Original subtitles

What comes to mind

when you hear the words Iran-Contra?

The hearing will please come to order.

You may remember a charismatic marine.

As you all know by now, my name is Oliver North,

lieutenant colonel, United States Marine Corps.

Or an outcry about missiles being sold to Iran.

Is it possible

that fired White House official Oliver North

could have diverted profits from Iran arms sales

to the Contras on his own?

Maybe you recall the funding of a covert war

in Central America.

It's a messy story

that spanned multiple continents,

and it all started in an office like this one.

It was this tapestry of intrigue.

Every day there was a surprise.

It was so outlandish.

The first I heard about it, I really couldn't believe it.

Perhaps because of its complexity,

Iran-Contra, unlike other presidential scandals,

barely left a mark on our collective memory.

Watergate was really easy-peasy

compared to this.

You didn't have to go to Iran.

You didn't have to go to Central America.

The Sultan of Brunei wasn't involved.

It was far more sophisticated, complex,

and frankly scarier-- far scarier than Watergate.

Why was it conducted with such secrecy,

and why were we all kept in the dark

for such a long period of time?

This was not low stakes.

This was high stakes on the world stage.

I think, if you break down

the whole scandal piece by piece,

a single clarifying theme comes into focus.

We did not--repeat--did not

trade weapons or anything else for hostages.

Iran-Contra is a story about hostages--

those who take them, those who rescue them,

and those who become hostages themselves.

Any kind of hostage situation creates a huge dilemma.

It is a power game, and the hostage taker

largely controls the situation,

but it's also a challenge you can't walk away from.

You better make damn sure

that you have looked at every consequence,

looked at every possible nuance...

Because once you give in to a ransom,

there is no stop.

I'm Leon Neyfakh.

This is "Fiasco,"

the story of Iran-Contra.

While Iran-Contra is known as Ronald Reagan's scandal,

the stage was set years earlier

by a different president.

It's a long way from Plains, Georgia,

to Washington D.C.

The strength of a person can be measured

by the path he takes to travel there.

For Jimmy Carter, that road was one of hard work

and determination.

This was the 1976 presidential campaign.

I heard he was a peanut farmer.

Jimmy Carter entered the race

as a Washington outsider

seeking an end to the Nixonian era

in American politics.

Hey, I'll go to your church next Sunday, okay?

He was a man of faith.

He wanted to advance a human rights agenda

across the world.

He is a genuine moral beacon

capable of making people believe in something.

He was the real thing.

I just think he's a very neat man.

You got me, all right.

I picture him like one of us--

one of the working people, one of the common people.

Jimmy Carter comes in

promising to bring America back to its best self.

His number one campaign promise in 1976

was "I will not lie to you."

We want Jimmy!

We want Jimmy! We want Jimmy!

We want Jimmy!

There's a new mood in America.

We've been shaken by a tragic war abroad

and by scandals and broken promises at home.

Our people are searching for new voices

and new ideas and new leaders.

It was after our defeat in the Vietnam War.

It was after the Watergate scandal.

Jimmy Carter was elected as a man who was supposed

to be the antithesis of all those things.

It's now a time for healing.

We wanna have faith again.

We want to be proud again.

We just want the truth again.

It's time for the people to run the government

and not the other way around!

He set out to change things,

and he was a social engineer,

and one of the things that he wanted to do

was create peace.

Election night

from CBS News Election Headquarters

in New York.

Shortly before dawn, Jimmy Carter reached

the end of his improbable two-year, half-million-mile

political quest and won the presidency.

Remains to be seen whether his politics

of love and trust and sweeping promises

could capture a country which has had reason

to become mistrustful of politicians.

Not long into Carter's term, it became clear

that he couldn't just turn everything around

like his campaign ads had promised.

The country was being battered.

There is growing concern about the general health

of the American economy.

There were some really big problems,

and none of them had simple solutions.

It's a profound change that the American economy

is undergoing, a change with a name--

deindustrialization.

1979 in particular,

average incomes begin to decline,

manufacturing jobs in the United States

begin to really start tailing off,

and people would say things like, you know,

"Well, my father certainly didn't have to put up

with this kind of crap."

And, you know, "My steel factory just closed,

and now here I am standing in line for gas."

