Spy Wars (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 5 - Escape From Tehran - full transcript
In the world of spies, A cover story
and an alias must be watertight.
This requires more than
just convincing paperwork.
It's how you look, what you say,
The way you act, And it means staying
in character no matter what.
This is the remarkable story Of how one
man used inspiration from hollywood
To school six frightened diplomats
In the art of being someone else,
And score a victory for the cia, In one of the
darkest moments for american foreign policy.
Iran was in the grip
of an islamic revolution.
Led by the shia cleric ayatollah khomeini,
Anti-american demonstrators had taken
To the streets in
their thousands.
Amid the chaos cia officer, tony mendez,
Entered Tehran on a covert mission.
To rescue a group of six american
diplomats From almost certain death.
Among the group
Were U.S. Embassy officials
mark and cora lijek.
Four decades on, The lijeks lead quiet lives
In a quiet corner of washington state.
But back in the summer of 1979, This young
married couple were looking for adventure.
I had completed my four years in the army
And went to work for the foreign service.
I was asked to volunteer
to go to Tehran.
I agreed to help reopen
the tourist visa unit.
I actually was very
excited about it.
My parents had lived there for four
years, And I'd visited twice before.
Tehran was very cosmopolitan.
Most of the women I saw were
dressed in western clothing,
So it seemed like it'd
be a fun place to go.
But the lijeks touched down
To an iran in turmoil.
Well, I arrived after
a very long and arduous flight.
The airport was chaotic.
Things were unstable and
people were not calm.
I was met by somebody from the embassy, So
that kind of got me past the worst of it.
But then we got in the van, And I noticed that the
driver Just drove through all the red lights.
Washington d.C. Had no idea What
was actually happening in Tehran.
In January 1979, U.S. Ally
shah mohammed reza pahlavi
Had been ousted from power
by the ayatollah khomeini.
The white house was now friendless in
the region, And completely in the dark
About the actions
of the new regime.
U.S. President jimmy carter and the cia Had
been slow to react to the escalating crisis.
The cia station in Tehran
At the time was minuscule,
With just one person basically
keeping the store open
Bill daugherty
arrived at the american embassy
In Tehran in the immediate
aftermath of the shah's ousting.
He was fresh out of cia training
And thrown in at the deep end.
It was my first
overseas assignment.
I didn't know anything
about the country.
I didn't speak the language.
I didn't know anything
about their culture.
I knew nothing about islam.
Bill daugherty's mission was to buildup A cia
station that was operating with a skeleton crew.
He faced an uphill struggle To cultivate
potential agents and informants.
For an iranian to be seen with an american
Was not particularly appropriate.
That individual could go back And be
called a spy and could lose his job
Or even be arrested or worse Just for being
with an american government official.
The real concern I had
was not making a mistake
And getting caught.
There could have been enormous consequences
For being caught doing espionage work.
The american embassy in Tehran Was a
maze of buildings in a vast walled
Compound in the
heart of the city.
On the second floor of the main
building Was the cia station.
I was in my office writing cables
From what I'd done the night before.
The demonstration was outside,
And it was larger than usual.
But I was ignoring it.
I was told by people
who had been there,
"don't worry about
the demonstrations.
"They happen all the
time," and so I didn't.
That morning no one
inside the american embassy
Noticed the demonstration
outside was near boiling point.
Hundreds of students were heading
Towards the embassy building.
These seemed to be young people.
We didn't see any weapons.
There was concern, But the embassy
was supposed to be a fortress.
On the other side of the embassy compound,
Mark and cora lijek were oblivious
To the imminent danger.
We both were
working in the visa section.
Yeah, okay.
Our building was not near the front,
So maybe we didn't hear some of it.
We couldn't see
what was going on.
We were quite a distance away.
But by now the students had begun To
scale the embassy main gate and walls.
To avoid a bloodbath, Washington
ordered the U.S. Marines
Guarding the compound
to hold their fire.
We had been told time and time again
That the embassy was a secure facility.
Even if the iranians came over the
wall And tried to attack the embassy,
It was virtually impregnable.
I think it took them about
30 minutes to break into it.
The chief of station then told
me to destroy the documents
That were in the
vault in my office.
