October 10-14
Former President Jimmy F Carter marked his 90th birthday last Wednesday with an interview in which he said the one thing he would have handled differently as president was the hostage episode.
Carter suggested Operation Eagle Claw, the failed 1980 attempt to rescue the hostages taken at the US Embassy in Tehran, could have been successful if he had committed one more helicopter to the mission.
“I think I would have been re-elected easily if I had been able to rescue our hostages from the Iranians,” Carter told CNBC Meets. “If I had [sent] one more helicopter, we could have brought out not only the 52 hostages, but also brought out the rescue team, and when that failed, then I think that was the main factor that brought about my failure to be re-elected. So that’s one thing I would change.”
Operation Eagle Claw was aborted after three of the helicopters taking part in the mission broke down in the Iranian desert. The remaining helicopters no longer had the capacity to carry the entire rescue team plus all 52 hostages, and so the effort was abandoned.
Carter also said he believed he would have been re-elected if he took military action against Iran in response to the seizure of the hostages. Though he argued he “could have wiped Iran off the map,” Carter said he thought avoiding war was the “right decision.”
“I could’ve been re-elected if I’d taken military action against Iran, shown that I was strong and resolute and, um, manly and so forth,” said Carter.
“I could have wiped Iran off the map with the weapons that we had. But, in the process, a lot of innocent people would have been killed, probably including the hostages. And so I stood up against all that advice. And then eventually my prayers were answered and every hostage came home safe and free. And so I think I made the right decision in retrospect, but it was not easy at the time.”
