0:00

Welcome to Cold War

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Conversations. These

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are a few of the threeD first years built on the

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73 Crazy post-

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post gig post-

0:53

wires very

0:59

final moments when he

1:01

and the lead gunman Taufik found

1:04

themselves in a death grapple.

1:09

This is Cold War Conversations.

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If you're new here you've come

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to the right place to listen

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to first-hand Cold War history accounts.

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on future episodes. On

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April the 30th 1986 heavily

1:29

armed gunman burst into the Iranian embassy

1:31

in London where they took 26 hostages

1:34

including embassy staff visitors and

1:36

three British citizens. I

1:40

talk with Britain's best-selling historian Ben

1:42

McIntyre who has written a new

1:44

book called The Siege the remarkable

1:46

story of the greatest SAS hostage

1:49

drama. The book

1:51

details the tenth six-day siege as

1:53

millions gathered around their screens across

1:55

the UK to witness the longest

1:57

news flash in British television history.

2:00

in which police negotiators and psychiatrists

2:02

sought a bloodless end to the

2:05

standoff while the SAS hitherto an

2:07

organization shrouded in secrecy laid

2:09

plans for a daring rescue mission,

2:12

Operation Nimrod. It's

2:15

a cracking, fast-paced story of what really

2:17

happened on those fateful six days and

2:19

the first full account of a moment

2:22

that forever changed the way Britain thought

2:24

about the SAS and itself. I'm

2:29

delighted to welcome Ben McIntyre

2:32

to our Cold War Conversation. Now

2:36

I was 18 years old at

2:39

the time this event happened, innocently

2:41

watching a John Wayne film Rio

2:43

Lobo, whilst millions

2:45

of others people were probably watching the

2:48

snooker final to be interrupted by

2:50

a news flash showing the SAS

2:52

live on TV attacking

2:55

the Iranian embassy in

2:57

London. And it

2:59

was a momentous moment for British

3:01

TV because we'd never seen anything

3:03

like that before. Well, funnily enough,

3:05

I was one of those

3:07

14 million watching the snooker

3:09

on the other side. The final, it

3:12

was coming down to the final phrase

3:14

between Hurricane Higgins and Cliff Thorburn. I

3:17

was with my dad, it was a bank holiday Monday. And

3:20

you're right, suddenly every

3:22

channel switched over to

3:24

black-suited soldiers with machine

3:26

guns in balaclava helmets

3:30

ranging across the front of the

3:32

Iranian embassy throwing bombs inside and

3:35

attacking a building. I had never seen anything

3:37

like it before. I was 11. And

3:41

I sometimes think it's one of the reasons why I became

3:44

a journalist and became a sort of

3:46

foreign correspondent at the beginning of my

3:48

career, because it made news seem utterly

3:51

different from the rather pallid way news

3:53

had always been presented to us up until

3:55

that point, you know, news casters over

3:58

sort of rehearsed footage. was

4:00

history taking place in our

4:02

living rooms? I mean, we're used to it now,

4:04

of course, because, you know, digitization

4:06

and mobile phones mean that we're

4:08

used to seeing history happen on

4:11

the hoof, as it were, but no

4:13

one had ever seen anything like this before.

4:15

And I think it had a, I mean,

4:17

it was one of the many long term

4:20

impacts of this episode was that it changed

4:22

our perception of what news could be from

4:24

that moment on, I think. Absolutely.

4:27

Now, there's a number of written

4:30

accounts of the siege and

4:32

the ending of the siege.

4:36

What brought you to visit this subject?

4:38

Why did you think there was a

4:40

new book needed on the subject? I've

4:43

wanted to write this book for many years. I first

4:46

thought about it really seriously when I

4:48

was writing a previous book about the

4:50

SAS Rogue Heroes, which was the result

4:52

of an invitation from the SAS, an

4:54

authorized book it was, to have access

4:56

to their files and write the wartime

4:58

history of the SAS. And when I

5:00

was finishing that up, I

5:03

said to the people I've been dealing with at

5:05

the regiment, I said, you know, I'd really love

5:07

to write the Embassy siege story. And they said,

5:09

absolutely not. They said that is not

5:11

going to happen, because it's too

5:13

sensitive. It's too close to the knuckle.

5:16

We can't be seen to be sort

5:18

of telling that story and not telling

5:20

other stories. So it's taken about eight

5:23

years of conversations of different sorts

5:26

to persuade the Ministry of Defence to

5:28

allow me to have access to all

5:30

the living witnesses from the

5:32

SAS side. That was, that's the major

5:34

breakthrough that I had here was that

5:37

the people who had actually taken part

5:39

in this incident were officially

5:42

permitted to speak to me or

5:45

to speak publicly for the first time.

5:48

Now, and that was really important, because, as

5:50

I'm sure you know, there is there's an old

5:53

sort of joke that goes, you know, if everybody

5:55

who claimed to have been on that balcony had

5:57

actually been on that balcony, it would have fallen

5:59

off. Because because it's one of the things that,

6:01

you know, we're all used to the joke about people

6:03

coming up to the bar and saying, well, I was

6:05

in the SAS and I took part in the Iranian

6:07

embassy siege. Well, as it happens, the

6:09

number of people who actually did take part

6:11

in that embassy siege is vanishingly small. I

6:14

have the order of battle. I know exactly

6:16

who took part. And there were not many

6:18

people. There is only one person

6:20

still alive who was on the front balcony. And

6:23

I've spoken to him again, he had never told

6:25

his story before. So in

6:27

some ways, I wanted to

6:29

demystify this story because the

6:32

speed with which it became part

6:34

of our national legend

6:36

was quite extraordinary. I mean,

6:38

it was immediately absorbed into

6:40

a story of Thatcherism, of

6:43

anti-terrorist operations, of sort of post-imperial

6:45

British daring do it was presented

6:48

to me as I was growing

6:50

up as a teenager, as if

6:52

it was a story of pure

6:55

driven black and white goodies and

6:57

villains, you know, heroes versus

6:59

versus the other side, wicked terrorists and brave

7:01

SAS soldiers going in. And of course, like

7:03

most myths, that is partly true. I mean,

7:05

there is, you know, that that is sort

7:07

of in a way the core the essence

7:10

of the story. But the real

7:12

story as often with these stories that we inherit

7:14

as a sort of cultural idea,

7:17

the real story is far more

7:19

complicated and far more interesting and

7:21

far more about people than

7:23

it is really about politics.

7:26

One has to remember, and we can go

7:28

back to this, because it is really the

7:30

significance of this story. Margaret Thatcher had only

7:32

been in power for a year when this

7:34

event took place. Her hold on power was

7:36

not very strong. She was

7:38

facing major problems in Northern Ireland

7:40

and elsewhere. And this was

7:43

the first real test of

7:45

her character. And it's where

7:47

in a way the Iron Lady story

7:49

was born, because she

7:51

took a real gamble and she was absolutely determined

7:53

in what she decided. Now you can decide whether

7:56

that was a good thing or a bad thing.

