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  When Asgharzadeh had proposed the move two weeks earlier at a meeting of an umbrella activist group called Strengthen the Unity, it was opposed by two students, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from Tarbiat Modarres University and Mohammed Ali Seyyedinejad from Elm-o-Sanat University. Both preferred targeting the Soviet embassy instead. Asgharzadeh, Mirdamadi, and Bitaraf voted them down and then had expanded their planning cell by inviting activists from various local schools, including Hashemi, Abbas Abdi, Reza Siafullahi, and Mohammad Naimipoor, all young men experienced with street demonstrations and organizing. These Brethren were both students and members of the fledgling intelligence services. All of these men, including Ahmadinejad and Seyyedinejad, eventually joined ranks behind the seizure of the American embassy. They were all committed to a formal Islamic state and were allied, some of them by family, with the clerical power structure around Khomeini. Several, including Asgharzadeh, had been closely associated with the Keramat Mosque, home base for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, one of the most powerful young clerics in the country (and the man who would ultimately succeed Khomeini as supreme leader). The revolution was shaping up as a struggle between leftist nationalists who wanted a secular, socialist-style democracy and young Islamists like these who wanted something the world had not yet seen, an Islamic Republic.

  The mullahs’ ideas about Iran and the world had merged with the naive idealism of students like these over the previous years to create a simple powerful vision. For years the banned writings of the philosopher-activist Ali Shariati had been circulating underground on Iran’s campuses, firing the imagination and national pride of students who dreamed of creating a new kind of Iranian state and of seizing center stage in the dreamy “revolution” of world youth that was raging in America and Europe. Shariati had embraced the leftist rhetoric of the era without endorsing the Soviet Union and regarded capitalism as a root evil. He saw in Islam a third path toward utopia, one that was neither communist nor capitalist but founded on “authentic,” divine principles. The philosopher saw the materialism of the West as the biggest threat to the purity of an Islamic state, and his writings had spawned a whole school of thought that interpreted the freedoms and excesses of America and western Europe as a plot to ensnare the virtuous and enslave the world in a capitalist, godless dystopia. Shariati himself had not been impressed with Iran’s clerical establishment, and much of what he had written was critical of old mullahs such as Khomeini, but in the heat of the revolution those differences had been forgotten. The idea of the third path, one rooted in the rich history of the Shia faith, dovetailed in most ways with the vision of the mullahs. The clerics lived a cloistered existence; their knowledge of history and current events was grounded exclusively in the Koran’s prerenaissance, seventh-century ideology. Theirs was a world suspended in an eternal struggle between good and evil, and one where neither was just an abstract concept. To the devout, Allah was alive in the world and so was satan, working with superhuman powers of deception and ruthless application of force. Only one superpower fit that description, and that was the godless, mercantile, devious monster known as the United States of America. To them, America was quite literally the embodiment of evil, the Great Satan, and their ultimate enemy. Young activists like Asgharzadeh, Mirdamadi, and the others were among the brightest of their generation—competition for places at Tehran’s universities was fierce—but most of them had excelled in math, engineering, or science. Few were well traveled or well read. It was easy for them to see the U.S. embassy behind its high walls as, quite simply and literally, the source of all evil.

  In sessions during the previous week at Amir Kabir, they had divided up the work into six committees: Documents, Operations, Public Relations, Logistics, Hostage Control, and Information. They would need about four hundred students to carry out the assault and thousands more to rally in support outside the embassy walls. Preparations were made to feed the occupiers and the hostages for three days. Others worked on organizing mass demonstrations in support of the siege on the streets around the embassy. Given the anti-Americanism in Tehran, one of the group’s biggest fears was that opposition camps would either get wind of the idea and execute it first or move in and take over the demonstration once it had started, muddying the intended political message; they were primarily worried about the well-organized, militant leftist factions such as Mujahedin-e Khalgh and Fadaeian-e Khalgh. They knew the provisional government would move against them if it could, so it was critical that right from the start they be recognized as a strictly Islamic organization, one loyal to Khomeini, which is why they had come up with the name Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line, to make their allegiance perfectly clear. At first it was just Students Following the Imam’s Line but then it was decided to add “Muslim” to distinguish theirs from the more secular student groups that also professed allegiance to Khomeini, most notably the well-organized communist Tudeh party. To make clear their affiliation on the day of the action they formed a committee to copy a photograph of their inspiration, the white-bearded, brooding imam, and prepare plastic-covered placards that would be hung around their necks on a length of string. “Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line” was written on each photo, and armbands were made with the slogan “Allahuakbar” (God Is Great) and featuring a picture of the imam. This would also help them recognize one another in the confusion of the first hours. Hashemi had been charged with planning the assault. He figured there were about one hundred Americans working at the embassy. One of his subcommittees had prepared strips of cloth to bind and blindfold that many.

