Chadli, Malek, Gharaieb, Mostefae: Algeria's Tireless Postmen

Without the help of a sometime foe, there would be no deal

Americans and Iranians can agree on one thing at least: without the skillful performance of Algeria's middlemen, the financial settlement that led to the hostages' release would not have been possible. On his last day in office, President Jimmy Carter conveyed to Algerian President Bendjedid Chadli "the immense debt of gratitude" felt by the U.S. Wrote Carter: "We would certainly not have concluded this accord, if we had not had the assistance of your government." State Department officials spoke admiringly of the "tireless work"—and the "imagination and understanding" displayed throughout the ten weeks of ceaseless negotiations by the three chief Algerian envoys: Ambassador to Washington Redha Malek, Ambassador to Tehran Abdel-krim Ghraieb, and Central Bank Governor Mohammed Seghir Mostefai.

Exhausted but triumphant, the three men were the first to deplane from one of the Air Algerie Boeing 727s that bore the hostages from Tehran to Algiers. There they were greeted with grateful bear hugs by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher and U.S. Ambassador to Algeria Ulric Haynes Jr., the Americans with whom they had worked so closely in the frantic last days of bargaining.

Algeria's diplomatic triumph sent a surge of national pride throughout that country. Taxi drivers honked their horns in tribute to the occasion. Recognizing a foreign journalist on a street in Algiers, one passer-by stopped to say, "It is a great moment for our country." Indeed, Algeria's regime had managed simultaneously to win the gratitude of the U.S. without losing its credibility as a champion of revolutions and a sympathizer with fanatically anti-American Iran.

As early as October 1979, the Algerians were instrumental in setting up an inconclusive meeting between National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and Iran's then Premier Mehdi Bazargan. After the hostages were seized by the militant Iranians, the Tehran government asked Algeria to represent its interests in Washington. Thus a certain logic was involved when Iran, at the urging of Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, last November asked Algerian Foreign Minister Mohammed Ben Yahia to help arrange a hostage deal.

The three intermediaries originally thought of themselves as "postmen," serving only as messengers between Washington and Tehran. But the Algerians quickly moved to a larger and more complex diplomatic role. "The Iranians took a perverted pleasure in raising and dashing our hopes," explained a member of the American negotiating team. "We don't know exactly what the Algerians said, but they refused to be drawn into the Iranian game and eventually made them come to terms." The Algerians deftly avoided becoming guarantors of any final accord despite Iranian pressure to accept the responsibility. "The Iranians were suspicious of everyone and everything," said an Algerian official. Worse, the Iranian negotiators seemed to be confused by the most elementary financial transactions. As a result, the Algerians became financial as well as political advisers to Tehran. All the while, the Algerians were trying to explain to Americans the paranoid psychology of Tehran's revolutionaries.