Vought A-7 Corsair II

Long after it was over, when there was no going back to change any part of it, I met a pilot who'd almost flown the A-7 Corsair in combat in Iran. Lieutenant (j.g.) Ted Smith had been on deck aboard USS Nimitz (CVN-68) that awful night in April 1980 when Charlie Beckwith's Delta Force went in to rescue my colleagues being held hostage in Tehran, when sandstorms, helicopter failure and too many people in charge spelled an end to the rescue before it could begin. It was a low time for me, a diplomat, and a lower time for Smith, a warrior. Smith had watched the helicopters launch. His A-7E Corsairs, wearing the red-bordered black stripes painted on Nimitz* aircraft solely for that Iran operation, had been bombed-up and ready to go. Morale was high. The men were up. In the end they were not needed, not because the mission went off too well but because it was aborted before somebody could decide to throw Vought's very fine light attack aircraft into the fray. Ted Smith and I lamented all of this, and he told me that we could have gone in. Even when Chargin' Charlie was down to five helicopters, it could have :. done. 'We could have covered him,' Smith insisted.

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