The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Iran: Siege Continues

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. It`s been thirteen days since Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took sixty-two hostages, and tonight no resolution appears even remotely in sight. President Carter confirmed to reporters today that there were no encouraging developments in the attempt to free the hostages. The only news that could be considered good was the release late this afternoon of a cook at the embassy, an Italian. Senate majority leader Robert Byrd today forcefully supported the U.S. refusal to surrender the Shah in exchange for the release of the other hostages.

He also said he didn`t blame Americans for throwing rocks and eggs or anything else at Iranian students demonstrating here. "I feel like taking a punch at one myself if I could get to him," he said in an interview with a Charleston, West Virginia, newspaper. It was the strongest statement yet from any high-ranking American official about the situation. It came on a day when the government stepped up its drive to deport Iranian students who are here illegally and investigated last night`s bomb explosion in the baggage compartment of an airliner flying from Chicago to Washington. There were no injuries, but news organizations in Chicago got calls from people identifying themselves as Iranians, taking credit for the bomb. They said it was in protest to the move against Iranian students in this country. Tonight, a weekend`s look at the Iranian situation, paying particular attention to the Iranian leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini. As many of you know, we had planned to broadcast an interview with the Ayatollah tonight. Robert MacNeil was to have conducted it this morning in Iran. But complications arose and the interview did not come off. Robin is still in Iran. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in New York. Charlayne?

CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: Jim, the militant students holding the hostages hardened their terms today. They rejected the idea of having the Shah leave the United States for any country other than Iran. Despite efforts by Foreign Affairs Minister Abolhassan Bani-Sadr to soften the demands, the students said there would be no negotiations until the Shah is extradited. They received encouragement from the largest gathering of supporters since the embassy occupation began. Gavin Hewitt of Viznews filed this report from Tehran.

GAVIN HEWITT, Reporting: The Muslim holy day is celebrated at Tehran University. 100,000 gather to pray and to protest against Americans. They are addressed by Ayatollah Montavere, who delivers his sermon clutching, ironically, an American-made rifle. The women listen in groups separated from their men. The audience includes former Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, who resigned last week in frustration at being unable to govern without the interference of the religious committee. But he and ex-Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi remain committed to the Islamic Revolution.

The Ayatollah said the embassy occupation should continue and that this was the will of the Iranian people. Under militant Islam, religion and politics intertwine, and afterwards the worshippers headed for the American Embassy led by the Revolutionary Guard (unintelligible).

The (unclear) in the ranks of. women who chant anti American slogans, is fanatically (unclear). With the embassy siege in its thirteenth day, the demonstrations, if anything, appear to be growing, and there`s no sign of compromise. Ayatollah Khomeini said today that he would make no further appointments for at least three weeks. Indeed, the students have warned that if the Shah were to go to Mexico, the hostages` position would worsen. There is little opposition in Ayatollah Khomeini`s Iran, but at the Polytechnic the Marxist Fedayeen held a rally. They lent their support to the anti-American occupation but criticized the power of the mullahs.

They are an illegal group and appreciate that they could be easily swept aside by the Islamic revolution, and so they bide their time. Theirs is very much a lone voice.

This is Gavin Hewitt in Tehran.

LEHRER: The Ayatollah Khomeini is the central figure in this drama, and views vary widely on him, his abilities and his power right now. Italian journalist and interviewer Oriana Fallaci spent much time in Iran earlier this fall, particularly with the Ayatollah, and she came away with some definite opinions about the man. Miss Fallaci, is the Ayatollah, in your opinion, firmly in control of matters in Iran right now?

ORIANA FALLACI: I wouldn`t say so. I mean, all the judgment that we can give about this situation are going to change day after day, because everything happens something new or does not happen something new, for which we can become more pessimistic or a little more optimistic.