By 10.30 a.M., As daugherty
began to shred anything
That could expose the nature of his work for
the cia, A group of angry students broke
Into the main embassy building.
They seized everyone they could find
To be paraded before the baying mob.
The iranian hostage
crisis had begun.
They came in and they started
Blind folding and tying hands.
One of the first ones that they took away
Was one of the marine security guards,
And I'll never forget the look on his
face Because he didn't wanna surrender.
He wanted to fight.
Somebody claimed they smelt smoke, And that
they were gonna burn the building down.
People started saying they
heard footsteps on the roof.
The visa office was one of the few buildings In
the compound with its own exit to the street.
It was kind of a decision point.
We should leave the building.
Everybody, come on let's go.
In all, 13 embassy
workers made a break for it.
But, in the confusion they
were forced to split up.
We were all supposed to go left.
Nobody was supposed to go right.
Those who turned right Fell into the hands
of the iranian revolutionary guards.
We went the other way.
We went left.
We went toward the british, Which
was what we were supposed to do.
The safety of the british embassy
Was just over a mile away.
But the lijek's escape route Was
blocked by angry demonstrators.
The situation was
descending into chaos.
They were now attacking
other embassies.
It was clear that this thing
was getting pretty nasty.
Alone on the streets of a hostile
city And with no specialist training,
The fugitive diplomats faced
capture and even death.
Help would come from the
most unlikely of sources.
In November 1979, In the wake of the
fall of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran,
53 americans had been taken hostage
By islamic revolutionaries.
The ayatollah refused to
negotiate with president carter,
And he ordered his men to interrogate All the
american prisoners to root out cia spies.
Here was not an embassy.
It was a cia center.
This was a den of espionage Where they
were plotting against the iranian people.
Cia officer bill daugherty Was now one
of the hostages in the american embassy.
I was taken back to my office
Still blind folded, still tied.
I could hear them breaking into safes All up and
down the corridor, Basically looting the embassy.
There was a, not a student, But
a professional interrogator.
Convinced of a cia plot to crush the revolution,
The ayatollah had sent in his top interrogator
To break the will
of the americans.
My strategy was what had been Thoroughly
indoctrinated into me during my training.
I had a cover story to explain why I was
in iran And what my job in the embassy was
As a political military
affairs officer.
Most of it was true.
I didn't have to embellish it.
We would start after dinner, And we
would go till sunrise, so 12, 13 hours,
And they worked very hard
to break down my story.
On the streets of Tehran, U.S. Consular
officials mark and cora lijek,
And their fellow escapees from the
embassy, Were in urgent need of sanctuary.
It's kinda frightening because we
just worried Somebody would see us.
There weren't that many foreigners still
in iran, And then I have dark hair.
I probably would've blended in a little better,
But mark had kind of dirty blonde hair.
In desperation, the lijeks managed To make contact
with america's Number two diplomat in the city,
The deputy chief of the american
Mission in Tehran, victor tomseth.
Tomseth had been across town At
the iranian foreign ministry
When the U.S. Embassy
had been overrun.
In those early days, The foreign
ministry people were still helpful,
So he was allowed to use the phone,
And, he, for whatever reason,
He kind of took
responsibility for helping us.
Tomseth knew he would be monitored By iranian
intelligence, So he decided to call the one person
With whom he could speak freely,
His friend, the embassy
chef, sam sriweawnetr.
Victor, speak thai to me,
Because I think he cannot speak english Over
there because all iranian could understand.
Tomseth had met sam when he'd worked in
thailand, And had given sam a job cooking
For the embassy staff in Tehran.
Now he asked him to risk his life
To save the diplomats on the run.
Victor tomseth told me, "sam,
I've got something new.
"I need your help.
"I need your help."
I said, "yes,
anything, you tell me."
He said, "now, sam listen
I got the americans.
"Can you help them
hide them some place?"
I said, "yes, yes,
I will do that."
I think its human to help.
That's what I think.
Some people need help
you have to help them.
Under the cover of
darkness, sam met the lijeks
And guided them to a safe
house belonging to the embassy.
We ran into the house
trying not to be seen.
They are scared.
I made the curtain
close all the time.
A lot of our fears were
Lessened because sam was there.