7:58

But the reality was it was initially

12:00

plan to kill anybody. They were

12:02

prepared to die and they were

12:04

prepared to kill, but really their

12:06

intention was to get out alive,

12:09

having made a very spectacular political

12:11

protest. But what very few people

12:14

actually know is that the sort

12:16

of the evil genius behind this

12:18

plot was Saddam Hussein. The

12:21

entire plan was

12:24

bankrolled and ordered and armed

12:26

and financed by Saddam Hussein

12:29

as a way of destabilizing

12:31

the Iranian regime. He

12:34

was obviously bitterly opposed to the Ayatollah. This

12:36

was an opportunity to present himself

12:38

as a champion of the Arab cause

12:41

within Iran and a way to create

12:43

real problems for Iran. In

12:45

many ways, what happened in Prince's Gate

12:48

in the Iranian embassy was a precursor

12:50

to the Iran-Iraq war, which erupted a

12:52

few months later. In a way, you

12:54

can argue that the first skirmish of

12:56

that war was going to be fought

12:59

out on the streets of

13:01

London. Why they chose Britain

13:04

was because of Britain's free press. They

13:06

believed that they would get a better hearing

13:09

in Britain than they would elsewhere. And they

13:11

also believed that the British government

13:13

was opposed to the Ayatollah, as

13:16

was the American government, and that

13:18

they would therefore they would get a fair

13:20

hearing from the government too. So they didn't

13:22

attack a site in Britain

13:24

because they were anti-British, oddly quite

13:26

the reverse. And the other aspect

13:29

of this, which I discovered in the course

13:31

of doing this research, is that the

13:33

actual mastermind behind the attack was

13:36

a notorious international terrorist,

13:38

Abu Nidal, who

13:40

became the most wanted man

13:42

in the world for a string

13:45

of brutal terrorist assaults. At

13:47

this point in 1980, he was living in

13:49

Baghdad and working for

13:51

Saddam as a kind of

13:54

freelance terrorist consultant. So

13:57

these six gunmen were in a

13:59

way being manipulated. They

14:01

were people who had

14:04

been brutalised by the conflict taking

14:06

place in Iran and who were

14:08

being used by Saddam and his

14:10

security service, the Mukhbarat, to strike

14:12

a blow against Tehran. So there

14:15

is a sort of geopolitical

14:17

backstory to this that very few

14:19

people really know. And I didn't

14:21

know that backstory until I

14:23

read the book. And you also

14:25

explained it in such clarity both

14:28

there and in the book as

14:30

well, because it's a complicated story

14:32

that within Iran and the Iraqi

14:34

intelligence involvement. I mean, this conflict

14:36

still rumbles on today. But

14:38

I mean, I don't think you'd find many, one

14:40

in a thousand people in Britain who would

14:42

know that there was an Arab insurgency or

14:45

had ever been an Arab insurgency inside Iran.

14:47

But you can imagine the effect that it

14:49

had on the British police in

14:52

1980 when this conflict

14:54

that no one had ever heard

14:56

of suddenly burst into

14:58

life in front of them. I

15:00

mean, it sent the poor metropolitan

15:02

police into a crash course in

15:05

the complexities of Middle Eastern

15:07

politics. Even MI6 had

15:09

very little idea of what this conflict

15:12

was really about. That

15:15

absolutely comes across in the book

15:17

with them scrabbling to try and

15:19

find out who these people are

15:22

and actually what their

15:24

demands are. And I think this is also

15:26

occurring at the same time as the

15:30

holding of the American embassy hostages

15:32

in Iran. Yeah, that is happening

15:34

at the same time. Indeed, six

15:37

days before the episode erupts in

15:39

London, the American special

15:41

forces had attempted to rescue the

15:44

hostages held in the American

15:46

embassy in Tehran. It was

15:48

a catastrophic failure, a codename

15:51

Operation Eagle Claw. It was

15:53

a disaster. It didn't work

15:55

at all. It permanently damaged

15:57

Jimmy Carter's presidency. took

16:00

place in the shadow of that

16:02

one. So unsurprisingly, lots of people

16:04

assumed that it must be a

16:06

carbon copy. This must be in

16:08

some way Islamic fundamentalists either attacking

16:10

their own embassy, or

16:13

that it might be some

16:15

retaliatory move by anti-Ahi'atollah Iranians

16:17

against the embassy

16:20

siege in Tehran. So you can imagine the confusion

16:22

that it caused. I mean, it was sort of

16:24

connected in the sense that the

16:26

the the six Arab gunmen believed

16:29

that you know, attacking an embassy was was a

16:31

good way to get attention. So in that sense,

16:33

they were they were the same. But in many,

16:35

in most other ways, the two things were really

16:38

not connected at all. Except in

16:40

this respect, which was the Americans immediately

16:43

began putting pressure on the British

16:46

to solve this problem bloodlessly, because they they

16:48

felt that they might be able to

16:50

use that as a lever on Tehran to

16:53

try to persuade the Iranians to release their

16:55

hostages. So there is a kind of there

16:57

is a kind of Cold War aspect to

16:59

all of this as well. Oh,

17:03

yes. So can you tell me

17:05

how the siege started? The

17:09

six gunmen who had obtained

17:11

weapons and explosives and grenades

17:13

via the Iraqi diplomatic bag

17:16

assembled in Hyde Park and then attacked

17:18

the embassy from two directions and went

17:21

to the front door. The

17:23

person guarding the front door was PC

17:26

Trevor Locke, who might well be my favorite

17:28

character in this entire story. I'm delighted to

17:31

say Trevor is is still with us some

17:33

age now. But so he was

17:36

the diplomatic patrol group officer who was

17:38

on on duty at the front door

17:40

of the embassy. Trevor

17:43

is about as far from a

17:45

kind of Sweeney type cop

17:48

as you can imagine, he's more of a

17:50

Dixon of Doc Green Man, he had joined

17:52

the police in order as he put it

17:54

to help old ladies across the road. He

17:56

wanted to be a diplomatic patrol group officer

17:58

because it was boring. because it

18:01

wasn't going to involve anything particularly

18:03

stressful. He was,

18:05

however, armed like other DPG officers.

18:07

Ordinary bobbies at this point still

18:09

didn't carry guns, but

18:11

DPG officers did, and he had a gun under his tunic,

18:14

and that gun would be

18:16

hidden throughout the Six Days Siege, and it

18:18

plays a very important part of the story.

18:20

So Trevor was there. He

18:23

was just having a cup of coffee just

18:25

inside the door when the six gunmen burst

18:27

in, firing their submachine guns. Some

18:29

of the bullets went through a glass security door,

18:32

and the glass smashed into Trevor's face.

