Transcript

The Mission That Doomed Jimmy Carter: The Iranian Revolution | EP 4

From The Rest Is History · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 10 min · 12,961 words · 161 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "The Mission That Doomed Jimmy Carter: The Iranian Revolution | EP 4", an episode of The Rest Is History published January 29, 2026 (1 h 10 min, about 12,961 words). It mentions 11 people, works and ideas, including Jimmy Carter, Iranian Revolution, Tehran, Operation Eagle Claw, Delta Force.

What this episode is about

The discussion focuses on Jimmy Carter's failed mission to rescue hostages during the Iranian Revolution, highlighting how this pivotal event contributed to the decline of his presidency. It emphasizes the dramatic consequences of the crisis and the broader implications for U.S. foreign policy at the time.

Key takeaways

  • Jimmy Carter's rescue mission was a bold move that ultimately turned into a tragic presidential turning point.
  • Delta Force's daring plan showcased American military ambition—but sometimes ambition can outpace actual capabilities.
  • Carter's commitment to moral responsibility is commendable; he took the heat for failures that weren't solely his own.
  • Iranians celebrated the downfall of the Shah, yet the chaos that followed led to decades of unrest and uncertainty.
  • The Tehran hostage crisis illustrates how presidential decisions can hinge on luck and timing, reshaping political destinies.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Jimmy Carter, Iranian Revolution, Tehran, Hampton Court Palace
  2. – 20:00: Jimmy Carter
  3. – 30:00: Delta Force, Tehran, Colonel Charlie Beckwith, J. D. Vance
  4. – 40:00: Jimmy Carter, Delta Force, J. D. Vance, Operation Eagle Claw
  5. – 50:00: Jimmy Carter, Tehran
  6. – 1:00:00: Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Tehran
  7. – 1:09:51: Iranian Revolution, Jimmy Carter, Tehran

Notable quotes from "The Mission That Doomed Jimmy Carter: The Iranian Revolution | EP 4"

  • Hollywood drama fit to star Tom Cruz, except it all goes horribly wrong. The story of Jimmy Carter's attempt to rescue the hostages from Tehran, its aftermath, and the failure of Jimmy Carter's presidency.
    about Jimmy Carter · at
  • So that was Colonel Charlie Beckwith, mighty warrior, founder of the US special forces unit, Delta Force, and he was recalling a meeting that he had with President Jimmy Carter on the 16th of.
    about Delta Force · at
  • Episode, yeah, he's so unlucky. he's just unbelievably unlucky. So anyway, this is the climax of our series on this tangled relationship between the United States and Iran at…
    about Iranian Revolution · at
  • Might rally around the flag. They might rally to you, the sitting president, rather than to the challenger from the Liberal side, who is Ted Kennedy, Chapa Quiddics, Ted…
    about Ronald Reagan · at
  • And dignity of our country and its foreign policy interests. And Brzinski says to him, One day we may have to choose between the hostages and our nation's honor in the world.
    about Zbigniew Brzezinski · at
  • And Carter had actually been very tempted by this. So he's not as weak as he's often painted. But his patrician secretary of state Cyrus Vance said this would be very reckless…
    about J. D. Vance · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Jimmy Carter — Person · Primary referenced decision-maker (U.S. President) · 21 mentions · first at
    Central figure in the episode: authorizes Operation Eagle Claw, absorbs blame for failure, and is politically damaged by the hostage crisis and rescue debacle.
  • Colonel Charlie Beckwith — Person · Referenced military commander (mission architect) · 4 mentions · first at
    Founder of Delta Force and the operational driver behind the rescue plan; depicted as briefing Carter and leading preparations for Operation Eagle Claw.
    President Jimmy Carter on the 16th of April, 1980. They met in the White House situation room to finalize the plans for one of the most daring military operations in American history.
  • Ronald Reagan — Person · Referenced political opponent and successor (U.S. President-elect) · 4 mentions · first at
    Carter’s 1980 election opponent; the episode frames the hostage crisis and failed rescue as pivotal to Reagan’s victory and inauguration-day announcement of the hostages’ release.
  • J. D. Vance — Person · Referenced internal dissenter (U.S. Secretary of State) · 4 mentions · first at
    Key voice opposing the rescue mission on moral/strategic grounds; resigns in protest and represents the administration’s internal split between diplomacy and force.
  • Zbigniew Brzezinski — Person · Referenced hawkish advisor (U.S. National Security Advisor) · 1 mention · first at
    Presented as the hardliner pushing the administration toward action; frames the crisis as a choice between hostages and national honor and supports the rescue option.
  • Hassan Rouhani — Person · Brief referenced Iranian political figure (contextual mention) · 2 mentions
    Mentioned only once and not developed in the narrative; serves as a modern-era reference point while discussing Iran’s regime and contemporary politics.

Companies & orgs

  • Delta Force — Company · Business focus · 10 mentions · first at
    US special forces unit involved in the failed rescue operation.

Places & events

  • Iranian Revolution — Event · Core topic · 5 mentions · first at
    The revolution that led to the hostage crisis and changed Iran's political landscape.
  • Tehran — Place · Setting · 15 mentions · first at
    Capital of Iran and primary location where the hostages were held.
    Today on The Rest is History, a Hollywood drama fit to star Tom Cruz, except it all goes horribly wrong. The story of Jimmy Carter's attempt to rescue the hostages from Tehran, its aftermath, and the failure of Jimmy Carter's presidency.
  • Operation Eagle Claw — Event · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at
    The failed US military operation to rescue hostages in Iran.
    Today on The Rest is History, a Hollywood drama fit to star Tom Cruz, except it all goes horribly wrong. The story of Jimmy Carter's attempt to rescue the hostages from Tehran, its aftermath, and the failure of Jimmy Carter's presidency.
  • Hampton Court Palace — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Venue mentioned for an upcoming festival related to the podcast.
    Tom, if anything, you are underelling it because this is truly spectacular. On the fourth and 5th of July this year, we are going to be hosting the inaugural rest is history…

Full transcript with timestamps

Today on The Rest is History, a Hollywood drama fit to star Tom Cruz, except it all goes horribly wrong. The story of Jimmy Carter's attempt to rescue the hostages from Tehran, its aftermath, and the failure of Jimmy Carter's presidency. Hello everyone, and we have some unbelievably exciting news for you all. Tom, if anything, you are underelling it because this is truly spectacular. On the fourth and 5th of July this year, we are going to be hosting the inaugural rest is history festival out of all places, Hampton Court Palace. And crucially, this is just for the people who mean most to us, that is the members of the rest is history club. Tom, am I right? You are so right, Dominic. So, if you want to access tickets for the festival, then you will need to become a member of the rest of history club, which is so easy to do. All you have to do is go to the restershistory.com. And I mean, it's a matter of seconds. Okay.

So, remember, by becoming a member of the rest is history club, you will be able to enter that much prized ballot for tickets to this thrilling festival. But of course, on top of that, you'll get all our episodes adree. You will get early access to our epic series. You will get weekly bonus episodes. You will get access to our exciting new exclusive miniseries. Most of all, you'll get an entree to our much-loved chat community and many more such exciting benefits. So, if you want guaranteed access to two tickets, you can join the very top tier of the club and become an Athe Stan. You will also get the exclusive opportunity to upgrade to a VIP ticket which includes a range of special perks including and this is so exciting unlimited food and unlimited drink. So go to the rest ishistory.com and sign up immediately. It is going to be the most extraordinary weekend.

There'll be talks, there will be thrilling special guests, there will be historically themed music. There'll be all kinds of treats. There'll be all kinds of action. There might even be some battles. But above all, it'll be a time for friendship, to get to know your fellow members, and to get to know Tom and me in a very, very special place, Hampton Court Palace. And I know that I speak for Dominic as well as for myself when I say we cannot wait to see you there.

President Carl looked at me. I'd like to see you, Colonel Beckwith, before you leave.

It was quiet in the room. He walked over and stood in front of me. I want to ask you to do two things for me.

