Iran Releases American Hostages
The release of American hostages by Iran on January 20, 1981, marked a significant moment in U.S.-Iran relations, occurring after more than a year of captivity. This crisis began in late 1979 when militant Iranian students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 66 individuals hostage, with 53 remaining captive until their release. The backdrop to this event includes the 1979 overthrow of the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, which led to the establishment of an Islamic Republic and a shift in Iran's foreign policy, particularly towards the United States. The seizure of hostages was motivated by fears of U.S. intervention to restore the Shah, as well as resentment towards American influence in Iran. Despite numerous diplomatic efforts and a failed military rescue operation, the crisis lingered until negotiations, facilitated by Algerian intermediaries, resulted in the hostages' release coinciding with the inauguration of President Ronald Reagan. In exchange, the U.S. agreed to release approximately $8 billion in frozen Iranian assets. This event has left a lasting legacy of mistrust and tension between the two nations that continues to influence their interactions to this day.
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Iran Releases American Hostages
Iran Releases American Hostages
American hostages held captive for more than a year in the former United States embassy in Tehran, Iran, were finally released on January 20, 1981. It was the end of a long and humiliating experience for the United States, and the entire episode has led to decades of hostility and mistrust between that nation and Iran.
The shah of Iran, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, was a close ally of the United States and a linchpin of the American security network in the Middle East. He ruled from 1941 until 1979 and attempted to introduce Western social reforms and economic development into his deeply conservative and traditional Muslim country. While the shah achieved a measure of success, a fundamentalist Islamic backlash in the late 1970s would oust him from power. As riots and demonstrations against the monarchy grew, in mid-January of 1979 he left the country. Two weeks later the leader in exile of the revolutionary movement, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returned to Iran, and by mid-February of 1979 the shah's government had been overthrown. In April the country was formally organized as an Islamic Republic, and it renounced decades of economic, diplomatic, and military ties with the United States. This was a reaction against the legacy of the shah, who was seen as little more than an American puppet.
In October 1979, President Jimmy Carter decided to permit the shah, whose health was failing, to enter the United States. Partly as a backlash and partly out of fear that the United States would use the Central Intelligence Agency to restore the shah to his throne (which had happened before, during a power struggle in the Iranian government in the early 1950s), militant Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran and took 66 hostages. Thirteen of them were released, but the remaining 53 would be captives for more than a year. The United States attempted both diplomatic negotiations and economic pressures, including the freezing of billions of dollars of Iranian assets in the United States, but all to no avail. Then President Carter authorized Operation Eagle Claw, a military rescue, which failed on April 24, 1980, after a team of eight armed helicopters heading for Tehran ran into a sandstorm that damaged three vehicles and cost eight lives.
The shah's welcome in the United States, which saw him as a political liability, quickly wore out, and he wandered from country to country until eventually he landed in Cairo, Egypt, where he died on July 27, 1980. In September 1980 Iraq invaded Iran and the Iranians now had more pressing matters to worry about. Carter lost the presidential election in November 1980, but Algerian intermediaries helped to negotiate a solution to the unresolved hostage crisis. The hostages were freed on January 20, 1981, the day of Ronald Reagan's inauguration as Carter's successor, and in return the United States freed some $8 billion in frozen Iranian assets.