He was going to take care of us.
He could go out publicly.
He could buy food.
He could buy cigarettes whatever, So as
long as we had sam, we had a chance.
Yet, all the time, The threat
of capture was closing in.
We had the "Tehran times".
They has pictures on the
front page of the paper.
They were people in blindfolds.
It was immensely disturbing to me
Because that could be us down the road.
I kept thinking,
where's our president?
"What is our government doing?"
President carter's plan was to enforce
Both economic and diplomatic pressure,
To force the ayatollah to
release the american hostages.
It didn't work.
And inside the ransacked embassy The interrogations
of american prisoners were intensifying.
He never got excited,
never raised his voice.
The only reason I could tell That
maybe he didn't quite like an answer
Or two that I might have given him was that
He would sort of play with the revolver.
Of course, you can hear those
cylinders go click, click.
I did not discount the
possibility of an execution,
And I was certainly prepared
psychologically, Mentally for that.
I thought about that every day.
Three days after The storming of the U.S. Embassy,
Secreted in their safe house across town,
The lijeks began to realize there would
be No swift solution to their ordeal.
It was clear that this
thing was getting pretty nasty.
There was no government any longer for us to
negotiate with Other than the ayatollah personally.
So clearly the situation was descending into chaos,
And that made our predicament a lot worse.
It was pretty clear that our
absence would be detected.
I mean it was impossible
for it not to be detected.
It was only a matter
of for how long.
By now iranian revolutionary guards
Were examining embassy records
For evidence of U.S. Safe houses Where
fugitive diplomats could be hiding.
Sam sriweawnetr sensed the
mounting tension on the streets.
When I go shopping buy some food,
A lot of thing I see are bad.
Sam actually got worried And
thought somebody might be coming.
That I think really
heightened our nervousness.
His fear you know
was infectious.
I feel not safe for
them and not safe for me either.
If they catch the five
americans, they're gonna die.
If me, they catch
me, I'm gonna be die.
We have to help them
out, get out of here.
So the lijeks turn
to the one western nation
Whose embassy was not in the
ayatollah's crosshairs: Canada.
Zena sheradown's husband, Veteran
diplomat john sheardown,
Was the canadian's chief immigration
officer In Tehran at the time.
He was the lijeks
next port of call.
My husband said, "you are all
welcome "to come and stay with us."
All you're thinking is, "are we gonna be able to
"get them upstairs without being spotted by the
"revolutionary guards who
are up and down the street?"
When we left I think
sam took it almost as an insult,
Because we couldn't tell him where we were
going For his protection as well as ours.
The lijeks made
it out in the nick of time.
All the militants
come two hours after that.
They come to my apartment, "where's
the american, where's the american?"
With a gun pointed to me.
M16 points in my face.
Then I say, "no, I
live here by myself.
"Nobody here," I tell them that.
They keep looking around,
but I clean up already.
After that, they left.
By now the ljieks and their fellow fugitives Had
been smuggled from their embassy safe house
And driven to the
sheardown's home.
The car I remember pulled into the garage,
And then he rushed us inside the house.
We got some scotches and sodas
Right away for everybody.
We all needed a stiff drink,
And we started to get
to know each other.
The sherdowns figured they had The perfect
cover to keep the americans diplomats safe.
I don't think they
would suspect us.
Not the canadians they
keep to themselves.
They wouldn't say
boo to a goose.
They sent word back to ottawa, That the fugitive
diplomats had arrived safely with them.
Gar pardy was cia liaison for
the canadian foreign office.
The first reaction was, "god, we've got them,
"and at least they're reasonably safe."
But then the realization that This
could go on for some period of time.
It dawned on the canadian officials, The
longer they hid their american colleagues,
The greater the chance of canada becoming
embroiled In the wider conflict in the region.
The iranians themselves were probably starting
To realize that there were some people
That were not accounted for in the 52,
And they would be starting to sharpen
Their own investigation, if you like,
Their own looking for the six.
And then what do you
do at this point?
At the american embassy, Bill daugherty was under
increasing pressure To give up key documents.
I got a lot of questions as to why I was
in this office with this big vault.
The vault contained All the
cia intelligence reports
Bill had been working on when the embassy
had fallen, Names, dates, and places.
