Nov. 5, 1979
Iran mob seizes U.S. Embassy, staffers
The Associated Press
A mob of Iranian students overran U.S. Marine guards on a three-hour struggle yesterday and invaded the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, seizing dozens of staff members as hostages, Tehran Radio reported. They demanded that the United States send the exiled shah back to Iran for trial, the radio said.
No serious injuries were reported. Tehran Radio said as many as 100 hostages were being held, but an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said he believed it was fewer than 45 ─ about 35 Americans and seven or eight Iranians.
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The spokesman, reached in Tehran by telephone from New York, said an estimated 200 or 300 students were involved.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Jack Touhy said it was estimated 59 persons were being held captive, and there was no firm evidence the invaders were armed. He said a State Department working group was set up to monitor the situation and added that the U.S. government would have no immediate comment on the demand that the shah be returned to Iran.
White House spokesman Alan Raymond reported in Washington that President Carter, spending the weekend at the Camp David retreat, was in contact with his national-security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance and Defense Secretary Harold Brown.
The Tehran Radio broadcasts, monitored in London, said the embassy's Marine guards hurled tear-gas canisters but were unable to hold back the students. None of the broadcasts mentioned any weapons besides the tear gas.
Japan's Kyodo news service reported from Tehran that the invaders called a news conference in the embassy compound, and a sweater-clad man in his mid-20s told reporters, "We will continue to stay here and won't release any of the hostages until the United States returns the ousted shah, which is what the Iranian people want."
There were reports that the hostages were blindfolded and handcuffed. The Foreign Ministry spokesman denied this, saying the embassy takeover was "a very peaceful exercise. They are dealing with them very nicely."
But television film broadcast in some Western countries showed a few hostages, blindfolded and either bound or handcuffed, in front of an embassy building.
Asked if the students were armed, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said only he had heard no reports that they were. He said a Scandinavian ambassador in Tehran would act as a mediator "to try to convince the students to get out of the compound." He reported an Iranian Moslem religious leader also was trying to talk the invaders into leaving.
The spokesman, who asked not to be named, said he was unsure of the identities of the two mediators.
