(On Gonzo Station, Part Two)

21 November 1979

Editor’s Note: This account was contemporaneous to the events in Iran, 1979-80, and was discovered in the chaotic Socotra archives. Attitudes and descriptions are as they were some 32 years ago, and are preserved only in the interest of historical accuracy.

In keeping with the novelty of being back aboard ship early from liberty, I was back again sober.

Consequently, I slept well and felt fine the morning we sailed. It was high comedy on the 08 level of Ma Midway’s island, watching the bo’suns attempt to get the ship’s boats back on board with the big crane aft of the Island CASREP’d and down for the count.

We had hoisted restricted maneuverability (black diamond-ball-diamond) and drifted nearly a mile down the reef past the exclusive beach front hotels, At length, and only a few hours late, we had the Mike boats back aboard and forged on and left Africa behind.

Reading the message traffic that morning was only depressing. The schedule had us going up into the northern Arabian Sea for Exercise Beacon Compass with the Brits. This was the weak follow-on to the old MIDLINK exercise that had featured play by the Iranians and nations from all the relevant CENTO countries.

We now had no playmates except the Brits, and frankly, no one had their hearts or minds in it.

The complicated Letter of Instruction (LOI) had a couple different scenarios, utilizing the carrier on one side, it’s own air assets on the other, and the fleets shifting back and forth. No one really paid much attention to it; which is not at all to say that “much valuable training” was not achieved, but rather that the Flag did not have it’s nose out of joint about each period and dot on the outgoing messages.

The exercise provided us with a cover for our presence in the Arabian Sea. The administration could, quite correctly, assert that it was all very routine. The sealed briefcases and mystery people coming aboard were quite beside the point. The first time I bumped into an Air Force Colonel in the planning spaces I knew that things were not business as usual.

Meantime the news was getting worse. We briefed everything we could get from the podium during the cyclical briefs. Still, virtually everything seemed to get worse each day. It was very odd.

We were flying nights for some reason known only to the Staff in its infinite wisdom when we got the news in the reams of FBIS reporting that spewed out of Main Comm.

(USS Midway (CV-41) in the Northern Arabian Sea, November 1979. LTJG Socotra is on Vulture’s Row, second from left.)

ACTUALLY, IT WAS ALL VERY SIMPLE. The procedure is to practice bleeding. They knew that when Kitty Hawk finally arrived to augment the force, their pilots would be hopelessly out of qual for night flying, and they wanted to make sure that we were ready. Same principle as the all-night-and-day extend-ex: in the event of war, we might have to fly around the clock for a few days. Therefore, to be ready to do so you should try your damnedest to kill people in peacetime.

The problem with all of the above is that the crucial adrenaline factor is left out. In our little contingency mind-set it wasn’t that hard to get up for it, but being still peacetime, the ship and squadron authorities didn’t think twice about going on with the usual daytime ship’s business.

(I must note in this rough outline that our stand-down days on the 8th and 9th were even worse. On the “no fly” day of the 8th, we only flew five events. On the 9th, we started flying at 0200 through the 11th, which didn’t even stop the AOM, Squadron Pictures, and all-hands Quarters events from taking up the blessed afternoon rack hours.)

But I can see that I am jumping ahead of myself. The issue is Mecca, and the implications are dramatic and far-reaching.

Two of our Battle Group ship’s made a call in Karachi, Pakistan, and sparked a huge controversy in a native language paper, which claimed they were going straight to the gun-line off Iran. It was part of something that I have not yet resolved in my own mind: is this all orchestrated by some sinister force, or is the great mass of Islam just rising again? I suspect that it is more than a bit of both.

Subsequent events seemed to bear this out.

On the 18th of November, I noted the situation seemed bleak, since the Bazargan Government had packed cheeks and gone away. This left Khomeini and the Revolutionary Council as the only decision-making unit in the country, though even they did not seem to be on top of the situation. Khomeini himself does not speak any English, and thus all statements by our Government and others must be translated and presented to him by his councilors.

