On this episode, AccuWeather Founder & Executive Chairman Dr. Joel N. Myers and AccuWeather Network Chief Meteorologist Bernie Rayno discuss how weather played a major role in a 1979 daring desert mission to rescue American hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
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00:00Welcome to Invisible Iceberg, I'm Bernie Raynaud.
00:05On today's show, Dr. Joe Myers and I discuss how weather played a major role in a 1979
00:11daring desert mission to rescue American hostages at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
00:17Plus, what effect did this mission have on American politics?
00:21It's one of the questions we answer in our segment, What If?
00:25And we'll explain the butterfly effect and why some believe the desert sandstorm that
00:30prevented the hostages from being rescued also changed the balance of power in the United
00:36States for decades to come.
00:38It all starts now on Invisible Iceberg.
00:44The availability of peaceful measures, like the patience of the American people, is running
00:51out.
00:52The American hostages must be freed.
00:54The Iranian hostage crisis was a crucial moment in Jimmy Carter's presidency.
00:59In 1979, a group of armed Iranian students rushed into the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking
01:05over 60 Americans hostage.
01:08A daring military rescue mission was planned, but how did the weather threat in the desert
01:14cause this mission to fail?
01:16It's one of the fascinating stories in the book, Invisible Iceberg, When Climate and
01:20Weather Shaped History.
01:23Joining me now to help us understand how weather and other factors thwarted the attempted rescue
01:29is Ackua, the founder and executive chairman and author of the book, Invisible Iceberg,
01:33When Climate and Weather Shaped History, Dr. Joel Myers.
01:37Dr. Joel, thanks for joining us today.
01:39My pleasure.
01:40Glad to be here.
01:41All right.
01:42November 4th, 1979, what happened?
01:46What happened is that's when these students stormed the American embassy and took 66 hostages.
01:54The Shah of Iran was in the United States being treated for cancer.
01:58This was the chance, they thought, to overturn the government, and there was a revolution.
02:03That's when the Iranian revolution occurred, and as part of it, since the U.S. government
02:09backed the Shah, they took the Americans hostage, captured the entire embassy.
02:15And this started a long crisis that lasted for 444 days.
02:20After a while, it became clear that negotiations were not going to work.
02:25Well, there was no progress.
02:26There was no progress.
02:27Yeah.
02:28What happened then?
02:29What did we decide to do?
02:30Well, apparently, the Carter administration, working with the military, planned for a daring
02:35rescue to land helicopters on the embassy grounds and recapture the embassy, get the
02:46hostages and take them out.
02:48That was the plan, but it failed miserably.
02:50Was weather part of the planning operation?
02:53So there are sandstorms.
02:55Iran, and particularly Tehran, is in a desert, and one of the weather conditions in a desert
03:01are sandstorms, and they're often triggered, they're called a haboob, and they're often
03:06triggered by downbursts from thunderstorms.
03:08You know, thunderstorms develop, and part of it, the rain comes down, sometimes hail,
03:14and with it, cold air, and then it spreads out.
03:17You have air coming down and spreading out, wind gusts of 20, 30, 40, even up to 50, 60
03:23miles an hour, it picks up the sand, it's all dry, and creates this haboob, which is
03:28a sandstorm.
03:29The probability can fall to zero.
03:32So you have to avoid these storms, you have to know where the thunderstorms are and so
03:35on, and you also have to have equipment that's able to function with all the sand going into
03:41the gears and the motors and so on.
03:44It seems like none of that was planned for properly.
03:46I maintain that they could have used surveillance, satellite views, high-level airplane reconnaissance
03:54to look at the weather patterns, look for where the thunderstorms were, which the downbursts
04:00were causing the haboobs.
04:03They probably could have come in from a different direction and avoided them.
04:07They just didn't use all the information available.
04:10It wasn't very well planned.
04:11The equipment failed.
04:12The weather was a big problem, and it was a disaster.
04:16What does climatology say in the country of Iran when they get these sandstorms?
04:22Yeah, the haboobs are most common in thunderstorms, as you might expect in the summer, in June,
04:29July, August.
