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Reports of the Majlis debate began flowing into the State Department's seventh-floor operations center just before midnight. Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher telephoned Carter with word of the Majlis action shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday, and the President instructed Secretary of State Edmund Muskie to brief congressional leaders. Carter then suspended the rest of his campaign schedule and flew back to Washington to preside at an 8 a m. meeting that included Muskie, Vice President Walter Mondale, Defense Secretary Harold Brown and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. After almost two hours, Press Secretary Jody Powell, his face pale and lined with tension, emerged to make a brief, cautious and laconic report to the press. The Administration had yet to receive an official translation of the resolution voted by the Majlis, he explained. Therefore the U.S. Government would have no official reaction until "additional information becomes available through a variety of sources ... The obvious gravity of the issue requires deliberate and careful concentration by the President."
The White House also declared in an official statement: "The decision is now in the hands of the executive officers of Iran and the United States ... We will respond to the Iranian action in accordance with American law and the two principles that have guided our actions throughout, namely the national interests of this country and our concern for the safe and early release of the hostages."
Appearing on ABC's Issues and Answers, a former member of the Iranian executive branch, ex-Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotzbadeh, endorsed the legislators' call for releasing the hostages in batches. Later on the same program, however, Muskie reiterated the longstanding U.S. insistence that all of the American captives be freed at once.
No matter when or how it is finally resolved, the hostage crisis so dominated the final stages of the presidential campaign that there was a danger the voters would let their judgment of Carter's whole presidency be inordinately affected by one important but in many ways aberrant issue: his effort to free 52 fellow citizens approaching their 52nd week in the hands of a foreign regime that is in a state of both war and near anarchy.
Carter knew that. Reagan knew it too. So did the powers that be in Iran. Last week, largely because the American election was at hand, the bizarre interplay between U.S. domestic politics and the pandemonium that passes for government in Iran became more feverish, preoccupying and unpredictable than ever. While Sunday's vote in the Majlis was significant and encouraging — it was the first time that the Iranian authorities had committed themselves to letting the hostages go — the unpleasant surprise of a phased release and the difficulty in meeting the conditions meant that once again, a breakthrough in the crisis could turn into a breakdown.