Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini (1979) | 60 Minutes Archive

Mike Wallace conducted an interview with Ayatollah Khomeini just two weeks after Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 52 American hostages in November 1979. The interview represents a rare moment of direct access to Iran's supreme leader during one of the most acute U.S.-Iran crises of the Cold War era. Wallace's conversation with Khomeini provided American audiences a window into the perspective of the Iranian revolutionary leader at the height of anti-American sentiment following the Islamic Revolution that had ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi months earlier. The hostage crisis would ultimately last 444 days and fundamentally reshape U.S.-Iran relations for decades. This 60 Minutes archive segment captures a pivotal historical moment when tensions between the two nations were at their peak.