It went on:
You asked me to comment at some point about our prospects for influencing the course of events. Only marginally, I would say, until the military recovers, and that is a process we can do almost nothing to affect. What we can do, and I am now working on, is to identify and prepare to support the potential leaders of a coalition of westernized political liberals, moderate religious figures, and (when they begin to emerge) western oriented military leaders. The most likely catalyst for such a coalition is Ayatollah [Kazem] Shariatmadari; I have compartmented contacts with several of his supporters.
Prospects are not bright for resuming operation of the TACKS MAN sites in a role which will provide us telemetry on Soviet missile testing. The reason is that this would require a degree of American participation which the Iranians are not likely to find politically acceptable. Accordingly, we are proceeding with an operation designed to provide clandestine collection of telemetry; this is proceeding well, and with some luck could be functioning fairly early in 1980.
Ahern had concluded the cable by requesting an additional case officer, and by acknowledging the help he had received weeks earlier in the form of Bill Daugherty, whom he had named in the cable!
He tried not to stare at the folder but was stunned at his oversight. There was, in summary, the current feeble efforts of the CIA to sort out what was going on in Iran. Given in particular that the letter named Ayatollah Shariatmadari, and discussed the deeply clandestine effort to replace the Tacksman telemetry collection effort, it was an egregious lapse. The paragraph about potential for “influencing the course of events” would confirm the Iranians worst suspicions about American intentions in their country, particularly in light of the 1953 coup. That effort had succeeded with the help of Western military leaders, too. It was a shock, an embarrassment, and sure to be trouble.
For the moment, his captors paid no attention to the folder on his desk. They wanted Ahern to open the office safe. He refused. There wasn’t much in it, only what little was left of his files, some correspondence related to the earlier regime, and some chemicals used in preparing or reading invisible ink. Ahern wasn’t eager to share it with them, and if help was going to be arriving soon—as he and the other captives all assumed—then there was much to be gained by delay. He also didn’t want to acknowledge that it was his safe.
Then one of the older captors produced a .38 caliber handgun and pointed it at his face. He told Ahern to open it or be shot.
The veteran CIA officer was unconvinced. He’s not going to shoot me, maybe later, but not now. Ahern knew that it was always a mistake to open an interrogation with your heaviest threat. If these people wanted the combination to his safe, then shooting him would be self-defeating.
“It’s not my safe,” Ahern lied.
The man with the gun grumbled at him threateningly, but gave up and walked away.
12. Go And Kick Them Out
By midafternoon nearly all of the Americans seized on the compound had been herded into the ambassador’s residence or into the four small cottages behind the chancery. Most were blindfolded and had their hands tied. Their captors were giddy with success but seemed not to know what to do next. The five American women seized during the takeover were taken to a separate room, where they were tied to chairs and blindfolded. They were asked to state their name, section, and title.
“Terri Tedford, administrative section, secretary,” said the slight, brown-haired woman in the first chair.
“Joan Walsh, political section, secretary,” said the second, and so on, around the room, until they came to Ann Swift.
“Ann Swift, first secretary, political section,” she said. Swift spoke some Farsi, and when she heard her job title being translated as “typist,” her ego bristled and she immediately corrected them, a reflex she would live to regret.
“I’m not a typist,” she corrected. “I’m the first secretary,” and went on to explain that she was, in effect, the highest-ranking embassy official they had in captivity.
A small group came for Limbert in the ambassador’s residence. He asked where they were taking him.
“We want you to come with us to the vault,” one said.
“Oh, of course, I’d be pleased,” Limbert said. “Nothing would make me happier. It would be an honor.”
Relaxed now after the ordeal on the staircase, he fell back on the elaborate formal courtesies of Farsi. So long as they spoke to him nicely, as this student had, then he would respond in kind. He was, after all, a diplomat. And under the circumstances it didn’t hurt to remind them of their culture’s traditional politeness.
They escorted him across the darkening compound to the chancery, showed him the basement window where they had broken in, and then led him to the top floor. The coms vault at the west end looked like it had been ransacked. He saw Ahern, Jones, Barnes, and the others who had evidently locked themselves inside for hours sitting outside it on the corridor floor against the wall with their hands tied. Limbert was led into the vault.
“What is the combination to this safe?” they asked.
“I don’t know,” Limbert said. “I don’t work here.”
“What is in these safes?” they asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, truthfully.
“What are they in here for?”
“I presume for safekeeping,” he said. “I am not even allowed to enter here.”
Then they showed him his wallet. He had left it in the vault early that afternoon before stepping out to talk to the students on the steps. Ordinarily he was not allowed in the vault, but today it had seemed prudent to leave his wallet there.
“If you don’t give us the combination, we’ll shoot everybody here,” his questioner said.
It seemed unlikely. In the few hours he had spent with this crowd so far he had judged them to be amateurish and, in their own way, well intentioned.
“That’s an empty threat,” Limbert said. “I can’t give the combinations to you because I don’t know them.”
Taken back to the residence, Limbert passed Barry Rosen in the hall and said, “Barry, here it goes again,” referring to the February takeover, in which Rosen had been briefly held captive. “You should have known better than to hang around.”
Rosen, the embassy’s press attaché, was a cipher to his captors. He was short, dark-skinned, and bearded, and he spoke such fluent Farsi that they were reluctant to believe he was an American.
“I’m an American and proud of it,” he told them, still cocky and still convinced that these renegades would be chased off the embassy in short order.
He was taken to the bedroom of the Pakistani chef who lived and worked at the ambassador’s residence, where he was briefly questioned by a young woman who wore a long brown jilbab, or robe, and khimar, or head scarf, which covered most of her face. She had beautiful eyes, Rosen thought, but nothing else about her was appealing. She seemed to regard him as the personification of evil. Here before her was the architect of everything wrong in Iran in modern history, and she nearly spat out the words she spoke.