Hope for the Hostages

By Strobe Talbott

But their uncertain status created a time bomb for the President

A ir Force One had just landed at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport Saturday night, and the presidential party was en route to a nearby hotel when walkie-talkies in the motorcade crackled to life and the drama began. There was to be a meeting later that night in Deacon's" room. Deacon is the Secret Service code name for President Jimmy Carter.

After appearing very briefly at an Italian-American dinner, the President went swiftly to his suite to huddle with aides who had been traveling with him, and also with is chief political adviser, Hamilton Jordan, just arrived from Washingon. Jordan had flown in especially to help Carter prepare for an event expected to take place within hours in Tehran. The Majlis, or Iranian parliament, was about to vote on the fate of the American hostages, who have been in captivity for a full year.

As Jordan's presence underscored, the late-night meeting involved both politics and policy. How could Carter appear as statesmanlike as possible in his response to the Majlis vole and thus blunt the inevitable criticism that his Administration was manipulating the hostage crisis to increase the President's chances of re-election:? How could he at the same time be presidential, political and humane? It was an exquisite dilemma. As one Carter aide was to put it the next day, "They've sure put us in a box."

Both the Majlis action and Carter's initial response came a few hours later The assembly approved the four demands set forth by Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini as conditions for the release of the hostages a U.S. pledge not to interfere, "either directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in the affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran"; return of the fortune of "the cursed Shah"; unfreezing of Iranian assets in U.S. banks; and cancellation of U.S. legal and financial claims against Iran.

The Majlis resolution began with an invocation: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful," and it ended with a strong warning: if the U.S. dragged its feet in meeting the demands, the Administration would have only itself to blame if Iran should "punish the criminals," i.e., the hostages.

In addition to the fulrmnations, there was, as always with good news from Tehran, a big hitch: the Majlis decreed that the hostages would not all be freed together -- or necessarily right away. Instead they would be released in groups as each of the demands was met. The Administration had earlier agreed in principle to all the conditions, but there remained some enormous and highly complex technical problems. One example: cutting the legal tangles tying up the Iranian funds, a process that was sure to be time consuming and controversial (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS).

Reports of the Majlis debate began flowing into the State Department's seventh-floor operations center just before midnight. Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher telephoned Carter with word of the Majlis action shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday, and the President instructed Secretary of State Edmund Muskie to brief congressional leaders. Carter then suspended the rest of his campaign schedule and flew back to Washington to preside at an 8 a m. meeting that included Muskie, Vice President Walter Mondale, Defense Secretary Harold Brown and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. After almost two hours, Press Secretary Jody Powell, his face pale and lined with tension, emerged to make a brief, cautious and laconic report to the press. The Administration had yet to receive an official translation of the resolution voted by the Majlis, he explained. Therefore the U.S. Government would have no official reaction until "additional information becomes available through a variety of sources ... The obvious gravity of the issue requires deliberate and careful concentration by the President."

The White House also declared in an official statement: "The decision is now in the hands of the executive officers of Iran and the United States ... We will respond to the Iranian action in accordance with American law and the two principles that have guided our actions throughout, namely the national interests of this country and our concern for the safe and early release of the hostages."

Appearing on ABC's Issues and Answers, a former member of the Iranian executive branch, ex-Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotzbadeh, endorsed the legislators' call for releasing the hostages in batches. Later on the same program, however, Muskie reiterated the longstanding U.S. insistence that all of the American captives be freed at once.

No matter when or how it is finally resolved, the hostage crisis so dominated the final stages of the presidential campaign that there was a danger the voters would let their judgment of Carter's whole presidency be inordinately affected by one important but in many ways aberrant issue: his effort to free 52 fellow citizens approaching their 52nd week in the hands of a foreign regime that is in a state of both war and near anarchy.

Carter knew that. Reagan knew it too. So did the powers that be in Iran. Last week, largely because the American election was at hand, the bizarre interplay between U.S. domestic politics and the pandemonium that passes for government in Iran became more feverish, preoccupying and unpredictable than ever. While Sunday's vote in the Majlis was significant and encouraging -- it was the first time that the Iranian authorities had committed themselves to letting the hostages go -- the unpleasant surprise of a phased release and the difficulty in meeting the conditions meant that once again, a breakthrough in the crisis could turn into a breakdown.

Not even an irreversible breakthrough would automatically have helped Carter politically. The Administration had hoped that the hostages would be freed before Election Day, but feared that some hostages might denounce Carter for the way he handled the crisis. The President's men also were afraid of a backlash against the Administration for making concessions to Iran. That danger grew Sunday when it became clear that the Iranians were going to prolong the suspense and the agony for the U.S. -- and thus almost inevitably intensify the impression worldwide that the U.S. was paying ransom to kidnapers.

Indeed, as it studied the matter, the White House grew alarmed that it had been checkmated politically by the rapidly evolving situation. Some of Carter's top aides believe that the President could not afford to accept the Iranian demands as they stood; on the other hand, they felt that Carter could not simply reject the conditions cold.

Reagan, meanwhile, was taking a cautious approach to the issue. Stopped on his way to church, he told reporters: "All I can tell you is that I think this is too sensitive to make any comment at all."

For several weeks there had been rumors that a hostage deal was imminent, and its broad outlines--Khomeini's four conditions--were well known. Another American inducement for Iran to free the hostages emerged during indirect negotiations conducted through Algeria, Switzerland, U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim and, TIME has learned, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat. The battle-weary Iranian military, which relies on American equipment purchased under the Shah, desperately needs spare parts that the U.S. has refused to deliver because of the hostage crisis. The Administration has said that once the American hostages are free, Iran can have about $100 million worth of "nonlethal" military equipment that it has already ordered and paid for (e.g., spare parts for C-130 transport aircraft). So far, Iran has remained vague about whether it also insists on the immediate delivery of the guns, ammunition and other weaponry it had bought.

