Dominic

They didn't go back.

No, they didn't go back.

I mean, that's the amazing thing.

They abandoned the stuff, but also in the helicopter were the plans of the mission.

Right.

And the Iranians were able to get the kind of charred fragments of paper and exhibit them to the world.

Oh, I didn't know that.

That bit I didn't know.

Yeah.

I mean, it could not have been a greater catastrophe.

And then you've got another image from the U.S.

Embassy, haven't you, where the hostages are being kept?

I think the reason the Iranian Revolution had such an impact on US domestic opinion was the otherness of it.

So it's men with beards.

We've got the forbidding-looking priests and clerics in the photo with the Ayatollahs.

And then this picture, it's the sort of frenzy of it that I think for people, if you're sitting in Wisconsin watching on TV or something or opening a newspaper, that's what people found unsettling because they didn't appreciate that the...

I guess the strength of feeling, the fervor against the Shah, but also the religious dimension.

Abbas specialized him.

Oh, well, I think their particular brand of Islam, so Shia, the fact that they're embattled and they're surrounded by Sunnis is obviously very important to explaining Iranian mentality.

And it's where I think religion and nationalism kind of fuse.