Night in Tehran

by Kaplan, Philip

  The Iranians had always wanted the deal to be done before November 4, because they had wanted to avoid dealing with Reagan. Now the prospect of beating Reagan to the White House gave them a second chance. “But there’s a deadline,” Weiseman told the Iranian. “It’s January 16. That will give us just enough time to implement the complex financial transfers. Otherwise you’ll have to deal with Reagan.”

  “Yes, I can understand that,” Tabatabai said soberly. “Of course, it’s not up to me. Your people will have to be generous. The Imam must approve whatever is agreed upon.”

  And so the hard slog resumed. The Algiers talks squirreled down into the minutiae of what the Iranians wanted and what the Americans could legally do. Carter had no political stake in the talks—it wouldn’t win him back the presidency—but Weiseman marveled at the way he threw himself back into the mission of freeing the hostages. Throughout December, the deputy secretary of state and his experts flew back and forth between Washington and Algiers as if it were the DC-New York shuttle run, pressing ahead with the grueling negotiations.

  On New Year’s Day, 1981, Weiseman told Trevor it wouldn’t work unless the Iranians saw actual legal documents on the transfer of assets. Until that happened, they’d suspect a trick.

  Trevor convened a group of Justice Department lawyers and Treasury financial experts to draft those documents. Weiseman was the group’s political advisor, there to ensure the documents were watertight enough to preclude a last minute Iranian double cross, but not so provocative as to arouse suspicions and prevent the release of the hostages.

  The last week of Carter’s presidency was mired in the arcane paperwork for the transfer of assets by fourteen banks in five nations. There were also the practical details of having aircraft on standby to take the hostages out—assuming it all worked. On January 19, with twenty-four hours left in Carter’s term, Trevor told Weiseman the president hadn’t slept all week.

  As the morning of Inauguration Day dawned, Weiseman already was in his office. At 8:00 a.m. he read a FLASH cable from Algiers, and his heart stopped for an instant: The transfer of assets is complete, the hostages will be released today.

  He dialed Wyoming Avenue and Trevor pressed a button on his phone that connected them directly into the Oval Office. “Mr. President, David has some good news.”

  He read the cable to Carter and heard him pause a moment; apparently he was too exhausted to celebrate. Finally, Carter said, “Thank you, I’ll tell the president when he comes over to see me at eleven.”

  The president? Weiseman was thrown for a moment. Ah, yes. Ronald Reagan.

  “Oh, one more thing,” Carter said. “Will the hostages be airborne before the oath? On my watch?”

  “Mr. President,” Trevor said, “we just don’t know that.”

  There was silence for a moment, then Carter’s wistful voice. “Yes, of course. Well, stay on it, will you? Someone needs to be at the helm. Let me know as soon as the hostages are airborne. Call me in the Oval Office, the limo, the Capitol, or wherever I am.”

  His voice trailed off, and Weiseman felt himself choke up. Whatever else he felt about Carter, the man had given it all he had. It was more than you could say about most people.

  * * *

  —

  INAUGURATION DAY, AND WEISEMAN sat in the State Department Operation Center, waiting for word that the hostages were airborne. On his right was the dedicated telex machine on which the cable would arrive, on his left, the television set showing the president-elect’s limo pulling up to the entrance to the West Portico of the White House. Behind those double doors, where presidents often stared out of their gilded prison, Jimmy Carter was bracing himself to yield power, no doubt praying that the hostages would be freed before twelve noon, when Reagan would take the oath.

  Weiseman stared at the three telephone numbers Trevor had given him. “One of these will reach the president,” Trevor had told him.

  Time dragged on. He had telexed Tabatabai twice that morning, first at 8:00 a.m., when the financial transfers were completed, then again at 10:00. There had been no reply. TV talking heads chattered on, speculating about what the two men in the Oval Office were discussing, and about when the hostages might be freed. They hadn’t a clue about either. Then again, thought Weiseman, neither did he.

  At 11:30, the two men walked out of the White House, toward the presidential limousine, Carter grim faced, Reagan smiling, gesticulating with his hands. The TV showed Reagan smiling, exuberant and presidential in his blue suit, pearl-gray double-breasted waistcoat and tie, a square white handkerchief tucked into his pocket, waving to well-wishers. Carter wore the same attire but, as he climbed into the back of the waiting limo, seemed lost in thought, his presidency already a memory.

  The car began the slow drive up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, past cheering crowds who were seemingly happy to brave the frosty weather.

  At 11:40, the phone rang, startling Weiseman. They’re airborne, he thought.

  But it was Jimmy Carter. “Any news?” he asked.

  “Mr. President, not yet.”

