Former Hostage Moorhead C. Kennedy Jr. Dead at 93

In 1979, Moorhead C. Kennedy Jr., a United States diplomat, was assigned to the United States Embassy in Tehran.

He was working at his desk on November 4 of that year when a Marine charged into his office with disturbing news.

Iranians had breached the walls and they were about to take the embassy.

He’s Gone

Kennedy is now gone, his death a footnote that was almost missed on May 3.

He passed away at the age of 93 in Bar Harbor, Maine, from complications of dementia.

While his death was quiet, his life was not, and he will forever be remembered for his time as a hostage during the Iranian revolution.

Kennedy remembered that day, stating, “I was very interested in seeing a revolution in progress.

“It was a very fruitful time until, all of a sudden, I heard a shout from the Marines, ‘They’re coming over the wall!’ And then a whole new experience began.”

Kennedy was one of 52 hostages who were taken by supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a crisis that doomed the presidency of Jimmy Carter and would make Ronald Reagan a hero when they were freed not long after Reagan took his oath of office.

Kennedy was never shy about how the American government conducted its foreign policy, once stating, “When it comes to foreign affairs, the last thing in the world an American is willing to do is to think or to try to think what it would be like to be a Soviet, to be an Arab, to be an Iranian, to be an Indian.

“And the result is that we think of the world as a projection of ourselves, and we think that others must be thinking along the lines we’re thinking. And when they don’t, we’re troubled by it.”

Kennedy would go on to say that the particular incident was a precursor to future terror attacks, stating, “The elements in the Arab world and in Iran are reacting against us through another kind of war — a low-intensity war called terrorism.”

Little did we know that Kennedy had a crystal ball at the time.

Rest in peace, sir.