My grandfather was the last U.S. Ambassador to Iran before the Shah fell. Before he died he wrote a memoir for us about his incredible life--which included serving in WWII. Given the events swirling now, I picked up the memoir and read the chapter on the Iranian Revolution...
He described an attack on the U.S. Embassy in February 1979--months before the ultimate hostage crisis. For three hours a mob attacked the embassy, ultimately taking him and a hundred other Americans hostage. Amazingly none were killed and all were eventually freed.
His words describing his emotions and actions during the attack shook me to the core, both because of what they described and because I found that as I read them this time I finally viscerally understood them. He wrote,
"I had experienced physical fear many times before,
"I had experienced physical fear many times before,
but always in the secure conviction that I would survive the immediate danger. That conviction always gave me the courage to face the risks, make logical decisions, and prevail over the chaos that accompanies violence. In this instance, however, I came to the conclusion
in the first hour of the incessant barrage, that I would not survive. I considered this prospect while crouched under a table, delivering random commands into a walkie-talkie radio and hearing rounds thudding into the wall above my head. I did a quick balance of my life,
decided it had been satisfactory, that my window and children would be quite well placed, and that it would be a relatively timely end. This set of conclusions gave me a relatively equable perspective on our immediate circumstances, and made it possible for me to go about
the business of saving peoples' lives with a rather detached sense of good humor towards all involved in the trauma. It was almost as if I were a disinterested outsider."
-Amb. William Sullivan (and my amazing grandfather)
-Amb. William Sullivan (and my amazing grandfather)
