Video: 'Face to Face with the Ayatollah'

(Sunday, November 18, 1979, 7:00 p.m. EST; during the Iran hostage crisis) — CBS correspondent Mike Wallace became the first Western reporter to interview Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on tonight’s edition of 60 Minutes, two weeks after a group of Iranian college students stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 50 Americans hostage.

To Khomeini’s face, Wallace quoted Egyptian President Anwar Sadat as calling him a lunatic.