November 15, 2004
Links to video and audio footage elsewhere on the Web
The Iran Hostage Crisis
[The sites linked to below are not affiliated with The Atlantic Monthly, and we have no control over their availability.]
Video: Captives and the Failed Rescue Mission
A one minute streaming video of the hostages playing shell games and exercising after a year in captivity, pictures of the charred wreckage of the failed rescue
mission and of body bags of the soldiers who were killed.
Video: Crash
After the failed April rescue mission, the military secretly modified a huge C-130 Hercules, adding rockets so that it could take off and land in little more than its own length and carry 150 passengers. This site shows a video of the first modified prototype crashing on the runway. (Scroll to the bottom of the page to the heading "Operation 'Credible Sport'" for the video and information about the aircraft.)
Audio: President Carter
Listen to Carter's speech about the failed rescue attempt. (Requires Quicktime and Internet Explorer for the PC.)
Sketched Recreations
A link to the general site for sketch artist Freda Reiter. After the Iranian hostages were released, Reiter recreated many of the events of the hostage crisis
with two-hundred drawings. Her sketches, some of which are based on the hostages' recollections, include images of the hostages
surrounded at the gates to the US Embassy, pictures of the Ayatollah Khomeni, Carter, and
Members of Congress praying for the release of the hostages, and the Iranian negotiator
Ghotzbadah conferencing with a cleric aid to the Ayatollah Khomeni. (An index of links to the hostage crisis images can be found midway down the page, under the heading "Iran Hostage Affair 1979.")
