An End to the Long Ordeal

By Ed Magnuson.

Flying yellow ribbons coast to coast, a jubilant U.S. hails the hostages

America's joy pealed from church belfries, rippled from flag staffs and wrapped itself in a million miles of yellow ribbon, tied around trees, car antennas and even the 32-story Foshay Tower in Minneapolis. Barbara Deffley, wife of the Methodist minister in Holmer, Ill., rang the church bell 444 times, once for each day of captivity. "At about 200 pulls, I thought I'd never make it," she gasped. "Then at about 300 pulls, I got my second wind and kept going all the way." Massachusetts House Speaker Thomas W. McGee, 56, was too impatient to wait for a ladder, so he shinnied ten feet up a pole to reach the halyard and hoist the U.S. flag over the statehouse in Boston. In Mountain Home, Idaho, some 200 townspeople staged an impromptu parade, driving their cars three abreast, headlights on and horns blaring. Patrolman Joseph McDermott coasted his cruiser to the side of a street in Rochester, N.H., fighting back tears. Said he: "I am overjoyed. I feel proud again."

Joy at the restoration of pride to a nation that had been humbled for too long by a puny tormentor was but one of the many reactions of Americans to Iran's final release of the 52 U.S. hostages last week. There was a sense of relief too. And scorn for Iran. But above all the initial dominant mood was one of continuing celebration, from the moment the first plane carrying the former captives cleared Iranian airspace to the climactic touchdown on U.S. soil of Freedom One just before 3 p.m. on truly Super Sunday at Stewart Airport, 50 miles north of New York City. There in privacy that not even the longest lens of press and TV cameras could penetrate, the returnees from Iran at long last were tearfully reunited with their families to begin two days of quiet time alone at West Point before journeying to Washington Tuesday for the official welcome home at the White House.

As the days passed, however, the public mood turned more somber and then angry as the released Americans began to tell their families and U.S. officials about the cruelty they had endured during their 14 1/2 months in Iran. No one sounded more outraged than Jimmy Carter, whose final days as President and first days as a returned citizen of Plains squeezed him through an emotional wringer. He had known, of course, that some of the hostages who had been released earlier had been verbally abused and psychologically harassed with threats of death--mild treatment compared with the savagery inflicted on many Iranians during the Shah's rule and then later under Khomeini, though unconscionable nonetheless. But during a wrenching visit with the 52 at the U.S. military hospital in Wiesbaden, West Germany, Carter became appalled at the hostages' descriptions of their ordeal.

Before his flight home, Carter stood at a small lectern at Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt. His face frozen in rage and his voice cracking, he declared: "The acts of barbarism that were perpetrated on our people by Iran can never be condoned. These criminal acts ought to be condemned by all law-loving, decent people of the world. It has been an abominable circumstance that will never be forgotten." He denounced the captors as "terrorists" who had committed a "despicable act of savagery." Still livid as he penned a report to the new President, while flying back across the Atlantic, Carter wrote: "Never do any favors for the hoodlums who persecuted innocent American heroes." And he told reporters: "Those were acts of animals, almost."

The intensified animosity toward Iran in the U.S. fed several post-release controversies: Had the Carter Administration dealt too gently with the Iranians in securing the hostages' release? Would--and should --the new President carry out the terms of the agreement? With the Americans safely out of danger, should Iran now be punished and, if so, how?

The first press conference held by William Dyess, the new Administration's acting spokesman for the State Department, mistakenly fed speculation that Reagan might repudiate the agreement. Dyess announced only that the Administration would "study" the details before determining whether to abide by them. As the furor grew, he later explained that the Government "fully intends to carry out the obligations of the U.S." so long as they are "consistent with domestic and international law." Some of the terms will undoubtedly be challenged in U.S. courts, but most legal experts believe the courts will follow the lead of Federal Judge Gerhard Gesell who ruled last week that the President had the constitutional authority to make the agreement with Iran.

A repudiation of the terms by either Reagan or the courts would probably hurt the American banks, contracting firms and individuals with financial claims against Iran. The agreement sets up an international arbitration panel (three members to be selected each by Iran and the U.S. and another three to be chosen jointly) to rule on the claims and settle the valid ones from Iranian funds held in escrow by the Bank of England. Said a high official in the State Department: "It seems very unlikely that a conservative Republican Administration will launch its term by taking action that would cost major American banks $1.4 billion."

