Iran-Contra Hearings Day 19 Part 6: Fawn Hall Testimony (1987)
June 9, 1987 http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fs%3Furl%3Dsearch-alias%253Daps%26field-keywords%3Dfawn%2Bhall&tag=doc06-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325 Watch the full testimony: http://thefilmarchived.blogspot.com/2010/08/iran-contra-hearings-day-19-fawn-hall.html
The 1979 Iranian Revolution, which ousted the pro-American Shah and replaced him with the anti-American Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, surprised to the United States government, its State Department and intelligence services, which “consistently underestimated the magnitude and long-term implications of this unrest.” Six months before the revolution culminated, the CIA had produced a report, stating that “Persia is not in a revolutionary or even a “prerevolutionary” situation.”
The Islamic revolutionaries wished to extradite and execute the ousted Shah, and Carter refused to give him any further support or help return him to power. The Shah, suffering from cancer, requested entry into the United States for treatment. The American embassy in Tehran opposed the request, as they were intent on stabilizing relations between the new interim revolutionary government of Iran and the United States.
Despite agreeing with the staff of the American embassy, Carter agreed after pressure from Kissinger, Rockefeller, and other pro-Shah political figures. The move was used by the Iranian revolutionaries to justify their claims that the former monarch was an American puppet, and this led to the storming of the American embassy by radical students allied with the Khomeini faction.
On November 4, 1979, the revolutionary group Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line, angered that the recently deposed Shah had been allowed into the United States, occupied the American embassy in Tehran and took American diplomats hostage. The 52 American diplomats were held hostage for 444 days.
In Iran, the incident was seen by many as a blow against American influence in Iran and the liberal-moderate interim government of Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, who opposed the hostage taking and resigned soon after. The hostage takers felt that their action was connected to the 1953 American-backed coup against the government of Prime Minister Mosaddeq.
“You have no right to complain, because you took our whole country hostage in 1953.”
said one of the hostage takers to Bruce Laingen, chief U.S. diplomat in Iran at the time. Some Iranians were concerned that the United States may have been plotting another coup against their country in 1979 from the American embassy.
In the United States, the hostage-taking was seen as a violation of a centuries-old principle of international law that granted diplomats immunity from arrest and diplomatic compounds sovereignty in the territory of the host country they occupy.
The United States military attempted a rescue operation, Operation Eagle Claw, on April 24, 1980, which resulted in an aborted mission and the deaths of eight American military men. The crisis ended with the signing of the Algiers Accords in Algeria on January 19, 1981. On January 20, 1981, the date the treaty was signed, the hostages were released. The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal (located in The Hague, Netherlands) was established for the purpose of handling claims of American nationals against Iran and of Iranian nationals against the United States. American contact with Iran through The Hague covers only legal matters.
The crisis led to lasting economic and diplomatic damage. On April 7, 1980, the United States broke diplomatic relations with Iran, a break which has yet to be restored. On April 24, 1981, the Swiss Government assumed representation of American interests in Tehran via an interests section. Iranian interests in the United States are represented by the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Duration : 0:11:0