Sir, all you got to do is name them. I want you before you leave for Iran to assemble all of your force and when you think it's appropriate, give them a message from me. Tell them that in the event this operation fails for whatever reason, the fault will not be theirs. It will be mine.

Sir, I give you my word I will do that. The second thing is if any American is killed hostage or dealt of force and if it is possible as long as it doesn't jeopardize the life of someone else you bring that body back. Sir, if you've gone over my record, you know I'm that kind of man. So that was Colonel Charlie Beckwith, mighty warrior, founder of the US special forces unit, Delta Force, and he was recalling a meeting that he had with President Jimmy Carter on the 16th of April, 1980. They uh met in the White House situation room to finalize the plans for one of the most daring military operations in American history.

And this was a plan to rescue the 52 Americans who were being kept hostage in the center of Thran and to get them out of Iran or Iran to safety. And Dominic, I think um both men come out of that meeting very well.

They do. So Skeletor and Boss Hog from the Dukes of Hazard in that in that reading. It's um I mean you get the the sense, you know, the incredible courage required to undertake what is going to be a mad operation.

Yes. But also Carter's concern. Yeah. You know, I mean it's obviously causing him immense kind of moral anguish, isn't it? The whole prospect of it.

It is. But he's doing the right thing and he really impressed Colonel Beckwith and he said, you know, if it goes wrong, it's on me. And then he makes this last request. You bring that body back. And I've a terrible spoiler. They don't. That's the one thing they don't do is bring the bodies back. But I just wanted to say that because this is an episode that famously kind of dooms Carter's presidency. I mean, a spoiler alert.

Yeah. But actually, I think he comes out of this pretty impressively. This last episode of our series about the Iranian revolution and the American reaction to it. I mean, it's sort of the tragedy of Jimmy Carter really, cuz we've had some fun with him and his failure to pursue the peanut diplomacy that the situation called for in previous episodes.

Aggressive approach to rabbits. All kinds of things go wrong. But in this episode, yeah, he's so unlucky. I mean, he's just unbelievably unlucky. So anyway, this is the climax of our series on this tangled relationship between the United States and Iran at the end of the 70s. So, as we said, we'll be talking about Delta Forc's attempt to rescue the hostages and what it meant for the presidential election between Jimmy Carter and old associate of the rest is history, Ronald Wilson Reagan. And we'll be talking about the fate of the American hostages in Thran. And we'll also be talking about what happened to the Iranian revolutionary regime.

Well, as we record this, Dominic, we're not absolutely certain what's going to happen to the Iranian revolutionary regime,

right? Who right now are in broad and all these um street protests and repression and whatnot and President Trump making his his threats. So, let's remind ourselves a little bit of the context. Revolution had broken out at Iran at the turn of 1978. The sha fled a year later, January 1979. The Ayatali returned in triumph from exile. There's chaos in the streets. But he has started to lay the foundations for his new state based on this idea of kind of clerical guardianship.

Yeah. It's kind of ruled by jurists, isn't it? Yes. But actually a bit like Britain.

Tom is only moments away from a rant about unelected judges. Clearly. Nadine Doris joins. The rest is history. It's a little bit of political satire there which I hope people enjoy.

There's a space for you on Liz Truss's podcast, John, if you want to join that particular show. So anyway, Carter agreed to admit the shot to New York for cancer treatment. Uh student militants stormed the US embassy on the 4th of November 1979. They took the staff hostage. They eventually released the black and female hostages and that left 52 Americans in captivity. And although Hommini probably didn't know about the uh embassy takeover and this was never part of the plan, the issue becomes so useful to him politically that he decides to hang on to the captives and this becomes this great personal jewel between him and Jimmy Carter. So let's get to the beginning of 1980. The hostages have been in captivity for weeks. They're having a terrible time.

They're exhausted. They're hungry. They're they're frightened. All of this important point. They have not yet been split up and put in prisons around Tehran. They are still at the United States embassy, the den of spies as the Iranians now call it.

And are they starting to do all those kind of um frescos on the walls showing Uncle Sam as a skeleton and all of that kind of thing.

Exactly. And the huge crowds and we were talking last time about the exciting hats, the souvenir hats that the Iranians are selling.

Yes. So globally, the impact of the revolution and the catastrophic impact on the oil industry is rippling through the world economy. So the United States has tipped into recession in January 1980 and the presidential campaign has got underway. So on the one hand you have the former governor of California, the champion of the conservatives, Ronald Reagan, and he builds an early lead in the Republican primaries. He's pretty obviously going to be the Republican candidate. And he's promising to roll back the federal state and to take a much harder line in the Cold War.

and indeed, and this is a direct quote, to make America great again. So, not the last time we'll hear that particular message. Now, for the Democrats, Jimmy Carter was in terrible trouble really domestically cuz the economy had tanked and he was unnecessarily wearing cardigans and giving speeches about national spiritual crises and so on.

Can I just ask, has he introduced oil sanctions against Iran? No, not yet. So, the sanctions will come later. As we'll see, he's taking a deliberately soft line because he thinks that will get uh the hostages back. So Carter's handlers had said to him, "Well, actually, this um hostage crisis could work in your favor cuz people might rally around the flag. They might rally to you, the sitting president, rather than to the challenger from the Liberal side, who is Ted Kennedy, Chapa Quiddics, Ted Kennedy." And actually, they're right. In the early primaries, Carter wipes the floor with Ted Kennedy.

Partly because people keep saying to Ted Kennedy, "Are you not the bloke who drowned that woman?" like you can't run for president if you've done that. But also Ted Kennedy turns out to be a terrible candidate. So when they ask him, he's asked in an interview, why would you like to be president? And he gives this incredibly rambling answer for about 20 minutes. He doesn't have a reason. He's not like David Cameron. Remember how his answer?

I think I'd be quite good at it. Cuz I'd be good at it. Yeah. But why didn't he just say, "I'm a Kennedy."

Yes. I think because people are a bit sick of candidates by this point to be honest with you. Now abroad, Carter is reinventing himself as a bit of a hawk as well. So previously he'd all been, you know, about sort of peace and love in 1976, but now the Soviet Union has invaded Afghanistan. He's reinvented himself as Harry Truman, one of the founders of NATO. So he's basically gone to Congress. He said, "I want lots more money for defense. Um, I'm going to punish the Russians with a boycott of the Moscow Olympics. I'll teach them."

Yeah. Well, that didn't teach them. And actually the result was that Alan Wells of Britain won the 100 meter sprint for the first time in decades.

Yeah. Sebastian Co and Steve and Daily Thompson. So great scenes. And it's the Americans who missed out. The Americans, I think the Germans, the West Germans, the Canadians and the Japanese didn't go and a load of other countries, but we went.

Although Mrs. Satcha didn't want us to go. She didn't want us to go and the athletes defied her. Yeah.

Yeah. So there you go. And he's also Carter, here's a bit of irony. He's asked Congress for massive military aid to Pakistan and he's stepped up CIA support for the Mjahaden in Afghanistan.

Yeah. These noble fighters for freedom, right? Yeah. So, this is the era. Have you seen the Bond film, The Living Daylights with Timothy Dalton?

Yeah. They're the heroes of that film. One of them is played by Art Malik and it turns out he went to Cambridge or something like that or Oxford. I can't remember which. Anyway, none of this produces instant results in in Iran. And the problem for Carter is he has made the hostage crisis now the absolute kind of fulcrum, the test of his presidency. But he couldn't really do anything else, could he? I mean, if you've got you've had your diplomats kidnapped and they're on national news, I mean, you can't just ignore it and pretend it's not happening.

Yeah, I guess so. I mean, that's what Kennedy would do. Of course, nothing to see.

Yeah, Kennedy would would uh swim back to his hotel, put on a change of clothes, and that spiffy outfit.

Yeah. But Carter has has personalized it. He's canceled all his trips. He's canceled meetings. He's made a huge hallelu going to prayer meetings and so on. Now, at first, he thinks when the Soviets invade Afghanistan, he thinks, "Well, this will actually work out very well for me because if there's one thing the Iranians hate, you know, as much as um Americans, they hate godless Russian communists. So maybe if I take a restrain line towards Thran if I don't impose sanctions which he doesn't this will do the trick. Basically the Soviet Union will scare the Ayatollas into my embrace.

