Delta Force (24 page)

From the nature of the calls I was receiving, it was obvious that Department of the Army had chopped Delta to the control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It became even more evident, when I was told to report to the River Entrance of the Pentagon. The River Entrance is the JCS entrance.

I flew up on Monday afternoon. On this bright, early winter's afternoon an Army car was waiting at Davison Army Airfield at Fort Belvoir to take me directly to the River Entrance.

Inside the Pentagon, after showing a military ID, I turned right on the E-ring and walked a short distance down a busy corridor. The portraits of American military immortals—Sheridan and Stuart, Halsey and Spruance, Ridgway and Stilwell—looked out from the walls.

Shortly after passing the offices of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I hung a left onto corridor 8. If you miss this junction you will end up sometime later at the Mall Entrance. These rings and corridors wind around for seventeen miles and it's easy to get lost in them. I had learned this the hard way a few years earlier when I was getting Delta off the drawing board.

A little way down the corridor, past portraits of former
Chairmen—Admirals Radford and Moorer, Air Force Generals Twining and Brown, Army Generals Bradley, Lemnitzer, Taylor, and Wheeler—there is a closed door which opens into the Special Operations Division of the JCS.

On entering this large room I noticed six times as many people and more activity than I'd ever seen before. A lot of paper was moving around. I heard typewriters, telephone bells, and the murmur-murmur of a dozen conversations. Small groups of action officers huddled together and I began to hear, like a siren above city traffic, the word “Delta.”

“We can infiltrate Delta by foot…”

“Delta can be dropped in…”

People I'd never seen before were talking about Delta the way they talked about the Washington Redskins. Buckshot was correct. There was a lot of activity being generated in this division. I saw a lot of new faces. The key, of course, was to identify who amongst them were credible and who weren't.

I worked my way into the office of the Director of Special Operations, Col. Larry Stearns.

“Come in, Charlie, and shut the door.” That was General Meyer. I looked around and saw two other general officers standing there. Gen. Glenn Otis was one of them. He was General Meyer's DCSOPS. The other one, Maj. Gen. James Vaught. He had visited Delta at an earlier time and, because of the slow way he had of speaking and the way he chewed on his words, some of the troops called him “The Neanderthal Man.” I knew him fairly well. I was going to get to know him much better.

General Vaught, whose radio call sign was Hammer, perceives himself as a soldier's soldier. He'd served in combat and was very quick to tell you he'd served in three wars: World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He is an airborne general. I saw him as having a large ego matched only by his ambition. I knew of him when he had been Chief of Staff for the XVIII Airborne Corps and met him when he commanded Fort Stewart and controlled the 1st Ranger Battalion. We had spoken during one of my recruitment drives and I felt he was in favor of Delta. A few of his soldiers from the 24th Infantry Division
at Fort Stewart had even volunteered to come up and run our selection course. General Vaught wanted everyone to know he was, first, a general officer and, second, that he was in control. He would have told you his first name was General. I never once called him Jim, yet I was comfortable with him. The planning phase of the mission he now commanded was to eventually be dubbed, for operations security purposes, Rice Bowl.

General Meyer asked my opinion about a rescue attempt. I told him we had real problems with the distances we'd have to travel. After I'd dropped Buckshot off, the night he'd flown down to Bragg in the T-39, I'd gone home and looked at a big
National Geographic
atlas. With Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman to the south, Iraq and Turkey to the west, the Caspian Sea and the Russian steppes of central Asia to the north, Iran is a long damn way from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Teheran, the capital, is buried deep in the Iranian interior, surrounded and protected by mountains and deserts. I wasn't telling General Meyer anything he didn't already know. What kind of airplanes would be used? Where would they take off? Where would they land?

When I finished asking all the questions I had written on those 3″ x 5″ cards, he said, “Charlie, you need to clearly understand that the people you saw on the other side of this wall will not do your planning. You will develop the ground tactical plan—how many operators are required, the nature of the equipment you'll need, and whether you're ready to go. If you cannot answer this last question positively, the President will be so informed.” I appreciated Moses talking like this. It was reassuring, especially after overhearing some of the ideas I'd heard in the outer office area. I also appreciated that General Vaught had heard all of this and now knew what my charter was in the newly formed joint Task Force (JTF).