04:30And the season starts to ramp up in late March, April and May.
04:35They tried to rescue in late April.
04:38They would have less of a problem with sandstorms if they had gone a couple of months earlier
04:42or waited even to the fall.
04:44But President Carter had to rescue the hostages because if he was going to be reelected, he
04:52knew he had to get the hostages out.
04:54The election was only six months away, seven months away when he tried the rescue.
04:59If he waited until, you know, September, October, it was more risky.
05:05So I think politics played some role.
05:08Once it failed, the comments within the administration privately is, we just lost the election.
05:14And he was right.
05:15And that ushered a new era in American politics for the United States.
05:21We're going to get to that in a second.
05:23Here with more insight on the Iranian hostage crisis is Colonel Bill Butler.
05:27He's the acting president at the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus,
05:33Ohio.
05:34Thanks for joining us today, Colonel Butler.
05:36Thank you for having me.
05:37What a great opportunity.
05:39How did Operation Eagle Claw begin?
05:42Two days after the Americans were seized, planning began.
05:45It was a very complex plan that involved Navy ships and Navy aircraft, Marine pilots
05:52and involved Delta operators from Delta Force.
05:57It involved a small contingent of special forces from a 10th Special Forces Group in
06:04Europe.
06:05It involved Army Rangers and then it involved U.S. Air Force pilots piloting those aircrafts.
06:12Let's get into how the rescue would end up working.
06:15Yeah, so three weeks before the operation was to take place, U.S. Air Force Combat Controller
06:23went into the airfield.
06:24It was a dry lake bed and did an assessment on the lake bed to make sure that it could
06:32handle the load of the aircraft on the lake bed.
06:35And it was fine.
06:37In that intervening three-week period, a sandstorm came through and it had angle-deep, dust-like
06:43talc sand that was across the whole lake bed.
06:47So when those aircraft came in to land, you know, of course, you can imagine from the
06:51prop wash from the C-130s and from the helicopters, just this tremendous brownout, these conditions
07:00that the pilots can't see.
07:03And you've got aircraft landed all over this lake bed and then you've got to reposition
07:08the helicopters so that they can refuel because they were already at their max legs and fuel
07:15consumption was pretty bad.
07:18And then when the helicopters flying from the Nimitz into the lake bed, two of them
07:23experienced mechanical issues, a hydraulic issue and a cracked rotor blade.
07:27So they had to return to the USS Nimitz.
07:29And then another one, there's a sandstorm in between the Nimitz and Desert One.
07:35They experienced sand getting into the engine, so they had to turn around too.
07:40So now they're down from eight helicopters to five operational and they needed six to
07:46do, that was the men forced to do six, have six helicopters to do the operation.
07:51You were talking about the sandstorms.
07:53Was that a consideration for planning the rescue?
07:59As part of that terrain assessment, a weather is included in that, but you have to think,
08:04you know, it was 44 years ago.
08:06We didn't have the access, the Doppler radar and, you know, computerized models and, you
08:13know, the systems that we have today to accurately predict the weather.
08:17Then what happened after the operation was aborted?
08:21One of the helicopters crashed, correct?
08:23Yeah.
08:24So they made the decision to recommend to abort the mission.
08:27The president approved the recommendation of the commanders on the ground to abort,
08:33and they still needed to refuel the helicopters to get the troops and the equipment out of
08:39Desert One.
08:41So as they're repositioning the helicopters to get to the EC-130s that had the fuel blivets
08:46inside, you know, like I said, that fine talc dust that was on the lake bed, as one of the
08:54helicopters moved up to reposition, he was under the control of a U.S. Air Force combat
08:59controller.
09:01That combat controller was physically directing the aircraft, and he had flashlights directing
09:06them.
09:07As he was moving back to, you know, direct the helicopter, the helicopter pilot didn't
09:14realize that he was moving back.
09:17He thought that the helicopter was drifting.
09:20So as he's moving forward in brownout conditions, you can only see these ambient lights and
09:25these glows from the flashlights that were directing him.
09:28He didn't realize that the Air Force C-130 was right there.
