DELTA FORCE: The US Counter-Terrorist Unit and the Iran Hostage Rescue Mission

by Charlie A. & Donald Knox Beckwith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 31, 1983

Charlie Beckwith, you'll recall, was the ground commander who unhesitatingly aborted the Iranian-hostage rescue mission, told the country why, and held up his head. What we didn't know was that Beckwith had worked and fought for nearly 20 years to get his elite counter-terrorist unit, Delta Force, into operation and then to train it for what was to be its historic baptism-of-fire. ""Charlie Beckwith almost fell out of his chair. I just didn't believe that Jimmy Carter had the guts to do it."" Thanks to superior ghosting, there's flavor, color, drama, and conviction here (without the Bear-Bryant/John-Wayne overkill of Hamilton Jordan's Beckwith, in Crisis). In 1962, as a ""hotshot Green Beret captain with Special Operations experience,"" Beckwith arrived in England to spend a year with the British Special Air Service. ""The grounds and gardens were meticulously maintained""; the barracks ""reminded me more of a football locker room."" The officers were on a first-name basis; officers and sergeants held a weekly, all-night bull session (""everybody got breathed on, even the regimental commander""); but the training exercises were ""deadly serious,"" and physically and mentally shattering. US Army-man Beckwith--""Straight lines. Square corners. Yes, sir! No, sir! Three bags full!""--was disoriented; impressed, converted. He went to Malaya with the SAS, proud to have earned his regimental beret; deathly sick (with leptospirosis), he refused removal to an American army hospital; going home, ""I knew I had stumbled upon a concept"" of a special, flexible, behind-the-lines unit--that ""would improve many of the things we did."" Nobody wanted to hear. Beckwith wrote a report, submitted it, agitated, put it away. In Vietnam, he made his crack DELTA unit as autonomous, and SAS-like, as Special Forces would permit. Still no response. Meanwhile Beckwith ""decided to get my act together""--earned the credits he needed for a college degree, got a promotion and ""the one job that fitted me perfectly"": commandant of the Special Forces School. Then in 1975, almost ""out of nowhere,"" he was asked to prepare a report on the SAS. There follows a dogged, explosive struggle to get the Delta Force concept approved; to recruit and train the unit (shooting, climbing, detonation skills; operate selected machinery and wheeled and track vehicles""; stabilize an injured person. . .); and, from the day after the embassy seizure, to prepare for a rescue mission. Beckwith had no doubt then, and he has none now, that Delta could have extricated the hostages had they gotten to the compound without triggering a massive Iranian military response; by his accounting, the helicopter piloting was a problem from the outset; there was never any question of proceeding ""without six flyable helicopters."" General Vaught shouldn't have asked him to--and, if ordered to go on (from the White House), he would have pretended audio-transmission problems. Forthright first-person history--engrossing and eye-opening even (or especially) for those with reservations about special ops or the rescue mission.

Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION