Word: one
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...light and tragic and funny and sad and tears and laughter and tantrums and where are my contact lenses and I've got to go to the bathroom and all sorts of problems." With this torrent of words, in a voice breaking with emotion, Elizabeth Montagne, 42, one of the 13 U.S. hostages released from the U.S. embassy in Tehran last week, provided an insight into the continuing ordeal of the remaining 49 Americans being kept prisoner in the embassy. Montagne's comments were made at a bizarre news conference organized in the U.S. embassy compound...
Inside the compound, the men were held in various buildings and the women kept together in the one residence. From the beginning, the routine for the prisoners seems to have been highly organized. The day would start around 6:30 a.m., when their keepers would untie the prisoners, lead them under guard to the bathrooms, then provide what Montagne called "a substantial meal" of bread, butter and cheese. All except the smokers, who were allowed a few moments for cigarettes, would then be tied up again until the next meal. The precious extra moments of unrestricted movement caused...
...hostages were sometimes bound to the chairs they sat in, or occasionally hand and foot. They tried to while away the hours by reading. In the beginning some hostages were blindfolded for days on end, and later guards capriciously bound the eyes of some again. On one occasion, the Iranian female guards watching the American women took away all books, though they gave them back when the Americans protested. With nothing to do, and kept immobile, the hostages spent hours thinking about the next meal, which meant both relief from hunger induced by boredom and freedom to move their arms...
...Iranians seem to have concentrated on the men in their efforts to get information about embassy activities. James Hughes, 30, one of the embassy's military personnel, was blindfolded and made to sit on a table during an interrogation...
...One of the worst forms of pressure came from the hostages' complete dependence on their captors. They had to ask permission to perform the simplest activities, from drinking a glass of water to even going to sleep. Said Air Force Captain Neal ("Terry") Robinson, 27, an administrator in the embassy's budget section: "They were our fathers and mothers...