Iranian Hostage Research Articles

An Ex-Marine Sees "Platoon"

During the Iranian hostage crisis, I was teaching a class on the economics of less developed countries at Georgetown University. There was a warlike mood in Washington in those waning days of Carter wimpishness when I asked for a show of hands on how many supported a U.S. war with Iran. The vote was 60 to 3 in favor of war. Then I asked how many thought the United States ought to go back to a universal military draft. The vote was 59 to 4 against. The one who switched was an Iranian student. I have cherished this incident as proof of the mindless military rambunctiousness that grows up among preppies who feel secure from the sobering hook of the draft. The film Platoon now brings the acrid aroma of the possibility that war has costs to the nostrils of the me generation.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, 1981-1983. Edited by Richard B. Lillich. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985. Pp. viii, 175. Index. $25. - American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis. By Warren Christopher, Harold H. Saunders, Gary Sick, Robert Carswell, Richard J. Davis, John E. HoffmanJr. , and Roberts B. Owen, with commentaries by Oscar Schachter and Abraham

The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, 1981-1983. Edited by Richard B. Lillich. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985. Pp. viii, 175. Index. $25. - American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis. By Warren Christopher, Harold H. Saunders, Gary Sick, Robert Carswell, Richard J. Davis, John E. HoffmanJr. , and Roberts B. Owen, with commentaries by Oscar Schachter and Abraham A. Ribicoff. Published under the auspices of the Council on Foreign Relations. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985. Pp. xiv, 443. Index. $25. - Volume 81 Issue 1

Reflections: Ethnographic content analysis

An ethnographic approach to document analysis is offered based on principles of qualitative data collection and analysis. It is proposed that numeric as well as narrative data be collected when studying such documents as TV new and movies. Ethnographic content analysis is briefly contrasted with conventional modes of quantitative content analysis to illustrate the usefulness of constant comparison for discovering emergent patterns, emphases and themes in an analysis of TV news coverage of the Iranian hostage situation. It is suggested that an ethnographic perspective can help delineate patterns of human action when document analysis is conceptualized as fieldwork.

Television and U.S. Foreign Policy: The Case of the Iran Hostage Crisis

by James F. Larson A number of general propositions about TV and foreign policy provide the backdrop against which U.S. television network news coverage of Iran between 1972 and 1981-and especially the crisis--can be interpreted. Iran is both a compelling case study and a major landmark in our understanding of the structural relationship between television news and U.S. foreign policy. One focal point of such a study is the 444-day crisis involving U.S. hostages in Teheran, beginning with their seizure on November 4, 1979. The Iran crisis was quintessentially visual in nature. It evokes visual memories of angry crowds outside the U.S. embassy in Teheran, armed ''students'' who overran the embassy and seized hostages, the bearded Ayatollah Khomeini surrounded by followers, clergy visits to the hostages at Easter and Christmas, and charred bodies of U.S. servicemen left in the desert after an abortive rescue mission. Additional imagery emanated from the United States: repeated briefings by State Department press spokesman Hodding Carter, comments from the White House by President Carter's press secretary, Jody Powell, the statements and activities of wives and families, ABC'S creation and promotion of an evening news special called America Held hostage and, not least, Walter Cronkite's weeknight newscast reminders of the duration of the hostages' captivity. James F. Larson is Assistant Professor in the School of Communications, University of Washington. 108

Hostage negotiations: Types, processes, outcomes

In recent years hostage taking has become a frequently used tactic of political terrorists. Besides generating terror, hostage taking can also achieve the tangible outcome of ransom as well as the intangible, critically important political outcome of forcing governments to negotiate with-and possibly yield to-groups they would be otherwise reluctant to recognize. The potential impact of a hostagetaking incident intensifies in direct proportion to the duration of the incident and the mass media coverage it receives. This coverage not only highlights the actions of the terrorists and the fate of their hostages, but also exposes the behavior of authorities to immediate public scrutiny. These unique features of hostage taking assure its repeated use by terrorists. Modern hostage incidents have varied considerably in both development and outcomes. Sometimes authorities have hastily capitulated (e.g. , the 1976 Croatian skyjacking) while at other times target governments have steadfastly refused to concede (e.g., the 1978 Moro case in Italy and Schleier's in West Germany, 1977) or have mounted complex and hazardous rescue operations (e.g., the 1976 Entebbe raid, the 1977 Mogadishu raid and the aborted U.S. effort to free American hostages in Iran in 1980). Clearly, the circumstances and personalities involved in each hostage incident differ and seem to defy generalization. Some generalizations are pOSSible, nevertheless. In my opinion, the probability that a hostage incident can be peacefully resolved via bargaining or, by contrast, become a potentially violent test of brinkmanship generally depends on two factors: 1. The perpetrators' immediate objectives; and 2. The established policy of the target government toward hostage tactics. Both of these factors have a direct effect on bargaining and brinkmanShip. It follows that an analysis of these factors and linkages between them can yield some useful tactical principles for the settlement of hostage incidents; these factors are discussed in the first section of the article. Hostage incidents differ in their likelihood of either being resolved via bargaining or, alternatively, degenerating into contests of brinkmanship. Bargaining and brinkmanship in hostage situations are discussed in the second section of the paper, while the third section offers some tactical advice on the management of hostage incidents. This advice bears primarily on those incidents where a negotiated solution is difficult or impossible, that is, incidents that are dominated by the dynamicS of brinkmanship.

