Review by Choice Review
Considering the impact the 444-day Iranian hostage crisis had on the ill-fated Carter administration, it is only logical that leading figures, from the President on down, have already produced inside accounts. Now the second-echelon participants take their turn. Led by deputy secretary of state Warren Christopher, six individuals who were intimately involved in the complex policy deliberations and negotiations offer their insights and evaluations. International law expert Oscar Schachter and then Senator Abraham Ribicoff provide commentaries. The result is an extremely detailed volume, but one that breaks little new ground and produces few revelations. The reader is struck by Washington's poor intelligence and ethnocentric outlook. Moreover, NSC staffer Gary Sick clearly delineates the assymetrical nature of the respective perceptions of national interests which, the contributors collectively argue, dictated against a military response. The abortive rescue mission thus receives little attention compared to the comprehensive recapitulation of the ``economic miniwar'' between the US and Iran. Albeit with reservations, these officials, mostly lawyers, favor Carter's ``grind-them-down'' rather than ``clobber-them approach'' to problem solving (p. 98). General and academic audiences, community college through graduate.-R.H. Immerman, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Six insiders review US government handling of the Iranian hostage crisis--concluding that 1) the hostages were held as long, and only as long, as they were useful in consolidating Khomeini's Islamic revolution; 2) the US government, in the dark on these matters, did about as well as it could with the combination of secret negotiations (through French and Argentinian contacts, West German banks, Tunisian intermediaries), economic sanctions, and military threats--with the reservations that Carter might better have downplayed his role and shifted crisis-management from the National Security Council to a small task force (as was eventually done). In the introductory remarks by Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who conducted the successful negotiations, in the account of the crisis and diplomatic responses to it by State Department official Harold Saunders, head of the Iran Working Group, and in the military perspective provided by NSC Iran-advisor Gary Sick (whose own, full-length report is reviewed below), the difficulties at each turn are laid out in detail. Fundamentally (Sick): ""It was an uneven contest""--Khomeini had only to hold the hostages to gain his ends (he didn't need to execute or even try them), while the US could not risk war to free them (though it could, and did, stop talk of execution by threatening reprisals). Economic sanctions--evaluated by Treasury Department officials Harold Carswell and Richard D. Davis--probably ""did have a considerable, albeit delayed, impact, but perhaps not a decisive one."" (American allies did not impose effective trade sanctions, and nonallied states imposed none at all Blocking Iranian dollar accounts was possible because of US banks' extraterritorial reach--but could put the banks at competitive disadvantage.) In any case, ""the bankers' channel""--described by Citibank attorney John E. Hoffman, Jr.--not only kept negotiations open, but played an unsuspectedly major role in bringing about a settlement. This, indeed, is the book's chief revelation. External commentaries are provided by Columbia U. scholar Oscar Schachter, on the international law implications, and political alder Abraham Ribicoff, on the domestic ramifications. (Ribicoff seconds Christopher on the benefits of a task force.) Allowing for some self-interest, the assembled testimonies do demonstrate to can-do Americans the limits of precipitate action. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
