Avoiding Bloodshed With Iran In the Persian Gulf
During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, merchant ships became regular targets as each nation tried to interrupt the oil revenues and arms supplies of the other. A robust U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf was tasked with ensuring the safety of American shipping. Michael Varga, a young Foreign Service Officer serving as Vice Consul in the United Arab Emirates, was the U.S. Navy’s first point of contact in the port of Dubai.
Varga regularly rode in the harbormaster’s pilot boat out to Navy cruisers anchored about a mile offshore so he could coordinate their docking and provide a local security briefing for any crew going ashore. “The sailors would lower a rope ladder on the side of the Navy ship,” Varga recalled, “…and I—in my business suit—would grab hold of the rope ladder and pull myself up. In a canvas bag slung over my shoulder, I carried my briefing materials about potential security threats for the sailors.”
On January 12, 1986, Varga would have another chance to ensure those sailors’ safety, after Iranian forces intercepted a U.S. merchant vessel from the American President Lines. “The President Taylor was boarded by seven Iranian sailors,” Varga recounted, “who forced the crew to assemble in one holding area of the ship as they searched it for munitions and other weapons that might be used by Iraq in its ongoing war with Iran.”
As U.S. officials contemplated a military response, Varga was dispatched to interview the crew of the President Taylor, which had docked at the nearby port of Fujairah, and assess the severity of the incident. “I interviewed the captain and the crew about the behavior of the Iranians,” he recalled. “In addition, there were also some passengers (Portuguese, Korean, and Indian)…. While the Iranians had trained their weapons initially on the ship to compel it to stop, and they flashed guns at the crew in the initial stage of forcing members into the holding area, once that occurred the Iranians did not further threaten the crew. The Iranians searched the entire ship and departed from it after an estimated hour and forty-five minutes. I noted what each crew member and each passenger said, often relying on a translator among the passengers, and returned to Dubai to write up my report immediately and cable Washington.”
“While the Iranians had trained their weapons initially on the ship to compel it to stop, and they flashed guns at the crew in the initial stage…the Iranians did not further threaten the crew. ”
Michael Varga
Varga’s on-site reporting helped U.S. officials conclude that while this incident was troubling, it did not warrant an immediate response from U.S. warships in the Gulf. “For a couple of days afterward,” Varga said, ”my adrenaline remained high, having been the ‘point person’ on the front line of interpreting what was happening in the fog of the Iran-Iraq war and its impact on American interests in the Persian Gulf.” As the Iran-Iraq war intensified in the months to come, Varga’s reporting would inform the U.S. Navy’s decision to begin escorting American-flagged vessels through the Persian Gulf.
Photo courtesy of Michael Varga.
Read more in Michael Varga’s oral history.