Guests Of The Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis by Bowden Mark

Author:Bowden, Mark
Language: eng
Format: epub

A Marvelous Coup

Bill Belk’s combative roommate, the army medic Donald Hohman, undertook a long hunger strike early in the year and, after several weeks, had grown so frail he lay on his mattress all day. He ignored the rule against speaking, talking loud and long to Belk. They were too worried about him to leave him alone; they couldn’t withhold his food and he was too frail to beat. He’d challenge them, “What are you going to do to me? Go ahead and do it right now.”

He had started the hunger strike to get away from Joe Subic, whom he regarded as a traitor and collaborator, but even after he was moved he continued to refuse food. He liked the way it worried his captors. Hohman was a mystery to the Iranian students. Like most everyone else he was considered CIA, and in his case it was a belief heightened by the fact that he had been issued two passports. Yet he was admired for his medical skill. After his dramatic treatment of Belk’s allergic attack in the first days, many assumed he was a doctor. He had been mistakenly identified as such on one of the papers in his personnel file.

Hohman knew the medical conditions of most of the Americans who had been seized, and he would brief the medical students among the guards about what medications and precautions his various patients needed. Charles Jones had hypertension, so he needed his pills. Lee Holland had gout and Hohman taught them how to treat it, and what medications to deliver—“He knows the dosage,” he said. His professional standing, even if he was not an M.D., accorded him a measure of status the others captives did not enjoy. He abused it freely, and because he was admired, his insults stung. When Sheikh-ol-eslam and Ebtekar tried to interrogate him he cut them short.

“I don’t know anything about the CIA. I’m down here TDY [temporary duty],” he told them. “I’m medical. Period.” Ebtekar was so insulted by his demeanor that she slapped his face.

Hohman’s hunger strike flummoxed his guards. At first they were angry, and the medic gave the anger right back, screaming and cursing at them. In time, they were afraid to enter his room. He had hoped others would join him, that it would spread and that all the hostages would stop eating, but none of the others had his willpower. Yet Hohman persisted. He was not suicidal; he saw the hunger strike as a way of fighting back. In a letter to his father in Sacramento, Hohman wrote:

“I’ll come through this no matter what they do to me or how long they keep me. Also, the longer I am held, the more I’ve come to despise my captors and what harm they’ve done myself and all my family by taking my freedom without me ever having done an Iranian any harm. What they forget is that the game can be played both ways. Mentally they can’t get to me because

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.