Captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 he wouldnt let them determine what was happening domestically, only focused on the soviet union. So, the cia was hobbled in its ability to inform the white house and the president what was actually happening. Its totally fanciful that the cia was using u. S. Government money to pay off the opposition. You mentioned jimmy carter in essence being held hostage because of the crisis. In december of 79, he was on the mall, he did not like the National Christmas tree as a symbol of those held hostage. Did that become another metaphor how this became allconsuming of him leading up to the election in 1980 . It was. And i talked in the book, a number of your colleagues, woodruff, peter glass, people who were reporters at the time. They all said that carter called and hes admitted to me in interview for the book, that he gave too much attention to it. He could have said, weve made an offer to the iranians about negotiating this. They are responsible for the safety of john and his colleagues if they violate it, well interfere militarily. Im going about my other business and it would not have caused that much attention. Instead, you had yellow ribbons all over the country, not letting the Christmas Tree stay in the white house. He caused more attention to this crisis. Now, you couldnt have avoided it, obviously. But he made it the centerpiece. He said publicly, every morning when i get up the first thing i think about is the hostages and every night when i go to sleep is the hostages. He focused the spotlight much more than would otherwise have been the case. There was also the issue of the canadian six. Who were they . So, this is a wonderful story that was an wonderful book and interesting movie called argonne. They were elsewhere in the country and they hid themselves for weeks and finally made their way to the Canadian Embassy in tehran. A great canadian ambassador kim taylor hid them. And in a wonderful story, working with the white house and the state department, we got the cia to masquerade as a canadian film company, coming in to take film footage in iran. And then who kim taylor the canadian ambassador got fake canadian passports. And we had to have a special secret session of the canadian parliament, and the foreign minister, because you couldnt come into canada understand Fake Passports to allow this to happen. And thats how they got out. And interestingly again for president carter, he didnt try to take credit for it. He didnt want to risk johns life by saying, oh, you know, we just got six canadians through the canadian passports, six of our diplomats out. We did not want to led khamenei and the radicals know we accomplished this. And then came out with this great movie argonne and the book. You mentioned ted koppel. He today, quote, several jurnts had become aware of the hidden faction. Koppel was one of those reporters. Saying i got a call from the secretary of state, i understand youre going to put this on the air tonight. I cant ask you not to do it, but i would ask you not to, it becomes inevitable that if you put it on air, that the Canadian Embassy would probably be taken and the americans that escaped from the u. S. Embassy would probably be killed. Ultimately, he decided not to go with it the report. That is absolutely correct. Ted and others knew about it and we implored them not to do it because it would have risked those six and it might have risked john and his colleaguess life, and it could have caused the storming of the canadian six. I give great credit to ted koppel and his colleagues for not running with what would have been a great head line. From lexington, kentucky, good morning. Caller good morning, thank you. This message is for mrmr. Mr. Eizenstat, i read your book, it was excellent. In 1980, president carter received word of a possible breakthrough with iran, over the hostages. He broke off campaigning, flew back to washington to deal with this, i think it was early sunday. The country seemed to get its hopes up, only to get disappointed when the hostages werent released. How much of an impact did this have on the election in your opinion . The election seemed close up to that point. What is mr. Eizenstats hunch about how the election might have turned out if none of that had happened the final weekend. Its a great question and its not a hunch. So, let me give you the figures. Going into the one and only debate with Ronald Reagan which was eight days before the election. And one should never give a challenger a debate that close, and did very well in the debate. In cleveland, ohio . In cleveland, ohio. And we ahead at that time, and reagan surged ahead. We learned that the half life of the debate is very short. The time youre talking not only the internal polls, nbc, abc, cbs all had us even or ahead and gaining among undecideds. Because reagan was an unknown figure. I was at the Hilton Airport Hotel with the president and his traveling party. The last weekend as were going to the west coast wing after we go to chicago. Im told at 3 00 a. M. To get on air force one, the president s going back to the white house, theres been a new offer from the iranians. And i said, no, dont go back. Look at the offer and determine if its adequate. If you go back, its going to bring the whole hostage crisis story back. He insisted that he had to go back. He wanted to take every last chance. We looked at the offer. It was a positive step, but not enough. And myself and chief of staff all said, if youre going to do it, blast the hell out of the iranians for trying to interfere in our elections. Instead, he gave a very modest statement, step forward, its not enough, and all of the support collapsed because it brought the story back. It was clear that was not sufficient to resolve it. It was a huge mistake on the president s part. And i think the election would have been very different had we ignored it or simply said a press statement is inadequate. Lets go back to january of 1980, though, as