Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.MX

[soft dramatic music]

♪

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

[indistinct radio chatter]

♪

- To take off from a nuclear carrier

in a helicopter from a clear deck--

yeah, it was very exhilarating,

exhilarating to know what we were going to do.

- This was a classified operation.

Nobody knew.

♪

[dramatic music]

♪

♪

[helicopter whirring]

- We have passed the point of no return...

- I thought that President Carter's guidance

to put together a rescue mission

was absolutely appropriate.

- We knew we were doing something that was right.

[crowds chanting in foreign language]]

- If you say Desert One,

the average American, they don't remember that.

- What I saw was chilling.

♪

[crowd shouting] [cheers and applause]

♪

- When I was about 11,

my father got a job

in Southern Iran in the oil business,

and I actually went there with him for about a year.

[distant chatter, sheep bleating]

I learned a little bit of Farsi

and got an appreciation for Southern Iran,

came back to the United States,

and years later, I enlisted.

The army asked me if I would like

to be a foreign area officer,

and Iran was on the list.

Little-known fact, Iran has the potential

for having some of the very best skiing

in the entire world,

the perfect champagne powder snow conditions.

[funky synth music]

♪

So when they offered Iran,

I knew a little bit about the language.

I knew a little bit about the country.

I figured, hey, this is gonna be a cornerstone

of American foreign policy for the rest of my career.

Why not specialize? So I did.

[wind whooshing]

- My father was assigned to Iran

with something called community development.

It was the ancestor of USAID,

and I was a college student at the time,

and so I was able to go there

in the summer of '62 to visit them.

This was my first time out of the United States.

Years later, when I went into Peace Corps,

they said Iran, and I said, "Well, that sounds fine.

I have this little bit of exposure to it."

So I was assigned there as an English teacher.

[indistinct speech over PA]

Of course, the art is interesting.

The poetry is beautiful.

Some of the architecture is exquisite,

but the main thing there is at the end of my service,

I met my--my wife.

[tender music]

and we ended up having both of our children there.

♪

I joined the U.S. Foreign Service,

and because I knew Persian pretty well,

the State Department asked me,

"Do you want to serve in Iran?"

and I said no because

I thought our policies were too--

we were too close to the Shah...

[grand band music playing]

And under the Shah,

Iran was a dictatorship.

[trumpet fanfare playing]

The Shah was seen as an American puppet

doing what the Americans wanted to do.

[cheers and applause]

[indistinct shouting]

- This is the latest American spy plane.

The Shah of Iran will get seven of them.

He says he's proven himself as an ally of the west,

defending a long border with the Soviet Union.

- Iran permits no democratic opposition.

Critics of the Shah claim the military buildup

is intended for internal control.

- The Shah of Iran has met with every U.S. president

since Truman, and has enjoyed a long

and friendly relationship with the United States.

[cheers and applause]

♪

- Jimmy Carter? - Jimmy who?

- I don't know who he is.

- I heard he was a peanut farmer.

[cheers and applause]

- I'm running for president.

[cheers and applause]

- What was the song?

- Oh, Jimmy Carter, you know, was the song.

"I saw a young man speaking out just the other day."

- ♪ So stopped to take a listen ♪

♪ To what he had to say

♪ He spoke straight and simple ♪

♪ By that I was impressed, he said ♪

♪ Once and for all, why not the best? ♪

[soulful music]

- ♪ He said his name was Jimmy Carter ♪

♪ And I'm running for president ♪

[laughing] That's definitely-- excuse me, lousy voice.

I had a good-- had a good singer.

- Mark. Excuse me.

- My life had been mostly one of successes.

[soft music]

You know, I had been elected president with a great surprise

to almost everybody except me.

So help me, God. - Congratulations.

[cheers and applause]

- Well, I had been a state senator and governor.

I saw that a lot of things that I wanted to do

in public office were not being done.

I wanted to maintain peace

and not let the United States get involved in wars

and also bring peace to others,

and I wanted to enhance

the United States' input on human rights.

[static buzzes]

- The Shah of Iran arrived for a state visit

to be greeted by the president,

drums, trumpets, ceremony on the White House lawn.

[bright band music playing]

- Jimmy Carter, who is so closely identified

with the cause of human rights,

a phrase that many believe mocks reality in Iran.

- Just as the Shah arrived on the White House grounds,

his opponents surged across toward his supporters,

and the streets of Washington became a battleground.

[indistinct shouting]

- President Carter had just launched into his welcome

for the Shah when up from the ellipse

rolled a wave of tear gas,

threatening, but never breaking the will

of the principals to carry on.

[applause]

- [sniffs]

- We attach utmost importance

to our relations with the United States.

We have never had

the slightest shadow

passing over our relations.

[applause]

[crowd chanting in foreign language]

[tense percussive music]

- I got to the embassy in August

of 1978.

My timing was impeccable.

The revolution was

in its very beginning stages.

♪

- All of the resentment against the Shah

had built up over many years

and found a leader in a cleric

called Ayatollah Khomeini,

and he became this voice

of all different currents of opposition.

- 3,000 miles away in the mud of a tiny French village,

Ayatollah Khomeini was bringing down

the Shah's ultra-modern armies

with commands to followers sent by tape cassette

and long-distance phone call.

[camera shutter clicks] - The Shah was at his palace,

and at least here within its sedate grounds,

all seems right with the world,

but in streets a few miles from the palace gates,

the rioting and revolution that ushered 1978 out

was there as 1979 began.

Within days, he would turn over governing responsibility

and flee his country to watch from abroad

as his illusions of a dynasty collapsed.

[soft dramatic music]

[cars honking]

[crowd shouting indistinctly]

- I saw it all on TV, of course.

There was shock and amazement

at the size of the crowds,

so I felt like this was gonna be different.

[crowd shouting in foreign language]

- And I was told,

"Your foreign area officer study time in Iran is over.

Go home," and so I did.

And that summer,

they traded out everybody in the embassy.

[pensive music]

- I was, at that point, in charge

of the American consulate in Tabriz, Western Iran.

There were only a couple of us who spoke Persian, Farsi,

and so we were asked to stay on.

We ended up being taken back to Tehran,

and I then joined the embassy staff.

- The State Department sent out a notice saying,

"We need people with experience.

We want people who know the language

to go there and serve," so I volunteered to go,

but my family stayed in Saudi Arabia.

Iran was in ferment,

and for a foreign service officer,

ferment is always what you like because things are happening.

- I was 20 years old, a young marine,

experienced, trained,

and I was assigned to the United States embassy

in Tehran, Iran.

I had never in my life ever heard of that country.

♪

I realized I was actually going to be assigned

to go into a revolution.

- This was interesting stuff.

How often do you get a chance to see a tornado

coming right down your street?

You know, you wanna watch it.

It might be stupid,

counterproductive, dangerous,

but it's the kind of thing people do.