The oil shortage of 1979

forced Americans to wake up before dawn

just to fill up their tanks.

I'm all out. Not a drop.

How about five dollars? That's it.

Anger and bewilderment are growing

as more and more Americans cope with gasoline lines

and empty pumps.

I have to be at work at00.

For millions of Americans,

this may be the worst weekend they've ever faced

for finding gasoline to give them

the automobile freedom they take as their due.

I'm in a line two hours here,

and I can't get gas.

This is baloney.

Carter doesn't get my vote next year.

In July of 1979, Carter did something

politicians hardly ever do.

He admitted to the voters that good times

were not around the corner, and that the order of the day

wasn't hope, but self-sacrifice.

It's clear that the true problems

of our nation are much deeper

than gasoline lines or energy shortages,

deeper even than inflation or recession.

It is a crisis of confidence.

We can see this crisis in the growing doubt

about the meaning of our own lives

and in the loss of a unity of purpose

for our nation.

The erosion of our confidence in the future

is threatening to destroy

the social and the political fabric

of America.

His advice to the American people

in his famous "Crisis of Confidence" speech

was that we have to make do with less.

We've lived too well, and now we're paying the bill.

This is not a message of happiness or reassurance,

but it is the truth,

and it is a warning.

I still think he's a peanut farmer,

and he don't know how to run this country.

Believe it.

Carter's hard truths did not sit well

with everyone.

Do you feel that President Carter

has been a good leader?

No, I don't.

I can't put my finger on it,

but there's just something he doesn't have.

God has something much better for everyone.

Some Americans wanted a different answer.

And if they switched on their TV set

on Sunday morning...

Ready.

Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia.

...there was one waiting for them

in the form of a TV preacher named Jerry Falwell.

Let's lead the way, and under God,

let's turn our country around.

The sense among Americans

that things had gotten fundamentally off track

went hand-in-hand with the revival

of religious feeling in the United States.

If America survives this decade,

it will be because we experienced

a spiritual awakening.

My name is Ralph Reed,

and I was a leader of the Christian Coalition.

I was a young person, really lost spiritually.

I opened up the Yellow Pages, went to "Evangelical,"

put my finger on a church, and I walked in,

and I sat in a pew,

and the pastor turned around to the organist,

and he said, "Stop the music."

And he said, "I don't know who you are.

I don't know how you got here."

He said, "But I want you to know that today

is your day of salvation."

And Jerry Falwell, I got to know him,

and he is such an important historic figure

because he ushered fundamentalists

back into the mainstream of American life,

which is something that they had been withdrawn from

for many, many decades.

Falwell was part of a new movement

of televangelists who offered Americans

something precious, a chance to be saved

without ever leaving their couch.

I want us to bow our heads and close our eyes

across this building, there by television set.

You know, Falwell had "The Old Time Gospel Hour"

and was seen by millions of people.

Those of you watching by the television set,

will you right now confess, "Oh, God, I'm a sinner."

And then write me and ask for a free copy of my booklet,

"How To Get Started Right."

Literally, hundreds of millions of dollars

were being raised.

Jerry Falwell built schools.

He built a whole social welfare system

for his church members.

You can say, "Bible."

He had a TV empire. He had a radio empire.

It was this all-encompassing culture

in which one could kind of live one's entire life

in this kind of bubble.

By 1979,

nearly a third of Americans identified as evangelical.

Thank God that the parents of these children

didn't believe in abortion, or they wouldn't be here.

There was a view in the late '70s

that America was in moral decline,

and America, to us, looked weak,

and then I think a final thing was profound disappointment

with Jimmy Carter and his presidency.

One of the ironies of this entire history

was that Jimmy Carter

was the first presidential candidate

who was a out and proud evangelical Christian.

But, again, he was, you know, the old-fashioned kind

of evangelical Christian who kept his religious views

out of his policy decisions.

I see...

the political situation

and the military situation

and the economic situation and the energy problem.

I see all of these as crises that are pressing

this planet towards a climax.

Falwell was tapping into a sense that America

was changing, and that something

had already been lost.

He began to build not just a religious movement,

but a political one.

Right here in Washington,

this city has become as corrupt

as any of the cities in the Old Testament

which God destroyed,

and I think that unless we have a fundamental change,

I think this country will be destroyed as well.

