The Michigan Hostage Who Didn’t Give Iran a Damn Thing

Charles Jones Jr. was imprisoned in Tehran for 444 days and refused to lie that he had been treated honorably
iran hostages
Photos courtesy of Buddy Moorehouse.

The current situation in Iran has stirred up bitter memories of the Iran hostage crisis, in which 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days from 1979 to 1981.

iran storming the embassy

The crisis began on November 4, 1979, when a mob of radical Muslim students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took everyone inside hostage. It ended on January 20, 1981, moments after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president, replacing Jimmy Carter. Those 444 days drained the soul out of America’s collective spirit and effectively destroyed Carter’s presidency.

Many of the Americans initially captured were released right away—mostly women, black embassy workers, and military men—but 52 were taken hostage. Among them were two Michiganders.

two michigan hostages

The two Michigan hostages were Charles Jones Jr. of Detroit, the only black hostage, and Joseph Subic Jr. of Redford Township. Jones was viewed as a hero, both during the crisis and afterward. Subic was not.

Subic did not have deep roots in Michigan. He grew up in Bowling Green, Ohio, and only moved to Michigan after dropping out of high school at age 17, when his parents moved to Redford Township. He joined the Army and was stationed in Iran when it was stormed. He was 23 years old.

Subic was seen as an Iranian tool during the hostage crisis, frequently appearing in propaganda videos and “confessing” that the people working at the Embassy were actually spies. When the crisis ended, he was the only Army hostage not to be awarded a medal of commendation. He never lived in Michigan again. He became a police chief in Georgia and was convicted of fraud in 2005 and accused of having sex with a minor in Florida in 2022.

newsclipping with headline "Iran mob storms embassy, takes american hostages"

Jones’s story was quite different. He grew up in Detroit and graduated from Mumford High School in 1958, where he was a standout trumpet player. 

Jones enlisted in the Air Force after graduation and spent time in England and Turkey. After leaving the Air Force, he returned to Detroit, married his childhood sweetheart Mattie, and started working for the State Department as a communications officer.

He and Mattie had four girls, and his job took him around the world, to Zaire, Germany, Israel, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, France, and Canada. And, of course, Iran.

On Nov. 4, 1979, he was working at the embassy as a communications officer, where his job mainly consisted of receiving and sending teletypes. When the Islamic militants stormed the embassy, he started shredding as many papers as he could and continued up until the moment they grabbed him.

The militants released all the black hostages except Jones, and there was a rumor that it was because they thought he was a spy (something he denied for the rest of his life). 

Whatever the reason, Jones was held hostage for the next 444 days, and his life was a living hell.

He detailed it many times after being released in 1981. Jones said the hostages were split up and taken to several locations around Tehran to lessen the chances of being rescued.

They were kept in separate rooms and forbidden from speaking to one another. They spent each day doing…nothing. Nothing to read, nobody to talk to. They just had to sit there, day after day after day. Every time a hostage had to use the bathroom, the guards would put a bag over his head and lead him there in shackles.

In this 2009 interview with the Peninsula Daily News, Jones recalled that he and the other hostages were frequently threatened with execution.

“They could look you in the eye and say, ‘I’m going to kill you,’ and in the next breath, bring something to you,” he said.

Their cells were filthy and dark. They rarely saw the sun, and their guards would frequently deny them food. Jones said that he was never beaten, but other hostages were. From his cell, Jones could hear other hostages being tortured.

On the day before they were to be released, Jones was hauled into a room by the guards.

“They pulled us in, one by one, and interrogated us,” Jones said. “They wanted me to sign a statement saying we had been honorably treated. I said, ‘I’m not signing anything.’”

newsclipping reading "hostages are welcomed with outpouring of joy"

When the nightmare ended and the hostages were released in 1981, they all broke out a bottle of champagne on the plane bound for Europe. Jones, who never drank, enjoyed some ginger ale.

The hostages all went to New York City and were treated like heroes. Jones and his wife Mattie rode in a ticker-tape parade, and he received the key to the city from Mayor Ed Koch. News reports said the black people in the crowd would cheer especially loud when Jones came by. One man came up and gave him a bear hug and said, “Man, we love you and we’re glad you’re home!”

Jones made numerous media appearances, but he was mainly just interested in getting on with his life. And he bristled anytime somebody called him a hero. “I’m not a hero, I’m a survivor,” he said.

detroiter charles jones and his wife mattie wave as they ride up broadway

Sadly, the stress of the hostage situation was too much for his marriage, and he and Mattie ended up getting a divorce. He went back to work for the State Department and served at posts in Antigua, Senegal, Papua New Guinea, Grenada, and Ireland.

He also met a Canadian woman named Maria, and they married in 1990. When Jones retired in 1995, he and Maria moved to British Columbia, where she was from. He dabbled in the movie and TV industry there, frequently appearing in small roles or as an extra in TV shows or movies. He was credited with playing an old man in the 2001 Snoop Dogg horror film, “Bones.”

Charles and Maria eventually found their way back to the U.S. and settled in the tiny town of Sequim, Washington.

Jones would occasionally speak to local groups and talk about his experiences in Iran, but he mostly lived a quiet life. He got involved with the local Democratic Party and served as a delegate for Barack Obama at the 2008 Washington State Democratic Convention.

jones and ronald reagan

Jones passed away peacefully on May 8, 2015, at the age of 74. It’s both noteworthy and sad that Jones had been entirely forgotten by the media in his hometown of Detroit. He was a local hero and celebrity in 1981, but when he died, not a single newspaper or TV station in Detroit did a story on him. The only mention of his passing can be found in this online obituary.

No matter. The proud Michigander Charles Jones Jr. was most certainly a hero—for serving his country so long and so well, for enduring 444 days of hell, and for not giving his Iranian captors a damn thing.

Buddy Moorehouse teaches documentary filmmaking at Hillsdale College.

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