I have to be ok if you are watching the stream today were going to take you to 1988 was a turbulent time for us in iran relations shot iran was living in the United States he fled iran in iran american hostages have been grabbed from the u. S. Embassy in tehran and has to take a 2nd we are not giving back these americans until you give us the shah because we want him to stand trial for human rights abuses diplomacy wasnt working so in the midst of this back and forth president carter was president at that time for the United States he essentially and a rescue mission for the hostages in to run that operation was known as operation eagle claw theres now a new documentary about that time lets take a look. I was 20 years old a young marine and i was signed to the United States embassy in tehran iran i had never heard of that country. I hear of thousands of people coming down to the embassy. And they started climbing over the gates. 2 weeks so i had to sleep with my hands in plastic handcuffs and i was scared to death. The administration is now emphasizing diplomacy as the way to get the americans released. Iran must be the only country in the world to the Television Program on how to track the american come on those in the street. There was growing desperation i was very determined to get to how she was released. We were getting ready to run for reelection isnt it about time that this country decides we are going to be respects. And we cheer the measured tones of bring home for to do america just. Delta force and created in 1075 only for the people youre going to fly with which. He said ill seal and i see i knew it and he was going to iran. It would fly into a remote desert location of intel said the road to land and never traveled turners life the turnaround coming towards this is a. Market. For them there was never trust resolution. To this mauling and fog bank. Are haixun today we are talking about that documentary talking about the legacy of operation eagle corps and also the screen behind it let me say hello to the guest the guests were introduced themselves to you hello barbara director tell everybody who you are. And the producer director gasser why its great to have you hello rush introduce the south to International Audience and my name is there asha ryder and heres a cannon his career at n. Y. U. And i watched the film and i kept my feet and i liked it a lot like 2 maybe parker brought up from men your own perspective great to have you looking forward to that perspective and hello calving so good to have you in the strain tell everybody. Who are here so i was a mind Security Guard a sergeant assigned to the u. S. Embassy in 1979 i very 1st embassy assignment and thankfully im here to talk about the documentary which i have seen several times and believe the foreigner and the amazing job as i know youve already. Guessed great to have you you tube audience you have Barbara Kopple you have a rash you have kevin former hostage in iran hostage crisis you can ask them anything but you have to get a move on so jumping to the comments your questions your thoughts i will do my best to weave them into the show set yet still have some comments right here on twitter im just looking at my laptop here we asked people if they knew about operation eagle claw and to send us their thoughts so l o t l t l fire says i would like people to start asking why there was a hostage situation in the 1st place caving fearless in a little bit of what was going on on your 1st overseas posting you know and so i think youre i have actually already been in japan serving in the marine corps but not now is it not at the u. S. Embassy i was in a marine guard duty but i arrived in iran it was. Also the shaws departure but still during what was clearly a revolution the Ayatollah Khomeini was attempting to consolidate his power Everybody Knows who has followed this history and perhaps seen this film already that the United States had a very close relationship with the shah for 26 years they were interested they the United States government are were very interested in maintaining a lot of the status quo during the cold war and so the real baseline a benchmark if you will for how the United States could deal with the soviet union or still be a union was by keeping the soviet in from having access to a warm water port and so the the tenseness of those relationships over that 26 year period really even longer than that formed the baseline for a lot of the hostility a lot of. The the rising tensions of the ayatollah as he sought to as i said consolidate his power but also the United States was attempting through president carter to elevate human rights as a baseline position of our u. S. Government as well and so that conflict was very natural and it led to eventually once the shah was admitted into the United States for medical treatment of the iranians who were in charge believe that that was really just a ploy to establish the return of the shaw as the leader of the country my personal opinion and the reading of history is that he was way too ill the u. S. Government would have been much better off if that was really their goal to have attempted to keep him in power or the try to return him to power. Actually i see you nodding but i dont know if youre nodding in agreement whats the oh i was a bit of you out what i just added respect yeah i mean as a historian now in 2020 i can say yes very unlikely that carter would i want to bring shah back but i would say if i was that evolutionary theory from iran in one in 79 or not in any i would have you know theyre very lucky because the earth has developed over that in those years in that if you treat it have over china democratically elected Prime MinisterMohammad Mosaddegh any iran but you know as those during the cold war are intervening countries and brought down the government you know like you know very often last i mean one in 73 it brought down a democratically elected marxist president. Here that i am there and so there was a lot of real fear and its easy to see with. That sort of not what carter was thinking but i think for a lot of people in iran at the time it was not all far fetched to think the americans might