November 4, 19 79, iranian student storm the American Embassy in tehran. Everybody thinks it will be an overnight affair, but it will not. music , this is the story of a traumatic crisis that lasted 444 days and ended in january 1981, a personal drama about 51 american men and two american women. We will be with you, hopefully, as soon as we can. Their crime was being associated with the u. S. Embassy in tehran, the punishment total incarceration. This will be an inside view, with exclusive iranian shot footage never seen before. When did you arrive in iran . September 19, 1979. I think today is the 19th of january. Your name and your job. This is what really happened as told by fugitive and captive americans, including the head of the u. S. Embassy. Our story starts at the white house on october 22, 1979. Day14, u. S. President jimmy carter believing the shaw of iran needed medical tests and treatment, allowed him to enter the United States. It was the right thing to do, and it was at the end of an almost full year of good relations with iran. Eight months earlier, the isla telik khomeini had returned home from exile in france, although provisional government existed, he became the supreme power in the country. His strengthened return was treated like the Second Coming of mohammed. The ayatollahs campaign to transform the republic began. The first target was the shaw, tried in absentia and the sentence was death. For 37 years, he was killing our people. This deep hatred for the shaw was well known. The fact that u. S. Had supported the shop prior to the revolution made the embassy in tehran a highrisk posting. Bruce lincoln. He felt strongly that u. S. Should not admit the shaw and said why in a topsecret butter. Thought until the revolution had put its own institutions in place and we had put an ambassador in place and signaled our acceptance of the revolution that it would be dangerous to proceed with his admission. Jimmy carters decision to admit the shop and since the iranian public. Daily demonstrations outside the main gates of the u. S. Embassy compound. Inside, security had already been beefed up to protect a reduced staff of 70. The embassys agricultural attache on november 4, 1979, he was leaving the grounds for his office off the compound a block and a half away. As i walked out this morning, there was chanting out front. We knew it was a celebration that was your previously students have been shot, people in the streets. On that particular morning, we did not perceive more threat than usual. However, he was concerned about security for the compound, so he went to the Iranian Foreign ministry to ask for more protection. With him was his political officer. The reaction generally when we asked for increased protection was one of sympathy. While iranian diplomat sympathized with the americans, at the embassy, hundreds of students were swarming the main gates. Just before 11 00 a. M. The attack began. They were over the walls, the chain on the main gate was cut. This was filmed by a student. Here showing the area being overrun. The motor pool was behind the main gates of the Embassy Compound. To the right was the chancery, the operational hub of the Embassy Housing the sensitive communication systems. Way behind the chancery, pass to fields and bungalows was the twostory consular building where visas were issued completely sealed off from the rest of the compound. The students apparently knew that the 13 marines in 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 stationed at the consular building in the rear of the compound heard the news on his walkietalkie. As soon i heard the transmission, i got up and looked to my people behind me and there were already people running on the compound. The heavy front doors have been bolted shut. Inside were 45 americans plus iranian staff and citizens. The marine guards fired tear gas to buy time. When it was realized help was not coming, one that chancery Security Officers went outside to try to persuade the students to leave. He was immediately captured. The iranians had radios, jamming transmissions. The land lines, the telephones were impossible to get through because by the time the basement had been the students broken by breaking a basement window. This was all watched from the safety of his office from the compound. He was in regular contact with the besieged diplomats. Letting him know what was occurring on the roof of the embassy, people very early on managed to get on the roof, cutting cables, taking down antennas, pulling down the american flag. The students now threatened to shoot the captured american. This is Security Camera related the chilling scene inside the chancery. The people in the chancery had been told was the students just wanted him to come out and they would hold them for an hour or two. They were trying to make a statement about the shaw being allowed into the u. S. And continuing to stay in the u. S. We are not with ordinary people, american officials. We are opposite your government. With no help coming, the staff retreated 4 x 4. One person went out and was immediately blindfolded and bound and threatened with death. The americans surrendered. While this was happening 10 americans had locked themselves in the security vault, shredding confidential documents on the orders of the person who is at the ministry. There were people outside the vault door itself. We instructed the people to install that as long as they could in order to complete the Destruction Program in the vault, but when they reported they had done that, we told them to go ahead and surrender. There were still many secret documents locked away in his office, and he had the key. Later this would come to haunt the americans. None of these details were known to the americans hiding on the underside of the compound, which was walled off from the rest of the grounds. All they knew was the chancery had been overrun. The head of the consular section, dig more field. It was clear help was not going to be coming from the iranians. We heard people on the roof and began to smell smoke as they burned their way through the ceiling. Somebody then threw something through the window. He heard a crash. They put a ladder to the window and demonstrators tried to come in. I kicked open the door and came in so quickly, screaming my full head off, i shocked him iranian coming to the window in a bit of a panic, didnt know what to do because he saw made walking towards him and gary lee standing behind me with a shotgun, and he proceeded to scramble out the window as fast as possible. I popped a grenade and was getting ready to throw it out the window, then this head on the other side looked up to see if the coast was clear, and the grenade chose that moment to go off right in his face. Meanwhile, in the chancery, the captured americans blindfolded and bound work being taken to the ambassadors residence. The students started playing russian roulette with the women hostages to learn the combinations to bruce langan safe. At the same time, in the back of the compound, 12 americans and some iranians were preparing to leave the consular building. Two people were among them. Fortunately for us, the terrorists had not blocked the street entrance. The chancery has a direct door onto the back street. I went to open the door. So i opened it up and there were three or four police. I said we are leaving the building. He said ok. At that time people started to file out. The americans split into two parties, six in one group, led by the consular chief. We got another lock block or so, then a group of young militants surrounded us and said we were hostage, and at first i didnt catch that. I said you have got the building. Do whatever you want. Burn it down. They said, no, you dont understand, you are hostage. He said keep on walking from dont stop, dont talk. Just walk straight. As we started to walk off, the young man fired a shot. They surrounded us saying cia, cia, etc. He found a radio and started to walk off with it. He was going to take the radio. I said to come excuse me. He turned around and i smiled and used hand gestures to confuse him, grabbed the radio, smashed it on the wall and destroyed about 4000 worth of electrical equipment, and i handed the shattered components back to him and said, now you can have it. The second escaping group with these five americans, led by bob anders had taken a different route and were on their way to the British Embassy, a standard contingency plan, but their route became blocked by demonstrators. Bob said i am going home. We said we are going with you. We just wanted to get off the street, because i noticed at least it seemed like some people were starting to stare at us. The relative safety of his apartment was only four blocks away, but across the street from it was revolutionary Committee Headquarters. When we came to the street where the Committee Headquarters was, weep your to round the corner to see if anyone was looking and then make a mad for the building on the other side, and we did that one after the other and made it into bobs apartment, which was a relief, i think, for all of us. As soon week got in there, we got on the telephone and radio. Everyone had two way radios. We were trying to call different apartments and couldnt get answers anywhere. I became convinced we were the only ones able to get out. He was right. Back at the main gates of the embassy, the other captured group was being forced back to the motor pool area. By now it was Late Afternoon in tehran and the hostages were split into small groups. He and his colleagues were about to join them. They escorted us to the ambassadors house. My hands are bound with a nylon cord which cut off the circulation after while. Our hands were tied to the chairs and our feet were tied to the feet of the chair, and at which time they went through the show of questioning us before the cameras this young man had. There is one american who shall remain nameless who was telling the iranians who each american was coming giving them information. Should have been shot for that, but i dont set policy. Back in washington, d. C. The state department set up in iran working desk within hours of the takeover. Although secretary of state cyrus vance and officials were sure of the iranian government would eventually come to the rescue. By now it was getting dark in tehran and started to rain. The embassys takeover made for an evenings entertainment, whole families came to the embassy and chanted death to america. Death to the shop. Shaw. Meanwhile, bruce was still at the Foreign Ministry and told them to take three in the Swedish Embassy upstairs. I walked up the stairs to the Swedish Embassys office suite and they were expecting me. At the Foreign Ministry, the foreign minister met with him. He told the diplomats he would speak to the revolutionary counsel that not and assured him the crisis would soon be resolved. He asked me where i propose to spend the night and i said, well, that is your responsibility, mr. Foreign minister. I am here with the terms your government will provide protection for me in my mission. It is your responsibility. Can you assure me i will be safe on the streets . His attitude was i have enough headaches. Your people are just making my life more complicated than it need be. So they were then taken to an ornate ballroom used for diplomatic receptions. They demand telephones. They were taken in and plugged into the ballroom, so we could continue our discussion with washington on one of the lines, and use the other phone to make it was an uncomfortable, worrisome night. We could not except with assurance what he told us. Clearly we hope what he told us would be true by morning, but we had no assurance of that and were skeptical. Meanwhile at the Swedish Embassy, the end of day one of the hostage crisis left him with nowhere to go, so he stayed in the embassy. He was at least more comfortable than his 63 captured colleagues. We were sure this would be over in a day, at most. Day one of the 444day hostage crisis was finally over. music , as day two dawned, he continued to monitor the grounds. He was no less than the son of the ayatollah khomeini. If he had told him to release the hostages, there is no doubt they would have peered he didnt. Instead he gave him the ayatollahs support. Most were students mainly from tehran, zealous and conservative, angry at the government for maintaining normal relations with the United States, so in october, 1979, 30 or 40 of them met to plan in action, against the iranian government and the United States. As incredible as it sounds, the seizure of the u. S. Embassy was only supposed to last three to five days. When the government proved incapable of stopping the students in 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 demanded the return of the shaw as a way to end the takeover. The hostages are here because this is the only thing we can have here against america, and we tell them we do have the hostages until they send shah here. The iranians were looking for some people by name, and the word came back to the Swedish Embassy that my name happen to be one of them. The person whod then gave sanctuary to him was a scandinavian friend of his she worked in the Swedish Embassy. I was taken to a private residence and spent the next two weeks in that residence day and night. That day, a u. S. Information Cultural Agency called the iranianamerican society was being overrun. The director was kate. They escape the students and were given sanctuary by the germans in their kurt Russell Center there cultural center. The germans were absolutely fantastic. They not only provided us a safe space to get to immediately, but were willing to take us into their homes if we but they made the biggest mistake of their lives. They returned after hearing that the militants had left. There they were joined by the person who had been at the tehran airport during the takeover. Within 15 minutes of return, they were all captured. 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. They still trusted the Iranian Foreign ministry enough to tell them the six were free. When we first learned that the six were free in the city, we had informed the Foreign Ministry and saught 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 the Iranian ForeignMinistry Officials knew that the six americans were free. It is possible, 20, 30, more people knew. Later on november 5, terms were set for them to be picked up. I was at a housing compound in the northern part of the city. They put them up there. While they were safe behind the gates of the bridge compound, for one 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 did my search sort of pat had a little bit here and there and was terribly embarrassed when she had asked me to take off my dress. So she did her job and left. Evidently she described what she had done because she came back a few minutes later and they said i didnt do a good job and i have to do it over. One of my colleagues has said at some point it was like teaching hostage 101 sometimes. The folks are removed who are tied to chairs, wrists were bound to chairs, then they said, no talk. The hostages would not be allowed to talk for four and a half months. They were separated and placed in the ambassadors residence on elsewhere on the compound. The seven captured women were segregated from the men. They ransacked the place, destroying papers, ripping up the books, just mass destruction, destruction for the sake of destruction. The students were convinced most of the americans were spies and tore the place apart in search of evidence. One suspect was kate, and they kept her apart they accused me of spying and all kinds of things. They said give us your jewelry. One of our experts will examine it. My thought was if you think youre going to get much ransome out of this, think again. So i pulled it off and i was handing it to him and i realized they were looking at it as though it were going to hold some sort of wondrous mysterious something or other. I am not sure what. As the days passed, the iranian students claimed they found proof of spying. We know there is spying because we have documents. One outlined a cover identity for a cia official. Fake passports were also found, along with lists of iranian contacts, false license plates for agent vehicles, and many payoff envelopes with used the dollar bills. The United States government, if it does not reply to the iranian peoples request, we will begin the trials and carry out the sentences. These discoveries gave the iranian students the leverage they needed. They had delivered to the iranian people evidence that the hostages were spies, not diplomats. The Prime Minister was powered last. The provisional revolutionary government also resigned that day. At that point, i think we again to think this was not going to be resolved immediately. Was the provisional government fell in powered evolved to the council, the students come in the streets, my capacity to function was severely limited. It was very clear, very quickly that those who held power were very reluctant to speak to us, to sully the reputation as politically, if you will. One of the casualties of the governments co