Hoping for a Homecoming

By Strobe Talbott

New movement in the hostage crisis, but no breakthrough yet

Two short, unshaven young men in blue jeans and olive-drab flak jackets walked up to the door of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini's modest house in the Tehran suburb of Jamaran. They were immediately ushered inside. The two visitors had been mere university freshmen until a year ago. On Nov. 4, 1979, they joined an estimated 500 other militants in seizing and occupying the U.S. embassy. Now, while their comrades downtown were preparing to celebrate the first anniversary of the siege, the two young men were reporting to Khomeini to elicit his "guidance" about the vote by the Majlis, or Iranian parliament, setting conditions for the release of the hostages.

After almost three hours, Khomeini, accompanied by his son Ahmed, emerged and went next door to a half-completed mosque, where he frequently holds court in a cushioned, blue-draped chair on a balcony. Other students were already gathered there, segregated by sex, according to strict Islamic tradition. They welcomed their leader by chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) and holding aloft Khomeini portraits. One of the militants stepped forward and read a prepared text. The Majlis decision, it declared, "does not mean the end of the conflict with America. As our Imam has said, we shall fight against world-devouring America until we die."

But then, couched in the familiar rhetoric of revolution, came the declaration that many in the U.S. had been waiting and hoping for: the militants would turn the hostages over to the Iranian government. The students said they wanted to march off to the battlefront and help defend Iran against "America's puppet," Iraq. Said the militants' spokesman: "If the great leader of the revolution grants us permission, we will from now on delegate the responsibility for the safeguarding [of the hostages] to the government and will engage in the most important current issue of the revolution, defense of the Islamic homeland." For his part, Khomeini lavished praise on the militants, saying that by "seizing and holding these corrupt individuals, you have destroyed the myth of U.S. invincibility. I don't have the words to thank you. May God reward you for your service." But during his private meeting with the two militants earlier, Khomeini had formally endorsed the transfer: "It is a correct move to delegate the issue to the government."

That order, followed by the ritual on the mosque balcony, made possible the first step in the hostages' long, still treacherous journey home. Iran demanded a quick U.S. reply to the conditions set by the Majlis. Administration experts, however, were not about to speed up their painstaking consideration of the Iranian demands. Secretary of State Edmund Muskie warned that "the process . . . will require time, patience and diplomacy."

In Tehran on Tuesday, the Iranian government's acceptance of responsibility for the captives was underscored by Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Raja'i when he addressed a huge anti-American rally at the embassy. Tens of thousands of marchers shouted, "Death to American imperialism!" Raja'i delivered a fiery speech from a podium set up inside the embassy compound, proclaiming the hostage progress a victory for Iran. As viewed from Washington, it was encouraging that a government official was welcomed onto the militants' heavily guarded turf. Ever since the seizure of the embassy, U.S. officials monitoring the crisis had been worried that the final, perhaps insurmountable obstacle to a settlement might be the refusal of the militants to obey the Iranian government and perhaps even Khomeini himself. There was also concern that Communists involved in the siege, perhaps including Soviet agents, would block any solution in order to weaken the Islamic regime and pave the way for a leftist takeover of Iran.

But that danger had apparently diminished as the waiting game dragged on. The Khomeini loyalists who led the original attack systematically purged what they considered "non-Islamic" and "impure" elements from their midst. As a result, Khomeini could count this week on the discipline and obedience of the embassy captors.

The Muslim fundamentalists staunchly loyal to Khomeini seemed also to have consolidated their position in the Majlis and the executive branch of the government. Before Iraq launched its war against Iran on Sept. 22, the ruling mullahs had been vulnerable to charges from the left that any compromise with the U.S. would be inconsistent with the "anti-imperialist struggle." But the war gave Khomeini and his followers a valuable pretext: to stress instead the immediate threat of Iraq and to bill American concessions as a "defeat for the Great Satan." The clergy-controlled press and broadcasting have been harping on these two themes ever since it became apparent that a deal was possible.

The principal beneficiary has been Prime Minister Raja'i, a devout Muslim and dedicated Khomeini follower. His more secular, more moderate rival, President Abolhassan Banisadr, seems increasingly isolated. It was to Raja'i, not Banisadr, that President Carter addressed the first official U.S. response to the Majlis vote. And it was Raja'i who, in his fire-and-brimstone speech at the embassy compound, demanded that the U.S. publicly and promptly accept the conditions of the Majlis.

Those conditions had originally been laid down by Khomeini on Sept. 12. They were: 1) a pledge by the U.S. not to interfere in Iranian affairs; 2) the return of the fortune of the late Shah and his close relatives; 3) the unfreezing of Iranian assets held by U.S. banks; and 4) the cancellation of U.S. legal and financial claims against Iran. The Carter Administration had already agreed in principle to try to meet those demands, but the Majlis added a hitch: the captives would be released in stages as each condition was met.

