Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam (Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America) PDF
Preview Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and America's First Encounter with Radical Islam (Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America)
PoliticsandSocietyinTwentieth-CenturyAmerica SeriesEditors WilliamChafe,GaryGerstle,LindaGordon,andJulianZelizer Alistoftitlesinthisseriesappearsatthebackofthebook DAVID FARBER THE IRAN HOSTAGE CRISIS AND AMERICA’S FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH RADICAL ISLAM PRINCETONUNIVERSITYPRESS PRINCETONANDOXFORD Copyright2005byPrincetonUniversityPress PublishedbyPrincetonUniversityPress,41WilliamStreet, Princeton,NewJersey08540 IntheUnitedKingdom:PrincetonUniversityPress, 3MarketPlace,Woodstock,OxfordshireOX201SY AllRightsReserved. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Farber,DavidR. Takenhostage:theIranhostagecrisisandAmerica’sfirstencounter withradicalIslam/DavidFarber. p. cm. — (Politicsandsocietyintwentieth-centuryAmerica) Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN0-691-11916-3(alk.paper) 1.IranHostageCrisis,1979–1981.2.UnitedStates—Foreignrelations—Iran. 3.Iran—Foreignrelations—UnitedStates.4.UnitedStates—Foreign relations—1977–1981.5.Islamandpolitics—Iran.I.Title.II.Series. E183.8.I55F372004 955.05′42—dc22 2004046639 BritishLibraryCataloging-in-PublicationDataisavailable. ThisbookhasbeencomposedinSabonandHelveticaNeueFamily Printedonacid-freepaper.∞ www.pupress.princeton.edu PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Chapter1 Crisis,Chaos,andJimmyCarter 9 Chapter2 TheShah,Khomeini,andthe“GreatSatan” 35 Chapter3 TakeoverinTehran 73 Chapter4 ShaslikNergBessawariAzerbaiyanor “TheRedBlindfoldWouldBeLovely” 102 Chapter5 444Days 137 Epilogue 181 Notes 191 Index 205 This page intentionally left blank THISBOOKwouldnothavebeenpossiblewithoutthesupportand encouragement of many people. First, my thanks to the talented team of archivists at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. With- outtheirhelpfulsuggestionsthisbookcouldnothavebeenwritten. Thanks,too,tothelibrarystaffatZimmermanLibrary,University ofNewMexico,whokeptfindingthebooksandjournalsIneeded. Diplomatic historians Fred Logevall and Richard Immerman read the penultimate draft of this book and pushed me to think harderabouttheCarteradministrationforeignpolicyteamandto understand the context of U.S.-Iranian relations. I am honored to havehadthesetwosuperbscholarsreviewthiswork.Iamindebted to all the readers selected by Princeton University Press to review themanuscriptandtotheserieseditors,whosupportedthisproject throughoutthepublicationprocess.Theproseisstronger,theanal- ysis keener, and the facts straighter because of their efforts. This projectwouldneverhaveflownwithoutthecommitmentofPrince- tonUniversityPresseditorBrigittavanRheinberg.Hercarefulread ofthemanuscriptwasimmenselyencouragingandhelpful.Iwould also like to thank my international colleagues, especially Jun Fu- ruya, Fumiaki Kubo, Melani Budianti, and Pia Alishibana, who haveoverthelastfewyearsinvitedmetogivetalksonrecentAmer- icanhistoryandpoliticsinFrance,Japan,andIndonesia.Inpartic- ular, questions I received from Islamic students in Padang, West Sumatra,aboutAmericanpolicyintheMiddleEastinfluencedmy viewsoninternationalperceptionsoftheUnitedStatesandcontrib- utedtomydesiretowritethisbook.Ialsothinkthemanystudents Acknowledgments whoaskedsuchprobingquestionsatKeioUniversityinTokyoand attheUniversityofIndonesiainJakarta.MythankstotheCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the Fulbright Commission, theOrganizationofAmericanHistorians,andtheJapaneseAssoci- ation for American Studies. My son, Max, read several sections of the manuscript and in- sisted that I keep the prose taut. Having someone read the manu- script who does not remember the 1980s (except Teenage Mutant NinjaTurtles),letaloneJimmyCarter’spresidency,wasquiteuse- ful in historicizing the story. Once again, Beth Bailey read every word of the many drafts of this book and thought through every aspectoftheprojectwithme.Sheurgedmetospendasmuchtime asIneededinAtlantaattheCarterLibraryandtotakesometime offtobicyclethroughVietnam.Nineteenyears,fourteenhomes(a conservativeestimate),thirteenjobs,thirteenbooks,andcounting. IdecidedtowritethisbookaftertheSeptember11attack.Iwas scheduled that day to give a lecture about race in early twentieth- centuryAmericanhistory;instead,mystudentsandImainlytalked aboutwhatdrivespeopletocommitsuchcruelanddespicableacts and what, if anything, history could tell us about such horrors. Thehostage-takingthattookplaceonNovember4,1979,andthe terror that was unleashed on September 11, 2001, are very differ- ent kinds of events. Nonetheless, this book does aim to explain howonekindoffierceanti-Americanism developedinonepartof the Islamic world and, in turn, how Americans responded to it. Seeing the Iran hostage crisis as the first major act in an interna- tional struggle might, I hope, help us all gain perspective on the tortured relationship between the United States and the forces of political Islam. viii
The list of books you might like