But the problem is you know he's still hoping that they will negotiate but it's not clear to him still whom he's meant to be negotiating with. A hommini who is the um the figurehead of the regime has said explicitly, you know, he won't give up the hostages. We fight against America until death. We shall not stop fighting until we defeat it. I don't know why I've given him that that voice, but I have.

Well, he's cast America as the Great Satan. And if you're up against the Great Satan, you have to keep fighting it, don't you?

Yeah, you can't negotiate with the Great Satan. The Americans are hoping that maybe he's just a very loud figurehead. So, for example, he's got a new foreign minister at the beginning of 1980 called Sadek. Gotada.

What is it? Gotada. Tom, do you want me to keep saying it? No, you got it. Yeah, I got it. It didn't take a thousand takes, honestly. So, this bloke, Got Bazada, was a uh former student activist. He'd been kicked out in the 50s. He'd gone to Georgetown University, so he's American educated.

Oh, so a hot bed of radicalism. He had become very close to Hummeni in Paris. He'd been on the flight with him from France. And the Americans say, "Look, look at this bloke. This bloke we can he's a man we can do business with. He's American educated. He looks very sort of smart and western." And actually they're right. God Pazada wants to end the hostage crisis because he thinks quite rightly this is a gift to the hardliners. It's allowing them to kind of set the regime further and further down the kind of Islamist road.

So how has this American educated clean shaven technocrat come to be for a minister who's appointed him? At this point there is an interim government under a guy called Bani Sad who is again slightly more technocratic more moderate. You know at this point remember the regime is not fully established. There's still an awful lot of jostling for position not least among the different paramilitary groups on the streets. And well, we can get massively bogged down at this point, but it's true the Iranian regime from 1979 to the present that there are always factions, different elements within it, reformists, conservatives and that great tension between the structures of democracy and the structures of um religious focused rule.

Exactly. Okay. So on the one hand you have many saying if you oppose the government because it's a government deriving its authority from the Quran and the Sharia. So if you oppose it it's a blasphemy against God and yet at the same time you have democratic elections you know competitive elections. Anyways for westerners it's a very confusing picture. This spoke God basada he works on a deal in early 1980 through Argentine French panameanian intermediaries. At one point, amazingly, in February, Carter's chief of staff, a guy from Georgia called Hamilton Jordan, he goes off to Paris to meet this foreign minister, and he flies to Paris with a wig and false mustache that have been given him by the CIA. It's so brilliant. The CIA have a supply of false wigs and mustaches.

Yeah, exactly. It's very kind of um the Pink Panther Strikes Again or something.

And it's in Paris. And it's in Paris. Exactly. He gets there, he has this meeting. I presume he takes the mustache off or the wig off at least at the meeting. But actually, this doesn't go anywhere. And the reason it doesn't go anywhere, of course, is that Humeni has no intention of giving up the hostages. He's not going to give away this brilliant card that allows him to cement his control over the streets. So, as the weeks go by, the breakthrough never comes. And you can see the result in Jimmy Carter's approval rating. It had shot up to about 50% at the turn of the year as people rallied around the flag. But with every about two weeks or so when they do a new poll, it's down another four or five percent and it's dropping all the time. So by March it's into the 30s which is very bad for an incumbent president hoping to win reelection.

Presumably this is also because of the recession. So the recession is a massive part of this but also a perception I think of weakness. a perception that Jimmy Carter at this point has what you might call he's got the basically the opposite of the Midas touch. Everything he touches crumbles into dust. And it's not really his fault. No, because what credibly can he do? Again, we could spend ages talking about this, but I think political leadership is about seizing control of a narrative and um appearing to be the master of events and also making the most of crisis. I mean, you say what can you do? Franklin D.

Roosevelt was president in the Great Depression, much worse economically than this. And yet, he projected an image of vitality and vigor and and activism and good cheer that resonated with enough Americans for him to win election after election, even though a lot of what he was doing didn't work out.

But he didn't have loads of diplomats who were being paraded every day on the TV stations of a very hostile power.

No, he didn't. But if you look at um at Reagan's time in office for example, I mean there were some absolute disasters in Reagan's time in office, not just things like Iran Contra or economic, you know, borrowing loads of money and stuff.

No, I suppose there were hostages in Lebanon, weren't there? There were hostages in Lebanon. There was an a massive attack. The Americans were basically kicked out of Lebanon. Reagan was a, you know, a brilliant performer who was able to turn circumstances to his advantage. Carter, you know, famously looks

haggarded and gray. Haggarded and gray. and he he doesn't have that Hollywood sheen and it may sound like a very trit thing but as we've said since the very first episodes we ever recorded of this podcast performance yeah matters enormously as for Roman emperors as it did for US presidents and actually this perception of weakness by about March April even Carter's allies are really running out of patience so there's an absolutely damning editorial in the Washington Post at the beginning of April the Washington Post much more likely to be pro-democrats Iran enough. The United States, far from earning respect for its restraint and forbearance, is increasingly seen as a country that shrinks from asserting what even its enemies recognize as a legitimate interest in protecting its diplomats from a mob. So, it's interesting. In our lifetime, most of the discourse about the United States has been that it's much too trigger

happy, much too swift to intervene militarily, to basically launch air strikes against people and all of this. And here is an instance where the president is taking deliberately a path of restraint because he thinks it will work better. And he's just getting an absolute kicking from his own media and his own people for doing so. And yet actually what people don't know is that inside the White House, Carter and his aids have been actually talking about, you know, taking more serious action all this time. So in the very first week of the crisis, his national security adviser, I know you're a big fan of this guy's name, aren't you, Tom? Do you want to say his name for everybody?

Uh, Jabignuinski. Yeah. Zignif Brzinski. He's the hardliner. Polish. He had said to Carter in the first days of the crisis. He said, "You know, the hostages lives are really important, but your greater responsibility is to protect the honor and dignity of our country and its foreign policy interests." And Brzinski says to him, "One day we may have to choose between the hostages and our nation's honor in the world."

I mean, that is ultimately the policy that the United States will adopt, isn't it, towards hostage taking in the Middle East.

Yeah. So, I mean, that's why the the hostages held by Islamic State were allowed to be killed because there were no negotiations with them. So, I guess it was a lesson learned maybe,

I guess. But, I mean, that's pretty tough for the hostages right? And also 52 of them, a lot of hostages taken in one fell swoop. This is slightly different from isolated groups of hostages that have been taken over a longer period of time. I would say now there have always been military options. So a task force within days had begun planning a possible rescue mission. We shall of course come back to this. But Carter's team had also discussed mining Iran's harbors, air strikes against oil refineries, and bombing this gigantic oil complex at Abdan, which is one of the biggest oil complexes in the world.

And Carter had actually been very tempted by this. So he's not as weak as he's often painted. But his patrician secretary of state Cyrus Vance said this would be very reckless to rush into this because we would lose the moral high ground in the eyes of the world and the Iranians would surely kill the hostages. I mean they would surely start executions. And even Brazinski said, "Yeah, maybe we should give the diplomatic process a bit more time. We shouldn't rush into this." But over time, of course, you know, we now we get to March 1980, and they're thinking, well, we're never going to get these hostages out. So on the 22nd of March, Carter summoned his whole national security team to Camp David, ironically, by helicopter, and said they sit down and they say, "Well, what should we do?"

And the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Jones, says, "Okay, well, this is the plan that we've been working on all this time." And the bloke behind this plan is the man who opened this episode, Colonel Charlie Beckwith. He has exactly the kind of resume you would want him to have. He was a former Georgia Allstate footballer. He had turned down the Green Bay Packers in order to join the US Army in Korea.

Dominic, I think that is the most American sentence we've ever had on the rush position.

