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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, January 23, 1981
"Squalid Negotiations"
We might not know for some time, perhaps, the real price paid for the
return of the hostages.
(Some observers, paraphrasing Winston Churchill,
chortled:
"Never have so many paid so much for so few.")
The outgoing Carter administration was adamant in insisting that not a
cent of taxpayer's money would be involved in the initial $8 billion
(out of a possible total of $11.2 billion) transfer; that all that was
being returned was Iran's assets which had been frozen shortly after
the U.S. embassy was stormed; that Iran would have to earmark $5 billion
to pay off bank loans and future litigations.
This is probably not the whole story. The hostages, for example, will
not be able to sue Iran for damages as a result of their 14-month-long
ordeal. Any such suits would instead be covered by the U.S. Treasury.
The New Republic magazine bluntly called the negotiations "squalid" and
said they had been "conducted as if the Iranians were the aggrieved
party." Added TNR, in its lead editorial of January 3-10, 1981 entitled
"Not One Cent for Tribute":
"Ronald Reagan has said, in an off-hand and casual way, about the
captivity of Americans in Tehran what Jimmy Carter should have said,
as a deliberate and calculated statement of U.S. policy, 14 months ago:
We will not pay ransom to secure their release. Carter might then have
added that, unless the hostages were released and released quickly, the
cost to Iran would be unpredictable and incalculable." This the
Iranians understood.
"The mullahs took Jimmy Carter's measure early on and they took it
accurately. When they play cards, they look not at the cards but at
the faces of their opponents. They looked at Jimmy Carter and he
showed them the unmistakable face of servility. His face told them
that they'd run no risk and incur no cost....
"President Carter's words told them, too, quite specifically, that we
would abjure a use of force. And when, months later, he resorted not
to punitive but simply to minimal force aimed at extricating our
hostages, he did so half-heartedly, timidly, as if to doom the act
in advance, which it did."
The Reagan administration is now studying closely the terms, especially
yet unfulfilled aspects of the massive money, gold, and securities swap
arrangement engineered by the Carter administration (including
1,632,000,000 ounces, or 51 tons, of gold, worth $940 million). The
agreement also turns over American claims against the revolutionary
government to an international claims tribunal (where can the U.S. get
justice in this world?).
The Wall Street Journal, in a January 21 editorial, said the agreement
"has the same moral standing as an agreement made with a kidnapper,
that is to say none at all." The editorial advised President Reagan
to examine it carefully and said that "if its unfulfilled parts do not,
on balance, benefit American interests, there should be no hestitation
in renouncing it."
So there still may be some fireworks yet to come.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau