The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict With Iran

by David Crist

  The protests expanded. Supporters smuggled cassette tapes of Khomeini’s talks back inside Iran. Technocrats, democratic reformers, communists, and disgruntled merchants all joined in the growing protests. Oil workers went on strike, and the violence reached a crescendo in early December, when hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets. Meanwhile, Khomeini approved sending small teams of supporters to Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon to begin training as guerrilla fighters for the long insurgency he expected to wage against his rival for control over Iran.25

  The shah’s troubles took official Washington by surprise. Initially, the American government did not even consider the religious aspect of the opposition. “There had never been an Islamic revolution before,” observed the State Department desk officer for Iran at the time, Henry Precht.26 Despite the fact that the American embassy in Tehran was the fifth largest in the world, few American diplomats had any sense of the sentiments in the streets. The shah effectively controlled the information available to the diplomats, and the State Department did not encourage Foreign Service officers to get out and talk to dissenters, especially religious leaders. As one political officer recalled, “I doubt if anybody in the embassy ever knew a mullah.”27

  The CIA devoted considerable resources to monitoring the Soviet Union and to tracking communists inside Iran. But the agency’s intelligence-gathering effort had not been focused on recruiting spies within Iran. “After all,” as one retired CIA operative sardonically observed, “we had the shah’s secret police, Savak, to tell us what was going on.”28 The two intelligence agencies did cooperate on tracking down the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), or People’s Mujahideen of Iran, a leftist-Islamist hybrid sect which had conducted a series of terrorist killings of Americans in Iran, including the serious wounding of U.S. Air Force Brigadier General Harold Price in one of the first uses of an improvised explosive device in the Middle East. The CIA had developed biographical studies on key Iranian military and civilian leaders.29 But for the most part, the CIA devoted its efforts to countering Soviet influence in the region.30 In a self-assessment of its efforts in 1976, the spy agency reported that “generally speaking, reporting from the mission on most topics is very satisfactory.”31

  The American intelligence community committed one enormous oversight in not studying the shah himself. In 1974 Jean Bernard, a renowned French hematologist, secretly flew to Tehran to examine the Iranian monarch, who was suffering from an enlarged spleen. Dr. Bernard diagnosed the problem as a serious case of chronic lymphocytic leukemia and Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia, a blood condition.32 However, fearing that news of his ailment would leak, the shah steadfastly refused either to undergo additional tests or to begin cancer treatment. His ailment remained unknown to Washington, though rumors of the shah’s ill health were commonplace in Tehran. The cancer left the shah increasingly listless and withdrawn. Meanwhile, Washington continued to support him, blissfully unaware that the man upon whom America relied to safeguard Persian Gulf oil was dying.

  The troubles in Iran divided the Carter administration along familiar lines. Brzezinski wanted the shah to use force to crush the resistance. He believed the United States needed to express its unqualified support for the monarch, and he advocated dispatching an aircraft carrier to the Gulf of Oman as a show of support. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance cautioned, however, that the Iranians might interpret a movement of U.S. forces to the region as a precursor to invasion; the United States needed to assist Iran in a transition from autocracy to democracy.

  The president himself remained torn, harboring private sympathy for the democratic reforms sought by the shah’s opponents, while recognizing the grave strategic blow to the United States should the shah be overthrown. The president remained bothered by the shah’s poor human rights record under which political dissidents were frequently imprisoned and tortured. But the Iranian leader had consistently supported both Israel and Carter’s Camp David Accords, signed in September 1978 between Israel and Egypt, and his offer to assure Israel’s fuel requirements had contributed to Israel’s agreement to withdraw from the Sinai and relinquish control of the Abu Rudeis oil fields in western Sinai.

