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After the Shah's arrival in New York in late October, Iranian students in the U.S. launched a series of protests. There were daily picket lines outside New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, where the Shah was undergoing treatment (see box). Members of one group chained themselves to railings inside the Statue of Liberty for three hours; others made an abortive raid on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Far more ominous was the fusillade of anti-American rhetoric launched by Ayatullah Khomeini. Denouncing the U.S. as "the great Satan," he compared the relationship between the U.S. and Iran to "the friendship between a wolf and a lamb." U.S. officials asked for, and got, a third assurance from Bazargan that U.S. citizens in Iran would be shielded from attack.
On Sunday, Nov. 4, hundreds of protesters gathered in downtown Tehran outside the U.S. embassy, a 27-acre compound surrounded by ten-and twelve-foot brick walls and secured with metal gates. The students, most of whom were unarmed, chanted anti-American slogans and carried banners: DEATH TO AMERICA IS A BEAUTIFUL THOUGHT and GIVE us THE SHAH. At the very hour at which the demonstration was taking place in Tehran, the Ayatullah Khomeini was telling a student in the holy city of Qum, some 80 miles to the south, that foreign "enemies" were plotting against the Iranian revolution. Repeatedly, he charged that the American embassy in his country's capital was "a nest of spies" and "a center of intrigue."
That was all the inspiration the students needed. Just before 11 a.m., someone with a pair of powerful shears managed to break the chain that held together the gates on Taleghani Street, and the crowd surged through. Once inside the compound, some headed for the ambassador's residence, where the servants offered no resistance (there has been no U.S. ambassador in Tehran since William Sullivan left in April). Others tried to take over the chancellery but found it protected with armor plating and grillwork. Using bullhorns, they shouted at the occupants: "Give up and you won't be harmed! If you don't give up, you will be killed!" As the attackers struggled to get inside, other protesters and a crowd of curiosity seekers clambered over the embassy walls and swarmed through the compound.
Inside the two-story brick chancellery building, known to Americans as "Fort Apache" for its special security reinforcements, Marine guards donned flak jackets and gas masks and ordered everyone to the top floor. There, in the ambassador's office, Political Officer Victor Tomseth was on the phone to the embassy's ranking officer, Charge d'Affaires L. Bruce Laingen, who was at the Foreign Ministry. Other embassy officers quickly telephoned other Iranian officials, trying to get help. Just before 1 p.m., Laingen gave Tomseth the order: "Final destruction." Immediately, embassy officers grabbed files from safes and began shredding and burning classified documents.
Finally, after stalling as long as possible, a Marine opened the door, and students rushed in, their eyes moist from tear gas. The students grabbed the