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6:21 p.m. President informed by Jones that a number dead in the crash—helicopter crew, pilot of C-130 and some passengers [members of the rescue team]. The rest are being extricated by C130. [In taking off to move away from the loaded planes, the helicopters' swirling blades had kicked up clouds of dust. In the poor visibility, one of the helicopters had flown into the nose of the airplane, which itself was preparing to take off. The two aircraft were engulfed in flames, and it was impossible to extract the bodies of the dead Americans. All others were loaded into the other five C-130s and left Desert One, en route to Masirah, a small island off the coast of Oman. Our men had been on the ground about three hours.]
7:05 p.m. President informed by Jones that at least six probably dead; the team will be [in Masirah] around 10 p.m.
7:45 p.m. The group without the President convenes in the Cabinet Room to work on necessary notifications and statements. [I sat alone in my small office, listing everything I needed to do to prevent any harm to our hostages, to protect our agents in Tehran, to notify leaders of other nations in the area and to inform some American leaders and later the general public. First, we had to get our rescue team out of Iran, undetected if possible.]
8:05 p.m. The President joins group in Cabinet Room. [I sent for CIA Director Turner to determine how much time our agents in Tehran for the rescue mission would need to leave the country or to protect themselves from discovery.]
9:05 p.m. Turner joins the group. Discussion of the situation in Iran and implications for public statement. [We had a long discussion about the timing. It was necessary to delay any acknowledgment of our presence in Iran until all our team was out of the country. As soon as it was safe, we wanted to anticipate the Iranians with our announcement, to prevent their exaggeration of the rescue mission into an all-out invasion—a version that might cause them to harm the hostages. We had a number of people in Tehran with trucks, radio equipment and other compromising materials, who had to be notified and given a chance to protect themselves.]
11:05 p.m. Brown provides fuller debrief: all helicopter crews accounted for; eight dead and three burned.
11:55 p.m. The President decides announcement at 2 a.m.—changes that to 1 a.m. Congressional calls to begin immediately.
The cancellation of our mission was caused by a strange series of mishaps—almost completely unpredictable. We had every possibility of success because no Iranian alarm was raised until two or three hours after our people had all left Iran. I am still haunted by memories of that day—our high hopes for success, the incredible mishaps, the bravery of our rescue team, the embarrassment of failure and, above all, the tragic deaths in the lonely desert. I actually slept a couple of hours, then got up early to prepare my television broadcast, which would explain to the American people what had occurred.
In my statement, I took full responsibility for the