  Five minutes later the limo pulled up at the Capitol, and the two men were escorted into the ground floor entrance by a team of Secret Service agents. Moments later, they appeared on the grandstand to await the transfer of power. The phone rang again in the Op-Center and Weiseman snapped it up. “Monsieur Weiseman?” a man said.

  “Oui.”

  “It is Jacques Schreiber, from Paris. It seems there’s been a falling out in Tehran. Sheikh Khalaji has issued an order for the arrest of Bani-Sadr and Ghotbzadeh.”

  Weiseman squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

  “Are you there, Monsieur Weiseman?”

  “Schreiber, the money has been transferred. Are they going to come through?”

  “Je ne sais pas. The revolution is eating its own. I don’t know—”

  The line went dead in midsentence. Up on the TV monitor, the chief justice stepped to the center of the stage. Reagan came forward to face him, a heavy black overcoat and white wool scarf shielding the Californian from frigid Washington weather. He recited the oath, repeating the Chief Justice’s words without error. He was an actor, after all, accustomed to memorizing his lines.

  There was a great roar from the crowd that extended across the plaza, all the way from the houses of Congress to the Supreme Court across the way. The trees swayed under the ice and snow that burdened their branches. Weiseman heard a TV announcer say that America was entering a new epoch, virtually the same words that had been said exactly four years before. Weiseman wondered, How would it turn out this time?

  Now president, Ronald Reagan began his inaugural address. Even over the TV, Weiseman could pick up the vibes, the hopes invested in what the democratic process had wrought. Up on the stage, constructed in the shadow of the Capitol dome, hard men who served the past administration and would serve this one squinted into the icy sun, harboring their memories and dreams and doubts. To Reagan’s left, at the front of the platform, Jimmy Carter fidgeted, no longer president.

  Weiseman picked up some phrases—“orderly transfer of authority…the business of our nation goes forward…government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem…special interests”—but the telex machine was stirring. He leaned over it, tapping its side, urging it on.

  A piece of paper began to slide out of the machine, then stopped. There were only two words on it: Test Run.

  Damn.

  He swiveled back to listen to Reagan’s speech. “We have every right to dream heroic dreams…to perform great deeds…we are Americans.”

  A great roar came forth from the crowd. A banner rose from the masses shivering before the Capitol, saying, MORNING IN AMERICA.

  The president finished his address and waved to the crowd. The Marine Band played a Sousa march. A soprano stood before the crowd and sang the “Star Spangled Banner.”

  The telex machine remained quiet.

  They were all up now. As
Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter headed toward the rear of the Capitol, the former president looked over his shoulder as if he’d forgotten something. Then he and Rosalyn made their way slowly down the great marble steps.

  They boarded the waiting helicopter and the camera panned back to the top of the stairs, where Justin Trevor waved to them, then turned, and strode back into the Capitol. Weiseman watched with the rest of the nation as the helicopter lifted up and headed toward Andrews Air Force Base in nearby Maryland. A half hour later, Air Force One took off for Plains, Georgia.

  Then it came to him—the realization of what his mentor had done. Justin had separated him from Carter’s team in Algeria and taken him on the trip to Sacramento. The old survivor had dressed him all up nice and pretty so the new president would take him on.

  Suddenly, the telex machine came to life, exactly five minutes after Carter had climbed dejectedly aboard Air Force One: The first plane with the hostages has taken off from Mehrabad. The second is taxiing up the runway and will be airborne in moments.

  After 444 days.

  He picked up the phone and called the number at the Capitol that Trevor had given him.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. President, the hostages are on the way home.”

  He heard the infectious laugh. Ronald Reagan said, “Thank you, David. It seems we’re off to a good start.”

  * * *

  —

  A MONTH LATER, Assistant Secretary of State for Europe David Weiseman, at home on a Sunday morning, browsed through the newspapers. He saw the clipping in the Post. Iranian President Bani-Sadr had been dismissed and had fled to Paris. Ex-Foreign Minister Ghotbzadeh had been arrested and promptly executed by firing squad.

  Françoise stepped into the room, and he remembered something he wanted to ask her.

  “I saw Justin. He said they’ve replaced Gramont.”

  She nodded. “That’s right. The Élysée decided that Gramont’s strategy had failed, that it was time to get tough on the mullahs. Alain de Rose has replaced him He’s asked me to work with him.”

  “First, tell me about Gramont,” he said. “Why now?”

  “Sometimes they even cut the strings of the puppet master,” she said. “The Islamists demanded that France extradite exiles who fled Iran after the revolution. They sent suicide bombers and assassins to Paris. It was just like they’d done before, as if nothing had changed. So, Laurent had gotten us nowhere.”

  Weiseman nodded. “Your new job sounds important,” he said.

  “I’ll be his station chief at the French embassy in Washington,” she said.

  Weiseman gave her a surprised look, then a broad smile, as he rose and said, “Let’s go for a walk.”

