AP COVERED IT: Iran students seize US Embassy in Tehran

EDITOR’S NOTE: On Nov. 4, 1979, Iranian students overran guards to take over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, starting a 444-day hostage crisis that transfixed America. 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. 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 State Department said in Washington the Iranian government had “given assurances that our people being held are safe and well.” Tehran Radio said the Marines and other “mercenaries” — not further identified — were safe in a room and “No violent action has been taken against them.” An official at the British Embassy, reached by phone from London, said it appeared “as though the hostages are having to spend the night in the basement. State Department spokesman Touhy said the U.S. charge d’affaires in Tehran, Bruce Laingen, and two other American officials were at the Foreign Ministry at the time the embassy was seized, and had contacted Iranian Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi.