The King Is Hostage

I was intimately involved in the counter-terrorism efforts of the Reagan Administration for three years. For me, the most resonant moment of the President’s March 4 “It was all my fault” speech came when he told the American people that he hadn’t started out trading arms for hostages, had had no intention of trading arms for hostages, did not believe at the time that he had traded arms for hostages, and only realized he had done so after being forced by the scandal to review the record. “It’s clear from the [Tower Commission] report,” he explained, “that I let my personal concern for the hostages spill over into the geopolitical strategy of reaching out to Iran. I asked so many questions about the hostages’ welfare that I didn’t ask enough about the specifics of the total Iran plan.” The President who was swept into office in part by Jimmy Carter’s hostage crisis had realized the essential truth of all such situations: When a citizen of the realm is taken, it is always the king who is hostage.

In each year of President Reagan’s first term there were eight to ten terrorist kidnappings of Americans around the world, most of which were resolved by quiet diplomacy or swift counter-terrorist action. What set apart the kidnappings that brought about Iranamok was, first of all, that the effective use of force was nearly impossible. More importantly, the family and friends of the hostages played right into the terrorists’ strategy, making quiet diplomacy almost as difficult as the use of force. Their increasingly public campaign to promote the release of their loved ones prolonged and deepened the crisis both for the Administration and for the hostages themselves.

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E. Arnold

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I was intimately involved in the counter-terrorism efforts of the Reagan Administration for three years. For me, the most resonant moment of the President’s March 4 “It was all my fault” speech came when he told the American people that he hadn’t started out trading arms for hostages, had had no intention of trading arms for hostages, did not believe at the time that he had traded arms for hostages, and only realized he had done so after being forced by the scandal to review the record. “It’s clear from the [Tower Commission] report,” he explained, “that I let my personal concern for the hostages spill over into the geopolitical strategy of reaching out to Iran. I asked so many questions about the hostages’ welfare that I didn’t ask enough about the specifics of the total Iran plan.” The President who was swept into office in part by Jimmy Carter’s hostage crisis had realized the essential truth of all such situations: When a citizen of the realm is taken, it is always the king who is hostage.

In each year of President Reagan’s first term there were eight to ten terrorist kidnappings of Americans around the world, most of which were resolved by quiet diplomacy or swift counter-terrorist action. What set apart the kidnappings that brought about Iranamok was, first of all, that the effective use of force was nearly impossible. More importantly, the family and friends of the hostages played right into the terrorists’ strategy, making quiet diplomacy almost as difficult as the use of force. Their increasingly public campaign to promote the release of their loved ones prolonged and deepened the crisis both for the Administration and for the hostages themselves.