On November 4, 1979, Morefield was in the American embassy in Teheran, where he was serving as the United States consul general to Iran.
After the Algeria Accords were signed on January 19, 1981, Morefield and the other captives were given medical examinations and were released the next day, placed on buses surrounded by crowds shouting "Bad, bad, America's bad" and leaving the country on an Algerian airplane.