Fox News’ Brit Hume interviewed Barry Rosen, one of the survivors of the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis, Monday, on its 40th anniversary.
“Today is the 40th anniversary of the time when Iranian militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Barry Rosen was one of them and he just met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Mr. Rosen, thanks for taking the time to talk to us,” welcomed Hume. “It’s been what, 38 years now since you went through that nightmare and that was the end of it at 38 years? What effect do anniversaries like this one have on you and your view of things?
“Well, more than anything else, it brings back memories that are, I think, profoundly unhappy,” replied Rosen. “The misery that we went through for 444 days somehow comes to me at any moment of the day. I actually don’t like February, you know, the date of the hostage crisis. I just don’t want to see it in my minds eye. At all.”
After being asked how he is affected by the crisis on any normal day, Rosen responded, “On a normal day I think there are moments when I can sit down and think about how did I live through this situation? The misery was extreme. The punishment was more than anyone can take. And the psychological trauma was impossible.”
“I mean, how could anybody think that they could survive 444 days under the most extreme conditions of total darkness and also attempts to frighten the hell out of you by putting automatic weapons to your head,” Rosen explained, before detailing the day of his release.
“That was a hellish day in one way or another. In the morning, we were awakened and told to pack whatever we had. I had absolutely nothing. We got into a bus blindfolded, then rode around the city for about an hour to Mehrabad Airport, the central airport in Tehran,” he recalled. “Then as I marched off the bus, the blindfolds were taken off and then there was a phalanx of Iranian students spitting at me. And then I was able to see someone wave their hand, and they directed me to this airplane.”
As Hume asked whether Rosen knew where he was being taken, Rosen said, “I wasn’t sure if this was going to be another place that they put us in. I had been in several places, not just prisons, but safe houses and so forth, and I never believed what they said to us.”
He explained, “The blindfold came off and after they spat at me, I got onto the airplane and there I saw people I had not seen for 444 days… and once they closed the door of the airplane we were ready for the trip
Rosen added that they knew they were finally safe once they “cleared Iranian airspace,” and “champagne was broken out and all of us started to drink. Heavily, I’d say.”
Hume laughed, commenting, “I can understand why,” before asking Rosen whether they arrived in Algiers “a little bit loaded.”
“Yes, yes, and that was a very happy situation,” answered Rosen. “We enjoyed ourselves in Algiers. We were all very uplifted by it all and maybe the champagne helped a lot.”