Tony Hoffer

My Secret Life in the CIA: The Extraordinary Operation That Inspired the Movie Argo (2002)

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• published: 06 Nov 2015
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The "Canadian Caper" was the popular name given to the joint covert rescue by the Canadian government and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of six American diplomats who had evaded capture during the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran, Iran, and taking of embassy personnel as hostages by Islamist students and militants on November 4, 1979.[1] The "caper" involved CIA agents (Tony Mendez and a man known as "Julio") joining the six diplomats to form a fake film crew made up of six Canadians, one Irishman and one Latin American who were finishing scouting for an appropriate location to shoot a scene for the nominal science-fiction film Argo. The ruse was carried off on the morning of Sunday, January 27, 1980, at the Mehrabad Airport in Tehran. The eight Americans successfully boarded a Swissair flight to Zürich and escaped Iran. The 2012 film Argo, which won three Academy Awards and three BAFTA awards including Best Picture, is a fictionalized cinematic representation of the operation. In 1981, a television movie about the Canadian Caper was made, Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper, directed by Lamont Johnson, with Ken Taylor played by Gordon Pinsent.[14] It was based on the original cover story as the story of Argo had not yet been declassified.[15] The movie was filmed in and around Toronto, and was an American-Canadian co-production.[14] A children's illustrated book about the event was written by 2013 Eric Hoffer Award-winner Laura Scandiffio and Stephen MacEachern entitled Escapes![16] The critically and commercially successful film Argo, based loosely on this event, was released in North American cinemas on October 12, 2012. In the film, the role of John Sheardown and his wife Zena were omitted for reasons of length and cost.[4][17] The film includes elements of both fact and fiction.[3] In particular, the film focuses largely on the role the CIA played in the operation and minimizes the heavy involvement of the Canadians. Former President Jimmy Carter acknowledged this in an interview in 2013, whilst also praising the film.[18] In addition, the film incorrectly states that the six American diplomats were turned away by the British and New Zealand embassies. The American diplomats actually spent one night in a British diplomatic compound before it was agreed by all involved that the residence of the Canadian Ambassador would be better suited.[19] Argo won three Oscars, including Best Picture, at the 85th Academy Awards on February 24, 2013.[20] The events were covered in historian Robert Wright's 2010 book Our Man in Tehran, and a companion documentary film which was released in 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Caper