Tehran's Reluctant Diplomats

Correspondents in Iran sift conflicting signals

Last summer 15 Western journalists, including virtually all those from the U.S., were expelled by Iran's new revolutionary government. After the U.S. embassy in Tehran was seized, the regime welcomed back many of the same correspondents--with a particular goal in mind. Last Thursday the Iranian Ministry of National Guidance invited 200 foreign journalists over for lunch. Acting Foreign Minister Abol Hassan Banisadr made a sugary appeal for more sympathetic coverage of his government's attempts to retrieve the Shah, declaring, "Diplomats cannot solve this problem.

We want to solve it through 'newspaper diplomacy.' Wouldn't you like this to be the first problem solved by journalists?"

Journalists shook their heads in confusion at this latest twist in Iranian press relations. "They're either tossing you out or giving you lunch," mused one. But Bani-sadr's pitch for newspaper diplomacy underlined the crucial and delicate role the press is playing in the confrontation.

With the near total breakdown of communications between the U.S. and Iranian governments, news organizations--especially the television networks--have been burdened with diplomatic duties even more sensitive than the ones they undertook in bringing Egypt's Anwar Sadat face to face with Israel's Menachem Begin two years ago. This time journalists have become conduits for semi-official exchanges, reluctant publicists for Iran, and a valuable source of information for the U.S. Government.

Wrote Washington Post Television Critic Tom Shales: "The Ayatullah Khomeini has the world by the networks."

The most blatant use of television diplomacy occurred last Sunday when Khomeini, who refuses to give official U.S. emissaries the time of day, met separately with network correspondents. The interviews contained his first threat to try the hostages for espionage, and showed how the Iranians manage the news. Playing the ratings game, they reneged on a promised exclusive to the Public Broadcasting Service's Robert MacNeil, who left Iran in a huff after waiting in vain for two days.

The Iranians gave the first and longest audience (an hour) to Mike Wallace of CBS's widely watched 60 Minutes. ABC's Peter Jennings and NBC's John Hart settled for only 15 minutes apiece. All three interviewers had to submit their questions in advance and agree not to transmit their reports until 6:30 p.m. New York time, ideal for broadcast in prime time. Said Barry Lando, Wallace's producer in Iran:

"Khomeini obviously decided it was time to appeal to American public opinion."

However unsatisfactory the television newsmen might have found their interviews, they had a lot less to complain about than their print colleagues. Khomeini is still fuming about his unflattering portrayal in an interview with Italian Journalist Oriana Fallaci published two months ago, and since then he has routinely refused to see representatives of Western journals. Moreover, the embassy takeover has been largely a visual story, dominated by chanting marchers, flag burnings and the like, and opportunities to dig and analyze have been limited. The print journalists have spent much of their time sifting the pronouncements of competing spokesmen. Said one reporter:

"[Former Prime Minister Mehdi] Bazargan says this country has a thousand sher iffs. It also has a thousand voices."

Barred for the most part from the embassy grounds, reporters tried to elicit tid bits from the students guarding the gate; and climbed to the roofs of nearby buildings for a view of the compound. After one such reconnaissance, NBC Correspondent Martin Fletcher and his crew were detained for several hours for "taking secret pictures of the embassy." ABC and CBS finally made it "on campus," as the compound was called, but the students they interviewed spoke so haltingly and solemnly that the results resembled a Saturday Night Live sendup. "A pure propaganda ploy," groused a CBS newsman.

Correspondents spent enervating stretches waiting for hostages to be taken to the airport or for something else to happen. Even more trying was the 8 1/2-hour time difference between Tehran and New York. Says NBC Producer Dina Modianot:

"We work all day for the morning news, and then all night for the evening shows."

The students' occasional news conferences were studies in frustration. At one, a droning student leader was interrupted by a French television reporter: "If you don't allow us to ask some questions, we'll leave." When many newsmen got up to go, the students loosened the format.

For the first four days of the crisis, ABC had "the only American network correspondent on scene in Tehran," as its promotional ads correctly boasted. The network managed to land Bob Dyk, a relatively unknown London-based radio reporter, in the capital as soon as the crisis broke. Fearing their employees would be in danger, CBS and NBC hesitated. They soon realized their mistake, but over the next few days five crews from CBS and three from NBC were turned away at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport. A producer in Iran estimated that each futile entry attempt cost $16,000. ABC's Dyk was later given an on-the-spot promotion to the rank of network TV correspondent, and the ABC World News Tonight ratings jumped by two full Nielsen points, or about 1.5 million households, over the previous two weeks. Moaned a rival producer in Tehran: "They milked it good." The Iranians eventually eased their entry restrictions, and each network soon had more than 20 staff members in Iran. Said CBS Producer Keith Kay: "We used to cover the Viet Nam War with fewer than that."

Shortly after the embassy takeover, correspondents began to feel menaced by the surging crowds, and many bought Iranian-style clothes to blend in. (One hot seller: a Korean-made khaki jacket favored by militant students.) Tensions subsided when Khomeini ordered his countrymen not to harm foreigners, but President Carter's suggestion at midweek that force might be used put correspondents on the spot once again. Back at the Inter Continental Hotel, the informal headquarters for foreign journalists, several Americans conspicuously began sitting with West Germans in the dining room and learning the words to O Canada. Others sang new verses of an old seasonal favorite that was becoming the anthem of the Tehran press corps: Get Me Home for Christmas.

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