I restated the concerns I was having about getting into and out of Teheran. “Charlie,” General Meyer said, “that's really the responsibility of the air people. They're the ones who have to fly you there. Let them worry about that particular problem. I don't object to your sticking your nose into it, but it would
appear to me that you have a full plate designing the ground tactical plan.”

After this business had been settled and our meeting adjourned, I spent some time with a nucleus of planners I was introduced to. Air Force Gen. David Jones, who was then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had begun to pull together officers from his own staff. Requests were also pending for recruits from the different services and commands—the European Command, Military Airlift Command, Tactical Air Command, the Navy, others.

Some of the operations planners were responsible for coming up with ideas for the rescue. They told me, “Some of the ideas you'll hear are weird, but we'd like to drive them by you anyway.” I then heard ideas for using parachutes, fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, trucks, buses, and automobiles.

One of the planners said, “What we ought to do is get on helicopters and crash land them in the embassy.”

“Well,” I said, “if you crash land them, how will we get out?”

“Oh.”

He hadn't thought that part out yet.

Delta had been given a mission: Assault the American Embassy in Teheran; take out the guards; free the hostages and get everyone safely out of Iran. That part was simple. All we needed to do now was come up with a plan. But without sufficient intelligence, nothing they said made any sense. We needed three things: information, information, and information.

I was concerned with one piece of news I'd heard earlier in the evening. It was hard to believe. I'd been nosing around the intelligence planners in an attempt to learn the status of their effort; and I'd been introduced to the CIA liaison officer who recently had been assigned to the Joint Task Force to support and assist in its planning. He knew the Iranian situation well, having previously been assigned to Teheran. I'd said to him and others standing by, “What we gotta do is get in touch
with the stay-behind assets in country and task them with our intelligence requirements.” (In English, get in touch with our agents in Teheran and have them answer the mail.) He led me to a quiet corner and whispered the astonishing news, “We don't have any.”

All the news wasn't that grim. The intelligence section of special ops at the JCS had done a lot of spade work. Besides acquiring detailed maps, they were having built a large-scale model of the embassy's buildings and grounds. There were no people in this section who hadn't read past
Ned-The-First-Reader
. They were optimistic, busy, and professional. An Air Force lieutenant colonel whom I'll call Ron Killeen spent a lot of time filling me in with what he knew.

Before departing the Pentagon that evening, I asked General Vaught if he had any guidance for me. He said, “I've just been called back from London and don't know any more than you do. I've got to play catch-up ball, then get this task force in gear. As soon as I can, I'll be down to see you.”

During the flight back to Camp Smokey that evening, conflicting and confusing images ran through my mind. There were just too many questions and too few answers. Not much useful would come out of what was then known.

It was well past midnight by the time I arrived back in Camp Smokey.

THIRTY-TWO

THE NEXT MORNING
the KW-7, which linked Camp Smokey to the Pentagon, began to clatter with incoming message traffic. Most of it was information that was passing from CIA to the JCS. Some of the information was of course useful, but some of it worthless.

At this time Delta had only two intelligence analysts available to sort through the reams and reams of material being transmitted. What was acute was to figure out the various rating systems on how reliable information was considered to be. Nearly every agency that sent us material used a different system. A report would come in stating that the source was “untested.” The intelligence guys needed more than that. Was the source reliable on any basis? Another report might read. “An untested source received through an unofficial contact…” What does “unofficial contact” mean? Was the contact reliable or unreliable in the past?

Some people in intelligence became highly indignant when we complained about the reports. An official came down to point out that well over 200 reports had been furnished Delta. Wade Ishimoto explained, very nicely but firmly, that most of the information we received and laboriously read dealt with material having nothing to do with the hostages. A report he pulled out listed fourteen items that had come from travelers who'd just returned from Iran. The fourteen items covered everything from the Turkish border area down to Baluchestan
va Sistan in the south. Not one of these was even remotely related to the hostages.

Eventually, messages coming into Smokey that related directly to our needs were slugged with a code name for easy identification.

