On Wings Of Eagles (1990)

Bill thought this sounded encouraging. With Bakhtiar as Prime Minister the Shah would remain and ensure stability, but the rebels would at last have a voice in governing their own country.

At ten o'clock the TV went off and the prisoners returned to their cells. The other inmates hung towels and pieces of cloth across their bunks to keep out the light: here, as downstairs, the bulb would shine all night. Neghabat said Paul and Bill could get their visitors to bring in sheets and towels for them.

Bill wrapped himself in the thin gray blanket and settled down to try to sleep. We're here for a while, he thought resignedly; we must make the best of it. Our fate is in the hands of others.

2_____

Their fate was in the hands of Ross Perot, and in the next two days all his high hopes came to nothing.

At first the news had been good. Kissinger had called back on Friday, December 29, to say that Ardeshir Zahedi would get Paul and Bill released. First, though, U.S. Embassy officials had to hold two meetings: one with people from the Ministry of Justice, the other with representatives of the Shah's court.

In Tehran the American Ambassador's deputy, Minister Counselor Charles Naas, was personally setting up those meetings.

In Washington, Henry Precht at the State Department was also talking to Ardeshir Zahedi. Emily Gaylord's brother-in-law, Tim Reardon, had spoken to Senator Kennedy. Admiral Moorer was working his contacts with the Iranian military government. The only disappointment in Washington had been Richard Helms, the former U.S. Ambassador to Tehran: he had said candidly that his old friends no longer had any influence.

EDS consulted three separate Iranian lawyers. One was an American who specialized in representing U.S. corporations in Tehran. The other two were Iranians: one had good contacts in pro-Shah circles, the other was close to the dissidents. All three had agreed that the way Paul and Bill had been jailed was highly irregular and that the bail was astronomical. The American, John Westberg, had said that the highest bail he had ever heard of in Iran was a hundred thousand dollars. The implication was that the magistrate who had jailed Paul and Bill was on weak ground.

Here in Dallas, EDS's chief financial officer Tom Walter, the slow-talking Alabaman, was working on how EDS might--if necessary--go about posting bail of $12,750,000. The lawyers had advised him that bail could be in one of three forms: cash; a letter of credit drawn on an Iranian bank; or a lien on property in Iran. EDS had no property worth that much in Tehran--the computers actually belonged to the Ministry--and with the Iranian banks on strike and the country in turmoil, it was not possible to send in thirteen million dollars in cash; so Walter was organizing a letter of credit. T. J. Marquez, whose job it was to represent EDS to the investment community, had warned Perot that it might not be legal for a public company to pay that much money in what amounted to ransom. Perot deftly sidestepped that problem: he would pay the money personally.

Perot had been optimistic that he would get Paul and Bill out of jail in one of the three ways--legal pressure, political pressure, or by paying the bail.

Then the bad news started coming in.

The Iranian lawyers changed their tune. In turn they reported that the case was "political," had "a high political content," and was "a political hot potato." John Westberg, the American, had been asked by his Iranian partners not to handle the case because it would bring the firm into disfavor with powerful people. Evidently Examining Magistrate Hosain Dadgar was not on weak ground.

Lawyer Tom Luce and financial officer Tom Walter had gone to Washington and, accompanied by Admiral Moorer, had visited the State Department. They had expected to sit down around a table with Henry Precht and formulate an aggressive campaign for the release of Paul and Bill. But Henry Precht was cool. He had shaken hands with them--he could hardly do less when they were accompanied by a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff--but he had not sat down with them. He had handed them over to a subordinate. The subordinate reported that none of the State Department's efforts had achieved anything: neither Ardeshir Zahedi nor Charlie Naas had been able to get Paul and Bill released.

Tom Luce, who did not have the patience of Job, got mad as hell. It was the State Department's job to protect Americans abroad, he said, and so far all State had done was to get Paul and Bill thrown in jail! Not so, he was told: what State had done so far was above and beyond its normal duty. If Americans abroad committed crimes, they were subject to foreign laws: the State Department's duties did not include springing people from jail. But, Luce argued, Paul and Bill had not committed a crime--they were being held hostage for thirteen million dollars! He was wasting his breath. He and Tom Walter returned to Dallas empty-handed.