Word: tomseth
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Within the State Department, officials say, there were some doubts about whether a woman should be sent into such a volatile situation, but Victor Tomseth, the newly appointed chief political officer, had worked with Swift in the East Asian bureau 10 years before. "Because I had worked with her before. I thought otherwise," Tomseth says...
Inside the two-story brick chancellery building, known to Americans as "Fort Apache" for its special security reinforcements, Marine guards donned flak jackets and gas masks and ordered everyone to the top floor. There, in the ambassador's office, Political Officer Victor Tomseth was on the phone to the embassy's ranking officer, Charge d'Affaires L. Bruce Laingen, who was at the Foreign Ministry. Other embassy officers quickly telephoned other Iranian officials, trying to get help. Just before 1 p.m., Laingen gave Tomseth the order: "Final destruction." Immediately, embassy officers grabbed files from safes and began shredding and burning...
Fearful for the safety of the hostages, the State Department refused to release their names, but the identities of most of them gradually became known. Among them were political officers, Marines, code clerks, secretaries, the kinds of people who staff American embassies throughout the world. Tomseth, the second in command, was the ranking captive. Those held included Mike Holland, the burly security chief; Ann Swift, an efficient, Farsi-speaking officer who during the takeover tried over and over to reach the acting Defense Minister; Mike Matrinko, who was a consul in Tabriz last spring when the mission was overrun...