18:34

He reeled backwards. They

18:37

shouted in Arabic, up against the wall, everybody quiet,

18:39

oh, we're going to shoot people. And

18:42

sure enough, you know, there were 26 people inside

18:45

the embassy at that point. Most

18:48

of them were diplomatic staff. Some

18:51

of them were senior Islamic diplomats. Most

18:53

of them were sort of secretaries and clerks and

18:55

hospital staff and so on. There were

18:58

also four British citizens. In addition

19:00

to Trevor Locke, there were two

19:02

BBC journalists, Sim

19:04

Harris, a sound recordist, and Chris Cramer, a

19:06

producer. And there was

19:08

the longest-serving British employee of the embassy, Ron

19:11

Morris, who was the sort of chauffeur and

19:14

major domo, again, as an extraordinary

19:16

character. And it has to

19:18

be said, all of these people bundled together, forced

19:21

into a room at gunpoint, believing they're going

19:23

to die, were people who

19:25

had begun the day with absolutely no

19:27

inkling that any of this

19:29

could conceivably happen. So in

19:32

a way, this is a story about ordinary

19:34

people thrust into the most

19:36

appalling and terrifying circumstances beyond

19:39

their control. And in a way, that's

19:41

the core of the story. That's about

19:43

what personality and character

19:45

do and what training

19:48

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21:08

You provide some really rich

21:11

detail of the personalities, both

21:13

the hostages and the gunman

21:16

as well. And I think that's what brings it

21:18

to life. It is almost as though you are

21:21

listening via the listening devices

21:23

that MI5 and the police

21:26

are drilling in the walls.

21:28

And it is like you were

21:30

there, and I found it absolutely riveting.

21:32

Even though you knew what was going to

21:34

happen, it was still a page

21:36

turner. Well, that's really kind of you know, I mean,

21:38

the truth is, in a way, I was listening to

21:40

what was going on. I mean, you know, the transcripts

21:43

and those listening devices

21:45

provide an extraordinary picture of

21:48

the minute by minute developments in there. And of

21:50

course, one of the reasons why I love this

21:53

story is it takes place within a kind of

21:55

a very small theatre, it really takes place inside

21:57

one room inside the embassy. And

21:59

the intensity of what was

22:01

going on in there, the relationships that

22:03

begin to develop among the hostages, between

22:05

hostages and gunmen, the way that the

22:07

relationships between the gunmen begin to break

22:09

down. That is all part of this

22:11

story. It's part of a sort of

22:13

long running tick tock in a

22:15

way that I mean that in the old fashioned

22:17

sense, you know, that it's a countdown, something that

22:20

yes, we know that this is going

22:22

to end in a particular way. But

22:24

we don't know how and I certainly didn't

22:26

when I started writing it. And it's it's

22:28

been the sort of development of those personalities

22:30

that have that have absolutely entranced me in

22:32

the writing of this. I mean, quite early

22:34

on in the siege within within about 24

22:37

hours, there was evidence

22:39

of what we what is often

22:41

bracketed as a term as Stockholm

22:43

syndrome, which I'm sure your listeners

22:45

will be familiar with some of them, which

22:47

is the the situation in which hostages

22:50

and hostage takers begin to develop

22:52

a kind of relationship and those

22:55

who have been taken hostage begin to

22:57

feel a sort of sympathy for their

22:59

captors. Now, the flip side

23:02

of Stockholm syndrome is Lima syndrome,

23:04

which relates to an incident that

23:06

took place in Peru, when

23:09

armed gunmen took over the Japanese

23:12

ambassador's residence and took lots of

23:14

hostages. Now, in that instance,

23:16

what happened was that the gunmen began

23:18

to feel sympathy for their hostages for

23:20

their captives. And that is that

23:22

is Lima syndrome. And you

23:24

within about 24 hours, these these

23:26

currents are beginning to emerge inside

23:28

the embassy and it really begins

23:30

to dictate what is going to

23:33

happen on the inside. Yeah,

23:36

it's fascinating that the psychology that's

23:38

going on, particularly around those two

23:40

syndromes, I mean, I hadn't heard

23:43

of Lima syndrome before. So that

23:45

that was new for me. But

23:47

also the approach that the

23:50

police are taking to

23:52

attempt to negotiate with

23:55

the gunmen. Yes, I

23:57

mean, I'm glad you raised the sort of psychological question, because

23:59

of course, the police brought in a wonderful

24:02

man called Professor John Gunn, who

24:04

is a professor of clinical forensic

24:06

psychiatry, to advise them on

24:08

the psychological impacts of what was going

24:10

on, not just on, he was there

24:12

to kind of monitor the

24:15

sort of psychological kind of

24:17

interrelations, not just between the

24:21

hostage takers and the victims as

24:23

it were, but between the negotiators

24:25

and the gunman as well. And he

24:27

is absolutely fascinating on the way that

24:29

evolved. I mean, the host, the negotiators

24:31

had a really terribly difficult task

24:34

ahead of them. There were six of them. They

24:36

operate leading shifts two at a time

24:38

throughout 24 hours a day. And

24:41

they had a really difficult task that

24:43

their role was to try to end

24:45

this thing bloodlessly to get as many

24:47

hostages out and released as they possibly

24:50

could, to keep it calm, and to

24:52

try to end it peacefully. Now, this

24:54

was an almost impossible task, because right

24:57

at the beginning, Margaret Thatcher had made

24:59

it crystal clear that these

25:02

gunmen were not going to get what they

25:04

wanted. She made it quite

25:06

clear that the police could continue to negotiate,

25:08

they could negotiate over food, they could send

25:10

in cigarettes, they could keep the conversation going,

25:13

she would even you know, it was even

25:15

allowed that they would be able to

25:17

broadcast or to have their statement broadcast on

25:19

the BBC. What they were not going to

25:22

do was get away with it. She was

25:24

not going to allow a plane

25:26

to be brought in, they were not going to be

25:28

allowed to be flown home, which is really what they

25:30

wanted. And so

25:33

from the beginning, the hostage negotiators faced a

25:35

really upfill the hill battle and it took

25:37

a huge psychological toll on some of them.

25:39

It was a really tough gig. Now,

25:43

the gunmen have captured a sort

25:45

of motley crew

25:47

of diplomats within the embassy because

25:50

they've missed the ambassador. That's

25:53

right. The ambassador has been replaced by a

25:55

charge d'affaires called Ali Afrouz, who was a

25:58

devotee of the Ayatollah, a a

26:01

pious and devout believer in Islam.

