Word: khomeini
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Tabatabai in September offered a remarkable test of his credentials and Iran's willingness to get down to business. He sent the West Germans a message that within the next few days Khomeini would publicly spell out four demands in exchange for the hostages' release, and provided the text of those demands. As if he were reading a script, Khomeini interrupted a rambling anti-American speech on Sept. 12 to list the four conditions exactly as Tabatabai had detailed them. They were: a U.S. pledge not to interfere in Iranian internal affairs, the unblocking of Iran...
...Bonn on Sept. 18 and 19. Christopher presented the quick and clean solution, and the Iranian seemed open to the idea. Recalls one U.S. participant in the talks: "He was obviously interested. We thought we were very close to getting something done. At last we had a conduit to Khomeini." But the possible breakthrough was soon smashed. Iraq invaded Iran, and the leadership in Iran turned its attention away from the hostages. The American diplomats switched to the other alternative of detailed negotiations. After the American election, the possibility of a deal faced a new and strict deadline...
...Christopher flew to Algeria to present the first specific American response to the four Khomeini conditions, which had been adopted by the Iranian parliament on Nov. 2. Algeria was the natural intermediary because it had been representing Iran's interests in the U.S. since the closing of Tehran's embassy in Washington in April 1980. Two weeks after the Christopher mission, Iran sent a message that showed some curiosity about the U.S. proposals. On Dec. 2, Christopher arrived in Algiers with added detail on the American position and suggested ways of solving the toughest issue: the frozen Iranian...
...past 14½ months may offer the only way out of a blind rage. Blindness has been a metaphor throughout. The U.S. was blind not to see the extent and temper of the Iranian revolution against the Shah; blind fanatics seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran; the Ayatullah Khomeini's blind sense of vengeance sanctioned the seizure; and the hostages suffered their own blindness, held in solitary and the dark. All year long, photographs of American heads in blindfolds became icons of the crime. Now the U.S. itself is like those blindfolded prisoners as they unwrap their bindings...
...essential oil supply. Also, the Pueblo crew was in fact spying, and they were doing so against a country with which the U.S. had no diplomatic relations. Beyond that, Kim II Sung's regime, while hardly a dream government, was a lot easier to deal with than Khomeini's. The North Koreans know how to practice discretion and secrecy, while in revolutionary Iran it was hard to find any government to deal with, and every move was a public riot...