Jimmy Carter wasn't just facing

a changing landscape on the home front.

In 1979, it seemed the whole world

was going through a transformative convulsion.

This is a day when every nation is claiming

its own identity.

That included Iran,

America's most important ally in the Middle East.

In 1979, Iranians were looking

to redefine their national identity.

For years, the country had been caught

in the middle of an ideological battle

between Soviet and Western influence.

After months of unrest...

...Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran's monarch,

fled the country.

America had been a friend of the shah for years.

Now that Iran was no longer under his control,

an uneasy power vacuum prevailed,

and Jimmy Carter found himself in a delicate position.

The situation in Iran now, politically speaking,

is very sensitive.

We do not have any intention of interfering

in the affairs of Iran,

the internal affairs of their government,

and we don't want any other country

to do it either.

But as 1979 drew to a close,

Carter unintentionally tripped a live wire

when he welcomed the shah into the United States.

Good evening.

The American embassy in Tehran is in the hands

of Muslim students tonight.

Spurred on by an anti-American speech

by the Ayatollah Khomeini,

they stormed the embassy,

fought the marine guards for three hours,

overpowered them, and took dozens

of American hostages.

I'm John Limbert.

I was a foreign service officer.

I was held hostage for 14 months

between 1979 and 1981.

It was--let's see. It was November 4th.

It was a Sunday, which was the first day

of our work week.

It was chilly, drizzly.

That morning, there was going to be a big demonstration

at Tehran University.

And about- 00 or- 30 in the morning, as I remember,

a group stopped in front of the embassy,

started shouting slogans.

Death to America, death to Carter.

And I can remember being in my office

and hearing this shouting, and it got--

Instead of marching on, it got louder.

And then, all of a sudden, these folks were--

people were in the compound.

My name is Alan Golacinski.

I was the regional security officer in Tehran.

Based on previous experiences and previous successes,

I believed I could talk these people out.

I contacted the chargé

and asked for permission to go out

and negotiate with these people.

They grabbed me, tied my hands behind me,

blindfold on me.

We were pretty much out of options at this point.

There's a wonderful Iranian word...

Which means confusion.

The students--I think most of them

were in their early 20s.

I'm not sure that they had thought about

this whole project beyond the first two steps.

I mean, it was, "We'll invade the embassy.

Well, what do we do next?

Well, we'll figure it out when we get there."

My name is Doyle McManus.

I've spent 40 years as a reporter

covering American foreign policy

and American politics.

I went into Tehran

the day after the embassy was seized.

One of the big questions we all wondered about

was how scary is this going to be

for American journalists.

And so it was quite stunning,

but also a relief

to have the Iranians waving flags

that said, "Death to America,"

put out their hands and say, "Welcome to Iran,

and want to have an absolutely cheerful

and generous conversation with the individual American

on the street in front of them.

The students who had taken the embassy

saw their newfound media spotlight

as an opportunity to appeal to the American people.

The Iranian people love American people

and hate the American government.

We don't think that American people

were in support of all the oppression

that were going on in Iran under the rule of the shah.

The hostage takers really only had one demand.

They wanted the shah back in Iran

to face the revolution and stand trial.

Sources here say that if the shah

will return to Iran, he would face certain death.

While many Iranians saw the U.S.

as harboring a criminal,

the matter was more complicated for Carter.

In October, President Carter learns

that the shah is sick with cancer

and is told that he needs urgent treatment

that he can get only in the United States.

President Carter, he meets his advisors

and basically says what should he do,

and he found his advisors pretty much united

in favor of admitting-- admitting the shah.

At the end of this meeting, President Carter

turns to his advisors, and he says,

"All right, I'll do it,

but tell me one thing.

What are you gonna advise me to do

when our embassy is overrun and our people taken hostage?"

And history does not record that there were any answers,

so I expect there was a lot of looking at shoes.

The students were convinced

that the admission of the shah

was part of a CIA plot to return him to power in Iran.

They ransacked the embassy,

searching for evidence of what exactly America

was doing in their country.

It seems they really do believe

that the shah's sickness is just a cover

and that he's in the United States

to plot a counterrevolution with the Americans.