26:03

But he was a pretty hopeless

26:05

diplomat, the truth be told. He

26:07

was extremely inexperienced. And he'd

26:09

only been in post for a couple

26:11

of months. He didn't, he

26:13

barely got his feet under the

26:16

table. So as it were, there

26:18

were a group of diplomats whose

26:20

main criteria for being appointed to

26:22

these roles was that they were

26:24

loyal to the ayatollah and his

26:26

regime. Now, one of them is

26:28

particularly important. A man called Abbas

26:30

Lavassani, who was in the

26:33

press department. He was a press attache. He'd

26:36

taken part in the storming of the

26:38

US embassy in Iran the previous year.

26:41

He was an important figure

26:43

in some ways, because he was also

26:45

a revolutionary guard. Unbeknown,

26:47

in fact, to many of the other

26:49

people, but known to the Iranian staff,

26:51

he was really a spy for the

26:53

ayatollah to keep an eye on the

26:55

ideological conformity of the others. Abbas

26:58

Lavassani is absolutely vital to this story, because

27:00

he is, in his way,

27:02

as extreme and committed as any

27:04

of the gunmen. And

27:07

as the story progresses, the

27:10

conflict between he and some

27:12

of the people holding them

27:14

hostage begins to become extremely

27:16

aggressive. So there are divisions

27:18

between and among the diplomats as well. So

27:20

they are indeed a sort of what he

27:22

could. The other part of this story that's

27:24

never really been told is that there were

27:27

six women hostages in there. Their

27:29

stories have never come to light, because nobody

27:31

ever asked them what

27:33

it had felt like. They were all

27:36

secretaries, some of them very experienced. They

27:38

were all absolutely critical to the way the

27:41

thing unfolded. That's

27:43

very clear in the story

27:45

there. And I knew

27:47

of the event, but didn't know the

27:49

details. And you're absolutely right. You make

27:51

sort of assumptions, or your memory is

27:53

incorrect. And this gave so much detail.

27:56

And there were quite a few pages

27:58

when I went, wow. No,

28:00

you and me both actually. And

28:03

I mean, I set out on this thinking that I

28:05

had a pretty good grip on what this was

28:07

about. But actually, I really didn't. And

28:09

that is the way with with sort of myths, isn't it,

28:12

is that we sort of take them at face value. I

28:14

mean, the other element of this, of course, is is

28:16

the role of the SAS in all of this. The

28:20

SAS was largely unknown until

28:22

this happened. They were

28:24

a shadowy elite force operating

28:26

in Northern Ireland, operating in other parts

28:28

of the world. But they really didn't

28:31

have the public profile that

28:33

they would have after the Iranian

28:35

embassy seats. They were absolutely catapulted

28:37

into the limelight in ways

28:40

that some within the regiment feel was

28:42

not very good for it. It meant

28:44

that it could no longer really operate

28:46

covertly. And ever since, you can argue

28:48

that the regiment has sort of struggled

28:51

between sort of maintaining the secrecy and

28:53

mystique and and being sort

28:55

of public figures. I mean, all

28:57

the sort of modern TV programmes about, you

28:59

know, how tough are you, you know, who

29:01

dares wins. Those are really

29:03

all descendants of this particular

29:05

event when the SAS blasted

29:07

its way into sitting

29:09

rooms all over Britain, you know,

29:12

via the television. So the SAS role is

29:14

a very interesting one. So

29:17

what is the situation like in

29:19

the embassy in the first few

29:21

days? It's

29:24

extremely tense. It

29:26

is in some parts, it is quite hopeful.

29:28

I mean, people like Sim Harris, the BBC

29:30

sounded called this. He was an experienced foreign

29:32

correspondent, believed that this was this

29:35

was going to blow over pretty quickly. Others

29:37

were not so sanguine. There's another key

29:40

figure here who is a man called

29:42

Mustafa Karkouti, who was a

29:44

Syrian journalist, who was the only

29:46

person in the embassy who spoke

29:49

all three languages in which

29:51

this drama was being played out. He spoke. He

29:53

spoke Arabic, which was his native tongue. He

29:55

spoke perfect English and he also spoke Farsi so

29:57

he could speak the language, not just of the.

30:00

diplomats, but also of the gunman.

30:02

So he became a sort of

30:04

vital interlocutor between the different parties.

30:07

And he cottoned on

30:09

pretty early on that this was probably

30:11

going to end in violence that it

30:13

was, and he did his best,

30:16

he did an astonishing job of talking to

30:18

all the various parties. And he was quite

30:20

sympathetic in a way to the Arab gunman,

30:22

he himself was a Palestinian supporter of the

30:24

Palestinian cause, he, you know, he'd been pretty

30:26

radical in his youth. And in fact, MI5

30:28

had a file on him. And when they

30:30

discovered that he was inside the embassy, they

30:32

began to wonder whether he was involved in

30:34

it, whether he'd actually had a hand in

30:37

it, which he didn't. So, so

30:39

yes, weird way, it develops

30:41

its own routine, as even

30:43

though that sounds a bit of an odd thing for something

30:45

that is so dramatic, it developed

30:47

a kind of rhythm. And

30:49

the people inside got to know each other.

30:52

And cleverly, the police began

30:54

to provide meals for them. And

30:57

they began to provide, you know, meals to

30:59

order, you know, the Iranian food was produced

31:01

by a local Iranian restaurant, you know, and

31:04

they had what were really sort of picnics,

31:06

sitting around having these discussions when they would talk

31:09

about themselves, one of the things the lead gunman

31:11

asked everybody to do was to introduce

31:13

themselves and to and to

31:15

give an account of who they were and where

31:17

they came from. So you've got this bizarre situation,

31:20

where it's almost like a sort of

31:22

diplomatic gathering where these people are all

31:24

sort of standing around, chit chatting and

31:26

sort of talking about themselves. And then

31:28

at night being herded, the men and

31:30

the women into different rooms under gunpoint,

31:33

and and and at high moments of stress being

31:35

told that they're about to be killed. So you've

31:38

got this strange situation. At the same time, the

31:40

police, first of all, they cut off all the

31:42

telephones eventually, and the telex machine, it took them

31:44

a while to do it. So

31:46

they isolated the place, which is one of

31:49

the key elements of any hostage situation is

31:51

that you you cut them off from the

31:53

outside world. The second thing

31:55

they did was to introduce a field

31:57

telephone, which is a sort of a sort of

32:00

two-way telephone on a wire, often used

32:02

in sort of military situations, which

32:05

was directly connected to the

32:07

negotiating team about who

32:09

are now stationed about three or four doors

32:11

down on Prince's Gate, so that

32:13

the gunman could pick up the telephone and

32:16

contact the police whenever they wanted to, or

32:18

if they wanted cigarettes, or if they wanted

32:20

more time or they wanted to discuss. So

32:23

that was a way of defusing the

32:25

situation. Of course, what the gunman didn't

32:28

know was that the police had inserted

32:30

a listening device into that telephone, which

32:33

meant that they could hear what was

32:35

going on inside the embassy, even

32:38

when the telephone was on the hook.

