Butler's Cinema Scene

Wreckage of U.S. aircraft in wake of failed Iran hostage rescue

“DESERT ONE” My rating: B

107 minutes | No MPAA rating

A demoralizing bit of recent American history comes vividly to life in “Desert One,”  Oscar-winner Barbara Kopple’s richly detailed retelling of this country’s failed attempt in 1979 to rescue our citizens being held hostage by the new revolutionary Irani regime.

To say that Kopple has cast a wide net in researching this story is an understatement. Giving first-person testimony are not only Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale (then the U.S. president and vice-president) and members of the commando team that undertook the mission, but also Iranis who guarded the American prisoners, the hostages themselves, surviving family members of the men who died in the effort, and journalists like Ted Koppel who covered the event.

The actual raid doesn’t begin until nearly 40 minutes into the documentary. Kopple wisely spends much time explaining (or rather, having others explain…there’s no narration) the tortuous history of U.S.-Iran relations, our propping up of the dictatorial rule of the Shah of Iran and his long reign of terror waged against his country’s dissidents.

The revolt by Islamic fundamentalists is harrowingly recreated through vintage news footage and the testimony of the then-young Marine guarding the gate of the U.S. Embassy when the hordes descended upon it.

The life of the hostages is described in sometimes uncomfortable detail.  One American recalls having his hands cuffed in front of him for weeks at a time, which meant that after defecating he could not clean himself. And despite Irani claims that the prisoners were being treated humanely, there’s that notorious midnight episode in which prisoners were stripped to their underwear and led to a yard where they faced a mock firing squad. (Throughout the doc, Kopple employs animated sequences to depict scenes for which there is no archival footage.)

The hostage crisis stymied President Jimmy Carter, who was rebuffed in his efforts to negotiate with the Irani.  He reluctantly gave the OK to plan a rescue.  Specially skilled fighters from all areas of the military were chosen to train for the raid. Some may have been gung ho about the whole business; one fighter now says he never thought they could pull it off: “Too many moving parts.”

Indeed, this was a hugely ambitious and somewhat improbable effort.  A half dozen helicopters from American warships would fly into the Irani desert at night to meet two transport planes filled with fighters. They would then drive to Tehran, attack the prison, blow a hole in the wall to allow the hostages to escape, then regroup in a nearby sports stadium where U.S. ‘copters would lift them out.

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.  Two choppers ran into a desert dust storm and returned to their ship.  The landing site was close to a rarely traveled road which — wouldn’t you know it? — was uncharacteristically busy that night.  The Americans soon found themselves babysitting (at gunpoint) a bus chartered by an extended Irani family (great testimony from a passenger who was only a child at the time).

Jimmy Carter, Ayatollah Khomeini

Even more disheartening was the truck the Americans fired upon — turned out it was a gasoline tanker that went up like a July Fourth display, announcing for miles around that something was happening out in the boonies.

One of the helicopters that did make it to the site developed mechanical problems and was unable to continue. Even worse, a copter collided with a transport plane on the ground, creating yet another massive blaze that killed eight Americans.

Realizing the flames would burn for hours, the Americans aborted the mission, reluctantly leaving behind the bodies of comrades in the seething wreckage. (The corpses were returned months later.)

The repercussions in the U.S. were almost instantly fatal to the Carter presidency.  Footage of charred American corpses being abused by Revolutionary Guards incensed the American public.  Ronald Reagan, Carter’s Republican opponent in that year’s presidential election, used the failed raid as an example of Democratic incompetence on the world stage.

Carter plunged ahead with more diplomatic efforts, and in fact in the last days of his presidency came to an agreement with Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini for the release of the hostages in return for unfreezing Iranian assets held abroad.

But in a final slap to the “great Satan,”  Khomeini delayed freeing the prisoners until after Reagan had taken the oath of office,  further humiliating Carter and allowing Reagan to maintain the charade that he, not Carter, was responsible for the hostages’ return.

In fact, it has long been argued that President-elect Reagan connived with Iran to deliberately delay the hostages’ flight out of Tehran until he was in charge, thus adding months to their imprisonment. In the documentary several of the former hostages say that while they cannot prove that is true, they assume it is.

In one of the film’s eerier moments, Kopple’s camera visits the fatal site, where the hulks of burned-out American warplanes have become a sort of playground for Irani children. A mosque has been erected nearby to permanently celebrate the foiling of the imperialist military intervention.

| Robert W. Butler