Transcripts For CSPAN3 Iran Hostage Crisis 40th Anniversary

Good evening, welcome. My name is matt abbott. Im director of development and diplomatic programs here in the Chicago Council of global affairs. Welcome to our program, today is on the record and we are live streaming. Please silence your phones though we do welcome social media engagement. Music by individuals are their own and do not represent views of the council. Before this Evenings Program begins we will here flash talk. The doctor is president of the people analytics. His work focussed on demystifying peoples behaviors and conflicts such as iran. He hails from Syracuse Maxwell school and ph. D. Of maryland. Following flash talk, ill introduce our candidates. Unfortunately, the director is unable to join us tonight. Please join me in welcoming the doctor. Hello. Hello. I appreciate the chance to be here. Hello to chicago. Its my first time here. Thanks for the welcome. [ applause ] thank you. My name is amir farmanesh. Im presenting on global affairs. It will be iranian Public Opinion for the case after the hostage crisis. So, iran poll, an independent company focusing on holding only in iran, but from canada, we are based in toronto, thats actually one of our call centers in toronto. The calling from iran has been considered reliable, scientific and as an example in your last president ial election in iran in 2017, then president rouhani iran poll was able to predict the results of the election. They sent the results of the prediction to the economists. The economist published one day before the election. Its there for you to see. Our prediction was actually between two Percentage Points of the official results. So, it is something that could be reliably used as is with any other polling. So, the polling im presenting today is used by exact same methodology, 1,000 sample size. Conducted by telephone and it was conducted in october of 2019. Its very fresh. Going into it, iranians say the economy is bad and it is getting worse. Interestingly, they blame their own government than they blame the United States or the sanctions. So, 68 of iranians say Economic Situation is bad. 54 say its getting worse. Now, 55 of iranians, they blamed the domestic economic mismanagement and corruption. Only 38 blamed foreign sanctions and pressures and as you can see, this continues to trend. That does not however mean that the iranians have not seen the sanctions. When we asked how much of a negative influence are the sanctions having on the Economic Situation of your family, we get 78 76 of iranians say it is having a negative effect. And 53 say its having a lot of negative effect on the family. Despite these more economic conditions, despite all of the pressure, still, iranian people are not ready to give in to the administrations demands. So, we propose a scenario to them. In this scenario, we told them, suppose the United States were to propose a deal whereby most u. S. Sanctions on iran would be gradually lifted. And iran would be able to have a Peaceful Nuclear Energy Program in return for agreeing to fully and permanently giving up the right to enrich uranium on its soil and to always allow International Inspection of its facilities. Do you think you would agree or not . And 73 of iranians say, no, they reject that deal. 53 strongly rejected that deal. Now why . Two reasons. Theres a classic rallying around the flag ear. Then we asked in the same survey, how proud are you to be iranian. We have 90 of iranians saying theyre extremely proud or very proud to be iranian. Gallup is asking the same questions repeatedly long ago. Right now, to give you comparison, United States, the american people, theyre 57 extremely proud to be american. The iranians are 68 . In fact, this level of saying theyre extremely proud is very similar to 11 september in United States. So when there is the real attack towards your country, you have this effect to rally around the flag. Theres another point. Iranians really believe they have the right to have Peaceful Nuclear programming, nig90 , so that helps. A second reason, for why iranians are rejecting the deal that we put in front of them, its the simple fool mepxf onc shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Its the idea that if in jcpoa, the world powers even held their part of the bargain, who says they will chip in again. So we have been asking the popularity of the jcpoa, which is the Nuclear Agreement with iran continuously. 76 of iranians used to support it now back down to 42 . And we ask another question from iranians, thinking about how the jcpoa has worked out so far, which of view is closer to yours . First, its worthwhile for iran to make concessions because they can compromise mutually beneficial agreements with world powers or the cjpoa shows it is not worthwhile for iran to make concessions because if it makes concessions, world powers to honor the side of the agreement. I want to end with good news. So, first of news, iranians really are not supportive of the Nuclear Defense program. Then we asked them, do you think iran should or should not develop Nuclear Weapons . 59 say they should not. And 66 say development of Nuclear Weapons is against the teachings of us lam. Only 18 dont have an opinion about what one says. And the very confidence about islam. Okay. The last point, iranians are not categorically against the negotiations with the trump administration. When given the option if the United States returns to the jcpoa, lifts all factions related to the iran program and is willing to talk in a forum that includes all of the p5 1 countries, do you support such talks with the administration . 75 are supporting. So the future does have some hope. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you very much. Its now my distinct honor to welcome our panelists tonight. Kate koob is a former adjunct professor who spent over 27 years in the Diplomatic Service in the United States. In 1979, she was serving as the director of the iran american society. Shes one of the 52 americans who spent 444 days as a hostage in tehran. And kathrleen is one of six americans who was extricated from iran and canadian government after the embassy seizure. Please join me in welcoming your panelists. [ applause ] thank you, again, for being here. Id like to start by setting the stage in 1979. What was the Political Climate like in iran when you 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 unsure, everybody was treading lightly. People who were known to have been workers for the shah lived in fear. And people lived in fear because there were people just simply yanked out of their jobs. And because of their loyalty to the shah were tried. And often executed. So, it was a very tenuous situation when we when i first arrived in july. We were working very carefully to see what we could do and what we couldnt. I met with i was the director of the iranamerica society. But i met with the italian cultural society. The german cultural director, the german cultural, et cetera. And we talked about what did we think we could or couldnt do in our cultural centers. So, everyone was walking very carefully. Thats what i remember the most. We were only there two months before the takeover. So, we had arrived in september. We had just moved into our apartment. I had all the clothes hanging over the dining room chair waiting for the housekeeper but she didnt come the day of the takeover, in fact she was your housekeeper. So, i went on to work. And we were just all excited about this is a new adventure for us. Were going to see this wonderful country that was famous for its culture and poetry and history. So, we would on weekends we were able to do little short trips go up to the caspian sea and we went up the weekend before the takeover, we made it back just in time. So kates morm memories what i like before that are more clear than mine. This monday was the 40th anniversary of the seizure of the u. S. Embassy. Can you tell us what you were your experiences on november 4th, 1979 and recent days . Well, the american Iranian Society was three kilometers from the embassy. We had our own building. This was a very strong structure and had been going well for many years. We worked together. The board of this society was both iranian and american. We had english lessons but we as had farsi lessons. So the iranian board was working with us as we were trying to figure out what the italians and french and girermans what we ca do and where we could go. That morning, we were having a Board Meeting. And in the middle of the Board Meeting my secretary ava came into the room and she said, i think you better take this phone call. It was one of my Board Members saying there is a major demonstration going on at the embassy. You might want to check and see that everything is okay at the society. And as a matter of fact, two of my Staff Members got up and went down to the embassy to see if they could see what was going on. We turned on radio and television to see if anything was being carried on the local news. And it became very clear that this wasnt going to go away. So, the story goes on from there. But it was it was aggressive from the very beginning. Wed hoped, and my personal hope was, that the foreign minute st minuteministry would do what they had done in an early demonstration, i think in february. They basically said, okay, youve made your point. You demonstrated. This is an embassy, these are diplomatic grounds now, lets be on our way and now we could settle down and see what was going on. That didnt happen, obviously. Back at the ranch, we were closed. The visa section was closed to protest the fact that there had been lots of graffiti down with america, death to carter, written on the walls of the embassy that weekend. And so, we were protesting and we had had no visa applicants that day. So, i thought this was a good chance to go over and get my diplomatic i. D. Card. So, i walked across the compound and turned in my passport which meant i wasnt going anywhere without that afterwards. So the ladies in that office were very nervous. And they said, why did you come to Work Together . I said, i always come to work. They said, no, but todays the day of the martyrs. I went back across the compound. I told my husband he should go over there, because those ladies were in a bad mood. He should get his i. D. Card, too. If he hadnt gone he would be which the chancery, the day of the takeover, luckily, he didnt listen to me. We were slammed outdoors when we saw people had sticks and bats and things like that. After two hours, there were various activities that came and went. The Regional Security officer walked across the compound and was trying to figure out what to do. He thought he could talk the students out of staying on the compound and leaving. So, after a while, we thought we smelled smoke. We were all upstairs in the second floor of the building because it was safer. We thought wed smelled smoke. And so, we thought we better we were probably going to have to leave and we destroyed the visa plate so that no one could make false visas. And the other wife and i there was one other spouse there, that other jubcouple, co lieand jake and i, we were the only spouses there at post washington had thought they would be bringing back adult dependents, but after they saw the state of the country and that it was unstable, they were rethinking that. In any case, cora and i