09:32So as he's moving forward, thinking he's drifting back, he runs right into one of the tail booms
09:38of one of the C-130s.
09:40And so the air crew on the helicopter, the whole crew is either burned horrifically or
09:49killed, and then the crew on the C-130 are killed as well.
09:54How did this mission change future joint special operations?
09:58We didn't have a special operations command.
10:00We didn't have a joint special operations command.
10:02We didn't have integration with units.
10:05We didn't have a clear line of delineation of the chain of command who was in charge.
10:11So you had multiple commanders on the ground.
10:13So it really created, because of this failure, as tragic as it was, it enabled the United
10:20States military to then assess itself, to determine what we needed to do to be successful
10:26in the event that we had another terrorist attack, if you will, on United States sovereignty,
10:34to the degree that it was going to be this complex, somewhere around the world.
10:39So the fallout of that was the creation of the United States Special Operations Command.
10:43Colonel Bill Butler, acting president at the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus,
10:49Ohio.
10:50Thanks for joining us.
11:04Welcome back to Invisible Iceberg.
11:05I'm Bernie Raynaud.
11:06It's time for our segment.
11:08What if we're looking at how the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis may have helped Ronald Reagan
11:15win the White House.
11:16Joining me again is Acuwe, the founder and executive chairman and author of the book
11:20Invisible Iceberg, When Climate and Weather Shaped History, Dr. Joel Myers.
11:26Before we get into the what if, I want to go back.
11:30When you heard about how all of this unfolded with the dust storms and the tragedy, what
11:37were your thoughts?
11:38And I have to ask, what would have happened if Acuweather was consulted?
11:43Beforehand, I assume.
11:46Yeah, well, I was obviously, as a normal American, was watching Nightline and was concerned about
11:52the whole situation.
11:54I think the idea of attempting to rescue the hostages was the right thing.
12:00But if Acuweather had been consulted, of course, you could only judge us with hindsight,
12:08second guessing.
12:09But I would have made sure that we used all this surveillance above with satellites, with
12:17the high flying planes, and looking at the weather situation and making sure the meteorologists
12:22who were in on the mission, and I don't know who they were, for the Air Force or whatever,
12:27certainly had all the latest information, because the risk, and I don't know if they
12:32really considered it, was these HABOOBS.
12:36I don't know if they had experience forecasting for that area or not, but we know in that
12:40part of the world, HABOOBS are the biggest threat, and these sandstorms, visibility
12:45to zero, they really cause serious problems, particularly helicopters, and clearly they
12:53were not prepared.
12:54Either they didn't come from the right direction, or they weren't, that was not the time to
12:59do it.
13:00Yeah, and you mentioned the time of the year.
13:01Time of the year.
13:02The risk factor, right?
13:03And the weather pattern, I mean, clearly, this was not a good weather pattern to try
13:08and do that.
13:09Well, let's get into this.
13:11What impact do you think the failed mission had on the election?
13:16Well, I think historians are quite clear that Jimmy Carter lost the election.
13:24He might have lost anyway, his popularity was declining, but clearly when the mission
13:29failed, Carter was a one-term president, he was running for a second term, Reagan, Ronald
13:37Reagan was running against him, Ronald Reagan won handily, and so it really changed from
13:45a Democratic administration to a Republican administration, and very different policies.
13:51Ronald Reagan was in favor of smaller government, less spending, a strong military, and he implemented
14:01all those policies.
14:03The Soviet Union collapsed and fell apart during his period, that was part of his goal.
14:09The economy, after two recessions, he worked with Volcker, who was chair of the Federal
14:15Reserve, to engineer two recessions to take the inflation out of the economy.
14:21People forget, when Jimmy Carter was president, inflation got up to 20%.
14:26We today talk about inflation at 5, 6, 7, how damaging it is.
14:30Think about that period when inflation was up to 20%, mortgage rates went over 20, you
14:36had to pay 21% interest on a mortgage for your home.
14:40It was crazy.
