Guests of the Ayatollah: On Friday, I visited the site of the old U.S. Embassy in Tehran

December 06, 2008
Guests of the Ayatollah
posted by Warren Strobel

This is a very personal blog, but what the heck...

On Friday, I visited the site of the old U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Well, "visited" is probably too strong a word. We were driving in downtown Tehran when an Iranian friend announced that "We are near the site of your old embassy." A block and a half later it appeared on our left, and we pulled over--quickly--to take a look at the walled compound. Set in stone in the wall is the old official symbol, barely visible now, of the U.S. government eagle. The Embassy, as is well known, is now a shrine to America's alleged "crimes" around the world.

As it was Friday, said museum was closed and no one was around save for one guard at the gate.

Seeing the Embassy, where U.S. diplomats were held hostage for 444 days until they were freed in January 1981, brought a mixture of pain, sadness, nostalgia and confusion.

Most Americans around my age (46) remember where they were when the hostage crisis--and the failed rescue attempt by President Jimmy Carter--happened. In my case, I was a senior in high school. These were traumatic events even to those not directly involved.

Seeing the Embassy also closed a journalistic full circle for me. The story goes like this: In 1980, I was a freshman at St. Mary's College of Maryland, and working on the student newspaper there, an every-other-week journal with attitude called the Empath. One of our staff members had a father who was in the Air Force - not only that, he was (if memory serves), director of the flight line at Andrews Air Force Base. And so, on the day that the American hostages at long last came home, the day of President Ronald Reagan's inauguration, I and a few of my colleagues had a front-row seat to history.

I was there on the Andrews flight line when the plane bearing the hostages touched down and they stepped off the plane to be reunited with friends and family, there next to the Sam Donaldsons and Dan Rathers of the world. It was pretty heady stuff for an 18-year-old, and I was forever hooked on journalism and world affairs - a career that has blessed me with close-up views of lots of other history, covering five secretaries of state, and reporting from over 90 countries (Iran being the latest).

Iran's Islamic revolution will mark its 30th anniversary next year. Iran has never apologized for the take-over of the embassy and the hostage-taking, although some of the Iranian students involved have expressed regret.

Despite what happened then, and the bad blood between the two countries before and mostly since, people in Tehran, at least the educated classes, still have genuine affection for America. I've traveled enough to know the difference between formal, but insincere hospitality, and the real thing.

On one of my first days in Iran, I went to a small cafe for coffee and a snack. When the man working on the other side of the coffee bar discovered where I was from, his face immediately brightened. "When are you (Americans) coming back?" he asked.