Iran Hostages: How the Bargain Was Struck

Eventually, the reality of a deadline paid off

It was dinnertime on Monday in a Washington preparing to inaugurate Ronald Reagan, and nearly midnight in Algiers, where Deputy Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher was trying to nail down the last elements of the deal to free the 52 American hostages. Christopher picked up the phone that connected him directly to the White House. Using his code name, "Superman," he was immediately put through to the President, and, in comparing notes on the latest impasse in the bargaining, the two men came up with a ploy. When he hung up the receiver, Christopher ordered his State Department plane readied for takeoff at noon, Washington time, the next day, when the Carter Administration's term would end.

The Algerian officials, who were acting as middlemen in the negotiations, were dismayed. The straight-faced diplomat told them: "My authority expires then, and then I'm going." The Algerians swiftly notified Iran of this new development, and over the next 18 hours the 14½-month hostage ordeal finally reached its denouement. Whether the small gambit helped nudge the deal into place no one but the Iranians will ever know, but at least one top State Department aide thinks so: "The exercise proved that deadlines work."

Throughout the first year of the hostages' captivity, any sense of deadline had been totally lacking. The Iranians treated the hostage issue with no urgency at all. State Department analysts now believe that Iran's leadership began to change its attitude toward the American captives about last August. By then, the hard-line Iranian clergy had consolidated their position in the new government and the American economic sanctions were beginning to hurt. And although the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini had said that he was unwilling to negotiate with Carter or his "henchmen," the Iranians began to look for contacts with Washington.

In the first week of September, the West German government informed American diplomats that Iran wanted to open negotiations about the hostages through a secret emissary. The agent was Sadegh Tabatabai, a brother-in-law of Khomeini's son Seyyed Achmed and a former Deputy Prime Minister under Mehdi Bazargan.

Washington knew all about Tabatabai, who had been educated in West Germany. West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher had begun pressing Iran to release the hostages right after the embassy was seized. Genscher had his first secret contact with Tabatabai early last year in Belgrade at President Josip Broz Tito's funeral. Tabatabai subsequently, in February and March, made several trips to Bonn, one public and ostensibly on other business, the other secret, followed by additional secret trips by other Iranian envoys. West Germany's efforts were closely coordinated with Washington's, and by March it seemed serious negotiations on the hostages might be about to begin. Then came the aborted rescue mission, causing the Iranians angrily to break off the process. It was not until August that the West Germans were able to persuade the Iranians to resume exploratory talks.