The Foreign Service Journal, October 2004

R EFLECTIONS A Real Hatchet Job B Y T HOMAS R. H UTSON O ne day in early 1971, our refined, elegant administrative counselor, John Hedberg, asked me to go to the ambassador’s residence for a ceremony. It was mid-morning, and there were only a handful of people pre- sent: Amb. Douglas MacArthur II and Mrs. MacArthur; John, the deputy chief of mission (the self- effacing Doug Heck), Don Toussaint (our brilliant, intense political coun- selor) and the ambassador’s supreme- ly capable secretary, Mary Ann McKeown. Also present were the diminutive, mustachioed and cheru- bic Haikaz Ovanessian, the ambas- sador’s chauffeur, and his wife. I was completely in the dark about what was to unfold. The purpose of the small gathering, it developed, was to present Haikaz with the highest award possible for Foreign Service National employees, and a check for a substantial sum of money — for sav- ing the lives of Ambassador and Mrs. MacArthur. I was stunned for not knowing this, as I practically lived with the MacArthurs — as do most ambassadorial aides. It was only after the presentation that I learned what had happened: one night, while returning late from the residence of Court Minister Assadollah Alam, the ambassador’s limousine had been forced to the side of the wide avenue descending from Shemiran to the city center by several Peykan passenger cars. (Peykans were the locally produced version of a British Rootes Group car known to me as a Hillman.) Apparently one of the Peykans pulled in front of the ambassador’s Cadillac, with another two at the side and rear. Although he must have slowed momentarily, Haikaz had the presence of mind not to stop. He ducked below the steering wheel while flooring the powerful V-8 engine of the classic Cadillac (which had partial armor plating) and literally knocked the lightweight Peykan aside. The terrorists jumped from their cars and opened fire with machine guns that took out the windows, but did not ignite the fuel tank nor hit the tires. Somehow, in the mayhem, one of the terrorists hurled a hatchet that sailed through the small rear opera window of the limousine, over the heads of the MacArthurs, who had laid as low as humanly possible in the back seat, and stuck in the back of the driver’s seat — quivering, according to the ambassador’s wife — just like in the movies. On the empty streets of the shah’s capital, Haikaz sped the car back to the huge estate where the Mac- Arthurs lived and drove it immediate- ly into the garage. It was not seen for several weeks. A special team was flown in to repair the damage, and the vehicle was soon back on the road, with a substitute being used in the meantime. No one was the wiser — except for those in the room and the shah’s secret police, the Savak. I didn’t have a clue. In presenting the award certificate, plaque and check to Haikaz, the tough, ever-professional Douglas MacArthur II broke down and wept, in utter and humble gratitude to Haikaz. There was hardly a dry eye among that small crowd. Except one. Haikaz just kept smiling. After the ambassador was able to compose himself, we found out why. Haikaz stepped into an anteroom and came back with a wrapped package. When the ambassador opened it, he found the very hatchet which had been thrown that nearly fateful night, mounted handsomely on a plaque, with only the date written below it — Feb. 14, 1971. That his- toric memento now is displayed in the den of the MacArthurs’ grand- son, in Belgium. But, whenever I see a hatchet, I cannot but think of the weeping ambassador and the smiling Haikaz, both reflecting on what nearly was a real hatchet job. Although this attack was kept secret for well over a year, it was also the start of a period of terror that ended the Pahlavi dynasty, brought us the ayatollahs of Iran, and then the terrorists in neighboring lands. Now, that was truly a hatchet job! 84 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 4 Thomas R. Hutson is a retired FSO. Recently re-employed as the U.S. rep- resentative on the U.K. Provincial Reconstruction Team in Mazar-e- Sharif in northern Afghanistan, he is now a diplomatic associate at the University of Nebraska’s Center for Afghanistan Studies. The stamp is courtesy of the AAFSW Bookfair “Stamp Corner.”