Once we admit the shah,

whatever explanation we give,

the signal is going to be 1953 all over again.

"1953 all over again."

To understand what that means, we have to talk

about Iran's most precious resource.

Developed by British interests,

Iranian oil has been the subject of bitter dispute.

In 1953, Iran was governed

by Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh

who was fighting to reclaim control

of Iran's oil from the British.

But just two years after being voted into office,

Mosaddegh was forcibly removed from power.

Former Premier Mosaddegh's ruined house

is a mute testimony to three days

of bloody rioting culminating in a military coup.

Mosaddegh was finally apprehended

and awaits trial for treason.

There is certainly American meddling

in 1953, there's no doubt.

What was made to look like a popular uprising

was actually a British plot backed by the U.S. government

to keep control of the oil.

The United States, they joined the British effort

to overthrow Mosaddegh.

There is actually a meeting at the State Department.

We have the documents for it.

"So how do we get rid of this madman now?"

So they begin to plan to get rid of this madman.

Is that meddling? Of course it is.

You had a million dollars in cash

- to run the coup, right? - That's right.

And we used about 60,000 of it. That was all.

The $60,000 paid for the CIA

to launch a disinformation campaign

aimed at ginning up support for the eventual military coup

against Mosaddegh.

Very competent agents started a movement.

They led a very large and constantly growing mob

up the avenue on which the American embassy

was at one end, and Mosaddegh's house

was towards the middle of town.

With Mosaddegh out of the way,

the British got their oil,

and the U.S. got an ally in the shah.

It is a lot more complicated

than simply saying it was the meddling

that overthrew Mosaddegh,

but by '79, it got some of these students

thinking that they're doing history's work

fighting imperialism,

responding to what they thought was the injustice

of the U.S. in 1953.

My name is Mohsen Sazegara.

I was a political activist against shah.

The word that we used was "shah is a U.S. puppet."

Do...music!

After the coup, the shah launched

a massive overhaul of Iranian society.

He called it the White Revolution.

From music to Hollywood

to jeans to Pepsi-Cola,

the dominant cultural presence was the U.S.

Now my mother and her two daughters

went to university, were educated,

they could get their own income.

That was a very good step.

By the 1970s,

Iran was one of the fastest developing nations in the world.

The capital has not just grown.

It has exploded, and in the process,

members of the royal family and leading businessmen

have made massive profits.

You have a shah that was becoming

increasingly self-righteous, increasingly authoritarian.

You can't import all the productions

of Western civilization,

but don't import the software of Western civilization

like democracy, like human rights.

One of our laws is that communism is not allowed.

Student groups espousing left-wing ideology

were targeted by the shah's secret police,

the SAVAK, which was formed with the help of the CIA

after the 1953 coup.

And if you went for a demonstration, for instance,

they attacked us inside the university.

Stories of the regime's brutality and torture

of political prisoners brought a chill

over daily life in Iran.

If, for instance, you distribute any pamphlets,

the students knew

that they shouldn't take it from the ground

because you could be sentenced to six months jail,

so they put their foot on the pamphlet on the ground

and read it while it was on the ground.

There was one force that was allowed

to organize, mobilize.

That was the clergy.

And the reason the shah allowed the clergy

is because he thought the best way to fight communism

is religion.

This is an illusion that Western powers held.

We feel as responsible for politic,

for economy, and for morale.

The clergy gained a foothold in the shadows

of the high-rises that dotted the new, urban landscape.

Outwardly, progress and glitter.

Beneath the surface, thousands of people

still live in mud huts without running water

or sanitation.

You had peasants who saw the affluence

in the nouveau riche class, and their resentment increased.

They had profound religious values.

They were ill at ease with the sight of a woman

in a miniskirt, for example,

and the clergy were whispering in their ear

that all of this is part of a corrupting,

Western, Israeli, Zionist, Jewish conspiracy

to break down Islam.

As this anti-Western gospel spread,

the student activists decided to forge an alliance.

We thought that a network of the clergy

can be helpful to the revolution.

Led by the mullahs, the Muslim priests,

the crowds assembled and then choked

the center of the city.

That was one of our strategies

to have a unity,

a very powerful force against shah.

