Blurred View from the Embassy

Captured papers reveal a confused U.S. policy about the Shah

Tehran, Iran Nov. 1,1979

Dear Penne,

Well, this has been another one of these special sort of days in Iran . . . a day that had us worried but turned out not so bad after all. . .

So begins a letter, poignant in retrospect, written by Charge d'Affaires L. Bruce Laingen of the U.S. embassy in Tehran to his wife in Bethesda, Md. The deposed Shah of Iran had been admitted to the U.S. for medical treatment less than two weeks earlier, and Laingen was...

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