L. BRUCE LAINGEN:

Lowell Bruce Laingen (Bruce Laingen) was born in 1922 on a small farm near Odin Township and Butterfield in southern Minnesota in Watonwan County. He is married to Penelope "Penne" Laingen (Penelope Lippitt Babcock), the founder of the yellow ribbon movement. These yellow ribbons are still used today to show support for U.S. troops. Bruce and Penne have three sons: Bill, Chip, and Jim. His mother was Mabel Eng, who taught the Holly Township district number 6 class. He had a brother, Kenneth Laingen, and a sister. His brother was killed in a farming accident in the 1960s or 1970s.

Laingen went to Butterfield High School, and St. Olaf College from 1940-1943, graduating in 1947 after serving in the Navy during World War II from 1943-1946. He went to the University of Minnesota from 1946-1948, earning a masters degree in international relations. In 1949 he took night classes at American University.

Laingen saw three and a half years of active service during World War II from 1943-1946 in the Philippines campaign. He saw combat in the invasion of Luzon at Lingayen Gulf in January, 1945 at 22 years of age. During his naval career he served as a supply and disbursing officer for a group of landing craft that were used in beach invasions during the war. He received his officer training at Wellesley College in 1943, and general Naval training at the University of Dubuque in Iowa from July to November of 1943. One of his shipmates in training was William Laird, who would later become secretary of defense. After World War II Laingen finished at St. Olaf College, graduating in 1947.

After graduating from St. Olaf College Laingen went to the University of Minnesota from 1946-1948, where he became a charter member of Student Project for Amity Among Nations and went abroad to Sweden and Norway.

Laingen applied to the Foreign Service for the first time in 1947 and after a few tries, passed the application exams in 1949. He would go on to have a 38 year foreign service career, from late 1949 to 1987. In 1949 he trained as a junior officer at the Foreign Service Institute and was assigned on February, 21 1950 to Frankfurt, Germany, where he worked on the Displaced Persons Program.

When the program ended, his next assignment was in Hamburg, Germany from 1951-1953. In 1953 he received assignment orders for Kobe, Japan but they were cancelled at the last moment and instead he was assigned to Tehran, Iran on October 7, 1953 as an economic officer. He was at this position for a year, and was assigned to Meshed, Iran on September 24, 1954 as the acting principal officer. In 1955 he returned to Tehran as an economic officer. In 1956 he was the assistant officer to the Greek desk in Washington, D.C. He went on a three-week tour of Greece in 1957. From 1960-1965 he was stationed at Karachi, Pakistan, with home leave in 1962.

Laingen was on assignment in Washington, D.C. from 1965-1968 and attended the National War College from 1966-1968, graduating in 1968. From 1968-1974 he was in Kabul, Afghanistan on assignment. From 1975-1977 he was on assignment as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of European Affairs in Washington, D.C. He became the Ambassador to Malta in 1977 and served in this capacity until 1979, when he received orders to return to Tehran, Iran as Charge d'Affaires.

In 1979, as the U.S. Charge d'Affaires to Iran, he was taken hostage along with 52 other Americans by student militants protesting the current government and Iran's relations with the United States. He was held hostage from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981, a total of 444 days. As the senior U.S. official held hostage, Laingen tried to influence the situation and to improve conditions for his fellow hostages. He appealed to both the United States and to Iranian government officials to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and to improve the health of his fellow hostages. While a hostage he kept a journal and notes that would later be used in various reports and papers on the crisis and U.S.-Iranian relationships. He also wrote numerous letters and received lots of correspondence from the American public including letters from school children.

After the hostage release, Bruce Laingen became the vice president of the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. in 1982 and was the executive director of the Volcker Commission (officially the National Commission on Public Service) from 1987 until 1990, when the Commission finished its assignment. He was also President of the American Academy of Diplomacy from 1991-2006.

Laingen has served on the boards of No Greater Love, A Presidential Classroom for Young Americans, the Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, and the National Defense University Foundation. In 1998 Laingen held the Sol Linowitz Chair in International Relations at Hamilton College in New York, where he taught a seminar on the Iranian Revolution in the fall semester.

He holds the Award for Valor from the U.S. Department of State, the Distinguished Public Service Medal from the Department of Defense, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from St. Olaf College, the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement, a Presidential Meritorious Award, and the Foreign Service Cup.

