Inside Iran’s Museum of American Espionage

So we’re here outside the U.S. embassy compound in Tehran. Here we have an apple with the CNN logo. The Twin Towers interspersed with the dollar sign. The Statue of Liberty. This is one of the most photographed walls, probably in all of Tehran. Americans know this as the former U.S. compound. But to Iranians, this is known as the “U.S. Den of Espionage Museum.” And of course, what happened here is at the root of the hostility between the U.S. and Iran for over four decades, a hostility that escalated recently. In June, Israel and the U.S. launched strikes on Iran, resulting in a short but intense war that rattled the capital, killing hundreds. Foreign journalists face restricted access in Iran, but during a recent trip, officials allowed us to visit the former embassy, where much of the current animosity traces back to. On November 4, 1979, Iranian students stormed the embassy, fearing the U.S. planned to restore the Shah, or king, who had been deposed months earlier. They held 52 hostages for a total of 444 days. [Voiceover] “The students had restricted outside contacts with the hostages. So far they’d refused to forward letters to their captors.” “How can you call these hostages? These people are political smugglers.” “I announced a series of economic and political actions.” “We’re beyond the time for gestures. We want our people to be set free.” Six C.I.A. officers were among the hostages, the U.S. government later said, accusing Iran of violating diplomatic conventions. Decades of tensions would follow. “So this was during the hostage crisis?” “After the hostage crisis.” “After the students came in.” Twenty-one-year-old Amir is working here as a guide as part of his compulsory military service. Like many in Iran, where self-censorship is common, he asked us not to use his last name. “Typically, how many people visit this museum every year?” “It’s about 5,000, most of them from Asia. But rarely we have visitors from U.S. and U.K. too.” This is the former U.S. ambassador’s office. It’s been carefully preserved to look largely like it did before the hostage crisis. When it became certain that the students were taking over the embassy, the Americans inside desperately tried to shred as many classified documents as they could. “These are the famous shredding machines probably known to most Americans from the movie Argo, right?” “The students tried to recover some of these documents. It took six years to reassemble the shred papers together. And, after recovery, students classified all these documents as a book.” There’s a particular focus on this part of the museum, which is presented as the C.I.A. station. It’s full of spy equipment. There’s encryption devices, there’s an eavesdropping machine. There’s a secure room just behind me. And for the regime here that is presented as proof that this building wasn’t just used for diplomacy, but was also used to surveil Iranians and, as they see it, to meddle in their affairs. “This is all the material for tapping communications, monitoring communications.” “Yeah, I mean, I got to say, it’s more elaborate than I would have imagined, right? It gives you an insight into what espionage looked almost five decades ago.” The message at the museum was clear for its visitors, including the handful of foreign journalists, like us, who had been allowed in. The Americans were untrustworthy then and shouldn’t be trusted now. Many Iranians told me they viewed the museum as a relic of the distant past, but they were also on high alert since the war in June, and fears that fighting with the United States could start at any moment. A reminder that this troubled history still rings loud today.