A flood of Christmas cards, a challenge to Khomeini, an exit for the Shah
On a crisp evening last week, Amy Carter stepped up to a podium on the Ellipse, just south of the White House, and pressed the button controlling the lights on a 30-ft. blue spruce and 50 smaller trees around it, one for each state. But for the first time since Calvin Coolidge began the tradition in 1923, the big tree did not burst into light. Only the white star on its top and the tiny blue bulbs on the smaller trees blinked on. "Amy has lit 50 trees—one for each American hostage," explained President Carter to the 7,500 surprised onlookers. "We will turn on the rest of the lights when the hostages come home." The crowd was silent for a moment, then burst into applause.
In a similar outpouring of sympathy across the U.S., hundreds of thousands of Americans sent Christmas cards to a strange address:
260 Taleghani Avenue
Tehran, Iran
It is the address of the U.S. embassy, which has been in the hands of fanatical followers of the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini ever since Nov. 4. No one knows for sure where the idea of sending Christmas messages to the hostages originated, but it caught on with amazing speed. On one day, postal officials sent about 44,000 pieces of mail to Iran. The next day, the total more than doubled. The messages were simple and from the heart. Scrawled an eight-year-old boy in Portland, Ore.: "We hope you are releesed soon." In Tehran the militants guarding the U.S. embassy accepted the mail, and said some of it was being passed on to the hostages.
Meanwhile, the man who triggered the crisis by entering the U.S. last October for medical treatment—Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi—suddenly left the country last weekend for Panama. Early Saturday, the Shah with his family boarded an Air Force jet at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and flew to the Canal Zone, ending his 54-day stay in the U.S. Just where the Shah would live was uncertain. U.S. officials mentioned the lush resort island of Contadora off Panama's Pacific coast. But Luz Maria Quijano de Murray, Panamanian consul general in Philadelphia, said the Shah will be given asylum for three months on Coi-bita Island, also off the Pacific coast. The arrangement, she added, "could become permanent."
U.S. officials had been scrambling to find a suitable host country for the Shah since Mexico announced last month that he would not be allowed to return there. When Panama expressed interest last week in accepting the deposed monarch, Jimmy Carter dispatched White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan to Panama City to talk with Strongman Omar Torrijos Herrera. The two men had developed a good rapport during the Panama Canal treaty negotiations in 1977, and after a long afternoon session with Jordan, Torrijos agreed to extend a firm invitation.
Washington obviously hopes that the Shah's leavetaking will lead to the release of the hostages, even though the first reaction of their Iranian captors was not promising. "This will make no difference whatsoever," said a spokeswoman for the militants about the Shah's departure.