33 years have passed since the end of Operation Eagle's Claw, but, alas, much is still unclear in this confusing story.
The drama in Tehran began on November 4, 1979. A crowd of 400 people, claiming to be members of the Organization of Muslim Students - Followers of the Course of Imam Khomeini, attacked the US diplomatic mission. The embassy officials turned to the Iranian police for help, which, incidentally, did not deploy their usual guard detachment at the embassy that day. However, these requests remained unanswered. After a couple of hours, the attackers managed to crush 13 American Marines who were throwing tear gas grenades into the crowd. The embassy was seized, and the organizers of the attack publicly stated that the action was taken in protest against the United States granting asylum to the former Iranian Shah and to thwart the plots of US imperialism and international Zionism against the "Islamic revolution" in Iran. The students demanded that the Shah be extradited to be brought to a revolutionary trial.
Numerous rallies and demonstrations were held in the area of the American embassy until late at night, at which the state flags of the United States and Israel were burned.
Iranian television and radio broadcasted the storming of the embassy and the rallies that followed it all day. The statements of various religious, political and public organizations of Iran in support of the undertaken action, an endless stream of telegrams and messages from various groups of the population and individual citizens were broadcast.
The invaders freed 14 people from propaganda purposes: non-US citizens, blacks and women. 52 people remained in captivity of students.
From the very beginning it was clear to everyone that this was a well-thought-out multi-step action by the radical Iranian clergy.
In the mid-1950s, the Iranian government and the SAVAK secret service completely fell under American control.
At the end of the 1970s, a paradoxical situation developed in Iran - there was rapid economic growth, the country's army and navy occupied first place in the Middle East, SAVAK provided the appearance of stability and popular love for the Shah, and, nevertheless, the regime was heading for ruin.
On September 7, 1978, riots broke out in the streets of Tehran.
It is noteworthy that the fight against the Shah was led by the Shiite clergy. In October - November 1978, the strike movement covered both state and private enterprises. The strikes were well organized: they started simultaneously at all or almost all enterprises of the same industry or industrial group. Thus, the workers of the Behshahr Industrial Group (forty production facilities) began to strike at the same time. The strike of the oil workers of the Khuzestan province was supported by the workers of all the oil and gas enterprises of the country. And since the economy and finances of Iran by this time were kept mainly on the "oil pipe", the strike led the country to chaos.
On January 16, 1979, Shah Mohammed Reze Pahlavi and Shahine Ferah departed for Tehran's Mehrabad airport. "I am going on vacation," the shah said to those who accompanied them, "because I feel very tired."
Two weeks later, on February 1, 80 thousand residents of the country came to the unprecedented mass service. The believers were waiting for the messenger of Allah.
A Boeing 747 airliner of Air France, flying from Paris to Tehran, has already appeared in the air. On board was the Grand Ayatollah with his retinue of 50 assistants and associates, accompanied by 150 journalists.
At the Mehrabad airport, the Ayatollah was greeted by the human sea, chanting “Allah is great! The shah is gone, the imam has come! From that moment on, Khomeini became the main political figure in the country.
On February 5, 1979, Khomeini declared the illegality of the government of Sh. Bakhtiyar and appointed Mehdi Bazargan the head of the provisional revolutionary government. It was the Ayatollah's tactically correct move. Mehdi Bazargan, 73, received an engineering degree in Paris. At one time he was an associate of Mossadegh and one of the prominent figures of the National Front. The Shah's secret police threw him in prison four times. Bazargan enjoyed the support of both the liberals and the left.
At the same time, supporters of Khomeini and activists of left-wing radicals - “people's mujahideen” and fedayeen - began to create armed detachments.
Needless to say, Khomeini considered the government of Bargazan to be transitional on the way to transferring power to the radical clergy.
One of the important points in the government's disagreement with the Revolutionary Council was the issue of relations with the United States. President J. Carter and the US State Department were extremely unhappy with the fall of the Shah’s regime, but at first they acted with extreme caution. So, they managed to negotiate with the new Iranian authorities on the evacuation of the 7,000 US citizens remaining in Iran, and most importantly, the unhindered removal of American electronic reconnaissance equipment installed under the Shah's regime along the Soviet border.
However, the Americans refused to supply new batches of weapons requested by the Iranian government, including destroyers (and in fact, missile-carrying cruisers), ordered under the Shah, without inviting military advisers and experts from the United States.
On October 21, the US administration notified the Iranian government that the Shah was being granted a temporary visa for hospitalization in the United States, and the next day, the Rockefeller concern arranged for the Shah to fly to New York, where he was admitted to a clinic. This gave Khomeini's supporters an excuse for decisive action. They decided to kill two birds with one stone - to put pressure on the United States and remove the government of Bazargan.