In defence of numerical techniquesgl

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to say a few kind words for numerical techniques, which have become the object of some undeserved criticism. Probability information is part of decision‐making, be it intuitive or analytical. In this age of the personal computer we do not have to go to great lengths to quantify this information, so why not do it? The failure to rescue hostages in Iran is a dramatic example that reliance on intuition can have bad results. On the side of numerical techniques, three examples of successful and practical applications are described. It is concluded that ‘the numbers game’ contributes worthwhile support to decision‐making and should continue to co‐exist with ‘shirt‐sleeve’ efforts to improve products and policies.

Book Reviews : American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis, edited by Warren Christopher et al., Yale University Press, 1985, £25.00

Book Reviews : American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis, edited by Warren Christopher et al., Yale University Press, 1985, £25.00

American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis

American Hostages in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis

American hostages in Iran: the conduct of a crisis and All fall down: America's fateful encounter with Iran

American hostages in Iran: the conduct of a crisis and All fall down: America's fateful encounter with Iran

The Cuban Boatlift of 1980: Strategies in Federal Crisis Management

The Cuban boatlift of 1980 has had considerable implications for public attitudes and official actions toward overall immigration and refugee policy. The flotilla was a political liability for the Carter administration in Florida, and seemed to underscore nationally the administration's image of poor executive leadership. It occurred at a time of extreme difficulty for President Jimmy Carter, corresponding with the failure of the mission to rescue the American hostages in Iran, and with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's resignation. The chief executive was facing a decisive challenge for the democratic nomination for the presidency from Senator Edward Kennedy and was struggling to keep campaign commitments to balance the federal budget, which antagonized several democratic constituent groups. Nevertheless, the boatlift problem had to be met. While it was a surprise to the American public and to most policymakers in Washington, the Cuban boatlift had been forecast by intelligence agencies three months prior to the arrival of the first boats. It exemplified the federal government's lack of control over the arrival of large numbers of asylum seekers, uninvited and without immigration clearances. However, a close examination of the crisis reveals a number of opportunities that the federal government had to prevent or control the crisis and provides a framework for responding to similar experiences in the future.

International Communication: A Dialogue of the Deaf?

Abstract International communication has come increasingly under the impact of at least three major technological, socio‐economic, and political forces: expanded channels of communication provided by technological developments, democratizing pressures that have brought new voices to be heard in international media and forums, and new but as yet weak mechanisms for the conduct of meaningful dialogue and negotiations. Power politics has been thus increasingly supplemented or supplanted by image politics, questioning traditional boundaries between domestic and international politics, and creating image fixations that have proved occasionally inimical to accommodation of real interests. The symbolic uses of images, on the other hand, have served at least three kinds of cognitive interests: national solidarity, and domestic instrumental and global community. The Iranian hostage crisis, among a number of other contemporary examples, illustrates how these interests were served, symbolically and actually, in dome...

Network Television Coverage of the Iranian Hostage Crisis

Network Television Coverage of the Iranian Hostage Crisis

Justice as Equitable Reciprocity: Aquinas Updated

It May Seem Strange but it is true that we are more keenly aware of injustice than of justice. There is the great current interest in the story of Jacobo Timerman’s apparently unjust incarceration in Argentina. He claims that his personal rights were violated in many ways by certain elements in what he regards as an unjust state. Nearer to home is the case of the long detention of United States hostages in Iran. In this instance, from the American viewpoint, there was unfair treatment of more than fifty Americans whose individual freedoms were unjustly denied for a long period. But there was also some question of injustice in the attitude of the government of Iran, and of concomitant claims to a just solution on the part of the people and government of the United States of America. It would even have been possible for a supra-national organization, such as the Arab League or the United Nations to take a stand on this international incident.

International communication: A dialogue of the deaf?

Abstract International communication has come increasingly under the impact of at least three major technological, socio‐economic, and political forces: expanded channels of communication provided by technological developments, democratizing pressures that have brought new voices to be heard in international media and forums, and new but as yet weak mechanisms for the conduct of meaningful dialogue and negotiations. Power politics has been thus increasingly supplemented or supplanted by image politics, questioning traditional boundaries between domestic and international politics, and creating image fixations that have proved occasionally inimical to accommodation of real interests. The symbolic uses of images, on the other hand, have served at least three kinds of cognitive interests: national solidarity, and domestic instrumental and global community. The Iranian hostage crisis, among a number of other contemporary examples, illustrates how these interests were served, symbolically and actually, in dome...

