444 Days: The Iran Hostage Crisis
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On November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian revolutionaries stormed the American embassy in Tehran, Iran and took 66 American diplomats and citizens hostage. Over the next 444 days, the hostage crisis dominated the news and became the single biggest foreign policy issue for both the United States and Iran. Even after the crisis ended, it affected Iranian-U.S. relations for the last 45 years.

Learn more about the Iran hostage crisis, its causes, and how it was resolved on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Yeah, sure thing. Hey, you sold that car yet? Yeah, sold it to Carvana. Oh, I thought you were selling to that guy. The guy who wanted to pay me in foreign currency, no interest over 36 months? Yeah, no. Carvana.

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If you weren't alive for it at the time, it would be hard to understand just how important the Iran hostage crisis was when it was unfolding. The crisis dominated the news for over a year. Every single day during the crisis, every evening news program counted the days since the hostages were taken. People all across the country tied yellow ribbons to trees outside their homes. It became a dominant issue in the 1980 election and arguably contributed to the fall of an American presidency.

The hostage crisis wasn't something that happened spontaneously, although it did seem like it at the time. The origins date all the way back decades earlier to the 1920s. Reza Shah came to power in 1925 after throwing the Qajar dynasty.

He pursued modernization and sought to reduce foreign influence, particularly that of Britain and the Soviet Union. However, during World War II, Reza Shah refused to expel German advisors from Iran, alarming both the British and the Soviet governments. In August of 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Iran to secure oil supplies and to establish supply routes for the Soviet war effort.

Under pressure from the Allies, Reza Shah was forced to abdicate on September 16, 1941 and was exiled to South Africa. With British and Soviet approval, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Reza Shah's son, was installed as the new Shah of Iran at the age of 21. His early reign was marked by limited power, as British and Soviet forces occupied Iran until the end of the Second World War.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, is really the key to this entire story. The Anglo-Persian oil company, later called British Petroleum, dominated Iran's oil industry, which gave Britain control over Iran's oil revenues.

Iranian politician Mohammad Mosaddegh led calls to nationalize the oil industry, arguing that Iran should control its own natural resources. In 1951, he was elected prime minister by the Iranian parliament with strong popular support. Mosaddegh nationalized the Anglo-Persian oil company, expelling British oil interests and taking control of Iranian oil. Britain retaliated by imposing an oil embargo, blockading Iranian exports and crippling the economy.

The Shah and conservative elements in Iran opposed Mossadegh's policies, fearing a shift towards socialism. Mossadegh tried to reduce the Shah's power, creating further tensions. In 1953, the CIA and the British intelligence orchestrated Operation Ajax, overthrowing Prime Minister Mossadegh, who had nationalized Iran's oil industry. And this reinstated the Shah of Iran's autocratic rule.

The Shah implemented Western-friendly policies and rapid modernization, but his rule was increasingly authoritarian, relying on SAVAK, his brutal secret police, to suppress opposition. SAVAK was the secret police, intelligence agency, and security organization of Iran under the Shah, established in 1957 with the help of the CIA.

It was notorious for its brutal repression using torture, surveillance, and assassinations to silence political opposition, particularly nationalists and Islamists. The Shah was a brutal dictator who became hated by the vast majority of his people. However, he was also a staunch ally of the United States in the Cold War.

Opposition to the Shah's rule began to organize around a religious leader named Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a vocal critic who was exiled from Iran in 1964. By 1978, widespread discontent over economic struggles, political repression, and Western influence led to mass protests. In January 1979, the Shah fled Iran and Khomeini returned in February to lead the Islamic Revolution.

In April 1979, Iran officially became the Islamic Republic of Iran, led by the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini. I'm skipping a lot of detail there, but at this point in April of 1979, the Shah was out, the Ayatollah was in, and at this point the United States was intent on continuing their relations with Iran via the new government.

Maybe they wouldn't be as close as they were before, but the U.S. would recognize the new government and they would trade ambassadors. When the Shah fled Iran, he was seriously ill. He had been diagnosed with leukemia in 1974 and had become gravely worse during the protests of 1978. After fleeing Iran, the Shah became an international hot potato. He went to Egypt, then to Morocco, then to the Bahamas, and then to Mexico.

During this time, the new Iranian government began to demand the extradition of the Shah back to Iran to stand trial. As the Shah was moving from country to country, his cancer continued to worsen. On October 22, 1979, President Jimmy Carter reluctantly allowed the Shah of Iran into the United States for medical treatment at the New York Cornell Medical Center.

It was this decision that enraged the Iranian revolutionaries, who saw it as U.S. interference and potentially the prelude for another U.S.-backed coup to put the Shah back in power. Large anti-American demonstrations erupted across Iran, particularly in Tehran. Protesters demanded the Shah's extradition to stand trial for corruption, human rights abuses, and crimes against the Iranian people.

Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers denounced the United States, accusing Carter of interfering in Iranian affairs. Carter, for his part, seems to have allowed the Shah into the United States for purely humanitarian reasons. Carter felt it would be morally wrong to deny a sick man medical care. His advisors were split on the decision. His national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, pushed for allowing the Shah in, arguing that the United States should stand by its former ally.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance warned that it could provoke crisis in Iran and advised against it. Regardless of the thinking behind Carter's decision, Carter totally underestimated the level of hostility in Iran towards the United States. Protests in Iran exploded, and they were targeted at the focal point of the American presence in the country, the American embassy in Tehran.

