The 6 American diplomats arriving in U.S.
after CIA agent |
I first met
Antonio J. Mendez in Beachwood, an eastern suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. That was
twelve years ago, and I'll never forget him...a true American hero. That's why
I had to see the movie "ARGO" starring Ben Affleck who
portrayed Mendez.
On May 20, 2006, a
small group of the Cleveland branch of the Association of Former Intelligence
Officers (AFIO) met with "Tony" Mendez in Beachwood for a
luncheon and lengthy account of his adventure in Iran. We listened to him
discuss the 1980 joint CIA-Canadian secret operation where he ex-filtrated
six fugitive American diplomatic personnel out of revolutionary Iran.
Tony revealed a little-known
fact during the Iranian hostage situation. H. Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire
we all got to know when he ran for president, had used a secret land route to
ex-filtrate two of his employees imprisoned early on in the Iranian Revolution.
While
Tony Mendez was planning how to get the Americans out of Iran, Perot
contacted the CIA and offered his services to help them rescue the
hostages. "What's the holdup?", Ross Perot snapped in his usual
manner. "If it's red tape, I'll put up the money and you can pay me back
later!"
There were some Hollywood deviations from what really happened in the mission, but the CIA, in fact, did create a completely fictional Hollywood movie project that fooled Iranians and saved hostages. Mendez was a CIA disguise master who did use a sci-fi movie plot to free captives in Tehran in 1979. The movie "ARGO" accurately depicts how Tony and the CIA created a screenplay, printed business cards, and rented staff to occupy the nonexistent "Studio Six" in order to exfiltrate the American hostages successfully.
I took copious amounts of
notes as Tony gave us the details of his CIA operation at the small,
semi-secret AFIO luncheon. Afterwards, he offered me advice on writing my spy
thriller series and told me to make it fun and to "enjoy the shadow
wars." I brought a copy of his book with me and he wrote a message to me
inside it:
Tony Mendez...a true American hero |
He is a true
American hero who risked his life to save the six American diplomatic
personnel. He told us about the planning and execution of operation
ARGO and the CIA and CSIS (Canadian Secret Intelligence Service)
cooperation and coordination involved in getting the six Americans out of
Iran. The Canadian embassy hid them until Mendez and his fake "Studio Six
Hollywood" movie team arrived and exfiltrated them out. CSIS operatives risked
their lives as well as they partook in the operation.
Mendez told me that they spent weeks on deciding what type of "cover" they would use, and ultimately decided on a Hollywood movie project because most in the Middle East perceive Hollywood movie directors to be a bit nuts but are intrigued by them. That's why Mendez decided to use the "Hollywood director/producer" role as his deep cover. |
|
his Canadian CSIS entourage, as depicted in
the movie. They set up a shop in Hollywood with secretaries, etc., in case
Iranians got suspicious and sent their spies here in the US to check it out.
Tony said
the movie ARGO depicted what really occurred quite well, with several
exceptions:
- The movie suggested Tony was the only
CIA officer involved in the mission and he single-handedly organized and
executed the plan. In reality, there were two CIA officers
with forgery and exfiltration skills involved.
- The six diplomats never went to the market to "scout a
location"- they spent the entire 79 days inside the homes of the
Canadian embassy staff.
- The dramatic moment with the
airline ticket confusion at the counter and guards calling “Studio Six” to
verify the identities of the six never happened. The Canadian’s had
purchased the tickets and there were no problems at checkpoints or at the
airline counter. CIA officers had intentionally scheduled an early flight
when they knew airline officials would be sleepy and the Revolutionary
Guards would still be in bed.
- The Iranian’s did work to
reconstruct shredded documents but did not identify one of the
Americans at the last moment.
It was a thrilling
movie and, if Tony Mendez was caught the Revolutionary Guards would have
murdered him on the spot...and that's not Hollywood fiction.
No comments:
Post a Comment