A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.
I could have been very popular if I had launched a military attack on Iran but I chose patience.
during the Iran hostage crisis
In those years,'80 was the, at the turn of '79/'80 you had the invasion of Afghanistan. It was the period in which the Americans attempt to liberate, to, to liberate the hostages in Iran and all these, all these things, the atmosphere was freezing - boycott of the Olympic Games and all that.
I still remember, as a kid, tying a yellow ribbon around a tree in front of my house during the 444 days that Iran held 52 Americans hostage. Iran is not a place we should be doing business with.
President Carter famously said the hostages were the first thing he thought about in the morning and the last thing he thought about at night. It was a downright foolish thing to say, because it made the people holding the hostages realize that they had an awful lot of influence over the United States.
In Tehran, the 444 days of the Iran Hostage Crisis was the first world event in which you could literally have live events beamed into your living room. Now, every world event plays out on its own, and as a media event.
It is worth emphasizing that Iran released our hostages in 1981 the day Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.
Four years of Jimmy Carter gave us two titanic Reagan landslides, peace and prosperity for eight blessed years - and even a third term for his feckless vice president, George H.W. Bush.
