Iran is in the news, as it has been for 50 years, but more so now as President Donald Trump resolves the chaos Jimmy Carter unleashed when he ushered the shah out and the ayatollah into Iran. I wish my friend Moody Rudolph Tidwell, III, were watching it, but he died earlier this month at his quiet home in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. He was 87. I value his quiet wisdom, his sparkling sense of humor, his courage, and that he was there at the end of the beginning.
January 20, 1981 — Inauguration Day — was a federal holiday. As thousands gathered for the swearing in of Ronald Reagan, Tidwell, as counselor to Secretary of the Interior-designate James G. Watt, stood watch at the Department of the Interior’s vast but empty building.
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Tidwell was a natural choice for Watt, but not because he was a westerner. Tidwell was born in Kansas City, Missouri, received his bachelor’s degree from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1961, and, while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard from 1962 to 1966, earned a JD from American University, Washington College of Law.
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From 1965 to 1969, he was an attorney in the Office of General Counsel for the U.S. Government Accounting Office, after which he held several positions at Interior from 1969 to 1977, during which he won a Master of Laws degree from the George Washington University Law School. More importantly, that was when he met the charismatic deputy assistant secretary and later head of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation from tiny Lusk, Wyoming. The two got along famously, and when Watt returned in 1981 as Reagan’s choice to lead Interior, he rescued Tidwell from his lawyer post for mine safety and health at the Department of Labor to serve as his personal counselor from Day One.
On that unseasonably warm, but cloudy, Inauguration Day, on the north side of the Ellipse, across E Street from the South Lawn of the White House, stood the National Christmas Tree, with only the Star of Hope at its top illuminated. By order of Carter, all the other lights were to remain unlit until the American hostages came home from Iran.
At 11:15 a.m., Jack Fish, the director of the National Capital Region of the National Park Service, reported to Tidwell that he had been ordered to turn on all the lights. The hostages, Fish was informed, had been released. Tidwell, who remained suspicious, responded, “Let me think about it.” After all, if the news were untrue, it would not be the first time Iran had lied to Carter about the hostages.
A short while later, Tidwell received a call from the last of Carter’s aides to leave the White House, asking, “Why are you ignoring President Carter’s order to turn on the lights?”
“Do you know for sure that all of the hostages have been released,” Tidwell replied, “or is this just another rumor swirling about Washington today?”
“Yes, the hostages have been released, but they have not yet left Iran,” the aid said.
“Call me when all of the hostages have been released,” Tidwell said and hung up.
Soon, the White House called again, “The hostages have been freed and are almost to the airport. Turn on the lights.”
Tidwell demurred, “Call me back when you can assure me that they are out of Iranian airspace.”
The White House aide bellowed, “You are frustrating an order of the president of the United States.”
Tidwell held firm: “I am not about to let President Reagan be embarrassed by a screw-up of this magnitude.” Ten minutes before noon, the aide called for the last time, “The hostages are almost outside Iranian airspace. Turn on the damned lights.”
Tidwell awaited Reagan’s announcement, which came at the traditional post-Inauguration luncheon with congressional leaders in the Capitol: “With thanks to Almighty God, I have been given a tag line, the get-off line, everyone wants at the end of a toast or speech. Some 30 minutes ago, the planes bearing our prisoners left Iranian airspace and are free of Iran.”
After Reagan and others reached the White House, Tidwell called and dictated a message to Watt, to which Watt replied, “Do the needful,” meaning, “I trust you to do the right thing.”
Tidwell called Fish, and the lights went on. A few moments later, Watt leaned forward, touched Reagan on the shoulder, and whispered, “Mr. President, to celebrate the release of the hostages, we turned on the lights on the National Christmas Tree.”
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“Wonderful,” Reagan replied.
Subsequently, Reagan nominated Tidwell to serve on the U.S. Federal Court Claims, which hears money claims founded upon the Constitution, federal statutes, executive regulations, or contracts, express or implied in fact, with the United States. Tidwell joined the bench on June 1, 1983, served with distinction, and took senior status in 1998. He will be missed.
William Perry Pendley, a Marine, Wyoming attorney, and Colorado-based public-interest lawyer for three decades with victories at the Supreme Court of the United States, served in the Reagan administration, and led the Bureau of Land Management for President Donald Trump.