32:40

I mean, that proved to be the

32:42

most valuable eavesdropping device of many that

32:45

they managed to introduce into the building.

32:48

So you've got a system whereby there is a

32:50

kind of rhythm going, but at the same time,

32:52

the gunman are

32:54

becoming increasingly frustrated by,

32:57

first of all, by the British

32:59

refusal to broadcast their statement, the

33:02

statement of what they wanted in their

33:04

Rabiistan, as they called Khuzestan. Secondly,

33:07

by Thatcher's flat refusal,

33:09

really, to allow Arab

33:12

ambassadors to negotiate. That was one of their

33:15

demands, was that they wanted to have either

33:17

the Syrian or the Algerian or another

33:20

Arab ambassador to act as a kind of

33:22

a negotiator for them, and so that they

33:24

could sort of speak through him. Now, at

33:26

one point, the Arab ambassadors seemed to be

33:28

prepared to do this. Thatcher didn't want that.

33:31

She didn't want anybody getting in the way.

33:33

So that was, again, a

33:35

source of mounting frustration to

33:37

the gunman. And then

33:40

there is also the effect of sleeplessness.

33:42

The truth is the gunman for more than

33:44

five nights had no sleep at all.

33:47

And the hostages got precious little.

33:49

And so the effect of that was

33:51

ratcheting the tension up inside. And

33:54

it finally led to a

33:56

confrontation inside the embassy. This

33:59

happened when one of the gunman found a

34:01

magic marker pen and began to

34:04

draw anti-Komeini

34:06

slogans on the walls. Now

34:09

when the more sort of extreme

34:12

of the diplomats saw this happening, they protested

34:14

and said, you know, this is, you know,

34:16

you are accusing the eye of tolerance of,

34:19

you know, it is blasphemy, this is

34:21

not acceptable. But there was one in particular, Abbas

34:23

Lavassani, the one I mentioned before, the Revolutionary Guard,

34:26

who stood up and tore his shirt apart and

34:28

said, if you want a martyr, I will be

34:30

the martyr. Well, that

34:32

was a mistake, in retrospect,

34:36

because the deputy leader of

34:39

the gunman, who was himself

34:41

an extremely radicalized and sort

34:43

of brutalized figure, decided

34:46

that this was a moment of real confrontation,

34:48

and he very nearly killed him on the

34:51

spot. But eventually he would

34:53

become the first victim of the Iranian embassy

34:55

siege. The

34:58

gunman are getting rattled by

35:01

noises in the wall, and they're

35:03

hearing strange things around them, which

35:05

is making them very suspicious that

35:07

someone's going to break in through

35:09

the wolves any moment. Absolutely. It

35:11

would be comical if it wasn't

35:13

so terrifying. There is a moment

35:15

when the lead gunman, Talfik, summons

35:18

Trevor Locke, the policeman, and says, there are

35:20

there are noises in the wall, there are

35:22

noises in the wall, what is happening? And

35:24

Trevor Locke comes up to the wall and

35:26

takes off his hat and listens to the

35:28

barrier carefully to the

35:30

wall and then turns around to him and says, I think

35:32

there are mice. I mean, the

35:35

reality, of course, was that MI5 and

35:38

the police technicians were drilling into the

35:40

building on either side to try and

35:42

insert audio probes to hear what was

35:45

happening. And once

35:47

it became clear that the gunman

35:49

were becoming rattled by this, they

35:52

came up with what seems in retrospect to

35:54

be a sort of mad plan. They decided

35:56

that in order to cover the noise

35:58

of the drilling, they would

36:00

make a bigger noise and they bought

36:03

in the gas board who started and

36:05

they started digging up the street about

36:08

100 yards away making an incredible racket in

36:10

the middle of the night to

36:13

try to disguise the noise of the drills

36:15

being put into the embassy now that of

36:17

course had exactly the opposite effect

36:19

what that did was it made the gunman

36:21

even more twitchy because they thought that this

36:23

must be cover for some arm the salt

36:26

and it very nearly led to a real

36:28

to a terrible moment but in fact so again

36:31

when the authorities realized this was backfire and

36:33

they stopped that drilling and came up with

36:35

an even more ingenious plan which was that

36:37

they contacted the civil aviation authority and

36:41

persuaded the air traffic

36:43

controllers at Heathrow to divert

36:45

planes so that they would

36:47

rumble low over the embassy

36:50

an incredible noise at that point because of course

36:52

planes were not only louder they were flying much

36:54

lower and under cover of that

36:56

noise they would do a bit of drilling so

36:59

as the planes were coming in the drilling would

37:01

start up again on the grounds that no one

37:03

would be able to hear it and then as

37:05

the planes as the sound rumbled away they would

37:07

stop it sounds very sort of Tom and Jerry

37:09

in retrospect but it worked by the end of

37:11

the six days they didn't have

37:13

anything like perfect coverage of what was going

37:16

on but they were eavesdropping on a lot

37:18

of conversations Brilliant

37:20

ingenuity there one of the

37:23

things that surprised me reading

37:25

the book was that the

37:27

police negotiators were sort of

37:30

insulated from other sort of

37:32

plans were being made particularly

37:34

around the SAS This

37:37

is a classic police tactic the

37:40

police negotiators need to be able

37:42

to deal with the

37:44

gunman the hostage takers in good

37:46

faith they can only ever

37:48

act as sort of eat it intermediaries to higher

37:50

up so so when the gunman say you know

37:52

we want more food or we

37:55

want a broadcast on the hostage

37:57

negotiation says yes well thank you very much Tafique I'll

37:59

talk to you soon to the bosses about that.

38:02

What the what the hostage negotiators cannot

38:04

do is is no more

38:06

than than

38:08

they let on. So for example

38:10

had the negotiators let slip that

38:13

they knew about conversations

38:15

for example that were taking place in the

38:17

embassy that would immediately have

38:19

tipped off the gunman to the notion that

38:21

they were being eavesdropped on. So that

38:24

fact, the fact that eavesdropping

38:26

devices were being borrowed

38:28

in on all sides into the embassy

38:31

was kept from the negotiating team in

38:33

case it led to a slip and

38:35

that was generally the case. The negotiating

38:37

team knew only what they needed to

38:39

know in order to negotiate and no

38:41

more. They had no idea for example

38:44

that the SAS was physically next door

38:46

to the building. They they'd moved into

38:48

number 15 on the night of

38:50

the of the first assault and and were

38:52

preparing to go in. That was that was

38:55

unknown to the to the police negotiators. And

38:58

how are the SAS planning this assault? How

39:00

how are they putting that plan together and

39:03

and trying to make sure that everything's going

39:05

to go clockwork? Well again this is something

39:07

that very few people know. Back in 1972

39:09

in the wake of the Munich

39:13

Olympic massacre, the

39:15

British government decided that

39:18

there had to be some sort of

39:20

contingency planning for in

39:22

case a similar hostage situation arose

39:25

in the UK. And

39:27

from that moment on the SAS

39:29

was tasked with the job of

39:31

keeping a team on

39:34

permanent standby in Hereford, able

39:37

to cope, trained to cope with

39:39

hostage taking situations. Now in

39:42

the middle of the Hereford Barracks in

39:44

in the Bradbury lines as they were

39:46

called then, there is something called the

39:48

Killing House which is a

39:50

sort of purpose-built sort

39:53

of ordinary house that

39:55

is used for hostage situations and

39:59

it's lined with sort of bullet

40:01

absorbing material. And the

40:03

training, broadly speaking, goes like this.