I kept telling them,
"no, I can't open the vault."
Daugherty now believed the iranians Were unlikely
to execute him until he'd opened the safe.
Frustrated by how long he had
Withstood brutal interrogation,
The revolutionaries
now upped the ante.
I wasn't necessarily under the belief That
they would actually execute me right away.
But then they said, "well, we'll get
the secretary "and bring her up here,"
And that's when there
was decision time.
If he refused to open the safe now, The iranians
made it clear they would execute his secretary.
Look there was nothing In
that embassy worth dying for.
Not a thing.
I said, "okay, the
combination's in my wallet."
I'd shredded all the documents.
I thought, "oh, I'm
really in trouble now."
Undeterred, the revolutionaries
Brought in teams of carpet
Weavers to piece together
the fragments of paperwork.
It was only a matter of time before
they'd work out That bill was cia.
But that wasn't the only information The
iranians would get from the paperwork.
For the six U.S. Fugitives Hiding at the
home of a canadian embassy official,
The tension was about to
ratchet to breaking point.
By January 1980, The iranian
hostage crisis had escalated.
The ayatollah's carpet weavers had reassembled
Thousands of pages of shredded cia documents,
Exposing the identities of U.S. Agents
And their informants in Tehran.
At the canadian embassy, roger lucy observed
How this stoked the hatred toward america.
The atmosphere in the city Was getting more and
more tense As the students pieced together
More gems from the not-very-well Shredded
paperwork at the american embassy.
More and more iranians
were getting arrested
Because they'd been mentioned
in some american's memo.
Of course, that was almost a death sentence For
people who got mentioned in these dispatches.
Trapped in the home of
a canadian embassy official,
Mark and cora lijek, and their fellow U.S.
Embassy workers, Were feeling the pressure.
We couldn't go out Because we just
worried somebody would see us.
People would ring the doorbell.
We'd have to lock
ourselves in the den.
Anything unusual, even the phone ringing,
It was just, "who's that calling?"
Even if you tried to be rational, You
can't totally get it out of your head.
We thought somebody might be coming, And we
were afraid they might be coming any minute.
All we would try to do is survive,
Survive from one day to the next.
We were on the alert.
Every time I heard a car stop
in front, Especially at night,
I would get up and look
to see who was out there.
I hardly slept, Probably
awake for most of the time.
Eventually it does take a toll.
Yeah, I think, I
was a bag of nerves.
How would it end?
On the 71st day of the hostage crisis
The united nations security council
Proposed crippling economic
sanctions against iran.
But the soviet union saw an opportunity To
further weaken american influence in the region,
And vetoed the motion.
With no diplomatic solution in sight, The
situation was becoming More dangerous by the day.
I felt abandoned.
I thought that there
had to be some options.
That the U.S. Government,
A super power, has been
humiliated by the ayatollah.
In ottawa, the canadian government Was becoming
increasingly nervous Of hiding U.S. Fugitives,
And being dragged into
an american crisis.
Suddenly the canadian
press were counting the numbers.
The fact that there were more americans Within
the american embassy than the 52 accounted for.
And the journalists were putting all of this
together, And that's when the realization
Was we needed to do something
fairly quickly for the six.
If the canadian media had worked out There
were some western diplomats unaccounted for,
It was only a matter of time Before the
iranian revolutionaries did the same.
There was that realization,
"god, what do we do here?"
That's when the cia were called
in, And things started to get,
I guess you might say,
considerably more professional
When it came to the noble
art of exfiltration.
To get the american diplomats out,
The cia would have to send a man in,
A man with a very
special skillset.
When it came to who should the cia go to In
the operation to help these six americans
Who were hiding out in Tehran,
"how can we get them out?
"Who is the expert?"
It was tony.
Tony mendez was
the cia's exfiltration expert.
His specialty:
Rescuing clandestine agents
and political refugees.
Tony knew how to Get people
in and out of tough spots.
He'd done this
many times before.
He knew the dangers.
He knew what needed to be done.
Over the course of his 14 year career,
Mendez became the cia's undisputed
Master of forgery and disguise.
One of the things that tony brought to his
work Was this idea of looking outside
The traditional
areas of expertise.
