The Desert One Debacle

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...

I think I figured out why you would call one of our most famous commandos, and the creator of the worlds most elite Special Forces unit (Delta) a moron. See below

Sorry Display: To this day, the Delta commandos hold a grudge against the
Marine helicopter pilots. "If you're going to do these kinds of things, you
better have the right cuts of cloth in pilots," Beckwith says. "If you ask
me would I do it again with that crowd, the answer would be absolutely no."
According to other sources close to Delta, the pilots did not acquit
themselves well in training. They had no appreciation for secrecy; they
called their wives over open phone lines and left codes lying around. One
source called the final dress rehearsal in March 1980 "the sorriest display
of professionalism I've ever seen." According to this source, when the
helicopters rehearsed the nighttime landing at Desert Two, they set down as
much as a mile apart.
Whatever the case, the actual mission quickly went wrong. Flying into Iran
from the carrier U.S.S. Nimitz, one helicopter went down and another lost
its way in a dust storm and returned to the carrier. A third reached Desert
One but was found to have an irreparable malfunction. Already so late that
he could not reach Desert Two before first light, Beckwith was left with
five choppers and an operational plan that said he needed six. In addition,
some of the pilots were badly shaken by the ordeal of flying six hours
through swiriing dust. According to Beckwith, the pilot of the first
helicopter to arrive at Desert One told him that if they had any sense they
would abandon their choppers in the desert and fly home. The pilot of the
second chopper to arrive got out of his aircraft and staggered 200 yards out
into the desert. When Beckwith and his men caught up with him, he said, "You
have no idea what I've just been through." Chargin' Chariie later told
friends that he was so angry he nearly drew his pistol on the commander of
the helicopter pilots.

The aircraft went through Diego Garcia, not Naples.

Some of the helos went by way of Diego Garcia but the Nimitz picked up some H-53s in Naples before it left after the Christmas holidays. Nimitz then sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and was on station shortly after that. Nimitz was at sea for 144 days, most of it waiting for the 'go' orders for the mission. After that it sailed back around the Cape and to it's home port of Norfolk.

I was on the Nimitz for that operation.

The article says that Cyrus Vance, the Secretary of State, had submitted his resignation in protest the day of the planned rescue attempt, even before it failed. I don't know the circumstances behind this, but how can a man abandon his President in a time of crisis? Are their other circumstances I don't know about? I am seriously asking, as I don't want to badmouth a man without knowing.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.