Iran hostage crisis negotiations

The first attempt to negotiate a release of the hostages involved Hector Villalon and Christian Bourget, representing Iranian Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh. They "delivered a formal request to Panama for the extradition of the Shah", which was "a pretext to cover secret negotiations to free the American hostages". This happened as the Soviets invaded Iran's neighbor Afghanistan, an event America hoped would "illustrate the threat" of its superpower neighbor and need for better relations with the Soviet's enemy, America. Ghotbzadeh himself was eager to end the hostage-taking, as "moderates" were being eliminated from the Iranian government one by one after being exposed by the student hostage-takers as "traitors" and "spies" for having met at some time with an American official.[1]

Carter aide Hamilton Jordan flew to Paris "wearing a disguise—a wig, false mustache and glasses" to meet with Ghotbzadeh. After "weeks of negotiation with...emissaries,...a complex multi-stepped plan" was "hammered out" that included the establishment of an international commission to study America's role in Iran.[2] Rumours of a release leaked to the American public and on February 19, 1980, the American Vice President Walter Mondale told an interviewer that "the crisis was nearing an end." The plan fell apart however after Ayatollah Khomeini gave a speech praising the embassy occupation as "a crushing blow to the world-devouring USA" and announced the fate of the hostages would be decided by the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, which had yet to be seated or even elected.[3] When the six-man international U.N. commission came to Iran they were not allowed to see the hostages,[4] and President Abolhassan Banisadr retreated from his criticism of the hostage-takers, praising them as "young patriots".[5]

The next unsuccessful attempt occurred in April and called first for the American president Carter to publicly promise not to "impose additional sanctions" on Iran. In exchange custody of the hostages would be transferred to the government of Iran, which after a short period would release the hostages—the Iranian president and foreign minister both opposing the continued holding of the hostages. To the American's surprise and disappointment, after Carter made his promise, President Banisadr added additional demands: official American approval of the resolution of the hostage question by Iran's parliament (which would leave the hostages in Tehran for another month or two), and a promise by Carter to refrain from making "hostile statements". Carter also agreed to these demands, but again Khomeini vetoed the plan. At this point, President Banisadr announced he was "washing his hands of the hostage mess".[6]

Relatively little happened during the summer, as Iranian internal politics took its course. In early July, the Iranians released hostage Richard Queen, who had developed multiple sclerosis. In the States, constant media coverage—yellow ribbons, footage of chanting Iranian mobs, even a whole new television news program, ABC's Nightline—provided a dispiriting backdrop to the presidential election season. As Carter advisor and biographer, Peter Bourne put it, "Because people felt that Carter had not been tough enough in foreign policy, this kind of symbolized for them that some bunch of students could seize American diplomatic officials and hold them prisoner and thumb their nose at the United States." The death of the Shah on July 27 and the invasion of Iran by Iraq in September 1980 may have made Iran more receptive to the idea of resolving the hostage crisis. There was little more advantage to be gained from further anti-American, anti-Shah propaganda, and the ongoing sanctions were making it harder to straighten out an already chaotic economy.

Talks that ultimately succeeded in bringing a release began secretly in September 1980 and were initiated by Sadegh Tabatabai, a brother-in-law of Khomeini's son Ahmad and "a mid-level official" in the former-provisional revolutionary government. By this time resolution of the crisis was made easier by the fact that two of the hostage-takers demands were met—the Shah was dead and "most" of his wealth had been "removed from American banks"—while the threat of war with Iraq made the availability of American-made military spare parts for Iran's material important. Iranian demands for the release were now four: expression of remorse or an apology for the United States' historical role in Iran, unlocking of "Iranian assets in America and withdraw any legal claims against Iran arising from the embassy seizure, and promise not to interfere in the future." The demands were listed at the end of a speech by Khomeini considered "a major shift on Iran's side of the impasse" by journalists.[7] Tabatabai, and Ahmad Khomeini secured the support of Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the speaker of the Majlis.

The talks hammered out an agreement to bring to their higher-ups, with the United States agreeing to three demands but not to an apology.[8] Talks were stalled first by Iraq's invasion of Iran, which Iranian officialdom blamed on the United States. Rafsanjani delivered a vote in parliament in favor of releasing the hostages. Then negotiations began over how much money U.S. businesses owed Iran—Iran believing the sum to be $20 to $60 billion and the United States estimating it at "closer to $20 to $60 million".[9]—and how much Iran owed U.S. businesses.[10]

On November 2, the Iranian parliament finally set forth formal conditions for the hostages' release, and eight days later Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher arrived in Algiers with the first U.S. reply setting off a slow-motion diplomatic shuffle between Washington, Algiers, and Tehran. The Iranians refused to communicate directly with the president, or any other American, so Algeria had agreed to act as an intermediary. This arrangement slowed down the negotiating process. As Carter recalled, "The Iranians, who spoke Persian, would talk only with the Algerians, who spoke French. Any question or proposal of mine had to be translated twice as it went from Washington to Algiers to Tehran, and then the answers and counter-proposals had to come back to me over the same slow route."

Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in the November 1980 presidential election with pressure being added to the negotiations by the President-Elect's talk of not paying "ransom for people who have been kidnapped by barbarians",[9] and a New Year's Day threat from Radio Tehran that if the United States did not accept Iran's demands the hostages would be tried as spies and executed if found guilty.[11] In the final stages of the negotiations in Algiers, the chief Algerian mediator was the Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammed Benyahia who interacted primarily with Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher from the U.S. side.[12] Former Algerian ambassador to the U.S. Abdulkarim Ghuraib also participated in the negotiations. Much of the money involved was being held in overseas branches of twelve American banks, so Carter, his cabinet, and staff were constantly on the phone to London, Istanbul, Bonn, and other world capitals to work out the financial details.

The negotiations resulted in the "Algiers Accords"[13] of January 19, 1981. The Algiers Accords called for Iran's immediate freeing of the hostages, the unfreezing of $7.9 billion of Iranian assets and immunity from lawsuits Iran might have faced in America, and a pledge by the United States that "it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs". The Accords also created the Iran – United States Claims Tribunal, and Iran deposited $1 billion in an escrow account to satisfy claims adjudicated by the Tribunal in favor of American businesses that had lost assets after the hostage takeover. The Tribunal closed to new claims by private individuals on January 19, 1982. In total, it received approximately 4,700 private U.S. claims. The Tribunal has ordered payments by Iran to U.S. nationals totaling over $2.5 billion. Almost all private claims have now been resolved, but several intergovernmental claims are still before the Tribunal.