(4 of 4)
On Jan. 19, Taylor got a scare. Someone called his home and asked to speak to "Mr. or Mrs. Stafford." Taylor's wife Patricia replied that no one by that name was there. But the caller insisted that he knew they were. With that, the escape plan was speeded up. The Americans, safe for so long in their hideaway, were not sure they wanted to run the risk of trying to board a plane. Taylor convinced them that the danger of staying was growing ever greater.
Taylor gradually reduced the size of his embassy staff. From a total of 20, it was dropped to 11 and finally to 4. Taylor chose last Monday, in the uncertain aftermath of Iran's presidential election, to make his move. The six Americans nervously but successfully showed their false papers to Iranian airport officials and boarded regularly scheduled flights to Frankfurt. Then they went into two days of rest and debriefing at a U.S. Air Force hospital near Wiesbaden in West Germany, before flying to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. There they were reunited with their relatives. Then it was on to Washington and back to heroes' welcomes in their home towns. On Monday Taylor and three staffers flew quietly to Europe and the Canadian embassy was closed.
Back in Tehran, the outwitted captors of the U.S. hostages and government officials were apoplectic. "This is illegal, it's illegal!" raged one of the militants guarding the U.S. embassy. Iranian Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, just defeated in his quest for the presidency, vowed: "Sooner or later, somewhere in the world, Canada will pay." Whatever "hardness or harshness" now befalls the American hostages, he threatened, "it's only the Canadian government that will be responsible for it."
Regardless of the understandable elation in Canada and the U.S., the fight to free the hostages remains one of the Carter Administration's most nettlesome difficulties. So far, the U.S. has been deliberately delaying the imposition of its planned economic sanctions against Iran in the hope that its new President, Abolhassan Banisadr, may yet help resolve the hostage problem. But as the hostages start their fourth month of captivity, there is no real cause for optimism.