As negotiated through excruciating marathon sessions in Algiers, Tehran and Washington that repeatedly threatened to end in impasse, the agreement requires the U.S. to renounce any intention to interfere in the internal affairs of Iran, to lift its embargo against trade with Iran, and to ask its allies in Europe to do the same. These provisions have already been carried out, although little American trade is expected to be resumed for quite some time. The U.S. also agreed to help locate any assets of the late Shah and his family in America and to freeze them while Iran tries to establish legal claims to them in U.S. courts.

The most complex provisions involve the Iranian assets frozen by Carter at the beginning of the hostage crisis and estimated by the U.S. to total about $12 billion. They include: $2.4 billion in gold, securities and cash, which was under the direct control of the U.S. Government; $5.5 billion in overseas branches of U.S. banks; and $4 billion held by U.S. banks and companies that had been tied up in suits against Iran by U.S. firms and individuals. Carter signed an order requiring the Justice Department to ask the courts to dismiss these suits and let the claims be judged by the arbitration panel. The U.S. also agreed not to seek compensation from Iran for damages to the U.S. embassy in Tehran, and to prohibit the hostages from suing Iran. Actually, under the technical terms of the deal, once the hostages were freed, Iran immediately received only $2.8 billion in cash and gold (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS).

Those arrangements and the safe release of the hostages were cited by Carter's closest aides as a "vindication" of his yearlong hostage policy. They were incensed when they heard some of the new Reagan officials question the agreement's soundness. One Reagan aide claimed that the new President would not have made a similar deal. Asked if Carter had given away too much, the official replied: "Yes. The initial mistake made by Carter was to say that the U.S. would not negotiate with barbarians and then promptly proceed to negotiate with them. That was wrong. This Administration will not negotiate with barbarians or terrorists."

But freedom for the hostages, not partisan fingerpointing, was on Carter's mind as he sweated out his final two days in the Oval Office. After napping on a sofa for only 45 minutes Sunday night, he appeared in the White House press room at 4:56 a.m. Monday, his face drawn and devoid of emotion, to announce: "We have now reached an agreement with Iran that will result, I believe, in the freedom of our American hostages."

At 9:20 a.m. Reagan phoned Carter with a gracious offer: if Carter was no longer President when the hostages reached West Germany, Reagan wanted him to greet them there on behalf of the U.S. Carter was grateful, but thought he could make the trip before he and Rosalynn were to entertain the Reagans at the traditional preInauguration coffee pour on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. at the White House. By 2 p.m. on Monday, Carter knew that his time had run out. He called Reagan to accept the invitation.

Incredibly, Carter was still a captive of the ever unpredictable Iranians through a second virtually sleepless night. Before dawn, he knew that final agreement on the technicalities for release had been reached. The money had been deposited in the Algerian account at the Bank of England for transfer to the Iranians. At 8:06 a.m. his red phone rang. He was told by Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher that two Air Algerie Boeing 727 jetliners had been cleared for takeoff at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport. One was to carry the Americans, the other the Algerian doctors who had examined the hostages in Tehran to certify that they were all in good physical health. A jubilant Carter asked Mondale to tell congressional leaders that release was imminent. But then, hour after hour, the flight to freedom failed to take off, apparently because the Iranians wanted to hand Carter one last insult.

Carter's spirits sank. Dismayed, angry and frustrated, he had to be helped physically by his aides as he walked from the Oval Office, past the Rose Garden, to the upstairs family quarters to get ready for the Reagans. "He was as near despair as I have ever seen him," a top aide recalled later. "It was incredible agony."

Meanwhile, Navy Captain Gary Sick, the Iran expert on the National Security Council, kept two phone lines open; one was to Christopher in Algiers, the other to Carter. If there was no word of takeoff by noon, Carter had joked to the officer, "Captain Sick will be Lieut, (jg) Sick."

But all through the morning, Sick relayed the bad news to Carter, which was that there was no news about takeoffs in Tehran. He called him away from coffee with the Reagans in the Blue Room, rang him as Carter and Reagan rode together to the Capitol in the black presidential limousine, reached him again at a phone in the Capitol Rotunda. During Reagan's Inaugural speech, Carter briefly closed his red-rimmed eyes, a moment caught by television cameras. He had been praying for the hostages, he later told aides, who had wondered if he had fallen asleep.