On November 4, 1979, less than two weeks after the Shah arrived in the United States for medical treatment, a group of Iranian students, aligned with Khomeini's revolutionary government, stormed the U.S. embassy. As for the Shah, the center of the whole controversy, he was in the U.S. for less than two months. On December 15, he left for Panama and then left for Egypt again in March of 1980. On July 27, 1980, the Shah died in Cairo at the age of 60.

The students who stormed the embassy initially took 66 hostages, including diplomats, military personnel, and civilians. Three were later released on November 19th, 10 on November 20th, and then one later in July, leaving 52 Americans held captive. The hostages were subject to isolation, blindfolded interrogations, and threats of execution. Many were kept in solitary confinement for long periods, confined to small, dark rooms with little information of the outside world.

Their captors frequently staged mock executions, pretending to prepare them for death, only to halt at the last moment, a tactic meant to break their spirit. They were also forced to participate in propaganda efforts, appearing in staged photographs and videos that the Iranian government used to humiliate the United States. Communication among the hostages was severely restricted, although some managed to pass messages or tap out Morse code on the walls.

Basic hygiene was a struggle, and food was often inadequate or withheld as punishment. Medical care was inconsistent, although some hostages received limited treatment when their health deteriorated. The United States had limited options with which they could respond. President Carter had imposed economic sanctions and froze Iranian assets in U.S. banks. He also expelled Iranian diplomats and attempted to pressure Iran diplomatically.

1980 was an election year, and the entire episode made the leader of the world's most powerful country look very weak. Also, in a highly unusual move, Carter had a primary challenge within his own party as an incumbent president from Senator Ted Kennedy. The pressure to take action accumulated with Operation Eagle Claw. It was a daring, but ultimately disastrous, U.S. military operation launched on April 24, 1980 to rescue the American hostages.

The mission involved multiple phases, requiring U.S. forces to infiltrate Iran, rendezvous in the desert at a location known as Desert One, and then proceed with an air assault on the U.S. embassy. However, the plan was complicated and risky, requiring helicopters and transport planes to work in perfect coordination. Shortly after launching, the operation faced serious issues, including severe dust storms that damaged equipment and impaired visibility.

Mechanical failures resulted in three helicopters becoming inoperable, reducing the force below the minimum required for the mission's success. With the plan compromised, the mission was aborted before reaching Tehran. During the withdrawal, however, tragedy struck when a helicopter collided with a C-130 transport aircraft, causing a massive fireball that killed eight U.S. servicemen.

The surviving personnel were forced to flee, abandoning equipment, vehicles, and classified documents, which the Iranians later seized. The hostage crisis became a story every night on the news. Every news broadcast would start with the number of days that the hostages had been held. The phrase, America held hostage, became a daily feature on ABC News, which later evolved into the program Nightline, hosted by Ted Koppel.

The media's relentless coverage of the crisis kept the hostages' fate at the center of national consciousness, fueling a sense of helplessness and anger. Schools, businesses, and communities organized yellow-ribbon campaigns symbolizing hope for the hostages' safe return. Public sentiment was overwhelmingly hostile towards Iran, with large-scale protests erupting across the United States. Many Americans burned Iranian flags, chanted anti-Iran slogans, and called for further military action.

The Carter administration desperately wanted to come to some sort of agreement before the election. However, with the failed rescue mission, possible negotiations between Iran and the U.S. were at an impasse. By mid-1980, efforts by intermediaries such as the United Nations and various European countries had also failed. An intermediary was found in the nation of Algeria.

The Algerians began their involvement in the Iran hostage crisis in the latter half of 1980, with serious mediation efforts starting around September and October. Algeria was chosen as an intermediary because it had diplomatic ties with both the United States and Iran, and it had maintained a neutral stance throughout the crisis. The Iranians had no incentive to hurry the negotiations because they didn't want to give Carter a win before the election.

Negotiations intensified once the election was over and Jimmy Carter had lost to Ronald Reagan. The final agreement became known as the Algiers Accords. Under the terms of the Algiers Accords, signed on January 19, 1981, the United States agreed to unfreeze $8 billion in Iranian assets, lift economic sanctions, and pledge non-interference in Iran's internal affairs.

Additionally, Iran was granted immunity from lawsuits related to the hostage crisis, ensuring that the United States government and private citizens could not pursue legal claims against Iran for the incident. The Iranian leadership, particularly the Ayatollah Khomeini, delayed final approval of the deal until just after Ronald Reagan's inauguration, refusing to release the hostages while Jimmy Carter was still in office as a symbolic act of defiance.

Just minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in on January 20, 1981, the hostages were released, marking the official end of the crisis. The Iran hostage crisis had a series of wide-ranging impacts, many of which can still be felt today. For Iran, the hostage crisis was a symbolic victory against the West, strengthening Ayatollah Khomeini's rule and entrenching the legitimacy of the new Islamic Republic of Iran.

One of the most immediate and lasting effects was the severing of diplomatic ties between the United States and Iran, which remain broken to this day. The United States responded with economic sanctions that have only increased over the years, restricting Iran's access to global financial systems. The failure of Operation Eagle Claw resulted in a greater emphasis on counterterrorism and hostage rescue operations, including the creation of the U.S. Special Operations Command in 1987.

The continuous crisis coverage set the standard for the 24-hour news cycle and crisis-focused journalism. The distrust and animosity it created remains unresolved, ensuring that the hostage crisis is remembered not just as an historical event, but as an enduring symbol of broken diplomacy. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiefer.

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