Mission to Tehran.

• Author: Laingen, L. Bruce

Mission to Tehran.

Bruce Huyser.Harper & Row, $20.95. Air Force General Robert "Butch' Huyser, is the man Carter dispatched to Tehran in 1979 as part of his effort to forestall the demise of the shah. Mission to Tehran is Huyser's dramatic recounting of how that undertaking was doomed to failure, not least by an administration in Washington divided on policy and preoccupied with other foreign policy issues.

The general's mandate, whichwas provided in writing only with reluctance, seemed clear enough at the outset: to encourage Iran's military leadership to work together in support of the last civilian government under the shah, that of Shahpur Bakhtiar. "The Iranian military is the key to the situation,' his instructions read. "We are prepared to stick with them.' His instructions, however, were ambiguous on a key point: what the military leadership and the U.S. were to do if the Bakhtiar regime proved unwilling or unable to act in time to prevent a takeover by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Bakhtiar did fail, Khomeini took power, and the military coup that might have prevented the outcome did not occur and appears to have been little considered by Iran's military leaders.

Huyser seems convinced thatwhile a military coup should have been attempted as a last resort and could have succeeded, it would not have been necessary had Washington given him more unified support.

Ambassador William O.Sullivan, with whom Huyser reports he had a good personal relationship, was apparently operating under different guidelines. As Huyser tells it, Sullivan thought the military would collapse under pressure, "had no faith in Bakhtiar, actually thought a Khomeini Islamic Republic would be preferable to a military takeover,' and was encouraged in these views by the State Department, which Huyser sensed was marching independent of the White House.

Huyser's description of themilitary leadership would seem to support Sullivan's expectations of them. Much of his book is spent on his frustrating daily efforts to get the generals to...