I think it undoubtedly is. He had commanded a special forces unit in Vietnam and he'd been hit in the chest and almost killed. He'd also, this is very pleasing, he'd served as an exchange officer with the SAS in Malaya in the 1950s. And again, he almost died, I think, this time of disease. And he absolutely loved the SAS. He liked Britain, Tom, I'm pleased to say.

Great man. And he said, um, let's have an American. The Brits are brilliant at this. Why don't we have an American SAS mad? And he was pestered and pestered. And in 1977, his bosses gave him the green light to set up Delta Force.

I mean, that is such a great name for them. It's so good. So, Delta Force specialized in uh counterterrorism and special ops. So, they're the sort of people I know this will mean nothing to you, Tom, but if you play Call of Duty, you're you're kind of in a Delta Force kind of mindset.

So, it was Delta Force that sprung Maduro out of Venezuela. Right. Right. So Delta Force got Major out of Venezuela. Delta Force were involved in the capture of Manuel Noriega from Panama. And Delta Force were the people who killed the Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr, Albaghdadi. He died like a dog. That's my Donald Trump, by the way, in case you're baffled. Um, yeah, they killed him as well. So they've got a an impressive track record if you like that kind of thing.

Donald Trump said that their operation in Caracus was like a movie. Yeah, that's what they specialize in.

Their kind of operations. They specialize in things that will then become the subjects of movies. Right.

Exactly. And Beckith himself is a very Hollywood character. He's always got a He's got a crew cut. He's always got a cigarette at the corner of his mouth. He loves a hard liquor, an evening on the hard liquor. He doesn't do his paperwork. He's a man's man. He's chosen them all himself. So, they're all kind of hard bitten grimfaced tacit men who can be relied on.

Quite like me. Yeah. Just like you. Exactly. But in 1979, they've never been tested. They've never done anything. They just finished their first major exercise in the forest of Georgia when the um Iranians seized the US embassy. And Beckith was very excited when he heard this. And he rushed straight back to Fort Bragg to start planning. And his first attempt to plan was, I mean, even by Hollywood standards, it was bonkers. Delta Force will be parachuted into an area east of Tehran near this big sort of highway, this motorway.

We'll land there by parachute. We'll hijack some trucks. Then we'll drive into Thran in these trucks. We'll storm the embassy, rescue the hostages. At this point, he said, US bombers should hit all Iran's military bases and oil refineries. There'll be complete chaos in Tehran, and Delta Force can then fight their way out of Tehran and get some more trucks and drive 400 miles to the Turkish border. Hell yeah. USA. Yeah, but unfortunately his his bosses don't respond like that. They say, "Are you mad?" Driving in here and there hijacking trucks, you know, that'll never work.

Pen pushing blott doters. So he goes back to the drawing board and there's a place called the farm, of course, in Northern Virginia, which is like a CIA base. And there on the sort of tarmac, they laid out the outline of the US embassy in Tehran with masking tape or engineering tape. And they basically did endless drills kind of working their way around the different rooms. So they know the embassy better than their own homes. And they reckon if they can get to the embassy, they can kill the guards and get the hostages out. The question is, how do they get into the center of Tehran? And this is the solution. It's quite complicated, Tom. There won't be a test. Um, and they actually only did a bit of it, so it doesn't really need to be a test. So this is stage one.

Eight marine helicopters will take off from the aircraft carrier Naimit in the Gulf of Oman and they'll fly to this salt desert in south Corasan near the city of Tabas. They'll fly to this desert to a place that they've designated as desert one. So they land at desert one and at desert one they will rendevu with some Hercules transport planes, six of them that have arrived from Egypt. There's the helicopters and the aircraft carrier. There's the planes from Egypt. They'll land at this desert. And these transport planes will be carrying Delta Force and some US Rangers, so 130 men or so and fuel supplies for the helicopters. And at desert one, they will refuel the helicopters. Then the Delta Force team will get onto the helicopters and they'll fly to Desert 2, which is another desert checkpoint just outside Tehran. And here a secret CIA team which will have been infiltrated into Iran earlier will be waiting for them with a

load of trucks. They will um get in the trucks. They'll go into Thran. They'll storm the embassy and the Iranian foreign ministry cuz remember three BS are still in the foreign ministry. They're trapped in the dining room of the foreign ministry. So they rescue all of them. Do they contemplate taking, I don't know, the Iranian foreign minister as hostage or something?

No, I don't think so. That's what I would have done. Yeah, maybe I'm more ruthless than Delta Force.

More ruthless, clearly. So, um, then they'll go across the street to a football stadium, the Amjadier football stadium, and the US helicopters will pick them up from this football stadium, and they'll fly them to an air base south of Tehran, an abandoned air base, which in the meantime will have been secured by a team of US Army Rangers. And at this air base south of Tehran, they'll be picked up by some more transport planes and flown to safety in Egypt. What could possibly go wrong?

I think listeners will have drawn their own conclusions from my outline of the plan, which by the way is a very simplified version of the plan. It's extremely simplified. It's much more complicated in reality. I mean, it would work in a Tom Cruz film, wouldn't it?

It would, but only just. But they could be spotted at Desert One, Desert 2. Their trucks could be stopped on the way into Thrron. They might get delayed capturing the embassy. They might struggle to they might not even be able to cross the street to the football stadium if there's a huge crowd there or if there's you know police the traffic I mean it's terrible all of this and Beckith says has said to his bosses look I mean you can winge as much as you like but there is no other plan there is no other plan the hostages aren't getting out by negotiation that's pretty clear and he says do you know what it could work and he has a model in mind which is the Israeli raid onep in 1976 six. To remind people about that, 102 largely Israeli hostages were taken um in an airline hijacking by Palestinian and I think West German terrorists and they were flown to Uganda to Entbe in Uganda.

And people thought it was impossible to get them out and a load of Israeli commandos flew 2,500 miles, stormed the airfield, stormed the planes, and got almost all of the hostages out alive. They were led by uh Benjamin Netanyahu's brother, I think.

Is that right? I think so. Well, and um this is the kind of operation, you know, that gave the Israelis in the 70s this sort of reputation for extraordinary kind of um daring and military sort of um prowess. A stunning feat. And Carter and his men think, well, if we could do the same, what a brilliant thing this would be for Carter and for the United States. So even though they can all see the risks, they're all very tempted by it. The one person who's not tempted is Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. He says this is an insane plan, things are bound to go wrong and some of the hostages are bound to be killed. But Carter likes it and he says start work on reconnaissance.

So that was on the 22nd of March. Let's move forward a couple of weeks. On the 7th of April, Carter broke off for the I mean, it's amazing that he hadn't done this before. He broke off diplomatic links with Iran. On the 9th of April, Brazinski, his national security adviser, sends him a note and says, "In my view, a carefully planned and boldly executed rescue operation represents the only realistic prospect that the hostages, any of them, will be freed in the foreseeable future." And Presinski says, "We've pursued a policy of restraint, very unamerican, for the last few months, and it's got us a lot of understanding and sympathy, but nothing else. and it's time for us to act. So 2 days after that, Carter convenes his National Security Council. Now, crucially, Cyrus Vance, the one doubter, is away on holiday. He's had this long postponed holiday in Florida, which is finally gone on. And Carter has the

meeting then when Vance is away and they all agree, let's go with this plan. Vance gets back a couple of days later and he is horrified and he's outraged they've decided behind his back and he says to Carter, "If you do this, there will be huge reprisals against American teachers and businessmen still in Iran and indeed across the Muslim world." I think by the way he was probably right that if they had carried this out, this would have happened. But nobody backs Vance up. There's a very embarrassing and excruciating meeting and he's left kind of smoldering.

So the next evening is the 16th, which is the moment we open the episode with. This is Beckwith meeting Jimmy Carter. And Beckwith, you would think he would absolutely despise Carter as a wimp and a weed and stuff, but he clearly doesn't from that account.

