Both he and Metrinko had done a lot of favors for officials in the provisional government, mostly helping them to obtain visas. It was pay-back time. Limbert tried to reach a friend at the prime minister’s office. He got a secretary on the phone, introduced himself hurriedly, and began to explain to her what was going on.
“Oh, Mr. Metrinko!” the woman said, mistaking him for his colleague. “It’s so nice to hear from you! Tell me, are those visas we sent over ready?”
Limbert explained that he was not Mr. Metrinko, and that if she didn’t find him some help soon she could kiss her visa applications good-bye. He explained what was going on at the embassy.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” the woman said dismissively. “We have a relief force of Revolutionary Guards and police on the way over. You have nothing to worry about. In twenty minutes or so they should be there.”
“I’m happy to hear it,” Limbert told her. “I hope what you say is true.”
“All the students want to do is read a declaration that they have, and leave.”
“Fine,” said Limbert. “We have no problem with their reading a declaration. Our concern is that there be no blood shed. We’re glad you have a group on the way. They should get these people off the embassy grounds as soon as possible or something might happen for which we feel your government would be responsible.”
Limbert hung up the phone, and when Swift took a break he got on the phone to Washington and explained to Assistant Secretary of State Harold Saunders what had been promised.
Downstairs, Golacinski was preoccupied with the radio. He knew that the marines he had told to stay at the Bijon Apartments had been captured there, and that those in the small office building off the motor pool, most notably ICA staffers John Graves and Barry Rosen and their staffs, had also been taken. The only hope of restoring order was for the provisional government to act, so his hopes rested with Laingen and Tomseth at the Foreign Ministry. He requested permission from the chargé to send Washington a “flash” message, the highest emergency protocol, and the chargé authorized it.
The wiry young Iranian Golacinski had taken by the arm kept insisting that all he and the others wanted was to stage a sit-in, and that he wanted to speak directly to Laingen. Golacinski relayed this to Howland, but they all agreed that the chargé d’affaires shouldn’t get on the phone with an Iranian protester. Golacinski asked for permission to go outside with the guy and face the crowd himself, acting as a go-between on the radio for Laingen.
“This can’t go on,” he told the young Iranian. “If somebody breaks through these doors we’re going to have to defend ourselves, and people are going to get hurt.”
“We must stop this,” the young man agreed.
“Yes,” said Golacinski.
Laingen told the security chief that he could go out so long as his personal security was assured. There wasn’t much chance of that. Golacinski felt responsible for the embassy staffers who had already fallen into the hands of the demonstrators. He believed somebody had to do something to turn this around, and he wasn’t nicknamed “Bulldog” for nothing. He loped up the staircase to the top floor and told Bert Moore, an administrative consul, about the authorization to send a flash message, and that Laingen had authorized him to go outside. That meant that decisions regarding security inside the embassy, including supervising the marines, were now Moore’s responsibility.
As he went back downstairs, Golacinski got a radio call from Sergeant Lopez at the consulate.
“Sit tight,” he told Lopez. “You have a very secure building. I’m going outside to try and get this thing resolved.”
Upstairs in the chancery’s communications vault monitoring events on the radio, State Department communicator Bill Belk thought Golacinski was nuts. The vault was the embassy’s most sensitive and secure spot, and Belk had been at work since early that morning, downloading messages from the satellite and sorting through them. Being in the vault gave him a sense of distance from the events just downstairs, which were increasingly compelling. He had stepped out to look out a window at the demonstrators, and back in the vault later he heard someone gasp into the radio, “My God, they are in the basement!” Then he heard people shouting, evidently at a marine downstairs, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”; and then “Don’t throw any more tear gas!” It sounded pretty hairy. When he heard that Golacinski was going out he thought, Great, give them a hostage!
Golacinski handed his weapon to Gallegos and removed his flak jacket. He wanted to appear nonthreatening.
“I’ve got to talk to these people,” he said. “I know what’s going on.”
“Al, don’t go out there,” Gallegos said.
“I’ll be all right,” he said.
The security chief had made up his mind. Gallegos followed him and the Iranian back downstairs to the open window. Golacinski sent the Iranian out first and then said to Gallegos, somewhat dramatically, “Cover me,” and climbed out himself.
Hermening, the young marine who was still wearing his blue suit, watched the security chief go out alone with amazement and admiration. He wouldn’t want to go out there for the world. But he had seen Golacinski intervene several times in tense situations and resolve them. That’s what this situation needed.
6. Hostage to Whom? For What?
As soon as he stepped out into the gray drizzle, Golacinski was surrounded. With the wiry Iranian by his side translating, he demanded that everyone leave. Some of the leaders of the crowd quieted the others, which heartened him. They were listening.
His handheld radio crackled with the voice of a State Department communicator upstairs.
“Should we start destroying files?” he asked.
“No, hold off,” Golacinski said. “I think we’re going to get this under control.”
Sergeant Lopez radioed again to say that protesters were now on the consulate roof and were trying to get through windows, so Golacinski began moving in that direction. The crowd tried to stop him.
“Look!” Golacinski complained. “I’ve got to go over there and get that calmed down. You want to help me or not?”
So they all followed him through the rain. He felt like the pied piper, leading a train of placard-wearing demonstrators across the compound, their number swelling as they moved. At the consulate, Golacinski was let inside by Lopez, and they ran upstairs to confer with Morefield.
At the top of the stairs, Lopez moved quickly to deal with a protester who was climbing in through the second-floor bathroom window, having lowered himself from the roof. The marine handed his shotgun to Gary Lee, the senior general services officer.
Lee held it awkwardly. He was not used to guns and couldn’t tell if the safety was on or off.
Lopez popped a tear gas grenade and entered the bathroom with pistol in hand. The intruder saw him approaching and backed out the window, and Lopez flipped the grenade out after him. Then he popped the pin on another grenade, dropped it and closed the bathroom door behind him. He went to work securing the handles to both the men’s and women’s bathrooms from the outside with a length of electrical cord, which he tied to a post between the two doors.
One of the secretaries passed around candy. Invaders were banging hard on the roof, trying to break through, but Lee assured those around him with a smile that the roof was solid concrete. “They’ll never break through,” he said.
Golacinski and Morefield agreed that those trapped in the consulate should choose a moment to head over and take shelter on the second floor of the chancery with everyone else. The security chief then went back outside to lead his growing entourage of Iranians away from the building. His radio crackled to life. Protesters were coming through the chancery basement window again. Golacinski started jogging in that direction with his retinue, which now numbered almost one hundred.