Of course he has control of the situation in the sense that there is nobody else now in Iran who has his charisma, his power; I mean, he is now in Iran either that he has been built to be that, either that this happened spontaneously. He is what, in a sense, Mao Tse-tung was to the Chinese or Ho Chi Minh to the North Vietnamese, Nasser to the Egyptians. And I would say in our Western way of seeing things also, even Churchill during Second World War.I said there is nobody else of his stature, nobody else that can give a command. But the point is, until what point the Ayatollah Khomeini, when he gives an order, gives an order that is only his, and it is not an order that has been suggested to him by that group of younger people, none of them really just people in the sense that they are not mullahs, they are not ayatollahs, but they are (unclear) people, who are now trying to grab power. I mean, those who have taken or are going to try to take the place of Bazargan and who in the end will take the place of Bazargan. I speak of Bani-Sadr, the man who has now the government in his hands, I speak of Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, the man who is the director of radio and TV in Iran, and about him I will have something to say if you want later.

LEHRER: All right, let me ask you this: the central question, of course, is, could the Ayatollah Khomeini order, if he wanted to, the release of those hostages, and would his orders be followed?

FALLACI: I wonder if this time -- I mean, every day that passes by becomes more difficult, makes more difficult for Khomeini to be obeyed when he will give the orders if he wants to release the hostages. I hope you understand me, because this thing is -- the microphone. That`s okay.

LEH RER: I understand. Go ahead.

FALLACI: You do understand. Now, every day becomes more and more difficult, because the crowds are increasing, and you must realize that they have nothing else to do and nothing else is happening in Tehran. I mean, it`s more or less what I saw when I was there in the middle of September, when school didn`t work, they were closed, factories didn`t work, they were closed, shops were almost always closed; I mean, when Ayatollah Taleghani died the funerals went on for -- they were supposed to last three days -- they went on for four, five, six days; and people had nothing else to do than going into the streets to yell and to make rallies. And now they have their big occasion to do it again. They think of going back to the revolution, you understand what I mean?

LEHRER: Yes. Well, let me ask you this: the strong anti-American feeling that`s demonstrated here in the demonstrators and through the rhetoric of the Ayatollah, is that anti-American feeling emanating from his belief, he has convinced his followers that they should hate America, or is it the other way around, or is it a combination?

FALLACI: No, that`s general. They`re general. I mean, the hate towards the Americans that we see in Khomeini, that he expressed to me very clearly is also in the people. And in this sense, I mean, we must be objective and try to understand why it happens. It happens, we know why, because the Shah was put back on the throne by the Americans; I mean, in 1943 it was CIA who drove the Shah back to power, and since then things have been more and more horrible and the regime of the Shah has been more and more oppressive, authoritarian, oppressive, and they have not forgotten that, you see? So they have some reason to have that hate.

LEHRER: But now it is being used as a unifying factor, would you not agree?

FALLACI: Now there`s been news that -- I mean, there is someone, as I told you when I tried to explain that Khomeini was not alone probably in giving the orders, when he gave orders that were suggested to him, it is very possible that the same people who are suggesting him orders or giving the informations -- because the man is not very well informed; he`s all alone there in Qom and he doesn`t know what happens abroad and in his same country -- they might be the same ones who have, how to say, enlarged this hate for the Americans. I mean, the Americans have become somehow the responsible for all their disgraces, included their incapability of settling things.

LEHRER: I see. All right, thank you. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Now for a different view on some of these matters. For that we go to Lois Beck, professor of anthropology at the University of Utah. Ms. Beck recently returned from Iran after a two-month research project there. Ms. Beck, do you believe that the Ayatollah is in control of events in Iran?

LOIS BECK: I think the Ayatollah is in control of some events. It`s clear that the masses of the people have a considerable role in the course of events as we`ve been seeing them the last fourteen or fifteen days. I think it`s also hard to talk about control for a situation that applies to a country very different than our own. We in the West are primarily seeing now television coverage demonstrations in front of the embassy in Tehran; that looks like a very uncontrolled situation. We`re not seeing what is happening in the rest of the country. So I think it`s clear that Iran is in control in many of its aspects. It`s not fair to judge from the scenes in front of the embassy.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, you speak about throughout the rest of the country. How firm is the Ayatollah Khomeini`s support throughout the country and with what groups is he in firm control?

BECK: Yes; I was able to talk with people from different social classes, of ethnic groups, of religious minorities. I think the mass of the people are very much in support of Khomeini. I would say that the religious minorities, some of the ethnic groups are -- well, were at the time when I was there -- questioning the support that they initially gave him. I think the mass of the people were very pleased that the Shah had left; once they saw the course of the revolution the religious minorities and ethnic groups became less enamored with him.

