From inside the door Metrinko bellowed in Farsi, “We just heard on the radio that Khomeini has ordered the Revolutionary Guards to clear the embassy!”
The mob on the stairs wasn’t buying it. Limbert was grabbed and blindfolded. One of the Iranians shouted at the door, “Look, if you don’t come out in fifteen minutes, we are going to shoot both of these people!”
Now Limbert was even more frightened. He judged that this crowd would carry out the threat. He wondered if his colleagues would open the door; he wondered if they should open it. He had volunteered to come out and he had to accept the consequences. He expected this to end badly, for him and for everyone else.
8. Ann, Let Them In
On the other side of the heavy door, Ann Swift was on the line to Washington, while Colonel Chuck Scott, the military liaison officer, and Colonel Tom Schaefer, the defense attaché, were talking to Laingen at the Foreign Ministry, giving him running reports on the situation.
The whole point of holding out on the second floor was to protect personnel and documents until local authorities arrived and restored order. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen. With so many Americans already in the hands of the protesters, and with the threats to kill Golacinski and Limbert, a consensus was emerging that holding out further was pointless. That’s what Laingen told Scott, and when the colonel handed the phone to Swift the chargé said, “Ann, let them in.”
They prepared to open the door. The stash of weapons was carried down to the coms vault, where Bert Moore stepped in and announced, “We’re going to surrender.”
“Mr. Moore, I’ve got more documents to destroy,” Kupke said. “We’ll surrender when we can.”
He had no intention of giving up, although he didn’t say that.
“I’m going to close the door,” Kupke shouted. “Anybody who wants to surrender, leave now.”
All of the embassy staffers and Iranian employees filed out, and as Kupke swung the heavy door shut he saw that his tall friend Bill Belk was among those in the hallway. He thought about holding the door and trying to get his attention, but the marines had begun pulling apart the barricade down the hall. He closed the vault door and locked it.
One of the marines shouted through the main stairwell door, “Do not shoot! We are not armed. We are letting you in.”
Then the door swung open.
Belk felt more disgusted than angry or frightened. He had gone to retrieve more files for the disintegrator, and when he saw that the vault door was shut he knew he was stuck. Why were they surrendering? They had water and some food. Belk figured they could easily have held out for a few days or more, long enough for these yahoos to give up and go away.
But it was too late for that. Protesters swarmed into the corridor, men and women, all young, draped with their Khomeini placards, wet and excited. Some of them were armed. They began to charge off down the hallway but stopped abruptly when one of their leaders raised his hands over his head and bellowed, “We are going to do this in a well-organized way! You will come out one at a time.”
The invaders resumed moving down the hallway, more methodically now, ignoring those seated against the walls and moving instead from room to room. Swift was still on the phone giving Washington a blow-by-blow when an Iranian grabbed it from her hand.
Scott was talking to Mike Howland, who was with Laingen at the Foreign Ministry.
“Surrender with your head held high,” Howland said.
Scott didn’t get to respond. An angry young Iranian grabbed the phone out of his hand.
“Who were you talking to?” he demanded.
“Ayatollah Khomeini,” said Scott. “He told me to tell you all to leave here and let us go.”
The Iranian hit Scott across the face with the back of his hand.
Everyone was herded into the halls. They were ordered to line up single file and their captors started binding their hands and blindfolding them with the prepared strips of white cloth.
Behind the closed door of the vault, standing before the still loudly grinding disintegrator, Kupke watched the surrender on the black-and-white closed-circuit monitor. He saw Iranians running from office to office, carrying out drawers and files. His colleagues, including poor Belk, were being herded out the door. Kupke watched until an Iranian, young and bearded like the rest, peered up curiously at the camera that was mounted outside the vault in the hallway and then removed his jacket and tossed it upward. The screen went blank.
There were eleven others with Kupke in the vault: CIA chief Tom Ahern and his agency communicators Phil Ward, Jerry Miele, and Cort Barnes, Army Sergeant Regan, foreign service officer Steve Lauterbach, two marines, Hermening and Persinger, Air Force Captain Paul Needham, Navy Commander Bob Englemann, and another State Department communicator, Charles Jones. So far, the Iranians didn’t know they were there.
Golacinski was hustled down the stairs and captives were led out the chancery door one by one. Word of the successful storming of the embassy spread throughout the city and soon enraged masses roared outside its walls like some mindless, insatiable, million-throated monster, screaming for American blood. It was as though an impregnable fort had been breached and taken. It was a great victory, a cleansing, an exorcism. A deafening cheer rose as each blindfolded, bound American emerged.
One of the marines who came down the steps asked Golacinski, “What’s going on?”
“Just stay cool,” Golacinski said. “Stay cool.” He said it as much to himself.
As he emerged the crowd chanted joyfully, “Allahuakbar! Allahuakbar!”
After the smoke and tear gas, it was a relief to breathe fresh air. The rain seemed to be coming harder and colder.
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Dave Roeder was led down the staircase, held gently on both sides by young Iranian men. Immediately outside the door they had placed a partly burned American flag, which he was made to walk over on his way out.
The strip of cloth tied tightly around navy Commander Don Sharer’s eyes burned like hell. It felt like it had been soaked in tear gas.
As Morehead Kennedy, the embassy’s chief economics officer, was being led down the stairs, the Iranian who had hold of his arm kept repeating with each step, “Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam…”
Belk was grabbed and blindfolded. His hands were bound with a nylon rope. When the young man tying the rope used a knife to cut off a strip he had inadvertently jabbed Belk with it in the side.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
The tall State Department technician was led down the stairs and out the front door. He towered over his captors, a middle-aged father of two boys back in South Carolina, with longish hair and sideburns wrapped in a cloth blindfold, wearing an open-collared shirt, hands bound in front, surrounded by triumphant students. His captor kept telling him, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,” but with a multitude screaming for his blood it was hard not to feel like he was being led to his death. “We will teach you,” his captors said. “We will bring to you Khomeini’s thoughts.” He was surprised by how gentle they were. In the din he heard camera shutters clicking. Photographs of Belk emerging from the chancery would be transmitted around the world and would become emblematic. He was urging himself to maintain his dignity. If they are going to kill me, then at least I’ll keep my head up. He squared his shoulders and held high his blindfolded head.
Bruce German was convinced that he was being led to his execution. He had been asked before leaving the building if he would make a statement to cameras outside denouncing President Carter.