Transcripts For CSPAN3 Iran Hostage Crisis 40th Anniversary

CSPAN3 Iran Hostage Crisis 40th Anniversary July 13, 2024

In the Chicago Council. Welcome to our program, todays event is on the record and we are live streaming, please silence your phones though we do welcome engagement. On before this Evenings Program begins we will hear flash talk, from the doctor this ceo and president voice of iranian politics. He focuses on a team missed finding iranian politics, he hopes to be at Syracuse University and a ph. D. In policy studies from the university of Maryland College park following the flash stop we will continue our discussion introduced the panelists. Unfortunately the former deputy chief of the political section the u. S. Embassy and iran is unable to and join us tonight, please join us and welcoming doctor farm each. Hello, hello. I appreciate the chance to be here, hello to chicago its my first time here thank you for the welcome applause . I am presenting to a survey that has been done for the Chicago Council and iran poll of global affairs, the title being iranian Public Opinion for the iranian kids after the crisis on an. So the independent company focusing on iranian polling. Also canada, have allowed to canadian consulates here on. The scientific polling from iran has been proven to be reliable, scientific, and as an example in the last president ial election in iran in 2017 bennett president ial ronny the current president was selected, the iraq poll was able to predict the result of the election, send the results to the economists, they published it one day before the election and it is there for you to see. Our prediction was accurate with two Percentage Points of the official results. So it is something that could be reliably used as it is with any other polling. So the polling i am presenting today is used by the exact same methodology, it was conducted by telephone and it was conducted by october 2019, its very fresh. Going into iranian says that the economy is bad and getting a worst interesting levy they blame their own government more than they blame the United States or the sanctions. So 68 of iranian say the Economic Situation is bad, 54 say its getting worse, now 55 of iranians play money in domestic mismanagement and corruption. Only 38 blame foreign sanctions an pressures. As you can see this is a continuous trend. That does not however mean that iranians are not seeing the effect of sanctions. When we ask how much of a negative influence or the sanctions happening on the Economic Situation of your family week at 76 of iranians say that it has an effect on the, unedited effect, 53 it is having a lot of negative effect on their family. Despite these poor economic conditions, despite all the pressure, still iranian people are not ready to give in to Current Administration demands. So we propose a scenario to that, in this scenario we told them suppose that the United States were to propose a deal whereby a most u. S. Sanctions on iran it would be gradually lifted and iran would be able to have a Peaceful Nuclear Energy Program and return for agreeing to fully and giving up the right to enrich uranium on its soil and to always allow International Inspections of its facilities. Do you think you would agree or not and 73 of iranians said no we reject that deal. 53 strongly reject that deal, now why . Two reasons, there is a classic rattling around the flag, thats something you can expect from any human society, when asking at the same survey, how proud are used to be iranians . 90 and that they are extremely proud or very proud to be iranian, so this is asking the same questions continuously since on the go and right now to give you a comparison in the United States and American People 47 extremely proud to be american, iranians or 68 . In fact this level of saying they are extremely proud it is similar to the length of september in the United States, when there is a real attack towards your country you have this affect, you rally, there is another point iranians really believe they have the right to have Peaceful Nuclear proof homes, 90 , so that helps as well. A second reason for why iranians are rejecting the deal that we put in front of them, its the simple fool me once shame on, you fool me twice shame on me, its the idea that if in jcpoa, if all powers did and help them who says they will keep it again, so we have been asking the popularity of jcpoa since 2015 continuously, 76 of iranians used to support it now thats down to 42 . We asked another questions from iranians thinking how the jcpoa has worked out so far, which he was closest yours . First of jcpoa spirit shows that its worthwhile to make iran concessions because true compromise can negotiate Mutual Benefit decisions with all powers, or the experience shows that it is not worthwhile for iran to make concessions because iran he cannot have confidence that if it makes a concession with world powers they will honor the agreement. You get 72 of iranian saying its not worthwhile to make concessions okay i want to end with good news. First good news iranians are not supportive of Nuclear Weapons program, when you asked them should iran develop Nuclear Weapons . We get 15 saying we should not. Interesting leads 66 of iranian say that development of Nuclear Weapons is against the teaching of hes moms, well 17 is mom says does not prohibit development of Nuclear Weapons. Injuriously only 18 and have an opinion anne. A very confident people about this. So last point iranians are not categorically against negotiations with the Trump Administration. When we gave them this option if the United States returns to the jcpoa, leaves all factions related to the Nuclear Program