HUNTER-GAULT: Do you feel that the Ayatollah has any choice but to support the students?

BECK: I think he has a great deal of choice. I think if he were to announce that the siege has ended and that the hostages should be released, I think the students would respond to that.

HUNTER-GAULT: By releasing them?

BECK:I think they would. I think he has a great deal of power in this situation. I think the students -- I don`t know if we should call them students; it`s not quite clear who these people are. They`re young, they`re fairly well organized, and I think they have been supporting Khomeini all along and would continue to do so if he chose to end the occupation.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, what do you think would influence him to change his mind and end the occupation?

BECK: I think if the Shah were sent back to Iran he would change his mind quickly; I think if some restitution in terms of the financial resources that the Shah took out of the country were made, he would change his mind. I think if the -- well, let me stop there.

HUNTER-GAULT: You heard what Miss Fallaci said about the Shah not being in control and the fact that the orders are suggested by a group of non- religious people who would seek to gain power. Do you agree with that? I mean, who does he listen to?

BECK: I think Khomeini fairly well listens to himself and his own notions as to the development of the revolution in the country. It`s hard to tell from this distance how many other people have a great deal of influence over him, but I sense that he is speaking for himself and for the Muslim people. He is not the kind of egocentered, fanatical, crazed man that much of the Western media tries to make out of him. I think he feels that he is doing right and proper in Iran now, in spite of many attitudes to the contrary.

HUNTER-GAULT: Briefly, are his ministers like Bani-Sadr seen by the students as representatives of the Ayatollah?

BECK: That`s another problem. It`s hard to talk about Bani-Sadr. He apparently has the support of much of the population in Iran. Whether the people who are occupying the embassy now are in support of him, I don`t know.

HUNTER-GAULT: Well, he was the one who attempted to soften the demands of the students but they rejected it, and I just wondered if that was any kind of reflection on the Ayatollah or on ...

BECK: I think that just shows a lack of communication between Bani Sadr and the people who are occupying the embassy, in that the students -I`m sorry, I shouldn`t call them students; I`m picking that up from what I hear -- the people who are occupying the embassy have a very clear set of demands that seems to be supported by Khomeini, and there are people like Bani-Sadr and Ghotbzadeh now who are attempting to mediate or moderate the situation. So I don`t think that need indicate a diametrically opposed view between the two units, but simply an attempt by the latter secular people to come to some terms with the situation and end it.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Although the options seem to get more limited with every passing hour, the U.S. Government continues to explore possible ways to arrange a settlement. No U.S. official, as has been the policy since it all began, is willing to discuss these efforts in detail. But one of the people they have consulted is Dean Brown, president of the Middle East Institute here in Washington and a former ambassador to Jordan. Mr. Ambassador, is our government operating under the belief that Khomeini is responsible for what`s happening at that embassy?

DEAN BROWN: Yes. At this moment they`re operating under the belief that Khomeini has approved what has happened, he has absorbed it into his own philosophy; his son was there early in the seizure of the embassy, and I think they think that he is the key decision-maker as to when the release will come.

LEHRER: Do you agree with what we just heard, that if he were to make the decision and order those students to release the hostages they would in fact release the hostages?

BROWN: I think we have a very grave question there, and I wonder if this doesn`t run through Mr. Khomeini`s mind or some of the other people in his immediate entourage as to what the control is. I think what Ms. Beck

was saying when she was saying we`re not quite sure who those people in the embassy are -- I think this is an important thing. Are they students from the university, or do they include members of the Fedayeen group, the leftist groups? Do they include representatives of that mass of unemployed or underemployed youth that have flocked into Tehran in the last few years and who seem to be getting a great deal of enjoyment out of this sort of circus that`s going on?

LEHRER: She also said that the Western news media is making a serious error in portraying the Ayatollah Khomeini as an egocentric, crazed man, I believe was her term. Are they making a mistake, in your opinion?