40:06

The SAS burst in, try to identify

40:08

who are gunmen and who are hostages,

40:10

try and neutralize the gunmen and

40:12

rescue the hostages. Now, believe it or not, the

40:14

royal family is taken to this

40:16

place, it's called the Killing House, every

40:19

so often, to experience what it would

40:21

be like to be kidnapped and liberated

40:23

by the SAS. So by the time

40:25

the Iranian embassy siege happens, the SAS

40:27

has been training for a moment like

40:29

this, for eight years. The

40:32

only thing that they've never done is

40:34

an actual hostage rescue. But

40:36

they've trained and they train and they train

40:39

and the different SAS squadrons train in

40:41

rotation. So there is always one ready

40:43

to go. And in

40:45

this instance, this was B Squadron of

40:48

22 SAS. With

40:51

the officer in command of 22 SAS

40:53

was Colonel Michael Rose and

40:56

the person in charge of B Squadron

40:58

was Hector Gullen. Someone again, who's never

41:00

ever told their story before, but

41:03

he was the man responsible for drawing

41:05

up what would become

41:07

Operation Nimrod, which was

41:09

the contingency planning for when

41:11

or if the

41:14

SAS had to go in. Now, he,

41:16

along with many of the others involved, never believed

41:18

it would really have to be happen. They had

41:20

been in these situations before and they'd never actually

41:22

had to implement it. It was really only in

41:25

the last 48 hours that

41:27

Gullen and his men realized that

41:29

there was a growing likelihood that

41:31

they would have to put Operation

41:33

Nimrod into action. And it was

41:35

a highly complex multifaceted

41:37

plan. It involved

41:39

all sorts of different moving parts. The

41:42

assault would take place on five different levels

41:44

from the front, the basement, the back, abseiling

41:46

down the back onto the second floor. And

41:48

then two teams going down the central well

41:51

that ran down the middle of the building.

41:53

So it was really, it was an all

41:55

out what they call

41:57

a stronghold assault, but it

41:59

was highly. highly dangerous and even

42:02

the planners, even Peter

42:05

de la Billière, the head of special

42:07

forces who was advising Margaret Thatcher, told

42:09

her the likelihood is that 40% of

42:12

the people in that building

42:14

will become casualties of one sort or

42:16

another. So they knew

42:18

that whatever they did, they were up

42:20

against heavily armed, highly volatile men

42:23

with explosives who had consistently

42:25

threatened to blow up the entire building. Now,

42:27

for all their listening devices, MI5 and the

42:30

police could not be sure whether or

42:32

not that building had

42:35

been mined, whether or not it was

42:37

rigged with explosives. And there was a

42:39

chance and everyone knew it that the

42:41

minute the SAS went in, the entire

42:43

building might explode, killing everybody inside it.

42:47

Which sort of neatly brings

42:49

us to day six of

42:52

the siege, where the situation is

42:54

reaching a crisis point. Can you

42:56

take me through what happens that

42:58

day? Hi, I'm Andrew and I'm

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podcast. Thank you. Yes,

44:07

the breaking point happens in the

44:10

morning when the gunman

44:12

have really kind of given up

44:15

on getting what they want and feel

44:17

that they had to do something. They had to make it

44:19

clear that they were serious about what they were doing. There

44:22

was a tremendous fight among them about what

44:24

to do. But in fact, the number two,

44:26

Jassim was the one who kind of prevailed

44:28

in the end. And

44:30

Abbas Lavasani, the Revolutionary Guard,

44:33

the Iranian hardline devotee, was

44:35

taken downstairs, tied to

44:37

a banister and executed. He was shot with

44:39

several bullets to the back of his head

44:42

by Jassim. Now, none

44:44

of the hostages witnessed that moment, although

44:46

Trevolok had seen this poor man being

44:49

tied up and believed he knew what

44:51

was coming. They hadn't witnessed it. Outside

44:54

the building, the gunfire was

44:56

heard, and

44:58

indeed on the listening devices, but no one could

45:00

be sure that someone had been killed. Satya

45:03

had laid down a red line. She had

45:05

said that if one hostage is killed, then

45:08

we will try to continue negotiations because it

45:10

is possible that we can achieve a bloodless

45:13

end. If two die, that is the red

45:15

line. That is the moment that the SAS

45:17

go in. So they had

45:19

reason to believe that there had

45:21

been gunfire, but they couldn't be sure. It

45:23

took another six hours of sort of fruitless

45:26

negotiations and back and forth before there was

45:28

another burst of gunfire inside the building. And

45:31

moments later, the body of Abbas Lavasani,

45:33

who had in fact been dead for

45:35

six hours, was now pushed

45:37

outside onto the front step. A

45:39

very swift post-mortem established that he

45:42

had been dead for some considerable

45:44

period, which meant that possibly

45:47

the second set of shots that have

45:49

been heard might be another execution. And

45:53

John Dello, the policeman in charge

45:55

of the whole operation, came

45:57

to the conclusion that there was a high likelihood. that

46:00

two hostages had now been killed. In fact,

46:02

only one had by this point. This

46:05

was a bluff by Taufik, but no one could know

46:07

that. Dello formally handed

46:09

over control to the SAS.

46:13

The home secretary sitting in the emergency

46:15

COBRA committee was informed of what

46:17

was happening. He contacted

46:20

Margaret Thatcher on the

46:22

radio telephone in her car. She was driving

46:24

back from Chequers at this point. And in

46:26

one of those twists that could really only

46:29

happen in a movie or a Hollywood script,

46:33

she couldn't hear him on the telephone. The reception wasn't

46:35

good enough. So they had to move on.

46:37

And eventually, they did get through. And

46:40

she gave authorization for Operation Nimrod from

46:42

a lay by north of High Wycombe.

