The Foreign Service Journal, March 2009

Iran, Reza Pahlevi, to seek cancer treatment in New York City. My su- pervisor also stated that this could re- sult in trouble for the U.S. embassy. I was informed during my embassy orientation that the Ayatollah Ruhol- lah Khomeini was unhappy that Pres. Carter was allowing the shah into the U.S. and that Iran would “retaliate” in some manner. I was told that this re- taliation could take the form of con- tinued harassment of embassy person- nel, possible assassination of individu- als (considered extreme) or the hijack- ing of an embassy van with all on board to be held as hostages. I was further informed that this assessment had been forwarded to Washington prior to the president’s de- cision to allow the former shah into the U.S. No one anticipated the act that eventually occurred, nor do I believe that anyone believed such an event possible. Upon being taken hostage on Nov. 4, 1979, at about 3:15 p.m., I was in- formed, after considerable intimida- tion, that the shah must be returned to Iran to stand trial, and that was why the embassy was overrun. We — at least 15 embassy employees seated around or near the dining table in Amb. Lain- gen’s residence — were told that we would be held hostage until the U.S. complied with this demand. The “students” (I use that term loosely because several were in fa- tigues and were carrying automatic weapons as well as side arms) chose the only day and time of day when al- most everyone who worked or had any business on the embassy compound would be within the embassy walls, Sunday morning. In the Islamic world, Sunday is akin to Monday in the West, the first business day of the week. I do not believe that this entire episode was the result of an encounter in Algiers three days earlier. I will grant that during the first two weeks after the takeover there was mass confusion on the part of our cap- tors, and they took full advantage of keeping us off-balance and afraid. I, for one, was handcuffed for the first two weeks or more, after which these were intermittently replaced with hand- ties. (My hands were eventually un- tied in February 1980.) We were not allowed to speak to each other until March 1980. We were permitted only to speak to the guards and only to request permission to go to the bathroom and so forth. Every time I went to the bathroom I was blind- folded for the duration. My own experience leads me to be- lieve that the meeting between Bazar- gan and Brzezinski had little or noth- ing to do with the U.S. embassy take- over. This plan was well thought out and well executed, meaning (in my humble opinion) that the students were supported by Pasdaran and Komiteh elements. Clair C. Barnes Foreign Service Staff Officer, retired Leland, N.C. Diversity and the Pale Male The letter in the December 2008 Journal lamenting the 12-year hiatus since the last white male Secretary of State truly amazed me. Over 200 years passed before the first female or Afri- can-American was appointed to that esteemed position. That unbroken succession of “pale males,” as Teresa Chin Jones put it, was treated as nor- mal. Yet she seems to suggest that it is abnormal and, to some extent, defi- cient to have a stretch where eminently qualified women and members of mi- nority groups have been selected to serve as Secretary of State. At a time when the first African-American has been elected president of the United States, we can only hope that such a trend would continue. The author also labels as racist a re- mark by former Secretary Condo- leezza Rice noting the rarity of seeing “somebody who looks like me” in her meetings around the department. During my own career at State, I had occasion to hear several so-called “pale male” Secretaries of State make similar comments regarding the absence of di- versity. Should their observations also be considered racist? While we have come a long way as a democratic society, we have hardly 8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 9 L E T T E R S