- Today, a State Department source

says the Shah has cancer.

He was taken to New York Hospital

on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

- Most of us at the-- at the embassy thought,

"We're finished.

We're done.

Something bad is gonna happen."

[crowd chanting in foreign language]

[tense music]

♪

- Suddenly,

I hear a big racket out in the streets.

♪

I open the gate, I peek down the street,

and sure enough, thousands upon thousands of people

coming down to the embassy,

and it became a little unnerving to me.

♪

I locked the gate, started walking back,

and they started climbing over the gates.

[gate rattling]

♪

I ran as fast as I could back to that front door,

and they weren't more than a couple steps behind me

as the doors were slammed.

Immediately, the embassy was put on shutdown.

♪

- This group calling itself

Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line...

[crowd chanting in foreign language continues]

Banged their way in with a set of bolt cutters.

[glass shatters]

- As they came in the basement window,

the marines were being told, "Don't shoot.

Hold your cool, and eventually retreat."

♪

My heart was pounding.

♪

I--I wanted to run,

but there was nowhere to go.

They blindfolded me,

they handcuffed me behind my back,

and I began to panic.

I began to get scared.

I didn't know what was going to happen to us.

♪

- The sprawling 26-acre embassy compound

once had a staff of 1,000.

Now it is little more than a jail.

[crowd chanting in foreign language]

- According to a Khomeini spokesman,

the occupation has the ayatollah's full support.

The hostages will remain captive

until the Shah is returned.

[crowd chanting in foreign language]

[angry shouting]

- He added that their fate is now in Carter's hands.

- At the State Department,

spokesman Hodding Carter was emphatic.

- Are we considering handing him over?

Are there any plans to do so or to meet that demand?

The answer is no.

- The administration is now emphasizing diplomacy,

leaning on the Iranian government

as the way to get the Americans released.

- No one should underestimate

the resolve of the American government

and the American people in this matter.

We did two things.

One, we told the-- Ayatollah Khomeini

that if he injured a hostage,

that we would com-- impose a complete blockade

against all trade or commerce in and out of Iran,

and if he killed a hostage,

then we would attack Iran militarily.

[shutters clicking]

- But the fact of it was,

in case the Iranians paid no attention to diplomacy,

we needed to do something about it.

Could we have a rescue mission that would work?

Is there some way of untangling this?

Is there some way of--

of getting these hostages out of there?

- Nobody else was aware

that we were already beginning to think,

you know, that we might have to use a military instrument

to extract the--the hostages.

[indistinct radio chatter] - Keep your eyes open.

- These are the men of the Special Forces,

some of the toughest

and most highly-trained soldiers in the world.

- One of the most unique military organizations

in history,

men who have accepted the challenge

of some of the most daring assignments.

[dramatic music]

They learn to function together.

They become a team.

- I was honored because only certain people

get picked to fly with the Special Ops.

The camaraderie

and the closeness that you get,

you don't get with other people.

You have their back,

and they have yours.

- A Delta Force group had been created in 1975

by Colonel Beckwith.

- Charlie Alvin Beckwith.

I first heard of him when he was a major

and they were interviewing him

and he didn't speak very well of the South Vietnamese troops.

And this reporter asked him,

"Well, what about the North Vietnamese?"

- What kind of fighters are the Viet Cong that you met here?

- I would give anything to have 200 of them under my command.

They're the finest soldiers I've ever seen.

- I mean, that was sort of politically un--incorrect

to say in those days,

but political correctness was not one of the things

for which Charlie Beckwith was known.

Sometimes he did things, and we wondered, you know,

is this guy 20% genius and 80% moron,

or is it the other way around, you know?

But the--of course, in the end, he wasn't this

dumb country boy he sometimes pretended to be.

- Our first initial mission

set for the first two years was just rescuing people,

and there's no greater privilege

than rescuing somebody,

bringing an American home.

[birds chirping]

- I was mowing the grass in my house in California,

and my wife at the time came to the door and said,

"Hey, you have a phone call,

somebody from the Pentagon,"

and they said, "We want you to come to Washington tomorrow."

- Tuesday night before Thanksgiving,

I got a call saying I needed to show up to flight line

the next morning about 6:00 with my flight gear.

They didn't tell us what it was about.

[soft acoustic music]

- I said, "Okay, where are we going?"

He says, "I don't know."

"Well, what are we gonna do?" He says, "I don't know."

"Well, how long we gonna be gone?

30 days, you know, 60 days?"

He said, "Don't know."

- You don't know what's coming, really,

but it's "yes, sir" and get on with it.

♪

- When I found out that the aviators were called up,

you started to get the idea that something

is being planned, something is happening.

He would, of course, never said no.

His mindset was to do a job, get it done,

so we were really left alone.

- He would get these calls in the middle of the night.

Away he'd go.

He'd be gone for three, four days,

and then he'd come home,

but he would never say where he was because he couldn't.

- These men who worked or work with my dad

would just show up and say, "Let's go do this."

It was like in that commercial

where you see the boys grabbing the dad's leg,

and they're walking out the kitchen.

That was what it was like in our house.

My mom was the patriarch

at that period of our lives,

and so she ran everything, and he went off and flew.

[chuckles softly]

[pensive music]

♪

- Iranian students today

warned that they would kill their captives

if the United States tried to intervene with force.

- Today, Iran must be the only country in the world

with a television program

on how to fire an automatic rifle.

Every night, an invited studio audience

apparently want to know

how to tackle American commandos in the street.

- [speaking in foreign language]

♪

- In Beverly Hills, California,

Iranian students had scheduled their demonstration

to begin at 10:30 in a small park,

but a group of about 25 anti-Iranian demonstrators

showed up first.

In less than a minute,

they began to attack the students.

[all shouting angrily]

At one point the mob cornered one of the Iranians.

When he tried to protect himself,

this is what happened.

- Mr. Speaker, our phones are ringing.

They will continue to ring from irate citizens

across the country for the apparent

weak-kneed non-policy of this administration

in dealing with the crisis in Iran.

- The fact that Americans were treated and held hostage

this way really traumatized the American people

and traumatized all of us.

I can only tell you that the president just went

at this issue every day, tried everything he could,

but any strategies that raised the risk of our hostages

getting hurt, he would never allow it,

so we had to concentrate on diplomacy.

- It's very odd.

Here's a person who was a Naval Academy graduate,

a submarine officer who was in the nuclear navy,

but Carter had a great antipathy

to the use of military force.

- I felt that when we could possibly resolve

differences between us, we should do with--

you know, with generosity and with maintaining peace.

I invited the entire group of family members,

close friends to the State Department to meet with them

so I knew who they were and I knew about every hostage

that was being held and so forth,

so I was very deeply and personally involved

with the hostages and their plight.

I am not going to take any military action

that would cause bloodshed or arouse

the unstable captors of our hostages

to attack them or to punish them.

