Word: swiftness
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...first few days, the hostages were tied to chairs during the day and left bound on the floor at night. When, after two and a half weeks, most of the women in the embassy were released. Swift was put into isolation--which she calls "down right frightening." "I thought Kate had been released too and assumed that most of the others had been released and we were down to a core of six or seven." From 10 a.m. to 3 a.m. every day there were unceasing demonstrations outside the embassy I Loudspeakers blared continuously and occasionally sporadic gunfire broke...
...Although Swift had several opportunities to escape during the first or second day, she told the Radcliffe Quarterly last fall that she didn't attempt it because" figured outsiders were doing their at most to get us out. I didn't want to cause major problems." Later she obtained a fake 1 D but never used it. "I figured the hands on the other side of the wall would be unfriendly. I just didn't know whom to go to. Most Iranians supported the embassy takeover...
...February 1980. Swift recalls, the students began to take better care of the hostages, improving their food and letting some outside visitors in Two weeks before Easter, she and Katherine Koob, the other woman detained in captivity, were put together again. Recalling their counter-terrorism training which instructs hostages to establish personal relationships with their captors--the two began talking to the students and trying to teach them English. But, Swift says, they found their guards wary and "well aware that we were trying to subvert them...
Since the hostages received little mail and only censored magazines news trickled in to the captives through roundabout and nefarious means. Swift learned that the Shah had left the United States when she found a letter addressed to one of the hostages thrown carelessly in a wastepaper basket. Swift read the letter and quickly replaced it in case it was put there as a trap. Similarly, Swift learned that the Shah had died from the index page of Time magazine. As she told the Quarterly, "One of the student honchos came in and said, as part of the usual harangue...
Although the hostages' nearly total news blackout proved generally frustrating and unsettling, it ironically cushioned them against emotional trauma during the most dangerous or disheartening periods of their captivity. "When the rescue attempt failed, the students were smiling and charging around the embassy saying. "Come on." Swift recalls. "We thought we were being released." Actually, the hostages were only moved to another room--and did not learn of the rescue attempt until one of the students mentioned it some time later...