by Ira Shapiro
In early March, a United Nations mission attempting to resolve the hostage crisis had left Tehran in failure after Khomeini had sided with the militants and refused to allow the UN inspectors unconditional access to the hostages. On March 30, hopes rose that a deal was at hand. That day, Iran’s Revolutionary Council voted to take control of the hostages from the militants. The deal required the United States to recognize the role of the Iranian parliament in the hostage crisis and to refrain from taking any propaganda or military action against Iran.
On April 1, Carter felt confident enough to go on national television, suggesting a deal was at hand. His appearance probably influenced some undecided voters in the crucial Wisconsin primary, which he won. But by day’s end, the “deal” had begun to fall apart. Abolhassan Bani-Sadr told Carter that his statement accepting the deal did not meet the conditions for transferring the hostages. With that, another opportunity to resolve the crisis and free the hostages had passed. Jimmy Carter faced the question that future presidents would face with Iran and other difficult situations—what happens when steadfast, good-faith efforts at restraint and diplomacy produce no results?
Carter’s response was to take a harder line. A week later, he slapped a trade embargo on all U.S. goods to Iran, threw all the Iranian diplomats out of the United States, and asked Congress to allow Americans with claims against Iran to move against $8 billion in blocked Iranian assets. In an April 17 televised news conference, Carter made it clear that the military option was on the table, although any military action would not take the form of invasion or combat.
It was an odd and awkward attempt to combine toughness with continuing restraint. Before too long, it would become clear that Carter’s statement foreshadowed the rescue mission that an elite Delta Force unit was training for in North Carolina. The commando unit, under the leadership of Colonel Charles Beckwith, was preparing for the daring mission at a mockup of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Later, they would practice nighttime desert flying at Yuma, Arizona, while studying Farsi and Iranian customs.
On April 11, Jimmy Carter opened a foreign policy breakfast meeting in the Cabinet Room by saying: “Gentlemen, I want you to know that I am seriously considering an attempt to rescue the hostages.” By the end of the meeting, after a full briefing by General David Jones, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, Carter had made the decision to approve the rescue mission, with the strong support of Walter Mondale and all of the senior advisers present. Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, sitting in for Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, said that he could not take a position because he had not yet spoken to Vance.
Vance’s subsequent objections did not change the president’s determination. Vance later pulled Hamilton Jordan aside to remind him that he had been general counsel at the Pentagon and learned to his regret to be very skeptical of assurances from the military.
Carter’s decision to approve the rescue mission was not communicated to any of the Senate leaders, even though Mondale and Vance had been briefing a bipartisan group—Robert Byrd, Howard Baker, Ted Stevens, Frank Church, and Jack Javits—since the early days of the hostage crisis. The briefings had helped keep the Senate’s support for the president; Baker, splitting his time between the Senate and the campaign trail, had been particularly supportive.
Another senator, however, virtually stumbled on to the existence of the planned operation. Joe Biden was on a fact-finding mission in the Persian Gulf for the Foreign Relations Committee. Biden was accompanied by Bill Bader, the committee staff director, and John McCain, the popular navy liaison with the Senate. At a stop in Oman, Bader, a former naval officer, asked Biden if he would like to join him on a visit to the aircraft carrier Nimitz, anchored off shore. While Biden and McCain watched the sailors of the Nimitz conducting drills on the carrier desk, Bader explored the ship’s lower decks and was startled to find eight very large Sea Stallion helicopters. When the executive officer of the Nimitz found what Bader had discovered, he became extremely agitated and tried to swear Bader to secrecy.
Bader, however, reported to Biden about the helicopters and his belief that they were going to be used for a hostage rescue mission. Bader asked Biden if he should share the information with Church, who was already pressing the administration on whether it planned to take action toward Iran. Biden told Bader that he was absolutely obligated to tell his chairman, and Bader did. Church used the information to press the administration further on whether it had plans for military action to rescue the hostages; in fact, he introduced a resolution saying Congress should be informed of any such military action. This no doubt further worsened Church’s relationship with the White House, but the secrecy of the mission remained intact, with apparently no other senators being informed.
On the evening of April 24, Byrd came to the White House for dinner with the president. The eight helicopters were already in the air, heading for the designated landing place in the desert outside Tehran. Carter and Byrd met for nearly two hours. Carter outlined the potential military operation to rescue the hostages. Byrd told him that he should consult with the Senate before approving such an operation, for the president would benefit from having Senate support. It was the obvious moment for Carter to tell Byrd that he had already approved the operation, and it was already under way. He did not do so. Carter would write later that he trusted Byrd completely but concluded that Byrd would prefer to be informed at the same time as other congressional leaders.
The rescue mission failed tragically. Damage to three helicopters reduced the number of operational craft to only five, when six were needed to carry off the mission successfully. One of the helicopters collided with a C-130 transport that had transported the Delta Force rescue troops, killing eight of the men aboard. Carter consented to abort the mission and went on television at 7 a.m. the next day to explain what had happened and to take responsibility.