and is willing to talk that includes all the countries, would you support in such a situation, negotiations with the Trump Administration . We see 75 are supportive even talking with the core trumpet ministration. So the future does have some hope for, us thank you on. applause thank you very much its now my distinct honor to welcome our panelists tonight, kate cope is a former professor, she spent 27 years and the Diplomatic Service of the United States, in 1979 she was serving as the director of the Iran American Society, she is one of the 52 americans who spend 444 days as a hostage in iran after the seizure of the embassy in tehran. Kathleen stafford is a writer whose work has been required and since 1979 she was serving in tehran when it was seized she is one of six americans who were expatriated from iran with the assistance of the Central Intelligence agency and the canadian government, thank you for being here, please join me in welcoming our panelists. applause thank you again for being here, id like to start setting the, stage in 1979 what was the Political Climate like when he arrived there . Well there were curfews, we were limited in terms of where we could go, my question was, what does an Islamic Republic look like . That was the reason i was there because this was the stated goal of the revolution to establish an Islamic Republic, people were on sure, everybody was treading lightly, people who were known to have been workers for the shot lived in fear, people lived and fear because there were people simply eating out of their jobs and because of their loyalty to the shaw were tried and often executed. So it was a very tenuous situation when i first arrived in july we were working very carefully to see what we could do and what we couldnt, i was seen director of the Iran American Society but i met with the italian cultural society, german on director, we talked about what we thought we could and couldnt do it in our cultural centers. So everyone is watching very carefully, that is what i remember the most. We were their only two months before he turned over so arrived in september and we just moved into our apartment. I had the clothes hanging over the dining room chairs but that has a president called the day of the takeover. In fact she was your housekeeper. So i went on to work and we are all excited about this, we were gonna see this wonderful country though is famous for its culture and poetry. So we did a little short trips on the weekend, to go today caspian sea on. So kates memory of what it was like before that are more clear than mine. Well this monday was the 40th anniversary of the seizure of the u. S. Embassy, can you tell us what the experiences were on november 4th 1979 the following days . Well here on American Society was i think about three kilometers from the embassy, we had our own building, at this was a very strong structure and had been going well for many years, we worked together, the port of this society was both iranian and american we had english nationals but we also have farsi lessons so the iranian reporter was working with us as we were trying to figure out what the italians in the french and the germans what we could do and where we could go, that monitoring we would having a Board Meeting and on the middle of the four meaning the secretary eva came in and said i think you better take this phone call, there was one of my foreign members saying there is a major demonstration going on at the embassy, you might want to check and see to make sure everything is okay on at the society. As a matter of fact two of my Staff Members got out and went to the embassy to see if they could see what was going on. We turned on the radio and television to see if anything was being carried on the local news, and became very clear that this was not going to go away, so the story goes out from there but it was, it was aggressive from the very beginning. We hoped and my personal hope was that the Foreign Ministry would do what they had done at an earlier demonstration, i think that was in february, they basically said you major point, you demonstrated this is an embassy this is, these are diplomatic grounds now lets be on our way and we could settle down and see what was going on, that didnt happen obviously in. Back at the ranch we were closed, the visas section was closed to protests, the fact that there had been on a lot of graffiti done, death to carter run on the walls of the obesity that weekend, so we are protesting, i went over and i thought this was a good chance to get my diplomatic idea card. So i walked and turned on my passport which meant i wasnt going anywhere without that afterwards. So the ladies were very nervous and said why did you come to work today and i today always come to work, but today is the day of the murders so i went back across the compound and told my husband he should go over there because those ladies were in a bad mood and he should get his 18 car or two but if he had gone he wouldve been in the chancery of the time of the takeover. So luckily he did in look at me, we both ended up in the consulate and been slammed all the doors when we saw that there was a mob outside and people had sticks in bats and all things like that. So after about two hours there were various activities that came and went, high original Security Officer walked across the compound and was trying to figure out what they can to, try to talk to students to sting out of the compound and leaving. After a while we thought we smell smoke, we were all upstairs on the second floor of the building cause it was safer. We thought we smell smoke and so we thought that we are probably going to have to leave. So no one could