Hidden Lines: The Secret Journal of a U.S. Hostage in Iran

On November 4, 1979, Iranian radicals stunned the world by storming the U.S. Embassy

in Tehran and taking the entire diplomatic staff hostage. The attackers called themselves the “Muslim Students of the Imam Khomeini Line” and claimed the backing of Iran’s fiercely anti-

American revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Their central demand: that the

United States extradite the former Shah to stand trial in Iran—or they would execute their

American hostages.

This book is my story as one of the 52 Americans held captive for 444 days. It is based on a

secret daily journal I kept during my imprisonment and smuggled out of Iran. At more than

thousand pages, it is the most detailed account maintained by any hostage.

For nearly forty years, the journal sat in a safe deposit box, waiting for its story to be told. It is a

day-by-day chronicle of emotion, heartbreak, dark humor, endurance—and quiet acts of

defiance. It is also a record of resistance, covert communication, and espionage, carried out

under the eyes of our captors.

This is a true account drawn from one of the most dramatic episodes in modern American

history, when the most powerful nation on earth stood paralyzed before a wave of revolutionary

extremism.