administration was later found to be secretly selling weapons to Iran, for use in it's war against Iraq.
What emerged later is that former Texas Governor John Connolly visited several countries in the Middle East in the summer of 1980, although not Iran. He reportedly told government officials in those countries that the Iranians should hold onto the hostages until after Election Day because they would get a better deal from Reagan, if he won the election. He was hoping that the message would be relayed to Iran.
John Connolly earlier oversaw the exit of America from the Gold Standard. This was done in 1971, before Carter's presidency, but it almost always results in significant inflation, and this is what was so destructive to the Carter presidency. Connally was apparently hoping that the stunt in the Middle East would get him a position in Reagan's cabinet.
If you have heard the name of John Connally it may be because he was the Texas Governor in the car with President John F. Kennedy when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
Over a month before the 1980 election full scale war broke out between Iraq and Iran. Border clashes had been going on for several months prior to that. Each side blamed the other but Iraq is generally considered to have initiated the war. With Iran actually being invaded the American hostages were no longer needed as a rallying point for the Iranian Revolution and those guarding the hostages were needed at the battlefront. It does indeed look like the Iranians were given some reason to continue holding them, such as a Reagan promise to sell them weapons.
This makes Jimmy Carter look better than ever. Not only was the "stagflation" of his term not his fault but the other great negative of his term, the Iran Hostage Crisis, was purposely engineered to cost him the presidency.
The seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Iran, on November 4, 1979, was not entirely a surprise. I recall reading that Carter himself had mentioned the possibility of the revolutionaries seizing the embassy before the overthrown and exiled Shah of Iran was admitted to the U.S. for cancer treatment, which is what prompted the seizure of the embassy. The revolutionaries were demanding his return to Iran to stand trial.
Jimmy Carter got the blame for it but he actually didn't want to admit the Shah to the U.S. It was the Republicans who insisted on letting him in. I wonder now if what they really wanted was for the embassy to be seized, in the hope that the crisis would cost Carter the presidency.
But if the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War was the catalyst for the release of the hostages, the mystery is why it took another four months for them to be released. The war began on September 22, 1980 and the hostages were released on January 20, 1981. The hostages were no longer needed as a rallying point and their guards were needed at the battlefront.
As it turns out the hostages were released right on America's Inauguration Day, January 20, 1981,. Almost as soon as new president Ronald Reagan had finished his inauguration speech came the announcement from Iran that the hostages were being released. Algeria had been mediating the crisis and the hostages were flown from Tehran on Algerian planes.
This aroused the suspicion of many people. The Iran-Iraq War began on September 22. America's election day, November 7, was well over a month away. But if the hostages were released before election day it would likely have saved the presidency of Jimmy Carter. The suspicion was that Ronald Reagan's people had somehow made a deal with those holding the hostages to hold them, not only until after election day but until after Reagan's Inauguration, to be sure that Jimmy Carter's Democrats didn't get any credit for getting them released.
The U.S. Congress conducted the investigation but didn't find anything to substantiate the suspicions.
But then the next thing we know the Reagan Administration was found to be secretly selling weapons to Iran, for use in it's long war with Iraq, and using the profits to assist the Contras in Nicaragua.
Doesn't it look like Reagan's people made a deal with the Iranians holding the hostages to keep them until after Reagan's Inauguration, and then Reagan would sell urgently-needed weapons to Iran for it's war with Iraq? During the time of the Shah America had supplied weapons to Iran and, now that diplomatic relations had been broken by the Hostage Crisis, Iran was short of weapons when the unexpected war with Iraq began.
Some might think that maybe the Iranians were mad at Jimmy Carter's Democrats, for allowing the exiled Shah into the country, but not Reagan's Republicans, and that is why the hostages were held until Reagan actually took office on Inauguration Day.
But that doesn't make sense because it was in the news that Jimmy Carter actually didn't want to admit the Shah to the U.S. for cancer treatment, thinking correctly that it would mean trouble. It was the Republicans who insisted that America must not abandon an "old friend", and got the Shah admitted. The U.S. Embassy in Tehran was seized soon afterward.
If there was a secret alliance between the Reagan Administration and Iran it didn't last. In 1987 there were naval clashes between the two in the Persian Gulf.
But the scenario we have discussed here is just a little bit spooky, and still seems so after more than forty years, and it makes the presidency of Jimmy Carter look better than ever.
REMEMBERING THE HOSTAGE CRISIS
The former embassy is now a museum. The first of the following scenes show the "Glass Room" in the embassy where discussions could be held securely. The clear walls were so they could be sure they were not being bugged. The rest of the scenes are of the neighborhood in Tehran today. The red brick building with two columns in the doorway and bars on the windows are the front of the building. The Great Seal of the U.S. is still there.
There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow, ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >, After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.
https://www.google.com/maps/@35.707595,51.4238617,3a,75y,106.55h,90t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMsHKUwUir0035CGCO4fd-izibaywRQP_Ax13Th!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMsHKUwUir0035CGCO4fd-izibaywRQP_Ax13Th%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya267.59924-ro0-fo100!7i5376!8i2688?hl=en
At Desert One, the site of the April 1980 hostage rescue attempt, the Iranians have built a mosque and it is the site of religious pilgrimages. The green bus is the one that happened across the rescue attempt and the Iranian passengers were temporarily held. I think what happened to this rescue mission is that the helicopters had been on ships at sea for months, ready for such a mission, and the salt air had corroded their components.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%AC%D8%AF+%D8%B4%DA%A9%D8%B1+%D8%B7%D8%A8%D8%B3%E2%80%AD/@33.0721555,55.8938985,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1sAF1QipNzEnCeuIubzO0ZnFHNqwjcIumjbTw1MymTO0Ex!2e10!3e12!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipNzEnCeuIubzO0ZnFHNqwjcIumjbTw1MymTO0Ex%3Dw129-h86-k-no!7i4928!8i3264!4m13!1m7!3m6!1s0x0:0x0!2zMzPCsDA0JzIzLjAiTiA1NcKwNTMnMzMuMCJF!3b1!8m2!3d33.073056!4d55.8925!3m4!1s0x3f09b9ac862ef935:0x4f378f9d4404010!8m2!3d33.0721555!4d55.8938992?hl=en
Does anyone remember when there were prayers across America? The Iran Hostage Crisis was not about military strength, it was a hostage situation. There were prayer meetings for them across America. After the rescue attempt failed the prayers continued, and all was not lost.
As it turned out, help would come from an unexpected direction. Neighboring Iraq, glad to be rid of the Shah of Iran, at first expressed support for the Iranian Revolution. But then Ayatollah Khomeini, the main opponent of the Shah who had spent years in exile in Iraq teaching Shiite students in Najaf, made it clear that he wanted new Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein overthrown by Iraq's majority Shiite population.
Border clashes took place between the two nations, with each side blaming the other. In September 1980, it turned into full-scale war. With Iran actually being invaded, the hostages were no longer needed as a rallying point for the revolution. Those who were guarding the hostages were needed at the battlefront, and the hostages were soon released.
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