  Carter agreed to send an aircraft carrier off the Iranian coast to demonstrate American resolve, and he dispatched his dutiful but bland deputy secretary of defense, Warren Christopher, who would later serve as secretary of state (1993–1997) under Bill Clinton, to meet with the Iranian ambassador in Washington and inform him of President Carter’s unqualified support for the shah.33 A week later President Carter penned a handwritten note to the shah: “Again, let me extend my best wishes to you as you continue your successful effort for the beneficial social and political reforms in Iran.”34

  The American ambassador in Tehran was an experienced Foreign Service officer named William Sullivan. Polished and well dressed, with a shock of white hair, Sullivan had served in two previous ambassadorial postings, including as ambassador to Laos at the height of the Vietnam War. He was no stranger to the dirty side of foreign policy and, while he was in Laos, had supported the CIA-led secret war against the North Vietnamese.

  Sullivan agitated to open a dialogue with Khomeini. When the shah once told him that Khomeini supporters were “crypto-communists,” Sullivan flatly rejected the notion. The influence of Shia Islam was stronger than any Western-imposed ideology, especially the secular communists, Sullivan countered.35 Khomeini supporters held the real power behind the opposition movement and would serve as a natural bulwark against the communist groups, Sullivan thought. Any post-shah government would require Khomeini’s support to facilitate an orderly transfer of power to a new democratic government, and the sooner Washington recognized this, Sullivan observed, the better for America’s standing in the future Iran.36

  Brzezinski rejected Sullivan’s views of the situation in Tehran. It was not a choice between the shah and democracy, he told Sullivan: should the shah fall, Khomeini would inexorably move the new government toward theocracy. The national security adviser began backdoor conversations around Sullivan with hard-liners inside the Iranian government about a possible military takeover.37 In an October 28, 1978, meeting at the White House with CIA Director Stansfield Turner, Brzezinski asked the CIA to look into developing information that could be used to undermine the opposition and strengthen the shah. Turner agreed, but he cautioned Brzezinski that many members of Congress looked upon the shah as so undemocratic that they would not tolerate a covert program designed to keep him in power.38

  Turner responded a few days later. He believed the CIA could help keep the shah in power for the short run and this might provide breathing space for the Iranian government. But for the strategy to succeed, the shah needed to use “maximum force.” And in the long run, CIA analysts cautioned, it would not solve the shah’s problems. He needed to move more swiftly to establish a democratically elected civilian government.39

  Undeterred, Brzezinski asked Sullivan about prospects for a successful military takeover if the shah was willing to use maximum force to crush the opposition. In a tense series of secure telephone conversations, Sullivan countered that a military takeover might be feasible, but every day that passed reduced the chances of a successful outcome. More important, Sullivan said, the cost to long-term American interests would be exceedingly high. Loss of life would be great, and this would scuttle any possibility of moving the country in the direction of democracy. Sullivan again advanced the idea of opening contacts with the opposition, which the national security adviser flatly rejected. Over the coming days, exchanges between the two men grew heated on the issue. They frequently shouted at each other, their arguments clearly audible in adjacent rooms.40

  On September 8, 1978, a massive throng of demonstrators—largely unaware that the shah had declared martial law the day before—gathered in Jaleh Square in Tehran. When the army moved in, the demonstration turned violent and jittery soldiers opened fire. While the true number of Iranian civilians killed was less than one hundred, n
ews quickly spread through the streets that thousands of peaceful demonstrators—including many women—had been cut down in the streets. Today this day is known in Iran as Black Friday. The carnage horrified both the shah and the demonstrators, giving pause to the latter to rethink their actions. But as senior CIA Iran analyst and Iranian military historian Steven Ward noted, “The government then mishandled what possibly was one of its best opportunities to reassert control.”41 With the opposition reeling, the shah opted for reconciliation. He dismissed security officials, released imprisoned opponents and replaced them with some of his own Savak agents, and ordered the army to fire above the heads of the crowds. Rather than placating the revolutionaries, the shah’s actions only emboldened them as he now appeared weak and irresolute.

