On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

John Howell called Abolhasan, who had another message from Dadgar. Dadgar was willing to negotiate a lower bail. If EDS located Paul and Bill, the company should turn them in and post the lower bail. The Americans should realize that it would be hopeless for Paul and Bill to try to leave Iran by regular means and very dangerous for them to leave otherwise.

Howell took that to mean that Paul and Bill would not have been allowed to get out on an Embassy evacuation flight. He wondered again whether the Clean Team might be in more danger than the Dirty Team. Bob Young felt the same. While they were discussing it, they heard shooting. It seemed to be coming from the direction of the U.S. Embassy.

The National Voice of Iran, a radio station broadcasting from Baku across the border in the Soviet Union, had for several days been issuing "news" bulletins about clandestine American plans for a counterrevolution. On Wednesday the National Voice announced that the files of SAVAK, the Shah's hated secret police force, had been transferred to the U.S. Embassy. The story was almost certainly invented, but it was highly plausible: the CIA had created SAVAK and was in close contact with it, and everyone knew that U.S. embassies--like all embassies--were full of spies thinly disguised as diplomatic attaches. Anyway, some of the revolutionaries in Tehran believed the story, and--without consulting any of the Ayatollah's aides--decided to take action.

During the morning they entered the high buildings surrounding the Embassy compound and took up position with automatic weapons. They opened fire at ten-thirty.

Ambassador William Sullivan was in his outer office, taking a call at his secretary's desk. He was speaking to the Ayatollah's Deputy Foreign Minister. President Carter had decided to recognize the new, revolutionary government in Iran, and Sullivan was making arrangements to deliver an official note.

When he put the phone down, he turned around to see his press attache, Barry Rosen, standing there with two American journalists. Sullivan was furious, for the White House had given specific instructions that the decision to recognize the new government was to be announced in Washington, not Tehran. Sullivan took Rosen into the inner office and chewed him out.

Rosen told him that the two journalists were there to make arrangements for the body of Joe Alex Morris, the Los Angeles Times correspondent who had been shot during the fighting at Doshen Toppeh. Sullivan, feeling foolish, told Rosen to ask the journalists not to reveal what they had learned in overhearing Sullivan on the phone.

Rosen went out. Sullivan's phone rang. He picked it up. There was a sudden tremendous crash of gunfire, and a hail of bullets shattered his windows.

Sullivan hit the floor.

He slithered across the room and into the next office, where he came nose-to-nose with his deputy, Charlie Naas, who had been holding a meeting about the evacuation flights. Sullivan had two phone numbers that he could use, in an emergency, to reach revolutionary leaders. He now told Naas to call one, and the army attache to call the other. Still lying an the floor, the two men pulled telephones off a desk and started dialing.

Sullivan took out his walkie-talkie and called for reports from the marine units in the compound.

The machine-gun attack had been covering fire for a squad of about seventy-five revolutionaries who had come over the front wall of the Embassy compound and were now advancing on the ambassadorial residence. Fortunately most of the staff were with Sullivan in the chancery building.

Sullivan ordered the marines to fall back, not to use their rifles, and to fire their sidearms only in self-defense.

Then he crawled out of the executive suite and into the corridor.

During the next hour, as the attackers took the residence and the cafeteria building, Sullivan got all the civilians in the chancery herded into the communications vault upstairs. When he heard the attackers breaking down the steel doors of the building, he ordered the marines inside to join the civilians in the vault. There he made them pile their weapons in a corner, and ordered everyone to surrender as soon as possible.

Eventually Sullivan himself went into the vault, leaving the army attache and an interpreter outside.

When the attackers reached the second floor, Sullivan opened the vault door and walked out with his hands over his head.

The others--about a hundred people--followed him.

They were all herded into the waiting room of the executive suite and frisked. There was a confused dispute between two factions of Iranians, and Sullivan realized that the Ayatollah's people had sent a rescue force--presumably in response to the phone calls by Charlie Naas and the army attache--and the rescuers had arrived on the second floor at the same time as the attackers.

Suddenly a shot came through the window.