Opinion | Why my grandfather's story haunts the U.S.-Iran relationship to this day

This excerpt is adapted from “Titan of Tehran: From Jewish Ghetto to Corporate Colossus to Firing Squad — My Grandfather’s Life,” a book by Shahrzad Elghanayan, senior photo editor for NBC News Digital. The book, which was published in November by AP Books, tells the story of Habib Elghanian, a Jewish industrialist and longtime community leader in Tehran, Iran, who was killed during the first round of civilian executions of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The book explains the decline of Iran’s once-thriving Jewish community and offers insights into the first months of U.S. relations with the new Islamic Republic.

“Sorry, sir, we’re unable to get through to Tehran.”

Fed up with the telephone operator’s recurring inability to get a line to Iran, my father hung up and dialed the garage attendant in our midtown Manhattan apartment building.

“This is Karmel Elghanayan from Apt. 31-H,” he said. “Would you please bring my car out?” Soon he was heading down FDR Drive in his brown-and-beige Cadillac toward a shop in Greenwich Village where he’d buy a shortwave radio.

He needed news.