I'm gonna be very moderate, very cautious.

- Since this crisis began, the U.S. government

hasn't had a great deal of leverage in Iran.

Now it has even less.

In covering the State Department,

particularly that daily grind

of the noon briefing,

I learned to listen

very carefully to what people say.

President Carter's statements were ill-considered.

I'm sure it was intended

to put the minds of the families at ease...

[shutter clicks]

But if you're holding the hostages

and the president of the United States

has just said to you,

"As long as you keep on holding those hostages,

no military action,"

I thought it was about as foolish a policy statement

as you could make.

- You can't look weak here. America has to be strong.

And, um, and I don't think...

[laughs] I don't think Carter cared.

His priority in this whole thing

was to get the hostages home safe.

- One time they had Mr. Khomeini,

who's the current supreme leader and at that time

was the Friday prayer leader of Tehran,

so a big deal, he came to visit us.

- We had an exchange

which made the television news in Tehran that night

and also made the American newspapers.

- I didn't want to berate him. I didn't want to insult him.

I was putting the needle in him,

but the message was pretty clear,

which was you have violated

a basic tradition of your own culture,

and what you have done is outrageous.

- When the hostages were taken,

we immediately began planning for the hostage rescue,

and ultimately, we came up with the plan that we used.

[indistinct chatter]

The mission was very plain and simple.

Bring home 52 American hostages.

[percussive music]

♪

- We would launch in two separate elements,

fly the ground force in by C-130s,

and the helicopters would launch off

of the USS "Nimitz"

and fly into a remote desert location

about 100 miles from Tehran,

and then we would all get in the helicopters,

and we would fly to a mountain location

outside of Tehran.

♪

We would come down the mountain,

get in trucks that were being brought to us

by a couple of agents that were inside there,

and then drive to the embassy very clandestinely.

On cue, we would hit that embassy.

We would go right to where we thought the hostages were,

and the helicopters would land

in the soccer stadium next door.

♪

We'd blow a hole in the wall of the embassy,

get those hostages... [tires screech]

Go into the soccer stadium,

load them up, and we would all take off.

So that was the plan.

- And remember, this was a classified operation.

Nobody knew.

- The whole nature of the rescue,

every piece of it involved risk.

I don't think any country in the world

could have even contemplated

an operation like this.

- The plan was a very difficult plan,

but it was not an impossible plan.

I was responsible for a lot of lives,

and I certainly didn't want to butcher it all up.

I wanted to do well. I wanted the unit to do well.

- We had what I considered,

what all our military leaders considered to be

a very firm and potentially successful mission.

[indistinct chatter]

- We had CIA operatives in Tehran,

but they happened to be in the embassy,

so therefore, they were captured as well.

Why is that important?

- We need to know which way the doors open.

We need to know what the windows are made out of.

We need to know how many guards are outside that embassy.

We need to know where the hostages are being held.

- Guess how we got most of our intelligence as to that?

[upbeat music]

♪

- Again today, Iran is the major story.

People knew that for half an hour every evening,

they would get an in-depth look at one story.

That subject would be the hostages.

[shutter clicking]

- We watched Ted Koppel and "Nightline,"

which really started with the hostage crisis.

We watched them religiously,

primarily to get more intelligence.

- A cameraman from Iran's

state-controlled television network

was allowed inside the compound this week

to film these scenes.

- I'm serious.

The Delta Force would watch any kind of footage

that would be available,

and they would analyze the demeanor,

how they held their weapons, etcetera,

to try to get an idea of what kind of guards

might be around the embassy.

So Colonel Beckwith really wanted eyes on the target.

- Beckwith and Carter

had a meeting in the Situation Room,

and Charlie Beckwith started to talking.

Jimmy said,

"You're from the South. You sound--"

and he said, "Better than that, Mr. President.

I'm from Sumter County," which is where Plains is,

and Jimmy says-- listen to the dialect,

"Who are your folks?" [chuckles]

And he says, you know,

"Oh, yeah, yeah, I used to eat at his--"

[laughing] I mean, it was really like out of a movie,

and he said,

"How many helicopters do you need?"

- The minimum number of helicopters

that the military wanted were six.

One more was added as insurance,

and Carter added another one, so there were eight.

There were two in reserve.

[helicopters whirring]

[dramatic music]

♪

- When I showed up, we really had to start flying

and find out where everybody was.

♪

Night vision goggles were basically made

for jeep drivers at night.

That's what they were made for,

so I told the pilot,

"I want you to demonstrate the fact

"that you can take six of these aircraft,

"fly them 600 nautical miles, 200 feet or below at night,

no lights, no radios, and land at point B."

♪

These kids got to be pretty good.

♪

- Every time we had a rehearsal,

the feeling within the other parts of the task force were,

let's just hope the helicopters make it

'cause they got the toughest part of the mission.

I was the commander of the squadron

that was selected to provide four of the six crews

flying the C-130s on the rescue mission.

- I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,

or the right place at the right time.

I--you know, I don't know.

The learning curve was very, very fast, very, very steep.

You can do all you want in the daylight.

It's a much different world at night.

- There was a mixture of enthusiasm

and "wow,"

but also skepticism

because before the actual mission,

there was never a full-up dress rehearsal

with all the moving parts.

- These people had hardly known each other

before operational planning began.

- We prepared so that when President Carter said go,

we would take off,

and as we went into early 1980,

Carter still said,

"In case diplomatic efforts fail,

then we might do it,"

so he delayed for a long time.

[indistinct chatter, cars honking]

- Okay.

For about two weeks,

I had to sleep with my hands in plastic handcuffs.

Well, imagine that you're in this position...

And you're on the floor.

Well, you can't sleep. I mean, you can sleep,

but you have to sleep like this.

You can't put your hand under your head.

On the other hand, imagine what you have to go through

to go to the toilet.

You can't clean yourself,

so you end up

living in feces with your hands tied.

You know, but this is standard stupidity in prisons.

[tense music]

- In February or March

of 1980,

they came into our rooms about 2:00 in the morning

with masks on and with weapons.

- They took us out into the hallway.

They stripped us down to our undershorts.

They handcuffed us behind our backs.

They blindfolded us.

- And they let us out

and took us down the hall,

lined us up against a wall, and started chambering rounds.

[gun clicks] [indistinct chatter]

- One of the Iranians was running up

and down the hallway,

shouting out execution commands

at the top of his lungs.

- [shouting in foreign language]

- I remember one of the other Americans

just shouting at the top of his lungs,

"Just get it over with already!"

and cursing them, like, at the top of his lungs,

and, um,

and I was scared to death.

- I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

I mean, if it was goi-- if it was going to--

if we were going to be shot then,

I was going to be shot then.

- [speaking in foreign language]

[gun clicks]

♪

- And...

as quickly as it started and it happened, it was over.