46:45

She said, yes, go in. And

46:48

for the first time in 20th

46:50

century history, civilian

46:52

control was handed over to

46:55

the military temporarily. It

46:57

was formally done. And the military were then in

47:00

charge of what was going to happen. And

47:03

Operation Nimrod was launched. It would

47:05

last 11 minutes. It

47:08

was a very short time. The

47:10

story of what happened in those 11 minutes

47:12

takes up roughly a quarter of the entire

47:14

book, because it's

47:16

extraordinarily dramatic. And in

47:18

fact, you have six different battles taking

47:21

place all over that building. It's

47:23

not just the footage that you see at the front.

47:25

There are people abseiling down the back. One

47:28

of the leaders of one of the teams

47:31

got caught in his abseiling

47:33

gear and suspended upside down

47:36

over the rear balcony at

47:39

a time when the flashbangs that they thrown

47:41

in to kind of neutralize the people inside

47:43

had already set fire to the room. And

47:46

fire was billowing out. So he

47:49

was quite literally being roasted alive

47:51

at the back of the building. I mean, he

47:54

was saved in the end. Somebody above

47:56

him managed to cut the rope at the right moment and he

47:58

got away. At the same time, he was killed. you

48:00

have the people going through the front

48:02

windows who expect to go in

48:04

unopposed. It's not thought that there's anyone in the

48:06

front of the building. But in fact, the

48:09

intelligence, while it was very good, was

48:11

not perfect. The gunmen were not where

48:13

they were supposed to be and expected

48:15

to be. The hostages were

48:17

not where they were believed to be.

48:19

The whole thing

48:21

kicked off with an enormous explosion. Several

48:24

pounds of explosives, plastic explosives, were lowered

48:26

down the middle of the building into

48:28

the void around which

48:30

the building was built. Now, at the bottom

48:33

of that void, at the

48:35

bottom of the first floor, was

48:37

a glass and steel atrium

48:39

roof. The idea was that

48:42

the lead gunman, Tawfiq, the attack

48:44

would take place while he was on

48:47

the field telephone. Now, the cord of

48:49

that field telephone had been carefully measured.

48:52

And so therefore, they knew how long it was. And

48:54

therefore, they thought they knew where he should be if

48:56

he was on the telephone, or at least

48:58

they knew he had to be within a certain radius. The

49:01

reality was he'd actually, what he'd done was he'd

49:03

threaded the cord of the telephone up to the

49:05

first floor. And he wasn't standing in the hallway

49:08

as expected. He was actually on the landing of

49:10

the first floor. So when the bomb went off,

49:13

about two and a half tons of

49:15

metal and glass and plaster and rubble

49:17

went crashing down into the hallway. The

49:19

idea was that this was going to

49:21

flatten the lead gunman. And

49:23

put him out of action, or

49:25

as Hector Gulland puts it, give

49:27

him a very close haircut. In

49:29

fact, it missed him completely. And

49:31

you can hear this happening live on the

49:33

telephone as he is talking to the police

49:35

negotiator, who is trying to keep him on

49:38

the telephone so that Operation Nimrod can go

49:40

into action. So you've got

49:42

all these things happening at the same

49:44

time and different conflicts breaking out between

49:46

the different groups of SAS

49:48

and the different gunmen who are positioned at different

49:50

points in the building. I won't

49:53

give away exactly what happens, but

49:55

it is a moment of high drama.

49:57

In the meantime, the hostages are trying to get out.

50:00

And at least two of the gunmen begin

50:02

to open fire. They again at

50:04

the huddled male hostages in one

50:06

corner of one of the rooms

50:08

at the front, several of them

50:10

are extremely gravely injured. One is

50:13

killed outright. That is the second

50:15

fatality of the Iranian

50:18

embassy siege. But miraculously,

50:21

most of the hostages survive

50:24

apart from these two. And all

50:26

but one of the gunmen are

50:28

killed by the attacking SAS. It

50:32

appears like what could

50:35

go wrong does go wrong. What

50:37

with the guy abseiling down and

50:39

getting stuck, they're using these charges

50:41

on the windows, which they've never

50:43

used before. And

50:45

they decide, well, we better

50:47

go for the most amount we can put

50:49

on here and, you know, almost

50:51

take the front of the embassy off.

50:54

They do. I mean, they are too much

50:56

explosive. And the almost the entire balcony dematerializes.

50:59

I mean, it's like most plans you can you can

51:01

plan and plan. And Hector Gullin is fascinating on this

51:03

subject. He says you can make as many plans as

51:05

you like. But the other side is

51:07

also planning. And you cannot

51:11

anticipate everything. I mean, in the end,

51:14

the success of the Iranian embassy

51:16

siege assault comes out

51:19

of three things, I think. I

51:21

mean, one is training. I mean,

51:23

the SAS were highly trained. They

51:25

pretty much every contingency they'd looked

51:27

at. The second was that

51:29

they were able to adapt to changing circumstances.

51:32

They couldn't know exactly what was going on

51:34

inside. It was filled with tear gas and

51:37

smoke and fire and and

51:39

gunfire everywhere. And yet they were able to sort

51:41

of keep their cool and get

51:43

through it. So enormous courage is one

51:45

of the other factors. And the other,

51:47

in truth, and his raw luck, they

51:50

were incredibly lucky. Talked to any of

51:52

them today and they will quite humbly

51:54

say, yeah, we were good. But the

51:56

truth is, we were incredibly lucky. There

51:59

was only one. minor

52:01

injury among the attacking SAS

52:03

force. And

52:05

you mentioned the the gunman that

52:07

survived. Now he was basically

52:11

saved by the other hostages,

52:13

particularly the women hostages. Yes,

52:15

I mean he had hidden himself. I mean

52:17

he's the youngest, the most naive, he really

52:20

had not a clue what was going on.

52:22

He was, you know, he

52:24

was manipulated really and I don't listen, I'm

52:26

not excusing him, you know, he

52:28

took part in a brutal, murderous terrorist

52:31

attack. But he was

52:33

a fool, as most people involved

52:35

in these sort of situations are.

52:37

He was terrified and

52:39

as the SAS was storming in,

52:41

he threw down his guns and hid

52:43

among the hostages. So as they

52:46

were being handed down the stairs, he sort

52:49

of secreted himself among the women. And

52:51

as the hostages were being laid out in the back, I

52:53

mean one of the things the police did was when

52:56

they got them onto the back lawn, they

52:58

were all handcuffed, laid on their faces in

53:00

handcuffs because of course they couldn't know who

53:03

were gunman and who were not. And

53:05

as they were going through them, the

53:08

one survivor Fauzi Nejad was spotted by

53:10

Sim Harris, in fact, who said that

53:12

one's a terrorist, that one's a terrorist.

53:15

And at that point it's very, it's

53:17

it is confused and it is uncertain

53:19

what was then happening. But

53:21

certainly some of

53:24

the hostages believed that the SAS were

53:26

preparing to drag Fauzi back inside the

53:28

building and finish him off. Now, the

53:31

SAS hotly denies this and there is

53:33

no final proof either way.