And you as a church leader

are ready to see them start an armed struggle?

The teaching of Quran says

that when a peaceful struggle is not useful,

then you must begin an armed struggle--jihad.

Much of that coalition

wanted a democratic, secular nation,

and it's remarkable because the leader

of that revolution was someone who,

if anybody had bothered to read his writing,

stood in opposition to all of that.

Waiting in the serenity of the French countryside

was that leader,

the exiled Islamic cleric Ruhollah Khomeini.

There are some isolated priests

with whom I had...

to take some strong measures.

Banished by the shah, Ayatollah Khomeini

relied on a network of followers

to distribute sermons throughout Iran

on cassette tape.

A close advisor to Ayatollah Khomeini

called me from Paris

and told me that, "Mohsen, we need you."

That was00 in the afternoon.

I borrowed $200,

bought a ticket to Paris,

and I was in the plane 00 at night.

He had a type of mysticism,

and contrary to his public image,

he was very kind.

Followers of Ayatollah Khomeini

gathered outside the small house

where he's been living in France

and cheered the news that the shah

had left Iran.

When the shah fled from Iran in January of 1979,

Khomeini made his move.

Flanked by Western reporters,

he boarded a flight home to Iran.

I was in charge of media relationship.

250 journalists wanted to get on the aeroplane.

We had to tell 100 of them that, "Sorry,

we can't have you."

With the hesitant steps of a man of 79,

he walks onto Iranian soil for the first time

since the shah forced him to leave the country

16 years ago.

Khomeini's arrival in Tehran was everything and more

than had been expected.

His followers, millions of them,

fought and screamed as they scrambled

onto the motor van

that carried him through the city.

We believed--

which I think it was not wrong--

that the absolute majority of the country,

they support Ayatollah Khomeini

and are with the revolution.

It's extraordinary how so many people can believe

that this frail, old priest

holds all the answers to Iran's problems.

Khomeini was back in Iran,

and his first speech made his intentions clear.

Nine months later,

when the students took the embassy,

Khomeini's power grab was all but complete.

That hostage taking,

you can think about that as a turn point.

It ended to a totalitarian regime

and a regime that doesn't respect

any international regulation and convention.

It was, like, I don't know, 00 in the morning

or something like that.

I got up groggy and put on the first clothes

that came to hand.

Ended up in the operations center

in the State Department.

It had speakers on a long table,

and each of those speakers was connected

to a phone inside the embassy,

and we had conversations back--

"Can you hear anything?"

And then one by one, the phones suddenly went dead.

That day was when the first thoughts began

to percolate about ways to bring pressure on Iran.

No one should underestimate the resolve

of the American government and the American people

in this matter.

Carter refused to hand over the shah,

instead imposing a raft of sanctions...

I am ordering that we discontinue

the purchasing of any oil from Iran.

...as part of an all-out diplomatic offensive.

The message the U.S. government

wants to convey is that, while you're trying

to blackmail us by holding our citizens hostage,

we're going to stand our ground.

But Iran's revolutionary leader

was not just hardnosed.

He had changed the rules of the game entirely.

Many people thought he would be the figurehead,

but he had no intention of being a figurehead.

He was more brutal than all of them.

As one official here put it rather gloomily,

you can't expect moderation from a fanatic,

so it's possible that, for as long as the shah

remains in this country,

the Americans will remain as hostages in Iran.

I received a care package from home,

and it had some books in it--

things like "Brothers Karamazov,"

"War and Peace," "Middlemarch."

Average length about 900 pages.

It was clear someone was sending me a message

that I was gonna have plenty of time

to read these books.

What was supposed to be a quick stunt

turned into weeks, then months.

Every day, reporters and cameramen

assemble at the gates.

Thousands of words are written,

but facts about the hostages are few.

The rise of the hostage crisis

coincided with structural shifts

in how the TV news business was run,

creating good guys and bad guys

and a melodramatic arc.

The Iran America Held Hostage.

ABC News even launched a nightly program

that made regulars of hostage families.

We know it today as "Nightline."

Every morning, Dotty Morefield

writes to her husband Richard, now a hostage.

With us now is Mrs. Morefield.

Ted Koppel became Ted Koppel as a result of all of this.

