OLIVET, Mich. -- The aborted military raid in 1980 to free the American hostages in Iran could have proven lethal to them and was 'one of the greatest mistakes' of the crisis, former captive Robert Ode says.
'We would have come out in boxes, not on our feet,' said Ode, a retired foreign service officer who had been the eldest of the 52 hostages. 'I don't see how it could have ever succeeded.'
Ode, 65, a Michigan native, made the remark Saturday during commencement exercises at Olivet College, which he briefly attended in 1934. He received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree Sunday.
Ode, who grew up in Manistee and has family living in mid-Michigan, now lives in Arizona. He had been on temporary administrative assignment when the U.S. embassy in Tehran was overtaken by Iranian militants in November 1979.
The helicopter raid in late April 1980 bogged down in an Iranian desert and ended in tragedy when a helicopter collided with a support airplane, killing eight servicemen.
'I think the attempted raid was one of the greatest mistakes that ever occurred,' Ode told several hundred Olivet alumni, saying the mission might have never reached Tehran.
'Even if they'd managed to obtain access to the embassy compound, there's no doubt the terrorists would have killed us all.'
Although not holding former President Jimmy Carter to blame, Ode criticized presidential and military advisers for undertaking the rescue mission.
'I feel no bitterness toward President Carter,' Ode said. 'He received very poor advice. A president can't do anything when he doesn't get proper advice from the military.'
Ode said he also does not feel retribution should be taken against Iran.
'What has to be accomplished now is for the Iranians to straighten themselves out, not us going back in B-52s,' he said. 'I don't think that during World War II practically leveling Europe accomplished anything.
'It's wrong to judge all Iranians on the actions of a few.'