wanting to bring down the revolution they were in the midst of making and revolutionary there and in the midst of building but i want to bring you interesting i want to stand in Traffic Circle as its going to see the cards with every single day that was what they feared and thats what they were trying to prevent was. Thats why they wanted the shah back they also took over the embassy belief because they did believe that that was the goal of the u. S. Government. Let me just show a clip from your documentary building up the sense of what happened what was going on let me not to this rescue mission a secular the shah and we are with u. S. Relations. But doesnt care on the cost shot or that had he sat in or. In our mid genghis. To meet on the ship that someone should. So you dont but you. Would keep you know has a daughter through a show about her that most of us at the at the embassy thought were finished or died. Some. Buried. Within in comments in our own news she response to the idea of this documentary not everybody has seen it yet so 1st question is when can they see it because theyre making notes right now go ahead. While the film is going to be released december 21st its going to be and 65. 00 locations around the country and were very excited about this is very similar me. In some places it will be in theaters hopefully south places it will be a dry ice so rain as are asked again he wanted to know how long did it take to make the documentary theres a big chunk of history that you cover in the film how did you do that. I had a Terrific Team of people to work where. As you know the mission was a secret mission so there was absolutely no footage whatsoever we had an arena and animator who had lived in iran and its now living in the United States and he knew so much about the topography and then we also had. Lee and jones and eric forman and dave cassidy who were all looking out to make sure that every helicopter look korat every plane the correct we had to recreate it through the voices of our characters and our characters gave such wonderful interview has to be able to see these really wonderful tough doubt as. You know sometimes break down in tears in remembering what they went through i think it was probably one of the biggest things that in their lives. I want to show a picture of you kevin when you were really young when you see that picture what do you remember of that time well i think it really puts forth the importance of service i think it for me especially in the context of the experience i went through the number of opportunities ive had to talk about our time in captivity really i shared the story of several of my colleagues during those days in captivity whether it was time in solitary confinement or the interior beatings that some of my colleagues have. It really all comes home every time too. As people will see in the film the ultimate sacrifice that 3 marines and 5 era men. Made on april 25th 1980 when they endeavor to try to go rescue people they have never met they have heard about us they have studied us they have read about our situation of course they were trained it were really prepared but you can prepare for all of the uncertainties whether its weather or mechanical breakdowns with with the outcome have been different if they had brought 2 additional helicopters perhaps or additional helicopters a much better chance remember as barbara said this was also a secret mission those 3 marines and 5 airman who ultimately paid the price in the desert that night during the terrible tragedy as they were attempting to disembark and come back to. Back to their bases if you will back to the. Aircraft carriers of base in oman i think i can tell you for a fact that i have literally 50000 newspaper articles and tens of thousands of cards and letters welcoming us home treating us calling us heroes for what we endured there were heroes in the hostage crisis they were the the 8 heroes will never return home theyre the ones who deserve that that title oh yes what did you make of. The actual rescue mission. For most i want to play a little clip from the documentary or. The secret ups describing what they were about to try to get lets talk hes the. The measure who. Bring home 5 to 2 american just. We would launch into several. Flood the ground force by 31 for. Helicopters would launch off us. And fly into a remote desert location about 100 miles. And then we would all get in the helicopters and we would fly to him out on a location outside of terror. We would come down the mountain get in trucks that were being brought to a couple pages they were in. In drive to the embassy birdland us. On cue we would get to the embassy we would go right to where we told. Them the helicopters with and then start 1st next door. With a hole in the wall of the embassy get those hostages. Go into the soccer stadium. And we would all take. Wow is extraordinary that sounds like to me that liam neeson might actually do it in a serial but nice is real. I mean one thing that is work to remember as like sort of historically is that not only this was sort of a very daring plan but it was this is actually the 1st time that this force was created and there was much less experience in this kind of operations since then there has been much more so spent since then and look so what i think about it from pressing of 20 twentieths to i still have workability was and a part of general crime for this i mean no one who runs for president or anywhere expects to be put in such a such a position really but then again maybe thats what a judge i think overall most historians will agree that carters handling of this crisis from beginning to end was not very good basically was and i think it. Is really a great work of history in the sense that it really shows us you know in detail some of the key moments and i think he comes off as back to korea nav and his approach to the government in iran and what before and after revolution also i think leaves a lot probably to be desired by many but i would just say that it will last for a very very difficult situation in sort of a job of a historian to sit after 40 years and talk about things but he was very hard to be in there