Today marks 35 years since American hostages held for 444 days in Iran were released. Soon, the surviving members and their families will finally be compensated for the troubles they endured.Attorney Tom Lankford represents some of the former hostages and expressed his gratitude for Congress including compensation for the hostages and their families in the omnibus package passed in December.
“Some of us have to go a down a dark and long road before we find justice and for these hostages and their families, the road took 36 years, 1 month and 14 days,” said Lankford.
More than 60 Americans were taken captive at the U.S. Embassy by supporters of the Iranian Revolution on November 4, 1979. Fifty-two of them were held for 444 days. Among them – Air Force Col. Dave Roeder.
“I think I came away from this experience with probably a better understanding of the true meaning of freedom than most Americans get a chance to do,” Roeder said. “On the other side, a firm belief as nice as this is there is not going to be complete closure. This doesn’t end it. We’re going to continue to have problems. We can’t put together broken marriages. We can’t fix the relationships between parents and estranged children. On the physical side, the scars, like the ones I have on my forearms from rubber hoses, are not going to suddenly disappear.”
Roeder joined Lankford, fellow hostages and members of Congress on a conference call with reporters Wednesday. Beyond marking the anniversary of the hostages’ release, they celebrated the recently approved provision that will award each former hostage $10,000 for every day they were held – a total of $4.4 million. Each qualified spouse and child of the former hostages will receive lump sums of $600,000. The money is coming from collected fines incurred by a French bank for breaking U.S. sanctions against Iran. Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal helped the compensation effort.
“It was the culmination of years and years of work by their attorney and members of Congress and ultimately the availability of funds,” said Blumenthal.
The Algiers Accord negotiated between the U.S. and Iran Five years after their release, the U.S. gave the hostages about $22,000 or $50 for each day in captivity, according to the office of U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia. The Republican says he remembers when the hostage crisis was covered by ABC’s Nightline, which had its beginnings four days after they were taken captive.
“It turned into a 444-day news report every night at 11:30 because America was riveted to the plight of the hostages,” Isakson recalled. “Three of them were from Georgia. I took an interest when it happened. Never knew I would get to the United States Senate and when I got there on the Foreign Relations Committee I came to appreciate the work that had been done in the past by people who had tried to make compensation happen but couldn’t.”
Fifteen former hostages, eight of their spouses and two children have died since the release, according to Lankford, the attorney. Fourteen of the former hostages are over the age of 78. The money is yet to be released as an overseer of the fund must be appointed to go through the submitted claims. Fifty-six year-old Kevin Hermening was a Marine Corps guard and the youngest hostage. He says some of those who expect to be compensated have talked about using that money to set up a fund for the families of the eight servicemen who were killed in an accident during a rescue attempt in 1980.
“I’ve met some of those widows and parents of those brave men who gave all trying to rescue people they never even met,” said Hermening.
