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In Iran, Banisadr insisted that preoccupation with the hostages was preventing his nation from dealing with its own considerable troubles (30% unemployment, 50% inflation, low oil exports, a nasty border squabble with Iraq), but he could not persuade the newly convened Majlis to act. The summer dragged on. Ramsey Clark defied Carter's half-hearted travel ban and attended a conference in Tehran on "Crimes of America." The militants released Richard Queen, a hostage suffering from multiple sclerosis. On July 27 the Shah died, an event that months before might have been useful but now seemed almost irrelevant to the crisis. Richard Nixon was the only notable American at his Cairo funeral.
In early September, Secretary of State Muskie sent a letter asking for the hostages' release to Mohammed Ali Raja'i, the devout Khomeini follower who was Iran's new Prime Minister. The letter was the first direct communication between the governments since before the April raid. Khomeini replied, giving conditions for the hostages' release, and for the first time did not mention the necessity of an American apology. The Ayatullah demanded merely the return of the Shah's fortune, the unfreezing of Iranian assets, cancellation of U.S. claims against Iran, and a pledge of noninterference. But a day later, as the Majlis considered appointing a commission to study the hostage issue, the speaker of the assembly, Muslim Hard-Liner Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, insisted that the U.S. apologize for its long support of the Shah.
Carter ruled out any admission of guilt in strong terms, but with the election campaign going poorly for him and with the outbreak of all-out war between Iran and Iraq over an old border dispute, there was severe pressure on both sides to end the hostage ordeal. Carter said that the U.S. was strictly neutral in the war but hinted that spare military parts might be delivered to Iran if the hostages were let go. Prime Minister Raja'i unexpectedly flew to New York and complained to the U.N. that Iraq's belligerence was inspired by the U.S. But the fact was that Iran needed its spare parts and its frozen assets, which Carter seemed ready to deliver. Despite eruptions from the fundamentalists, who still hungered for a spy trial, the Majlis voted on Nov. 2 to accept Khomeini's conditions.
That approval came two days before the U.S. presidential election (which was also, by another sour irony, the first anniversary of the hostages' seizure). The Majlis is too arrogant, chauvinistic and factional a body to have timed its crucial decision to help Carter, a man hysterically despised by Muslim fundamentalists in any case. But it seemed that way to campaign officials on both sides. Hours after the Majlis vote, early Sunday morning by U.S. time, hostage families were telephoned by the State Department and told to be prepared for a breakthrough. Many of them made ready to fly to Frankfurt and meet the hostages at their presumed arrival point, an Air Force base in Wiesbaden, West Germany. Then, as had happened so many times before, expectations sank back to earth. The Majlis said that the hostages would be released in groups as conditions were met, and Muskie rejected any piecemeal return. But Carter did agree in principle to meet Khomeini's four conditions, to the extent that they were consistent with U.S. law.