president jimmy carter delivering these remarks in his state of the union address. We continue to pursue these specific goals. First, to protect the present and longrange interest of the United States. Secondly, to preserve the lives of the american hostages and to secure as quickly as possible their safe release. If possible, to avoid bloodshed which might further endanger the lives of our fellow citizens. To enlist the help of other nations in condemning this act of violence, which is shocking and violates the moral and illegal standards of a civilized world. And also to convince and to persuade the iranian leaders that the real danger to their nation lies in the north, in the soviet union, and from the soviet troop now in afghanistan, and at the unwarranted iranian quarrel with the United States hampers our response to this far greater danger to them. If the american hostages are harmed, a severe price will be paid. [ applause ] and that from president carter, again that was in january of 1980. And then in april, april 24th, there was a rescue mission. A mission which president carter said one of his biggest regrets is not having another helicopter. Do you remember anything that happened afterwards . Did you hear about the failed mission . Where were you . I was in tehran at the time. They came in, they did not tell us what had happened. But there was a sense of hysteria on the streets. And i could hear, it was right outside my window. You could hear the crowds. And the crowd seemed to be much less disciplined. Much less organized than they had in the past. But the hysteria level was rising. And they came into our cell and said, pack up, were leaving. And, by the way, pack up, were leaving for a long trip. This is not just going from one cell from one building to another. They moved us around, within the embassy. I ended up about seven hours south of tehran. Seven hours south of tehran. No one ever said why. And i didnt know until about a week later when i was able to steal a newspaper. And in the newspaper, there was a story about a mission. And what buy learned was the mission there had been a mission, it had failed, and that there had been american casualty. And i spread that spread as much as i could, because i was still in solitaiitarsolitary, whatevl defenda clandestine way i spread it around. For the men who lost their lives in the iranian desert but also, by gosh, were not forgotten. And we had no illusions, no illusions about how difficult this was. Youre extracting somebody from the middle of a city, of 6 Million People, 6 Million People in broad daylight. How do you do this . How do you do this . How difficult this is going to be. But these the people who did it, and i still talk to them. I still am in contact with a lot of them, you know, they had, as the saying goes, they had the guts to try. They were willing to put their lives on the line to come and rescue us. Just a brief followup, as you point out in your book, the secretary of state vance opposed the mission and then resigned. He did. But, you know, we have to go back to the beginning, two days after john and his colleagues were taken, november 4th, two days after, the president authorized the beginning of the planning of a hostage rescue. Two days afterwards. We wept through all of the diplomatic channels to try to get them released. But during that whole time, steve, what was called camp smokey in the hills of north carolina, was rehearsals for this hostage rescue. Colonel beckwith had created something called the dealt tall forc delta force. We did not have a counterterrorism operation as the israelis and germans did. We created it then. This was its first opportunity. And why did the president finally pull the trigger april 24th . Because the last effort, in paris, hamilton jordan, chief of staff and the foreign minister had failed. The president said, ive had it, we have to try this. Were going to pull it off the shelf. Weve been practicing this for a long while. Why did it fail . It is the guts to try. But instead, it was seen instead of a gutsy move another failure for the president. It failed for a number of reasons and it was exquisitely planned and rehearsed. Number one, there had to be a minimum of six helicopters to go from the uss nimitz an aircraft carrier, refuel, go into tehran, stay overnight, keep trucks hidden, storm the embassy and come back. When those helicopters came, there were only six of the eight that left. Two had mechanical problems. And then the sixth helicopter at desert one had hydraulic failure. There were only five left. And colonel beckwith was urged by colonel kelly with the air force. Lets go in with five. There will be 20 less men, but lets do it. And colonel beckwith said our agreement was, we had to have a minimum of six. They called the president of the United States at that point, and the president said, im not going to overrule colonel beckwith, if he feels he cant do it, im not going to take the risk. So, we did not do it. It was because of those helicopters. But there were other problems. We knew that there were problems with the helicopters. There should have been ten or 12 more backups. The helicopter pilots did not know even though there was intelligence about it that there were what were called haboobs, sandstorms. That blinded the helicopter pilots coming in at only 200 yards above the surface. If they had known about it, it was radio silence, colonel kelly to this day says i wish we hadnt had that. Because when the initial pilots saw the sandstorm, they couldnt communicate it. And then last was lack of innerservice coordination. We had four military services, army, navy, marine, air force. They werent properly coordinated. There was not full total dress rehearsal of it. And it was a lack of coordination on the ground as well. So sandstorms, helicopter hydraulic problems, lack of coordination, all terrible luck, and when the completed the president got the word, we had to abort, he said, well, thank god at least nobody lost their lives. In