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Though the promised release of some hostages was a signal that progress was possible, the basic situation was totally unchanged.
The Iranian students still held dozens of exhausted American hostages inside the U.S. embassy compound in Tehran. The Shah, whose temporary entry into the U.S. for medical treatment had precipitated the assault, still lay hospitalized in New York, despite rumors that, he might leave for Mexico at any moment. And in Washington, the options open to the President of the U.S. were still shockingly few, with the fate of the remaining hostages determining what actions could be risked.
In a series of dramatic but carefully limited moves, the President fought back with economic reprisals. He ordered a stop to all purchases of Iranian oil, 700,000 bbl. per day, or 4% of U.S. consumption; he froze all Iranian government banking assets in the U.S. The Administration has not officially interrupted the flow of the nearly $500 million worth of food the U.S. ships to Iran annually. But the International Longshoremen's Association instructed all its members not to load any vessels bound for Iran, and the giant American Farm Bureau Federation offered to support a total boycott on food exports. Some militant superpatriots talked of blockading the Iranian coast, but the Administration consistently ruled out that and all other military measures.
Yet when none of the U.S. retaliations brought any progress toward the release of the hostages, American anger and frustration became almost palpable.* New anti-Iranian demonstrations flared on campuses from coast to coast; three teen-agers threw a rock at the window of an Iranian in Denver, and he shot back, killing one of them. Eight Iranians, carrying rifles, telescopic sights and ammunition, were arrested at Baltimore-Washington International Airport as they prepared to board a flight to New York. Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd, normally one of the mildest and most self-controlled of men, said he sympathized with the demonstrators, even the violent ones. "I'd feel like taking a punch at one [an Iranian] myself, if I could get to him," said Byrd. Added Carter: "Every American feels anger and outrage at what is happening." In an effort to cool tempers at home. Carter had previously asked the Immigration and Naturalization Service to press deportation proceedings against any Iranian students who were residing illegally in the U.S. Though the White House emphasized that the President had not ordered a "roundup and mass deportation," the action caused panic among many of the 50,000 Iranian students in the U.S. and thousands of other Iranians who have fled to the U.S. in recent years for political reasons.
In Iran itself, the crisis ebbed and flowed. Early in the week there was talk of compromises, and hints that some of the hostages might be released, but as the American determination became obvious in Iran, the