The next day, Byrd heard the devastating news that the rescue mission had been tried and failed. He was enraged, understandably, that Carter had not told him that the rescue mission was under way. It was not Carter’s first mistake in dealing with the proud and complicated majority leader, but this was the one that tore their relationship irreparably. Byrd had played a central role in virtually every domestic and foreign policy achievement of the Carter administration; it was impossible to overstate how much he had done for Carter. Byrd undoubtedly believed that Carter should have brought together the small core group of Senate leaders to be briefed about the mission, if not consulted before Carter had made the decision. But to meet with Byrd for nearly two hours without telling him that the mission was under way was unforgivable.
Byrd held his regular weekly press conference the next day. Saying that Carter had outlined the rescue plan for him on Wednesday night, Byrd said that he was “puzzled” that Carter didn’t tell him that the operation was under way even though they spent one hour and forty-five minutes in the Oval Office together: “I don’t know what his reason was. I was under the impression that it was not something that was imminent.”
Byrd also said that he had advised Carter to delay a covert action until the Europeans had agreed to new sanctions and to consult with a minimum number of senators in advance of any covert action. “I thought that there would be support (among senators) and that the burden would be spread around,” Byrd noted, “and that such support in the event of failure would be comforting.” Byrd bolstered Carter by expressing the view that the War Powers Act did not require prior consultation because the raid was not intended to take territory, kill Iranians, or threaten the government. But he also offered the view, somewhat gratuitously, that he would not have given the operation a 50–50 chance of success, but hadn’t had all the details.
Other senators expressed mixed reactions. Dole said he respected “the president’s honest and understandable desire to bring the crisis to a successful close. He has manfully accepted responsibility for the mission’s failure, and he ha
s access to information not yet available to the rest of us.” Baker offered unqualified support for Carter: “The plan was well-conceived, well-planned and a well-guarded secret. The only quarrel I have with the president is that we should have done it a long time ago.”
Jackson was angry that he could not get a clear answer from the Defense Department on whether the administration had “reasonable assurance” that the mission could have succeeded. He called the outcome “nothing short of a disaster.” Church suggested that launching the operation without consulting Congress violated the War Powers Act, a claim that Muskie and Cranston ridiculed.
Secretary of State Vance had never been able to overcome his objections to the rescue mission. Worn down from the challenges of the job, and endless bureaucratic warfare with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Vance had threatened to resign several times previously. Now he tendered his resignation to the president, and Carter accepted it. Two days later, Carter surprised and pleased the Senate by nominating Muskie to be secretary of state.
In the immediate aftermath, the failed attempt to rescue the hostages seemed to bring a kind of relief to Americans. Carter stated at his press conference: “There is a greater failure than that of incomplete success. That is the failure to attempt a worthy effort, a failure to try.” Talk shows and newspapers picked up the theme. A poll by Pat Caddell showed that the operation “had lanced the festering boil.”
But for friends and foes around the world, the damage to America’s prestige was clear. Yitzhak Rabin, the former Israeli prime minister and army chief of staff, spoke for many when he asked sarcastically: “America doesn’t have enough helicopters?”
On May 4, Carter ended his pledge to refrain from campaigning while the hostages remained imprisoned. Jackson said that Carter was doing the “sensible” thing and should have done it sooner. He also said that Carter needed to break his own and the nation’s obsession with the hostages and move on to the nation’s larger economic and foreign policy problems. Exactly six months had passed since the hostages were taken. The failed rescue mission marked the end of a period when Carter benefited from national unity and operated almost free from criticism. It had been a long, dark period, and no end was realistically in sight. It was time to resume business and politics as usual.
TED KENNEDY SUFFERED A crushing defeat in the Illinois primary on March 18, but rallied to win crucial victories in New York and Connecticut a week later. After Carter’s victory in Wisconsin on April 1, Kennedy managed to capture Pennsylvania narrowly on April 22. Momentum turned drastically against him in May, when Kennedy lost eleven out of the twelve primaries contested, winning only in the District of Columbia, losing key states all across the country, such as Indiana, Nebraska, Maryland, and Oregon.
The delegate count was now running against him, yet Kennedy battled on, finding his voice and benefiting from public discontent with Carter as the hostages remained in Tehran and the economy continued to weaken. On June 3, Kennedy won convincingly in California, New Jersey, and three smaller states, while Carter narrowly won Ohio and two smaller contests. The primary season ended with the president having clinched the number of delegates needed for the nomination, yet with Kennedy still in the race, having finished strongly.
Most Democratic leaders believed that it was time for the Democrats to mend fences. Kennedy’s campaign repeatedly requested a debate with Carter as a condition of pulling out. The president and the senator met in the White House on June 5 to discuss the matter, but it did not go well. Carter asked Kennedy to promise to support the Democratic nominee, and Kennedy avoided the question. They argued about whose ads had been harsher. The next day, Carter told his staff that he had decided to debate Kennedy, but Mondale argued against it, saying such a debate would be demeaning. Carter mulled it over and decided that Mondale was right.
