In 1979, Iranian students invaded the American embassy in Tehran and held American diplomats and others hostage for 444 days. To secure their freedom, President Jimmy Carter agreed in his last days in office to release $8 billion in frozen Iranian assets.
In Lebanon, during the mid-1980s, pro-Iranian extremists kidnapped and held hostage some two dozen American journalists and teachers. In one bloody incident, militants abducted a U.S. marine lieutenant colonel, hanged him, and broadcast videotaped pictures of his lifeless body on television. Despite his pledge never to negotiate with terrorists, President Ronald Reagan agreed to sell weapons to Iran in return for the hostages' release. Two were freed, but they were soon replaced when extremists took new American hostages.
After invading Kuwait in August 1990, Iraq announced that 10,000 Americans and other Western citizens trapped in Iraq and Kuwait would be scattered among Iraqi military bases, oil production facilities, and industrial installations as human shields against Western and Arab attack. At first, President George Bush refused to use the "h"-word--"hostage"--to describe these trapped Westerners; but soon he acknowledged that he too faced a hostage crisis. Ultimately, Iraq freed the Western hostages, apparently in an attempt to initiate negotiations with the United States and its allies.
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