BROWN: Well, she seems to be perhaps following the example of Andy Young in finding some sort of a sainthood or halo around him. No, I don`t think so. I don`t even think that he fits into what we think of as the character of the Moslem clergy. He seems to be much harsher, a throwback to some sort of ancient age; ascetic, iron-clad, puritannical, really not with us in the twentieth century. I don`t think he`s representative of Islamic clergy at all.

LEHRER: Do you agree with those who say that because of the internal problems he has within the country right now -- and Miss Fallaci mentioned the schools are closed, most of the shops are closed, the factories are closed, a lot of unemployment, the people don`t have anything else to do -- that if there was not this hate for America already there he would have to invent it to maintain his power?

BROWN: Well, when I mentioned circuses before, after all, what rulers have often provided in the past is bread and circuses. He`s providing a constant circus in front of that embassy; the fact the crowds are getting larger every day shows that that`s become the principal entertainment. I think one of the questions that he must be asking himself, or at least some of his more secular, astute, modernized people must be asking, is, are we going to be able to buy the bread? We can`t have just the circuses without food, and jobs eventually. In the meantime, I`d say that`s true, and as this goes on you can feed people on emotions for a while. But sooner or later the question is going to come to people, where are the jobs, where is the housing, where is the food, how are we going to live, how are we going to educate our children? What are we going to do to get back to some sort of normal life?

LEHRER: Mr. Ambassador, are you suggesting that for this matter to be ultimately resolved it`s going to have to take that realization on behalf of the Iranian people for that to come out?

BROWN: No, I hope not, because that could take quite a while. I mean, these kinds of emotions sometimes could run through populations for a long time. Looking at that mob coming down the streets and the ones in uniform sort of took me back to Nuremberg a little bit.

LEHRER: I see. Is his control in jeopardy at all, or would you agree with what we`ve just heard, that the majority of the people are still behind him, at least the mass of the people are?

BROWN: For the moment, yes. What we don`t know -- and this is the great unknown -- is really, in a sense, what is happening outside; what is happening with the other ethnic populations that were mentioned? Remember, Iran is made up of many groups of peoples, many of whom in the past have struggled for some sort of autonomy or local rights. And what`s going on among them right now is hard to say. Maybe it`s all submerged in this sort of mass hysteria that we see going on in Tehran, but maybe also the preparations are being made to split it off. And we really don`t know what`s happening with that secular, almost non-religious left that is strong, which has existed forever -- suppressed by the Shah but now back, moving into the open again.

LEHRER: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Charlayne?

HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Fallaci, what about the point that Ms. Beck made, that the Ayatollah really is in control and if he wanted to release those hostages he but had to speak the words?

FALLACI: Yes. She summarized saying that he only listened to himself. I don`t agree at all. Number one, in order to make his judgments he must have information, so that`s the first step. The first step, you have to consider it very carefully because the man has not informations. The man is closed in that house in Qom, in those two rooms; he never leaves them but for going from there to the ... religious school, what is its name -which is very, very, very near, and...

HUNTER-GAULT: You`re saying he`s totally isolated.

FALLACI: He is isolated, and he only knows what is told to them by the people who go to him and who advise him, and I can tell you who are these people.

HUNTER-GAULT: Let me just get a response from Ms. Beck on that point. Do you agree?

BECK: Well, I think he is isolated more than Western leaders would be, but I still think he is making his own decisions. He has showed himself to be very much in control of his own thoughts over the years that he was in prison and in exile, and I think he continues to do that now. I don`t think he`s greatly under the influence of lots of other people...

FALLACI: He was not in prison, he was in exile only. When he was in exile, he lived exactly the same way, with no contact whatsoever with the rest of the world, and now...

HUNTER-GAULT: Who are you saying are making the decisions, Miss Fallaci?

FALLACI: I`m saying that they are the men, the group of the (unclear) men in the Revolutionary Council. As you know, the Revolutionary Council is secretly composed by around fifteen people, and very few (unclear) people; most of them are mullahs, and two of them are particularly powerful. And they are Bani-Sadr and Ghotbzadeh. Bani-Sadr is the man who has been fighting Bazargan for months; he wanted Bazargan out of the government, and he succeeded.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, what do you say to that, Ms. Beck?

