Iran Hostages: Tales of Torment and Triumph

Throughout their captivity, the will of the hostages never broke

Mock executions carried out by white-masked "firing squads" that clicked rifle bolts behind the backs of hostages spread-eagled against a wall. Iranian guards playing Russian roulette with revolvers held to the heads of two bound American women. Prisoners confined in basement cells where they were prevented from seeing sunlight for months, forced to sleep for weeks in the clothes they were wearing when captured, denied baths for as long as three months, afraid even to look at each other because their captors thought they might be exchanging eye signals.

These are among the frightening and sordid circumstances of imprisonment reported by the 52 hostages in phone calls to their families during their first hours of liberty, or related by hostages who had been released months ago and at last felt free to speak. The full story of their ordeal is far from told. The first fragmentary reports indicated that the hostages were not subjected to the physical tortures that Iranians have inflicted on each other for centuries, but the Americans did suffer relentless psychological abuse and physical mistreatment that ring in American ears as a tale of horror.

The hostages' stories are also—and much more important—a tale of pride, studded throughout with gems of understated bravery. Though they were underfed, terrified and tempted at times to think the U.S. had forgotten them, none of the hostages seems truly to have given way psychologically to the captors. Instead, they fought back. At least three repeatedly tried to escape, though guards beat them with fists or rubber hoses when they were caught. Terri Tedford, 24, a secretary who was among the 13 freed in November 1979 after 16 days of captivity, told Iranian guards who held a gun to her head that they could go ahead and shoot. Michael Metrinko, 34, an embassy political officer who was released last week, valiantly denounced his captors as "liars, bums, everything" before Iranian TV cameras that were filming propaganda pictures of the hostages; the film was supplied to U.S. networks last Christmas but the Iranians had erased the sound.

The hostages' stories begin with a previously unpublicized narrative of the heroism of Sergeant James M. Lopez, 22, the lone Marine guard on duty at the consulate building in the U.S. embassy when Iranian militants stormed the compound on Nov. 4, 1979. For nearly three hours, Lopez singlehandedly kept the invaders out of the consulate, primarily by using tear-gas grenades. "At one point, the students tried to break into the consulate through one of the windows, but he beat them back," reported Mark Lijek, 29, a U.S. consular official.

While the invaders were recovering from the tear gas and regrouping for fresh assaults, Lopez herded some 60 people —14 Americans, the rest Iranians who had gone to the consulate for visas—upstairs to the second floor. There he divided them into small groups that he dispatched downstairs to slip out onto the streets through a side door. Five Americans, including Lijek, managed to steal through back streets to the Canadian embassy, where they were hidden and soon joined by a sixth. They were all spirited back to the U.S. just a year ago this week.