He thinks Carter is great. He says in his memoirs, Carter was really calm, direct, forceful. He said, you know, no nonsense. And Carter said finally, okay, we'll do this. And Beckith, in his memoirs, it says, I was full of wonderment. I was proud to be an American and to have a president do what he just done. And Carter gives in that last message, if if this fails, it's on me, not on you. And you know, we don't leave any of our uh dead behind. And Beckith absolutely loves this. This is music to his ears. And actually, as the meeting breaks up, he says unimprovably, he says, "God bless you, Mr. President."

So, everybody's wiping away a manly tear. It's great. The only person who isn't, actually, I say everybody, Cyrus Vance, isn't the Secretary of State. He's absolutely furious. And a couple of days afterwards, Carter, this is perhaps the other side of Carter. Carter says, "I've got a load of Methodists coming to the White House. I want someone to go and tell them that we're not going to do any military action. Could you do that, please?" And Vance says, "No, I'm not going to lie to you to a load of Methodists." And Carter's furious. This is the first time the commander-in-chief has been disobeyed by one of his subordinates. And then Vance gives him an envelope and it's a handwritten note from his secretary of state, like a really important person. A handwritten note saying, "I'm resigning. I'm out. As soon as that mission finishes, I'm going to wait till after the mission, but then I'm gone." You know, a bad blow for the

Carter administration. Anyway, we come to the big day, Thursday the 24th of April. Carter and his aids are in the White House. They're pretending that it's just an ordinary day, but this is the day that's been chosen. And at 10:30 that morning, he gets a call from General Jones. It's night in Iran. The weather is clear. It's all go. The choppers have taken off from the Nimtts. Meanwhile, in Egypt, Charlie Beck with men, Delta Force, are lining up for their final inspection in their air base hanger. And they're all dressed kind of in plain clothes. They're all wearing jeans and kind of flannel shirts and black jackets. They haven't shaved because they want to blend in on the streets of Tehran. They've written farewell letters to their wives and girlfriends if the worst happens. And now a scene that is so made for Hollywood. In the hanger, their ops officer who's called Major Jerry Boyin has put an a big sort of photo, a

montage of all the hostages faces. These are the Americans that we are going to get out of Thran. And Major Boyin gets out the Bible and he reads from the first book of Samuel. And David put his hand in a bag and took then a stone and slung it and smoked the Philistine in the forehead so that the stone sunk into his forehead and he fell on his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a stone and a sling. He finishes and they all bow their heads in prayer and then and then one of them starts singing God Bless America and they all join in and the sound kind of echoes around the hanger and it's actually I mean the reason I did this I think is that this is the last scene of the film The Deer Hunter which had been released just over a year earlier and had been a massive hit at the Oscars. So, I mean, literally Hollywood.

Literally Hollywood. And then they finish, the song dies away, and it's time to go. Operation Eagle Claw is underway. Goodness me. I mean, Dominic, what a pitch for a Hollywood thriller. We will find out what happens after the break. Welcome back to The Rest is History. Massive, massive tension, massive, massive drama brewing because it's the morning of the 24th of April 1980 and in the White House, Jimmy Carter is waiting by his phone for news from Iran. So he knows that about midday the first helicopter should reach desert one. And he and his aids are looking at their watches. They're all these meetings, but they're looking at their watches the whole time. And at lunchtime he's having a sandwich in the Oval Office and the Secretary of Defense who's called Harold Brown brings the news from Iran. And it's bad news, Tom. So the helicopters have been flying across the desert and they've run into an unexpected

sandstorm. Like a sort of dust storm, a really bad dust storm. I mean, you say unexpected, but I imagine dust storms are pretty pretty common.

I think it was bad luck. I think it was genuinely really bad luck, though. You know, you could fly across 10 times and there'd be no dust storm. But on the 11th, there's a dust storm. And this is the 11th time. One of the helicopters has gone down in the dust storm cuz the dust is so terrible it's kind of got into their rotors or whatever. And they've had to abandon this helicopter. You know, the men have got out and gone into the other helicopters, but they've had to abandon it. A second helicopter got totally lost in the dust storm and almost crashed into a mountain and has turned back to the Gulf of Oman.

But so instead of having um eight helicopters, they now have six. Is that enough to get the hostages?

That is enough. That is just enough. Now, meanwhile, Charlie Beckwith and Delta Force have landed safely and on time at Desert One. But here too, there are some unexpected hiccups. So, first of all, as they're landing, they see two, basically two vehicles, which are oil tankers driven by Iranian smugglers, oil smugglers streaking across the desert. And the US Rangers chased after these oil tankers cuz they said, "God, we can't allow anyone to have seen us." They took one of them out with an anti-tank rocket. So, the tanker kind of exploded. Whoa.

And um I mean that wasn't very discreet because they you know blown up a an oil tanker with a kind of missile. And the next thing that happens suddenly this bus appears out of the night and the bus is packed with pilgrims most of whom are women.

Oh no. And it's overloaded with the pilgrims luggage. And the rangers this time they fire at the tires of the bus. They disable the bus and they take all these women pilgrims off as prisoners. So, I mean, we're talking about dozens and dozens of people, and they're like, "What are we going to do with all these these women?" And they put them on one of their transport planes, and they say, "Well, we'll hold them on this transport plane at Desert One, till the mission is over." So, at midnight local time, they hear sound overhead and it's the helicopters, six of them, and they're more than an hour late. So, the helicopters land, and now this sort of patch of desert is very crowded. You've got transport planes. You've got helicopters. You've got all the BS from Delta Force. You've got a burning wreckage of an oil tanker. You've got a captured bus and a load of captured pilgrims all packed into this bit of the

desert. And Beckith is horrified when he sees they've only got six helicopters. That's the bare minimum to complete the mission. And they're running out of time. You know, they have to do all this under cover of darkness. So he says to his men, "Okay, hurry up. Get your gear. Take it from the transports. load onto the choppers. And then as they're doing that, one of the marine pilots comes up to him and he says, "Sir, we have a problem. A pump on one of the helicopters has failed." And they did bring repair equipment with them, but it was in the helicopter they abandoned in the dust storm. Oh no. Suddenly, Beckwith has this massive decision to make. He could go on with a smaller team in just five helicopters, but his written instructions are very clear. Next to the words less than six hellos is the single word in capital letters abort.

Now he can't make that decision himself. The commander-in-chief has to make it. So back at the White House, Carter's chief of staff, Hamilton Jordan, gets a call from his boss. Hamilton Jordan is the bloke who previously was wearing a false mustache and a wig. taken that off. Yeah,

not anymore. He's taken it off. And he gets this call. Come to the Oval Office. He goes to the Oval Office. Carter is sitting in there with his head in his hands, devastated. And Carter says, "I've just had a call and I've given the order. Abort the mission." Carter is absolutely crushed. All that tension, all that excitement, but he's aborted the mission. And then he says, "Well, at least there were no American casualties and no innocent Iranians hurt." And then the phone rings and Carter picks up the phone and what color there is, which isn't much, drains from his already haggarded features. And he just says, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Are there any dead?"

And then there's a pause. And then he very quietly he says, "I understand." And then he puts down the phone. And what's happened? What's happened? Carter's abort order had reached desert one. They refueled the helicopters. They prepared to abandon ship and move out. And then one of the pilots, the pilot of the helicopter, Blue Beard 3, in the darkness and in the dust as he was moving his helicopter, he clipped the wing of one of the transport planes. There was this great crack and then basically the helicopter fell out of the sky onto the plane. There was a massive explosion and then the flames from that explosion spread to the plane's fuel supply and there was a second explosion like a fireball colossal fireball as the plane blew up. Amazingly only eight Americans were killed. Five airmen in the transport plane and three in the helicopter. And it's a scene of total devastation. There's burning wreckage

everywhere. you know, smoldering bits of planes, whatever. I mean, you know, it's a it's a shocking scene. And understandably, all the Americans say, "Oh my god, we got to get the hell out of here." And they all pile into the remaining transport planes and they take off as quickly as they can. Can I just ask, do they obey Carter's orders and bring the bodies back with them? No, cuz they're burning bodies in the middle wreckage of a transport plane.

Right. Because I have an incredibly vivid memory of there was a magazine called Now, right,

which was published by James Goldsmith. On the cover, they had a charred body. Yeah.

