"Yankee, We've Come to Do You In"

To some, it was the most shocking example yet of the virulent anti-Americanism that has surfaced during Iran's bloody revolution. To others, it was an apt symbol of American inability to influence, much less control, events in this troubled land. Last week, on the day after Ayatullah Khomeini exhorted his followers to lay down their arms, a band of 100 Iranian leftists attacked the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Barrages of machine-gun and automatic-weapons fire raked the compound. Two Marine guards were wounded and an Iranian embassy employee was killed. After two hours of skirmishing, the attackers seized the embassy and took its occupants, including Ambassador William H. Sullivan, as prisoners. It is likely that only the intervention of forces loyal to the Ayatullah, who responded to Sullivan's desperate call for help, prevented even more mayhem.

Anti-American violence has been steadily on the rise in Iran. Last December, an Iranian policeman died while security forces attempted to disperse a mob of demonstrators at the embassy's gates. Just before New Year's Day, dissidents attempted to crash into the compound; they were chased away by tear-gas-firing Marines. Nevertheless, the force of 19 lightly armed Marines at the compound had not been beefed up.

That force proved no match for the invaders, who were later identified by State Department experts as members of the left-wing Cherikhaye Fedaye Khalq (People's Sacrifice Guerrillas). Shortly after 10 a.m., the attackers cut loose with machine guns, pistols and automatic rifles from roof tops across the street. As the first volleys of the surprise attack hit the building, Sullivan and Colonel Leland Holland, the defense attache, took up a position at a command post in Sullivan's second-floor office. The Marine guards, clad in flak jackets and under instructions from Sullivan to refrain from firing back with their shotguns, lay down a cloud of tear gas. Attackers, surging against the locked gate like a human battering ram, burst into the compound. Others scaled the embassy's 12-ft. brick walls. From their posts, the Marines appealed over walkie-talkies to Sullivan (code-named "Cowboy") for permission to use their shotguns. His instructions: "If you need to protect yourselves, you may fire. If you can arrange to surrender, do so."

A squad of invaders crashed into the embassy commissary and disarmed three Marine guards. Sergeant Kenneth Kraus, 22, was wounded in the forehead and eyes by pellets from his own shotgun, which had been taken by one of the leftists. At that, Kraus was lucky. "When they burst in, one of our Iranian employees stepped in front of me," said Kraus from his hospital bed. "He took a machine gun bullet in the chest. I guess he was hurt pretty bad."

Overwhelmed by the assault, 18 Americans trapped in the embassy compound fell hostage to the attackers. They were frisked and paraded around the compound. The Marines among them, who had obeyed Sullivan's order to surrender, were kicked and beaten. Inside the embassy, about 70 staffers and a few other people sought refuge in a corridor outside Sullivan's office while Marines covered their retreat. When the guerrillas burst into the embassy, the group fled to the building's east wing, where the communications equipment was housed. While some of the staffers crowded into the locked communications room, a dozen employees hastily shoved classified papers into burn bags that were thrown into an incinerator. A radio operator used a heavy sledgehammer to pulverize electronic gear and coding machines.

During this frenzied activity, there were touches of black humor. Someone noticed a case of unopened Heineken beer. Deciding it would not be a good idea for alcoholic beverages to be in evidence when the teetotaling Muslims reached the second floor, embassy staffers drank the beer. "Happy Valentine Day," someone quipped. But the joking could not disguise the fear they all felt when the guerrillas marched into their refuge. "Everybody get down," ordered a guerrilla wearing a camouflage jacket and blue work pants. "I thought we were going to die for sure," said Los Angeles Times Correspondent Kenneth Freed, who was among the captives.

Then, just as surprisingly as it had begun, the attack ended. Almost unnoticed by the terrified Americans, a band of commandos wearing armbands with the legend ISLAMIC ARMY entered the room and quietly took over from the attackers. "You are our brothers. Don't worry," they told the Americans, before politely frisking them, escorting them down the stairs to the compound and eventually setting them free. But the rescuers, who had been dispatched to the embassy in response to Sullivan's repeated, desperate phone calls, were not able to fend off the mob that had gathered in the compound. Among others, Ambassador Sullivan was jostled, though not seriously injured, before the pro-Khomeini forces managed to clear the compound.

Photographer Kaveh Golestan, on assignment for TIME, was at the mosque at Tehran University, where a handful of people were reluctantly complying with Khomeini's command to turn in their weapons. Suddenly two Khomeini supporters rushed in announcing: "The U.S. embassy is under attack. Let's go stop it!" A Jeep quickly filled with about ten people and at least that many weapons. Reports Golestan:

The men warned me, "We don't want any photographs," but as the Jeep backed through the crowd, I climbed aboard anyway. One man perched on the hood and fired his rifle into the air to clear the crowds as we careened the wrong way down a one-way street at full speed. As we neared the embassy, we heard a fusillade of shots from machine guns, semiautomatic rifles and pistols. Then came the thump of tear-gas canisters exploding and we were enveloped in a heavy, stinging fog. We jumped off and started crawling on our bellies toward the embassy's main gate, which a crowd was trying to burst through. I was swept into a group of about 15 people, who crashed the lock and surged into the compound. Suddenly several Khomeini men pushed through the crowd and began shooting in the direction of the embassy, apparently at the attackers. A young man with a white headband moving next to me about three feet away pitched to the ground, wounded.

With all the shooting, it was impossible to tell exactly where the bullets came from or who was aiming at whom. Meanwhile, everyone was running for cover, ducking in sewer canals, behind trees and cars. As I ran, I saw someone hoist the wounded man over his shoulders and carry him back out the gate.

Inside the compound, some of the attackers were picking up telephones and randomly dialing numbers. When someone answered, they would shout: "Hey Yankee, we've come to do you in. Tell Carter he's finished." People started fires to disperse the tear gas, but whenever a fire started to get out of hand, there would be shouts of "Don't burn anything. Save it!" All the while, bullets filled the air, ricocheting off the ground and buildings. Then several gunmen stopped firing and yelled to the others: "Stop! Orders from Khomeini."

The Khomeini men soon began to escort the American hostages out of the embassy. Several emerged, guarding an obviously frightened Oriental employee. Some young men and women ran toward the captive and tried to grab him and beat him, but the rescuers lowered their guns and ordered people to leave him alone. Moments later, an American holding a blue sport coat in his hand was escorted from the building. Somebody rushed up behind him and punched him in the head several times before his guardian fended off the assailant by firing shots into the air.

A car screeched to a halt and some Iranian air force officers, along with a harried-looking man, hurried into the compound. Looking worried, he held a bullhorn to his mouth and shouted: "I am a representative of [Prime Minister Mehdi] Bazargan. Don't shoot. Orders from Khomeini." His bullhorn was not working. Almost nobody heard him, but he went on shouting: "This shooting is a conspiracy against Khomeini. Stop shooting. For the honor of the country, please stop."

Then more shots came from the direction of the embassy. Two men carried a stretcher toward an ambulance. On it was the dead body of an Iranian man, apparently an employee of the embassy; the front of his shirt was soaked with blood from a gunshot wound. All the while, Khomeini's people were trying to clear the area of journalists. "This is bad propaganda for the government," said one.

A group of American women stepped out of the embassy in the custody of three heavily armed men. One white-haired, older woman was weeping with fright. A middle-aged woman in blue slacks was quietly talking to her captors, trying to calm herself as much as them. A young blond woman swung her fists angrily in the air to keep everybody away from her.

As I was taking pictures, a tough-looking gunman in a nylon stocking mask carrying an Uzi submachine gun recognized me as someone he had ordered to leave earlier. He swung his machine gun around and sternly motioned me through the gate. I caught a glimpse of Deputy Prime Minister Ibrahim Yazdi being driven into the compound in a blue Mercedes. The agitated look on his face as he surveyed the scene suggested that he was just beginning to realize how difficult the governing of post-revolutionary Iran was going to be.

There were daily rumors of fresh invasion of embassies, prisons, hotels and barracks. In the early days the state radio and TV, dubbed "The Voice of Revolution," recklessly directed Khomeini supporters both real and imagined, where help was thought to be needed. At one point, the swaggering gunmen descended on the Inter-Continental Hotel, where most of the foreign newsmen were staying, and put on a display of guerrilla derring-do. A colleague of Khomeini's chided them by saying, "You're only upsetting the reporters," but minor shootups persisted throughout the day. The leader of the attack on the hotel, a former student who said his name was "Amini," agreed that it was dangerous to have so many armed civilians in the streets. But soon, he added, "they will all run out of ammunition, and when Imam Khomeini gives the word, we will take back the guns."

