One week delay

The Iranians don't take over the US Embassy until November 11, 1979. That means that day 365 of the hostage crisis happens a week after election day 1980. Reagan popular vote margin is reduced to 46,2 % to Carter's 44.5 % and Anderson's 7,6 %. Carter carries Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC, West Virginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Hawaii, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The Electoral College total is Reagan 293 to Carter 245. More importantly Reagan is not declared the winner at 8 pm Eastern Time. The networks declare him the winner closer to midnight. Illinois and Michigan are very close. The 1980 election is remembered as a nail biter rather than a landslide. Reagan does not have his OTL credibility when he talks about a mandate. He also has a Democratic Senate. If you switch 3 % Democrats win in 9 Senate races that OTL went Republican. While I think he can get his tax and budget proposals passed, he has to make more compromises. Liz Hotlzman wins the New York Senate seat. She becomes the leading Democratic female politico. She is Walter Mondale's running mate in 1984. She is single so there is not the controversy over Geraldine Ferraro's husband, Holtzman does not talk about Italian men. Mondale wins an extra percentage point.
 
Its not just Reagan's numbers, but the number of senior Democratic Senators that went down to defeat that year (SIX IRRC), plus a huge number of Dem House congressmen, to the point where Reagan was able to get his "working majority" with "Boll Weevil Democrats".

And it was far more than Iran. Almost ALL of the undecideds flowed to Reagan in the last two days of the election. The economy was twice as bad in 1980 as it was in 1976, something that Ford gleefully was able to point out at the 1980 Republican Convention. IOW, "It's the economy, Stupid!":p Plus between Iran, Desert One, Carter's "Rose Garden Strategy" coming to look like his "Bunker Strategy":roll eyes:, and his overall fecklessness as POTUS (the poor guy's heart was in the right place but he really should have been an archbishop rather than Leader of the Free World) represented the fact that any Republican candidate less extreme than Reagan would have trounced Carter to an even worse degree than OTL.
 

Japhy

Banned
I'm always confused about how you are one of the most prolific supporters of "Its the Economy Stupid" thinking about who wins elections and then you do stuff like this where economics are completely ignored in place of a really arbitrary diplomatic change, which leads to bigger and bigger knock offs, and even the potential of a Carter second term. You can't have it both ways Paul.
 
From living through the time there was nothing special about the hostages being held for less than a year that would have saved Carter. Maybe if they had been held less than 100 days as of the election he could have had a slim chance. But if they are held for the entire campaign season it would be too long.
 
From living through the time there was nothing special about the hostages being held for less than a year that would have saved Carter. Maybe if they had been held less than 100 days as of the election he could have had a slim chance. But if they are held for the entire campaign season it would be too long.

Speaking as someone who was in the first day class of the Selective Service System re-activation (literally taking effect on my birthday) who was looking down the barrel of a potential US-Iran War...the hostages get massacred and their bodies hanged from cranes, the ayatollahs figuring Allah would save them:rolleyes: (hey, the mullahs hadn't even taken complete power by the time of the attack)...I paid a LOT of attention to what was going on!

While the ayatollahs proved themselves not to be nuts (just total trolls), I've no doubt at all that the likes of Khomenei escaped destruction almost as closely as Castro did in 1962.:mad:
 
I can seeing the discussion going somewhat differently regarding the April '80 rescue attempt.

For example, if on the first day, one of the major networks interviewed a retired military person who said a mission can typically absorb one major problem, but not two. Also, if you send too many helicopters, you may tip your hand on intelligence.

*I have not served in the military and don't really know if the above are true. But I do think if this had been part if the discussion early on, more people might look at the rescue attempt as good idea, shame it didn't work out.
 
I can seeing the discussion going somewhat differently regarding the April '80 rescue attempt.

For example, if on the first day, one of the major networks interviewed a retired military person who said a mission can typically absorb one major problem, but not two. Also, if you send too many helicopters, you may tip your hand on intelligence.

*I have not served in the military and don't really know if the above are true. But I do think if this had been part if the discussion early on, more people might look at the rescue attempt as good idea, shame it didn't work out.

Desert One was a complete abortion from Square One. They couldn't even get to their first refueling station without running into multiple Iranian vehicles (the plan was to pray no one used a major highway at night:rolleyes:) and multiple mid-air crashes. Also, the helicopters being used were Marine helicopters for employment in a naval environment. They were totally unsuited for the Iranian desert.

Also, the planners weren't aware of the difference between desert sand in the American SW, where the military did its training maneuvers, and Near Eastern sand, which is much too powdery. During Desert Storm, they had to import sand bags because American sandbags couldn't hold the local stuff inside.:(

That powdery sand went right up the unfiltered air intakes (even if they'd had US filters they wouldn't have been enough, the sand passing through like Maine black flies through an old fashioned wire window screen) of the non-desert environment adapted helicopter's engines and caused them to quickly overheat and shutdown. NONE of them (no matter HOW many you send, or how few) would have made it had the mission somehow proceeded forward.

And a mission that was based on US Special Forces (the Deltas were apparently not very special in those days) being driven through the streets in trucks with nothing but canvas between them and the Iranian Army/Revolutionary Guard shows Complete CF-thinking all around for the US military and the Carter Administration.
 
You might be able to drive through the streets at 3:00 in the morning. As I remember the U.S. stopped and detained a bus, maybe on that highway. And then released the bus once they knew the operation wasn't going to go forward.

The powdery sand does sound like a deal killer, and an example of it being what you don't know that you don't know. Our military relations with Saudi, and with Israel? Even our military relations with Iran before the revolutionary. It's surprising that those planning the operation did not know this.
 
It's often forgotten, but there were plans made for a second attempt after Eagle Claw: Operation Credible Sport.

It was more direct than Eagle Claw, but also completely insane. The plan was to land several modified C-130s full of Delta Force operators in a stadium near the embassy, then free the hostages, take off, and land on a carrier in the Persian Gulf. The Air Force heavily modified a few C-130s for the mission (Losing one in a crash), but the whole operation was scrapped when a breakthrough was made in negotiations with the Iranians.

As simple as it was compared to Eagle Claw, I suspect the absurdly risky C-130 concept would have doomed Credible Sport. In any case, the Iranians dispersed the hostages throughout the country after Eagle Claw, so only those in Tehran could have been rescued.
 
Yeah, the best that can be said for Eagle Claw is that there weren't more casualties, it could just as well have ended with most of the hostages & rescuers dead or injured instead.

Assigning tasks so that all branches of the military got their share of the glory is rarely a winning move.

And compartmentalising the planning & training to the point that the various groups never communicated directly or even saw each others plans, well that's just begging for a few Wilie E Coyote moments.
 
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