Major Coyote's A Squadron had settled into Camp Smokey and was becoming acquainted with its new surroundings. The support people we had left behind in Bragg were having a far more difficult time. Lieutenant Colonel Potter and Captain Smith (Delta's adjutant) were responsible for putting up the appearance that Delta was still at Bragg and doing business as usual. This involved all the administrative support personnel—clerks, supply haulers, and communications personnel—who had stayed behind. They had to go down to the range and bust caps, drive specific vehicles assigned to Delta around the post, receive all incoming phone calls and carefully provide a reasonable response to each caller. Among the many incoming calls the Stockade received were several to me from General Renick at Department of the Army. I was informed of these calls, but remembering General Meyer's warning not to speak to anyone about the Joint Task Force, I chose not to return them, which of course made Renick furious. He called often and when I could not be reached for the sixth or seventh time, he began to berate the officers at the Stockade. Finally, I asked General Vaught to get General Renick off my back. The calls suddenly stopped. Dick Potter and Smitty were most appreciative.

While in Washington I had obtained permission to transport B Squadron's forty-five men back from Colorado via a 727 charter aircraft. In Bragg they collected their operational gear and made their way to Camp Smokey in the same manner as had A Squadron. Major Fitch's B Squadron closed into Camp Smokey and there were many smiling faces. Training now had a specific purpose attached to it.

One advantage Smokey had over Bragg was that the white-tail deer population near the camp was high. Periodically, the troops would go out and poach two or three of them. You
wouldn't believe what the taste of roast venison cooked over a wood fire could do for morale.

During the entire time Delta stayed at Smokey it received truly magnificent support from the camp's commander, someone we called “Big Ed.” The difficult tasks we gave him he solved immediately, the impossible ones took a little longer—24 hours.

In a few days General Vaught visited Delta. We had just completed an emergency assault plan. There was no way of knowing when or if the Iranians would begin killing the hostages. General Vaught was briefed on the plan. It was straightforward—and suicidal.

Delta would move by aircraft to the vicinity of Teheran. There, east of the city, it would parachute in, then commandeer vehicles and find its way through the city to the embassy compound, then free the hostages, then fight its way across the city to the Mehrabad International Airport and take and hold it until American aircraft could come in and airlift everyone out. In the event the weather turned sour, Delta and the freed hostages were equipped with small Evade and Escape kits. Each kit contained a Silva compass, a 1978 Sahab Geographic and Drafting Institute plasticized map, U.S. dollars and Iranian rials, air panels, strobe lights, pills for water purification, antibiotics, and a Farsi phrase list (Don't move—Ta kan na khor. Where am I—Man koja has tam. Which way is north—Rahe kojast shomal. We are brothers—Ma baradar has team). With these kits, Delta and the released hostages would attempt to escape overland.

“What's the risk, Colonel Beckwith?”

“Oh, about 99.9 percent.”

“What's the probability of success?”

“Zero.”

“Well, we can't do it.”

“You're right, Boss.”

“I've got to buy time from the JCS.”

General Vaught then philosophized about other options and how they might be received in the political arena. We talked for an extended period of time. Vaught, a South Carolinean,
speaks slowly and clearly. I understood what he said. One, he wanted it plainly understood he was the Task Force Commander. Two, he wanted to work very closely with Delta. Eventually the conversation bent its way back to the problem of getting to and from Teheran. Every conversation began and ended with this critical problem. We had a tiger by the tail.

Without “stay-behind assets,” intelligence agents, information gathering was slow and tedious. That's where America was in November 1979—without anyone in Teheran working for it. The Central Intelligence Agency was working to locate someone in the area, but that process would take some time. Hell, it takes five to seven years just to train and emplace an agent. He or she has to be spotted, recruited, trained, assessed, and introduced into country. Then he or she can become productive only after they've lived their cover for a reasonable period of time.

The Carter administration had made a serious mistake. When retired Admiral Stansfield Turner went into the CIA, a lot of the old whores—guys with lots of street sense and experience—left the Agency. They had been replaced with younger, less experienced people or, worse, not replaced at all. Why this happened I don't know. But I do know that in Iran on 12 November 1979 there were no American agents on the ground. Nothing could be verified. Delta was proceeding thus far without accurate and timely intelligence.

It had always been assumed, in establishing a counterterrorist unit, that when Delta was needed overseas, the country in which it would operate would be friendly or at least neutral. When the target was taken down, Delta's backside would be protected. Ish seemed to sum up the situation in hostile Iran perfectly. “The difference between this and the Alamo is that Davy Crockett didn't have to fight his way in.”

