Sen. James Abourezk on his attempt to solve the Iranian hostage crisis

From https://husseini.substack.com/p/james-abourezk-radical-senator
I was actually general counsel for the government of Iran here in Washington at that time, for the embassy here in Washington. It was about two weeks after the embassy was taken over, I decided I'd go over and try to obtain the release of the hostages. So I went over and I negotiated with [Abolhassan] Banisadr, who was then chairman of the Revolutionary Council. And I worked out a deal with him. I -- what the Iranians wanted was to air their grievances against the United States, of which they had many at that time, by the way. You know, we had supported the Shah while he was torturing and killing Iranian citizens. They had found, by the way, in the basement of the American Embassy a CIA counterfeiting operation, counterfeiting [Iranian] money. …

They were very upset about that.… And so anyhow, I -- knowing this -- I said to Banisadr, "Look, if you want to air your grievances, I think, in return for the release of the hostages, that I can get the US Senate to hold big publicized hearings allowing you to do just that." Well, we worked out a deal. It'd be a three-step deal, where we would announce the hearings, he would release the hostages and then we would have the hearings. And he said, "All right. You take that to the Senate and I'll take it to the Revolutionary Council. We'll try to work it through."

So I called Senator Byrd, who was of West Virginia, who was majority leader, and proposed it to him. I called him from Iran. Then when I got back from Iran, I called him up and he said, "Well, the administration is opposed to that kind of a thing." Because Jimmy Carter at that time was standing tough. He was trying to look like he didn't want to negotiate.