Operation Eagle Claw

In 1980, after nearly six months of failed diplomatic negotiations for American hostages held at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran, U.S. president Jimmy Carter approved a military rescue. This mission, known as Operation Eagle Claw, failed in its first stages but profoundly influenced the military structure of Special Operations Forces.

On November 4, 1979, a crowd of about 500 militant students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 66 Americans hostage. The siege came two weeks after Carter had allowed the former Shah of Iran, who was deposed during the Iranian revolution in 1978, into the United States for cancer treatment. Iran's new fundamentalist leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, called for the United States to return the Shah, as well as for the end of Western influences in Iran.

By mid-November, 13 women and African Americans had been freed; however, the remaining 53 hostages waited out months of failed negotiations. At the time, U.S. military forces, though trained for a possible conventional war with the Soviet Union, were [Page 274]ill prepared for a terrorist siege. Carter, inexperienced in foreign affairs, relied on Zbigniew Brzezinski, his national security adviser, who favored force, and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who favored diplomacy, to shape his foreign policy. When diplomacy failed on April 16, 1980, Carter approved a military rescue operation.

Three branches of the service—Army, Air Force, and Marines—were to be involved in the rescue. The two-day plan called for helicopters and C-130 Air Force planes to land 250 miles from Tehran on a salt flat in the Dasht-e-Kavir desert (code named Desert One), where the helicopters would refuel from the C-130s and pick up combat troops. The helicopters would then transport troops to the mountain location from which the actual rescue mission would launch the following night. Starting on April 19, forces were deployed throughout Oman and the Arabian Sea; on April 24, Operation Eagle Claw began.

Eight Navy helicopters left the U.S.S. Nimitz just after 7 P.M. En route, two helicopters experienced mechanical failure and could not continue; the entire group was hindered by a low-level dust storm (haboob) that reduced visibility to one mile. Six helicopters landed at Desert One just after 1 A.M., more than 90 minutes late. There, another helicopter was deemed unfit for service and the mission, which could not be accomplished with only five helicopters, was aborted. As the forces were leaving, a helicopter collided with a C-130 and exploded, destroying both and killing five members of the Air Force, three of the Marines. Remaining personnel were quickly evacuated by plane, leaving several helicopters, equipment, weapons, maps, and the dead behind. Iranian intelligence discovered this material, which led to the near-capture of other Special Operations Forces on the ground in Tehran.

Operation Eagle Claw led to a transformation of U.S. military internal operating procedures. After investigations concluded that the weaknesses of Operation Eagle Claw arose from lack of coordination between the military services, evidenced, in part, by compartmentalized training and inadequate equipment maintenance, the military embraced the “joint doctrine” under which it currently operates. Operation Eagle Claw also inspired a rebirth of the Special Operations Forces, including the development of elite counterterrorism forces such as SEAL Team Six.