September 11, 2001, was the day that changed our world — but really, the day that changed our world was April 24, 1980. That was when the United States, under the leadership of President Jimmy Cart…
, tells the story of that famously messed-up mission by interviewing a number of the participants: commanders, soldiers, American hostages, former President Carter. It brings you up close to the events . You emerge from “Desert One” knowing certain aspects of the Iran-hostage crisis better than you did before. That makes it a worthy film, and an absorbing one.
The failed rescue mission was a tragic event that, fairly or not, became a metaphor. It was, to begin with, a case of staggering incompetence, or maybe negligence. But the way that played in the American imagination wasn’t merely as a colossal mishap of execution.
The description of the helicopter crash, and its aftermath, is horrifying: a military nightmare unfolding in real time. There were 46 men on the plane, eight of whom died, and when the Iranians dragged their charred corpses out into public view, putting them on grisly display , it made a morbid mockery of America’s defeat. Carter, speaking to the nation, looks shell-shocked.
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