Posted on 04/20/2006 4:08:59 PM PDT by shoptalk
WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 11, 1980, NOON
The meeting began with Jimmy Carter's announcement: “Gentlemen, I want you to know that I am seriously considering an attempt to rescue the hostages.”
Hamilton Jordan, the White House chief of staff, knew immediately that the president had made a decision. Planning and practice for a rescue mission had been going on in secret for five months, but it had always been regarded as the last resort, and ever since the November 4 embassy takeover, the White House had made every effort to avoid it. As the president launched into a list of detailed questions about how it was to be done, his aides knew he had mentally crossed a line.
Carter had met the takeover in Iran with tremendous restraint, equating the national interest with the well-being of the fifty-three hostages, and his measured response had elicited a great deal of admiration, both at home and abroad. His approval ratings had doubled in the first month of the crisis. But in the following months, restraint had begun to smell like weakness and indecision. Three times in the past five months, carefully negotiated secret settlements had been ditched by the inscrutable Iranian mullahs, and the administration had been made to look more foolish each time. Approval ratings had nose-dived, and even stalwart friends of the administration were demanding action. Jimmy Carter’s formidable patience was badly strained.
And the mission that had originally seemed so preposterous had gradually come to seem feasible. It was a two-day affair with a great many moving parts and very little room for error--one of the most daring thrusts in U.S. military history. It called for a nighttime rendezvous of helicopters and planes at a landing strip in the desert south of Tehran, where the choppers would refuel...
(Excerpt) Read more at iran.theatlantic.com ...
The good side of Desert One was that it gave Charging Charlie a platform to build the current SpecOps community. Without D1 I am not sure we would be as good as we are at SpecOps.
de opresso liber
Absolutely great and so appropriate for this thread!
"When Carter was in, the day count for the captives was above 400. When Reagan was elected, the day count ended. PDQ."
Amazing wasn't it.
Don't forget what a friend of the Sandinistas he was (and probably still is), and every other Latin American commie.
Love the Lillian Carter quote.
Carter never meet a communist mass killer dictator, he didn't love and respect from Castro to the Chia Head in N Korea and of course the Sandinistas.
Carter's greatest mistake was taking the oath of office... all else followed.
Since the Hostage Rescue Mission, I've read just about everything written on the operation. While a SO planner at SOCEUR, I got to speak to many of those involved in the mission.
Col. James Kyle, USAF(ret), used as the title of his book the salutation of the 22nd SAS to the raiders when they landed back in OMAN. It was written on a case of scotch.
"For those who had the guts to try!"
A good thing did eventually come out of the mission - the US Special Operations Command.
When President Bush had a conference call with the commanders of the 9 unified commands on 09/12/01, eight of them gave him operational plans which would have taken months to impliment. Then General Chuck Holland, COMSOCOM,said, "Mr. President, we can have an assessment team on the ground in Uzbekistan in 72 hours."
Which commander do you think the Boss placed his trust in?
Great picture of the people who love Jimmy Carter and are loved by Jimmy.
Or a Nobel Prize Winner in Carter's case.
Do you think he has any idea of his failures? He thinks he's such a 'do gooder'!! Typical liberal.
Reminds me of the pictures Smartass posted last night of McCain hugging the Viet Cong!!
Wow, that's way off.
The aircraft went through Diego Garcia, not Naples.
http://rescueattempt.tripod.com
And Beckwith was a moron who didnt know squat about aircraft. The pilots were almost all Marine with one Navy and one Air Force who qualified the series of tests.
All the Army pilots who tried out for the mission failed. Besides, the Army had no such long range aircraft in their inventory that could have been moved in secret like the RH-53 could have.
No one in Delta died on that mission.
his measured response had elicited a great deal of admiration, both at home and abroad
NOT in my home!
The troubles we face today, can be directly traced back to
this fools bumbling and indecision.
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