By the time Khomeini and his advisers realized what was happening, some 300,000 weapons were in civilian hands. In a television appeal Tuesday night, the normally somnolent Ayatullah was visibly agitated and emotional as he asked his countrymen to surrender their weapons. Failing to do so, he declared, was haram (forbidden by their religion). A number of weapons were turned in, but most were not, and fighting continued intermittently. By Thursday, a holiday commemorating the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, the streets of Tehran were free of gun-toting troublemakers. But only until the sun went down. After dark, the sounds of gunfire returned as unidentified rebels fired on various government and private buildings, and sometimes at random, in direct defiance of Khomeini's orders against attacks on people or property.

Meanwhile, the new revolutionary government was acting in an arbitrary manner that seemed at variance with the Ayatullah's previously expressed democratic ideals. After hasty -and private -trials, four officials of the former regime, including the head of the Shah's hated SAVAK secret police and three generals, were executed by firing squad on charges of "torture, massacre of people, treason and earthly corruption."

Twenty-six other former officials were said to be next on the list. Still other former Premiers and armed forces commanders were subjected to televised interrogations that were little better than kangaroo court proceedings. The papers carried gruesome pictures of the murdered generals. Censorship was imposed by a regime whose leaders had always objected bitterly to the Shah's harsh treatment of the press. Newspaper editors received calls from a newly appointed communications commissar, warning them to reflect "a proper Islamic emphasis" in their papers.

At week's end, Washington recognized Bazargan's new provisional government. The prompt way in which Khomeini forces came to the aid of the embattled embassy reassured the Carter Administration that Bazargan and the Ayatullah want to build friendly relations with the U.S. Washington was also impressed by the new government's help in arranging the airlift of the 5,000 to 7,000 Americans left in Iran. The U.S. had hoped that two chartered Pan Am jets could handle the exodus. In case of a real emergency, Washington had secured the permission of Turkey to allow six C-131 planes and five HH-53 helicopters to be flown to the NATO air base at Incirli, Turkey, some 850 miles from Tehran. These would be used if the entire community of Americans in Iran had to be withdrawn on very short notice.

Bazargan agreed that the military planes could land at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport in an emergency. The Prime Minister said he was sorry the Americans had decided to leave, and his Foreign Minister, Karim Sanjabi, said he hoped they would be able to return soon. Given the range of uncertainties in Iran today, the U.S. obviously felt it should take the more prudent course.

The doubts do not apply to Prime Minister Bazargan, 71, a respected politician known for his honesty and dour demeanor. Bazargan has described himself as a "weak donkey," ill equipped for taking on the formidable task of heading a postrevolutionary government. Last week he named part of his Cabinet, which was evenly divided between moderate politicians and Khomeini followers. Its best-known name was Foreign Minister Sanjabi, 73, head of the opposition National Front. Also included was Ibrahim Yazdi, 47, a former cancer researcher at Baylor University in Texas, who served as Khomeini's aide-de-camp in Paris; he was given the rather grim title of Deputy Prime Minister for Revolutionary Affairs.

U.S. officials were not unhappy with Bazargan's choices, even though little is known about the political and social views of some of the men identified as Khomeini aides. Many Iranians, however, felt that it was a lackluster crew, as did some foreign diplomats. "Bazargan told us last week not to expect too much," said one, "and he turned out to be right." The most notable voices of dissatisfaction were heard at Tehran University, where radical students are in no mood for any kind of conservatism. "I'm not happy with Bazargan's government," said Mariam Naza-rour, 17, a politically active student. "It's like the Pahlavi regime, but with a different name. We don't accept the Cabinet, and if everyone listens to the Ayatullah, we won't have a revolutionary republic. Iran is not just for the mullahs."

The headquarters of the revolution were in a highly improbable setting: the Alavi elementary school in the bazaar section of Tehran where Khomeini lived. There, in two cramped and dingy rooms on the second floor, he would shuffle to the window a dozen times a day to greet the unending sea of believers who came to hail him. Elsewhere in the same school, in a drab classroom furnished with three desks, a file cabinet and a typewriter, Prime Minister Bazargan ran the government. He sat cross-legged on a rug-covered wooden platform where he took his meals, greeted visitors and prayed.

