Haleh Esfandiari credits her safe return to the United States after eight months in an Iranian prison to a letter from her boss to Grand Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Lee Hamilton, the president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, wrote to Khomeini requesting his help in obtaining Esfandiari's release on humanitarian grounds.
Hamilton's letter "is the main reason for me being with you today," Esfandiari said.
According to the Wilson Center, the Grand Ayatollah's "positive and respectful" reply marked the first time a Supreme Leader of Iran has replied to a U.S. leader. Hamilton is a former Democratic congressman from Indiana.
Esfandiari spoke at the Wilson Center Monday publicly for the first time about her 105-day confinement in an Iranian prison since arriving back in the United States.
The 67-year-old Esfandiari was imprisoned in Iran over allegations that she was a danger to Iranian security, according to the Wilson Center's Web site.
Esfandiari is the director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center. Her age made the experience particularly rough, she said.
"To be cut off from the entire world was very tough," she said. "For eight months, I was denied my freedom to leave the country. For anyone to have their freedom taken is bad, but when you are in your 60s, it is a large loss."
Esfandiari's sudden capture from a taxi by three masked men wielding knives ended after eight months of interrogations and solitary confinement in Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran. The masked men threatened to kill her and took her belongings, including her dual passport and credit cards. The government accused Esfandiari of espionage and conspiracy to topple the Iranian government, according to the Wilson Center.
One student said Iran's claims that Esfandiari was a possible threat were valid.
"I can see both sides of the story. They had a reason to be suspicious," said Stacia Yearwood, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. "She has a high-level profile and traveled to a country whose relationship with the U.S. is a bit shaky. They may have thought she has divided loyalty being both Iranian and American, but how they went about it is unwarranted and uncalled for."
After enduring six weeks of interrogations with members of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence that lasted anywhere from seven to eight hours in a single day, Esfandiari was taken to solitary confinement at Evin Prison. Her interrogators wrote out all their questions and requested a written response from her, Esfandiari said.
For the first six weeks, she was allowed to return to her 93-year-old mother's apartment after the interrogations. Though the meetings were not pleasant, she was treated with respect in prison, Esfandiari said.
The interrogation questions focused on the activities of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center and she tried to explain the center's mission, to no avail, Esfandiari said.
The mission of the Wilson Center is "to unite the world of ideas to the world of policy by supporting pre-eminent scholarship and linking that scholarship to issues of concern to officials in Washington," according to its Web site.
She was also pressured to make false confessions to implicate the Wilson Center in activities to topple the Iranian government but refused to do so.
She described her cell and day-to-day life in Evin Prison as "very tough" but said she never feared physical abuse.
Esfandiari said she read a lot to pass the time, but that it was difficult because she has macular degeneration, an age-related medical condition that can result in blindness. She said her other daily activities included exercising for three to four hours until she had to break for lunch or more interrogations.
"I did not stay in a typical cell," she said. "My room was relatively large enough to pace several times a day. I was not going to fall apart. I had to make the best of the condition that was put at my disposal, and I imposed a strict discipline on myself"