- To this day, I don't know why they did it.

I suspect they did it because they could.

- I just seethed,

and I had a whole other level

of hatred and resentment,

just feeling that, um,

I had been abandoned.

- There was a feeling of

growing desperation

as the days turned into weeks

and the weeks turned into months.

- It's eight weeks now since the takeover

of the American embassy in Tehran.

- 87th day of captivity.

- 142 days now of the Iran hostage crisis.

- People were tying yellow ribbons around trees

all over the country.

[indistinct chatter]

That became the symbol

of the absent hostages.

- Meanwhile, we were getting ready to run for reelection.

- Isn't it about time that this country

stopped worrying about whether someone likes us

and decides we're going to be respected in the world...

[cheers and applause]

Respected to the point that never again will any dictator

dare invade an American embassy and hold our people hostage?

- Reagan was saying,

"I don't understand why it takes so long.

I would give them 24 hours, then boom, boom."

We were not going to have a war over the hostages.

- Everything we tried diplomatically

would get knocked down by the ayatollah.

- He had decided that Carter was a monster,

and he wasn't gonna deal with him.

- We were just being dragged around by the nose.

Trying to use other countries as intermediaries didn't work.

Using these sketchy characters as intermediaries didn't work.

Nothing seemed to work.

- The president then decided that

he was going to go with the military option,

and then Carter said in a very dramatic way,

"If we are successful,

"it will be your achievement.

"If we are not successful,

it will be my defeat."

- That evening in the White House when he approved

the plan to go into Iran, being very frank about it,

I had no idea that President Carter

would make the decision that he made.

In fact, I almost fell out of my chair.

- I felt that the rescue mission was justified.

I was convinced at the time by my military advisors

that it would be successful.

And so,

I was very determined to get the hostages released

by going in and bringing them out.

[helicopter whirring]

- I was at Fort Bragg in the Delta compound

when Charlie Beckwith came back and said, "It's a go."

- We got the word.

I picked my bag up and kissed my wife

and said, "I'm gone."

- He said, "I'll see you when I see you,"

and I said, "Where are you going?"

and he said, "You know I can't tell you."

- She had no idea where I was going.

- I knew in my heart that he was going to go to Iran.

- Oh, I shouldn't say that.

She probably had an idea, you know?

[static buzzes]

- Things are pretty tough for the families of the Americans

held by the Iranian students.

- In Milwaukee, the mother of a marine

desperate to hear some good news from Tehran.

- I read the reports and hear on the news

that they're not in any danger, that they're not being harmed,

but that doesn't really convince me.

all: ♪ It's a long road to freedom ♪

♪ A-winding, steep, and hard

Roger O'Neill, NBC News, Milwaukee.

all: ♪ Bye, bye, bye

- Mom got very frightened,

and she made it her mission

that she was going to do whatever she could

to see me one more time.

Of course, I didn't know any of this was going on.

[soft dramatic music]

- The guards came in, and they said,

"You're coming with me," and they grabbed me.

They put a blindfold on.

I have no idea what's going on.

I was afraid.

And they led me into a different building.

♪

They seated me on a sofa.

They took my handcuffs off.

I didn't have a blindfold on.

All of a sudden, I hear this rustling by one of the doors.

The door opens,

and in walks my mom.

♪

She came running over and hugged me

and virtually collapsed in my arms,

and as I hugged her, I said to her,

"There are microphones in the--

this plant in front of us,"

so all we could talk about was personal stuff

about home and family and sports.

I wanted to know

how did she get here, why is she here,

what's being done to get us out.

I wanted hard news, and my mom was shaking

the entire 20 or so minutes we were together.

And as fast as it started, it ended.

"Mrs. Timm, it's time to leave."

And my mom stood up. I stood up.

I hugged her, and they whisked her away,

and my mom was like, "No, no, it's not--

no, it's too soon, too soon."

- He assured me that he has not lost his faith.

He said, "One thing I do know. I've become a better person,

and I've become a stronger person.

- No.

- In Washington, the State Department says

the policy now is to allow no more relatives

to visit the prisoners in Tehran,

but the Timms would not be prosecuted, it said,

because they went just before this new policy took effect.

- Little did anybody know--

except those who were planning it--

the reason-- a reason for the travel ban

was that the president

was about to order the rescue mission.

[indistinct chatter]

My mom is in Iran

just as all of these events are culminating.

[dramatic trumpet music]

- We land at an airfield in Southern Egypt.

♪

We were all trying to get over the time zone change,

trying to get acclimated to the heat.

Everybody that was going to be on the ground

had what the military likes to call,

"relaxed grooming standards."

Many people had scruffy beards.

Everybody had long hair.

It was a very ragtag-looking group

of highly-skilled folks.

- When we got to Wadi Qena, Egypt,

General Vaught told us exactly what the mission was.

"Yes, this is the mission, period, and it cannot fail."

- We knew we were doing something that was right,

and you can-- might say teach

the ayatollah a lesson.

- Candidly, I didn't think it was going to succeed.

There were too many moving parts, okay?

As a soldier, I felt two things.

Number one, the president of the United States says go.

I'm a soldier. I take commands.

Number two,

my buddies are going in.

If they're gonna go, I'm gonna go.

[rousing martial music]

[planes buzzing]

- We flew from Wadi Qena to Masirah Island,

got on the C-130s,

then we went into Iran.

♪

[soft dramatic music]

♪

- To take off from a nuclear carrier in a helicopter--

yeah, it was very exhilarating.

We took off into the twilight

headed for the coast.

♪

[indistinct chatter]

[device beeping]

- Yes, General Jones is here. - Thank you.

[martial music]

♪

- It was dusk when we flew across the Iranian coast.

It was dark.

[helicopters whooshing]

[control board beeping]

The pilot told me, "You got a blade problem,"

so the pilot looked for a place to land,

and as I was going up on the rotor head,

I saw another aircraft landing.

I saw the blade was bad,

but the pilot in command had to make the call.

You know,

there were such parameters that you couldn't go on,

and one of them was a failed blade.

[helicopter whirring]

And he decided that we would go to the aircraft,

so we got on that other aircraft,

and we flew towards Desert One.

♪

- Now we have one less helicopter,

but nobody's making radio calls

to let the leadership know this.

We didn't want to break radio silence.

Our instructions were total radio silence.

[planes whooshing]

- Now, you have to understand that we had to land

in the most firm soil, and the place we landed at

was a dry lake bed,

and the most firm soil was in the middle of the dry lake bed.

For that same reason, over the years,

there had been a little road that went through there.

We knew that.

- Intel said, "The road you're landing by

"is very-- nobody but banditos and stuff.

Very--never traveled, nuh, buh, buh."

Okay.

- What I had worked out was I would go to the rear

of the 130 and establish initial security.

