Night in Tehran

by Kaplan, Philip

  “Of course,” Weiseman replied…“and I hope it works.”

  Arabic music filled the car. Carts ambled along, drawn by donkeys. Small children in ragged pants squatted at the side of the road, grinning, throwing dice. Aged women covered in black from head to toe watched them like mother hens.

  Cohen began telling him about Bani-Sadr’s talks with the Moroccan king. Weiseman listened with one ear as they skirted sand beaches where nubile young women in string bikinis frolicked in the surf, while their mothers or aunts sipped tea or lemonade through straws, their bodies and faces as fully covered as if they were on a Tehran street.

  “He’s changed quite a lot since I knew him years ago as a student, in Paris.”

  “What was he like, Eli?”

  “He was a pretty boy with curly hair, our Abolhassan, adept at covering his trail. The girls liked him all right, and perhaps the boys. I would meet him for lunch from time to time. Always my treat, of course.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  Cohen turned up the radio, and the music blew into the zephyrs dancing around the Jag. He laughed. “Our pretty boy was selling and we were buying. He’d tell us about the Shah and his enemies, who was coming up in the regime, but especially about the street folks who he said one day would upend the Shah. Some of it panned out, much was made up. It wasn’t as though he cared whether the Shah stayed or went. It was a way to make money, to afford the girls.”

  Perfect, Weiseman thought. If one should “beware people who believe,” then a cynic like Bani-Sadr could be useful.

  “When did he decide to throw in with the mullahs?”

  Cohen revved the Jag and scooted around a truck, then told him how the young Bani-Sadr participated in anti-Shah student demos in the early sixties. “He was imprisoned twice in Tehran and wounded in ‘63. The French gave him a monthly stipend in the hope that he would report to them from Iran about the Shah. Instead, he ran away to Paris and studied economics. Later, he joined the revolution and returned to Iran with the Imam. They made him finance minister because there was no one else to handle it. When Amin was jailed, he became acting foreign minister, until Ghotbzadeh ousted him from that job. President now, Bani-Sadr is still on the make, opportunistic, and still watching his back.”

  “Then he’ll be looking for an opportunity.”

  “Oh, yes.” Cohen steered the Jag along a curvy stretch, then suddenly slammed on the brakes. A donkey was in the middle of the road. A man with a weathered face was prodding the beast with a stick, but it stood impassively, the patience of centuries on its face. Cohen blew his horn. The donkey raised its head and shook it from side to side as if to say, Get lost.

  They sat there while a queue of traffic piled up behind them. “Where’s the Sahara desert?” Weiseman asked, for want of conversation. “How far from here?”

  “Due south, after Agadir and Marrakesh. It’s another world. I go there sometimes to escape, but it has nothing to do with this country. It’s where Africa begins.”

  A siren sounded and a police car drove up from the opposite side, a trailer suitable for bearing beasts behind it. The donkey looked up again, shook its head up and down, then moved forward to the side of the road.

  “Will Bani-Sadr be as clever as that donkey?” Weiseman asked.

  Eli Cohen floored the accelerator and the car zoomed along the edge of the cliff, above the surfing foam of the Mediterranean. Up ahead, a redbrick arch loomed, and the Jag slipped through it, beyond the city walls. The ground was covered by white pebbles, and Weiseman asked what they were.

  “There’s a rock salt factory here, and yes, he’ll be as clever as the donkey. You should discount at least fifty percent of what he tells you.”

  They drove through the deserted town: public squares dotted with palm trees, the outdoor patio of a restaurant, a sagging green tarpaulin draped over it as if to protect nonexistent patrons from the sun. Nine police cars were gathered on the far end of the square. A lean, brown policeman stood in front of each car, keeping an eye out.

  A wizened old man in a sky-blue robe and white knit cap bicycled down a narrow lane toward the medina, past two overturned wicker baskets. It hardly looked like a resort town.

  “Where is everyone?” Weiseman asked.

  “We’ve cleared them out, for you and Bani-Sadr.”

  “And the hotel?”

