This canada documentary details the iran hostage crisis from the perspective of several hostages and diplomats. Often using video recorded inside the Embassy Compound by iranians. Its narrated by actor William Shatner and is about 90 minutes. November 4th, 1979, iranian students stormed the embassy of the United States of america in teheran. Everyone including the students think the takeover will be an overnight affair but it will not. This is the story of a traumatic crisis that lasted 44 days and ended in january, 1981. Its a personal drama about 51 american men and two american women. I look forward to being with you hopefully as soon as we can. That crime was being associated with the u. S. Embassy in teheran. Their punishment was total incarceration. Im happy to see someone from the outside world. This will be an inside view with exclusive iranianshot footage never seen before. When did you arrive in iran . I arrived in iran on september 19th, 1979. My job, im a commander in the u. S. Navy and i think today is the 19th of january. Your name, your job . This is what really happened as told by both fugitive and captive americans including for the first time the head of the u. S. Embassy. Our story starts at the white house on october 22nd, 1979. Day minus 14. U. S. President jimmy carter believing the exiled shah of iran needed medical tests and treatment allowed him to arrive in the United States. It was the right thing to do and it was at the end of almost a full year of good relations with iran. Eight months earlier, the Ayatollah Khomeini had returned home from exile in france. Although a provisional government existed, he became the supreme power in the country. His triumphed return was treated like the Second Coming of mohammed. The ayatollahs campaign to transform iran into an Islamic Republic began. The first target was the shah. He was tried in absentia and the sentence was death. For 37 years he was killing our people. 7,000 people have died in this country. This deep hatred for the shah was well known to the American Government. The fact that the u. S. Had supported the shah prior to the revolution made the embassy in tehran a highrisk posting. The u. S. Man on the spot was Bruce Laingen. Laingen felt strongly that the u. S. Should not admit the shah and he explained why in a topsecret letter to the state department. I thought that until the revolution had put its own institutions of government in place, until we had put an ambassador in place and thus signaled in that way our acceptance of the revolution, that it would be dangerous to proceed with his admission. Jimmy carters decision to admit the shah incensed the iranian public. There were daily demonstrations outside the main gates of the u. S. Embassy compound. Inside security had already been beefedup to protect a reduced staff of 70. Lee shots was the embassys agriculture attache. On the morning of november 4th, 1979, shots was leaving the Embassy Grounds for his office which was off the compound, a block and a half away. After i walked off the chancellery that morning, there was a lot of chatting going on out front. We knew that it was the celebration of the one year previously students had been shot by the shahs people in the streets. On that particular morning we did not perceive that we were under any more threat than usual. However, laingen was concerned about security for his 27acre compound. So that morning he went to the Iranian Foreign ministry to ask for more protection. With him, was political officer vick tomsith. The reaction generally when we asked for increased protection was one of sympathy. While iranian diplomats at the Foreign Ministry sympathized with the americans, a mile away at the embassy, several hundred students were swarming around the main gates. Just before 11 00 a. M. The attack began. They were over the walls and soon the chain on the main gate was cut. This was filmed by a student. Here is showing the moment it was being overrun. The motor pool was behind the main gates to the Embassy Compound. To their right was the chancellery, the operational hub of the embassy that housed the sensitive communication systems. Way behind the chancellery, past some fields and some bungalows was the twostory building where visas was issued. It was completely sealed off from the rest of the compound. The students apparently knew that the 13 marines on the compound had Standing Orders not to shoot but to make sure the women led the assault. As the attackers overran the motor pool area, marine Sergeant Jimmy lopez who was stationed in the consular building at the rear of the compound heard the news on his walkietalkie. It happened so fast that as soon as i heard the transmission about people being over the walls, i got up and looked through my little peephole behind me and there were already people running on the compound. The heavy front doors of the chancellery had been bolted shut. Inside were 45 americans plus iranian staff and some visitors. The marine guards inside fired tear gas to buy time. When it was realized help wasnt coming, one of the chancellery Security Officers went outside to try to persuade the students to leave. He was immediately captured. The iranians had radios, the net was full of garbage, they were jamming transmissions. The landlines, the telephones were impossible to get through because by that time the basement had been taken. The students broke in by breaking a basement window. This was all watched by lee shots from the safety of his office off the compound. He was in radio contact with the besieged diplomats on the second floor of the chancellery. Letting them know as far as what was occurring on the roof of the embassy. People very early managed to get on the roof, were cutting cables, taking down antennas, pulling down the