I am reading "Guests of the Ayatollah" published 20 years ago. It's about the taking of the American hostages and their captivity. It's well done, and I have learned a bunch of details.
One of the points the author Mark Bowden made was that many of the "students" and subsequent guards and public spokespeople were quite ignorant of the external world and even Iran itself. Their educational system run by the Islamists restricted independent thought and critical thinking and taught very narrowly.
Here's a brief illuminating story involving two hostages and a highly visible woman (Ebtekar) often seen on TV.
[Bill] Daugherty was listening in one night while Ebtekar lectured [Air Force colonel Tom] Schaefer about the inhuman, racist decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
"The Japanese started the war, and we ended it," Schaefer said. "What do you mean, the Japanese started the war?" "The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, so we bombed Hiroshima." "Pearl Harbor? Where's Pearl Harbor?" "Hawaii." Daugherty heard a moment of silence. Then Ebtekar asked, "The Japanese bombed Hawaii?" "Yep," said Schaefer. "They started it, and we ended it." Thus ended the interview.
Here's another brief one you all can appreciate. One of the hostages named Limbert spoke fluent Farsi.
One day a guard asked him to define some English words that he didn't understand. The words were "raghead," "bozo," "motherf***er," and "c*cksucker." Limbert laughed. It warmed his heart. Someplace nearby his captors were still coping with the United States Marine Corps.
The beginning of ABC News' "Nightline". Lasted for maybe 25 years after?
Final paragraph reminds me of the USS Pueblo captives, who (according to a network movie) shot the bird at the camera every time the N Koreans wanted a picture.
N Koreans couldn't understand why the US media wasn't showing that the captives were still alive.
on June 4, 2026, 18:15:17