  “Change of plans,” Cohen said. “Our Persian friends are like that, they don’t trust us. You’ll be meeting him in that big brick building over there, the one with the chimney spouting filthy fumes into the air. The oil refinery. Our pretty boy is here to do business with the king.”

  * * *

  —

  BANI-SADR HAD CHANGED from his photos. The curly-haired pretty-boy Eli remembered had been replaced by a sour-looking thug. Black horn-rimmed glasses circled the black pupils of wary eyes and a dense black mustache, matching a black pompadour, dominated the face. He wore a well-cut silk tweed Italian sport jacket and black knit shirt opened to show off a hairless chest that looked as though it had just been polished to a fine sheen.

  They met in the office of the refinery’s chief executive and sat on faux leather chairs.

  “Mr. President, how good of you to receive me.”

  “You requested this meeting, Mr. Weiseman. What do you want?”

  “We want the hostages returned unharmed. You know that, sir.”

  “Yes, but on what terms. You need to give me something to work with.”

  He was already angling for cash, Weiseman thought, perhaps a Swiss account to pay off ayatollahs. Or an annuity, for life after the revolution. One day he’d find himself wanting a visa and a new identity in California.

  “I’ve been in touch with the White House,” Bani-Sadr said sarcastically, “through the French lawyers. I saw them yesterday in Paris. Do you know about that? Are you au courant?”

  “You know who I work for.”

  The Iranian president reached into his jacket and pulled out a pack of Gauloises. “The Shah,” he said. “We want him back.”

  “Mr. President, you know that’s not possible. I’m not here to waste your time.”

  Bani-Sadr suddenly bounced to his feet and went to the window. He stared out at the dirty smokestacks, shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet. “The king of Morocco has agreed to refine our oil,” he finally said. “Your best Arab ally is in our pocket.”

  Let him rant, Weiseman told himself. Just don’t let him leave.

  Bani-Sadr began prowling around the office, stopping to make a point, then thinking better of it, stealing a drag on the cigarette. A man appeared in a flowing white jellaba and a red fez slightly tilted on his head, like a candle on a cake. He placed tiny red lacquered porcelain cups at their places, poured tea, and left the matching porcelain kettle.

  “The Imam doesn’t know I’m meeting you,” Bani-Sadr said nervously. “He can be quite unforgiving. I’m taking a risk.”

  Weiseman said nothing. Let him work himself up to the matter at hand.

  Bani-Sadr slid back into his seat and dashed the half-smoked cigarette into a metal ashtray. He sipped the tea, as did Weiseman, who found it much too sweet.

  “If we can’t get the Shah, we have to expose his crimes. My people need a catharsis.”

  “You mean the UN commission,” Weiseman said. “Taking testimony from victims.”

  “That, but Pahlavi’s assets, too. They must be returned.”

  “That can be discussed, but it would be linked to the release of the hostages. I understand there’s an idea to have the students transfer the hostages to Minister Ghotbzadeh.”

  Bani-Sadr was up again, lighting another cigarette, then cackling harshly, and suddenly the black horn-rimmed glasses and mustache were inches from Weiseman’s face. “Students? They were cleared out after a week,” he said, before drawing back and glowering at Weiseman. “The only ones in the embassy now are Revolutionary Guards, who report to Khalaji and Montana.”

 
A bottle of scotch appeared from a desk drawer, as did a single tumbler. Bani-Sadr poured himself an inch and downed it. “Don’t trust Ghotbzadeh. He’ll make you pay for everything twice, and then he won’t deliver.”

  Good, thought Weiseman. Play them off against each other.

  “Mr. President, if we are able to reach a deal, will the Imam go along?”

  Bani-Sadr shrugged, showing that he didn’t know, or perhaps didn’t care to know.

  “Thank you for your time.” Weiseman rose. “But I can’t engage my president this way.”

  The Iranian was taken aback. He grasped Weiseman’s elbow. “It’s all right. You’ll have to visit Tehran again. Nothing can happen without the Imam. He remembers you.”

  “And Montana?” Weiseman asked. “I believe he remembers me, too. I seem to be on his list for the firing squad.”

  The Iranian president again got in Weiseman’s face. He pulled off his horn-rimmed glasses and, for an instant, Weiseman was looking at the pretty student in Paris.