With the U.S. apparently willing to pay much of Khomeini's price, and with the war against Iraq going badly, the Majlis began moving to seal the deal. One obvious Iranian advantage: Carter's hope for a pre-election breakthrough. This leverage would be lost once the election was past no matter who was the victor: Carter would have less political reason to press for a deal, and Reagan's general attitude is uncompromising.

Everything seemed set a week ago. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the speaker of the Majlis, was sure he had enough support to put the deal to a vote. Back in Washington even the most skeptical officials were optimistic. But they, like Rafsanjani himself, neglected to reckon with the ingenuity of Iran's diehards --left-leaning Muslims and mullahs who opposed any compromise whatsoever with "the Great Satan America." On Thursday, the day set for the Majlis debate, about 70 deputies stayed home or refused to take their seats, preventing a quorum and thus blocking a vote.

One deputy in attendance was the Ayatullah Sadegh Khalkhali, the notorious "hanging judge" who has ordered more than a hundred people executed. He, like most of the senior mullahs, supported the deal. Cursing the organizers of the boycott as "truant kids," he pounded his fists so hard on his desk that his turban fell off The session was then adjourned until Sunday. Said Khalkhali: "This Majlis is incapable of solving the hostage problem. The Imam [Khomeini] should solve it himself."

A last-minute intervention by Khomeini might have produced a solution: most of the holdouts in the Majlis swear obedience to him, but he showed no inclination to act. On the contrary, in a major speech to the nation on Thursday, Khomeini reiterated his absurd charge of U.S.-Iraqi complicity in the invasion of Iran, but he pointedly ignored the hostage issue, an indication that he intended to leave their fate up to the Majlis.

On Friday the signs turned hopeful again. The Iranian government announced it had drafted a "just method" for effecting the hostages' release. A U.S. Air Force ambulance plane was standing by in West Germany. Khomeini's heir apparent, the Ayatullah Hussein Ali Montazeri, called on the Majlis to work out a settlement. Said he: "This shirking of duty may not be condoned by the revolutionary people of Iran."

But the Carter Administration, by now quite fatalistic, warned against another burst of optimism. The basic U.S. position, as summed up by a State Department official: "We don't know what's happening, because the Iranians don't know what's happening."

At the climactic Sunday session, the diehards tried to attach some new conditions. One would have required the U.S. to grant Iranian parliamentarians free television air time to explain their grievances to the American people. But the deputies beat back this and other attempts to stave off, or at least further complicate, the negotiations. Then came the Majlis vote approving the basis for the hostage release.

Even if this were not the week of a U.S. presidential election, the handling of the hostage crisis would present the U.S. with enormous problems. Coming to terms with Iran and sending along military supplies, even of the nonlethal variety, could seriously complicate American relations with the conservative Arab states of the Persian Gulf that are backing Iraq in the war. Last week Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates warned that they might reduce oil production if the U.S. resumed military supplies to Iran.

The Carter Administration hopes to persuade the Saudis and other gulf Arabs that delivering spare parts to Iran and thus enabling it to hold its own in the war with Iraq serves Western and Saudi interests in two ways. First, as long as Iran can defend itself, it is less likely to collapse into factionalism and secessionism, which the Soviet Union would almost certainly try to exploit. Second, American policymakers believe it would not necessarily be good news for the West or for Saudi Arabia if Iraq's President Saddam Hussein were to emerge a clear winner from the present war. He has made it plain that he wants to become the strongman and protector of the gulf. U.S. officials fear that as a radical and a revolutionary, Saddam Hussein would be an inspiring figure to dissident elements inside Saudi Arabia and the smaller sheikdoms of the area.

Therefore, while the White House and State Department would still prefer a quick cease-fire in the war, the Administration would not be sorry to see the Iranian military, with all its made-in-the-U.S.A. hardware, bloody Saddam Hussein and set back his ambitions.

A tilt toward Iran could also complicate U.S.-Soviet relations, as the Moscow press warned repeatedly last week. But as long as the U.S. is contemplating only limited and nonlethal resupply of Iran -- and as long as Iraq relies on Soviet arms -- Administration officials are reasonably confident that the U.S. can remain technically neutral and that the Kremlin will limit its response to finger-wagging editorials and propaganda.

In the end, the most troublesome aspect of the hostage crisis is the way it has obtruded on American presidential politics. When the Carter Administration's handling of Iran is stripped of all its disclaimers, the conclusion is starkly un avoidable that one of the dominant goals of American policy during an extremely dangerous war has been to get the embassy hostages out before Election Day. That conclusion stands even if President Carter is given the benefit of the doubt for having the most humane motives along with any political ones.

The U.S. has been living with a national humiliation since the day the hostages were seized. That humiliation would be compounded if, a year later, the results of a U.S. presidential election were to depend to any significant degree on vote by the fanatically anti-American Majlis 6,500 miles away. The exact impact of Iran's blackmail on the U.S. political process may be as difficult to assess after Nov. 4 as it was to predict before, but the humiliation is no less acute.

-- By Strobe Talbott,

Reported by Christopher Ogden with Carter and Gregor H. Wierzynski/ Washington

With reporting by Christopher Ogden, Carter, Gregor H. Wierzynski

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