Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History by Matt Baglio, Antonio Mendez Read Free Book Online Page B

options were. Out of those meetings evolved the division of labor. In a crisis situation such as this, a nation has four options to review: overt diplomacy, or trying to engage the government of revolutionary Iran; military assault; secret diplomacy; or covert action.
    From the beginning, the Carter administration faced a number of challenges. When Khomeini and the Revolutionary Council threw their support behind the takeover, there was basically nobody for the U.S. government to negotiate with. Carter tried sending two emissaries, but Khomeini refused to allow them to even enter the country. With overt diplomacy off the table, Carter then turned to his military planners, who gave him a similarly bleakassessment. If the United States were to launch a retaliatory strike, the Iranians might execute the hostages. The chance of rescue also seemed remote. Geographically, Iran was extremely isolated and the U.S. embassy compound was located in the heart of the capital city. It appeared there would be no way to get the rescuers in and back out without the Iranians knowing.
    At that point the president settled on a two-track strategy of trying to ramp up diplomatic pressure, while giving the military the green light to work on contingency planning for a rescue. Under no condition would the United States hand over the shah.
    In keeping with the first part of his strategy, on November 9 the president halted all shipments of military materials and spare parts to Iran. Then, on November 12, he cut off America’s importation of oil from the country (about seven hundred thousand barrels a day). And on November 14, when word got out that the Iranians were trying to withdraw the nearly twelve billion dollars in deposits the shah had placed in American banks, Carter signed an executive order freezing the money.
    The effect these measures had was minimal. Iran, for its part, escalated the war of words, demanding that the United States return the “criminal” shah and his assets, and warning America that if any rescue attempt was made, the hostages would be executed and the embassy blown up. In a speech given before a roaring crowd of supporters, Khomeini goaded Carter, saying, “Why should we be afraid?…Carter does not have the guts to engage in a military action.” And if it came to that, Khomeini claimed that the whole nation of Iran was ready to die as martyrs.
    One of the biggest problems that Carter would have to soon face was the fact that normal diplomatic maneuvers—internationalpressure, the threat of being branded an outlaw state, and so on—had no effect on Iran. For Khomeini, a medieval-style prophet convinced that his dream of an Islamic Republic was divinely inspired, no sacrifice was too great to achieve this goal, including sullying the international standing of his country. Faced with such a fatalistic perspective, the career diplomats in Washington were soon at a loss. It was almost like dealing with aliens from another planet.
    U nderstandably, as the days wore on and the impasse continued, it wasn’t long before the public began doubting the president’s resolve. And while the Carter administration was cautioning restraint, protests and violence toward Iranians erupted all over America. In one surreal instance, Hamilton Jordan, President Carter’s chief of staff, remembers driving past a demonstration outside the Iranian embassy in Washington, where American police were holding back an angry crowd. It was the irony of all ironies. Here was the United States protecting Iranian diplomats, while at the same time in Iran, American diplomats were being held captive and abused.
    How could the president stand by and do nothing while sixty-six Americans were in danger? There was no shortage of critics, including political foes of Carter who used the moment to score points by decrying him as weak and ineffective.
    News coverage of the crisis was relentless. From day one, the event had become a media circus, with hundreds