14:41And so all this, you know, countered against, so between Paul Volcker and Ronald Reagan
14:47cooperating, two recessions, they squeezed all the inflation out of the economy, and
14:54bonds, the long-term bond interest rates went from 17%, started their long decline to when
14:59they just recently bottomed out, you know, at a couple percent.
15:04You're talking about some of the accomplishments that Ronald Reagan had.
15:09Was that one of his greatest accomplishments, or were there others during that period that
15:14you can remember?
15:15Well, certainly the economy was a big success, shrinking the size of government, winning
15:24the Cold War.
15:25I mean, these were major achievements, obviously, and it set the pattern for the country.
15:31We had Republican administrations right through 2008, so for the next 28 years, with the exception
15:39of eight years with Bill Clinton.
15:42But Clinton was a fiscal conservative.
15:45He was.
15:46Some say he actually balanced the budget a couple of times, so he was more like a Republican.
15:52So we had 28 years of fiscal conservative government.
15:57This is going to be a tough question, but I'm going to ask it anyway.
16:00I want you to think about it here.
16:02What if the rescue mission would have been successful, that it turned out we got our
16:08hostages back?
16:10What do you think would have happened?
16:11It's a tough question.
16:13It is a tough question, and nobody knows the answer.
16:15We can just speculate, of course.
16:17But if Jimmy Carter had won re-election, the country obviously would have gone in a different
16:24direction.
16:25I don't know who knows how or why, but most people agree Carter was not a strong president.
16:31He was not always as articulate, certainly, as Ronald Reagan, who had been a movie actor
16:37and was very articulate in saying what he wanted and what he stood for.
16:44You know, it's interesting.
16:45It's just another example how one event, one domino that falls in a certain direction changes
16:51the whole outcome, doesn't it?
16:53It does.
16:55Certainly it did, and there's been very little talk about what caused it, but this failed
17:01rescue attempt, which was because of the weather, really had a tremendous impact on the politics
17:09and the direction of the United States of America for decades to come.
17:14It's just a fascinating story and a what-if how things could have been different.
17:19I want to thank Ackie with the founder and executive chairman and author of the book
17:23Invisible Iceberg, Dr. Joel Myers, again, Invisible Iceberg, when climate and weather
17:28shaped history, for joining us today.
17:31My pleasure, as always.
17:32All right, coming up next, we dive into the butterfly effect and look at how it ties into
17:38the weather phenomenon known as teleconnections.
17:42We'll be back after the break.
18:04Welcome back to Invisible Iceberg.
18:06I'm Bernie Rainow.
18:07After the failure of Operation Eagle Claw, a series of events followed that changed the
18:12balance of power in the United States and the world that would influence economics and
18:17politics for decades into the future.
18:20One can hypothesize that this series of events is similar to the butterfly effect.
18:25This theory was created by Edward Lorenz.
18:28He postulated that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the planet can set off
18:34a series of atmospheric factors that will change the weather somewhere else on the
18:39planet days or weeks later.
18:41Now while a butterfly flapping its wings cannot change the weather, the principle of this
18:45theory is correct as the weather across the globe is interconnected.
18:51In meteorology, we call these relationships teleconnections.
18:54Simply put, the weather in one part of the world can influence the weather in another
18:58part of the globe.
19:00Now an example of this is a piece of string, a simple piece of string that if you pull
19:06downwards you'll get a ripple effect moving downstream.
19:10These ripples in the atmosphere are disturbances in the jet stream, a fast moving river of
19:15air about six miles above the ground.
19:18One of the most well-known teleconnections pertains to typhoons in the Western Pacific.
19:23A typhoon that recurves or moves north-northeast of Japan often results in a dip in the jet
19:29stream along the eastern United States eight to ten days later.
19:33These dips result in significant cooling and at times precipitation.
19:37This change in the weather across the eastern U.S. all due to a typhoon's movement thousands
19:42of miles to the west.
19:44That's our show for today.
19:46For more information and get your copy of the book, Invisible Iceberg, When Climate
19:51and Weather Shaped History by Dr. Joel Myers, go to InvisibleIceberg.com.
19:56We look forward to seeing you next time.