  “Moi aussi, Monsieur Weiseman.” He gripped Weiseman’s elbow. “I am, too.”

  Weiseman drew a sealed white envelope out of his breast pocket. “Then you may be able to put this information to good use, Mr. President.”

  Bani-Sadr cast his eye over the contents, and then grinned. “So, our friend Montana is wanted on murder and arson charges in France and the United States.” He slipped the envelope into his pocket and raised a glass. “A bientôt a Tehran.”

  “Mr. President, we’ve settled nothing here today. You do know that.”

  “Yes,” Bani-Sadr said, “but we may have begun everything.”

  * * *

  —

  THINGS WENT FROM bad to worse as reports emerged of an Evin Prison bursting with new guests, and of embassy hostages subjected to new and indecent outrages. Red Cross inspectors allowed to visit the embassy observed American diplomats in solitary confinement, and staffers laying cheek by jowl along paper thin cots on a hard floor, men and women alike. When one of the men sought to defend a female colleague from the groping hand of a captor, he was punched in the head and hauled off to solitary.

  Something had to be done. In college, Weiseman had read Reinhold Niebuhr, the Catholic foreign policy realist who shared Johann’s view of life and human propensities: never give up, do what is doable, even if imperfect. Iran, with its array of bad choices, was the case model for this philosophy, he thought ruefully. Weiseman knew nothing short of a military operation would free the hostages until the Ayatollah had no further use of them. But there was always something one could do. Johann had taught him long ago: If you can’t do everything, at least do what you can. The worst enemy was resignation and indifference.

  He spent the next month circling around Iran’s borders, taking the temperature, arranging refugee receiving centers in the Gulf emirates, and working out contingency security plans with the directors of Jordan’s and Turkey’s intelligence services. Then he flew to Jerusalem.

  Regev met him at Ben Gurion Airport. This time his Israeli hosts were ready to engage. They had agents in Iran who spoke Farsi and knew their way around, seasoned men and women, Regev said. Of course, they had to be sure that Washington was serious, that the White House would act, and do so effectively.

  Regev took him to a nondescript building on the outskirts of Tel Aviv to meet Mossad’s “technicians,” the experts at rescue missions, the specialists at sabotage and disinformation, and the ones who conducted black operations and destabilization. Listening intently to a briefing, Weiseman spotted faces he had seen in Amman and Ankara—including Jafar, whose escape Weiseman had arranged. Weiseman greeted him and promised to pass a message to his family that he was okay.

  And then Weiseman realized who the person sitting in front of him was. He turned his head toward Regev and his expression said it all. Tariq Aziz in Tel Aviv?

  Regev told him simply, “When things get sticky, we do what’s necessary.”

  Weiseman took it in and turned to look at Aziz, sitting there in this Israeli bunker with his silk Italian suit, the trademark oversized glasses and white mustache; he could have been a rich Israeli businessman, or an émigré in Brooklyn. When the spokesman for the butcher of Iraq finally noticed him, Weiseman stifled his disdain and asked, “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  Tariq Aziz’s facial muscles crinkled into a sly smile. “Just one thing,” he said. “You have a beautiful and brave friend who is very convincing.” But bringing Françoise into it only intensified Weiseman’s disgust for the man.

  * * *

  —

  A SHORT HOP on an air force helicopter from Jerusalem to Beirut and he was reunited with Françoise. Dropping politics for a weekend on a beach near Byblos, Weiseman said nothing about his excursion to Tel Aviv.

  She told him, unprompted, about her visit to Baghdad. “Saddam was in a vile mood. He knows Khomeini better than anyone. All those years he got nightly reports from his Mukhabarat. He knows now that he should have handed Khomeini to his security service, to dispose of, without asking the Shah. He’s convinced it was a big mistake to let Khomeini go. He said Gramont tricked him—that Gramont told him Khomeini would be kept under house arrest in Paris. Saddam said one day, there will be a war.”

  Weiseman wondered, Did she tell this without hedging to Gramont?