We had to accommodate this new situation. Delta continued to be the only available team for the job, but it must now adjust. Snipers were converted to machine gunners. Delta's room-clearers selected as their weapon the Heckler and Koch MP5 9mm parabellum submachine gun. Both the Brits and the Germans use it. It feels good in your hand. It is smaller and
lighter than a Thompson, and it can be used with a silencer. It was ideal for Iran. Other operators used the CAR 15 and a few carried .45 grease guns (M3Als) or M16s.

Additionally, two light machine guns, the M60 and the HK21, both 7.62mm, were used in Camp Smokey. Their hammering could be heard on the range every day. The American M60 can fire 550 rounds a minute and its air-cooled barrel can be replaced in seconds. The West German HK21 is a Rolls-Royce. It fires full automatic or single shot, has an effective range of 1,200 meters, a cyclic rate of 900 rounds per minute, and can fire drums, link belts, or box magazines. And, unlike the M60, which is a two-man gun, the HK21 requires only one operator. Light, flexible, and accurate, for the tasks we had to perform, it's one hell of a good weapon.

Selected personnel were trained to use the M203 and M79 handheld grenade launchers. The M203 fires a variety of 40mm projectiles and is a single-shot, breech-loading, pump-action weapon that can be attached to the M16 rifle. A percussion-type, single-shot grenade launcher which breaks in the middle like a shotgun, the M79 fires its high explosive round as far as 400 meters. Both were easy to handle and, because of the extra punch they offered, became great favorites in Delta.

Of course, the standard sidearm was an accurized M-1911A1 .45 ACP (Automatic Caliber Pistol). It is dependable and has great stopping power. The ones Delta use had come out of the Anniston (Alabama) Army Depot and had been accurized by our gunsmith, Ron Waananen. When he was through working on the slides, receivers, barrels, and barrel bushings, they no longer shook, rattled, or rolled. Triggers were either National Match or standard Colt and adjusted for each operator. Bo-Mar adjustable sights were removed and replaced by a specially made rear fixed sight.

A lot of people argue that a .45 is not the best sidearm available. In Delta there was no argument. I'd seen what its big, heavy 230-grain bullet could do. It'll knock a man slap down. Plus, a .45 ACP slug travels very slowly. Whereas a 9mm projectile will run between 1,100 and 1,200 feet per second,
the .45 moves at approximately 850 feet per second—standing behind it you can actually see it moving. In an airplane cabin, a 9mm bullet fired from an HK P7, because of its muzzle velocity, will likely go through a terrorist, through a seat, and end up in an innocent bystander. A .45 slug, on the other hand, will penetrate but may not exit the target.

Based on what intelligence we did have, tactics and techniques that appeared to be necessary were developed and sharpened. Because the embassy compound was circled by a nine-foot wall, climbing skills emphasizing quickness and silence were stressed.

We rehearsed with C4 plastic high explosive charges, both ribbon and linear types, necessary to cut heavy steel doors and knock down sections of wall or other obstacles. Fast Eddie spent hundreds of hours determining how much C4 would be necessary. Dozens and dozens of doors and walls were built and blown down. Fast Eddie walked around each day with a smile on his face.

Most of this was conducted at night. Speed became an essential part of the training process. Every operator had to understand the roles he would perform and those of his mates. A lot of time and effort went into developing the most efficient method of carrying extra ammunition, flashlights, evasion and escape kits, maps, and other special equipment. Instilled in every operator's mind were the principles—surprise, speed, success.

We were helped by the arrival of the large-scale model of the embassy compound and surrounding streets. The model, which was eight feet wide and twelve feet long, showed an enormous amount of detail. Based on new incoming intelligence reports and photographs, the model was frequently updated. Separate scale models of each building located in the compound were also constructed. The roofs could be lifted off each and individual floor plans could be studied all the way down to the basement.

The model of the compound answered one of the intelligence planners' biggest questions. How big would the problem be once Delta got to Teheran? Now they knew. The embassy
compound, which from above resembled a backward block letter L, consisted of fourteen separate buildings situated on twenty-seven acres of walled-in real estate. In other words, the compound was the size of a small American college campus. Of the sixty-six Americans originally taken hostage—the Iranians released thirteen later in November, on the 18th and 20th—what we believed then were fifty-three were to remain captive somewhere in this complex of heavily wooded areas and widely distributed buildings. All Delta had to do was learn precisely where they were being held and design a tactical plan to rescue them. The model, indeed, answered a big question—but the answer was not encouraging.