Richard Morefield

Richard Henry Morefield (September 9, 1929 – October 11, 2010) was an American diplomat who served in the United States Foreign Service. He was one of the 66 staff members at the American embassy in Tehran who were taken captive by a militant Islamist student group called the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line on November 4, 1979, in what became known as the Iran hostage crisis. He was one of 52 Americans who were held as a hostage for 444 days, until negotiations for the remaining captives being held hostage were concluded with the signing of the Algiers Accords on January 19, 1981, with their release coming the following day.

Early life and education Morefield was born on September 9, 1929, in Venice, California and grew up in San Diego, His college background focused on history, earning his undergraduate degree in the subject in 1951 from the University of San Francisco.

Iran hostage crisis On November 4, 1979, Morefield was in the American embassy in Teheran, where he was serving as the United States consul general to Iran. After the embassy was surrounded by Islamist militant students, the building was taken over. Morefield was with a group of about two dozen employees who had tried to leave the embassy compound but were captured a few blocks away by a group of students and Revolutionary Guards. In all, 66 Americans were taken hostage with the group demanding that Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed Shah who had been allowed to enter the United States, be returned to Iran for trial. A group of 13 female and African-American hostages were released in the weeks after the seizure and a seriously ill hostage was released in July 1980, leaving Morefield among the 52 American captives who would ultimately be held for 444 days. Years after his release he held no grudge against the people of Iran, telling an interviewer from the BBC in 2006 that "I cannot equate what I know of Iran and its culture with the militant students who held me for 444 days" calling the country "a society with a lot of different groups which can contribute to a new modern Iran if they're given the chance".

Morefield died at age 81 on October 11, 2010, in Raleigh, North Carolina due to pneumonia. He was survived by his wife, Dorothea, as well as by a daughter and four sons. His son Rick had been killed in 1976 by a gunman during a robbery of a Virginia restaurant. Morefield recalled that the experience of dealing with the death of his son had given him greater strength to make it through the hostage crisis.