tending the mission, one of the Helicopter Rotor blades in trying to take off hilt tt the 0 cargo plane full of fuel to get the helicopters into iran they had already gone 600 miles. It caused a huge flame. Eight servicemen went down. And as they went down in flames, the administration went down in flames. Our conversation with stuart eizenstat, domestic policy adviser to president jimmy carter and john served in the u. S. Embassy, 140 days as a hostage. Steve from bangor, maine. Go ahead, sir. Caller hi, sir, you mentioned some excellent points how it seems to be how jimmy carter was caught between our old Foreign Policy. And well, im not going to say the reagan continued a few things. But do you think that if carter had been a little more forceful in his effort to gain the Foreign Policy letdown continued from gerald ford and richard nixon, do you think he there would have been he would have had a little more, should i say, chance to oversee what the shah was doing, how he was running his economy . Because that seems to be what wrong everything on, too, as well. I mean, people dont flip overnight. Maybe the leaders, the called leaders pop up overnight. But its the influenced people that have been hurting quite a whil while. Thank you for the call, well get a response. Very good question. Let me answer very quickly in two ways. The first is, theres no question that the president did not give with the clarity that might have been occasioned, a clear signal to the shah about using military force. But that is in part because we thought it would cause a worse confrontation. Second, with secretary of state vance and the National Security adviser who wanted a harder line. But heres where i have to deport. Its true, and i give Ronald Reagan full credit in the book for helping to bring the soviet union to its knees. But we use the soft power of human rights, the championed human rights in the soviet union and hard power. We, not reagan, reversed it. Every single weapons system which Ronald Reagan deployed. Long range cruise missile. The stealth bomber, enteintermee nuclear forces. Every one started with jimmy carter. Christmas day, 1979, just after the hostage crisis, the soviets invade afghanistan to put their own puppet, even the conservative credit siitics says carters time. With the soviets on the opposition, boycott of the olympics, so, we did use hard power. Lets go to a viewer on london watching un0 the Parliament Channel the back. Good afternoon to you. Caller good afternoon to you. Thank you for taking my call and thank you to your panel. What id like to discuss here is the survival of Islamic Republic. To act slowly, this happened by accident they learned that, that has been a strategy. That if an adversary threw a punch, i think, it would take three months to return the punch. By then, the adversary would lose interest or be distracted by something else. This goes back, this Defense Strategy by Islamic Republican is started with u. S. Hostages of 1979. It was not a deadline set by the Carter Administration relieving the hostages or coming back to them or Something Like that, and that has been, even today, the state department strategy. John limbert, let me get your reaction. Its an interesting point. I mean, the survival of the Islamic Republic for 40 years has caught a lot of observers by surprise. People did not expect it to happen. With all of the problems that it had. Problems of the war with the eightyear bloody war with iraq. The economic catastrophe, the international isolation. All of these things have not have not brought down the Islamic Republic. And its very clear that the priority of those in charge of those in charge is their own survival. Their survival in power, their survival in power. And they will make the kind of compromises that they need to do. They may say never. They may huff and puff. And make brave statements. For example in 1988, khomeini himselfal agreed to a ceasefire with saddam hussein. Something he said he would never do. And he only did tell after it was tremendous cost. But the story is, his advisers went to him and said, sir, were finished. We cant fight anymore. Were broke, we dont have the people. We just have to get the best deal the best deal that we can. So, when they need when they need to make a retreat and, i think, the Supreme Leader khomeini has used the phrase heroic flexibility in this regard. The other thing that has worked for them, is essentially, its they used events like the hostage crisis to cement their own power. One of the students who was holding this, said this to me very early on, he said, its not about you. This is not about america. This is not about jimmy carter. This is not about the shah, this is a settling of scores among ourselves. And we want to push out the nationalists. We want to push out the leftists. Which they did. And im talking, when i say we, im talking about the religious zealots, the id ideologues. Very effectively, they used this to crush all opposition and all doubting voices and to monopolize power for themselves. And theyve done that for 40 years. How long can they go on . I wont predict, my own personal record of predicting events in iran isnt very good. But the problem they have, of course, is that the same group of people who took power and consolidated power in 79 and 80, many some of them are still there. Theyre still alive and theyre still in power. We only have a few minutes. Callers question is terrifically important and very pertinent to today. One of the lessons that i saw from the whole hostage crisis and this whole episode is that with the iranians, you cant simply negotiate without some force behind you. Either the threat of military use, which we took off the table. Or a real sanctions regime. Now, whatever one thinking about the Nuclear Agreement that was reached during the Obama Administration and i think it was a positive. But everyone would agree that the only reason that the iranians came to the negotiating cable was because the European Union joined our san