You are right, LB. Blood Boiler! And to think Carter and Brzezinski now have the guts to be telling the current Administration how to do anything....!!!
iran.theatlantic.com
iran.theatlantic.com
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter was the 39th President of the United States. The hostage crisis began a year before the election that would end his presidency, on November 4, 1979. Carter and his administration struggled to deal with the hostage crisis, unable to find an effective negotiating partner for Iran until almost a year after the crisis began. The hostages' captors and Iranians in general at the time held Carter responsible for the crimes of the Shah and the troubles of their country. In addition to American flags, Carter's effigy was burned outside the walls of the embassy. Carter spent his last months in office working constantly to free the hostages, but they were not released until just after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as President on January 20, 1981.
Hamilton Jordan Hamilton
Jordan served as White House Chief of Staff from 1979 to 1980. Jordan was involved in a lengthy series of negotiations to free the hostages using diplomatic back channels, with ultimately resulted in several face-to-face meetings with the foreign minister of Iran, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh. These efforts proved futile, however, as Ghotbzadeh was sidelined by the political power of the students holding the hostages. Jordan didn't give up on trying to release the hostages, however. He wrote to President Carter shortly after the Presidential election, "I am completely serious about my offer to go to Iran or anywhere else and take the place of the hostages if that would break the current logjam. I am young and in good health and have no dependents. With me it would be a great honor to render such a service to my country, and it is simply a matter of 52 lives being more important than one. I believe that someone that has the advantage of being perceived in Iran as being close to you as I am could render such a service. This is not an offer that I make lightly without a full realization of the risks and consequences."
General David Jones
David Charles Jones served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1978 until 1982, when he retired from the military. General Jones served in the Air Force, as a Deputy Commander of Operations in Vietnam and commander-in-chief of the U.S. Air Force in Europe. From the first days of the embassy takeover, General Jones was closely involved in the planning of the rescue mission, regularly briefing the President on their progress. Sadegh Ghotbzadeh Sadegh Ghotbzadeh served as the Iranian Foreign Minister from 1979 to 1980. A supporter of the National Front of Iran, Ghotbzadeh was a close aide of Ayatollah Khomeini during Khomeini's exile in France, and accompanied him back to Iran in 1979. After the Iranian Revolution, Ghotbzadeh was appointed managing director of National Iranian Radio and Television (NIRT) - he worked to make the media in line with Islamic teachings. He was then appointed foreign minister, resigning when his diplomatic approach failed to resolve the deadlocked hostage crisis. In April 1982, Ghotbzadeh was arrested and accused of plotting the assassination of Khomeini and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. He denied the accusations but confirmed the existence of a plot to change the government. He was convicted in August 1982, and executed.
Colonel Charlie Beckwith
Colonel Charles A. Beckwith, a career U.S. Army soldier and Vietnam veteran, is known for creating the Delta Force branch of the US Army to respond to mounting terrorist actions worldwide. The force, founded in 1977, is an overseas unit specializing in hostage rescue, barricade operations and reconnaissance in terrorist situations. Beckwith, nicknamed "Chargin' Charlie", based the Delta Force on his experiences cross-training with the British SAS. Before his death in 1994, Beckwith was awarded the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, and the Purple Heart, among many other military decorations.
Major Dick Meadows Meadows traveled with his team to Iran to double-check the preparations already made in Iran by a CIA officer, posing as a group of businessmen. Meadows and his team checked the Desert Two site (the hide sites), and spent time watching the embassy grounds from the streets outside, observing the number of guards and what kind of weapons they were using.
Major John Carney Carney was an Air Force combat controller, known to his fellow soldiers as "Coach," from his time coaching the football team at the Air Force Academy. Colonel Beckwith had volunteered Carney for the secret reconnaissance mission without even asking him about it first, but Carney says he wouldn't have said no to Beckwith.
Colonel James Kyle, the on-scene commander at Desert One, wrote of Carney: "Men like Carney are worth a hundred planes or ships."
Jerry Boykin
Lieutenant-General William G. Boykin is the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. He has played a role in almost every recent major American military operation, serving in Grenada, Somalia, and Iraq. In 1971, he graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and was commissioned in the U.S. Army. For twelve years, he was assigned to the Delta Special Operations Force, where he served as the operations officer for the Iranian hostage rescue attempt. A Born-again Christian, Boykin has gained notoriety for his publicly voicing his Christian Fundamentalism-inspired views. A Pentagon investigation concluded in 2004 that he had violated regulations by failing to explain that the questionable remarks were not made in an official capacity.
Colonel Wayne Long Colonel Wayne Long served as Delta's intelligence officer on the mission, and served in the Delta Force from 1977 until late 1980. He had served under Colonel Beckwith in the Special Forces in the early sixties, shortly before deploying to Vietnam. He later served under Beckwith as an Air Operations Officer in the Seventh Special Forces Group. Beckwith personally recruited Long for his Delta Force team, first serving as the assistant intelligence officer and later the principal intelligence officer for Delta Force.
Major Bucky Burruss Major Burruss, served as Charlie Beckwith's executive officer in Delta Force. When the team was to arrive in Tehran, Burruss was tasked with coordinating the AC-130 air support over the soccer stadium where the hostages would be rescued by helicopter. Burruss was to be one of the last men to leave, and given the fickle nature of the helicopters and his duty to put the hostages first, he had accepted that he would not likely make it out alive.
Colonel James H. Kyle, USAF Kyle commanded the Air Force part of the rescue mission, and was the on-scene commander at Desert One. He was in the Air Force for thirty years, logging 9,000 flying hours, 1,000 of which were in combat. He had earlier served his country in the Vietnam War.
Logan Fitch Fitch served as one of Delta's team leaders on the mission, in charge of the White Element, which was to take down the chancery, the main building on the embassy compound, kill and incapacitate the guards and free the hostages.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski was born in Warsaw, Poland, and served as the National Security Advisor to President Carter during his administration. Brzezinski was strongly in favor of the rescue mission, as well as other shows of force, such as mining Iran's harbors, during the hostage crisis. He is currently a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.
Major Jim Schaefer Schaefer was one of the eight helicopter pilots on the mission, and had helped train the helo pilots and their crews at the Yuma Marine Corps Air Station. He served as deputy operations officer to Ed Seiffert, who directed the helicopters on the mission. In the crash between Schaefer's helicopter and the C-130, Schaefer lost all three of his crewmen. He and his co-pilot, Les Petty, survived, badly burned.
Lieutenant Commander Rodney Davis Davis piloted helicopter five on the mission, and encountered severe problems in the second haboob. His copilot was experiencing vertigo from his night-vision goggles, his control lights in his cockpit had indicated several failures, and his compass wasn't working. The heat in the haboob seriously affected his other instruments. Davis had lost his wingman in the dust, and despite several maneuvers, he couldn't relocate him. He talked to Colonel Chuck Pitman, the highest-ranking officer on the helicopter team who was riding with his crew, and the two agreed they should turn back, since as far as they knew there would still be seven helicopters on the mission.
Colonel Chuck Pitman Pitman, a Vietnam veteran, was regarded as one of the more expert helicopter pilots on the mission. Pitman helped assemble the helicopters and the pilots who would fly them for the mission. Pitman's role in the decision to turn back helicopter number five resulted in criticism from other members of the mission, in particular from members of Delta Force, who thought the helicopter should have continued on to Desert One.
Secretary of Defense Harold Brown
Brown served as Secretary of Defense during the Carter administration, and had previously served in the Pentagon during the Johnson administration. He had previously worked on defense research under Robert McNamara and was the first scientsist to become Secretary of Defense. He participated closely in the planning for the rescue mission, and informed President Carter of both the decision to abort and the accident at Desert One.
Major General James Vaught General Vaught served as the overall mission commander for the rescue mission, directing the mission planning from day one. Underneath Vaught, each service (Delta, Air Force, Marines) had a commander. Vaught coordinated the rescue planning with the various force components and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, playing an instrumental part in getting the mission off the ground. Vaught had flown to Wadi Kena, Egypt, a remote Egyptian Air Force base, five days before the mission. From there, he directed the forces on their way to Desert One, relaying information from the field to the Pentagon.
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance Vance served as Secretary of State for the first three years of the Carter administration, resigning in protest in 1980 when Carter decided to proceed with the rescue mission. Vance had submitted his resignation in the days before the mission was carried out, but did not announce it until after the mission. Vance had served in the Navy during World War Two as a gunnery officer, and later served as Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Johnson administration during the Vietnam War. He had initially supported the war but towards the end of the 1960s changed his mind, advising Johnson to withdraw from South Vietnam, and even served as a delegate to the Paris peace talks in 1968. Vance worked as a lawyer after his resignation in 1980, but also served in several diplomatic missions to Bosnia, Croatia, and South Africa. He died in 2002 and was buried at Arlington cemetery. |
