Word: first
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Sunday, while the Iranians were still making preparations to release the first of the hostages, came a shocking announcement that promised only to worsen the crisis. Many of the remaining hostages, proclaimed a spokesman for the students, would now be tried for espionage in the Islamic Revolutionary Courts and "punished in accordance with the severity of their crimes." The Ayatullah himself later confirmed the scheme, adding that the trials would only be halted and the hostages let go if the U.S. returned the Shah. Warned a senior official of West Germany's foreign ministry when told of the threat: "With...
...promise to release some of the hostages, the Iranians dawdled through the weekend and by early Monday Iran time, nearly 40 hours after the first announcement, not a single American had been freed. Instead, the students staged a circus act in the embassy compound, trotting out three of the captives who were
...Thursday, when Banisadr first said the Iranians might release some hostages, the student leaders actually occupying the embassy property quickly asserted that they took orders only from the Ayatullah Khomeini, and that nobody was going to be released until the U.S. had sent the Shah back to Iran. Admitted one White House official: "We don't know with any certainty who these students are or who's in charge. That doubles the trouble...
...presumably cleared when the Mexican government announced that as a precaution, it had temporarily closed its Tehran embassy and that the Shah was welcome to return to his exile in Cuernavaca. It had been presumed for days that having the Shah leave the U.S. would be a useful first step in resolving the plight of the hostages. But typical of the unpredictability of events was an announcement by the students in the embassy late in the week, that the flight of the Shah to any third country could result in "harsher decisions being taken against the hostages...
President Carter was awakened at 5:35 Saturday morning with the news from Tehran that Khomeini had called for the release of a few of the hostages. But then followed a delay. On Sunday night, the students summoned foreign newsmen to a press conference with the first three of the hostages scheduled to be freed...