  The planners had also dispatched several of their members to tip off in advance a member of the Assembly of Experts, the body drafting Iran’s new constitution, and four more of the student leaders, Bitaraf, Mirdamadi, Siafullahi, and Asgharzadeh, had called on Mousavi Khoeniha, a young, black-bearded radical cleric whose preaching they admired. A slight man who spoke softly outside the pulpit, Khoeniha was considerably to the left of the conservative mullah establishment, and he was popular with the Islamist youth organizations at the universities who shared his more free-form, interpretive take on Koranic doctrine. Khoeniha immediately endorsed the idea of the takeover. He agreed with the planners that the devilish practices inside the U.S. embassy needed to be derailed, and that its emerging secret ties with the provisional government needed to be broken. The young cleric saw clearly that seizing the American embassy would also put great pressure on Prime Minister Bazargan and his government. They would be obliged to protect their American friends. Yet if the embassy was seized correctly, and by what was seen to be a group of pious, nonviolent youth allied to Khomeini, then it would make it virtually impossible for Bazargan to act without an order from the imam himself. The planners asked him to take their plan to Khomeini, but on this the radical mullah demurred. Why ask permission? In the years of building a movement against the shah, students and more radical clerics many times had successfully pressured the more powerful and moderate mullahs simply by acting without asking. Khomeini had a stake in preserving the provisional government; after all, he had appointed it. Asking him to approve an act that could topple it might invite disapproval. But if the embassy were occupied by his own professed supporters, and a large crowd was massed around the wall cheering them on, it would make it very hard, perhaps even impossible, even for the imam to oppose it, which would paralyze Bazargan and his traitorous administration.

  The students had also secured the support of the Revolutionary Guards through Mohsen Razaee, one of the young leaders of that organization (he would become its head in two years). With the quiet backing of both the police and Razaee, they were confident that no authority would chase them from the grounds before they had a chance to seize the Americans and make a statement.

  Everyone involved knew this could be a deciding moment in the revolution. If Khomeini condemned the takeover and ordered the students out of the embassy, it would signal his firm support for the provisional government and would likely mean that the cle
rical establishment would not directly run the state. If he supported the takeover, it would most likely collapse the Bazargan administration and the hopes of those who preferred at least some separation of church and state. To the students, the former course meant nothing less than total defeat, since they saw Bazargan as an American collaborator. They felt the weight of history and saw a chance to change the world.

  Days after the plan was hatched, Khomeini gave a speech urging “all grade-school, university, and theological students to increase their attacks against America.” Asgharzadeh thought at first that the imam had been told of their plan and was signaling his support. He was elated, and then surprised and disappointed to learn from Khoeniha that the imam had not been consulted and knew nothing of the takeover plan. The remarks may have been coincidental, but they certainly suggested that Khomeini would support the assault.

  Now, as Hashemi moved among the throng just blocks away from the embassy, he could see all the pieces coming together as planned. He would be one of the first through the gates. Abbas Abdi carried a loudspeaker from which he would issue the command to begin. Asgharzadeh was there too. He would stay back and try to make sure that those entering were members of his own group, and then see that the gates were locked behind them—if they were going to maintain control of the action they needed to prevent rival political organizations from storming inside. Mohammad Naimipoor had his large group of protesters assigned with forming a giant human ring around the chancery. Some of the chador-wearing women carried bolt cutters under their robes, for the chains on the gates, and also new chains and locks with which to secure the gates behind them. In addition to the laminated photos and armbands, all carried cards identifying their organization. Some carried the strips of cloth to bind and blindfold their American captives. It was both thrilling and daunting. Many saw the fine Aban rain that morning as heavenly approval, a symbol of Iran purifying itself, washing itself clean of its relationship with the Great Satan.

  Hashemi’s concealed weapon was more to deal with rival factions than with the Americans. A short-lived takeover of the embassy in February had devolved into gunfights between competing militias. The students had decided that their assault would be strictly nonviolent. They would not harm the Americans, even if they opened fire. But there was also a chance things would get out of control. Would the marines shoot? If they did, and the bloodied bodies of martyrs were passed out to the crowd, what would happen then?

  3. The Morning Meeting

  Walking down the wide corridor that ran the length of the chancery’s second floor, John Limbert mapped out his day in hopes of finding an hour to slip out for a haircut. He was on his way to the meeting that officially began each workday at the embassy. The second secretary in the political section, he had been traveling the week before in southern Iran, and it occurred to him that his thick brown hair, which now fell over the tops of his ears, must look pretty shaggy.

  Ordinarily Limbert did not attend the morning meeting, which was chaired by the acting ambassador, Bruce Laingen, the chargé d’affaires, and included the various embassy departmental heads. Today he had been invited to sit in for his boss, First Political Secretary Ann Swift, who was coming in late. Everyone was eager to hear about his swing through the cities of Abadan and Shiraz. Limbert was an ambitious foreign service officer, but about him there was nothing pushy or abrasive. He was a loose-limbed, affable man with a narrow face and a nose so ample, starkly framed by dark-rimmed glasses above and by a heavy brown mustache below, that it ruled his face. Behind stylish, lightly tinted lenses were the playful eyes of an intensely curious and fun-loving soul. The loose cut of his suit advertised that he had lived primarily outside of the United States in recent years. This assignment to Iran had been ideal for him, one for which he was particularly well suited. He had spent years in the country, first in the Peace Corps and later as a teacher working on his doctorate in Middle Eastern studies, and he spoke Farsi so well that when he wore locally made clothes he passed for Iranian. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing in an American embassy, where there was an institutional suspicion of foreign service officers who had “gone native,” but Iran was suddenly of utmost importance in Washington, and Limbert’s set of skills and experience was rare. He had been at this job for only a few months and was still conscious of making the right impression. He wished he’d gotten the haircut earlier.

  Limbert was one of two political officers who worked with Swift. The other was Michael Metrinko, whom Limbert had known before this assignment. Metrinko had partly learned his Farsi from Limbert’s Iranian wife, Parvaneh, who had taught him when he was a Peace Corps volunteer; she considered him to have been her best student. Along with the head of that section, Victor Tomseth, who was also acting deputy chief of mission, these three were among a very small number of fluent Farsi-speaking Iran experts in the State Department. With their years in the country and language skills, they were prized sources of information in the embassy, which even at its highest levels was filled with newcomers. Limbert, Tomseth, and Metrinko formed an especially sharp contrast to the three-man CIA station, which had no Farsi speakers and a combined experience in Iran of fewer than five months. This tour was a chance for all three to shine. Because they could read the local newspapers, listen to the radio and TV, and talk to a wide variety of Iranians, they were the only ones with a real feel for the place.

  The morning meeting was held around a long table in the “The Bubble,” a bizarre room with walls made of clear plastic, a complete enclosure inside a normal room on the second-floor front of the chancery that was designed to avoid electronic eavesdropping. The clear plastic walls insulated the space and prevented the hiding of listening devices in the walls, floor, or ceiling. At the head of the table, the compact, athletic, and tanned chargé d’affaires was feeling upbeat, as was his way. A Minnesota farm boy, Laingen had retained his youthful appearance well into middle age, with stray locks of dark hair that fell casually across his forehead. Laingen had been in Tehran since June, dispatched on short notice to fill in after the new regime had summarily rejected Walter Cutler, the man President Carter had appointed ambassador. No new ambassador had been named, so Laingen was the top American official in Tehran. He was no Iran expert, but he had served in the city more than a quarter century earlier as a young foreign officer in the heady days after Kermit Roosevelt’s legendary coup, when he had learned enough Farsi to hold simple conversations. Languages did not come as easily to Laingen as they did to some of those on his staff. His assignment now was to begin a dialogue with the country’s new rulers and convince them that the despised United States, despite its close ties to the toppled monarchy, was ready to accept the new Iran. He felt a big part of his job was to project confidence and cheer into this small American community, which was reduced to a fraction of its normal size, having sent home all nonessential personnel and family members of those who stayed. A more cautious leader might have spent more time preparing for the worst, destroying files and further paring down the staff, but Laingen had a constitutional bias toward hope; he believed things were getting better and heading back toward normal. He worked hard to improve morale, arranging a number of social outings for the staff, such as a tennis tournament against other embassies and softball games, and had even allowed a slight easing of security restrictions—he had approved, for instance, opening a new drinking club for the marines in their apartment building just off embassy grounds, which, given the revolution’s abhorrence of alcohol, might have been considered needlessly provocative. His efforts were working. The mood at the embassy had noticeably lifted since his arrival, and Laingen was popular with his coworkers and staff, and although some saw his chipper outlook as distinctly rose-tinted, even the skeptics had to admit there were encouraging signs. Despite daily torrents of rhetorical venom, the revolutionary powers had chased away the group that had invaded and briefly occupied the embassy in February, and had cooperated in the construction of the compound’s new consulate, a mo
dern concrete structure designed to more efficiently handle the thousands of Iranian visa seekers who still lined up outside the embassy every day—voting with their feet. Khomeini had recently denounced such Western-yearning Iranians as “traitors,” and as “America-loving rotten brains who must be purged from the nation.” Vitriol like this and the imam’s recent encouragement of “attacks” on America were so commonplace now that they had ceased to cause alarm. It was just considered the climate. John Graves, the flamboyant United States Information Agency chief, had cabled Washington that week that the mood in Tehran had improved sufficiently to resume his program and increase his staffing. Laingen had even recommended allowing some family members of those working at the embassy to return to Tehran on a case by case basis.