It should be noted that at the time of the attempted hostage rescue mission in 1980, there was no unified Special Operations Command in the U.S. On a brighter note, the disastrous rescue mission had tremendous consequences for reform in the U.S. The hostages were released on Januthe day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. They had held the hostages for longer than anyone (including themselves) had expected. By then, the Iranian students had played out their hand.
Although Carter won the Democratic nomination, he lost all but six states plus the District of Columbia to Ronald Reagan in November. And the challenge from Kennedy, a lion of the Democratic Party, was the toughest nomination challenge any incumbent Democrat had had in many years.
The economy was going extraordinarily badly. Going into 1980, Jimmy Carter was seen as a weak and feckless president. And I believe to this day that my friend Rick Hernandez was right. Four years later, the United States tried its own daring rescue and fell flat on its face.
The dramatic and stunning Israeli rescue of hostages who had been taken by Palestinians in Uganda captured the public imagination. This is one of the first special operations missions that burst into the public consciousness. To put these events in context, it is also important to remember that Americans had been enchanted with the story of the Israeli raid on Entebbe in 1976. The Carter-Kennedy fight was big news, and voters were just tuning in. Rick proceeded to describe, in fairly accurate terms, the debacle in the desert.Īll of this happened at a very crucial time in the election cycle. It was the middle of the night, and, moreover, Carter had just beaten Kennedy in a string of southern primaries and had tied him in the Pennsylvania primary. He opened the conversation with, “We just lost the election.” I was confused. It was Rick Hernandez, one of the president’s senior political aides, who had heard about the aborted mission and subsequent disaster. The phone at my house rang early in the morning on April 25, 1980. Operation Eagle Claw was a disaster that ended with American deaths, ruined military planes, and the hostages no closer to freedom.
This is why, in the spring, he decided to mount a military rescue of the hostages. So month after month, as Carter was trapped in the White House, negotiations went nowhere. Furthermore, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was calling the shots, and he opposed any early settlement. But given that it was Carter who had invited the shah into the United States, the students who were in control were not inclined to let him off the hook. It totally personalized the crisis in the American media by focusing the responsibility on the Oval Office and showing the terrorists they could put the American presidency itself into dysfunction.”Ĭarter initially tried negotiating with Iran’s government that had been thrown into new disarray by the hostage seizure. Stu Eizenstat, one of Carter’s top aides and the author of the book “ President Carter: The White House Years,” writes that the Rose Garden strategy “had another unintended and deeply pervasive effect. And what came to be known as “the Rose Garden strategy” (referring to the White House Rose Garden) turned into a trap for the president. But there was no diplomatic solution to be had. Carter immediately suspended foreign travel and political campaigning to focus on the crisis. A 1973 hit by Tony Orlando and Dawn about a prisoner coming home, called “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Ole Oak Tree,” was appropriated to the hostage situation, and all over the land people began tying yellow ribbons on their trees.Īt the center of this was President Carter, whose bid for reelection in 1980 was already being complicated by a primary challenge from Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass).
There was the initial, predictable burst of patriotism. Suddenly, this heretofore unknown country burst into the public’s consciousness. Most of that changed when the hostages were taken. And the gist of the cartoon was: Who knows the difference? Shiites, Sunnis, the differences between them, what their enmity meant to the region: Most Americans remained unaware of the religious and political nuances of the region.
In fact, what I remember from that period of time is the Jules Feiffer cartoon with a series of men in Middle Eastern dress lined up. The turmoil in Iran and the fall of the shah had, frankly, very little impact on American politics. When the shah fell, I was working at the Democratic National Committee, getting ready for the 1980 presidential election.