make false visas, there are another spouse and couple and we werent there at an exceptional basis, we were the only spouses there at post, the washington had thought theyve been bringing back adult dependents but after they saw how the state of the country and that it was unstable they were rethinking that. Then in case they thought we were gonna send them home because we couldnt issue visas anyway, so, how far would you like me to go along . I think thats a good point. What about november 4th, did you anticipate something as dramatic of the seizure of the embassy was a possibility . Well during our training period and talking about the history and whats going on and given the history of the United States and embassies all around the world my fear was that there would be some sort of retaliatory act on, i thought we would probably all been told to pack one back and get out of the country, that is the normal procedure, although that year there had been a very serious demonstration and one of our ambassadors i believe was killed in afghanistan earlier that year. There are memories in my mind of other takeovers, not embassies but americana diplomatic facilities. So i really who was prepared to pack one suitcase and leave but i was not prepared to stay for 14 months, no i did not think that, i do not think about that. I think we had a town hall meeting, it must have been at the weekend before that when we were told that the shot was going to be allowed to enter the United States for medical treatment. So in bruce laying in said that there are very possibility that nothing will happen and maybe they will try to attack the embassy. So none of us knew what would happen, it was basically a way to see, we were hoping that at most we would just have to leave. Kathleen it to pick up where you stopped your story, people may be an interested on what traumatized youre exfiltration, where did they take some creative liberty and when did it get right . In well with that, there we were on the second floor thinking we smelled smoke and we should leave, so various people left in groups, non immigrant section and all the iranians left and we looked outside the door, the back door where the visa applicants could command without having to enter onto the main compound, that was a little ally off the side so that was the separate entrance not only we had. In either this turns to know about that or it had moved to a different so he left the and then they visiting iranians and local staff and theyre about 12 or 13 of us americans. We split into smaller groups and in our group there were the other couple, bob enders who was our boss and joe and i, my husband and i and a couple of other people. So we all went out with a group, it started to rain which was probably really lucky because we brought up bras and everyone was concerned about rain and not us. So we headed out towards the British Embassy, it was just fear in sanctuary, so the iranian employee said she would show us and as we were going, walking that way we saw a really large model, another variable coming from that direction so bob andrews is with us and he said i live close by i am going home and we said we are coming with you bob on an. We separated a little more and walk to bobs house and when we got to his house we listened to the Embassy Radio and we could hear voices we got here on the americans talking back and forth and trying to figure out what to do and talking about in the vault where all the classified information was kept. Finally we only heard farsi speakers so a new everyone had been capturing or taken, so they came, as my staff and got out and they said its really serious so i called the embassy and got an answer from the switch board occupy. I remember i had a direct extension so i called bruises office and swift answer the phone and she said okay its bad, she said get a hold of the guys in the Communication Center and find out what is going on from them because they are still in touch with the state. So i called again using this extension called them and they were shredding material and taking care of classified stuff and they said call state. So they gave me that number at the department of state to call at the Operations Center so that they had another lake. So my staff and i, some of my staff for helping me do this, god bless them they were taking a chance but they were monitoring what was being said on radio and television. Taking notes, transcribing it and we were feeding that back to washington but also linking to the Communications Center until they said we will have to go out and the state said tell them theyre doing a good job and will say goodbye and then in the next thing i heard was told them theyre gone, so we told him that and that is when the fault was praised and they were taken over by the farsi people. So we were still there and trying to figure out what was going on and reporting back. Towards evening kathleen, another person had showed up there because she couldnt get back to the office, she was at the airport and said on and she came back and she was there helping us and then the six of you showed up and so i said good, we can sleep so we on. They came on and said, i think you wanna to the housey. So we did eventually go to your house and we were there and then that next day someone came and i got off the back door and went to the German Institute they said on, this has got to get settled, this has to simmer down and i have to get back to the phones. So in talks with washington and they said you think its safe to get back to the phones . I said yeah i hope so, anyway i again back to the deputy who was the English Teaching sp

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