  A few days after Black Friday, President Carter called the shah and stressed continued American support as well as the importance of liberalization. The shah had it posted verbatim in the newspapers as a sign of American support. It backfired. To the Iranian population, it read as though the United States stood behind a government that had just shot down tens of thousands of unarmed civilians in Jaleh Square, fueling hatred of the shah and his chief supporter in Washington.42

  To gain a better idea of what was going on in the streets of Tehran in early November 1978, Stanley Escudero arrived in Tehran. Fluent in Farsi, the thirty-five-year-old diplomat of Mexican ancestry from Daytona, Florida, had recently served for four years in the embassy. With dark hair and a dusky complexion, he could pass as a local—perhaps not from Tehran, he admitted, but from an outlying area such as Azerbaijan. His previous assignment to Iran in the early 1970s had not been a particularly career-enhancing tour of duty. Escudero had annoyed his State Department superiors in Foggy Bottom by questioning the long-term viability of the Pahlavi dynasty. While he had not predicted the shah’s current difficulties, he openly questioned the viability of rule by the shah’s son. This assessment was not what Henry Kissinger and the State Department had wanted to hear. Compounding his impropriety of straying off the policy reservation, Escudero had met repeatedly with the shah’s opponents, especially religious leaders. “Iran was too important to the United States,” he later said. “I believed we would be better advised to have relations with whoever ran Iran, be it the shah or the opposition. This was not popular in Washington.”43 Escudero, relegated to working in the then less prestigious Bureau of International Organization Affairs at State, seemed destined for a lackluster career. But the shah’s troubles revived Escudero’s standing. In fall 1978, Harold Saunders, the deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, and Henry Precht, the country desk officer for Iran, each asked Escudero if he would be willing to go back to Tehran to assess the opposition and the shah’s likelihood of survival.

  Reluctant, Escudero answered, “You want me to go out and meet with the same people that got me into trouble in the first place, and tell you things that you know are not going to suit current policy?”

  Saunders and Precht acknowledged that Escudero had been correct in his predictions regarding the shah. They added, “We don’t have anyone else to send who stands a reasonable chance of survival.” Escudero decided to accept their offer. “I was young and stupid,” he said with a chuckle years later.44

  Landing in Tehran, he set about going native and infiltrating the revolution. He donned Iranian clothes and cropped his beard close in a style common among Iranian men. To preserve his cover, he distanced himself from the embassy and traveled to its sprawling grounds only during darkness in order to provide updates to Ambassador Sullivan. He lived in apartments of trusted Iranian friends, moving frequently for his and their safety.

  Escudero traveled to Qom and met with Ayatollah Sayed Shariat-Madari, an opponent of the shah, but less extreme than Khomeini and more favorably disposed to the United States. Posing as a journalist, Escudero met with religious leaders from Khomeini’s camp to glean their views of the revolt, which confirmed both Brzezinski’s views of Khomeini’s true intentions and Sullivan’s intuition about the importance of the ayatollah in the future of Iran.45 He discovered that the religious leadership played a prominent role in mounting antigovernment demonstrations. “The demonstrations were very organized,” he observed. Wardens with armbands kept the crowd orderly, orchestrating their chants and keeping the mob unified. While the crowds were composed of a mixture of all the shah’s detractors, the Islamic movement was the most organized and best funded. Khomeini supporters, such as a fluent English speaker named Mohammad Beheshti, the ayatollah’s representative in Hamburg, Germany, played a pivotal role in orchestrating the protests.46

  Masquerading now as a student, Escudero infiltrated the mobs protesting against the shah, where he blended in with the thousands of others, shouting “Death to the shah! Death to the shah!” and raising a fist in defiance as he joined the throngs confronting the Imperial Army. It was hazardous duty. Had the students or clergy discovered an American Foreign Service officer in their midst, vengeance would have been swift and deadly.

  It soon became apparent to Escudero that the shah’s days were numbered. His reports reinforced Sullivan’s opinion of the inevitability of the monarch’s overthrow. In numerous cables to both Vance and Brzezinski, the ambassador wrote that the only solution available was to push for a democratic government before the revolution spiraled out of control and it became impossible to save anything from the disaster looming before them.47

  Supporting Escudero’s reports, on December 12, 1978, veteran American diplomat and Middle East hand George Ball delivered a report on Iran to the president. Ball had worked Middle East issues for both the Nixon and Carter administrations, and he was instrumental in helping Nixon develop the twin pillars strategy. Echoing Sullivan’s views, he stated bluntly that the shah needed to act immediately to effect the transition to a civil government and transfer all power, except that as commander of the armed forces. Otherwise, Ball predicted, “he will collapse.”48

  Carter reluctantly approved his first covert operation for Iran in a final stab at saving the shah. The president had a strong distaste for these actions, but had finally been convinced to try a small effort. The CIA began a very limited psychological operations campaign to highlight awareness of the Iranian communist Tudeh Party’s support for Khomeini’s return in a forlorn hope to rally anticommunists to support the shah and undercut the opposition movement. It failed and the CIA terminated it little more than a month later.49 While Iranian protesters accused the American embassy of being a “den of spies,” a senior White House staffer wrote to Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski: “It is supremely ironic that we should stand accused of so much espionage out of our embassy in Tehran when we have done so little.”50

  As Christmas 1978 approached, pessimism reigned in both capitals—Washington and Tehran. Emblematically, President Carter ordered the lights turned off the national Christmas tree behind the White House on the Ellipse to save electricity. The only caroling heard at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Sullivan wrote, came from “a rather scruffy crowd of teenagers marching by the embassy and chanting ‘Yankee Go Home.’”51

  On January 4, 1979, General Dutch Huyser arrived in the Iranian capital. As he drove through Tehran, he was shocked at the sight of the once vibrant city, now with stores shuttered and the streets empty of the usual bustling, chaotic traffic.

  In view of Alexander Haig’s vocal objections to his mission, an uneasy Huyser insisted that Defense Secretary Brown provide him with written instructions. When the message arrived just before his departure for Tehran, the directives were as ambiguous and muddled as was U.S. policy toward the crisis. Huyser was told to convey to the shah the president’s continued support to the Iranian military as the critical link in the transition to a new stable government: “It is extremely important for the Iranian military to do all it can to remain strong and intact in order to help a responsible civilian government function effectively,” the instructions said. “As the Iranian military m
ove through this time of change, they should know that the U.S. military and the U.S. government, from the President down, remain strongly behind them.”52 Precisely what this message conveyed to the Iranian military remained a mystery to Huyser. Vance had intended it to inform the Iranian generals that the United States backed the transition to a democratic government. Brzezinski, however, intended for Huyser to give the green light to the Iranian military to stage a coup, declare martial law, and take over the government. The muddled language of Huyser’s instructions represented a compromise between the two competing positions, but it left both the messenger and its intended audience utterly confused.

  Huyser arrived at the embassy to meet with Ambassador Sullivan, the first of many such meetings over the ensuing month. “The shah is finished,” the ambassador abruptly told Huyser. “The military has already decayed to the point they are incapable of doing anything.” Ayatollah Khomeini and an Islamic government would be better than a military coup, and the sooner the United States began mending relations with the powerful clerical force, the better in the long term. But Carter had prohibited any discussions with Khomeini on the grounds that they might undermine the shah’s tenuous authority. In response, Sullivan sent a combative message to Vance urging direct talks with Khomeini. “You should know that the president had made a gross and perhaps irretrievable mistake by failing to send an emissary to Paris to see Khomeini. I cannot understand the rationale for this unfortunate decision. I urge you immediately to join Harold Brown in this plea for sanity!”53

  The next morning, January 11, both Huyser and Sullivan traveled across the city from the embassy to the shah’s expansive palace to deliver the president’s message of support and to discuss the Iranian leader’s prospects. They found the shah looking haggard, dressed uncharacteristically in a dark suit rather than the military uniform he had worn exclusively since the crisis began. Clearly ill, he showed no vitality or strength to inspire confidence in his long-term political survival.