Some 6,350 miles away in Tehran, the Americans were enduring a final episode of psychological abuse. Most, if not all, had been assembled by Iranian revolutionary guards at an undisclosed site in northern Tehran, probably the opulent mansion once owned by Hojabr Yazdani, a wealthy cattle breeder and industrialist who is now a fugitive from Khomeini's regime. They had been examined by the Algerian doctors, but the hostages had not been told that they were to be released. Ahmad Azizi, the Iranian government's second-ranking spokesman on the hostages, claimed later: "It would have been too painful for them if the negotiations had somehow broken down." Even when they were finally told that they were going home, said Azizi, "they did not believe it. They moved about like sleepwalkers."

That was understandable. The Americans had been divided by their captors into at least two groups for transportation to the airport in buses with blackened windows. The Americans then were run through a gauntlet of chanting militants. While some hostages thought the dozens of militants forming a corridor to shout "Death to America!" at them were just performing for propaganda effect, others were genuinely frightened and reported that they had been kicked and shoved during their last steps on Iranian soil.

Once inside the white airliner, the Americans waited another 25 minutes. The delay, some were told, was to complete the paper processing that would prove that all were aboard. Each had to sign a passenger list. Actually, the Algerian crew at the first plane's controls was not permitted to roll the craft down the runway until 12:33 p.m., Washington time --some five hours after everything had seemed set for release and just eleven minutes after the Inauguration ceremony had ended on the Capitol's West Front.

Carter and Mondale were heading for Andrews Air Force Base in a limousine when Sick told them that the Americans had made a "safe departure." The two highest officials of the just-retired Administration looked at each other in relief as tears trickled down their cheeks. In what was meant as a farewell review of troops at Andrews, Carter listened to his final 21-gun salute, then warmly embraced Anita Schaefer, wife of the senior military officer among the hostages, Air Force Colonel Thomas E. Schaefer. "Mr. President, I hope some day you'll meet my husband," she said. "Tom is in the air now," replied Carter. "I'll be with him tomorrow, and I'll tell him you love him." Both sobbed softly as they hugged again.

As Carter boarded Air Force One, redubbed SAM 27000 (Special Air Mission) to return to Plains, champagne corks popped aboard the Air Algerie 727, which was headed west over Iran. Now the Americans were all together for the first time since their imprisonment. They embraced emotionally. They excitedly roamed the plane's aisle, comparing experiences in captivity and wondering what had been happening in the outside world during those 14 1/2 months.

In Washington, where it was 1:50 p.m. when the jet cleared Iranian airspace, the State Department began informing the families that the hostages were free at last. Carter quickly got the word too, and his airborne party, including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Hamilton Jordan, Jody Powell, Jack Watson and Stuart Eizenstat, struggled with laughter and tears at the same time. Phil Wise rushed into the plane's press section to paraphrase a Martin Luther King Jr. line that applied aptly to both the Carter Administration officials and the hostages: "We're free, we're free; thank God almighty, we're free at last."

Arriving in Plains, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter walked through a chill drizzle as some 3,500 Georgians shouted a welcome. Pale and tired, the two nevertheless smiled happily. Carter clambered atop a flatbed truck and announced that every one of the 52 was alive, was well, and was free. Amid cheers and tears, Carter wiped away a few of his own, before declaring: "They are hostages no more, they are prisoners no more, and they are coming back to this land we all love."

The freedom flight touched down in Athens for refueling and then headed for Algiers. It landed at Houari Boumedienne Airport in a rainstorm. In the glare of television lights, Bruce Laingen, the charge d'affaires at the Tehran embassy, led Kathryn Koob and Elizabeth Ann Swift, who wore the familiar yellow ribbons in their" hair, down a ramp and into the arms of the normally undemonstrative Christopher. Despite beards, the faces of some of the men reflected their exuberance.

They flashed victory signs and clenched fists and shouted to throngs of spectators: "Thank you! Thank you! We made it!"

