27 years ago today:
52 Americans arrived back in the United States today after being held hostage by Iran for 444 days. The hostages were released five days earlier, the same day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th U.S. President.
“The released hostages stepped off ‘Freedom One,’ the jet that brought them home from West Germany, to an explosion of cheers at Stewart Airport and threw themselves into the arms of waiting and weeping relatives,” reported The Post Standard on January 26, 1981. “The hostages were serenaded along the route with ‘God Bless America’, ‘America the Beautiful’ and chants of ‘USA! USA! USA!’ by people teeming behind barricades along the route under trees streaming with yellow ribbons.”
Jimmy Carter admitted to just one mistake throughout the crisis: a failure to use enough helicopters in the rescue attempt.
This BBC article includes interviews with a hostage and a hostage taker. Typically of the Beeb, it’s extremely sympathetic to the hostage-taker, and it’s one of the least angry hostages. An interesting footnote is that his wife is the one who kicked off the ribbon movement:
My wife did [the yellow ribbon] which of course triggered the way in which American people hang up ribbons for all manner of causes.
It’s a symbol, a national symbol in this country of reaching out, of caring for caring for our fellow Americans.
Now the yellow ribbon that was put around the oak tree in my front yard that began this tradition is on permanent display at the library of US Congress.
