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There were times when he was certain the “minimum” sentence
would be carried out. More than once he was placed in front of a
firing squad and blindfolded. Gunfire rang out and men on either
side fell. But he was spared.
The horror is unfathomable, the physical and mental brutality
unimaginable.
“Everybody was writing me off. There was no chance,” he says.
“I can count hundreds of people who were my friends, who were
my colleagues, and they executed them before they got to me.”
The U.S. embassy in Tehran was overrun in November.
Between 50 and 60 American diplomats and citizens were
taken and held as hostages for 444 days. Rug weavers pieced
together shredded embassy documents, incriminating those who
had sought America support for the Shah and leading to more
executions.
“If I had stayed three more months, I would certainly have
been executed,” Fred says.
Clockwise from top left: Demonstrations in the streets during the
Iranian Revolution. Supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s
campaign to oust the Shah prevailed, and the imperial government
collapsed in early 1979. The United States Embassy in Tehran was
overrun Nov. 4, 1979. A pro Shah and imperial family demonstration
in Tabiz, Iran, March or April 1978. Two of the 52 American diplomats
and embassy workers that were taken hostage and held for 444
days. The American landscape was peppered with yellow ribbons
and citizens were updated nightly on the television news as to their
status.
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