Embassy Attacks, Iran and Hollywood
I used to run into Richard Queen in the corridors of the State Department and chat. I saw his health deteriorate over the years from the effects of multiple sclerosis, his gait increasingly unsteady even with the aid of a cane. Richard was one of the 52 American diplomats taken hostage by Iranian militants in late 1979. He was 28 then. A cheerful and pleasant fellow, Richard died of MS in 2002, at age 51. Doctors speculated his hostage ordeal might have triggered the disease that killed him.
I had other friends who were at Embassy Tehran when it was seized. One, Lee Schatz, was in my junior officer trainee class. My first posting was Australia. His was Iran. Luck of the draw. Fortunately, Lee was one of the six diplomats who managed to evade capture and were exfiltrated from Iran in a joint Canadian-CIA operation, as dramatized in the movie, Argo. The 52 who weren't so lucky underwent 444 days of often barbaric treatment, ranging from beatings to mock firing squads and solitary. Another colleague, Mike Metrinko, was beaten, kept in solitary for months and handcuffed 24/7 for two weeks straight when he dared to make critical comments about the Ayatollah Khomeni. After being freed, undaunted, Mike went on to serve 27 more years of a distinguished Foreign Service career.
The wrenching Embassy Tehran takeover has had long lasting repercussions on the U.S. Foreign Service and other foreign affairs agencies. I saw them as a newly minted FSO. The outmoded strip paper shredders were replaced with disintegrators so that classified documents could not be pieced back together. The State Department strictly limited our holdings of classified material and improved the various ways of quickly destroying them. Greater stress was placed on security awareness. Those of us headed for danger posts were given training in evasive driving techniques and firearms. When Iran sent operatives out to plot attacks against American diplomats in the '80s, I was issued a weapon and provided 24/7 bodyguard coverage at the isolated consulate I headed. When I was harassed at the hostile posts where I served, the State Department came down on the host governments like a ton of bricks with diplomatic protests and threats to take other actions.
In the 32 years since the Tehran embassy takeover, there have been 25 attacks against U.S. diplomatic missions, and 96 U.S. diplomats have lost their lives in the line of duty, four in the recent attack against our Benghazi consulate. I recently wrote about the Foreign Service being America's first line of defense, a fact lost on most Americans. Earlier, I'd described the rise of PTSD in the ranks of the Foreign Service -- on a par with the rate experienced by military combat veterans. A buddy currently serving in Afghanistan just described for me his 7-day work week involving helicopter jaunts over Taliban territory to meet with his Afghan and NATO counterparts, trying to keep up with the ever increasing demand for yet more reports from a bloated embassy and five (yes, count 'em five) ambassadors; barely finding time to take a shower at his dust-infused outpost in the middle of nowhere.
In the inductee training Lee Schatz and I received, they told us that a U.S. diplomat's only armor is the Stars & Stripes, i.e., the American flag. Yes, U.S. Marine Security Guards protect 150 of over 285 diplomatic missions. And their primary mission is to "provide internal security. . .in order to prevent the compromise of classified material vital to the national security of the United States." In other words, they are not bodyguards, nor do they extend protective duties beyond a diplomatic post's walls. A diplomat is expected to jump into the middle of the local society and take his/her chances. The risks come with the territory, so to speak.
Argo is a ripsnorter of a thriller that will keep you white knuckled throughout its two-hour run. It's a "fictionalized account" of the drama that contributed to Pres. Carter's defeat for a second term. As such it has come under fire for shortshrifting or distorting the vital roles played by British, New Zealand, Swedish and Canadian diplomats in assisting their American colleagues. But the opening scenes of a growing mob storming the embassy and the utter defenselessness of the U.S. officials therein gives a goosebump-inducing realistic portrayal of diplomats under siege. The next time Congress plans to deprive the State Department of hundreds of millions of dollars for diplomatic security, our politicians would be wise to closely view Argo.