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On New Year’s Eve 1977, President Jimmy Carter angered anti-Shah Iranians with a televised toast to Pahlavi, describing the Shah as by his people. Revolution broke out in Iran and in February 1979 the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in France. The American Embassy was occupied temporarily and its staff was held hostage briefly. When that incident ended, the embassy’s windows were replaced with bulletproof glass, and the embassy’s staff was reduced from hundreds to just over sixty.
The Carter administration tried to forge a new relationship with the new Iranian government. But these attempts suffered a serious setback on October 22, 1979, when the United States permitted the Shah to enter New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center for medical treatment for his lymphoma. The State Department had discouraged the Shah from doing so, but influential figures like Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Council on Foreign Relations Chairman David Rockefeller convinced President Carter to grant the request.
The Shah’s admission to the United States angered Iranian revolutionaries and increased anti-Americanism. Fears grew in Iran about the possibility of another U.S. supported coup to re-install him. Ayatollah Khomeini, who had been exiled by the Shah for fifteen years, called the United States the “Great Satan” and heightened anti-American sentiments with his rhetoric. On November 4, 1979, anti-American protesters attacked and occupied the American Embassy in Tehran.
The earlier attempt took place on the morning of February 14, 1979. Members of the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took Marine Kenneth Kraus hostage. Ambassador William Sullivan surrendered the embassy, but with the assistance of Iranian Foreign Minister Ebrahim Yazdi, the embassy was back in U.S. control within three hours. Kraus was injured, tortured, and tried, and convicted of murder. He was scheduled to be executed, but President Carter and Sullivan negotiated his release within six days.
A second attempt to seize the American Embassy was planned for September 1979 by Ebrahim Asgharzadeh. On November 4, 1979, one of the demonstrations organized by Iranian student unions loyal to Khomeini broke out into violence outside the walled compound housing the U.S. Embassy. At 6:30 a.m., several hundred selected students were briefed on the battle plan. Buses full of demonstrators began to appear outside the embassy, and the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line broke through the gates. The occupiers overtook the Marines and staff at the embassy. They were blindfolded and handcuffed and paraded in front of photographers by their captors. Many of the embassy workers who had sneaked out of the compound or who had not been there at the time of the takeover were rounded up by Islamists and returned as hostages. Six American diplomats took refuge in the British Embassy before being transferred to the Canadian Embassy. Others went to the Swedish Embassy. In a joint covert operation known as the Canadian caper, the Canadian government and the CIA managed to smuggle these diplomats out of Iran on January 28, 1980, using Canadian passports and a cover story that identified them as a film crew.
The Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line demanded that Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi return to Iran for trial and execution. The group’s other demands included that the U.S. government apologize for its interference in the internal affairs of Iran and that Iran's frozen assets in the United States be released. The initial plan was to hold the embassy for only a short time, but this changed after it was realized how popular the takeover was and that the Ayatollah Khomeini was in support of the action.
President Carter appealed for the release of the hostages on humanitarian grounds. This fell on deaf ears and within a few days Iran’s moderate prime minister and his cabinet resigned under pressure. Both leftists and Islamists supported the hostage taking. The Soviets were suspected of providing indirect assistance to the participants in the takeover of the embassy. The PLO under Yasser Arafat provided personnel, funding, and training for Khomeini’s. Fidel Castro reportedly praised Khomeini.
The hostage-takers released one woman and two African Americans on November 19. Before release, these hostages were required by their captors to hold a press conference in which Kathy Gross and William Quarles praised the revolution’s aims. Four more women and six African-Americans were released the following day. One more hostage, Richard Queen, was released in July 1980 after he became seriously ill with what was later diagnosed as multiple sclerosis. The remaining 52 hostages were held until January 1981, up to 444 days of captivity.
The hostages were initially held at the embassy, but after the failed rescue mission, they were scattered around Iran to make a single rescue impossible. By midsummer 1980, the Iranians had moved the hostages to prisons in Tehran to prevent escapes or rescue attempts. The final holding area, from November 1980 until their release, was the Teymur Bakhtiar mansion in Tehran. Several foreign diplomats and ambassadors – including former Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor – visited the hostages over the course of the crisis and relayed information back to the U.S. government.
The most terrifying night for the hostages came on February 5, 1980, when guards in black ski masks roused them from their sleep and led them blindfolded to other rooms. They were searched after being ordered to strip naked and keep their hands up. They were then told to kneel down, still wearing blindfolds. They were eventually returned to their cells.
Two hostages attempted suicide. Four hostages tried to escape, and all were punished with stretches of solitary confinement when their attempts were discovered.
In the United States, the hostage crisis brought about displays of patriotism and television news gave daily updates. In January 1980, the CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite began ending each show by saying how many days the hostages had been captive. President Carter attempted economic and diplomatic pressure. Oil imports from Iran were ended on November 12, 1979, and with Executive Order 12170, around US$8 billion of Iranian assets in the United States were frozen by the Office of Foreign Assets Control on November 14.The National Christmas Tree was left dark except for the top star. A severe backlash against Iranians in the United States developed.
On April 11, 1980, at a meeting of the National Security Council, Carter authorized Operation Eagle Claw, a military expedition into Tehran to rescue the hostages. Late in the afternoon of April 24, 1980, eight RH‑53D helicopters flew from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz to a remote road serving as an airstrip in the Great Salt Desert of Eastern Iran, near Tabas. They encountered severe dust storms that disabled two of the helicopters, which were traveling in radio silence. A third helicopter was found to be unserviceable, bringing the total below the six required for the mission. The commander of the operation, Colonel Charles Alvin Beckwith, recommended that the mission be aborted, and his recommendation was approved by President Carter. As the helicopters repositioned themselves for refueling, one ran into a C‑130 tanker aircraft and crashed, killing eight U.S. servicemen and injuring several more.
After the mission and its failure were made known publicly, Khomeini credited divine intervention on behalf of Islam. Carter’s political popularity were further damaged after a television address on April 25 in which he explained the rescue operation and accepted responsibility for its failure. A second rescue attempt was planned but never carried out.
After Carter lost the presidential election in November, negotiations for the release of the hostages continued. The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, at the moment President Ronald Reagan completed his 20‑minute inaugural address after being sworn in as the new President. The 52 American hostages were flown from Iran to Algeria as a symbolic gesture of appreciation for the Algerian government’s help in resolving the crisis. The flight continued to Rhein-Main Air Base in West Germany and on to an Air Force hospital in Wiesbaden, where former President Carter received them. After medical check-ups and debriefings, the hostages made a second flight to a refueling stop in Shannon, Ireland, where they were greeted by a large crowd. The ex-hostages were then flown to Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York. From Newburgh, they traveled by bus to the United States Military Academy at West Point and stayed at the Thayer Hotel for three days, receiving a heroes’ welcome all along the route. Ten days after their release, they were given a ticker tape parade through the Canyon of Heroes in New York City.
As part of the negotiations for the release of the hostages, the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to return several billion dollars of Iranian assets in exchange for the release of hostages. Anti-Americanism in Iran became more intense and Khomeini grew in power in his nation. The Iranian government commemorates the event every year with a demonstration at the embassy and the burning of an American flag.
The former U.S. Embassy building is now a museum to the revolution. Outside the door, there is a bronze model based on the Statue of Liberty on one side and a statue portraying one of the hostages on the other.