thought, well, now, theyre going to send us home because we cant issue visas, anyway. So how far would you like me to go . I think thats a good point. Okay. Up to november 4th, did you ever anticipate something as dramatic as the actual 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 in embassies all around the world, my fear was that there might be some sort of a retaliatory act at some reason, or somebody but i thought we would probably all be told to pack one bag and get out of the country. Thats the normal procedure, although, that year, there had been a very serious demonstration of and one of our ambassadors, i believe, was killed in afghanistan. Earlier that year. And there were memories in my mind of other takeovers of not embassies, but american diplomatic facilities. And, so, i really was very much prepared to pack one suitcase and leave. But i to stay for 14 months. No, i did not think that, about that. Yes, i think we had a town hall meeting. It must have been the weekend before that when we were told that the shah was going to be the shah was going to be allowed to enter the United States for medical treatment. So then i guess ms. Bruce langdon says theres possibilities on the whole gamut of nothing will happen, and maybe they will try to attack the embassy. So none of us knew what would happen. It was basically a wait and see. As kate said, we were hoping, at most wed have to leave. To pick up where you stopped your story. Many people may be familiar with the movie argot. What did the movie get right and where did they take creative liberty . Well, with that there we were up on the second floor thinking we smelled smoke and we should leave. So various people left in groups. We had people in the nonimmigrant section that day. All the iranians left in one group. What happened was, we looked outside the door, the back door where the visa applicants could have in without having to enter onto the main compound. That was a separate entrance only we had. There was no there. The students either didnt know about that entrance or because the consulate had been moved from a different part of the compound, they werent aware of it. And so we realized the coast was clear. So we left in small groups, first the iranians, then our local the visiting iranians and then our local staff and then there were 12 or 13 of us americans. So we split into smaller groups. In our group, there were the other couple, bob anders who was our boss and joe and i, my husband and i and a couple other people. So we all went out with our group. It started to rain which was probably really lucky because we put up umbrellas. Everybody was concerned about rain and not us. And so then we headed off toward the british embassy, which was supposed to be our sanctuary. We didnt know where it was. One of the iranians employees said she would show us. As we were walking that way, we saw a really large mob, another group of people coming from that direction. So bob anders was with us and he said i live close by, im going home. And we said were coming with you, bob. So we separated a little bit more and walked to bobs house. And listened to every when we got to his house, we listened to the Embassy Radio and we could hear voices, we could hear the americans talking back and forth and trying to figure out what to do and people talking about the vault, which is where all the classified information is kept. Finally, we only heard farsi speakers. We knew everyone had been captured or taken. And so then we called kate. And they came over and that was evening by that time. Thats right. They came we were still doing all right as the as i said my staff had gone out. They came back and we were they said, you know its really serious. I called the embassy and got an answer switchboard from the switchboard embassy occupied. But i remembered i had a direct extension, so i called bruce langdons office and anne swift answered the phone and she said oh, kate, its bad. She said gelt ahold of the guys in the Communication Center and find out whats going on from them. Because theyre still in touch with 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 the number of state to call at the operations center, so that they had another link. And so i and my staff and some of my staff were 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. We were feeding that back to washington to the ops center, but also linking to the Communications Center until they said oh, were going to have to go out and state says, well, tell them theyve done a good job and well say good bye. The next thing i heard was tell them theyre gone. We told them that and that was when the vault was breached and they were taken over by the farsi people. So we were still trying to figure out what was going on and reporting back. And toward evening well, cathy another person had showed up there because she couldnt get she had been at the airport that morning and was supposed to be going home. Lillian johnson. Right. She came back and so she was there helping us, and then the six of you showed up. I said, good, we can sleep. So we stretched out on the sofas in the library and they got on the phones with washington until it was almost sunrise. I think you went to my house. We went to the other house. Other houses, okay. All right. So we did eventually go to your house. They had the car. But we were there. And then that next day, someone came and i got out the back door and went around the corner to the German Institute and they said why dont you go home with us. And i said oh, this has got to get settled, its got to simmer down and ive got to get back to the phones. I talked with washington and they said do you think its safe to get back to the phones . I said, well, you kn