“On November 4 [1979], student radicals in Iran stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Officials in the State Department at first declared that the takeover was ‘a peaceful demonstration’ and denied that the captive U.S. personnel were ‘hostages.’ Within days, though, newspapers began carrying photographs of the captive Americans, blindfolded and with their hands bound behind their backs. The radicals, followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, declared that they would continue to hold the diplomats until the deposed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, then in the United States to receive treatment for cancer, was returned to Iran so that he could be tried for crimes against the Iranian people. In [President Jimmy] Carter’s next address to the nation [on January 4, 1980], the perpetrators were no longer described as student activists; they were now called ‘militant terrorists’ acting with ‘the support and approval of Iranian officials.’ ”
– Stephen F. Hayes, Cheney, Page 145