This first glimpse of the released Americans, beamed to the U.S. live by satellite, was reassuring. Dressed in an incongruous variety of clothing--Marine fatigues, red T shirts adorned with eagles, turtleneck sweaters and sports shirts--the group looked like healthy, but weary, American tourists as they sat on folding chairs for a 35-minute reception inside the airport terminal. Sipping coffee and orange juice, they expressed themselves in typical American idioms: "Fantastic, absolutely fantastic." "Pretty goddamn good, I'll tell ya." "It's good to be out of Khomeini land."

After a brief formal ceremony officially transferring custody of the Americans from Algerian intermediaries into U.S. hands, the returnees found themselves back in the grasp of a benevolent bureaucracy. They were asked to line up by alphabet: those with last names starting from A to K were directed to board one U.S. C-9A Nightingale hospital plane; the rest were assigned to a sister aircraft. Now the rain stopped, stars became visible and some of the Marines broke into a sprint for the waiting planes. The winner of the race thrust his arms in the air and shouted: "God bless America!"

Airborne again and on their way to Frankfurt, the Americans were given fur-trimmed parkas to replace their skimpy jackets and raincoats. The mood grew more festive as more bottles were opened to celebrate the Americans' return to U.S. sovereignty, made tangible by the comfort of the military planes. The men hugged each other; the two women were both hugged and kissed. As they passed over France, air controllers radioed: "Welcome to French airspace. We praise the Lord for your return."

Landing at Rhein-Main Air Base before dawn on Wednesday (12:43 a.m. in Washington), the Americans were met by former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and rushed toward two blue buses. Colonel Schaefer, however, headed instead toward a crowd of spectators, embraced several onlookers and chatted with them. Did he know them? "No," he replied to a fellow passenger on the bus, "but it felt good." On the 25-mile ride to the hospital in Wiesbaden, one of the former hostages raised his hand and sought permission to ask a question. Another asked whether he could light a cigarette. They were reminded by one of the escorts that they were free now and could do what they wished.

At Wiesbaden a banner proclaimed WELCOME TO THE FREEDOM HOTEL. The returnees occupied either two-or four-bed hospital rooms along a blue-carpeted corridor with yellow ribbons festooned over each door. The Americans could watch three German TV channels, but preferred the English-language armed forces station. In a third-floor library they could catch up on U.S. newspapers and magazines and even watch video tapes recapping world events they had missed, ranging from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the death of Mae West.

They scrambled into a telephone room, where 24 of them at a time could call anyone they wished at Government expense. In the early hours of Wednesday, Washington, D.C., time, those long-silent voices sent their relatives in the U.S. into shouts of joy and expressions of affection as the broken threads of family life were tentatively rejoined. At 2:30 a.m., Alice Metrinko picked up her phone in Olyphant, Pa., to hear her son Michael, 34, say, "Hi, Mom." They chatted for 45 minutes. She asked why he had seemed to be hiding from the TV cameramen in Algiers. Well, he said, his shirt was ragged and dirty, and his trousers had no cuffs. He had lost about 40 Ibs. but insisted, "Oh, Mother, I feel fine." His first wish on getting home, he said, was to do some painting around the house. "The bathroom needs painting," he was told. "Good," he said.

In San Diego, Dorothea Morefield, who may almost have been serious in jesting that "I'm getting tired of the color yellow," also had a quip when her husband Richard called from West Germany. She pleaded, "The next time you're going to be late for dinner, please call." When John E. Graves reached his son Martin in Reston, Va., he confided, "Believe it or not, I didn't think I could, but I've discovered that I can find my way to the toilet alone."

Phillip Lewis had some ready advice for his son Paul, who called from Wiesbaden. Lewis, who lives in a small farming community south of Chicago, had last heard from Paul when he had phoned from Hungary to say that his next diplomatic post would be in Tehran. "You damn fool," the father had said. "You don't know what you're getting into." This time when Paul called, Lewis said in mock seriousness, "Maybe you'll listen to your old man from now on." Despite her vast relief that her husband Barry was safe, Barbara Rosen of Brooklyn echoed a refrain heard often among the other families. "The servicemen who went over in that rescue attempt were the true heroes of this entire Iran crisis," she said, "because they went over knowing full well that they might not come back." Eight of them died in the Iranian desert in April.