BECK: I would not disagree with that. I know that those two men have been very influential on Khomeini. But again, I would still say that it appears that he is still making up his own mind about things and that Bani Sadr and Ghotbzadeh are more speaking from Khomeini`s wishes than from their own personal views.

FALLACI: I`m saying that he makes his decision over the information that are given to him and the advices that are given to him. Because for instance, he saw me because he was advised by Bani-Sadr and by other people or other Revolutionary Council.

HUNTER-GAULT: Miss Fallaci, what about Ambassador Brown`s point, that the Ayatollah is not representative of the clergy, that he`s a throwback to times gone by?

FALLACI: I don`t know. Maybe the Ambassador knows the Iranian clergy better than I do; I don`t know it at all. I mean, my contacts with them were really, really few. But I would say that he represents them quite well instead.

HUNTER-GAULT: Ms. Beck?

BECK: I would not say he is a throwback to past times. First of all, that would be impossible; I think Khomeini`s very much a response to 1979 conditions, to conditions in which the United States was very influential in a country other than its own, and Khomeini seems to be speaking directly to U.S. interference in Iran. I would also like to add the point that

I think we`re missing when we heard discussions from Ambassador Brown about circus and entertainment and when we heard about what`s been happening now because of the lack of things -- we heard that people were frustrated and didn`t have anything to do and hence were protesting. I think that omits the central issue, which is the fact that the Shah has come to the United States in spite of the assurance of the American government that he would not be allowed in. The fact that he has come back to the United States indicates to the Iranian people that we are again -- meaning the United States -- again supporting him, which is a denial of the revolution in Iran. So no matter what we feel about the revolution in America, to the Iranians we are supporting the Shah and we are denying the revolution, which is why, then, people are in the streets: not because they don`t have anything to do, not because they need entertainment, but because they feel greatly grieved by the situation.

HUNTER-GAULT: All right, thank you. We have to move on. Jim?

LEHRER: Mr. Ambassador?

BROWN: Thinking of this last point, if I used the word "entertainment," it`s a bad one; but I`m using the word "circus" in the sense that it`s historically been used by dictators or other people trying to seize control of a people. That is what you have to do, is you have to keep them -- you have to keep them not amused but bemused. The finding of foreign devils has historically been used by dictatorial people for a long time, and I think we see it here. The foreign devil is the fault. Now, we have become the foreign devil, and yet the Shah was in Mexico all this time and there was no seizure of the Mexican Embassy; perhaps the Mexicans aren`t important enough in the eyes of Khomeini; maybe he harks back to the ancient plot of the Shah. And yet we`re losing sight of what`s really happened here, and that is that an action has taken place in that embassy which has not happened in modern history. I don`t think we can recall anything like this happening since the Boxer Rebellion. But what we have here is a government, if that`s what Mr. Khomeini is, supporting an action which runs totally opposite to the code of conduct that even some of the nastiest nations have accepted over the last hundred years or so. And I think this is what is shocking Americans; and if there is anger at the United States in Iran, I hope that somebody is telling Mr. Khomeini that there`s a growing anger in this country at what he is doing to American citizens who are not responsible for what he is complaining about.

LEHRER: Ms. Beck, do you think somebody`s telling the Ayatollah that?

BECK: I don`t think anyone is telling the Ayatollah that.

LEHRER: Why not? Would you not agree it`s true that that anger is rising, as the Ambassador said?

BECK: Yes, I think the anger in the United States is rising, whether it`s connected to the fact that we are disapproving of his actions or the holding of the hostages or whether it relates to other things like oil and the declining strength of the United States throughout the world. I think it`s a combination of things.

LEHRER: You don`t think the holding of the hostages is responsible for the anger of the American people?

BECK: Oh, clearly the holding of hostages is an atrocious act, and I think there is not much disagreement about that. But I don`t think the American response is solely directed to that; I think there are all sorts of other issues, like oil and so forth.

LEHRER: We have to go. Miss Fallaci, Ms. Beck... FALLACI: Yes, I...

LEHRER: I`m sorry, we have to go; I was just going to say good night to you.

FALLACI: Good night.

LEHRER: Charlayne, good night to you as well.

HUNTER-GAULT: Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Ambassador Brown, thank you. We`ll be back on Monday. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.