  And then, after an early dinner, Jimmy Carter’s solemn face was on the flickering television set, telling the nation and the world about an attempted rescue mission he’d authorized. “Late yesterday, I cancelled a carefully planned operation in Iran to position our rescue team for later withdrawal of American hostages who have been held captive there since November 4. Equipment failure in the rescue helicopters made it necessary to end the mission.”

  Weiseman heard only the details of failure. Eight helicopters had taken off from the U.S.S. Nimitz in the Arabian Sea to rescue the hostages, to meet at a rendezvous point in the Iranian desert, code-named Desert One. Rotor blade failure…a cloud of suspended dust…helicopters separated…malfunctions, hydraulic problems. He remembered the heartbreaking phone calls from Roger Tyler and so many other spouses and parents.

  “To my deep regret, eight of the crewmen of the two aircraft which collided were killed, and several other Americans were hurt…The responsibility is fully my own,” Carter said solemnly.

  Damn right, Weiseman muttered to himself, imagining the image of Bobby Beauford whispering to Carter on how the mission could save the faltering election campaign.

  33

  DASH TO THE FINISH

  BACK IN WASHINGTON, in the aftermath of the aborted rescue mission, Weiseman observed the condition of the hostages grow worse. Students and RGs took retribution for the aborted rescue mission by depriving the hostages of food and sleep and medical supplies, by masking their eyes and restricting their movement with chains and confinement. A religious group allowed to visit the hostages returned from Tehran to say that the captors took sadistic pleasure in meting out harsh treatment. One hostage, who told off the RGs in Farsi when they said he was a spy, was placed in solitary for months.

  Spring turned to summer and, on July 27, 1980, the official Tehran radio laconically announced, “The bloodsucker of the century has died.”

  The Shah of Iran was laid to rest on the banks of the Nile where his father had been interred after three years of exile in South Africa. Weiseman recalled seeing the Shah stare in awe at the portrait of his father, seeing his shy demeanor…yet he’d also seen his support for Hanif’s brutal methods. Mohammad Reza had brought his father back for burial in Iranian soil. Who would do that for him?

  In Iran, dissent reached new levels. The sagging economy and repressive regime led to daily disturbances. An Islamic court, obeying orders from Qom, condemned a doctor to death. Montana’s firing squad carried out the execution, and doctors went on a sympathy strike. Women directed to wear the chador in government offices staged demonstrations in Western clothing and were dismissed from the
ir jobs. Scholarships were cancelled for those studying abroad. The “students” at the embassy demanded the removal of Bani-Sadr and Ghotbzadeh, blaming them for dallying with the Americans—like David Weiseman.

  Saddam Hussein, watching Iran disintegrate, began to stage raids along the border.

  The Iraqi ambassador came by to warn David that it could come to war. Weiseman called Trevor, who reminded him of priorities. “You know the old saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Saddam is a mad dog, but now he’s our mad dog. Let them go at it.”

  “And if they go to war, Justin, what do your experts say?”

  “It will go on for years, hundreds of thousands will be killed or wounded, on both sides.”

  “Hundreds of thousands? And you can justify all that slaughter?”

  “Yes, David, I can. One day there’ll be a truce between Saddam and Khomeini. In the meantime, they’ll leave us alone. Tell the Iraqi ambassador we understand his concerns.”

  Weiseman mulled that over and called Françoise on her private phone. He told her about the visit from Saddam’s ambassador.

  “You’d better take it seriously,” she said. “I interviewed Saddam forty-eight hours ago. He means to preempt, to strike Iran before it’s too late. He said—”

  Then the line was broken, and suddenly Weiseman heard Bobby Beauford’s voice talking to him. Beauford had broken into the call as if his White House ID card gave him carte blanche to do so.

  “Dave,” he said, “we need an October surprise.”

  Of course you do, thought Weiseman. Plot an assassination. Kidnap the Ayatollah. Anything to win the election.

  “What do you have in mind?” Weiseman asked.

  “That’s your job,” Beauford replied and rang off.

  Weiseman asked the Iraqi ambassador to return to the State Department and then told him he had reported his démarche to higher-ups. He didn’t convey Trevor’s encouragement of Baghdad, but he didn’t discourage the Iraqi either. He knew the ambassador would sniff out the meaning.