PROCESS PAPER
Last year for my AP U.S. History course, we would often watch the PBS Home Video series The American President: Politics and the Presidency. Each episode would review one of the presidents and highlight the most defining moments of his presidency. My favorite episode was the one focusing on President Jimmy Carter since it was the first episode to include an interview with a former president. I had not been familiar with his humble background as a peanut farmer, his determination to make it to the White House, and his idealistic mentality while president. This video series also introduced me to the Iran Hostage Crisis, what Carter described as a “great stress” and doubtlessly the “worst moment” of his presidency. Despite the hardships that came with the Middle East, I was amazed by his gratitude for the opportunity to serve as president and his willingness to reflect on the rises and falls of his presidency. I knew I wanted to focus on some aspect of Jimmy Carter’s presidency for the 2018 National History Day competition, and in particular, the Iran Hostage Crisis.
I searched for secondary source information in books, documentaries and online databases. These secondary sources linked to many primary sources. I had several email exchanges with photographer David Burnett who provided me photos from his gallery, “44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World,” for my website to show the scarcely publicized Iranian Revolution. I used archived footage from various broadcasting companies such as ABC and NBC. The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum provided me with a report by Lloyd Cutler about the shah, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sent me a package containing a document named “Iran after the Shah,” which famously failed to predict the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis. I also interviewed Nura Hossainzadeh, a lecturer at Princeton University and expert on Khomeini’s political theory. Over Skype, I interviewed David Bohrman, an original producer of Nightline, a television program that started because of the crisis.
Last year, I created a website for National History Day about physicist Joseph Rotblat. Because of my prior experience with Weebly and the extensive collection of photos, video footage, audio recordings, documents and interviews from the Iran Hostage Crisis provided online, I deemed a website to be the best platform to display my research.
The Iran Hostage Crisis shows the complexity of conflict and how its reverberations can have wide-reaching effects. The result of letting decades of historical conflict between Iran and the U.S. escalate for so long was ultimately the inability to collaborate or compromise in the wake of the hostage crisis. The heightened conflict made it nearly impossible for a compromise to come about, and each attempt failed because the conflict was so deeply rooted in history. The Iran Hostage Crisis warns us of the consequences of refusing to mend past conflicts, saddens us with the disheartening struggle to compromise by the U.S., and illustrates the lasting repercussions of diplomatic disputes.
I searched for secondary source information in books, documentaries and online databases. These secondary sources linked to many primary sources. I had several email exchanges with photographer David Burnett who provided me photos from his gallery, “44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World,” for my website to show the scarcely publicized Iranian Revolution. I used archived footage from various broadcasting companies such as ABC and NBC. The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum provided me with a report by Lloyd Cutler about the shah, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sent me a package containing a document named “Iran after the Shah,” which famously failed to predict the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis. I also interviewed Nura Hossainzadeh, a lecturer at Princeton University and expert on Khomeini’s political theory. Over Skype, I interviewed David Bohrman, an original producer of Nightline, a television program that started because of the crisis.
Last year, I created a website for National History Day about physicist Joseph Rotblat. Because of my prior experience with Weebly and the extensive collection of photos, video footage, audio recordings, documents and interviews from the Iran Hostage Crisis provided online, I deemed a website to be the best platform to display my research.
The Iran Hostage Crisis shows the complexity of conflict and how its reverberations can have wide-reaching effects. The result of letting decades of historical conflict between Iran and the U.S. escalate for so long was ultimately the inability to collaborate or compromise in the wake of the hostage crisis. The heightened conflict made it nearly impossible for a compromise to come about, and each attempt failed because the conflict was so deeply rooted in history. The Iran Hostage Crisis warns us of the consequences of refusing to mend past conflicts, saddens us with the disheartening struggle to compromise by the U.S., and illustrates the lasting repercussions of diplomatic disputes.