Muskie repeated the longstanding U.S. insistence that all the Americans be freed together. Sunday night Carter delivered a carefully prepared statement of his own in a televised address to the nation. He called the Majlis vote "a significant development" and said the four conditions "appear to offer a positive basis" for resolving the crisis. While cautiously hopeful, he was clearly signaling that more negotiations would be necessary, and he avoided altogether the question of whether the U.S. would tolerate a phased release or stick by its all-or-nothing position. Nor did he encourage hopes for a speedy resolution. "I wish I could predict when the hostages will return," he concluded. "I cannot." On Monday the White House counsel, Lloyd Cutler, hinted that there was room for negotiations. Said Cutler in a televised interview: "There's a lot of rubber in this particular rubber band. Let's not give up now."

The very act of negotiating with Iran has been one of the many maddeningly difficult aspects of this crisis. From the first day of the embassy seizure, the U.S. has had almost no direct official contact with Iran. The compromise that finally led to Sunday's Majlis vote evolved in part through the intermediation of third parties, notably Switzerland, which handles U.S. diplomatic interests in Tehran, and Algeria, which represents Iran in Washington.

Another, somewhat improbable catalyst, TIME has learned, was Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Arafat has been grateful to Khomeini for overthrowing the Shah, who once supplied oil to Israel, for turning the former Israeli mission in Tehran over to the P.L.O. and for supporting the P.L.O. cause. Arafat did not want to see Iran defeated in its war with Iraq. During a visit to Tehran, Arafat could not even get in to see Khomeini. Instead the P.L.O. chairman was received by President Banisadr and Prime Minister Raja'i. Arafat suggested pressuring the U.S. to unlock shipments of Iranian-purchased military equipment in exchange for the hostages' release. Banisadr and Raja'i authorized the P.L.O. chief to explore the plan as long as he could do so secretly.

Arafat then flew to Damascus for talks with Syrian President Hafez Assad, who is backing Iran against Iraq. Assad concurred with Arafat's assessment that the U.S. Iranian dispute had to end quickly. Otherwise, Iraq would win the war decisively and emerge as a threat to the whole region. Arafat suggested to Assad that Algeria be a key intermediary between the U.S. and Iran. Algeria is a staunch member of the Steadfastness Front of Arab states opposed to the Camp David peace process, but the Algerian government has nonetheless been quietly cultivating a rapprochement with Washington. Assad endorsed the plan. Arafat and his senior political adviser, Hani al Hassan, a former P.L.O. envoy in Tehran, promptly flew on to Algiers. The Algerians consented to step up their mediating.

In New York, meanwhile, during his visit to the United Nations, Prime Minister Raja'i refused to meet with Carter. However, on his way home Raja'i stopped off in Algeria, ostensibly to view the devastation of its recent earthquake but actually to discuss the U.S. position with the Algerian leaders. In recent weeks, Algeria's Ambassador to Washington, Redha Malek, has been telling visitors that the hostage problem has kept him busy "day and night." In the end, the U.S. indicated it would resume shipment of about $100 million worth of "nonlethal" spare parts--but no weapons or ammunition--once the hostages are released.

At McGuire Air Force Base near Trenton, NJ, troops are standing guard over plastic-covered cargo pallets containing some of the gear bought by Iran eight armor-plated Jeeps, a helicopter broken down into parts, copper-mining equipment, wiring and boxes of electronic equipment. In all, the materiel at McGuire weighs about 100 tons and it would take three C-141 transports to haul it to Tehran once the U.S. government gives the go-ahead. The Air force insists that there are no munitions in the shipment.

Scattered around the country, however, at other military bases or in factory warehouses, are bombs, bullets, artillery shells, antitank missiles and spare parts for F4, F-5 and F-14 fighters--also bought and paid for by Iran during the Shah's rule. The Khomeini regime wants these very lethal supplies released too, but so far it has not insisted on their immediate delivery as part of the hostage deal.

The Iranian armed forces needed fresh supplies more than ever last week, as the Iraqis tightened their strangle hold on the oil-refining city of Abadan. In an address to the National Assembly in Baghdad. Iraqi Strongman Saddam Hussein declared that he was prepared to withdraw his invading forces from Iranian territory "as of tomorrow" if Tehran recognized Iraq's right to control the contested Shatt al Arab waterway. Although that appeared to be a scaling-down of Iraq's original demands, it seemed unlikely that the fired-up Iranians would accept, at least immediately. One reason was that Iraq held captive a prominent prisoner of war: Iranian Oil Minister Mohammed Javad Tondguyan. Tondguyan and five of his aides tried to sneak through the Iraqi lines in order to inspect the damage to a huge refinery and bolster the morale of besieged Abadan. But he and his colleagues were captured and bundled off to Baghdad. Iran called on Iraq to release the captured minister and his aides in accordance with "all international codes and regulations."

Even the Iraqis, who have done nothing to help resolve the U.S. hostage crisis were incredulous. Baghdad radio quoted one Iraqi minister as saying. "Who are the Iranians to talk about violations of international law? They should look first to what they done at the U.S. embassy in Tehran."

--By Strobe Talbott.

Reported by William Stewart/Beirut

With reporting by William Stewart

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