L. Bruce Laingen, top US diplomat held in Iran, dies at 96

WASHINGTON (AP) — L. Bruce Laingen, the top American diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran when it was overrun by Iranian protesters in 1979 and one of 52 Americans held hostage for more than a year, has died. He was 96.

His son Chip Laingen told The Associated Press that his father died Monday of complications from Parkinson's disease at an assisted-living facility in Bethesda, Maryland, a Washington suburb.

Iran was in chaos in 1979, roiled by the departure of the Shah of Iran that February and the takeover by a longtime religious leader in exile, Ayatollah Khomeini. The U.S. had supported the shah's regime and incurred the wrath of Iranian revolutionaries before and after the shah was overthrown.

When U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan stepped down in early 1979, the U.S. sought a short-term leader for its Tehran Embassy as the U.S. considered its diplomatic presence in the country, Laingen recalled for a 1992 oral history for the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. He said he accepted the appointment as chargé d'affaires to Iran with the understanding it would be for a period of four to six weeks.

In spite of his wife's reservations, Laingen said, he went to Tehran that June with a feeling of excitement. "That was where the action was," he said.

Tehran had changed in the quarter-century since he had been stationed there early in his diplomatic career. "I will never forget the impression of traveling into the city from the airport that evening ... in an armored-plated limousine with escort cars both fore and aft. Each of them were loaded with security types who had no hesitation when it was necessary to clear traffic to jump out of their cars and wave their pistols and Uzis," he said.

On Nov. 4, 1979, protesters took over the American Embassy. For...