Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume XI, Part 1, Iran: Hostage Crisis, November 1979–September 1980

164. Memorandum of Conversation¹

Washington, undated

SUBJECT

• Meeting with B and V—the French-based lawyers Friday, January 25 in Hamilton Jordan’s office

V said he and B had been very impressed with the seriousness and honesty of the presentation by Jordan and Saunders in London.² This allowed V and B convincingly and strongly to defend the U.S. position in Tehran. They had argued that while Iran’s point of view had to be listened to, international standards of human rights came first. V and B asked for a sign of similar seriousness and honesty from the Iranian side. (Ghotbzadeh had Richard Cottam call Hamilton Jordan to endorse the talks V and B would have with us.)

V said that on arriving in Tehran they had a four hour meeting with Ghotbzadeh, which was adjourned to allow him to report to the Revolutionary Council. They reconvened with him at midnight to hear the Council’s reaction. There were three decisions:

—Henceforth the only negotiator for Iran would be the Foreign Minister. All information on the crisis should be conveyed to the Minister, not to members of the Council. (In effect the Council is taking itself out of the decision chain.)

—The Foreign Minister will immediately report all developments to Khomeini and keep him thoroughly informed in a timely fashion.

—The two leading candidates for the Presidency—Bani Sadr and Habibi—would be kept fully informed of developments by the Foreign Minister until the runoff elections were held. B had later briefed each of them.

Subsequently, V and B were informed of other decisions by the Council.

—The militants will no longer be allowed to express their views to the press. This decision was taken on the evening of January 24. Thus far we are not able to confirm whether or not it has been effectively implemented.

—The Council guaranteed absolutely the security of the hostages. The Council would take further steps to assure that the hostages would not be harmed. (This decision was taken because V had raised the possibility that some disgruntled militant might try to deepen the crisis by harming one of the hostages.)

—The U.S. should attempt to prevent Iranian students in this country from making statements which damage prospects of a settlement. For example, some students had said that whatever happened to the Shah the U.S. itself was the real enemy. (We commented that the Iranian Embassy in Washington was more troublesome than students and perhaps the Foreign Minister could direct the Chargé to cease harmful propaganda activities. B agreed to do so.)

—Finally, because Ghotbzadeh believed that the U.S. wanted some American correspondents to be allowed to return to Iran, the Iranian government would soon permit on a selective basis the return of correspondents who would not be “biased.”³ These correspondents would be asked to pledge that they would not interview the militants.

V and B gave us their analysis of the Iranian political situation, which they said was shared by Ghotbzadeh and members of the Revolutionary Council: The seizure of the Embassy had been a move by the religious extreme right—somehow backed by the Soviet Union—to provoke a crisis. They had, in fact, succeeded in bringing down the Bazargan Government and in later forcing out Bani Sadr. But within forty hours of the seizure Khomeini had moved to thwart their plans. He had dispatched the Ayatollah Khoeni a loyal supporter plus contingents of Palestinians, Kurds, Libyans, left-wing Iranian youth and also other religious students to dilute the authority of the group that had organized the seizure. Subsequently, these groups left the compound. (We doubt the involvement of these groups. The significance is that the Revolutionary Council believes that the militants are hostile to the Khomeini regime and that Khomeini recognized this and moved to take charge of the operation on the compound by inserting his own people.)

The next move of the religious right was to try to manipulate the elections in their way. Khomeini, whom B described as a master political leader, had again thwarted the hard-liners by eliminating their candidate, Farsi, as well as the candidate of the extreme left, Rajavi. The students had then eliminated Admiral Madani. That left two candidates trusted by Khomeini in the field, Bani Sadr and Habibi. B, who knew all of the Iranian revolutionaries in Paris, had the highest regard for Habibi. He described him as very solid, a man of principle, culture, moderation and dedication—a man without enemies and probably Khomeini’s favorite. Because the religious right had lost their candidate they were forced to back Habibi. That assured him a victory but would not make him beholden to them. It was Khomeini’s plan to take the position of “religious guide,” dealing only with general policy questions and leaving the details of running the country to the President. B anticipated that the next stage of the struggle for power after the Presidential election would be a fight between the religious right and the secularists for the control of the Majlis and the Prime Ministry and cabinet positions.

In an aside B described how Habibi had been the principal author of the draft constitution which Khomeini had accepted. Later Khomeini agreed to submit the draft to a constitutional assembly when Bazargan demanded that as part of the democratic process. As Khomeini feared, the religious right dominated the assembly and redrafted key articles of the constitution to their liking—seeking to impose the theocracy which Khomeini did not want.

The scenario for ending the hostage crisis which Ghotbzadeh and possibly the Revolutionary Council appeared to have worked out with B and V follows:

Waldheim acting on his own authority will appoint a commission of inquiry, chaired by someone like Sean McBride. The U.S. will oppose the commission on technical grounds. Our opposition is essential, if the commission is to be accepted in Iran, particularly by the militants.

The commission will have as its purposes the inquiry into Iranian grievances and, secondly, into the conditions of the hostages. After a week’s investigation the commission will report its findings to the Iranian government. The findings concerning the hostages will describe their inhumane treatment and the commission will recommend the hostages be released. This part of the report will be transmitted to Khomeini who will recognize that, although the taking of hostages was an acceptable form of pressure on the United States by Iran, the conditions under which the hostages are held are not acceptable in terms of Islamic standards. Khomeini will then order the hostages released to the Iranian government which may remove them to a prison. V believes it essential that there be an intermediate stage in which the hostages are held by the Iranian government; he does not think the militants will agree to release them to us. It will also be important for Iran to make a clear distinction and disassociate the militants from the government.

The commission’s report on Iran’s grievances will be communicated to the world at large and presumably to the UN. This portion was not clear to B and V. It was not certain whether Iran would require a resolution by the General Assembly or some other formal action. Ghotbzadeh said no resolution was necessary but that is in doubt.

Sean McBride would have an additional role as the negotiator of the precise stages for ending the crisis. He would help settle the bilateral problems such as the freeze of assets, form of relations, recovery of the Shah’s assets, etc. The Iranians shared our view that a high-level contact between us was necessary, but could not have direct links during the very sensitive period of the next 30 days before the new government is in place.

The hostages would be released on the eve of a religious ceremony which the Iranians will organize in Tehran to mark the 1500th anniversary of Islam. V and B could not specify the exact holiday that would be used for this commemoration, but they thought it was in the latter part of February. They thought they could give us the date Saturday.⁴ Khomeini’s act of releasing the hostages would thus be a religious gesture witnessed by the many religious figures who would be invited to the ceremony.

V said it was agreed in Iran that the hostage issue should be settled within the next thirty days before a new government took office. It was anticipated that Ghotbzadeh would remain as Foreign Minister and would be charged with handling the hostage crisis during this period.

Meanwhile, the Panama track would be proceeding along pre-determined lines. B and V intended to go to Panama in the next day or so to appoint a Panamanian lawyer to represent Iran in pressing the extradition case. The Panamanian government will be asked to issue a formal order to the Shah to place himself “at the disposal” of the government during a 60-day period in which the extradition evidence from Iran might be presented. V thought that this would be an easy matter to arrange with the Panamanians.

In general B and V described themselves as “almost very optimistic” in dealing with an extremely difficult situation.

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Box 30, Iran 1/11/80–1/31/80. Secret; Sensitive. Drafted by Precht. The meeting took place at 12:30 p.m. in Jordan’s office at the White House. (Jordan, Crisis, p. 131)
2. See Document 157.
3. Iran expelled all U.S. journalists on January 18, on the grounds that their reporting was “biased.” (“Tehran Says Reporting is Biased,” Los Angeles Times, January 14, 1980, p. A1, and James Yuenger, “Tehran will expel U.S. journalists,” Chicago Tribune, January 15, 1980, p. 1)
4. January 26.