Keeping Faith: Part II
It was, writes Jimmy Carter, "the beginning of the most difficult period of my life." He was referring to the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by Iranian militants who took scores of Americans hostage. The date was Nov. 4, 1979, and for the next 444 days, "I listened to every proposal"for freeing the hostages, "no matter how preposterous, including dropping an atomic bomb on Tehran."
The hostage crisis is the centerpiece of TIME'S concluding excerpt from Keeping Faith, Carter's account of his four years as President. Carter describes the high expectations and dashed hopes that punctuated the long-running drama. He tells how he tried to deal with the Ayatullah Khomeini as if he were "a rational person, "even though, Carter writes, he "was acting insanely." Carter provides a Commander in Chiefs view of the U.S. military rescue effort that ended with the abandonment of flaming aircraft and eight American bodies in an Iranian desert. He vividly describes the all-night negotiating vigil of his last hours as President and tells how he felt as he listened to his successor deliver his Inaugural Address just moments before the hostages were finally flying out of Iran.
The excerpts also include Carter's observations on three presidential achievements of which he is most proud: his emphasis on human rights as a high-priority principle of U.S. foreign policy; his politically damaging and difficult campaign to negotiate treaties yielding eventual control of the Panama Canal; and his steps to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil and seek an end to a situation in which "the greatest nation on earth was being jerked around by a few desert states."
Fall of The Shah
On the South Lawn of the White House, I stood and wept. Tears were streaming down the faces of more than 200 members of the press. In the distance we could hear a mob shouting at the mounted police who had just released canisters of tear gas to disperse them. Unfortunately, an ill wind seemed to have been blowing toward us as we greeted the leader of Iran, and the fumes had engulfed us all.
With television cameras focused on me as I welcomed the Shah and his wife, Farah, I tried to pretend that nothing was wrong. But that day—Nov. 15, 1977—was an augury. The tear gas had created the semblance of grief. Almost two years later, and for 14 months afterward, there would be real grief in our country because of Iran.
Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi tolerated little political opposition at home, but allegations were increasingly heard in the U.S. that his secret police, SAVAK, were brutalizing Iranian citizens. The Shah was a likable man—erect without being pompous, seemingly calm and self-assured in spite of the tear gas incident, surprisingly modest in demeanor. The air of reticence in his first conversations with me could not have been caused by his unfamiliarity with American Presidents. I was the eighth he had known!
I continued, as other Presidents had before me, to consider the Shah a strong ally. I appreciated his ability to maintain good relations with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and his willingness to provide Israel with oil in spite of the Arab boycott. At the time of his visit I was especially eager to secure his influence in support of Egyptian President