daily^merald
Vol. 82, No. 83
Eugene, Oregon 97403
Wednesday, January 21,1981
‘Welcome back to freedom’
From Associated Press reports
Fifty-two freed American hostages ar
rived in West Germany early today, end
ing a 444-day ordeal as prisoners of
Iranian revolutionaries and a 12-hour
flight from Tehran via Athens and Al
giers.
At a stopover at Algier’s wind-swept
airport, Algerian officials, acting as in
termediaries, formally turned the former
captives over to U S. authorities in a brief
and joyous ceremony.
The Americans, one flashing a V-for
victory sign and another shouting "God
bless America," then flew aboard two
U S. medical evacuation planes to West
Germany for a period of rest and
"decompression” at a U S. Air Force
hospital. The planes bore "Welcome
back to freedom” signs on their doors.
The medevac DC-9s touched down at
the Rhein-Main Air Base near Frankfurt
at 6:45 a m. local time (9:45 a m. PST) on
the last leg of the hostages’ journey from
Tehran — with the next trip to the United
States and home.
They had flown out of Tehran aboard
an Algerian airliner 25 minutes after
Ronald Reagan succeeded Jimmy
Carter as president at noon Tuesday in
inauguration ceremonies in Washington.
And as they were led to the plane, one at
a time, a group of Iran’s revolutionary
guards crowded around, waving their
Hostages arrive in Germany;
Carter to welcome 52 today
fists and chanting, “Death to America!"
and “God is great!”
Ali Abdelaziz, an Algerian protocol
officer who was on the flight from Teh
ran, said when the hostages were safely
aboard the plane “they let their joy ex
plode. They began to shout, to sing."
A cheer rose from hundreds of U S.
military personnel and civilians gathered
at the Rhein-Main base as the freed
hostages left the DC-9s and boarded
buses for the 20-mile trip to the Air Force
hospital at Wiesbaden.
More cheers went up from people
packing the terrace and two balconies of
the three-story hospital as the two buses,
escorted by more than a dozen German
police cruisers and U S. military cars,
entered the driveway. The grinning ex
hostages formed a single line to make
their way through the crowd and entered
the hospital
A delegation led by former Secretary of
State Cyrus Vance, who headed the
State Department when the U S. Em
bassy and hostages were seized on Feb.
4, 1979, and Ambassador Walter Sotes
se! had formed a receiving line to greet
the 52 when they disembarked at the
airfield.
Carter, unable to win the hostage’s
freedom in the closing hours of “his
watch” because of last-minute delays,
was scheduled to fly to Wiesbaden today
as Pres. Reagan s envoy.
"USA, USA, USA” cheered the throng
at the West German air base, with many
people waving small American flags. The
former prisoners had been served an
American dinner of Thanksgiving turkey
on the 1,250-mile flight from Algiers to
Frankfurt.
They had left Tehran at 8:55 p.m. Teh
ran time Tuesday (9:25 a m. PST) and
after a refueling stop in Athens, Greece,
their Algerian Boeing 727 landed in Al
giers about 7Vt hours later. A second
Boeing 727 that carried the Americans'
luggage and a smaller jet with the Alger
ian diplomats who had served as go
betweens in the long and often frustrat
ing negotiations completed the
three-plane mission
Deputy Secretary of State Warren
Christopher, who headed the U S. team
that negotiated the final release
agreement and other American officials
greeted the hostages as they left the
jetliner and went to the Algerian airport's
VIP lounge.
Christopher thanked the Algerian
government for its role as intermediary,
saying, “Today’s events would not be
taking place without the role of your
government.”
In the United States, elated coun
trymen spread the news with pealing
church bells and blaring sirens, and
offered prayers of thanks that the burden
of 444 days in captivity had been lifted
In 95 hectic minutes televised back to
the United States, the freed captives
disembarked from the Algerian craft and
were greeted with hugs and tears, clos
ing the final chapter in a hostage-holding
episode without precedent in modern
diplomatic history
Kathryn Koob and Elizabeth Ann Swift,
the only women hostages, left the aircraft
first in Algiers, each wearing in their hair
a yellow ribbon — a gesture taken from
the song, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round
the Old Oak Tree,” that came to sym
bolize America’s wait for the captives
Next came Bruce Laingen, the charge
d'affaires who had been the top diplomat
at the U S. Embassy in Tehran when it
was seized Nov 4, 1979 The other hos
tages followed in quick succession,
waving and smiling. All looked physically
well.
Inauguration sparks celebrations, scuffles
Photo by Steve Dykes
One local entrepreneur hawked Reagan dartboards outside the EMU Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Ronald
Reagan became President of the
United States on Tuesday, promising
“an era of national renewal” at home
and restraint but never surrender
abroad His inauguration blended the
passage of power with a passage to
freedom for 52 American hostages.
As Jimmy Carter yielded the pre
sidency, Iran yielded at last the captives
it had held for 444 days. And so the
celebration for Reagan, the parade,
pageantry, music, cannon salutes,
became a celebration of their freedom,
too.
At the hour of inauguration, the
promise of freedom had not become
the fact of freedom, and Reagan did not
mention the hostages in the 20-minute
address he directed to “this breed
called Americans," countrymen he de
scribed as the heroes of the land
But the liberation of the captive
Americans was the focus of his last
briefings by Carter, and his first hours
as the 40th president.
And so the announcement the nation
awaited came in his toast to congres
sional leaders at a traditional Capitol
luncheon
"And now to conclude the toast, with
thanks to almighty God, I have been
given a tag line, the get-off line that
everyone wants for the end of a toast or
a speech or anything else
"Some 30 minutes ago, the planes
bearing our prisoners left Iranian air
space and they are now free of Iran So
we can all drink to this one — to all of us
together, doing what we all know we
can do, to make this country what it
should be, what it can be, what it always
has been."
It was the announcement Carter had
waited so long to make himself, but it
came too late for him. So Pres. Reagan
made it, while citizen Carter flew home
to Georgia.
Veteran fires campus crowd
Ron Phillips, a member of the the
University Veterans Association, en
raged a crowd of about 50 students in
the EMU Tuesday by standing on an
American flag while reading anti-war
poetry.
“I’m doing this because today is in
auguration day,” Phillips said. “Today
they put a man in power who stated that
the Vietnam war was a noble cause .”
Phillips’ action brought angry re
sponses from the crowd of students.
"You’re an American!” shouted one
woman. “That flag stands for Amer
ica.”
“I thought it did too," Phillips said
“When I was 19 I went and fought for
it.”
Phillips is a Vietnam veteran
"I don’t care what he’s been
through," the woman told the crowd
“He has no right to stand on our flag ”
The confrontation nearly became
violent when one angry student forced
Phillips off the flag
“He’s not standing on that flag," the
student shouted as he engaged Phillips
in a tug-of-war.
The U S. Navy officer manning a
recruiting table a few feet away from the
demonstration seemed unmoved by the
incident.
“All I can say is I think they have their
right to freedom of speech. I hope they
realize we have the right to free speech,
too,” John Nawrocki said