Word: americans
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Fearful for the safety of the hostages, the State Department refused to release their names, but the identities of most of them gradually became known. Among them were political officers, Marines, code clerks, secretaries, the kinds of people who staff American embassies throughout the world. Tomseth, the second in command, was the ranking captive. Those held included Mike Holland, the burly security chief; Ann Swift, an efficient, Farsi-speaking officer who during the takeover tried over and over to reach the acting Defense Minister; Mike Matrinko, who was a consul in Tabriz last spring when the mission was overrun...
...Mehrabad Airport, the chances of saving the hostages would still be slim to none. In contrast to the Entebbe situation, where the Israelis were being held at a relatively lightly guarded airport on the outskirts of Kampala, a city with a population of only some 350,000, the American hostages were in downtown Tehran. To get to the embassy, U.S. forces would have to fight their way through streets probably clogged deliberately by huge crowds called out by the Ayatullah Khomeini. Many Iranians would undoubtedly have weapons, including perhaps a few of their army's armored cars and even...
Indeed, such a move by the U.S. would scarcely be without precedent. A handful of Marines, for example, were landed in Tripoli in 1801 to punish the Barbary pirates, and a century later some 2,500 American servicemen were rushed to China to help put down the Boxers who had been attacking diplomatic missions in Peking. It was in part to protect American lives that Dwight Eisenhower dispatched Marines to Lebanon in 1958, and Lyndon Johnson sent them to the Dominican Republic in 1965. In Washington's most recent use of force, Gerald Ford ordered U.S. units to retake...
...also difficult because U.S. planes would be detected as they neared Iran. Even though the Iranian air force's capability has deteriorated dramatically in the past year, its radar units might well be able to pick up approaching aircraft. In any event, the Soviets would surely spot the American planes. Observed Zumwalt: "The Russians would alert the Iranians just to cause us trouble." There would also be the possibility, though not great, that U.S. planes could be shot down by Iranian antiaircraft missiles-all of course supplied...
...Waving American flags and carrying an outsize picture of John Wayne, 1,500 angry Texans marched on the Iranian consulate in Houston. In Beverly Hills, police arrested 136 anti-Shah Iranian demonstrators who were attacked by a mob shouting, "Deport! Deport! Deport!" In Springfield, Mass., 30 Iranian students demanding the Shah's extradition were pelted with rocks, bottles and eggs. At the University of Minnesota, students hurled snowballs at protesting members of a Muslim student association. A few blocks from the White House, 900 Iranian demonstrators traded taunts, and even a few punches, with jeering bystanders chanting, "A thousand...