The Foreign Service Journal, March 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MARCH 2015 33 Foreign Service Political Officer Michael Metrinko spent most of his 14 months as a hostage in solitary confinement. Here is his story. BY M I CHAE L METR I NKO W hat happened on Novem- ber 4, 1979? I generally got into the embassy late because I would go out every night. I would not get home until midnight or 1 a.m. I was one of the few people who was going out, but I was also seeing a whole wide range of people who were useful to the embassy, for reporting and to get things done. On Nov. 3, I had been contacted by two of Ayatollah Taleghani’s sons, saying they wanted to meet me the next morning at the embassy. I told them that I wouldn’t be able to get there until around 11 a.m. or so. They were insistent it had to be earlier, because they were leaving to see Yasser Arafat and they wanted to talk to me before they went. This was logical, knowing these two people, so I agreed to be there early. I was in my office waiting for my friends to call. I noticed that there was a tremendous amount of activity around the embassy. The noise level had just picked up considerably, and when we looked out we could see lots of heads. Suddenly the heads were coming over the walls. And that was that. When I got to the main floor, people were at the doors. Then it was a matter of battening down the hatches. I was part of the group in the ambassador’s office—a large group with some discipline, not a tremendous amount. The chargé, his deputy and the regional security officer were gone, so there was some confusion over who was in charge. There was more noise outside. The phone lines were still working. We were The 1979 Hostage Crisis: Down and Out in Tehran FOCUS ON IRAN Michael Metrinko addressing a huge crowd in Scranton, Pa., the first stop en route to his hometown from Iran in January 1981.