american flag. The students now threatened to shoot the captured american. This Security Camera relayed the chilling scene to his colleagues inside the chancellery. What the people in the chancellery had been told was that the students just wanted them to come out and hold them for an hour or two, they were trying to make a statement about their position about the shah being allowed into the u. S. And continuing to stay in the u. S. We are not opposite with ordinary people, American People. We are opposite to your government. With no help coming the besieged staff retreated floor by floor. One american went out to try to save als life. He too was immediately blindfolded and bound and threatened with death. While this was happening, ten americans had locked themselves in the security room. They were frantically shredding confidential documents on the orders of Bruce Laingen who was still at the Iranian Foreign ministry and had given the orders to start shredding via radio. There were people outside the vault door itself. We instructed the people, however, to stall that off as long as they could in order to complete the Destruction Program in the vault. But when they reported that they had done that, then we told them to go ahead and surrender. But there were still many secret documents longed away in Bruce Laingens office and laingen had the key. Later this would come to haunt the americans. None of these details were known to the other americans hiding on the other side of the compound at the consular building which was walled off from the rest of the grounds. All they knew was that the chancellery had been overrun. Dick morefield. About 3 30 it was clear that help was not going to be coming from the iranians. We also heard some people on the roof and began to smell smoke. I presume they were trying to burn their way through the ceiling. Someone then threw a brick through the washroom window. Bob anders heard the crash. They put a ladder up to the window and a couple of these demonstrators started to climb up to try to come in. I kicked open the door and came in so quickly screaming my fool head off that i shocked the iranian coming through the window and he was in a bit of a panic, didnt know what to do because he saw me walking towards him with the business end of this gas gernade facing him and gary lee is standing behind me with a shotgun and he proceeded to scramble out the window as fast as possible. I popped the grenade and i was getting ready to throw it out the window, and just then this head on the outside looked up, i guess, to see if there was if the coast was clear, and the grenade chose that moment to go off, right in his face. Meanwhile, in the chancellery, the captured americans blindfolded and bound were being taken to the ambassadors residence. The students then started playing russian roulette with the women hostages to try and learn the combinations to Bruce Laingens safe. At the same time, in the back of the compound, 12 americans and some iranians were preparing to leave the consular building through its Side Entrance on the street. Mark and kora lijek were among them. Fortunately for us, the terrorists had not blocked the street answer unlike the chancellery has a direct door onto the back street. I asked rich queen to open the door and start the scattering process. So i opened it up and there were three or four National Police and i said, hello, how are you, and he said, how is everything . I gue i said, were leaving the building and he said, okay, fine. At that time people started to file out. The americans split into two parties. Six went in one group, led by dick moth dick morefield. A group of young men surrounded us and said we were hostage. And at first i didnt catch that. I said, wait a minute, youve got the building, do whatever you want, burn it down, do whatever you think, and they said, no, you dont understand, youre a hostage. He said keep on walking, dont stop, dont talk. As we started to move off again, the young man with a gunfired a shot and they surrounded us shouting cia, cia, et cetera. The guard started frisking me for weapons and he found the radio and he pulled it off and he started to walk off with it. He was going to take the radio, and i said, excuse me a second. I started using some hand gestures and i got the radio from him and i pointed at it and i was telling him things about it and then i grabbed the bottom and just turned it and smashed it on the wall and destroyed about 4,000 worth of Electrical Equipment and i handed the shattered components back to him and told him, now you can have it. The second escaping group, these five americans, had taken a different route and were on their way to the british embassy, but their route became blocked by demonstrators. Bob said im going home and we said, were going with you. We wanted to get off the street because i noticed it seemed like some people were starting to stare at us. The safety of bob anders apartment was a block away. When we came to the street, we crossed it one at a time, we would peer around the corner and make a mad dash for the other building on the other side. We did that, you know, one after the other. Finally we made it into bobs apartment which was a relief i think for all of us. As soon as we got in there, we immediately got on the telephone and on the radio, everyone in our embassy at that point had twoway radios. We were trying to call different apartments and couldnt get answers anywhere. I became convinced that we were the only ones who had been able to get out. He was right because back at the main gates of the embassy, the captured group was being forced back to the motor pool area. The hostages were split into small groups. Morefield and his colleagues were about to join them. When we were there, they separated