Video Transcript
John W. Limbert—Tehran 1979:
In October of 1979, we learned that President Carter had decided to admit the Shah to the United States for medical treatment. This came at a time when, at least from the Iranian point of view, it looked like the revolution was going off the track. There were a lot of problems. There were ethnic problems, there were internecine squabbles. The revolution to its partisans seemed under siege from left and from right. Bringing the Shah in was frankly not the best decision in hindsight. And we in Tehran, in our thoughts, were hung out to dry – and we were expendable.
I was in the chancery. We locked down the chancery. The idea being that “we are not going to be in a shootout with this mob.” We delay them, stop them from coming in long enough to give the local authorities – who are responsible, under every international convention, over thousands of years of international practice – who are responsible for the safety of foreign emissaries. Give them a time to respond. After a short time, an hour or two of telephone conversations with the local government, the so-called Provisional Government, the Foreign Ministry, the Prime Minister’s office, with Washington, it became clear to us we were on our own. And if anyone was going to do anything, we were going to have to do it. At the same time there was a great concern lest there be bloodshed. And we know now the attackers had plans that if one of them was shot or wounded, they had plans to take the body and display the body to the crowd. Had that happened, instead of facing maybe 1,000 attackers, we might have been facing 100,000 attackers.
Response
There was no sign of anyone doing anything. Then I made one of the worst decisions of my career. I volunteered to go out and talk to these people, and see if I could talk this thing down. It wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did. I did go out. I tried to play the overbearing role. “What are you doing here? Get out of here! You have no business here!” All of those things. They weren’t having any of it. I told them there was a detachment of revolutionary guards – that Khomeini had ordered revolutionary guards to clear the compound. They weren’t having any of this. And very soon I also came to be a captive. And the students then announced that if the door wasn’t open in five minutes, they would shoot me and the security officer. I don’t know if they were bluffing. Maybe they were. I was very glad that no one called their bluff.
One thing I discovered and I think that prisoners perhaps have discovered this from time immemorial, is that being in that situation focuses the mind. You focus on one thing and one thing only. A lot of things that you care about – political issues, economic issues, international issues – mean nothing to you. And one thing becomes very important and that is: “Get me out of here!” And whatever it takes. And so, for example, my view was if the Iranians wanted the Shah back, to let me go, that was fine with me. We could throw in Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller in the bargain. That was fine too. I didn’t have any problem with that. If they wanted 24 billion dollars or some F14s, I didn’t see any problems with that either. That seemed a fair enough trade for me. But as a matter of fact, there were some 70 of us. Then 13 were let out. Most of the blacks and women were let go. And then one of our colleagues was sent home with MS. So then eventually there were 52 of us. There were probably 52 different ways of coping, and the important thing is that probably what works for you works. People have different strategies, but if it works for you, that works. And at the day one survives and you can look at yourself in the mirror afterwards and like what you see, then things are probably right.
Personal Qualities
I had basically lived in Iran before. I had taught in a university there. I had taught at high schools and universities. Most of the students, of our captors, were about the age of our students. Many of them were university students. So I adopted the attitude of a university professor towards them. I was cool, I was formal, I was reserved. And I found that they reacted towards me as a student would react towards a teacher – with respect in most cases and with an acknowledgement of status. In other words, using what I knew about the people who were holding us, and using what I knew about the cultural setting that we were in, I had to use whatever leverage I had to establish some kind of power vis-a-vis the people holding me. It was strange, it was paradoxical, because of course they could have shot me any time they wanted. But what I found was if I acted towards them in a certain way as I would towards – I was 36 or 37 years old – if I acted to them as a professor might, as a teacher might, then they would react to me 98% of the time as a student would. So I did all that I could to establish that kind of relation towards them. That obviously couldn’t work for everybody there. But it meant – the basic is there – that the more you know and the more you understand about the motivations of whom you’re dealing with, maybe the easier it is. I did this as obviously a coping technique, but also frankly as a survival technique. In the back of my mind there was always the thought that there could be at some point a rescue attempt, which there was. And if this relationship meant that the person guarding me would hesitate for 15 or 20 seconds before carrying out an order to shoot, it could mean the difference between surviving and not surviving.
Advice
The situation we were in wasn’t supposed to happen. People don’t do these things. Yes, embassies do get attacked occasionally, people do get captured, but they don’t get held for 14 months at the center of some great international incident. That’s not supposed to happen. Prepare yourself mentally for things you don’t expect. Today’s seemingly calm and stable situation may not last, and can collapse very quickly and unexpectedly. My advice to people is: know yourself. Don’t set standards for yourself if – God forbid – you’re in a situation like this, like the situation we found ourselves. Don’t set standards for yourself that you can’t meet. Don’t “should” on yourself. What do I mean by this? Don’t say, “I should’ve done this, I should’ve done that.” What works, works for you. Keep faith with your colleagues. Rely on your colleagues. Don’t betray them, rely on them. Know that they can rely on you. I was personally in solitary for about 9 months of the 14 months, but, where we could, we communicated with each other. And people communicated with me. We passed whatever news we had. We didn’t have much, but whatever information we had. One of the colleagues taught me a tap code, based on a grid system prisoners use. I didn’t know it. Would’ve been nice if I knew it from the beginning, but with that we were able to pass more information.