After the seizure of the embassy, the US State Department expressed "concern", to which the Bazargan government replied that it would "make every effort to satisfactorily resolve the problem" and release the diplomatic mission staff.
However, Bazargan and his government were powerless to do anything to free the hostages, and on November 6, Tehran radio broadcast a petition from the prime minister to Khomeini to resign. Ayatollah immediately complied with Bazargan's request, and the radio broadcast Khomeini's decree accepting the resignation and transferring all state affairs to the Islamic Revolutionary Council, which was entrusted with the preparation of a referendum on the "Islamic constitution", presidential and Majlis elections, as well as conducting a "revolutionary, decisive purge" in the state apparatus. … The implementation of these measures was the main content of the "second revolution", the victory of which, according to Khomeini, should have benefited "the inhabitants of huts, not palaces."
Thus, having organized the seizure of the embassy, Khomeini's supporters, using the anti-American sentiments of the entire population of Iran, created new state structures.
In December 1979, a popular referendum was held to approve the "Islamic constitution." In January 1980, presidential elections were held, and in March - May of the same year, parliament was elected. In August - September, a new, permanent government was created.
In response to the embassy seizure, President Carter froze Iranian accounts in American banks, announced an embargo on Iranian oil (despite the energy crisis), announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Iran, and introduced a full economic embargo against Iran. All Iranian diplomats were ordered to leave the United States within 24 hours.
Since both sides clearly did not intend to make concessions, Carter tried to resolve the political crisis by other means. An American reconnaissance aircraft was sent to Iran, which infiltrated Iranian airspace unnoticed and even flew over Tehran.
As a result, US President Jimmy Carter agreed to conduct a military operation to free the hostages in Tehran. According to media reports, the operation was originally called "Rice Pot", and later - "Eagle Claw".
According to the plan, the capture group on April 24 was supposed to secretly penetrate into Iranian territory on six C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft. Three of them were supposed to take on board the fighters of the "Delta", and the other three - rubber containers with aviation kerosene for refueling helicopters at a refueling point with the code name "Desert-1", which was located about 200 miles (370 km) southeast Tehran. On the same night, eight RH-53 D Sea Stallion helicopters were to take off from the aircraft carrier Nimitz and, flying in a parallel course in four pairs, half an hour after the planes landed at Desert 1.
After disembarking the Delta fighters and refueling the helicopters, the Hercules were to return to the departure airfield on Masira Island off the coast of Oman, and the helicopters were to deliver the Delta fighters to a pre-designated shelter in the waiting area near Tehran, which was two hours away. and then fly to another point, 90 km from the shelter of the Delta fighters, and remain there under camouflage nets for the next day.
On the evening of April 25, the US CIA agents who had been dropped in Iran in advance were to transport 118 Delta fighters, accompanied by two former Iranian generals, through the streets of Tehran and to the US Embassy in six Mercedes trucks. Towards midnight, the group was supposed to start storming the embassy building: to get close to the windows along the outer walls, get inside, "neutralize" the guards and free the hostages. Then it was planned to call helicopters by radio to evacuate the participants in the operation and former hostages either directly from the embassy or from a nearby football field. Two AS-1 ZON fire support planes, hovering over the embassy, would support them with fire in case the Iranians tried to interfere with the departure of the helicopters.
In the pre-dawn haze of the early morning of April 26, helicopters with rescuers and rescuers were supposed to fly 65 km southward and land at Manzariye airfield, which by that time would have been in the hands of a company of US Army rangers. From there, the hostages were supposed to be taken home on two C-141 jet transport aircraft, and the rangers were to return on C-130 aircraft.
Before moving on to the course of the operation, I would like to dwell on three of its details. Well, first of all, what caused the choice of the Desert-1 landing site? The fact is that in 1941-1945. there was a British military airfield, later abandoned. This place was chosen by the Yankees carefully, and the later reasoning of their military that they didn’t know that there was a highway nearby were, to put it mildly, frivolous.
A few days before the start of the operation, a twin-engine turboprop passenger aircraft Twin Otter landed at the Pustynya-1 airfield. Its flight range was 1705 km, the capacity was 19–20 passengers. CIA agents, led by Major John Cartney, investigated the airfield for the possibility of landing C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, and also installed light beacons. Beacons were to be activated by radio signals from approaching American aircraft. Note that the details of the Twin Otter flight are kept secret to this day.
The decision to use sea helicopters as "rescue helicopters" was not the most successful one. The command of the temporary combined-arms tactical group opted for the RH-53 D Sea Stallion helicopters due to their high carrying capacity - 2,700 kg more than that of the NN-53 Air Force helicopter. It was also taken into account that the release of minesweeping helicopters from an aircraft carrier on the high seas would not attract attention to the prepared special operation.
However, the crews of the RH-53 D naval helicopters were trained to perform one combat mission: searching for and sweeping sea mines only in the daytime using a large trawl lowered on a towing cable.
