NCJ Number
77843
Date Published
1980
Length
243 pages
Annotation
Testimony before House Subcommittees on International Operations and on Asian and Pacific Affairs covers the sequence of events in recent terrorist attacks and the official U.S. response involving U.S. embassies in Iran and Afghanistan, as well as general consideration of security procedures for American embassies.
Abstract
Appropriate State Department officials presented information on the chronology of the attack on the American embassy in Tehran, Iran on February 14, 1979. The State Department's crisis management structure and techniques were discussed not only for the embassy takeover but also for the evacuation of Americans from Iran beginning with heightened revolutionary activity in August 1978. Events in the kidnapping and killing of the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, the Honorable Adolph Dubs, on February 14, 1979 were also chronicled by a State Department witness. Crisis management details associated with this terrorist attack were also discussed. Testimony also covered the protection of U.S. diplomatic and other governmental personnel serving overseas, the security of U.S. embassies and other American installations overseas, and the safeguarding of vital national security information held overseas. Current security policies were examined in detail, and witnesses were encouraged to propose recommendations for improving the security of American facilities and personnel overseas. Material submitted for the record includes guidelines for crisis management and a list of all significant international terrorist incidents from 1970 through March 31, 1979. Appended are a chronology of seizures of diplomatic missions from 1970 through February 28, 1980; questions submitted in writing to the State Department and responses to them; a chronology of events in Islamabad, Pakistan on November 21, 1979; and the after-action report of the attack on the U.S. embassy, Islamabad, November 21, 1979.