Word: said
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Khomeini's original threat against the 49 was conditional: "If Carter does not return the Shah, it is possible that the hostages may be put on trial," but his intentions seemed clear. The prisoners, Khomeini said, were not diplomats but people "whose acts of espionage have been proved on the basis of evidence." If the hostages are tried, he added, "Carter knows what will happen." Iran's Deputy Chief Islamic Prosecutor Hassan Ghaffarpour was explicit. If the hostages are found guilty of espionage, he said, they would be "executed by firing squad...
Ayatullah Khomeini's speech, which included an incredible taunt. The President, said Khomeini, "knows that he is beating an empty drum. Carter does not have the guts to engage in a military operation...
When the President heard that, said one aide, "he clenched his teeth so tight that his jaw turned white." The reaction went far beyond personal pique: Carter and his aides took the speech as a sign that the Ayatullah had misread U.S. restraint as an indication that the nation was afraid to take any action. They agreed that he must be disabused of that notion. The President, who was spending Thanksgiving week at Camp David, returned immediately to the White House by helicopter for a late-afternoon meeting with the Special Coordination Committee, which has been meeting twice...
...Within an instant after hearing the first word of a suspicious movement" by the American ships, they said, they would blow up the embassy and kill all the hostages. Khomeini, on television, added: "I have no doubt that they would...
...sounding bloodthirsty, others somewhat conciliatory. Acting Foreign Minister Abol Hassan Banisadr, who seems torn between two factions, managed to echo both themes at once last week. "If the U.S. Government intervenes militarily against Iran, all Iranians will fight to the last drop of blood," he proclaimed. But he also said: "The U.S., as a land of free people, can neither submit to the humiliation of surrendering a sick man [the Shah] to a regime such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, nor can it take any pleasure in the humiliation of saving the lives of about...