1980: The Iran rescue mission fails

TALK & OPINIONS BY SILVIO CANTO JR.

As we speak, Iranian and US ships are a little too close for comfort around Yemen.    In other words, we’ve been in a “de facto” state of war with Iran for a long time, or since the so called students crashed the US embassy in November 1979.   They took about 50 US diplomats hostage.   

35 years ago today, President Carter approved a rescue mission.   Unfortunately, he addressed the nation early in the morning to tell us what went wrong.  It was a terrible morning:

“On April 24, 1980, an ill-fated military operation to rescue the 52 American hostages held in Tehran ends with eight U.S. servicemen dead and no hostages rescued.”

It was horrible.   The hostages were eventually released a few minutes after President Reagan was sworn in January 1981.

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