I hear a motorcycle coming up. [tires rustle on dirt]

It's one of my Rangers, Bob Rubio.

I get on the back of the motorcycle.

[engine revving]

[tense music]

- You're on NVGs, night vision goggles.

Well,

when any light comes in, it washes them out, and it's--

it's like--it's like when you wake up at night

and you turn the light on and you go,

"Whoa," same principle.

All of a sudden, there's this light.

♪

- We see headlights coming down to us,

and I see a Mercedes emblem.

- I turn around,

and in not more than 150 yards behind the airplane

coming towards us is a bus.

- And the next thing I hear is "phwoop."

[grenade round fwips]

Little John fired a grenade round.

[explosion] [tires screech]

The bus stops.

[indistinct shouting]

[helicopter whirring]

- We had dispersed,

and we get out of the mountains,

and good golly.

The weather is looking just like they forecast.

It is gorgeous.

I mean, you could see the shadow of the aircraft

along the desert floor.

I mean, it was that good.

And we are cruising along, and I said,

"Chuck, give me a turkey loaf with some fruit cup in it

so I can get something to eat before we get to Desert One."

All of a sudden, I look out,

and I see this kinda, like, uh,

rolling fogbank.

- It was like putting your head

inside of a brown paper grocery bag.

That's about how far you could see.

What we later found out was this was called a haboob.

It's a dust cloud that's suspended for thousands of feet

and for miles in any direction.

This stuff was as fine as talcum powder.

Our navigation equipment

and our flight instruments

were starting to fail,

so the pilots didn't have a good feel

for what was level,

and one of them was starting to experience vertigo.

♪

With there being such a distance left

to go to Desert One, passing the mountains,

and the condition of the helicopter,

the decision was made to return to the "Nimitz",

get as much repair as we could,

and then come back the next night.

♪

[engine rumbling] [indistinct shouting]

- Next thing you know,

here comes another set of lights down the road.

We ain't even been on the ground five minutes.

It's like, damn, this is Grand Central Station.

- So we start heading down this dirt road.

So I said, "Rube, grab one of the damn WLAs,

come up on me, and take cover behind the berm."

Here I am, hoping that if anybody sees me,

they'll hope I'm the second coming of Genghis Khan

coming out of Mongolia.

And I know it's a truck coming at me.

[truck whirring]

Carter had dictated minimal use of force.

[tense music]

I've got an M16, a 5.56 millimeter rifle.

I know I can't stop a truck.

♪

But I start firing at the radiator.

[gunshots]

And I finally said, "To hell with this."

And I raise my point. I aim...

♪

But he's still coming.

"Rube, sir, fire."

[whooshing, explosion]

Holy shit. [indistinct shouting]

[fire whooshing]

We hit a 3,000-gallon fuel truck.

[fire whooshing]

I started circling in. I'm hearing this bizarre noise.

As I came closer in, it's this damn radio playing,

and it's playing this Persian music.

[Persian music playing]

Then out of the corner of my eye,

I see another damn vehicle coming.

[running footsteps] [vehicle whirring]

[tires squeal]

- The driver got out, got in the other vehicle,

and they went away.

[device beeping]

[plane whooshing]

- The other five airplanes came in.

They had difficulty because of the burning fuel truck

destroying their night vision.

- I got off the airplane.

I was expecting darkness,

and there's this huge fire burning down at the south end,

and you can see like it's daylight,

and there's this group of people huddled over there,

and so I thought that was actually maybe "my stick,"

my chalk of people that were supposed

to get on the airplane, so I walked over to them,

and I asked them, "What chalk is this?"

and the guy answered me in Farsi, and I was--

what the hell is going on here? [laughs]

[helicopter whooshing]

[suspenseful percussive music]

- 57 minutes after we think the first one

should have arrived comes the first one in,

and the others come in shortly thereafter.

- Because of the refuel and flight time,

it was probably going to be daylight

before we got to the planned hide site...

- And greatly increase the risk to the force.

- We had six aircraft at Desert One, kay?

Six. We were still a go.

[indistinct shouting]

- Ed Seiffert, commander of the helicopters,

goes around to make a last-minute check.

[hatch clicks]

Ed sees that a hydraulic pump literally is glowing red.

♪

- I had investigated one too many accidents

where a primary hydraulic system had been lost

and we had lost the aircraft subsequent to that.

The risk was just too high.

♪

I told Charlie Beckwith, "We are down to five,"

and he got irritated.

I have the utmost respect for Charlie Beckwith,

but Charlie didn't know enough about the helicopters

to have an opinion that, in my opinion,

was worth a tinker's damn.

- I'm carrying this whole country,

and this particular operation is beginning to unravel,

and it's beginning to go sour, and I'm a part of this.

We're going to embarrass our country.

♪

- They launched eight from the "Nimitz."

We needed six to do the mission.

♪

- We had an op-sched, an operations schedule,

a "what if?" list, if you will,

and there was one word,

"Less than six helicopters, leave Desert One."

The word was "abort."

♪

- We were upstairs in the residence,

and we're getting ready for the campaign.

I went through the spots we were gonna do,

and they came in with a note for Carter,

and he got up and walked out.

- He left the campaign meeting,

went into his private office.

- The president was talking to Beckwith,

and Beckwith said, "Mr. President,

"I hate to say this, but I think we--we've gotta abort this.

It can't work."

Well, the president said, "Yes, we'll abort it."

- So the idea was

we would try to come back the following night.

We'll just have to do it again.

- We'd built up a lot of hope

for this rescue mission,

and I remember he turned

a deep white, ashen.

I think he was hurt

right down to the very bottom.

- Well, I was heartbroken and disappointed

when I told them to-- you know, to leave.

I thought it would be a-- a departure

where we would take all of our equipment out

except what we had-- what we had to leave behind.

[plane whirring]

[wind whooshing]

- My airplane left because

we had been on the ground forever and ever and ever.

You're sitting there going, "Why?"

[stammers]

"Why--what did we do to deserve this?

We trained so hard for so long."

- Everybody who felt like I felt,

felt tremendously deflated,

saddened, embarrassed,

you know, pissed about the helicopters.

- I have had nobody

come back and tell me

that that was acceptable

to go with that condition.

None, okay?

Any hydraulic engineer will tell you the same damn thing,

and all I say is BS, have a nice fricking day.

My decision.

I was the air component commander.

Go stuff it somewhere.

[indistinct shouting]

- Then the next phase was,

well, we have to tank up all the helicopters

and fly the ones that are flyable back out.

I had been on the airplane

that was the tanker

that was refueling the helicopter behind us.

Aviation fuel smells terrible,

so I started walking off to get some fresh air.

- It was getting light.

[indistinct chatter]

We rolled everything back up,

closed the ramp and door. [door bangs]

The helicopter took off. [helicopter whirring]

- I just kinda hunkered down under my jacket

and kept walking away with my back to the airplane

as this dust swirl hit me,

and I could hear the helicopter picking up

and picking up and picking up.

[wind whooshing] [helicopter whirring]

- The pilot actually thought he was going away

from the C-130 when he wasn't.

- He--what they call-- browned out.

He had no visual-- didn't know where he was at.

- And all of a sudden, the sky behind me lit up.

[helicopter whirring] [explosion]

♪

[indistinct chatter]

- I had 46 Delta Force

inside the plane.

We went over to the left side of the airplane,

opened up the paratroop door...

[fire whooshes]

And there was nothing but fire.

[soldiers shouting]

Being inside of a closed airplane--

and now, when I say closed, it was closed up, blocked up.

There is no place

to get out of that plane.

But your training kicks in. [running footsteps]

I closed it, went over to the right side.

[hatch clicks] I opened it up.

♪

- It was like a scene from some movie

where these troops came walking out

of what looked like out of the middle of a fireball,

you know, walking out of hell.

- Delta Force are so well-trained to listen,

not to panic,

and God be with us, there was--

there was no panicking in the plane whatsoever.

[indistinct shouting]

I jumped down.

I looked up, and there was JJ in the door.

- JJ Beyers-- JJ couldn't get out.

He was--

he was still caught in the flames.

A couple of the Delta guys ran back into the airplane

and got him out.

- He was on fire, and they put him out.

We were lucky there.

- I saw the--the cockpit

in complete flames.

- What I saw was chilling.

♪

I saw him standing.

♪

It must have been the flight engineer, Joel Mayo.

He was up out of his seat.

That was hard. That was--that was hard.

♪

You know that the people up there no longer exist.

♪

The plane was so intense, the fire--

there was no way anybody could even get close to it.

- To get out of the airplane as quick as possible,

they left some of the weapons behind,

and they started cooking off in the flames of the crash.

[ammunition exploding, crackling]

- Kay.

- Yes, sir.

[fire whooshing]

- We could not wait for the fire to go down

and retrieve the bodies.

[indistinct shouting]

We were losing darkness, and we knew that the Iranians

only had capabilities in the daytime

to intercept us on the way out if they knew about us,

so the decision was made to get everybody out of Iran

and get them back to Oman before the sun came up.

- They went on the bus, opened the engine compartment,

pulled the wires off and all that

to disable it for a while,

and one of the Iranians on the bus spoke perfect English.

I said, "Look, they-- we have snipers in the hills.

"If anybody gets off this bus before daylight,

they'll be killed,"

which was not true, but they didn't know it.

[fire whooshing]

[plane whooshing]

[Carter exhales heavily]

It is.

- It was awful.

I never saw the president so

shocked and stunned.

It was the worst moment in our administration.

I think both would say

the most worst moment in our lives.

- It was my first acquaintance with a--

a tragic event in which I was directly involved.

My father had died

when I was fairly young-- still in the navy.

I was a submariner and, uh,

and I had lost members of my family,

but I can't say that

that was any more grievous to me--

my family members' losses--

than the ones among the people

that died while I was president.

- I remember to this day, vividly,

when I was driving home from the agency headquarters

about 1:00 in the morning, weeping,

because I was so convinced it would have worked,

and then we lost all those brave people.

- To sit there

on the ramp of a C-130 with one of your...

Emotional. [strained chuckle]

One of your best friend's...

[voice breaking] Head in your lap...

It's pretty--pretty disturbing.

- It was a--it was a horrible feeling to have

let America down.

I can't tell you how difficult it is

to leave eight guys in a fire

that's still burning, you know?

But what could we do at that point?

[fire crackling]

- The Oman airfield we operated out of

had a control tower,

and the control tower operators

were British contract workers,

and didn't know why we were there.

On the night of the mission,

they saw six depart at about dusk,

and about seven or eight hours later, only five returned.

And the British guys put two and two together

and realized this ragtag group of C-130 guys

were the ones who had gone into Iran the night before.

So they somehow got two cases of beer--

it was actually Bass Ale--

put them in a pickup truck, ran them around the runway,

and dropped them off at my tent.

And they had scribbled on the top case of beer

on the cardboard flap,

"To you all from us all for having the guts to try."

So I took the cardboard flap off.

[voice breaking] Put it--

put it in my flight suit pocket and brought it home.

[somber music]

♪

[wind whooshing]

[engine rumbling, indistinct chatter]

[distant, faint chatter]

- Our phone rang about 6:30 in the morning,

and it was a friend who was a close friend of my husband's

who was working at the Pentagon at the time and said,

"There have been some casualties,

and we'll keep you posted."

Well, you know, that's kinda shady news.

- I had just come in from a late-night,

all-night waffle house, and I was sleeping,

and my daughter, Candy, came in, and she said,

"Mom, there's something wrong.

I think something's happened with dad."

- My friend Jenny, whose husband was

at the same place my husband was called me and said,

"Turn on your TV. Something has happened."

- Late yesterday, I canceled

a carefully-planned operation

which was underway in Iran

to position our rescue team

for a later withdrawal of American hostages

who've been held captive there since November 4th.

- To my deep regret,

eight of the crewmen of the two aircraft

which collided were killed,

and several other Americans were hurt in the accident.

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.

It was my decision to cancel it.

The responsibility is fully my own.

- I'm waiting for the green car to come down the hill

because that's-- that's how you're notified,

you know, if there is a casualty or whatever.

- We have a saying in the marine corps that,

you know, when your husband is deployed,

you don't worry unless the chaplain is on your doorstep.

- My mom had sent one of her friends

to come pick me up from school that day,

and when I got home, there were a lot of people there,

a lot of military people,

and I knew something was not-- not good.

[somber music]

- You pull into the neighborhood,

and there's cars up and down the street,

and there were people in the house.

Even then, I don't think I could grasp it.

♪

- My mom actually told me that my father had been killed.

♪

She always told us, "Don't cry.

"Don't show emotion. Be strong.

Don't let them see you as a victim."

♪

Being ten years old and being the man of the house,

it was--it was tough.

♪

- My mom told us that he had been killed.

Me and my sister.

♪

I was nine, and she was two years younger than me,

so she was seven, and at seven,

you just don't grasp what your mom's telling you.

I got it.

Fire is a terrible way to die.

- We tried, we failed, and we have paid a price.

The administration is deeply disappointed.

- It's clearly the darkest moment

of Jimmy Carter's presidency.

- A large crowd is now gathered around the American embassy

to celebrate the failure of the rescue operation.

- To them, the failed rescue attempt

was proof that the United States is powerless.

- Joining Iran's president at a press conference,

Barbara Timm,

mother of hostage Kevin Hermening,

criticized the Carter administration.

- Our family deeply regret

the actions that our president took yesterday,

and we would like to apologize for that action.

- The Ayatollah Khomeini issued a written statement

accusing President Carter of ordering the military action

just to win reelection in November.

- White House political advisors are concerned

about public criticism as the campaign moves

beyond the initial shock of today's failure.

[phone rings]

- Carter-Mondale. - This didn't work,

but maybe we'll regroup and try again.

- I'm glad they tried. It's better than sitting around

doing nothing, but I do feel like

he should have tried that when it first happened.

- As Americans, we deeply regret

that this mission failed,

but as I have been saying for some time,

specific action to bring the hostages home was long overdue.

- As president and commander in chief,

I have been very proud lately

of the strength of our nation, the unity of our country,

the commitment of our people, the heroism of our warriors

who offered their lives

for the concept of freedom and for the freedom

of our American hostages,

but I would like to say that I am absolutely sure

that I made the right choice

in sending the rescue mission into Iran.

- About five or six days later,

I stole a newspaper

that the students had left around

and learned about the unsuccessful rescue mission.

- And that spread throughout the prison we were in

from room to room,

so we started asking the guards.

and the guards denied it,

and they wanted to know who told us,

and then they denied that people died during it.

[indistinct chatter]

- To the world's press,

the charred bodies of the eight dead Americans

+were put on gruesome display.

[indistinct chatter]

- That's hard. That's a bad image.

- That is etched in stone in my memory.

[indistinct chatter]

- Mrs. Timm,

how do you think some of the mothers of those who died

trying to rescue your son might react

to some of your comments about the American action?

- I cannot possibly know how someone else is going to react.

[stammers] That's an unfair question.

- Do you expect some criticism because of that

when you get back to the United States?

- Some criticism for what?

- Your comments.

- My comments--

- About the United States and the criticism

of President Carter's actions and of the country.

- I grew up in a small town.

No one in my family had ever been in the media before.

My mom thrust into this media spotlight.

- Back home in Oak Creek, Wisconsin,

the Barbara Timm Show

didn't exactly win rave reviews.

- Sure, it's her kid,

but there's 50 other guys that are out there,

and why was she the only one that did something like this?

- They ought to stick a cork in her mouth

and tell her to keep her mouth shut.

- She should have never talked against our country.

- After the family complained of threatening calls,

neighborhood patrols were increased.

Timm was uncharacteristically silent

when she arrived tonight in Chicago.

[reporters clamoring]

- There's no doubt that it took a lot of courage

to do what she did.

Was it valiant?

Maybe. Was it dumb?

Yeah, maybe, but not for her.

[soft dramatic music]

♪

- We landed here, and they closed the base,

and we got off.

The only people that could get on base was our families.

- When he came off of the plane toward me,

he was a very skinny man... [chuckles]

And--and he had a beard,

but I was just so glad he was home

and he was in one piece.

He had bags-- you know, bags on him,

and he just dropped everything and grabbed me,

and I grabbed him, so... [chuckles]

♪

But, uh...

♪

- John called me,

and when I heard his voice,

it was a tremendous relief.

I knew that he was all right

and that he would be able to come home.

♪

- I don't remember when we first saw him.

I don't remember--it wasn't, like, a celebration.

It was just normal.

He walked right back through the same door he left.

I know we were happy to see him,

happy he was home,

but he didn't act like anything had happened.

♪

[somber trumpet tune playing]

♪

- All the rescue mission members were volunteers.

None of them were forced to go,

and they never anticipated, you know, giving their lives.

There were just gonna rescue the hostages

and come home safely, all of them,

so it was a very

heartrending event

for me and for all those families.

[planes whooshing]

- By military law,

if you have a combined accident

and you cannot identify remains,

they have to be buried in a common grave.

- For my dad and two other men, they're--

they weren't able to distinguish

as far as the three men

because they were close in age and stature,

so they were buried in common in Arlington.

[birds chirping]

- And you want to have a gut-wrenching experience?

You deal with three widows and one casket.

That was tough.

- The family was offered the opportunity for him

to be buried in Arlington, but we chose to have him here.

This is his hometown of Valdosta,

where he went to school and went to college

and actually taught a year

before he went in the military.

[wind whooshing softly]

- About three or four months

after the aborted rescue mission,

I overheard a radio broadcast

talking about the death of the

"Dracula of the Ages,"

so I had to figure out it had to--

probably referring to the death of the Shah.

- Here in the United States, the death of the former Shah

of Iran is being discussed mainly in terms

of how it may affect the Iranian hostage crisis.

- At least his not being there

meant it would be the s--

the problem might be easier to settle.

- So fast-forward. We win the nomination.

- My thoughts and my prayers for our hostages in Iran

are as though they were my own sons and daughters.

- I accept your nomination

for the presidency of the United States.

[cheers and applause]

- The American elections were looming.

♪

And the war had already started

between Iraq and Iran.

[gunfire]

[loud boom]

[siren wails]

- They attacked Iran,

and Iran started losing territory immediately

because they weren't prepared for it,

and that showed the Iranian government

and Khomeini and others that they had to get rid of us.

They had to do something to solve this question

because it was a huge diversion.

They couldn't keep using us

as a way to gin up popular support.

♪

- The Iranian parliament today has finally

taken a position

on the release of our hostages.

- We had frozen all their assets.

We got every country to freeze their assets.

They wanted their money back, and they wanted interest on it.

- I wish that... [shutters clicking]

I could predict when the hostages will return.

I cannot.

- We weren't gonna be able to say,

"We're getting the hostages out tomorrow."

- Back home he came to Georgia after an all-night-long

coast-to-coast campaign march,

to Plains for a reunion with his wife.

- As we're coming back for him to vote in Plains,

we knew we had lost.

He addressed a couple hundred townspeople

and supporters who did not know...

[cheers and applause]

And he had to keep a stiff upper lip.

- Every time I've made a judgment,

in a time of crisis or a time of solitude,

about the future of our country or the future of your lives,

I've done it with the memory of my upbringing here in Plains.

In the process, I've tried to honor my commitment...

To you.

God bless you. - One more!

[cheers and applause]

- Reagan won 44 states with 479 electoral college votes,

while the president won in only six states

and the District of Columbia

with a total of 59 electoral votes.

- Of course, this was a major blow to--

to me personally as well as,

ultimately, politically,

but I didn't think about the politics at that time.

I was just worried about the hostages

and the casualties at Desert One.

[soft dramatic music]

- We had a bunch of frozen assets

that belonged to the Iranians,

so Jimmy Carter negotiated

hot and heavy with the Iranians to release the hostages.

- First, it was they had a deal,

then they didn't have a deal, going back and forth.

All the banks had to transfer the money.

- Hello? Can we...

Right on, man. That's great.

That's great.

- They came into our room and told us to grab our things

because we're going home.

So we--we had our emotions,

our hopes getting up, but in a guarded way.

- And so they put us on buses.

- And I kept thinking,

"Okay, Michael, this is when you don't wanna say anything.

Just be very quiet, very calm."

The guard, in English, said, "Shut up!"

And then in Persian he said, "[speaks Farsi],"

you American bastards.

And so I forgot everything I'd told myself,

and I just said in a loud voice,

"Shut up yourself, you son of an Iranian whore."

♪

He got offended,

hauled me off the bus, started kicking me.

Some of the guards started kicking me,

the normal thing, and the bus left.

I was laying on the ground

and feeling stupid,

as in, really stupid.

♪

- Governor, good morning. How you doing?

I just want to let you know that the planes

are at the end of the runway.

We'll let you know when they take off,

but it's this close.

Good luck to you. [phone clatters]

- They took off our blindfolds, and we saw the crowds

of demonstrators who were chanting,

"Death to America. Yankee, go home."

Hey, anytime.

We were more than ready by then.

[crowd chanting in foreign language]

♪

- When I got on the plane,

I saw people that I hadn't seen for 14 months.

- Tears were coming down our cheeks.

We were shaking hands, high-fiving one another,

and there were 51 of us on the plane.

One of the guys wasn't there.

- And somebody else rushed over,

"What's he still doing here?" "He insulted us!"

"So what?" [chuckles]

[laughing] "Get him in a car. He has to get to the airport."

So they put me in a Mercedes-Benz,

and I dropped the blindfold down,

and I watched the whole ride.

- He comes in the doorway, and he smiles this big,

broad grin, bloodied mouth,

and we said, "What has happened?"

He said, "I couldn't hold my tongue,"

and we all thought, "You're an idiot."

[fanfare playing]

♪

- I remember sitting there at the inaugural.

["Hail to the Chief" playing]

- Carter's dream was that we could get these people home

while he was still around.

- And they took off before the oath was taken,

that Jimmy could get up and say,

"Excuse me, Governor Reagan.

I have an announcement to make." [laughs]

- I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear

that I will faithfully execute

the office of president of the United States,

so help me, God.

- They turned on the lights quickly, runway lights.

Planes took off.

[plane whooshing]

- In one last act of humiliation,

Khomeini let the plane go

one minute after Reagan was inaugurated.

[cheers and applause]

- The cabin crew started breaking out the champagne,

and I'm told that at the same time,

a note was signed to allow money--

frozen Iranian assets to be transferred

back into the Iranian accounts.

- The planes bearing our prisoners

left Iranian airspace and are now free of Iran.

[applause]

♪

- Did the Reagan people

or people around him

deal with the Iranians and convince the Iranians

to keep us in prison longer?

I don't know.

My gut feeling is yes.

Will I ever know the truth about it?

No.

- You can't tell me that's a coincidence.

The--I mean, I'm crazy, but I was born--

but I wasn't born last night, you know what I'm saying?

[sirens wailing]

- These buses will now head to the United States

Air Force Hospital at Wiesbaden.

[cheers and applause]

- The president wanted to meet 52 people,

but about 20 people refused to meet with President Carter.

- When I went into the room where all of them were,

I had a great deal of trepidation

about how they would perceive me,

but I went around the room and spoke to each one, and--

and about the second one I spoke to grabbed me by the--

around my shoulders, and--

and he gave me a kiss on the cheek, kind of,

and then from then on, they were very effusive

in their welcoming to me, which was a great relief.

[plane whooshing]

[cheers and applause]

[lively band music playing]

♪

- I just feel total relief.

Thank God.

- My mom, of course,

wanted to know what was the first meal she could make,

and I said, "Well, how about some pork chops?

I didn't have any pork chops while I was in Iran,"

and the next day, 100 pounds of frozen pork chops

were delivered from the Iowa Pork Producers Association.

- More than 8,000 people lined the sidewalks

to welcome Michael Metrinko home.

Metrinko couldn't stay in the car.

He walked through the crowd shaking hands.

- What kind of things did you think

when you were sitting there all alone?

- I exercised hours and hours and hours a day.

♪

This is the picture that was taken of me

with President Carter, Vice President Mondale,

and it ha-- it was taken, I think,

probably about a day after I left Iran.

I was still in scruffy clothes.

This picture was taken just a few days later

when we were brought to the White House.

- John Limbert believes that wholesale condemnation

of the Iranian people is wrong.

- How do you say?

They're people of talent, ability, great kindness.

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

♪

- After that night in the desert,

we made a pact that we would take care

of the kids of every special operator

that was killed that night for a college degree

and then some other types of degrees.

They don't come looking for us. We find them.

- Special Operations Warriors Foundation called and asked me,

"Are you gonna finish school?" [chuckles]

And I said, "I sure would like to,"

and they said, "Well, we have the money."

So I went back to school and got my bachelors,

and I'm now a teacher at the same school

that my dad taught at for one year.

- The Special Operations Warrior Foundation

paid for my entire education from college

through medical school,

and now I'm a surgeon.

There's no way I would be here without that.

It was always a--

a balancing pole in life

to help me able to

make good choices and to realize

that I had that good fortune.

[gentle piano music]

♪

- Eventually, I would like to go back to Iran.

I still have the same feelings about the country

that I always did.

I'd like to take our children back to where they were born,

take grandchildren to where their roots are.

So far, it hasn't happened.

I'm not welcome yet,

but I'm still hopeful.

♪

[children shouting faintly]

[lively music playing]

♪

- I have, in my garage in a storage locker,

more than 80,000 letters of welcome home,

probably 200,000 newspaper articles,

and in every one of those letters

and every one of those newspaper articles,

somewhere in them, people refer to the Americans

who were held hostage as the heroes of the hostage crisis,

which is hogwash.

But there were heroes in the hostage crisis.

[indistinct chatter]

- Hey, Doug. - Tom, how are you?

- Nice to see you.

- It's emotional. [chuckles]

- Hey, Taco.

- What's up, my brother? - Hey, hey, hey.

You dress up pretty good sometimes.

- Yeah, you can't take me out in public, but you do.

[indistinct chatter]

- Glad you're here.

- Almighty God, we ask your blessing

upon our gathering this morning

to remember those who had the guts

to try an impossible mission

to free our citizens held in Iran

as well as an opportunity to memorialize

the sacrifices of their fallen brothers

who made the ultimate commitment to freedom

with their lives.

- I've lived 60 years.

[somber music]

Eight men died.

♪

You have Sergeant John D. Harvey.

♪

Major Lewis.

♪

Corporal George Holmes.

♪

You have Tech Sergeant Joel Mayo.

♪

Major Bakke.

♪

Captain McMillan.

♪

Dewey Johnson.

♪

And Major McIntosh.

♪

[planes whooshing]

- When I was at CIA,

one of those hostages was right down the hall from me.

And one of the delights of my military career...

Was when that guy came to me...

And he said, "Thanks for trying."

That meant a lot.

It meant a lot to me.