The specter of the Fuhrer moving phantom armies around maps in the basement of the Reichskanzlei because his military advisors refused to tell him the truth crept into my mind. There appeared to be no one to negotiate with, even if we were amenable to that approach. The U.S. seemed willing enough.

There were reports that Ramsey Clark (of Vietnam fame!) had been tapped to go and meet with the Iranians, but at the last moment things vacillated and he was stuck in Ankara.

Such luminaries as Andrew Young made bids to get into visit Tehran, but all seemed to stumble on the fact that no one knew what was going on, or who could actually make the hard decision.

The students seemed to be the only people that were confident of their position, and in the great tradition of students everywhere, were in a non-negotiable demand mode.

Strange motions were made by all concerns. The reports were out that the PLO had been responsible for the actual planning of the operation. Yasser Arafat sent a delegation to talk and was rudely rebuffed.

The Students seemed to be playing the race card in an effort to split the American opinion at home. Suddenly they announced that the women and the Blacks could go free. A few days later they did in fact release twelve or thirteen of hostages, one of them a young Air Force officer named Neil Robinson.

At this late date it is still unknown whether all the women have been freed, as Khomeini added the kicker that known Spies, regardless of race or sex might be retained for trial.

It began to resemble the Soviet Union in the thirties. Anyone not in favor of the regime was immediately branded a Spy; the tactic being to unify the country against the foreign bogeyman. It appeared to be a stunningly successful tactic.

The circus at the Embassy continued with ‘spontaneous demonstrations’ that did appear to take on a legitimate popular flavor. In fact, the place took on a carnival atmosphere. Street vendors, mass prayers, the whole shot.

All of this had a deleterious affect on the hostages. Early reports had them bound sixteen hours a day, with intense psych war tactics used against them. They gained several concessions from one of the women, including revelations of conspiracy to admit the Shah into the United States.

Lillian Johnson was the lady, but I bear her no ill-will, as she never got even the rudimentary training we got about resisting the blandishments of captors.  What was particularly galling was the use of real and bogus message traffic by the Students to justify the seizure of the Embassy and the ‘nest of spies.’

Khomeini had already pronounced them guilty, with trial to follow if the Shah went anywhere except back to Iran to stand before his accusers. He further called Carter “insane” and his advisors “buffoons.”

I’m sure this got great press in Tehran for the Ayatollah, but to a room full of bloodthirsty military pilots it was greeted with angry mutterings. All we wanted to do was launch one of the contingencies everyone was working on so hard behind the little locked curtains. Turn the Holy City of Qom into a picturesque crater district.

Amid all this hoopla, the most devastating news came in. I responded to the latest alarming information by writing an ill-advised letter home, since I was convinced that it was war within the next day or so. It was more complicated than I could know from the sketchy first reports; but here is how it went.

THE STRANGE BUSINESS IN MECCA.

When you look at the map of the Middle East you may as well put the numbers ‘8%’ over Iran and ‘28%’ over Saudi Arabia. That quickly covers the amount of go-juice that come out of the ground of those barren desert nations. I have always been fascinated by the use of the phrase “Our Oil” which comes from the Middle East.

Wait a minute, I cry, how come those fucking ragheads have all our oil trapped under their blasted sand? Why did we put it there in the first place?

Anyhow, I was getting the morning briefs together to delight the aircrew as they stumbled in at 0340, eyes still screwed up at the blinding florescent light, rack scars still prominent on the cherubic faces. Fast Eddie Chow came in from his station up forward, monitoring the traffic we don’t talk about. He said casually “Did you hear the news about Mecca? Some bunch of gorillas (sic) took over the Mosque there.”

“Holy Shit!” I exclaimed mildly. Only one of the biggest stories of the decade. Certainly the biggest blasphemy against a major religion since the Romans tore down the Temple in Jerusalem. The preliminary reports had the Iranians responsible.

Great News, if those idiots had acted against the Holiest of all Islamic shrines they would be isolated as never before.

I was ecstatic. I envisioned the huffers- the little jet starting engines-  beginning to turn all over the Saudi Airfields, the invitation for the Airwing to use all Saudi assets in an all-out strike against Iran already being received at the Department of State.