The most curious moment is the fire support of the landing. The AS-130 N ("Ganship") had a relatively large firepower: one 105-mm M102 howitzer, one 40-mm automatic cannon "Bofors" and two 20-mm six-barreled M61 "Vulcan" cannons. Note that the latter fired about 5 thousand (!) Rounds per minute.
The crew of the "Gunship" ("Gunboat") - 13 people. All guns fired on one side. As you can see, two AS-130 Ns could effectively fire at a crowd of Iranians, but the slow-moving Hanship is an easy target for the oldest fighter.
As stated, some details leaked to the media suggest that Eagle Claw should be part of a much larger operation involving the US Air Force and Navy. The media published a photo of the Corsair-2 carrier-based attack aircraft of the Nimitz aircraft carrier with characteristic "quick identification" stripes, which were drawn just before the start of Operation Eagle Claw. It is not hard to guess that the Corsairs were supposed to cover the landing from the air. It goes without saying that the carrier-based fighters were supposed to cover the helicopters and "Hercules". Let's not forget that most of the Iranian Air Force personnel backed the Islamists back in February 1979.
During Operation Eagle Claw, the attack aircraft carrier Coral Sea was also found near the aircraft carrier Nimitz at the entrance to the Persian Gulf. Apparently, a joint attack by attack aircraft of both aircraft carriers on Tehran or the Iranian air force bases was planned.
Before the start of Operation Eagle Claw, the C-130 squadron was deployed to Egypt under the pretext of participating in joint exercises. Then they flew to Masira Island (Oman). After refueling, the Hercules squadron crossed the Gulf of Oman in the dark.
The first landing site was poorly chosen. After landing the lead C-130, a bus passed along the sandy road. His driver and about 40 passengers were detained prior to the departure of the Americans. A tank truck loaded with fuel drove up behind the bus, which the American special forces destroyed from grenade launchers. A pillar of flame shot upward, visible from afar. In addition, two helicopters have already been lost, and one returned to the aircraft carrier. The commander of the operation, Colonel Beckwith, decided to end the operation.
And then a disaster struck. One of the helicopters, after refueling, did not calculate the maneuver and crashed into a Hercules refueling tanker. There was a powerful explosion, and both cars turned into torches. All the fuel for the operation was burning. Ammunition exploded. The panic began. It seemed to a group of commandos located not far away that this was an attack by the Iranians. They opened fire indiscriminately. The helicopter pilots, violating the regulations, abandoned their cars and ran to safety. Secret maps, codes, tables, the latest equipment, thousands of dollars and reais remained in the cabins. Colonels Beckwith and Kyle could do nothing. There was only one thing - to get out of here faster. This order followed. Colonel Beckwith ordered to drop everything, board the Hercules and retreat. The chiefs also violated the charter by not eliminating the remaining helicopters. Later, these Sea Stallion served for several years in the Iranian army.
When the Yankees took off, five RH-53 D helicopters remained on the ground. Operation Eagle Claw cost $ 150 million and eight dead pilots.
Later, when the invasion of Iranian territory became public, the Sultan of Oman protested and canceled the treaty with the United States, which allowed its Air Force and Navy to use Masira for their needs.
On May 6, 1980, President Carter ordered a nationwide mourning for the eight "lost boys."
In my opinion, Operation Eagle Claw was doomed to failure under the best of circumstances. Even if Detachment Delta managed to break through to the embassy, well-armed students and nearby army units would have fiercely resisted.
As the American journalist Michael Haas wrote: “Overwhelmed by religious fervor, an Iranian, normally a polite person, turns into a distraught fanatic with little or no fear of death. How else to explain the readiness of Iranian teenagers, driven to a frenzy by the mullahs, to act in the Iranian-Iraqi war as living mine detectors, feeling for mines with bare feet? To a person of Western culture, this seems alien, but, nevertheless, it is one of the main components of Iranian culture."
The bombing of Tehran by American aircraft carrier aircraft would inevitably lead to large casualties among the civilian population. Nevertheless, neither the paratroopers nor the hostages would have been able to leave, but Tehran would have had to agree to an alliance with Moscow.
After the failure of Operation Eagle Claw, US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigned. The Carter administration immediately began preparations for a new military operation to free the hostages, dubbed Badger.
By August 1980, the Badger group was ready to act as soon as it received full information from the CIA about the whereabouts of the hostages. However, neither the command of the operation, nor the White House were satisfied with the incoming information due to their incompleteness, and the consequences of the release of only a part of the Americans were all too obvious to everyone. Not wanting to be ambiguous, the chief of operation, Major General Secord, made it clear to the Chiefs of Staff that the Badger was a hammer and not a needle; casualties among the Iranian population will be enormous.
