President Ford's Hostage Crisis

Over the past week, we Americans have been honoring the life of President Gerald Ford. During his short administration(1974-1977), it seemed that the U.S. was in a tranquil peace between the Watergate scandal and the Iran Hostage crisis. It was like a silver lining in American history. An American President that many couldn't really remember but is now one we won't ever forget.
But what if the history were different? What if President Ford had won the 1976 election against Carter and had to deal with the Iranian hostage crisis? How would he have handled it? What do you think?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ford

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I think Ford would of had the USMC there as fast as the ships could of carriered them there . Rember when the Freighter was captured by cambodia he sent the USMC in to free the ship . At the Gerald Ford Museum there is a helo that was sent in with the USMC to free the crew .
He would never leave are people as hostages he was from a time where you did not leave people behind .

To see more of the Ford Musem check this site and how his home town welcome him back home .http://www.woodtv.com/Global/link.asp?L=221159
 
Yes, okay, but Carter tried to rescue the hostages and failed miserably. How would Ford had done it differently? Invading a fanatically hostile Islamic state would be as difficult then as it is now. And would Ford have used any nuclear weapons or at least threatened to use them?
 
Yes, okay, but Carter tried to rescue the hostages and failed miserably. How would Ford had done it differently? Invading a fanatically hostile Islamic state would be as difficult then as it is now. And would Ford have used any nuclear weapons or at least threatened to use them?

I think Ward is right, he would have moved fairly quickly. The major problem Carter had on this is that was a personal abhorance of violence and didn't know how to keep this from bleeding over into the Cold War.

Conversely, Ford had an experienced State department, and very quickly would have communicated the purpose of the military mission, to rescue the hostages.

Personally, I do not believe it would have gone that far, I do not think Ford's team would have let the Ayatollah back into the country, and would have provided more support to the Shah.
 
Yes, okay, but Carter tried to rescue the hostages and failed miserably. How would Ford had done it differently? Invading a fanatically hostile Islamic state would be as difficult then as it is now. And would Ford have used any nuclear weapons or at least threatened to use them?

<choking back derisive laughter> Carter was in way over his head as president; he was quite possibly the least competent occupant of the Oval Office since Harding. Carter waited far, far too long, dithering and moralizing before taking action. Ford would have wasted no time, effectively delivering an ultimatum through back channels if necessary, using the in-place experience in the State Department--and would have followed through with no-nonsense military operations while things were still in a state of flux in Iran.

Yes, a lot of Iranians would have been dead as a result--and no, not through the use of nukes (give me a break: that's hardly an appropriate response). But they'd have learned a rather pointed lesson in the bargain. And as a corollary, we're still paying for Carter's indecision, dithering, and moralizing when he should have acted. I also suspect that a lot of Iranian assets (financial; petroleum-related) would now be in American hands.
 
<choking back derisive laughter> Carter was in way over his head as president; he was quite possibly the least competent occupant of the Oval Office since Harding. Carter waited far, far too long, dithering and moralizing before taking action. Ford would have wasted no time, effectively delivering an ultimatum through back channels if necessary, using the in-place experience in the State Department--and would have followed through with no-nonsense military operations while things were still in a state of flux in Iran.

Yes, a lot of Iranians would have been dead as a result--and no, not through the use of nukes (give me a break: that's hardly an appropriate response). But they'd have learned a rather pointed lesson in the bargain. And as a corollary, we're still paying for Carter's indecision, dithering, and moralizing when he should have acted. I also suspect that a lot of Iranian assets (financial; petroleum-related) would now be in American hands.

So basically the same mess you've got in Iraq only you'd be doing it while the Soviet Union was still in the game.

And it wouldn't only be a lot of Iranians who were dead. It would be most if not all of the American hostages.
 
There was a short story on this same topic in the Mike Resnick anthology Alternate Presidents; it was titled "Demarche To Iran".
 
Why assume the Shah even fell if Ford was elected? Perhaps he doesn't cut off the Shah and a relatively stable but more moderate regime forms?

Alternately I have to suspect that only Carter among all presidents would launch an operation which required a small and lightly armed contingent to block a major highway for several hours, hoping the natives with radar wouldn't notice anything like mysterious radar returns and absolutely no vehicles from either direction reaching their destinations if they have to pass these mysterious radar returns. For several hours.

Certainly Ford would not press on after being told, if all the hostages ARE found, we no longer have the capacity to get everyone out.
 
So basically the same mess you've got in Iraq only you'd be doing it while the Soviet Union was still in the game.

And it wouldn't only be a lot of Iranians who were dead. It would be most if not all of the American hostages.

Ford had a good foreign policy team, and a very pragmatic state department. No government wants to go on the record as supporting the taking of embassy workers hostage, so while the USSR would have grumbled, so long as the rescue occurred in a relatively fast time table, they wouldn't have done much more.
 
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