He is the author of "Yellow Ribbon: The Secret Journal of Bruce Laingen" published in 1992.

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This collection documents the career of Lowell Bruce Laingen from his service in World War II during the Philippines campaign to his 38-year career in the Foreign Service and especially focuses on his experience as a hostage in Iran during 1979-1981. His family papers also include material from his boyhood in Minnesota on a farm in the 1930's and 4-H Club records from 1936-1943.

His World War II papers include naval records from his service on a Landing Ship Medium, V-12 (the U.S. Navy College training program) records, personal correspondence from 1943-1947, and newspaper clippings. A highlight of his World War II papers are a large album of photographs from the Philippines campaign and a scrapbook of memorabilia, that includes identification cards, clippings, and other ephemera.

Laingen's career in the Foreign Service is well documented. Included in the collection are personal, official, and formerly classified Foreign Service correspondence. There are also drafts and final texts of speeches, newspaper clippings, articles, and photographs. Every period of his Foreign Service career is documented with personal and official correspondence from his time in Karachi, Pakistan to Kabul, Afghanistan and Washington, D.C. Correspondence dating from his appointment as Ambassador to Malta and Vice President of the National Defense University and various official reports and studies from the U.S. government and Laingen regarding a number of topics, often related to U.S-Iranian relations and terrorism, are also included.

A significant amount of material from Laingen's experience as a hostage in Iran from 1979-1981 is the focus of this collection. Included are correspondence from his family, the general public, the U.S. government (the State Department and the Iran Working Group), and with Iranian government officials. Highlights include appeals written by Laingen to Iranian government officials, letters from children, personal and official correspondence, pages from Laingen's journal kept during the crisis, solitary confinement writings, and a map drawn by Laingen of the ministry rooms where he was kept hostage.

A significant portion of the papers from the hostage crisis include Laingen's personal writing. These writings document events from the seizure of the hostages to his solitary confinement in Tehran and to the release. Included are pages of his journal which were used for his book Yellow Ribbon, documents and reports written for the U.S. government, and appeals to Iranian government officials. Also included are a number of news clippings about the crisis, as well as special issues of Time, Newsweek, and other magazines.

The collection also includes texts and drafts of a number of speeches given by Laingen from 1940-1997, along with clippings about them.

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These documents are organized into the following sections:

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. L. Bruce Laingen Papers. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 16,256.

Processing Information:

Processed by: Alex Kent, November 2008.

Catalog ID number: 990067296050104294

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Arranged chronologically.

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Location

Box

143.E.17.9B

6

Writings:

Excerpts from letters to government, 1979-1981.

Appeals to Iranian government, 1979-1981. 3 folders.

Letter to Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, March 9, 1980

"Message from Iran" article: Laingen and Tomseth on negotiations, 1979.

Seizure, November 1979.

Notes on events during, November 4-8 1979.

Chapter on substance, 1979.

Life in embassy compound, June-October 1979.

25 page document on final two weeks before seizure, 1979.

Original effort at chapter one, November [1979].

General, 1980-1981. 3 folders.

Description of kitchen staff, September-November 1980.

Journal pages, 1980. 5 folders.

Excerpts from letters, December 1979-October 1980.

Typed copies of 4 original sections: from solitary to release and freedom, 1979-1981.

A year as a hostage, 1980. 2 folders.

Iran white paper, 1980. 4 folders.

Solitary confinement Tehran, [1980-1981].

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Arranged chronologically.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

4-H clubs -- Minnesota -- Watonwan County.

Ambassadors -- United States.

Diplomacy.

Diplomatic and consular service.

Hostage negotiations.

Hostages -- Iran.

International relations.

Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981.

World War, 1939-1945 -- Campaigns -- Philippines.

Persons:

Laingen, Penne.

Organizations:

Iran Working Group.

National Defense University.

Student Project for Amity Among Nations.

United States. Department of State.

United States. Embassy (Iran)

United States. Foreign Service.

Places:

United States -- Foreign relations.

Iran -- Foreign relations -- United States.

Iran -- Politics and government -- 1979-1997.

Document Types:

Speeches.

Titles:

Yellow Ribbon.

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