GOING TO IRAN | 2006-10-19
While most of the people who know me are not the least surprised that I might go to Iran, some of my family and my doctor are up in arms about it.
The United States Government warns people not to go to Iran beacause some have been kidnapped by outlaws over there. But if I did not go where outlaws might have killed me, my travels would have been very limited indeed. In Europe in 1959 the Germans I was with insisted that we only speak English in the Netherlands because of violent anti-German feeling there.
They may have a wonderful chance to say, "I WARNED him" if they see me being held as a kidnapee over there or having my head cut off.
This is a very painful business unless an expert does it, and they don't assign experts to it when you are kidnapped. I know about that.
The United States still does nothave diplomatic relations with Iran since the American Embassy was invaded and its employees held there for a year at the end of the Carter Administration. As anaside, I know exactly where the Iranian Embassy was and probably still is. It is directly beside the South African Embassy on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington. Back then the South African Embassy was forbidden territory which I visited regularly. Now it is loved by Washigton and the Iranian Embassy is forbidden territory.
I seem to have a habit being in places the United States Government does not like.
When I first went to Russia legally, it was famous for the violence that followed the overthrow of the Soviet Empire. People told me not to go there. What they didn't know or couldn't understand was that it was a LOT safer for me then than it had been before.
The chances are less than fifty-fifty they'll invite me, but I plan to go if they do. Maybe this time my luck will run out. But it's a little late for me to change my lifetime habits.