In the Shadow of the Ayatollah: A CIA Hostage in Iran
Daugherty was a fledgling CIA agent posted to Iran in September 1979, just in time for the embassy takeover on November 4th of that year. He spent the next 444 days as a prisoner (mostly in solitary confinement) of Ayatollah Khomeini's student radicals. To set the background for the Ayatollah's revolution, the author devotes the first half of his book to analysis of Iranian-U.S. relations during the cold war, when successive U.S. administrations focused on the shah as a bulwark against Soviet expansionism. Believing the shah invulnerable, Daugherty says, American policymakers turned a blind eye to the brewing threat of Islamic fundamentalism. That threat became a reality when the shah abdicated and was ultimately admitted to the U.S. In the ensuing chaos, Daugherty and 52 others were seized, relentlessly interrogated and moved from one prison to another to prevent rescue. Daugherty's account of his captivity (the book's second half) weaves together his personal experiences with developments in Washington, as the Carter administration struggled with an unappetizing array of political and military responses. The author presents a remarkably objective view of events in the U.S. Even when he vehemently disagrees with a step taken by President Carter, Daugherty explains the policies that impelled the president to act as he did. The weakness of the book is the author's admitted lack of specialized knowledge about the language or culture of Iran or the tenets of Islam. Daugherty offers stereotyping more than informed analysis of fundamentalist Islam, and this seems especially unfortunate after the catastrophes of Sept. 10. B&w; photos.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.