After calling home, the Americans at Wiesbaden turned to a more tedious task: debriefings by intelligence officers and a series of medical and mental tests. Said a psychiatrist at the hospital: "We are looking for physical signs of stress, like migraines and ulcers. We try to spot signs of depression or suicidal tendencies. Hyperactive chatter is another sign of possible disturbance."

The returnees turned out generally to be a surprisingly stable group. Dr. Jerome Korcak, the State Department's medical director, reported that no major physical ailments caused by captivity had been detected among the 52. Some suffered "posttraumatic stress," he said, but all cases were treatable. None, he said, would be "permanently disabled." He reported that none of the Americans had developed any tendency to become emotionally dependent on their captors, and that early brainwashing efforts by the Iranians had been "completely unsuccessful." A few felt some guilt about "statements they made under duress," and some would feel "many stresses" in adjusting to normal living, but, predicted Korcak, all "could cope with what awaits them back home."

Before heading home, the Americans faced an emotional test of a different sort in Wiesbaden. They assembled in a brilliantly lighted community room on the hospital's third floor to meet Jimmy Carter. He had boarded a helicopter in Plains at 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday to get back to SAM 27000 at Robins Air Force Base, where some of his former top officials, including Mondale, Secretary of State Edmund Muskie, Treasury Secretary G. William Miller, White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler, Jordan and Powell awaited him for the 8 1/2-hour flight to Frankfurt.

At Wiesbaden, there was tension in both parties as Carter met the former hostages whose lives he had, in a sense, held in his hands. He did not know how they felt about his failure to free them sooner. Stiffly and nervously, the former President and his top aides shook hands with the returnees one by one. Suddenly a former hostage impulsively wrapped his arms around Carter. The tension snapped. Said Muskie later: "The mood turned warm and personal." Added Jordan: "You could feel your emotions tugging you."

Now Carter chatted more easily, holding up three newspapers, which bannered the release of the hostages and gave Reagan's Inauguration secondary play. "As you can see," said Carter, "we've had a change of presidency, but even that was second in people's minds." The returnees laughed heartily. Carter urged the former hostages to return home as a group. "Some of you are ready to leave," he said, "but some are not. You all need a chance to get acquainted with freedom and lend each other your support." All of them, he said, were "heroes."

Then he fielded questions. Why had he not tried a rescue mission sooner? asked a Marine. Carter took full blame for the desert tragedy, and drew applause. He told them that relatives of those who died in their mission had expressed to him their joy at the release of the 52. Carter concluded with a defense of the agreement reached with Iran. He noted that Iran had received only about $3 billion of the $12 billion in assets he had frozen, and joked: "I was afraid you'd be upset that they didn't get more of their money." Carter was applauded once again. If any of the returnees had reservations about that deal, none expressed them.

The former Commander in Chief also was reminded of the facts of military life. He was told that when the nine Marines who had been held captive first reported to the senior Marine colonel at Wiesbaden, their disheveled leader snapped off a salute and said: "The Marine squadron from Tehran reporting for duty, sir." Returning the salute, the smartly uniformed officer ordered them to march off to the Wiesbaden barbershop and get rid of beards and long hair. They did.

The civilians, too, among the former captives took hot showers to get ready for the last leg of their historic odyssey: the final flight home. After a reunion with their families in the seclusion of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., the liberated Americans were to be guests of the new Reagan Administration at a subdued ceremony at the White House this week. The families of the eight who died also will be honored.

Then the newest of America's heroes will try to pick up the routine of their lives. Greg Persinger will go home to Seaford, Del., and serve as best man at the wedding of his close friend Frank Thomas, who postponed his marriage until Greg could attend. In Hurst, Texas, Navy Lieut. Commander Robert Engelmann will find his Saab, which had been gathering dust for more than 14 months in the driveway, polished and ready to roll.

Steven Lauterbach will work his way through 1 1/2 filing cabinets of letters sent to him by well-wishers and saved by his mother in Dayton. But Lauterbach's father Eugene is unlikely to get his wish: "I hope I never hear the word Iran again."

--By Ed Magnuson. Reported by Lee Griggs/Wiesbaden and Johanna McGeary/Washington

With reporting by Lee Griggs, Johanna McGeary

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