On Wings of Eagles (31 page)

    National Medical Council and a friend of Shahpour Bakhtiar, and when

    Bakhtiar had become Prime Minister he had called his friend Razmara, in

    Paris and asked him to come home to be Minister of Health.

    The EDS file was handed to him by Dr. Emrani, the Deputy Minister in chap

    of Social Security. Emrani had survived the two changes of government: he

    had been here when the trouble had stated.

    Razmara read the file with mounting anger. The EDS project was insane. The

    basic contract price was forty-eight million dollars, with escalators

    taking it up to a possible ninety million. Razmara recalled that Iran had

    twelve thousand working doctors to serve a population of thirty-two

    million, and that there were sixty-four thousand villages without tap

    water; and he concluded that whoever had signed the deal with EDS were

    fools or traitors, or both. How could they possibly justify spending

    millions on computers when the people lacked the fundamental necessities of

    public health like clean water? There could only be one explanation: they

    had been bribed.

    Well, they would suffer. Emrain had prepared this dossier for the special

    court that prosecuted corrupt civil servants. Three people were in jail:

    former Minister Dr. Sheikholeslan-iizadeh, and two of his Deputy ministers,

    Reza Neghabat and Nih Arame. That was as it should be. The blame for the

    mess they were in should fall primarily on Iranians. However, the Americans

    were also culpable. American businessmen and their government had

    encouraged the Shah in his mad schemes, and had taken their profits: now

    they must suffer. Furthermore, according to the, file, EDS had been

    spectacularly incompetent: the computers were not yet working, after two

    and a half years, yet the automation pvject had so disrupted Emrani's

    department that the old-fashioned systems were not working either, with the

    result that Emrani could not monitor his department's expenditure. This was

    a principal cause of the Ministry's overspending its budget, the file said.

Razmara noted that the U.S. Embassy was protesting about

190 Ken Folleu

the jailing of the two Americans, Chiapparone and Gaylord, because there was

no evidence against them. That was typical of the Americans. Of course there

was no proof- bribes were not paid by check. Ile Embassy was also concerned

for the safety of the two prisoners. Razmara found this ironic. He was

concerned for his safety. Each day when he went to the offee he wondered

whether he would come home alive.

    He closed the file. He had no sympathy for EDS or its jailed executives.

    Even if he had wanted to have them released, he would not have been able

    to, he reflected. The anti-American mood of the people was rising to fever

    pitch. The government of which Razmara was a part, the Bakhtiar regime, had

    been installed by the Shah and was therefore widely suspected of being

    pro-American. With the country in such turmoil, any Minister who concerned

    himself with the welfare of a couple of greedy American capitalist lackeys

    would be sacked if not lynched---and quite rightly. Razmara turned his

    attention to more important matters.

    The next day his secretary said: "Mr. Young, of the American company EDS,

    is here asking to see you, Minister."

    The arrogance of the Americans was infuriating. Razmara said: "Repeat to

    him the message I gave you yesterday-then give him five minutes to get off

    the premises."

    14

For Bill, the big problem was time.

    He was different from Paul. For Paul--restless, aggressive, strong-willed,

    ambitiou"e worst of being in jail was the helplessness. Bill was more

    placid by nature: He accepted that there was nothing to do but pray, so he

    prayed. (He did not wear his religion on his sleeve: he did his praying

    late at night, before going to sleep, or early in the morning before the

    others woke up.) What got to Bill was the excruciating slowness with which

    time passed. A day in the real world-a day of solving problems, making

    decisions, taking phone calls, and attending meetings-was no time at all:

    a day in jail was endless. Bill devised a formula for conversion of real

    time to jail time.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 191

    Real Time Jail Time

    I second I minute

    I minute I hour

    I hour I day

    1 week I month

    1 month I year

Time took on this new dimension for Bill after two or three weeks in jail,

when he realized there was going to be no quick solution to the problem.

Unlike a convicted criniinal, he had not been sentenced to ninety days or

five years, so he could gain no cowdort from scratching a calendar on the

wall as a countdown to freedom. It made no difference how many days had

passed: his remaining time in jail was indefinite, therefore endless.

    Fhs Persian cellmates did not seem to feel this way. It was a revealing

    cultural contrast: the Americans, trained to get fast results, were

    tortured by suspense; the Iranians were content to wait forfardah,

    tomorrow, next week, sometime, eventuallyjust as they had been in business.

    Nevertheless, as the Shah's grip weakened, Bill thought he saw sips of

    desperation in some of them, and he came to mistrust them. He was careful

    not to tell them who was in town from Dallas or what progress was being

    made in the negotiations for his release: he was afraid that, clutching at

    straws, they would have tried to trade information to the guards.

    He was becoming a well-adjusted jailbird. He learned to ignore dirt and

    bugs, and he got used to cold, starchy, unappetizing food. He learned to

    live within a small, clearly defined personal boundary, the prisoner's

    "turf." He stayed active.

    He found ways to fill the endless days. He read books, taught Paul chess,

    exercised in the hall, talked to the Iranians to get every word of the

    radio and TV news, and prayed. He made a minutely detailed survey of the

    jail, measuring the cells and the corridors and drawing plans and sketches.

    He kept a diary, recording every trivial event of jail life, plus

    everything his visitors told him and all the news. He used initials instead

    of names and sometimes put in invented incidents or altered versions of

    real incidents, so that if the diary were confiscated or read by the

    authorities it would confuse them.