The Iranian Hostage Agreement under International and United States Law

The Iranian Hostage Agreement under International and United States Law

Victims of the Iranian Hostage Crisis: Nursing Interventions

On November 4,1979, Iranian terrorists took 53 Americans hostage at the embassy in Tehran and set into motion a national crisis — not only for the individual hostages and their families, but also for the staffs of the governmental agencies involved in the release negotiations. The incarceration of the Americans in Iran for 444 days will clearly be considered a critical life event of significant magnitude for both the returned hostages and for their families. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to describe the Task Force on Families of Catastrophe and its role in the Iranian crisis; and second, to identify ways in which nurses can be effective in dealing with victims and families caught in political and social upheaval. It will be useful here to briefly review crisis intervention theory.

The State of American Federalism in 1980

Historians will probably distinguish 1980 as an election year of voter frustration and a demand for change. Judging by the headlines, one could hardly expect otherwise of a year that began and ended with the hostages in Iran, indecision in Washington, and inflation at record levels. But it would be a mistake to distinguish the politics of 1980 in this way. As an election year, 1980 was more of a continuation of the trends begun in 1976 than a departure from them. It was, afterall, voter frustration--over a seemingly uncontrollable economy and world order-and the call for a beginning that helped to elect Jimmy Carter in 1976. And it was the failure to bring inflation and government spending under control that accounted for many of the victories of the Proposition 13 movement and the Republican party in 1978. In this respect, the election victory of Ronald Reagan and other Republicans in 1980 was the result of a third message sent out by a new generation of voters to continue voting for new alternatives until someone got it right. The implication of this interpretation is clear: A new electorate of independent voters gave Reagan the same opportunity in 1980 that they gave Carter in 1976; and if Reagan fails, the electorate will try again in 1984. For this reason, the upshot of the 1980 elections will depend on what the new administration accomplishes in 1981 and how the electorate responds in 1982. As James Q. Wilson suggests:

The Brandt report

It must be remembered that while the Brandt Commission started its work in December 1977, the final version of its Report was written (after earlier unfruitful attempts to put together some conflicting drafts and proposals) in the late autumn of 1979; it appeared in English in mid-February 1980 and it was commented on briefly and with certain sympathy by the international mass media shortly afterwards. The Commission's work coincides with the most turbulent period of the most recent economic history, marked by the steady deterioration of not only the North-South relations but of the world's economic conditions. Thus, one can hardly be surprised that most US and European immediate comments argued that while the contents of the Report were worth reading and most recommendations sounded reasonable, the timing of its release was highly unfortunate. That timing was not of the Commission's making. The Report saw the light at the time when the interest of western industrial countries in the problems of the underdeveloped South reached the lowest point since the end of World War II due both to the serious domestic economic difficulties in the advanced countries and to the revival of the Cold War between the two superpowers. Neither should one be surprised that although the document was reported to be the subject of conversations between the Presidents of Austria and Mexico during the latter's visit to Europe last May, not much was heard on either side of the North Atlantic about the Brandt Report during the spring of 1980. The US mass media and public opinion were fully absorbed by the electoral campaign, the steep deterioration of the domestic economy and, marginally, by the issue of the hostages in Iran and the Afganistan conflict. Over the same period the European mass media and governments were occupied with no less depressing economic news coming from their side of the Atlantic; the protracted EEC squabble between London and Brussels, and the French and West German manoeuvres aimed at reestablishing political and strategic contacts with the Soviet Union without endangering the North Atlantic alliance. In this highly tense international, regional and national context there was clearly very little room for the North-South problems and even less for a serious study of the

The dynamics of presidential support during international conflict situations: The Iranian hostage crisis

Public opinion data concerning President Carter's handling of the Iranian hostage crisis are used to analyze (1) the factors that facilitate support for the President's handling of international conflict situations, and (2) the factors that influence the persistence of such support. Analysis reveals that support for the President's performance is enhanced if one holds a favorable personal image of the President, if one's own policy preferences are congruent with the President's actions, and if one belongs to the President's party. Over time, the impact of these factors grows, reflecting the fact that those who hold unfavorable images of the President, who disagree with the policies he is pursuing, and who belong to the opposition party fall out of the support coalition at an unusually high rate.

The news media and one world

Abstract There is a serious question whether people in the United States get adequate news to permit them to make intelligent decisions on international issues. In the press of the Northwest in the years following the Vietnam War there was probably less foreign news available than in the isolationist thirties. Since the end of 1979 the Iranian hostage issue and Afghanistan have dominated the national news, but there still is a dearth of world news not involving drama and confrontation. The institution of a free press is above challenge, but our media could be improved by constructive criticisms and pressures. Other measures to improve the. situation include symposiums and commentary on world issues suitable for the local media.