Striking similarities exist between the Carter-Kennedy contest and the battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008. Like Kennedy, Clinton started the race as the overwhelming favorite. She had a campaign that was over-confident, top-heavy with consultants, and absolutely profligate in its spending. She suffered a shocking defeat in Iowa, putting her on the ropes, fell behind in delegates, lost most of the primaries and caucuses, found her voice, and rallied strongly in the large states late in the campaign. She stayed in the race longer than many Democrats thought appropriate.
But there was one major difference: Kennedy was running against a Democratic president. Once the primaries were over, the hard decision to acknowledge defeat should have followed. Instead, he stayed in the race, demanding a debate with the president, fighting for his views to be reflected in the Democratic platform, calling for an open convention, and, seemingly, waiting for some lightening to strike that would reverse the tide. When he finally had to bow out, it was little surprise.
Carter would be the Democratic nominee, but his weaknesses had been exposed—and Ronald Reagan, riding a building Republican wave, would soon put Carter and the Senate Democrats to the test.
chapter 18
AMERICA’S LAST FRONTIER
IN COMPARISON TO THE PREVIOUS THREE YEARS, THE LEGISLATIVE agenda of 1980 looked sparse. One major legislative challenge remained—a matter of historic magnitude. The Senate would decide on the future of Alaska and resolve the clashing interests of those who wanted to preserve its natural beauty and those who saw its oil, mineral wealth, and timber as vital to the state, and the country’s economic future.
The debate about the disposition of Alaska lands dated back to when President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Alaska Statehood Act on July 7, 1958, allowing Alaska to become the nation’s forty-ninth state on January 3, 1959. The legislation gave Alaska 104 million acres of formerly federal territory to be its economic base. The statehood act did not address the claims by native Eskimo, Indian, and Aleut tribes that they still legally owned the whole of Alaskan territory. In 1971, the native claims were resolved when Congress and the Nixon administration, moving rapidly to give oil companies access to the rich Prudhoe Bay oil strike, passed legislation giving the tribes their choice of 44 million acres. Under pressure from conservationists, Congress and the Nixon administration also agreed to specify a deadline of December 18, 1978—seven years—for setting aside roughly 80 million acres for conservation. The deadline had passed, and it was now time to make the difficult decisions.
Starting in 1974, Congress began to consider how to translate the conservation mandate into law. Initially, members began producing a number of bills, each dealing with a particular park or monument to be established, chipping away at the 80 million acre mandate project by project. In 1975, the National Park Service (NPS) and conservationists conceived the idea of incorporating all the new parks and monuments into one massive piece of legislation. Working out that legislation would be a staggering task, but it made sense to face all the decisions, and the difficult trade-offs, in a single stroke.
Alaska was literally the last frontier of the United States. Its awesome magnitude defied the imagination of most Americans, including members of Congress. Not only was Alaska one-fifth as large as the entire lower forty-eight states, it contained America’s highest mountains, wildest rivers, largest glaciers, vastest wilderness and forests, and stunning amounts oil, gas, and mineral wealth. As the congressional debate would progress, members would find themselves routinely discussing the future of pieces of Alaska as big as the state of Indiana or Virginia.
Jimmy Carter was the first president to come to office having made a strong commitment to environmental protection and conservation in his campaign. That was good politics, because of the popularity of the environmental cause and the rising strength and activism of the environmental movement. But it also reflected Carter’s deep personal commitments; he was passionate about the natural beauty of his own state and of the rest of the country. As governor, he had made protecting the environment a high priority, and he saw conservation and environmental protection as a fundamental part of his stewardship as president. Co
nsequently, the Carter administration would be determined to protect as much of Alaska as possible. Eighty million acres was the target set by the 1971 legislation for conservation, but a later Congress, and a president committed to conservation, could up the ante if they so chose.
The action started early in Carter’s term. On April 25, 1977, Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus, the former governor of Idaho, put a high priority on preserving Alaska lands but indicated he would wait until autumn of 1977 to make a recommendation on how much land should be protected. That was not fast enough for seventy-nine members of the House, led by Congressman Morris “Mo” Udall of Arizona, who moved immediately to introduce legislation that would designate 115 million acres as federal wilderness. Udall, who had proven to be Carter’s strongest opponent in the contest for the Democratic nomination, was a great conservationist. He was also the brother of Stewart Udall, the legendary secretary of the interior in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, who had probably done more to conserve America’s natural resources than any man since President Theodore Roosevelt. On May 19, 1978, the House approved a version of the Alaska Lands legislation, sponsored by Udall, by an overwhelming vote.
By contrast, there was no danger of the Senate rushing to judgment. The oil and gas industries had demonstrated their influence in the Senate clearly enough over many years, most recently throughout the debate over Carter’s energy proposals. Alaska was rich in minerals, so the mining industry would be deeply involved in any discussions. Moreover, Alaska’s astonishing forests were both great natural resources and extraordinarily valuable to wood and paper industries. The western Republicans who had come to the Senate in the 1970’s generally were part of the “Sagebrush Rebellion,” which was hostile to the federal government and came down on the side of exploiting the resources of the West to spur the economy, rather than preserving them.