The media gave each of the 53 Americans

being held at the embassy a face and a story.

21-year-old James Lopez

is one of the Iranian hostages.

He knows that we're thinking about him all the time.

Weeping mothers were a constant feature,

and, you know, the media celebrated

what it called the rebirth of American patriotism.

What's on your mind this Christmas Eve?

The situation in Iran right now--

I wish the hostages were back in here

in this country celebrating Christmas

with their relatives.

In December, the American news networks

received a tape from the Iranian students

showing the hostages participating

in a bizarre Christmas celebration.

One thing you learn very quickly

in a situation like this is nothing's gonna make sense.

All the Americans here at the embassy

have made a special Christmas card

to Imam Khomeini.

A Christmas wish especially for you.

They ask us to sing Christmas carols,

which nobody wanted to do, and the whole thing

was so staged and obviously a show.

The students wanted to use it

for their own purposes to say,

"Look how nice we are."

The sentimental news coverage

the hostage crisis was receiving in America

also gave the revolutionaries an opening

to once again address the world.

I asked myself, "What had the shah done?"

My thinking started to turn around.

My eyes and mind were starting to awake to the truth.

The students, they were very naive.

They thought that Americans-- at least some Americans--

would sympathize with what they were doing.

How much longer can you go on doing this?

We are ready to go on until martyrdom.

Hermitage, Pennsylvania--

a flag for every day the hostages have been held.

It would have been a great moment

to really, like, explore the history

of our dealings with Iran and how high-handed

and arrogant we were

in our treatment of the country,

but we didn't seize that opportunity,

so we--a lot of the coverage gave in

to a kind of nationalistic jingoism

without any kind of stocktaking of the policies

that had gotten us to this point.

Down with Khomeini! He's a murderer!

He's a jerk!

Yesterday in Houston,

anti-Iranian demonstrators

burned a flag in front of the Iranian consulate.

That demonstration symbolizes what appears to be

growing anti-Iranian sentiment.

Impatience has turned to bitterness.

I don't see any reason in this world

for us to have to stand by twiddling our thumbs.

I feel we should show force.

Let's take some drastic action.

I mean real drastic.

Pressure on President Carter increased

with each passing day

the hostages remained in captivity.

Do you have any plan to resolve this?

Do you plan to bring any more pressures on Iran?

We have done everything we possibly could

in the last four months to try to preserve

in every way the health and the lives of those hostages

and to work for their freedom.

I don't know when they'll be released.

By April of 1980,

Carter felt he had no choice but to respond with force.

Diplomacy had failed, and so he ordered

a covert mission to rescue the hostages.

It would turn out to be the greatest blunder

of Carter's presidency.

Good morning, everyone.

I'm Tom Brokaw, and we're starting

at this early hour today because of major developments

in Iran.

Eight American servicemen were killed

apparently in the crash of a helicopter

with a C-130 cargo plane in Iran

during a secret United States mission

to rescue the hostages.

My name's Jim Schaefer,

major, United States Marine Corps CH-53 pilot

and a member of the Iranian rescue attempt.

It was just a loud thud.

After that, I don't remember much of anything.

Waking up, and I know the aircraft was on fire.

So...

This is the core of the tragedy--

the entire rotor assembly

of one of the American helicopters

that were involved in the rescue attempt.

The molten aluminum marked the intense heat

of the blaze which followed,

so intense that no American could get near

to drag clear the bodies in the wreckage.

It's just a horrible feeling of failure,

of letting our country down, of letting the people,

our troops down.

It was really, really, really a dark place.

News of the crash ricocheted across Iran.

Word of the mission itself

came as many thousands of people were attending

Friday prayers at Tehran University.

They heard it on their radios,

and then there was an announcement

via the speaker.

That was a miracle.

That was divine support

to Islamic revolution.

I mean, the propaganda was that

it was by the order of God.

I was able to steal a newspaper.

Not a lot of details, but it was enough to know

that there had been a rescue attempt,

that it had failed.

After the raid, we were scattered

around the country.

And I ended up at Evin Prison,

which is, like,

one of the worst prisons in the world,

and I was way, way underground

in a very small cell,

and so I decide, okay, I'm gonna take my own life.

This is what I'm gonna do because this is metal,

and I played football when I was younger and that,

so I'm just gonna crash my head into that door.