    Like prisoners everywhere, he looked forward to visitors as eagerly as a

    child waiting for Christmas. The EDS people brought decent food, warm

    clothing, new books, and letters from home.

192 Ken Folleu

One day Keane Taylor brought a picture of Bill's six-year-old son,

Christopher, standing in front of the Christmas tree. Seeing his little boy,

even in a photograph, gave Bill strength: a powerful reminder of what he had

to hope for, it renewed his resolve to hang on and not despair.

    Bill wrote letters to Emily and gave them to Keane, who would read them to

    her over the phone. Bill had known Keane for ten years, and they were quite

    close--they had lived together after the evacuation. Bill knew that Keane

    was not as insensitive as his reputation would indicate-half of that was an

    act-but still it was embarrassing to write "I love you" knowing that Keane

    would be reading it. Bill got over the embarrassment, because he wanted

    very badly to tell Emily and the children how much he loved them, just in

    case he never got another chance to say it in person. The letters were like

    those written by pilots on the eve of a dangerous mission.

    The most important gift brought by the visitors was news. The all-too-brief

    meetings in the low building across the courtyard were spent discussing the

    various efforts being made to get Paul and Bill out. It seemed to Bill that

    time was the key factor. Sooner or later, one approach or another had to

    work. Unfortunately, as time passed, Iran went downhill. The forces of the

    revolution were gaining momentum. Would EDS get Paul and Bill out before

    the whole country exploded?

    It was increasingly dangerous for the EDS people to come to the south of

    the city, where the jail was. Paul and Bill never knew when the next visit

    would come, or whether there would be a next visit. As four days went by,

    then five, Bin would wonder whether all the others had gone back to the

    United States and left him and Paul belund. Considering that the bad was

    impossibly high, and the streets of Tehran impossibly dangerous, might they

    all give up Paul and Bill as a lost cause? They niight be forced, against

    their wills, to leave in order to save their own fives. Bill recalled the

    American withdrawal from Vietnam, with the last Embassy officials being

    lifted off the roofs by helicopter, and he could imagine the scene repeated

    at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

    He was occasionally reassured by a visit from an Embassy official. They,

    too, were taking a risk in coming, but they never brought any hard news

    about government efforts to help Paul and Bill, and Bill came to the

    conclusion that the State Department was inept.

    ON WINGS OF EAGLES 193

    Visits from Dr. Houman, their Iranian attorney, were at first highly

    encouraging; but then Bill realized that in typically Iranian fashion

    Hournan was promising much and producing little. The fiasco of the meeting

    with Dadgar was desperately depressing. It was frightening to see how

    easily Dadgar outmaneuvered Houman, and how determined Dadgar was to keep

    Paul and Bill jailed. Bill had not slept that night.

    When he thought about the bail he found it staggering. No one had ever paid

    that much ransom, anywhere in the world. He recalled news stories about

    American businessmen kidnapped in South America and held for a million or

    two million dollars. (They were usually killed.) Other kidnappings, of

    millionaires, politicians, and celebrities, had involved demands for three

    or four million-never thirteen. No one would pay that much for Paul and

    Bill.

    Besides, even that much money would not buy them the right to leave the

    country. They would probably be kept under house arrest in Tehran-while the

    mobs took over. Bail sometimes seemed more like a trap than a way of

    escape. It was a catch-22.

    The whole experience was a lesson in values. Bill learned that he could do

    without his fine house, his cars, fancy food, and clean clothes. It was no

    big deal to be living in a dirty room with bugs crawling across the walls.

    Everything he had in life had been stripped away, and he discovered that

    the only thing he cared about was his family. When you got right down to

    it, that was all that really counted: Emily, Vicki, Jackie, Jenny, and

    Chris.

    Coburn's visit had cheered him a little. Seeing Jay in that big down coat

    and woolen hat, with a growth of red beard on his chin, Bill had guessed

    that he was not in Tehran to work through legal channels. Coburn had spent

    most of the visit with Paul, and if Paul had learned more, he had not

    passed it on to Bill. Bill was content: he would find out as soon as he

    needed to know.

    But the day after Coburn's visit there was bad news. On January 16 the Shah

    left Iran.

    The television set in the hall of the jail was switched on, exceptionally,

    in the afternoon; and Paul and Bill, with all the other prisoners, watched

    the little ceremony in the Imperial Pavilion at Mehrabad Airport. There was

    the Shah, with his wife, three of his four children, his mother-in-law, and

    a crowd of courtiers. There, to see them off, was Prime Minister Shahpour

194 Ken Folleu

Bakhtiar, and a crowd of generals. Bakhtiar kissed the Shah's hand, and the

royal party went out to the airplane.

    The Ministry people in the jail were gloomy: most of them had been friends,

    of one kind or another, with the royal family or its immediate circle. Now

    their patrons were leaving. It meant, at the very least, that they had to

    resign themselves to a long stay in jail. Bill felt that the Shah had taken

    with him the last chance of a pro-American outcome in Iran. Now there would

    be more chaos and confusion, more danger to all Americans in Tehranand less

    chance of a swift release for Paul and Bill.

    Soon after the television showed the Shah's jet rising into the sky, Bill

    began to hear a background noise, like a distant crowd, from outside the

    jail. The noise quickly grew to a pandemonium of shouting and cheering and

    hooting of homs. The TV showed the source of the noise: a crowd of hundreds

    of thousands of Iranians was surging through the streets, yelling: "Shah