Of an American in the desert. And it was really vivid in my memory cuz it's the first time I'd seen a photograph of a body.

Yeah. Really shocking image. And I was kind of wondering when I read that passage at the beginning, was my memory playing tricks? But no,

no, no, not at all. Because actually, you know, they leave behind in the desert. You know, they've left the smoldering records of the transport and the helicopter with the bodies in them. They've left four perfectly good helicopters behind. They've left the burning remains of an Iranian oil tanker and a bus full of Iranian pilgrims who are completely baffled and frightened

by what's going on. Yeah. Yeah. By what's I mean, it must have seemed absolutely bizarre to them. They're taken prison by the Americans who then blow themselves up and then run away.

Yeah. I mean, that was that's how you'd perceive it if you're an Iranian, right? And what's worse, they've left in the helicopters their mission instructions or the classified instructions.

Why do they do that? They're leaving in the chaos and panic, right? Yeah. Don't think the SAS would do that.

Maybe not. So, um, in the Oval Office, Carter tells his team the news and no one speaks. And in fact, the only person who breaks the silence is, of all people, Cyrus Vance, who's about to resign, who just says, "Mr. President, I'm very, very sorry."

That's decent of him. Yeah. And there's this sort of ferial mood. Of course, the truth is it was always a massive long shot. And they did a report afterwards, the Pentagon, and they said, you know, plans like this, you have to prepare for the worst. And we didn't. We put our men and our machines under intolerable pressure. There was no margin for error. And actually, it turned out that the CIA had predicted even if you get to Tehran, even if you get to the embassy, probably half the hostages will be killed in the fighting. You'll only get half of them out alive. Do you think that um there was a sense that this was a kind of Hollywood script penned by someone who saw himself as its star? I mean I just asked because um what's his name? The guy who founded the SAS. He was very much that kind of figure, wasn't he? What was he called?

Um David Sterling. Colonel David Sterling. Yeah. Who um later talked about carrying out a coup in 1975 in Britain against the Labor government. I just wonder whether the kind of men who have the get up and go imagination to set up units like this, maybe their imagination can sometimes run away with them.

Completely can. But that's how you have this such a unit in the first place, isn't it? I mean, that's I would say an inherent part of the repertoire of such people.

Yeah. An occupational hazard of it. Yeah. Absolutely. that you have people who are coming up with these what seem insanely reckless ideas, but you obviously need people to rein them in and say, "Well, okay, well, let's look at this piece by piece. Is this actually plausible? It's all going to work." Carter and co always knew that it was a long shot. I mean, they did it because they thought it's this or nothing. They were right, by the way, if you know this was the only way that they could plausibly get them out. But the press were completely unforgiving. The New Republic and a headline called it the Jimmy Carter Desert Classic. And basically Carter got all the blame and everyone said, "Look at Carter." You know, there was a time when we had the best military in the world, but now when our helicopters are in the air, they just crash. Even when they're on the ground, they crash into each other and

have to be abandoned and stuff. This is what the state that Jimmy Carter has brought us to, which is harsh. I agree. Very unfair. In Iran, the reaction was unbridled delight. So there were huge crowds on the streets of Tehran. How many said, "This is all God's doing." You know, thanks be to God. obviously and um you were talking about seeing the the photo on James Goldsmith's magazine. So, Kmeni's chief justice who was called Sadek Kalcali who was nicknamed the hanging judge. He went on Iranian TV to exhibit these charred remains of the bodies. Oh my god. A blackened forearm with the US military watch still on it. So he took a ghouish delight in showing off the bodies that the Iranians had found at Desert One.

Carter um he was very decent about this. He took all the blame on himself as he said he would. He wanted to ring all the families personally um but was told not to by the Pentagon. It broke Pentagon protocol. The Secretary of Defense doesn't know the president. He did fly to Delta Forc's base to meet Beckwith and the team. A very Hollywood scene. Again, there's a lot of sort of manly tears and embracing and stuff. And if the American people had seen that, maybe they'd have a different view of Jimmy Carter. But as it is, they just see this bloke who yet again is coming on TV looking very pained, announcing more bad news.

Loser. Yeah, they say he's a loser. People just say this bloke is just a born loser. And seven out of 10 people are saying now that it's time for a change. Kar's not fit to be president. All of this kind of stuff. So what now for the hostages? They were split up and moved to prisons all over Tyran. And actually, they disappear a little bit from the US front pages um for most of the rest of 1980. There's still the business with yellow ribbons and people ringing bells and whatnot, but they're not as prominent a story as they were. And obviously, they're a reminder of failure and defeat. I suppose if they vanish into prison cells, then they're not as visible, are they? They're not they can't be put on television. And it's a bit like the hostage situation in Lebanon in the 80s. You know, if you're not seeing them, you can forget them.

Yes. Out of sight, out of mind, frankly. But then they returned to the headlines in October and November, not because of anything in Iran, but because of the looming presidential election. So Carter was confirmed as the Democratic candidate. Kennedy had a little bit of a revival after the desert debark, but wasn't enough to stop Carter getting the nomination for the Democrats. The Republican side, Reagan is nominated, and he's now trying his best to win over blue collar Democrats in industrial states. So basically the kind of people who were like truck drivers or whatever, they listen to Jimmy Carter's speech about the crisis of confidence. They thought he'd gone mad. They're cross about their gasoline prices. They're very annoyed that people are burning the American flag in the streets of Tehran and humiliating the United States. And they want a change of leadership.

So Reagan leads in the polls, but his lead was much smaller than is often remembered. It was only 3 or 4% or so. So Carter still had hope. And basically the Reagan camp's fear is that if Carter can get the hostages back in October or early November, just before the election, that will swing it. The Reagan camp's computers have decided that it would give him a 10% boost and that would be enough to win the election for Jimmy Carter.

And so the notion of an October surprise by this point is part of American political discourse, is it?

It is. Absolutely. So, an October surprise, a coup that will transform the narrative. And the Republicans are planting loads of stories about an October surprise actually to try and preempt it and saying, "Oh, Carter's going to pull out an October surprise. You know, he's playing politics with the lives of the hostages, how cynical, all this kind of thing." Isn't the conspiracy theory though that actually it's working the other way round and that it's the Republicans who are in contact with the government in Thran to keep the hostages until after the election?

Yeah. Is that true? Now, some of our American listeners will be waiting excitedly for this for our analysis of this. So, to explain, the thesis is that Reagan's campaign manager, William Casey, who ended up running the CIA and being involved in Iran Contra. So, the Iran Contra was, this is going to be a very simplified version. They were secretly selling arms to Iran um as a sort of quid proco to try and get hostages out of Lebanon. And they were also channeling the profits from the arm sales to fund the contra uh right-wing fighters in Nicaragua which had been explicitly banned by Congress. So a very complicated and murky story. Anyway, we touched on it, didn't we, in our series on Reagan.

So Casey was involved in this and the October surprise conspiracy theory is that actually Casey was involved in dealings with the Iranians long before Iran Contra. He was secretly meeting them in 1980 in Washington or Madrid. And he basically said to them, "Don't release the hostages. Hold on to them until after the election. If you hold on to them until after the election, the Reagan administration will release Iran's frozen bank assets and we will organize arm shipments to you via Israel." So conspiracy theorists, I mean proper conspiracy theorists, first floated this story in 1980.

