 The jubilation shown in these press photographs was occasioned by the release of the 52 American hostages from Iran. Preceding that happy occasion, the 52 underwent over 14 months of anxiety, uncertainty and fears, as their day-to-day existence and fates were manipulated by the Iranians. Here to describe some of the events from those months is Air Force Colonel Thomas E. Schaefer, the senior-ranking military hostage who was performing duty as defense attaché at the time of the takeover. Thank you, Claude. It is indeed a pleasure to be here today with you, for me to tell you about my experience, to share with you some of the major items that I have gone through to possibly help you in a future situation. Either as a hostage or a captive. You probably would ask, how does one cope with this type of experience? Well, first of all, initially after it happened that we were taking captive, I forgot purposely, I forgot about how it happened. I got rid of that, accepted the fact that I was a captive and did not dwell on it. One must be disciplined in this type of a situation, in this environment, to establish a schedule purposely to take up every hour of the day while you are awake, which means maybe a 12 to 14 hour schedule. One must maintain the faith in his country and in his government, his or her government, that they are doing as much as possible to get you out. You probably are going to be told by your captives that the government doesn't care about you at all, and this was told to me many times, but never lose faith in the people back home. In my case, being a Christian, I maintained my faith in God, which included prayers every night, prayers every morning, very simple. I just asked my God to get me through the next 24 hours and thank them for when I got through the previous 24 hours. You're going to find possibly that there are others who are not coping with the situation as well as you are. This gives you a chance to help a roommate or help another buddy to get him through this ordeal. And there were cases where I have helped other young men who had not been trained for this type of ordeal. And it also, of course, helps you get your mind off your own problem when you can help someone else. One must maintain his morale at an even level. You must realize that you're going to have ups and downs probably every day. You're going to have depressions and you're going to have highs. What I found, if I allowed myself to get up on a real high, then I would drop down to a very deep low. So I would try to stabilize this curve so that I was never getting into a very deep depression, nor was I getting up a little bit too high. It's just like a sine curve, you know, just keep it pretty much to the standard. One thing that helped my morale was being roomed with two young Marines. They understood the situation that it was still a military environment to them. And when I got up to do my hiking, they got up with me. When we got down on the floor to do push-ups, they were down there with me, going right along. And when the guards came in and saw this, they were very upset that the Marines were responding to my directions, which I had not given. They thought that I had demanded that these young fellows get up and do the exercises. They were calling me sir, and this upset the guards. They said, he is not even a colonel any longer, and you don't have to call him sir. But they maintained the military discipline throughout the entire period. And I think it helped their morale and it helped mine. We never got out of a military environment. During these types of situations, you're going to get a wide variety of foods. And you'll find that this is not the time to be picky about what you're going to eat. You should maintain as far as possible the normal eating habits of eating what you're served. In this environment, I found that everything they gave us was nutritious. The Iranian food, as bad as it looked sometimes, was nutritious. So we did, most of us, eat everything that was served to us. Most of us went through interrogations. In my case, for about two weeks at one stand. I think everyone should anticipate that they will be interrogated if they're taken captive. Now, the interrogators were quite interested in my contacts with the Iranians. The Iranian officers in the Air Force and the other military services, the civilians that would come to my house. They were very interested in my job because they had no idea of the functions, the duties that go on in an embassy. They considered us all spies. A few things that you can do during an interrogation that those of you that have been to a survival school already know. You can act dumb, don't understand the question, lose your memory. And I found that to be very effective, especially when they're after identification of Iranians. Where I could conveniently say that I could not remember their names. And they accepted this quite often. They may hone in on one subject that may not seem important to you, but they may have some facts that you know are true, that you don't want to admit to. So I would deny it until at such time they may have brought a document to me and said, look it, you have signed this. Well then you can change your approach. But up until that time you can deny any charges or any facts that they bring up. I found effective was steering the conversation away from their questions. To get off on a tangent and even take 30 to 40 minutes of discussing something that had nothing at all to do with the question. And surprisingly enough this worked. Also I would try to maintain control of the interrogations. There are several ways. When there are two interrogators they would bring in two chairs, but I always found the highest chair. They for some reason brought in a draftsman's chair. So I would get up on that chair right away and then I would be talking down to them with my finger. And you can control it, surprisingly enough. So take charge if you can, get off the subject when you can, deny everything you can, and that way control the interrogation. One thing I found that helped me was to maintain my humor. Find a humorous situation each day if you can. And we would do this. There are several examples. One was when we went into our latrines we found that they had put up television cameras. And see that's a little peculiar. But I accepted that fact and I said now what can I do to humor myself in this situation? So one day I walked in and I looked up and saw that the red light was on the television camera. So I got my watch, pulled out the stem. I didn't give a direct look at that, I just glanced at it. I think they're on. So I got my watch, pulled out the stem and started put the stem back in, put it up to my ear and pulled the stem back out and talked some more into my watch. And then I purposely glanced up the television camera and did a double take and hid my arm and got out of the restroom as fast as I could. It truly was an Academy Award performance. But they weren't monitoring the cameras that day. So it was all for naught except for the fact that it was very humorous for me. And we got a big kick out of this when we talked about this with other hostages. We were