It was as good as over, I thought. We would go to War and crush them in a few days. Vie would return triumphant, and the national balls would be restored. The glow of that development lasted for hours. Unfortunately it was not true. As has been so characteristic. of this cruise, the manic cycle began. Way up over the prospect of getting it on against the Iranians.

Very high indeed, at least until the second shoe dropped.

The true story in Mecca was considerably more sobering, and had a most arresting implication. The fanatics were actually Saudis, or at the very least, Saudi led, were well armed, and had occupied the sacred precincts of the Grand Mosque and the surrounded the Ka’aba. That black stone square had been raised by Abraham himself and the idea of it being pocked with bullet scars was most startling.

Further, it seemed that the occupiers were students from the Islamic college located at the Mosque, and that they had been preparing for the siege for months.

The ringleader is supposed to be a guy named Juhaiman Saif al Otaibi. He was reportedly from a respectable family, was an imam and a former corporal in the Saudi National Guard.

Al Otaibi had some sort of a fundamentalist awakening, and according to the press reporting an unevaluated HUMINT crap we were getting and “began advocating a return to the original ways of Islam, among other things; a repudiation of the West; an end of education of women; abolition of television and expulsion of non-Muslims. He exhorted his followers with the shout that “the ruling Al Saud dynasty had lost its legitimacy because it was corrupt, ostentatious and had destroyed Saudi culture by an aggressive policy of Westernization.”

I have no idea what is up with these guys. Why are they insisting on turning back the clock? Is there something back there that doesn’t scare them?

(Juhayman ibn Muhammad ibn Sayf al Otaibi. Photo Reuters)

Al Otaibi was apparently of a disposition to believe himself the latest Prophet, whose coming was foretold. He had apparently convinced his youthful followers of that revelation. Below the precincts of the shrine exist a maze of passageways and chambers, from which it was going to pose no small problem in removing them. The construction firm- owned by some guy named bin Laden- was useful in providing the blueprints to the Saudi authorities to root them out.

Naturally, the propaganda began to flow out of Iran that we, the nasty Imperialists had engineered the occupation with our lackeys, the Zionists. This was taken with some surprise by us Satanic Plotters and Schemers, but the time had come around for the Big Lie to be credible to the unwashed, and the season was ripe for belief.

The climate for Jihad was favorable, and it seemed that the sap of Islam was waxing wroth, or whatever it is that sap does. The picture for the Saudis was not good, although It seemed that they were more than ready to deal with the immediate problem. What they were to do with a sizeable portion of their miniscule population who were being educated that the House of Saud was nothing more than the creature of the Devil himself? Who actively pursued such decadent habits as the watching of television and the listening of Radio?

A ruling family so irretrievably corrupt as to play Soccer?

The entire concept of the Islamic 14th century revival runs contrary to the spirit of the West since our own middle ages, not coincidently of the same era that Khomeini’s followers would so like to revisit.

I would not count on the Saudi 28% of oil for too long.

The Airwing seemed to be of the unanimous opinion that if they wanted to so desperately travel back in time, we would be seriously remiss in not helping them to get there. Perhaps not as far as Curtis LeMay wanted to help the Vietnamese, but a few centuries, anyway.

On November 21, 1979, the day following the takeover, the U.S. embassy in Islamabad was overrun by a mob. We were in Mission Planning and the short wave was going crazy and the cryppies from SESS came down to tell Vinnie-the-Boss that Embassy had sent a CRITIC message.

Apparently the staff holed up in the secure room while the crowd burned the embassy. It was horrifying, and there was nothing the aircraft carrier or the Battle Group could do. A Paki sniper shot one of the Marine Guards, a Corporal named Steve Crowley. You could cut the tension with a knife, and the Saudis obliged.

When they routed the rebels, their leader al Otaibi and 67 of his fellow insurrectionists were tried secretly, convicted and then publicly beheaded in the squares of four Saudi cities.

You gotta love this crap. What is this? The Middle Ages? Or haven’t they got that far yet?

Copyright 1979 and 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com