us and my hands were bound with a nylon cord which cut off the circulation after a while. And our hands were tied to the chairs and our feet were tied to the feet of the chairs. And at which time they went through the show of questioning us before the cameras that this young man had. There was one american who shall remain nameless who was going around telling the iranians who each american was, giving them information. He should have been shot for that. But i dont set policy. Back in washington, d. C. , the state department had set up a fully functioning iran working desk within hours of the takeover. Although concerned secretary of state and his officials were sure that the iranian government would eventually come to the rescue. By now it was getting dark in tehran and it started to rain. The embassys takeover made for an evenings entertainment. Whole families came down to the embassy. They chanted death to america, death to the shah. Meanwhile Bruce Laingen, still at the Foreign Ministry, arranged for the safety of lee shots and told him to take sanctuary upstairs. As i left my door, i walked up the stairs to the Swedish Embassys office suite and they were expecting me. At the Foreign Ministry, the minister finally met with laingen and tomseth and assured them the crisis would soon be resolved. He asked me where i proposed to spend the night and i said, well, thats your responsibility, mr. Foreign minister. Im here with the assurance that your government is going to provide protection to me for me and my mission. It is your responsibility. Can you assure me that i will be safe on the streets and obviously you cannot. He wanted us to go away. His attitude was, ive got enough headaches. Your people are making my life more complicated. So vick tomseth, Bruce Laingen were taken to a ballroom. They demanded telephones. They were taken in and plugged into the ballroom so that we were able to continue our discussion with washington on one of the lines and use the other phone to make local calls. It was a very uncomfortable night. We could not accept with aassurance what he had told us and clearly we hoped that what he told us would be true by morning. But we had no assurance of that and we were very skeptical. Meanwhile at the Swedish Embassy, the end of day one of the hostage crisis left lee shots with nowhere to go. So he stayed the night there in the embassy. He was at least more comfortable than his 63 captured colleagues. We were sure that this would be over in a day at most. Day one of the 444day hostage crisis was finally over. As day two dawned, lee shots continued to monitor the compound from his viewpoint in the Swedish Embassy. Showed up inside the grounds. The mula was no less than the son of ayatollah. Instead he gave them the ayatollahs support. Most of the militants were students. They were zealous and conservative shiite muslims. In october 1979 a group of 30 or 40 of them met to plan an action. As much against the iranian government as it was against the United States. Incredible as it sounds, the siege of the u. S. Embassy was only supposed to last three to five days. When the government proved incapable of stopping the students and the ayatollah signaled his support publicly, the students found they had started something worth continuing. With massive Popular Support including elements of the military, they then demanded the return of the shah as a way to end the takeover. The hostages are here because this is the only thing that we can have here against america and we tell them that we have the hostages until they send the shah here. The iranians were looking for some people by name and the word that came back to Swedish Embassy was that my name happened to be one of them. The person who then gave sanctuary to lee shots was a friend of his. She worked in the Swedish Embassy. And was taken to a private residence and spent the next two weeks in that residence day and night. That same day in northern tehran, a u. S. Information agency called the iranamerican society was being overrun. They escaped the students and were given sanctuary by the germans at their cultural center. The germans were fantastic. They provided us not only the space to get to immediately, but were quite willing and offered as a matter of fact to take us into their homes if we needed sort of deep cover. But they made the biggest mistake of their lives, they returned after hearing that the militants had left. There they were joined by lilen johnson. Within 15 minutes, they were all captured. And all three of them were being taken to the Embassy Compound to join the other people being held hostage there. At that point we realized we had to do something about the other five. The five consular staff were the only americans now out. Bruce laingen trusted the Foreign Ministry enough to tell them that the six were free. When we first learned that the six were free in the city, we had informed the Foreign Ministry at the level that we thought appropriate and sought their assistance. I said in effect that you should be aware that there are several people who were not caught by the student militants who are presently in tehran. It has never been revealed before that Iranian ForeignMinistry Officials new that the six americans were free. So that its possible that 20, 30, maybe even more people knew. Later on november 5th, tom angered for the five escapers to be picked up by staff. The british had a housing compound in the northern part of the city and they put them up there. While they were safe behind the gates of the british compound, for kate, it was the start of 14 months of captivity. When we arrived at the Embassy Compound, we were separated and searched. The young woman who had done who did my search was a real novice and she patted a little bit here and ther