53:35

But what is clear is that the

53:37

women hostages gathered around the one surviving

53:40

gunman and here's your evidence of Stockholm

53:42

syndrome if you ever needed it and

53:44

said, no, no, you can't leave

53:46

him alone. Don't hurt him. He's our brother. So,

53:49

you know, you get a sense of quite what

53:51

had happened inside the building. So yes, he was

53:54

he was identified. He was one thing we know

53:56

for certain is that the SAS did not kill

53:58

him because he was carted over. away

54:01

in handcuffs, tried for murder and

54:04

served a very, very long prison

54:06

sentence. So he is the one

54:08

survivor among them. Right

54:11

at the start, we talked about PC

54:13

Trevor Lott, the British Bobby, who

54:15

I think you said he's probably

54:18

one of the great heroes of

54:20

this story. I mean, he's managed

54:22

to conceal his gun for six

54:25

days. His wife had

54:27

given him, I think, two jumpers to

54:29

wear, so he wasn't cold. And he's

54:31

kept his tunic and coat on through

54:34

that entire time and has

54:36

not been to the loo either

54:38

because he's afraid that it will reveal the

54:41

fact he's carrying a revolver. Well, it's an

54:43

extraordinary, and again, it would be comical if

54:45

it wasn't so extraordinary. Yes, he realised, I

54:47

mean, what used to happen was that the

54:49

gunman would allow people to go to the

54:51

loo, but they would accompany

54:54

them. And Trevor

54:56

quickly realised that if he tried

54:59

to go to the loo, he'd have to

55:01

take his jacket off. And if he took his jacket off, they'd

55:03

see his gun. So he

55:06

really ate and drank almost nothing

55:08

while he was inside that embassy. It's

55:11

really one of the most heroic

55:13

cases of self-imposed constipation you could

55:15

ever imagine. But he managed

55:17

to do it, and he kept the gun

55:20

hidden throughout until the very, very final moments

55:23

when he and the lead gunman,

55:25

Taufik, found themselves in

55:27

a death grapple in

55:29

one of the rooms. They'd been talking

55:32

on the telephone, and he produced the

55:34

gun from his belt. And Taufik was

55:36

absolutely astonished, suddenly realising that this policeman

55:39

had had a gun on him the

55:41

whole time. It's a fascinating

55:43

moment because, as Trevor describes it, he had

55:46

to make the choice about whether or

55:48

not to use the gun, whether or not to

55:51

actually kill Taufik at that moment. And

55:53

in the end, he couldn't do it. He

55:55

didn't have to, because seconds later,

55:58

the SAS burst in. and

56:01

did it themselves. But he's fascinating about

56:03

all of that. And even today, he's

56:05

the most remarkable man because he

56:08

really did not want to be, I

56:10

mean, it's such an overused word, but he had

56:12

no intention of being a hero. He wasn't trained

56:14

for that kind of thing. He wasn't, you know,

56:16

heroism was the last thing he wanted. And

56:19

yet somehow, at the

56:21

last moment, he had found the

56:24

courage to kind of

56:26

this resource, this reservoir that he never knew

56:28

he had. And without Trevor Locke, I think,

56:31

who became a kind of an emblem

56:33

of resilience to the other hostages throughout, he

56:36

never took his cap off, for example. Now

56:38

he sat on the main chair in the

56:40

hostage room the whole time because he realized

56:42

that he had to become a sort of

56:44

symbol of solidity and

56:47

quietness and defense,

56:50

as it were, without confronting the

56:52

gunman. And I think without him,

56:55

the whole story could have ended in

56:57

an absolute tragedy. So Trevor

56:59

Locke certainly deserves the medal he got,

57:01

but he's never, up until now, he's

57:03

never really talked about what the experience

57:06

was like for him. And I think

57:08

it left him with, as he did

57:10

many of the hostages, with deep psychological

57:12

scars. It's

57:16

the depth of the psyche

57:18

of both the hostages and

57:22

the terrorists that you get into, I

57:24

think is one of the fascinating bits.

57:26

As you say, the ending of the

57:29

siege is a big chunk of the

57:31

book, but the bits that I found

57:33

particularly fascinating was how the psychology changed,

57:37

how the pressure is ratcheted

57:39

up and how one of those

57:42

hostage negotiations is dealt with. Yeah, I

57:44

mean, it's almost a science these days,

57:46

the whole issue of how you talk

57:48

to hostage shakers, how you

57:51

deal with a situation like that. Then

57:53

in 1980, it was really in its

57:55

infancy that it wasn't a structured way

57:57

of approaching these things. credit

58:00

really to the police for the way

58:02

they tried to do it. Again, they

58:04

were sort of damaged by this experience.

58:06

They felt, some of them, that they

58:08

had failed. Their job was to try

58:10

to save lives, to try to prevent

58:13

this ending in bloodshed. And

58:15

certainly Dellow and some of the others felt

58:17

that they had not been able to do

58:19

what they set out to do. And so

58:21

that too had a kind of long-term effect

58:23

on all of them, I think. We

58:26

talked at the start about

58:29

the legacy of the siege

58:31

and the publicity that the

58:33

SAS now got. I think

58:35

you talk about it in the book, where

58:37

there was a sudden rise in people at

58:39

the Army recruitment centers, expecting

58:42

to be handed a balaclava and a

58:44

submachine gun over the counter. Yeah. I

58:46

mean, it was kind of,

58:48

Peter Dellow Beliare is very funny about this.

58:51

I mean, yes, applications joined the regiment rocketed.

58:53

No one had ever heard of the SAS

58:55

before. Suddenly, they were die-hard,

58:58

daring, do celebrities. And everybody wanted

59:00

to join the regiment. One

59:03

other impact was that other countries began

59:05

asking Britain to loan out the SAS, to

59:09

train their own people and to help

59:11

them with other hostage situations. It raised

59:13

Britain's military profile in an

59:16

extraordinary way. There are

59:18

people within the SAS today who say that

59:20

actually the longer-term impact on the SAS was

59:22

not very healthy, that they had

59:24

gone from being sort of hidden warriors to

59:26

suddenly being in the limelight. And that made

59:28

their job much more difficult. You can argue

59:31

that the SAS has been wrestling with the

59:33

kind of, as it

59:35

were, the tension between celebrity and

59:37

mystery and secrecy ever since. All

59:40

of those programs

59:42

that you see on television, you know, Who Dares

59:44

Wins and all that sort of how Tafai stuff,

59:47

sort of comes from this moment when the

59:49

SAS revealed themselves to be these as

59:53

John Lecare put it, action men personified.

59:55

So it has a long-term effect on

59:57

the SAS. Well

1:08:00

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