and visions for for all levels of government the United States i do have some sympathy for the hearts of the sort of conditions they think its probably. Very. Rich as you do that let me show this production still its you talking to president carter and this is very special moment here because he didnt speak about the hostage crisis he doesnt give interviews at this. Yes i just wanted to speak up for president carter and say that i learned so much about him from being able to do this film i learned you know that he wanted to bring home 52 hostages he wanted to do it in a diplomatic way without losing anyone and khomeini would not allow this he wanted the shah back he saw carter as a villain and would have nothing whatsoever to do with them so this was the only you know mission and the only tactic that he could do to try to get the 52 men back after trying for so long to be the humanitarian that he has in interviewing president carter it was wonderful. I had to wait a long time to do it 3 months but it was worth it every moment of it and i remember i asked him a question about the pain that he was feeling about what happened with the mission and he said to me he said it was absolutely heartbreaking he said my father died when i was young i was a young marina and i never thought that i would feel such pain again and when those men died i felt a wave of all their pain come over me again and you choose to see it say says papa it was poor judgment from the defensive Jimmy Carter National security paved the way to execution on desert one you got to speak to him did you feel he lacked judgment. Its very hard to tell i think the very interesting thing that we were able to get that nobody has ever seen before were satellite. That the in a film its the 1st time youll ever see it it says it will be living the history its obvious president mind and president carter talked to the general sent to the other military officials letting them know what was going on in a secret mission and it was like history unfolding and youre at the edge of your chair listening to their response and also listening from time to time as to but whats happening on the ground what i really appreciate about the documentary is that it tells an american story but it also tells part of the iranian story as well so for instance we learned that april 25th is a day of celebration in iran and we show you one of the pictures here from the document is the youngsters celebrating the day that the iranians for peace and rest can tell us more about that because it is a genuine celebration and the site where the planes met dead to my knees and an American Military died 8 that is a spot when people go to sightsee. Yes well. I think there are obviously there are you know sites of great events become become tourist places in the for me but i think vast majority of iranians and i think this is an issue well talk about in different ways you know ive written about the song off and what it means to me but i think vast majority of iranians regrets the way that event you d know the fact that hostages were taken for so long and all the circumstances that and i have to say as an iranian as an iranian picture. Someone who loved his country very much watching this film i felt a lot of sympathy also for the brave american soldiers really who god you know went after around the world to free their comrades. You know and this is what it was and the fact is that those american diplomats who were also caught in the middle of this. You know they were caught in the middle of it they were caught in the middle of a lot of events you know lets say even in the in every war there are there are human stories too to all fight despite the fact that in the decide whatever opinion one might have about the politics of of different size involved but i just want to about the celebration issue i want to say i think by and large iranians we disagree on a lot of thing as iranian people but the vast majority of iranians regret the fact that that issue went on for so long and that d it became a tone on the side of the 2 countries iran and america which have had a lot of good relations the hundreds of thousands of iranians living in america and i hope this film and other works like that become a cornerstone of building a better taiwan friendship between between the 2 countries by and large iranians are not proud of the hostage taking and are not happy that it took place and i really mean by and large even many supporters of the government would say it was a foolish stunt that really helped to run and hurt america and hurts the perception of more. Mums in the world to be honest. Yeah im so agree with what youre saying and one of the people and a fellow who is a hostage john limbert who he signed in the trailer when he was free depressed came up to him and said so what do you think about the iranian people and he married an iranian one man he has children who are iranian and he said i love their art i love their culture. I want my children to be able one day to go back to the country where their roots are and for me that just showed such hope that somehow that the friction one step and the antagonist sticks feelings that we have for each other will cease i mean over 35 percent of iranians are young people who really care about you know wanting to connect and we as americans want to connect with them as well. I just want to go back to that young face that baby face if you kevin if you have one thought about the experience that you have and how it resonates with where we are today with us iranian relations in a sentence could be summed up its not even possible i would say given an opportunity to return to iran a different country than the one that captured my friends and me and held us and fortunate us and prevented us from enjoying liberty something thats the bedrock of american ideals i understand that the oh oh. Was trying to conceal his reign of power and he was inexperienced and surrounded himself with the wrong people and then allowed young people with no discernment and the ability to really understand the gravity of what were doing who laid bare this relationship that weve had 40 years and i agree that people on both side