And then I thought about it, and I said,

"Oh...that's real bright.

You're not gonna die.

You're just gonna put yourself..."

"You're gonna make yourself irrelevant."

I'd like to send a message to the American people

and the people of the world.

I'd like to thank all of them for the support

that they have shown for us.

There were sort of really mixed emotions.

Two things--one was, of course, great sadness

that brave people had died...

in the attempt to get us out.

The other, of course, was great pride

that, no, we were not forgotten.

Our rescue team knew and I knew

that the operation was certain to be difficult,

and it was certain to be dangerous.

To the families of those who died and who were wounded,

I want to express the admiration I feel

for the courage of their loved ones

and the sorrow that I feel personally

for their sacrifice.

It was my decision to attempt the rescue operation.

The responsibility is fully my own.

To say, "Look, this was my decision,

and I take full responsibility for it,"

was a very hard thing for him to do.

It's a hard thing for any president to do,

and especially a president who's involved

in a very difficult reelection campaign.

When Dorothea Morefield heard the news,

she did not know what to make of it.

Mrs. Morefield kept switching channels

looking for more information on what happened.

They're Americans.

They went in to try and get them out,

and I feel so badly.

Do you think that it will endanger Richard?

I'm scared to death.

It was yet one more image of American humiliation

to visit our television screens every night.

Are you concerned now about the hostages?

Very much so.

I heard on the radio this morning

the mother of Rosen, and she was crying bitterly

and said that the president was all wrong.

After the abortive rescue effort in Iran,

one lady said, "My God, can't we do anything right?"

Carter's failed mission was red meat

for televangelist Jerry Falwell

and his budding political coalition

of evangelicals.

By this point,

Falwell had given this coalition a name--

the Moral Majority.

We are not preempted

from going into the political arena

and fighting the battle there.

As a matter of fact, we're obligated to do it.

Mixing politics with religion is a turnaround

for this evangelist, and he defends it vigorously.

If America's worth saving,

then the preachers need to fearlessly

declare the issues

no matter how unpopular they may be.

Evangelical political involvement,

it is ultimately a witness of two things--

our desire to serve others, including those less fortunate,

and our desire to share our love for our God.

Just pass the envelopes out, please.

Print your name and address.

Make your checks payable to Moral Majority.

Make them as generous as you can, please.

By 1980, Jimmy Carter is the enemy

for a lot of these people.

And I know people have been telling me

that Jimmy Carter's doing his best,

and that's our problem.

To the nation's evangelicals,

Ronald Reagan was a politician who spoke their language.

Even though he was divorced and he came out of Hollywood,

there was great identification with him rhetorically,

and he welcomed them.

He, at this time, is standing firmly

for those moral issues that we are very concerned about.

And when it came to the hostage crisis,

Reagan's point of view was simple.

I don't understand why 52 Americans

have been held hostage for almost a year now.

Strong-arm Iran and get the hostages back.

It was absolutely at the center

of his political and moral imagination

that America rescued its hostages.

We've endured this humiliation

for just lacking one week of a year now.

So, you know, if you wanted to vote

for a hawk, you know, you might as well

vote for the guy who promised you

a 30% tax cut over the guy who tells you

you're gonna have to make do with less.

This country needs a new administration

with a renewed dedication to the dream of an America,

an administration that will give that dream new life.

We will make America great again.

The greatness of America as a city set upon a hill

that would be a moral example to the rest of the world

that the rest of the world would want to emulate--

particularly for evangelicals,

that was a very powerful view of America.

Inside this little packet is an Old Glory flag pin.

Now, if you're ashamed of America, don't wear it.

Go on over and join Khomeini.

You might say it was a marriage made in heaven.

Heyo.

Religious America is awakening

perhaps just in time for our country's sake.

Just to bring you up to date on the presidential race,

it is looking very good for Ronald Reagan at this time.

It's a tremendous landslide.

Unanticipated, unexpected.

The hostage thing came in in a sneaky way,

and it just collapsed for Carter.

And all of this arrived on top of inflation,

unemployment, and so on--

all of the problems we know about.

And roughly 25%

of all voters told pollsters

they were regular viewers of Christian television.