  She took his arm and they made their way down the tree-lined sidewalk, the breeze flirting with her miniskirt. He spoke about the news from Iran. “They were crooks,” he said, “both Bani-Sadr and Ghotbzadeh. They took big chances. But to destroy them like that…to exile one, to hand the other over to the RGs…it’s indecent.”

  “Oh yes,” she said, “there is one other thing that may interest you. You remember your Mossad friend.”

  “Of course, but don’t tell me—”

  “It seems that Regev met alone with Alain and presented him with a detailed dossier on Jacques’s wartime work for the Nazis in France and Poland. Jacques is now in solitary in Israel’s maximum security prison, near the Dead Sea. We won’t be seeing him again for a very long time.”

  “Sometimes we get lucky,” he said. “By the way, one of Reagan’s aides asked me to stop by the White House. It was about Lyman Palmer. He was America’s last ambassador to Iran. We didn’t get along very well.”

  “What did he want, this ‘aide’?” Françoise asked.

  “Palmer was being considered for another ambassadorial appointment, in Italy,” Weiseman said. “You won’t believe it. This guys looks at me, says Palmer’s name, then puts his thumb up, then down, then asks me, ‘Which is it?’ ”

  Her eyes opened wide, relishing the moral quandary in a way Weiseman found particularly French.

  “So, David, you had this man’s career in the palm of your hand. What did you say?”

  “He’s worthless; he caused me a lot of trouble.”

  She gave him a flinty look.

  “What did you say?”

  “Well, I was offended by the way the White House guy presumed to play God so I decided to support him.” Weiseman gave her tight smile. “For an opening I knew about in Paraguay.”

  She laughed despite the chilly breeze.

  “Let’s go home,” Weiseman said. “Promises to keep.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  IT WAS MY 27-YEAR CAREER IN THE UNITED STATES FOREIGN Service, with the professional diplomats of the State Department and of the countries to which I was privileged to be accredited, that prompted me to tell this tale of a young American detailed to work for a CIA director and cast into the demanding dilemmas of an Iran catapulting into crisis—the slipstreams of authoritarian monarchial rule, revolution by fundamentalist authoritarians, and the personal turmoil of long-suffering Iranians. His task: extricate the country from its choice of one or the other kind of harsh rule, assist the decent moderates of civil society to survive, and safeguard American interests in the tumultuous Mideast region. It is a story familiar to many of my former and present diplomatic colleagues, and one similar to my own experiences, and choices, in the Philippines some years later.

  The list of professional and personal relationships that opened my eyes to challenges and opportunities are too numerous to list here, but some have been of particular relevance to this work. From my Foreign Service career, Robert Schaetzel, my first ambassador, at the US mission to the European Union in Brussels; Jonathan Dean, who led our team in Bonn that coordinated negotiations with the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and the two Germanys which transformed the security scene in Europe; the twenty-three delegations of NATO and Warsaw Pact nations who I was fortunate to join in Vienna in negotiating the historic treaty on conventional forces in Europe; to my friend Steve Bosworth, whom I served as deputy in the State Department Policy Planning Staff and as American Minister in Manila; to the brilliant Peter Rodman, a dedicated patriot known to be Henry Kissinger’s stellar student, and who served with distinction in the State and Defense Departments and the National Security Council; to Admiral Jim Stavridis, a polymath sailor, academic dean, writer, businessman and public servant; to colleagues in and partners in two law firms, first Patton Boggs and now Berliner, Corcoran Rowe; to the many Europeans, Filipinos, and other Asians, and those I came to know and respect in Africa, the Mideast, and Latin America.

  I salute my indefatigable agent Ron Goldfarb and his colleague Gerrie Sturman, who drew on years of seasoned expertise and sustained commitment to bring this debut novel to publication.

  This book also grew with the counsel of collaborators. The late Sol Stein, the novelist Alan Furst, whose mastery of the historic spy novel set standards I have sought to emulate, and to editorial tutors. Special thanks are due to the professionals at Melville House, above all publisher Dennis Johnson whose support and lethal pencil made the book better in many ways; Valerie Merians, his co-founder and publisher; managing editor Mike Lindgren and the impressive group of marketing, publicity, and sales experts who make the Melville House train run smoothly, to publication.

  And to my family, my son Douglas, whose support and dedication has been constant and dependable. Above all to my wife Barbara, the love of my life and my bride since our graduation together from the University of Connecticut, who has read every draft, enriched the book with her love, her comments and her humanity, who remains my bride every day.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Philip Kaplan spent twenty-seven years as a diplomat in the US Foreign Service. Now retired from the State Department, he is currently practices law in Washington, D.C. This is his first novel.

  sp; Kaplan, Philip, Night in Tehran