HOSTAGE HORRORS - PBS' CHILLING RECAP OF THE IRANIAN CRISIS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706010002-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 2, 2011
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: January 21, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STnT
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706010002-9
STAT
of the story so as to replay the politics.
may find they want to hear much more
lldtr'the peculiar psychological stresses of im-
pritlopment and isolation than they do about the
shah,`~the negotiations and the Ayatollah I{ho-
meini.
For instance, Marine Sgt. James M. Lopez,
who is the mast frank of all those interviewed, re-
members that a couple of people "cracked" under
'the strain and'~vent slightly crazy," including one
male hostage who occasionalty ran about the
room ranting. There were at least two suicide at-
tempts, it is stated. -And there is a black-comic
note: One of the Iranian guards told h~ prisoners
after months. of incarceration that he was under
such great pressure from his job that he risked a
nerv~oiis breakdown.
Some of the hostages raised eyebrows here
M..
7'~~eviews
Hosta e
~-
H01~1''OI"s
PBS' Chilling Recap
4f the Iranian Crisis
By Tom Shales
Washington Poet Staff Writer
The thought .of reliving the Iranian hos-
tage crisis may be about as repellent as a
thought can get, and yet tonight's PBS
"Frontline" documentary, "Hostage in Iran,"
turns what was an infuriating and humili-
ating ordeal into a riveting emotional thrill-
er. The 90-minute report, at 9 on Channel
26 and on the Maryland Public Television
stations, follows the crisis chronologically
from before the beginning ("Day Minus 14,"
the narrator says) to the end.
Many of those who were hostages are in-
terviewed by unseen reporters, and their
reminiscences are strung together with
news footage of the crisis so it can be fol-
lowedmore or less step by step. Where the
filmmakers erred is in slighting the human
during the siege, they made statements, ,
pro-lranian and anti-U.S, policy, even considering .
the fact that the statements were made under ob-
viousduress. But that unpleasantness is never re-
vived here, even though it might be illuminating
to hear how~those hostages feel about it now.
As the documentary begins, it appears the
chronological preoccupation of the filmmakers is
going to weigh it down. There are some preten-
tious production touches, like fades to black after
"Day 2," "Day 3," "Day 267" and soon. Aiid there
is a tendency to throw in dubiously authentic vi-
sualasides during the hostages' recollections. ff a
man says he was confronted by a mob in the
street, we see a quick shot of a mob in a street,
although it isn't likely that it's the mob in tNe
street that confronted this particular man.
Sometimes these intrusions are probably in-
serted just to cover edits in hostage remarks. But
some are unnecessarily disruptive, and they sug-
gest the filmmakers didn't trust the hostages' de-
scriptions to be compelling enough. They are
compelling enough.
"Hostage in Iran" traffics in negative nostalgia.
Okl faces, old strange-sounding names, come
back as if from the very distant past. How long is
a media generation? Perhaps as long as it takes
for new bad news to supplant old bad news. The
Iranian hostage crisis now seems to have oc-
curred eons ago, and shots of Jimmy Carter as
president have an unreal, maybe even an un-
earthly, cast.
:." We are reminded a in how badl the British
. behav at the be ' nin of the ~risis~' in
eir em assv rve encans who ha es-
~~aped from the terrorists-and how srrand(v Can-
a came tot rescue hel in to smu le
Americans w o remained fr
with alse anadian passports rovided b the
os atte was or uce an irect by a
.~anadian Les Harris). A Thai cook was "an un-
sung hero o tie crisis, according to the nar-
rator; he risked his life to protect the Americans
before they fled to safety.
rriil'i~`+
[~IASHINGTON POST
21 January 1986
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706010002-9
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/02 :CIA-RDP90-009658000706010002-9
There are grim ironies: Carter impotently im-
posed "economic sanctions" as a way of chastising
the Iranians much as Ronald Reagan, supposedly
the bane of world terrorism, world do later
against Qaddafi and Libya. Perhaps the [ranian
crisis should be thought of as the beginning of the
new Terrorist Age. We were shocked by it at
first; later it became practically a way of life. It
became a nightly AI3C News show with Ted Kop-
pel. Perhaps by the year 2000 we alt have been
so numbed by terrorism that we will be shock-
ingly unshockable.
As did the crisis, the da;umentary ends with
homecomings, scenes that still wield a tremen-
dously moving clout. Before they were set free,
the hostages on occasion got to send mess