Anger and Frustration

A flurry of secret messages on the hostages in Iran leads nowhere

Christ the Lord is risen today: Alleluia! Sons of men and angels say: Alleluia! Raise your joys and triumphs high: Alleluia! Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply: Alleluia!

In churches across the country, millions of Americans joined in this traditional hymn and others like it on Easter Sunday. They sang of spiritual rebirth, of renewed hope, of joy in the season. But this was an unusually somber Easter, and many a churchgoer could not forget that half a world away, in the U.S. embassy in Tehran, 50 Americans had begun their sixth month of cruel captivity. They, too, had been promised permission to attend Easter services, to be conducted by three Christian clergymen from the U.S. The clergymen flew from New York City's Kennedy Airport, bearing what one of them, Catholic Priest Darrell Rupiper of Omaha, said would be a message of "reconciliation between America and Iran."

But there was little reason for hope that this would happen soon, for the Easter weekend marked the end of an extraordinary round of diplomacy in the search for a solution to the hostage crisis. Both U.S. and Iranian officials had thought they were within sight of a breakthroughthe transfer of custody of the hostages from the militants to the ruling Revolutionary Council, a move seen as the first step toward their eventual release. Then the negotiations collapsed, leaving the governments as far apart as ever.

Both sides reacted bitterly. In Iran, the Revolutionary Council members declared that they would make no decision on their next step until the U.S. "clarified" its positionthat is, until Jimmy Carter promised to stop pressuring Iran to release the hostages. In the U.S., Carter spent the Easter weekend with his family at Camp David, pondering whether to give the Iranian leaders more time to change their minds or to impose immediately his long threatened economic and diplomatic sanctions. These would include a ban on all exports to Iran except food and drugs, a request that American allies reduce their trade with Tehran, and the expulsion of all Iranian diplomats in the U.S. Short of military action, these were the strongest weapons that Jimmy Carter could use in the longest and most frustrating crisis of his presidency.

The intense effort to free the hostages had taken place through what diplomats call "back channels," indirect and discreet means of communication between governments that appear barely on speaking terms. Since Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy, a number of back-channel messages have flowed between the Iranian and U.S. governments. Most often the messengers have been Swiss diplomats. But last week a flood of light on the back channels disclosed the activities of a collection of surprising messengers: an Argentine fixer, a leftist French lawyer, and White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan. Disguised as a middle-aged man, with a gray wig, mustache and tinted glasses, the 35-year-old Jordan has traveled several times to Europe for clandestine meetings with go-betweens.

Back channels are supposed to be prudent and orderly, but last week there was an eruption of leaks and denials, of expectations and frustrations. After weathering the exchanges, an exasperated Hodding Carter, the State Department spokesman, declared: "We find ourselves at some loss to determine exactly what the Iranian government is saying." In Tehran, the Revolutionary Council felt much the same way about Washington. Said Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh after one U.S. denial: "This runs the risk of destroying any faith the Iranians still have in what the American Government says or does." In both countries, the drama was complicated by presidential politics, with Carter fighting to win primaries and Iranian President Abolhassan Banisadr struggling to wrest control of the Revolutionary Council from conservative mullahs.

The maneuvering was set in motion on March 22, when Carter met with high-level advisers at Camp David. They concluded that Americans were losing patience with the stalemate over the 53 hostages and that this was jeopardizing the President's political future. Accordingly, Carter three days later sent a message to Banisadr through Marcus Kaiser, the Swiss charge in Tehran: Unless the Revolutionary Council took custody of the hostages by March 31the day before the Kansas and Wisconsin primariesthe U.S. would impose sanctions on Iran. Soon afterward, the governments of major European nations and Japan sent letters to Banisadr urging that the hostages be freed. After waiting fruitlessly for three days for signs of movement in Tehran, Carter sent Banisadr a second warning on Friday, March 28, again through the Swiss embassy.

The next afternoon Iranian officials announced that Carter had sent two letters to Tehran. But to the Carter Administration's amazement, the Iranians insisted that one of the messages had been addressed to the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeiniand had been remarkably conciliatory. According to Pars, the official Iranian news agency, Carter admitted past "mistakes" in U.S. policy, described the militants' seizure of the hostages as the "reasonable reaction of the youth of Iran" and proposed a joint American-Iranian commission to review "the problems of the two countries."

At first White House Press Secretary Jody Powell flatly declared that "the President has sent no message to Khomeini. Period." Pressed by reporters, Powell was even more explicit in saying that "no such message" had been sent by the President or any other U.S. official "to Khomeini or anyone else." Not until the Swiss disclosed that they had in fact delivered two notes from Carter to Banisadr did Powell admit that there had been messages. His original statement had been misleading, intentionally so, and he refused to clear up the confusion for two reasons. First, he did not want to endanger the Administration's still secret efforts to pressure the Revolutionary Council into taking control of the hostages. Second, he and other top Administration officials were frankly puzzled by the purported letter to Khomeini. Who had written it? And why?

The author turned out to be Hector Villalon, 50, a shadowy Argentinian who was a confidant of Eva Peron in her heyday in the 1950s. After Dictator Juan Peron was toppled in 1955, Villalon remained a trusted adviser on foreign affairs during Perdon's exile in Spain. During the past few years, Villalon has operated out of Paris, where he deals in oil and commodities. One of his associates is Christian Bourguet, a leftist lawyer who in the 1970s became a close friend of Foreign Minister Ghotbzadeh, then an exile in Paris. Bourguet introduced Villalon to Ghotbzadeh. They soon became friends.

More recently, Bourguet has served as a legal adviser to the Iranian government. He helped prepare the extradition papers that Iran sent to Panama in its effort to capture the deposed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, an effort that prompted the ailing Shah to flee to Egypt three weeks ago. In the course of his work for Tehran, Bourguet met in Paris on at least one occasion with Carter's closest aide, Hamilton Jordan.

Jordan also has had contact with Villalon but when and where is not known. The Argentinian apparently accompanied Bourguet to Tehran in March, where he tried his hand at negotiating an end to the crisis. According to White House officials, Villalon was acting on his own in drafting the purported message from Carter to Khomeini, though a senior civil servant in Iran insisted that Villalon did it at the White House's request. (The day of Powell's denial, a high-level member of Carter's National Security Council said that some elements in the Villalon message were "familiar.") In any event, Villalon knew what arguments had been considered on both sides, and his intent apparently was to sound out Iranian officials on what they would accept by way of an apology from the U.S. for its policies during the Shah's regime.

Villalon apparently passed his statement on to Ghotbzadeh without telling him that Washington had not cleared it. Ghotbzadeh in turn delivered the document to Khomeini. According to one version of events in Tehran, the artful Foreign Minister decided to keep the Villalon connection a secret and told Khomeini that the message had come through the Swiss channel. Another version is that the conduit from Villalon to Ghotbzadeh was in fact the Swiss.

Whatever the case, both Washington and the Swiss denied that Carter had sent the message to Khomeini. Ghotbzadeh then shifted ground, saying that the message was an oral communication from an intermediary and that he himself had translated it into Farsi.

In Washington, meanwhile, Administration officials were afraid that Carter was headed toward defeat in Wisconsin and Kansas. Said an aide: "If we don't get any good news fast, it looks like we are going to lose." So, while the circumstances of the Villalon message were still blurred, Carter's advisers were relieved at indications from Tehran that Banisadr was succeeding in persuading the Revolutionary Council to take custody of the Americans.

Moreover, Ghotbzadeh said on ABC-TV'S Issues and Answers that the hostages would "soon" be under the Council's control. That evening, Carter invited five leading journalists to the White House. Reported TIME Washington Contributing Editor Hugh Sidey: "Carter was in his tan cardigan and a mellow mood. He told his visitors it looked as though a deal had been made for a transfer of the hostages to the Iranian government, and then he swore he had not personally sent Khomeini the message that was attributed to him. Even the casual folds of his cardigan did not hide the fact that Carter was agitated over this development." One result of the session was a banner headline in Monday's Washington Post: U.S. HOPES GROWING ON TRANSFER OF HOSTAGES.

Events were moving in Tehran, but slowly. The Administration learned that Banisadr would have something to say about the hostages at a rally in Tehran on Tuesday to mark the first anniversary of Khomeini's proclamation of the Islamic republic. Carter concluded that this was reason enough to postpone the sanctions deadline for 24 hours.

In Tehran, a million cheering Iranians turned out for the rally. In his speech, Banisadr said that the Revolutionary Council was willing to take custody of the hostages, but only if the U.S. makes "a formal, public pledge to refrain from all propaganda, agitation and scheming about the hostages until the National Assembly is convened to decide their case." Otherwise, the Council fears, the U.S. will put it under intolerable pressure to release the hostages. Since the Iranian National Assembly is not expected to be finally formed before June, the transfer would leave the Americans prisoners for at least two more months, though their guards would be formally under the authority of the Revolutionary Council rather than the militants.

In Washington, early on the morning of the Wisconsin primary, Carter met in the Oval Office with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and their top assistants to discuss Banisadr's speech. Then at 7:18 a.m., just in time for the morning TV newscasts, the President told sleepy reporters that Banisadr's comments amounted to a "positive step" and that sanctions had been indefinitely postponed. But Carter made it clear that the U.S. would not issue the statement demanded by Banisadr.

A few hours later, Carter drew a standing ovation from some 3,000 members at a convention in Washington of the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department when he declared: "No one in the Government has apologized to anyone in the government of Iran . . . We have nothing for which to apologize." And a few hours after that came the news of Carter's victories in Wisconsin and Kansas.

In Tehran, Banisadr saw no signs that Carter's statements were meeting Iran's terms. Said Banisadr to Western reporters: "Those are not enough at all. A declaration having all the conditions that we asked for must be published." The following morning, however, Swiss Ambassador Eric Lang delivered a third message from Carter assuring Banisadr that the U.S. would not try to score propaganda points from transfer of the hostages. Said Banisadr to an aide: "It is what I wanted. I just hope somebody doesn't stick his foot in his mouth at the White House." To Banisadr's satisfaction, Powell promised in Washington: "We intend to continue to be restrained in our words and actions so long as real progress is made in resolving this crisis and bringing our people home." Added Powell: "Let's stay cool for a while at least. Let's see how this thing moves."

Despite Banisadr's hopes, however, the thing did not move. Armed with Carter's message, the Iranian President argued for five hours with his opponents on the Revolutionary Council, maintaining that he had received what amounted to a "formal and public" pledge from Carter and that the Council should now take control of the hostages. But Banisadr's clerical opponents, led by Council Secretary Seyyed Ayatullah Mohammed Beheshti, disagreed and carried the vote. After the session, Ghotbzadeh said that the Council wants "more information on the precise position of the United States."

In Washington, Jody Powell indicated that Carter had gone as far as he could, at least for the time being. Said Powell: "Let me say that the American position has been clearly stated." Then he added, with a weary sense that the U.S. and Tehran are on an endless treadmill: "The more that gets clarified, the more there is that needs to be clarified."

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