Carter only won six states.

It was a wipeout.

I promised you four years ago

that I would never lie to you,

so I can't stand here tonight and say it doesn't hurt.

In all the days and months when I have served you

and served this country,

you've readily given me your shoulders,

your faith, and your prayers.

No man could ask any more of his friends.

He wasn't a showman,

but he really gave the American people

full value for their election.

Jimmy Carter actually asked the American people to think

and to take their job seriously,

and a lot of people really do appreciate that

and understand it,

and I think a lot of other people really don't.

Do the Carter people feel that they could have

done it differently?

Any one single thing they should have done better.

John, they point constantly to this hostage situation.

Even after his loss, Carter continued

to negotiate for the hostages,

but Iran continued to deny him a resolution

right up until the very last minute

of his presidency.

Live from Washington D.C.,

NBC News covers the inauguration

of Ronald Reagan.

Well, the night before, oh, about00,

00 at night, they came in,

and they said, "We're letting you go."

That day, I was in the Oval Office.

Both planes at the end of the runway.

And then we started to get notices

the hostages were moving.

We'll let you know when to take off.

What is--that's close.

We were sitting in a room.

These guys exploded in there saying,

"Get your stuff. Let's go."

They took off our blindfolds, and we walked

towards the airplane.

We do think that the hostages

will be leaving Tehran Airport before long.

The idea that the release would come

within minutes of Ronald Reagan raising his right hand

is to be believed in fiction only.

Reagan arrived on the steps of the White House,

and Carter went down, got in the car with him.

So at that point I left and went down

to the operations center in the basement,

and I followed the situation.

Were people talking about the hostages down there?

Someone said that they were airborne.

Mr. President, are the hostages out?

Can't say yet.

Not yet. They've cheated him.

They've cheated him right down to the end.

Reverend Falwell, what does this day mean to you?

I think this is a day with a real supernatural meaning.

I--the hostages' potential release,

a new president, a new administration.

Perhaps God may give to this country

a new beginning.

Raise your right hand and repeat after me.

I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear...

I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear...

...that I will faithfully execute the office

of president of the United States.

...that I will faithfully execute

the office of president of the United States.

- So help you God. - So help me God.

Minutes after Reagan raised his right hand,

the plane carrying the hostages

left the ground in Tehran.

The stands are filled.

The weather is easy.

- The hostages are free. - Hooray!

Looks as though President Reagan

has been spared the requirement of dealing on the hostages.

Spared for now.

Reagan was allowed to bask in this victory

that the hostages had returned safe and sound by and large.

And the cheering begins even before we see

the first of the returning Americans.

This is one of the first national experiences

that America's had in years in which everybody feels good.

How are you? Nice to see you.

I didn't know what I was coming back to.

I thought, "Wow, boy,

are we gonna be in some trouble."

And, of course, we were just treated like gold.

John Limbert believes that wholesale condemnation

of the Iranian people is wrong.

I do say they're people of talent,

ability, great kindness, great hospitality.

That's what I thought before. I still think so.

Seven days after taking office...

...Reagan welcomed the hostages home

with a patriotic celebration fit for American heroes.

You come home to a people who for 444 days

suffered the pain of your imprisonment,

prayed for your safety, and most importantly

shared your determination

that the spirit of free men and women

is not a fit subject for barter.

Now, I'll not be so foolish as to say,

"Forget what you've been through."

You never will.

But turn the page and look ahead.

To me, that's Reaganism to a T--

the idea that history

is not something to learn from,

that we don't transcend our traumas

by facing them unflinchingly,

but that we kind of create this sort of fantasy America

in which there are no problems,

except for problems that are kind of visited

upon America from, you know, forces

that are not really American at all.

Let terrorists be aware

that when the rules of international behavior

are violated, our policy will be one

of swift and effective retribution.

And then five years later, it comes up again.

And that's how we get back to Iran-Contra...

...when Ronald Reagan found himself

enveloped in a hostage crisis of his own.

Reagan had reached the White House

in part by attacking his opponent's approach

to the same exact problem.

In doing so, the new president

had painted himself into a corner,

a hostage of his own making.

And maybe that's the Greek tragedy--

that you cannot escape your fate.

The hearing will please come to order.