Operation Badger involved no less than the seizure of Tehran International Airport by at least two battalions of rangers, the rescue of the hostages by the Delta group from the alleged holding sites in Tehran, and the evacuation of the involved troops and hostages by transport aircraft under the cover of deck attack aircraft, which from the beginning and until the end of the operation they had to circle over the city. Even higher above them, F-14 carrier-based fighters were to be on duty to intercept any Iranian aircraft.
As historian Philip D. Chinnery wrote in his book Anytime, Anywhere, more than a hundred aircraft and 4,000 troops would have hit the heart of one of the world's largest cities with a hammer. By comparison, a total of 54 aircraft and helicopters participated in Operation Eagle Claw, the Delta Group of 118 and a company of rangers stationed at the evacuation airfield.
There were no further attempts to rescue the hostages.
The State Department had to switch from carrot to carrot - negotiations began with the Iranian authorities. By the end of January 1981, an Iranian delegation led by Bakhzad Nabawi in Algeria reached an agreement with the United States to release 52 American hostages. Washington has thawed $ 12 billion in Iranian assets. A huge part of this money ($ 4 billion) went to pay off claims of 330 American companies and individuals. Iran agreed to repay its debts to various foreign banks ($ 3.7 billion). So the Iranian government received only $ 2.3 billion "net". 52 American hostages, having survived 444 days of captivity, were released on January 20, 1981, and on a Boeing-727 flew from Mehabad to an American military base in the FRG of Wiesbaden.
The resolution of the American hostage crisis once again proves to us that the political rhetoric of the Iranian and US governments and their practical actions often lie in opposite areas. From the beginning of the "Islamic revolution" in Iran to the present day, all political and clergymen with great zeal have cursed Israel and even called for it to be demolished from the face of the earth. And under the guise of the early 1980s, Israel and "revolutionary" Iran entered into an agreement on the supply of spare parts for American weapons and new military equipment in exchange for providing exit visas to Iranian Jews traveling to Israel.
Further more. In 1985-1986. The United States concludes a secret agreement with the "nest of terrorism" Iran on the sale of large consignments of ultra-modern weapons - the latest versions of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles, TOW anti-tank missiles, etc. The funds received from these transactions were used by the Americans for military aid to the Contras, who fought in Nicaragua against the legally elected Sandinista government. The most curious thing is that the transshipment base for aircraft carrying weapons to Iran was … Israel. It is clear that Israeli diplomats and intelligence officers played the most active role in the Iran-Contra scam.
American officials and the military did not like to think about Operation Eagle Claw. But in 2012, the Americans managed to take revenge. The operation, shamefully lost to the Air Force, the Navy and the Delta Group, was brilliantly won … Hollywood in the film Operation Argo. The fact is that on the day of the storming of the American embassy by Iranian students, six American diplomats took refuge in the Canadian embassy. To help them leave Iran, a CIA agent arrives in the country. Under the guise of the crew of the fantastic film "Argo", the fugitives successfully pass the checkpoints at the Tehran airport and leave the country.
Iran has decided to sue Hollywood for Operation Argo after the film was screened in private in Tehran by cultural officials and film critics. They concluded that the film is a "CIA product", contains anti-Iranian propaganda and distorts historical facts. Masumeh Ebtekar, a member of the Tehran City Council and a participant in the takeover of the American embassy in 1979, claims that the director of the film, Ben Affleck, showed the fury of the Iranians, bloodlust and ignored the fact that most of the participants in the seizure were peaceful students.
And at the beginning of 2013, Tehran decided to strike back and began shooting a feature film called "General Staff" with its version of the events of 1979-1980.
In conclusion, I would like to note that in none of the dozens of foreign and domestic materials related to this operation, I have not found a single trace of the "hand of Moscow". Nevertheless, our sailors were well aware of almost all movements of American ships and especially aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean. We were a great power back then. From 1971 to 1992, there was the 8th operational squadron, the operational zone of which was the Indian Ocean and especially the Persian Gulf.
In 1979-1980, our Project 675 nuclear-powered missile submarines with P-6 missiles and Project 670 and 671 with Amethyst missiles were permanently stationed in the Indian Ocean. They tried to continuously keep American attack aircraft carriers in the missile range.
Our Il-38 anti-submarine aircraft and Tu-95 RC cruise missile guidance aircraft conducted reconnaissance from the airfields in Aden and Ethiopia. Note that in 1980, the IL-38 alone flew on average about 20 sorties over the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf per month. By the way, after the overthrow of the Shah, the Iranian authorities allowed our Il-38 and Tu-95 RCs to fly from Central Asian airfields to the Indian Ocean.
Finally, we must not forget about our reconnaissance satellites and spacecraft US-A and US-P for sea reconnaissance and cruise missile guidance. Our sailors and pilots tracked every attack of the attack aircraft carriers to the borders of Russia at the range of carrier-based aircraft. And, of course, they were aware of all American ventures.
