Bound for Hours, Facing the Walls

"I don't think I could have lasted another day "

It got to be light and tragic and funny and sad and tears and laughter and tantrums and where are my contact lenses and I've got to go to the bathroom and all sorts of problems." With this torrent of words, in a voice breaking with emotion, Elizabeth Montagne, 42, one of the 13 U.S. hostages released from the U.S. embassy in Tehran last week, provided an insight into the continuing ordeal of the remaining 49 Americans being kept prisoner in the embassy. Montagne's comments were made at a bizarre news conference organized in the U.S. embassy compound by the hostages' captors before the release of the Americans. Once out of Iran, all 13 agreed to say no more about their harrowing experience until their fellow Americans were released. Still, from that conference, and from other accounts, it became clear that the invaders guarding the Americans were subjecting their prisoners to severe emotional and psychological pressures.

Inside the compound, the men were held in various buildings and the women kept together in the one residence. From the beginning, the routine for the prisoners seems to have been highly organized. The day would start around 6:30 a.m., when their keepers would untie the prisoners, lead them under guard to the bathrooms, then provide what Montagne called "a substantial meal" of bread, butter and cheese. All except the smokers, who were allowed a few moments for cigarettes, would then be tied up again until the next meal. The precious extra moments of unrestricted movement caused a few nonsmokers to take up cigarettes for a while, though with mixed results. Said Smoker Montagne: "They coughed and everything, and finally it got to be better to be tied up than to try to smoke."

The hostages were sometimes bound to the chairs they sat in, or occasionally hand and foot. They tried to while away the hours by reading. In the beginning some hostages were blindfolded for days on end, and later guards capriciously bound the eyes of some again. On one occasion, the Iranian female guards watching the American women took away all books, though they gave them back when the Americans protested. With nothing to do, and kept immobile, the hostages spent hours thinking about the next meal, which meant both relief from hunger induced by boredom and freedom to move their arms and legs.

The hostages were frequently questioned about their work and accused of plotting against the new Iranian regime. Said Lillian Johnson, 32, a secretary in the embassy's security office: "There was lots of interrogation, believe me, at weird hours of the night until they were convinced [that the hostages were telling the truth]." The Americans also had to listen to anti-U.S. and anti-Carter harangues by their captors. For some of the men there were additional hardships. They were handcuffed rather than bound with cloth.

The Iranians seem to have concentrated on the men in their efforts to get information about embassy activities. James Hughes, 30, one of the embassy's military personnel, was blindfolded and made to sit on a table during an interrogation.

Said he: "The guy hinted that if I didn't tell them what they wanted to know, maybe some of us would have to be shot."

One of the worst forms of pressure came from the hostages' complete dependence on their captors. They had to ask permission to perform the simplest activities, from drinking a glass of water to even going to sleep. Said Air Force Captain Neal ("Terry") Robinson, 27, an administrator in the embassy's budget section: "They were our fathers and mothers.

We had to ask for everything." For the physically active Americans, being forced to sit in chairs for up to 16 hours a day was almost torture. Only after Marine Security Guard Kevin Hermening had fallen sick and pleaded with the guards for fresh air were the hostages given two 10-min. periods a day outside the buildings.

Hermening is still a captive.

Perhaps the crudest psychological pressure was the deliberate isolation of the Americans both from one another and from the outside world. They were not allowed to talk to one another, and in some cases were tied to chairs facing the wall so that they were denied even the sight of anyone else. This form of mental torture brought a sharp protest from visiting Papal Representative Monsignor Annibale Bugnini. To determine any possible psychological damage, the hostages were given psychological examinations on their arrival in Germany.

Despite promises from the guards to transmit messages from the hostages' families to the captives, and vice versa, not a single message has so far been received by the hostages or their families.

Worse, high Administration officials say that the hostages are now being fed deliberately falsified reports from the U.S. aimed at convincing them that Washington and the American people are abandoning them. It is, says one official angrily, "an orchestrated campaign," perhaps designed to break the Americans down before a show trial. What particularly angers Carter, according to one White House official last week, is that quasi-brainwashing techniques common only in wartime are being used against the Americans. Says one U.S. official of the embassy occupiers: "If they are really students, they have been taking some mighty interesting courses."

While all this is going on inside the embassy, the prisoners have had to endure yet another terrifying pressure coming from outside--the endless roar of crowds in the street chanting "Death to America!" Said Terri Tedford, 41, an embassy secretary: "It had a very definite effect on me. I don't think I could have lasted another week, not another day."

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