exercising each day and part of that exercise was yoga. And in yoga, if you've ever done any of this, there's a lion position that you get on the floor with the hands on your knees and you make quite a horrible face. You're stretching your neck muscles and head muscles, face muscles. And we would wait sometimes until the guards would come in and then all four of us would be sitting on the floor and give this horrible lion expression. And they didn't know how to handle it and they quickly walked out. Of course it's very minor, but it was kind of humorous to us at the time. We would harass the guards as much as we could, especially in putting television into our latrines. By saying we know what you want to do, you want to look at us. And of course that made them feel a little bit ashamed, but it made us feel good that we could get to them. We took advantage of the fact that they were Muslims and good Muslims do not lie or tell stories. And we took advantage of the fact that they did lie to us and we would tell them that you are not good Muslims because you have lied to us. And that would get to them because they were trying to show that they were good followers of Muhammad. Well now these are just a few things that you can do. What I thought now, I would open it up for questions because there may be thoughts in your mind. What is the area that I have not covered that you would be interested in? So are there any questions? Colonel Shaffer, during your captivity the Iranian government frequently threatened to put the hostages on trial for espionage. Were these threats actually made to you personally and how did you react to them? Yes, they told me that I was a spy, that I would go on trial as a spy. Now I did have one advantage. I had several months to think about this before I got interrogated. Why they waited, I don't know. But I felt that they would come out initially and say that I was a spy and then say that I would be put up on trial as a spy. So it didn't bother me when they told me and threatened me many, many times, you are going to go on trial. So I had prepared for that and I had also prepared myself of what I would do, how I would conduct myself if there was a trial. And there again would have been saying very little, not admitting to anything other than name rank and serial number if you can get away with that. I cannot say that it didn't bother me because it did bother me a little bit but I would have been prepared for the trial. I never had the feeling that they would have shot us because of the trial. That they did threaten it continually I think was just used to try to get me to talk more. Another question. Colonel Shaffer, were you able to communicate with your fellow hostage either individually or in groups? Yes, that's a good question. We did maintain good communications with each other. I don't know how many months after we were taken captive but it couldn't have been more than a couple where we picked up the TAP code which came of good use to us because the Iranian walls are about 6 to 10 inches thick and you cannot use a Morris code. So the TAP code was very beneficial for us to communicate with people in the next room. That's a very easy code to use and when you're say in isolation you can always talk to the guy next door. Now another means is just the simple writing of a note and dropping it somewhere where another captive will see it. We would use the latrines or the television room and then hide it where we thought other people might look. As a matter of fact I would even write on the toilet paper a note realizing that probably the next guy in would be an American and he could pick it right off that right away. So that proved to be of some help because some guys did respond. Also we could in certain rooms talk to each other through common windows or even in one room we could push out the glass sufficiently just to hand notes to each other or just to talk through that crack. So we did communicate quite well and major events that came up were passed around pretty fast so that we all knew pretty much what was going on all the time even though we were in isolation. Colonel Schaefer we've placed in solitary confinement during the period of your captivity and if so could you explain to us how you cope with that period of solitary confinement. Okay yes I was placed in solitary confinement for about three and a half months and that isn't as bad as it sounds. If you can maintain self discipline I would keep myself busy every awakening hour that I had what you can do if you do not have reading materials books or your Bible or magazines you can make up games. Now it just happened when one period that I was in solitary was during the Olympics so I produced my own Olympic games that didn't amount to much but I was able to have three or four games and I had competition and this took up a lot of time. Remember in one room when I had nothing, no books, no matches pad or anything just a bare floor I made up some round balls from toilet paper and took some thread off my clothes and made up a little game where I could roll the balls up against the wall and then this really shook up the guards. They said look at that kernel down there on the floor you know that to me it was humorous you know but it did take up time keeping score. Another thing is when I was walking my six miles a day some rooms 160 laps per mile I would fantasize or go through an actual hike that I took with my kids say at Yosemite and I was finding that my hikes during captivity were longer than the actual hikes I took because you stop at every rock and flower and bend and it just took that much longer. You may want to build a boat fantasy but just go through every step of drawing up blueprints or if you have any musical ability you can sing or whistle hum. I had four groups of songs that I would sing many of the times I was told to shut up or keep quiet you're singing too loud but I would keep up the singing maybe at a lower level but trying to remember words to songs is good it's a good mental exercise. So the main thing was trying to keep myself busy for the entire time and you can do it. I only have time for one more question. Anyone else? Sir do you feel the training that you got at the Air Force Survival School was beneficial and if so how much? It was definitely beneficial to me. I went through survival school back in 1954 and I remembered clearly the lessons that I had learned there specifically the mock interrogations that we went through and also being held up inside a compound with a double fence in it and the most important aspect I think though was the fact of actually going through an interrogation in a training environment. I didn't think it was a training environment. It was tough as tough as the interrogations I went through and I think it'd be beneficial for every man and woman who gets out into this type of environment to have this type of training. Well I certainly enjoyed being with you this morning to share briefly my experiences of the 444 days in Iran and I would hope that if any of you get into this type of environment that you'll be able to cope with the situation based on the training that you had. Thank you.