One of Bazargan's major problems is what to do with officials identified with the old regime. He and ex-Prime Minister Bakhtiar are longtime friends and colleagues in opposition to the Shah. For a while last week, Bazargan saw to it that Bakhtiar was given a secret refuge in Tehran. But after the British Broadcasting Corporation reported that he was aiding the ousted Prime Minister, Bazargan came under such strong pressure from pro-Khomeini forces that he had to surrender custody of Bakhtiar. Many educated Iranians feel that Bakhtiar was acting out of a sense of patriotic duty in accepting last month a post comparable to the command of the Titanic. Had he refused the Shah's offer, Bakhtiar might have been the Ayatullah's best choice to head the provisional government. But to most revolutionaries, he is simply the man who stood in the way of Khomeini's Islamic republic.

Whether or not Bakhtiar escapes death, others certainly will be subjected to the harsh justice of the revolution. Early last week Iran television presented interviews with some of the more notorious leaders of the Shah's regime. Three nights before he was executed, General Nematollah Nassiri, looking like a frightened rabbit, was interrogated by two local reporters. When he failed to respond fast enough to a question about who had ordered SAVAK to torture its prisoners, a masked militiaman prodded him and whispered, "Say the Shah, say the Shah." Nassiri wore a bandage on his head and talked as if his throat had been beaten. The station was flooded with calls protesting the appearance of an obviously injured man. "We overthrew the Shah because of his violation of democracy and human rights," complained a Tehran businessman. "It would be absurd to begin our republic by indulging in just such tactics."

The television "press conferences," disconcertingly reminiscent of Soviet show trials, went on nonetheless. Another victim brought out for questioning was former Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveida, who had been arrested by the Shah last November on assorted corruption charges. Hoveida looked ill, but more than held his own in sharp exchanges with Deputy Prime Minister Yazdi. Among other things, Hoveida made it clear to the audience that he had surrendered voluntarily to Khomeini forces after the guards of the prison where he was held had fled. "You didn't detain me," Hoveida said. "I came here voluntarily." Turning aside Yazdi's taunting interrogatories, Hoveida said simply: "When there is a trial, I will answer questions."

Another perplexing problem was the growing tension between the military forces loyal to Khomeini and the leftist fedayeen. The former, who probably number between 10,000 and 15,000 throughout the country, are devout Shi'ite Muslims. For several years the mojahedeen conducted a terrorist campaign aimed at, among others, American businessmen and military officers based in Iran. But last week they were among those most willing to obey Khomeini's order to lay down their arms.

The fedayeen, who are somewhat fewer in number but better trained, trace their origins to the political oppression of the early 1960s. They are sometimes linked to the "Saihkal" partisans, who attacked a village of that name near the Caspian Sea in 1965. U.S. intelligence analysts believe that last week's attack on the American embassy, as well as a raid on the Moroccan embassy, was the work of a fedayeen splinter group called the Cherikhaye Fedaye Khalq (People's Sacrifice Guerrillas). This group is believed to have received training and aid over the years from Libya and radical Palestinians. Though Marxist in ideology, it is not considered necessarily to be under the control of Moscow or Iran's Tudeh (Communist) party.

Trouble between the mojahedeen and the fedayeen broke out last week almost as soon as the Bakhtiar government fell. Both groups claimed responsibility for maintaining security, and there were minor clashes at various government ministries in Tehran. On Wednesday the fedayeen announced a five-point program for establishing a true "people's army" and a "revolutionary council," a plan that would obviously increase their voice in the new government. In Tabriz, the mojahedeen and the fedayeen were reportedly dividing up the city and digging trenches for defense, much as the Palestinian fedayeen and the Christian phalangists did in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war.

The fedayeen's most spectacular feat was their brief capture of the American embassy. What were they trying to prove? The best guess is that having fought with Khomeini's forces against the Shah, the fedayeen were trying to cause friction between Khomeini and the U.S.

If that was the case, the maneuver failed. In Washington, the Administration, already preoccupied with the murder of Ambassador Adolph Dubs in Afghanistan (see following story), thought for a while that it had a double crisis on its hands. Only when he learned at dawn Wednesday that the leftist invaders had been expelled from the embassy and that Khomeini loyalists were shielding the American compound did Carter decide to proceed with his state visit to Mexico.