But then when the Iran Contra revelations came in the late 80s, people said, "Well, hold on. Maybe these stories are actually true." And both the Senate and the House of Representatives held inquiries into this in the 1990s and they said, "It's actually not true. It's rubbish." And what's more, three different American news outlets, so Newsweek, The New Republic, and The Village Voice. and the Village Voice, you know, anti-establishment, definitely left-leaning. They all investigated this and they said it's it's actually there wasn't a deal between Reagan and the Iranians, but it's never gone away. There was a book published as recently as 2024, very well reviewed in the Guardian among other places by a guy called Craig Anger, an American journalist, and he said, "No, no, no." You know, and he found a lot of people who said maybe there was a secret deal. The issue is I mean there's one issue about Craig Younger. Craig Younger

specializes in this kind of things. He wrote a lot about the Bushes and the Saudi royal family. He's written loads about Trump being an FSB agent and stuff. Um now he might be right about all of those things, but I always tend to be a little bit skeptical when somebody sees conspiracies everywhere. That's a slight red flag for me. Not for some listeners. I guess they might say I'm being too skeptical. I think the bigger point is that I think it's irrelevant. I don't think there was any way the Iranians were going to release the hostages before the election because they have come to see this as a jewel between Humeni and Carter. And there's actually a degree, I think, of the bully about the Iranian regime when it comes to Carter. I mean, the way that Humeni would taunt him, you know, in interviews and say Carter is weak. He hasn't got the guts to fight us. He hasn't all this kind of thing. There's a kind of

sadistic glee to it. And I just don't see a world in which he would have released those hostages before the election. He didn't want to give Carter the satisfaction.

But why is he even contemplating releasing them to Reagan? Is he not worried that Reagan will be a much more formidable and hawkish opponent? Why does he want to give Reagan any rocket fuel for his presidency? Wouldn't an impaired, politically damaged Carter winning a second term be better for Iran than Reagan?

I don't think the Iranians are thinking that closely about the results of the US presidential election, first of all, but also they would like to get their um $8 billion in banking assets back. So, you know, I mean, $8 billion is a lot of money. Plus after 1980 when they're fighting the Iran Iraq war, the possibility of arms shipments becomes very important to them. So I think once the Iran Iraq war has broken out, once Saddam Hussein has invaded, they're slightly the Americans are no longer at the forefront of their mind.

They probably just want to get this issue done and dusted, I think, and crack on with fighting Saddam. So anyway, let's get to the first weekend in November. So there's four days to go till election day. Carter is still hoping for a lastminute offer from the Iranians. And actually on the Sunday, the elections on Tuesday and on the Sunday he gets one from the Iranian parliament. They say Carter's got to cancel all American financial claims against Iran. He's got to hand over their frozen assets. He's got to hand over the sh's millions and he must promise never to intervene in Iranian affairs.

The problem is that this proposed deal is so complicated financially, there is no way it'll be done before election day and Carter is gutted. And then the next day, the Monday, the last full day of the campaign. That is the day that marks the end of 12 months in captivity for the hostages. And Carter is flying back after campaigning in Detroit to Washington. and he puts on the TV news on Air Force One on his plane and he is absolutely horrified because all the three American networks ended their big news bulletins with montages of it's been 12 months for the hostages in captivity yellow ribbons and all that yellow ribbons the scenes of them with blindfolds burning helicopters in the desert. it is the worst possible publicity. And at that point, I think some of his aids thought we've lost this election because if that's what everybody is talking about, we're doomed. And they were right because the next day, the Tuesday,

Reagan won by almost 10%. He won 44 states to Carter six. It was a landslide. And do you know what? This was not the end of Jimmy Carter's personal torment.

Well, no, cuz he's still got two months left as president, hasn't he? Before Reagan's inaugurated,

right? And his one big dream. You know, Carter has always been obsessed with the hostages. His one thing is, I want to be the president who welcomes them home. I want to get them home. It was the one thing I always wanted. So, all through December and January, the State Department are negotiating this deal with the Iranians. Basically, through Algeria, which is the big intermediary, they will hand over $8 billion in frozen assets and then when the Iranians get the money, they'll release these hostages. The Iranians, I mean, I think there's no doubt they are toying with Carter. They are loving every minute of this because they don't sign the deal until the last full day of his presidency, Monday the 19th of January.

The terms are so complicated, the money has to go from the Bank of England to the Central Bank of Algeria, and then Tehran will release the hostages. Now, Carter hasn't slept for days. He's been in the Oval Office sort of obsessing over all the details of these transactions. and he says to his aids, "The hostages matter more to me than anything. He's not going to have a farewell party in the White House as people normally do. There's not going to be a drinks party for all the people who've worked with him because he is waiting to fly to West Germany to an air base where the hostages will be brought to go to a US military hospital. And he reckons he can just about get to West Germany, greet the hostages, and then get back to Washington for Reagan's inauguration at midday on the Tuesday."

So on Monday, he's just sitting there in the Oval Office waiting for the go-ahad. And then finally, they get news from Thran. The Iranians have rejected one of the financial documents. Of course, they have. And they're going to have to start the transfer all over again. You can't believe it. He's waiting and waiting. At 2:00 in the morning, he gets a call from the US Treasury. The Iranians have now sent documents of their own, but they've sent the wrong bank code and the wrong figures. I mean, of course, the Iranians are doing this deliberately. I think Carter's aids are all asleep on the sofa, but he's still, you know, sitting there in his cardigan making notes in his little pad. Hasn't slept for about a week. All of this. And finally, he gets the call at 6:30 in the morning. The Bank of England have transferred the money to the Bank of Algeria, and the Algerians have sent word to Tehran, you

can release the hostages now. and Carter, you know, it's come too late for him to go and greet them in West Germany, but at least, you know, it's kind of happened under his watch. And he, this is the my favorite detail, he says to his aids, "Ring Ronald Reagan." Reagan is staying basically across the street ready to take over. He says, "Ring Reagan. You know, the incoming president will want to know." And Reagan's aids say, "Oh, he's given instructions not to be He's not He's asleep. He's not getting up now to take your call. He's given instructions not to get up, not to be woken until after 8:00.

Carter can't believe this because this is antithetical to his way of of of working. Yeah. Finally,

those tennis courts aren't going to book themselves. Right. Exactly. Finally. What did Reagan say? They say hard work never killed anyone, but I say, "Why take the chance?" He gets through to Reagan at 8:30 and then my favorite line of this entire Iranian revolutionary story. Carter speaks to Reagan for ages and then he puts down the phone and his aids say, "What did Reagan say?" And he said, "Oh, how did it go?" And Cart said, "Well, Reagan just listened." And then when I finished, he said, "What hostages?"

Is that Carter making a joke or I don't know. I think it possibly is Carter making a joke. And if so, hats off to Jimmy Carter cuz that is a good joke.

It is a good joke. I mean, if it's Reagan's joke, it's even funnier. Anyway, the inauguration gets underway. Carter is still waiting for news. Ron and Nancy arrive at the White House and Carts are still waiting and they say to his aids say, "The hostages have still not they're they're literally sitting on airport buses. They're not being allowed onto the planes." So, he won't get the one thing he wanted, which is the chance as president to announce that they have left Iran. He won't even get that. At midday, Reagan is inaugurated. Carter standing next to him looks kind of like a ghost. He's so tired.

In Thran, the guards on the airport buses get the call. Basically, Reagan is in and Carter is out and they say, "Fine." And they open the doors. They rip the blindfolds off the hostages and they push the hostages out. And the hostages are herded onto these Air Algeria planes, but there's a crowd there spitting at them and chanting death to America as they board the planes. So the Iranians had claimed, of course, that they were guests. But I have to say, this is not the a great moment in the history of Iranian hospitality.

So all of that meant that it was Reagan, not Carter, who got to announce their release. And he did it in the most classic Reagan Hollywood style. He gives the speech at the inauguration lunch. And he ends, he's giving a toast, and he says, "You can do it, Tom, cuz you do a very good Ronald Reagan." Oh, with thanks to Almighty God. I have been given a tagline. The get offline everyone wants at the end of a speech. Some 30 minutes ago, the planes burying our prisoners left Iranian airspace and are now free of Iran. Then he raises his champagne glass and everybody cheers.

It's such a Hollywood moment. Carter was in his car going to Andrews Air Force Base when he got the news. He flew eventually to Vbarton in West Germany to greet the hostages, not as president, but as a very exhausted and gaunt ex-president. And it was a very poignant scene. Some of the hostages, um, of course, they're all absolutely traumatized and exhausted. Some of them were in tears. Some of them applauded him, but actually he'd hoped for this great cathartic moment, but some of them actually say, "Why did you let the sh in? Why didn't you rescue us? How was that business about the desert? What's all that about?" I mean, I guess if there's a moral to this whole story, it's don't be kind, right? I mean, don't let dying dictators into your country.

Jimmy Carter didn't want to let a dictator in. Didn't want to let the sh in. No, I know he didn't, but he he did and everything followed from that, right?

Well, I mean, we can discuss the lessons in just a sec. What did it all mean? The hostages were there for 444 days and I think when you read interviews with them I mean it's the defining moment in their lives and some of them never really recovered I think from the trauma of I mean the terror of being being held in Thran

and I imagine the physical treatment as well being beaten up and starved and yeah

people playing Russian roulette with you or whatever taunting you being dragged in front of a crowd blindfolded yeah

all of those kinds of things for Carter It becomes defining. It becomes the moment that taints his presidency forever. I think in many ways a much more interesting and and sort of forward-looking presidency than people remember. I mean, he's a pretty strange character by the standards of presidents, Jimmy Carter, but he's trying lots of different things and he's a definite break from the norm. Um, but the perception of weakness,

I mean, that's how subliminally I remember him as a child who was first becoming aware of the news is I just thought of him as a loser.

Yeah, exactly. for Reagan and the conservative movement. It's a gift actually this whole story because it's um confirms this impression of the 1970s as a decade of humiliation and retreat that you know it'll take a bit of Hollywood magic uh to restore America's vigor. And I think the Iranian hostage crisis and the Iranian revolution generally really mattered in the American imagination because I think it's always there in the background when other things happen in the 80s and 90s and 2000s. So Iran becomes in the American imagination the embodiment of sort of oriental fanaticism and cruelty.

And I think even though people aren't maybe consciously or directly thinking or talking about it the scar of this is always there in 9/11 in the first Gulf War in the invasion of Iraq all of those kinds of things. Americans had never thought about the Middle East I think before this. This is the point at which sort of Islamic uh fanatics really start to loom as enemies of the United States. Anyway, we'll end in Tehran. So, we left the Iranian revolution really our narrative of it in the end of 79 with hommin strengthening his grip and the hostage crisis allowed him to complete that process because in the next couple of years the religious conservatives really took control of Iran. Part of it was that they were able to use anti-Americanism as kind of ideological fuel. They got an arguably an even bigger boost in September 1980 when Saddam Hussein invaded and the Iran Iraq war started. But that's a terrible

war for Iran, isn't it? And indeed for Iraq. It's like the first world war. Human wave attacks, trenches, gas, and it ends in a stalemate. Half a million people killed basically for nothing. I remember um I mentioned this um this stay in Hamadan in Iran where I met the um the old sh's officer who'd loved disco dancing in Chelsea but I remember watching if there was a football match on I think it was it was a British football match English football match and at halfime instead of you know pundits coming on and analyzing AR or whatever they showed maimed war veterans of that war kind of displaying their you know their injuries and their amput ations and things and uh I mean think I mean if that's if that's what you're getting even in sports programs.

Yeah. What a constant trauma. Yeah. The stuff about the sort of martrs of the Iran art war I mean looms so large in certainly for Iran and sort of Iranian sensibility um left a massive scar I think. But but of course what it did just as in the French or the Russian revolutions it worked in the hardliner's favor because doubters or moderates are seen as unpatriotic and people start to flee the center ground for the extremes and that allowed communes and well his allies certainly and the more hardline elements to purge the sort of more moderate members of his coalition some of whom were actually executed. They shut down dissenting newspapers. They executed the more left-wing element of the sort of Islamist spectrum and they were able to push through this sort of social and cultural revolution taking schools back into clerical control. They nationalized lots of industry. They launched all these

campaigns against Western values. Most notably being the obligation of women to wear hijab.

But here's the interesting thing. That thing that we talked about earlier on and we've talked about before, the tension in Iran between the democratic and the Islamist elements was never resolved. So on the one hand, you know, Iran to this day this sort of repressive autocratic state, but it does have contested elections. You know, admittedly, you know, not everybody's allowed to run, but it's not um a monolithic autocracy. And at the same time, women's rights very severely restricted. You know, what women can wear, how they look, and so on. And yet, confusingly, Iran has more female engineers, university educated engineers, than any other country per capita in the world. So, it's a land of contrasts and paradoxes.

Land of contrasts. Well, we mentioned they they also have more gender reassignment operations than anywhere else in the world.

And I guess the question, I mean, maybe we can talk about this in a bonus episode in more detail, is whether it had to work out as it did. Are there parallel universes in which the Iranian revolution turns out differently? And I think as with the French and Russian revolutions, the answer is yes. You know, the sha could have handled things differently. The Americans certainly could. They could have ditched the sha earlier. They could have rushed into a military coup. They could have tried to reach out to maybe he might have behaved differently. I think it's unlikely. The hostage crisis, if that hadn't happened, maybe things would have played out differently on the streets of Tehran. My last thought is I think it's odd that of the two great 20th century revolutions the Russian revolution is far better known in the west. So Lenin and Stalin are far better known than the Itali but I would say the Islamic revolution

in Iran is much more relevant in the 21st century than the Russian revolution completely because I mean there aren't many communists. You don't meet many communists and it seems unlikely to me that a major industrialized country will be taken over by a communist coup but there are a lot of Islamists what Hmeny pioneered so that blend of radical modernity and kind of backward-looking conservatism the blend of religiosity and nationalism as well actually and his ability to tap people's anxieties remains enormously powerful I would say

I mean I think that appeal to nationalism is a particularly Iranian thing. The sense Iranians have of themselves as belonging to an incredibly ancient civilization because it's true is much more pronounced than it is in most other

I think that's true Muslim Arab countries because Iran is the country that doesn't Arabize.

Yes. Unlike Egypt or Syria or whatever. Agreed. But I think the style of politics, his style that he pioneered and his ability, I don't forget how many was in many ways a very modern figure with his, you know, cassettes of his sermons, with his message being broadcast in Paris, all of this kind of thing. Um, and I think that that has been much more influential in the 21st century than anything that the Russian communists ever did. Anyway, next time, something completely different. The fall of Carthage. Exciting. Hannibal, the Romans, battle of Zama,

plunging right back in time and it will end with the destruction of the city that was in the opinion of the Romans their greatest and most dangerous enemy. So that will be the fall of Carthage. Good news for us is history club members, Tom, isn't there? There is. They will get all four episodes of that Carthage series on Monday. And if you want to join them, just sign up at the rest ishistory.com. It's what Jimmy Carter would have wanted.

Yeah. Not sure that's necessarily a commendation, right? Join Jimmy Carter at the rest is history club.

Yeah. The whole website would probably crash. And that's harsh because I, you know, I'm left with a soft spot for Jimmy Carter.

Oh, a decent man. Yeah. He was in many ways, apart from getting Cyrus Vance to lie to the Methodists.

That was very poor. Yeah. Anyway, on that note, uh, thank you very much for listening. Thank you, Dominic, for a wonderful and timely series. Bye-bye. Goodbye.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Mission That Doomed Jimmy Carter: The Iranian Revolution | EP 4"?

Dominic Sandbrook (Host), Tom Holland (Host), Colonel Charlie Beckwith (Guest), Jimmy Carter (Guest), Ayatollah Khomeini (Guest).

What is "The Mission That Doomed Jimmy Carter: The Iranian Revolution | EP 4" about?

The discussion focuses on Jimmy Carter's failed mission to rescue hostages during the Iranian Revolution, highlighting how this pivotal event contributed to the decline of his presidency. It emphasizes the dramatic consequences of the crisis and the broader implications for U.S. foreign policy at the time.

What is mentioned in this The Rest Is History episode?

11 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Jimmy Carter, Iranian Revolution, Tehran, Operation Eagle Claw, Delta Force, Colonel Charlie Beckwith. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Mission That Doomed Jimmy Carter: The Iranian Revolution | EP 4"?

The episode runs 1 h 10 min; the transcript is about 12,961 words in 161 timestamped sections.

More from The Rest Is History

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 31, 2026.