Trying One Last Time

By Thomas A. Sancton

HOSTAGES Washington attaches a deadline to its latest offer

Three harried-looking Algerian diplomats, conspicuous in their distinctive tailored overcoats, landed at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran last Friday in an atmosphere of high anxiety and tight security. Greeted by aides of Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Raja'i, they were led quickly past a group of jostling reporters held back by a cordon of police and Islamic Guards, and ushered by plainclothes security men into Mercedes limousines that whisked them directly to a meeting with top Iranian officials. In a dark brown briefcase, the Algerians carried a seven-page document, a formal U.S. bargaining proposal in the hostage negotiations that was couched in cold legal language but laden with hot emotional hopes: it represented one last try by the Carter Administration to end a crisis that, for over a year, has tormented the President, outraged the American public and humiliated the U.S. in the eyes of much of the world.

With the clock running out on the Carter Administration, U.S. negotiators and the Algerian intermediaries had met at Camp David and in Washington for nearly four days to prepare the reply to Tehran's latest demand for the release of 52 American hostages--the infamous $24 billion "guarantee" that President Carter had angrily and accurately described as "ransom." Nonetheless, Administration officials decided that a final offer just might succeed. The U.S. negotiators placed two hopes on the latest effort: first, that a suitable formula could still be found for satisfying Iran's demands for financial guarantees; second, that the Iranians would prefer to strike an eleventh-hour deal with Carter than take their chances with the incoming Reagan Administration.

For the first time since serious talks began last November, the U.S. in a sense issued a deadline for Tehran's acceptance of its terms. While seeking to avoid any impression of giving an ultimatum, the American negotiators stressed to the Algerian intermediaries that offers made by Carter are good only until Jan. 20. If the mechanisms for a hostage release were not set in motion by Jan. 16 at the latest, the Algerians were told, all bets would be off. Noted a senior U.S. official: "Our best chance is for this to follow the pattern of labor negotiations--after a great deal of positioning, the real decisions are made just as time is running out."

If the Tehran government had any hopes of getting better terms from the Reagan Administration, the President-elect effectively shot them down last week with two highly publicized broadsides. Following up in the mood of his blunt Christmas Eve characterization of the Iranian hostage takers as "criminals," Reagan told reporters: "I don't think you pay ransom for people that have been kidnaped by barbarians."

The remarks predictably roused Iranian furies. "How brazen-faced can a man be?" fumed Hojatolislam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaker of the Iranian parliament. "Not even the entire wealth of the U.S. is enough to compensate Iran for the crimes of the deposed Shah committed against our people under the protection of America." Yet the very intensity of such reactions indicated that Reagan's message may have hit home at a crucial juncture--a fact that in no way displeased the Carter Administration. Confessed a State Department official: "One is tempted to say, 'Right on.' "

The latest American response was described by Administration officials as a "reformulation" of two previous U.S. proposals delivered to Iran during the past two months. Those earlier proposals, issued in response to four Tehran demands, had promised: 1) a pledge of noninterference in Iranian affairs; 2) the unfreezing of some $8 to $14 billion in U.S.-held Iranian assets; 3) the cancellation of U.S. claims against Iran if Tehran agrees to submit all claims between the two countries to some form of binding third-party arbitration; 4) Washington's cooperation in locating and blocking the late Shah's assets in the U.S., although Tehran would have to go through U.S. courts to gain possession of them. The Iranians seemed to accept those proposals in principle, but then issued their staggering demand that Washington "guarantee" its compliance by putting $24 billion in escrow before release of the hostages.

The main innovation contained in last week's proposal, explained a U.S. negotiator, was to set up "a simple device to deal with the Iranian suspicions that we will not do what we say we will do." The suggestion: an Algerian escrow account, into which the U.S. would deposit $2.5 billion of the Iranian assets now held by the Federal Reserve, along with approximately $4 billion held by U.S. banks abroad. This fund would comprise that portion of U.S.-controlled Iranian assets which are free of all claims and attachments. The Iranians would be able to draw on the account as soon as the hostages were released. Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher cautiously told reporters last week that the latest plan "will enable the two governments--American and Iranian--to reach a prompt resolution of the matter if the Iranians are willing and able to do so." Considering baffling convolutions throughout the 14-month hostage crisis, that was a big "if."

Still, there were unexpected hints of flexibility coming out of Tehran. On Tuesday, Minister of State Behzad Nabavi, Iran's chief hostage negotiator, said his government was "ready to listen" to a U.S. counterproposal, even though only days before, Iran had characterized its previous proposal as its "final" offer. "If there is a kind of guarantee which is accepted by the Algerian government, we can accept it too." By giving the Algerian messengers a new, substantive role as arbiters, Nabavi seemed to be preparing the way for a possible face-saving retreat.

This one encouraging sign, however, came against a backdrop of intense anti-American rhetoric inside Iran. On Sunday, a mass solidarity in Tehran roared its approval of a hard-line resolution calling for spy trials of the hostages. On Wednesday a state radio commentator threatened not only trials but possible executions if the U.S. failed to meet Iran's "legitimate demands." On Thursday, Ayatullah Alameh Nouri, a prominent clergyman, called for an end to negotiations altogether and argued for immediate prosecution of the U.S. captives.

Such fulminations were not taken at face value by most Western observers. Top officials in the Tehran government have not been repeating the threat of possible trials with the same frequency and conviction as before. Even among hardline clerics, the anti-American stridency seems to owe more to domestic propaganda needs than to policy, primarily because Iran's need for a hostage solution is becoming increasingly acute. Says a senior Iranian civil servant of the clerics' anti-U.S. rhetoric: "It is a stratagem designed to gag leftists who are bound to pillory them for 'betraying the revolution.'

While the talk of trials stirred American concern for the hostages' future safety, films released by Tehran over the past two weeks showed them to be apparently in good health. A third batch of film clips issued last week included a glimpse of previously unseen State Department communications specialist Charles Jones, and brought the total number of hostages identified in films or photos to 43. There also seemed to be confirmation of the Iranian claims that some of the hostages have recently been moved to more comfortable quarters. "Things are much better," said Embassy Political Officer Elizabeth Ann Swift in the latest film. "We've been here a week. It's lovely."

U.S. efforts to win the hostages' release were based essentially on the hope that a worsening economic situation will force Tehran to accept a reasonable settlement. American analysts put Iranian unemployment at 50%, and industrial production at half of normal capacity. Gasoline, heating oil and all basic foodstuffs are strictly rationed. But the consequence of such privations is impossible to predict. Warns a State Department expert: "When a dedicated religious leadership commands a country with the idea that sacrifice and martyrdom are virtues, then any judgment of economic impact is speculative."

The pattern is further confused by feuds between Iran's civil and clerical rulers. The clergy-dominated Islamic Republic Party wants to strip the last shreds of authority from President Abolhassan Banisadr, still a relative moderate. Two weeks ago, the Guardian Council of the Constitution, a supreme legislative review body controlled by the I.R.P., ruled that Banisadr and his aides may not intervene in Cabinet affairs or even have access to government files.

Thus the main obstacle to a hostage release remains what it has been for months: the lack of any uncontested authority in Iran willing and able to make the decision to free them. Speaking with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House last week, Jimmy Carter could not hide his chagrin over the seemingly endless cycle of raised expectations and dashed hopes. Said Carter: "Any prediction of a favorable response from Iran has always been mistaken." His hunch? "Wait and see." It has been that way now for more than 400 days.

--By Thomas A. Sancton.

Reported by Roberto Suro/Washington

With reporting by Roberto Suro/Washington

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.