The cooperation shown by the Khomeini forces fortified the delicate bonds of trust that had been nurtured in recent days as U.S. diplomatic envoys pursued clandestine talks with Bazargan and his advisers. At his Monday press conference, 36 hours before the embassy assault, Carter noted that Bazargan's followers had been "very helpful in ensuring the safety of Americans, and we have been consulting with them very closely." Secretary of State Vance told TIME Correspondent William Drozdiak: "A number of individuals in the new Iranian government studied in the U.S., and will bring to bear the expertise and talents they acquired during their time here. I do think Iran will have a more nonaligned policy in the future, but we can find common ground and work together."

One thing that apparently helped matters was Washington's decision not to take drastic action concerning the sophisticated F-14 fighter planes and Phoenix missiles that belong to Iran. The U.S. Government decided it was more prudent to trust the Khomeini forces with preventing the planes from falling into Soviet hands than to chart a treacherous course of blowing up the planes or seeking to fly them to a safe destination. Pentagon officials said that the critical electronic guidance systems the Soviets would like to confiscate and study have been safely transplanted to secure locations. But the radar dishes along Iran's northern border with the Soviet Union are still targeted for destruction if they should be placed in jeopardy. The radar sites are used for monitoring Soviet missile launchings and air and troop movement. They are important for U.S. defense, but will be less crucial after the reopening of U.S. intelligence-gathering bases in Turkey later this year.

What angered the Carter Administration as much as anything else about the embassy affair was the way in which the Soviet Union tried to exploit the incident for its own ends. The official news agency Tass charged that the embassy attack had been inspired by remnants of SAVAK, under orders of the CIA, to create a pretext for U.S. intervention. The Soviet press further declared that Washington was trying to provoke a split in Iran between the new regime's "religious section" and the "left forces."

In Moscow, Ambassador Malcolm Toon called on Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and expressed U.S. displeasure over the affair. Toon pointedly asked Gromyko to "consider the damaging effects of such propaganda on stability in Iran and on U.S.-Soviet relations." He was referring to the current SALT negotiations; an agreement may be ready for signing in the spring by Carter and Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev. Western diplomats in Moscow believe the Soviets are as concerned as the U.S. about the chaos in Iran. Says one: "They have no better idea of what is going to happen in Iran than Washington does -and Washington has none."

Since Bazargan has yet to name his Finance Minister, no one has any clues as to the economic policies of the new Islamic republic. Last week the government expropriated all properties and interests of the Shah's family in Iran, which were estimated to be worth billions before the crisis. Whether or not that marks the first step toward socialism, as it may, Bazargan desperately needs to get his country's paralyzed economy moving again.

Shops in the bazaar have been shuttered for six months. Striking government employees have not worked for almost as long. Millions are unemployed, prices are spiraling for the few goods available, and crime is rampant. It has not even been possible to get married legally since last fall, because license bureaus have been closed; many mullahs, though, have been performing ceremonies at home.

The Ayatullah bears much of the blame for the paralysis. From his place of exile near Paris last fall, he ordered his countrymen to go on strike against the Shah, and they obeyed. Last week Khomeini, his revolution triumphant, ordered Iranians to go back to work, and most were eager to do so. On Saturday the bazaar reopened at long last, and streets were clogged with traffic. More important, workers in the oil fields were apparently heading back to their jobs.

With so much at stake, it is almost frightening for Iranians to realize how much of their national destiny rests on the health and vision of one 78-year-old holy man. There are Khomeini posters everywhere, not to mention Khomeini coins, plaques, plates, ash trays, calendars and T shirts. The faithful wait in line for hours to catch a glimpse of him, and the truly lucky get close enough to toss a shawl or a handkerchief in his direction. Some Westernized Iranians are not particularly impressed by this evidence of a personality cult abuilding. "We didn't take down the Shah's picture merely to put up the Ayatullah's," complained a university student last week. But many of his countrymen do not agree with this view.

Like most revolutions, the one in Iran has enemies both beyond and within its ranks. Prior to Khomeini's victory, the most serious threat was from military leaders loyal to the Shah, who is currently in Morocco and said to be considering abdicating. Now the threat is posed by impatient young Marxists eager to expand and control the revolution. Their next step could prove crucial. Says a U.S. expert on Iran: "If things should reach the point where the revolution is threatened, and the idea of an Islamic republic is in jeopardy, it would not be surprising to see Khomeini call for an armed putdown of his erstwhile allies." In short, there is still no final answer to the question of who rules Iran. qed

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