So, he wasn't looking at defense
contractors and scientists.
He was going to hollywood.
He was working on the sets of
movies Learning the techniques.
Mendez applied his hollywood
skills To clandestine trade craft.
He turned to costume
designers and graphic artists
To provide agents with
perfect props and disguises.
It transformed the
agency's capabilities.
That was the beginning of making people in
the cia Understand that disguise wasn't
Just a bad wig and
a fake mustache.
This was the ability to actually turn
somebody Into a completely different person.
He took disguise
to another level.
But smuggling six terrified american diplomats
Out of Tehran would be his toughest mission yet.
His first job was, "how
can we get them out?
"Who are they let's come up with a
story "for why they're in Tehran."
He knew that at some point these people Were
gonna have to go through airport security,
Customs, border controls, And
they had no clandestine training.
So he was saying, "we need to create a
scenario that they will believe in,
"that will get them to buy into it, "and
give them the confidence to escape."
And then he thought, "what about a
hollywood location scouting party?"
Everybody knows a little bit
of something about hollywood.
Tony mendez knew The more
believable the cover story,
The easier it would be for
the diplomats to stick to.
So, he set up a fake
film production company.
Tony decided to name the
company studio six productions.
The connection being the six
americans who are hiding out.
Studio six needed a plausible film script,
So he called an old hollywood contact,
Award-winning make-up
artist john chambers.
At the time john had been given a
script About a science fiction movie.
One of the locations was set in a
bazaar In a middle easter country,
And tony thought, "you know,
this could be perfect."
Mendez re-named the script "argo", And wrote
articles for the hollywood trade press,
To give it the publicity
of a genuine project.
Hollywood being a town of make believe, It wasn't
long before they actually were sent scripts
From other producers
and writers.
By mid-January 1980, Mendez's cover, studio
six productions, was up and running.
If anyone checked, the company
would appear legitimate.
Now tony mendez could enter iran using
his alias, A location production scout
Looking for a middle eastern location
For the hollywood blockbuster "argo".
It's actually a huge
risk to him to go into Tehran.
If he had been captured, He was convinced
that he would be tortured and killed.
In Tehran, mendez had no backup.
If his cover story was blown,
there could be no rescue.
The ayatollah had tightened his grip on power,
And there were few in iran the cia could trust.
Cia agents like bill daugherty Had been
tortured to give up their contacts,
Who were then being systematically
Rounded up and imprisoned or worse.
They named a woman
that I had been seeing.
She was a senior administrator
in the ministry of education.
There was nothing she could tell us That would
harm their government, absolutely nothing,
And he said, "oh, we shot her."
He was so casual about it,
And I was really pissed.
They took a plastic cord
and tied my wrists together.
It literally cut off the
blood flow to the hands,
And they waited, and
the hands swelled up,
And the skin became
very, very sensitive,
And then they laid them on the desk
And hit it with a rubber hose.
It was a lot more painful
than I would have imagined.
It was a kurd that did it.
That big beefy kurd,
And he took great
pleasure in it.
And I wanna kill that son
of a bitch to this day.
By the end of January 1980, Many
washington politicos believed
The only way to resolve the hostage
crisis Was to send in special forces.
What they didn't know Was that cia agent
tony mendez Was already at the airport.
Tony's cover he's flying in As
the location scouting manager.
He's in charge of
this film production.
He's traveling under an alias.
Mendez knew as long
as he could keep his cover,
Iranian security would have no
reason to suspect he was cia.
What he didn't know was If the
diplomats he was here to rescue,
Would be able to maintain
their cover stories.
By this time, the lijeks
and their fellow fugitives
Had been in hiding for 84
days, living on their nerves.
Tony needed to assess
their state of mind.
This was incredibly important.
He was worried.
He didn't know if
they would crack.
He didn't know if
they'd already cracked.
The door opens, the americans are
inside, And they're waiting for him.
Mendez had less than 36 hours To transform six
diplomats Into a credible canadian film crew
And get them on a
plane out of Tehran.
I don't understand.
I was supposed to be the
script writer for the movie.
I was the
transportation coordinator.
We were given enough information to memorize
That it would withstand cursory scrutiny,
But not so much that we'd be all
paranoid About forgetting some detail.
And this is when he brings out All the
things that he's been able to create
The script, the drawings,
the business cards.
He'd brought a copy of the "hollywood
reporter", With an ad for "argo".
He had people back in hollywood Who could be
called if someone were going to check on us.
We had what he called,
"pocket litter."
A key chain, other people's business
cards That you'd met along the way.
Of course, the main thing we
had was the canadian passports.
The canadian government Had supplied the american
diplomats With genuine canadian passports.
Now the U.S. Diplomats had
to become those people.
Tony lays out the plan, And he said, "okay,
guys, you need to practice these roles.
"You need to learn
these identities."
We weren't trained for that.
We weren't spies, and we didn't Have the
benefit of that kind of experience.
But tony stressed that
All we had to do was
follow instructions.
Most of the americans are on board
Except for one, joe stafford.
The concern was, "we all need
to be on the same page here.
"Is joe on the same page?
Tehran was joe stafford's First foreign
post with the U.S. State department.
Now, he was battling doubts as to whether He
should play along with the cover story at all.
Joe stafford didn't wanna leave.
He felt we were
abandoning the others,
And he made very little effort
to really get into his role.
Mendez's extraction plan relied On
everyone playing their parts convincingly.
And if the revolutionary guard Spotted
a flaw in anyone's performance,
It was gonna be tony
mendez in the firing line.
Tony goes in first.
There's a big thing that
he has is trust your gut.
If he doesn't like it,
they're gonna abort.
In the early morning, there were relatively Few
revolutionary guards on duty at the airport.
He gives the signal.
Send in the six americans.
I was scared, you
know, it was a scary thing.
But then there was tony, and he was smiling
That meant everything was good, just proceed.
The six diplomats and tony joined The queue
for passport control at Tehran airport.
Crew member of studio six productions
Heading home from a location scouting trip.
I was worried
somebody might recognize us.
When you arrive at post, you have to submit A
bunch of photographs to the foreign ministry.
Who knows where those
photographs were.
They could be on the wall at the airport,
And so that was a little bit concerning.
Butt, there's no help for it.
You just have to
hope for the best.
The canadian
passports were genuine.
But the rest of their
documents were a problem.
Mendez had expertly forged
the diplomats' exit visas.
The trouble was they were supposed to match A
counterfoil entry visa at passport control,
A counterfoil that didn't exist.
The fellow was supposed to take The
yellow visa paper out of our passports
And check for the matching
copy in the files.
The guy took the papers,
But he didn't check anything.
Thank you.
One by one the american fugitives
Cleared passport security.
Then in the departure lounge,
They heard an announcement.
Their 7:30 a.M. Flight
had been delayed
So at that point
I'm freaking out.
The longer we're there the better the
chance Of something going wrong.
The plane had
a mechanical problem.
But that wasn't the only issue.
The revolutionary guards tony was hoping Weren't
gonna be there are now making the rounds.
They're harassing people.
The americans begin to worry About whether
or not this cover story is gonna hold up,
And tony becomes a little concerned
That one them might crack.
By now, the tension Was taking
its toll on joe stafford,
And he had stopped playing
his part altogether.
Joe made no effort.
He was reading a farsi newspaper
Before tony took it away from him.
He kept calling cora
by her real name.
We were definitely worried
That joe might give us away.
It was clear that joe was
feeling Guilty about leaving.
He didn't want to leave Tehran While these
other americans were being held hostage.
If stafford blew their cover, The
consequences for the group were dire.
But for a cia officer, they
were likely to be fatal.
Everybody is nervous.
The mood is anxious.
Tony is looking at the scenario Through
the lens of problems, solutions.
They just have to wait, And they
just have to keep their cool.
Tony he inspired
a lot of confidence.
He said, "just stay calm.
"We'll just hang here," so
I was able to calm down.
After 30 minutes they announced That
the plane was ready to be boarded.
Every step was
another step closer.
At 8:30 a.M., on January 28, 1980, The lijek's
plane finally left Tehran for zurich.
85 days after they'd fled their besieged embassy,
And accompanied by the cia master of disguise
Who'd orchestrated their escape, The american
diplomats were at last on their way home.
We figured we finally were safe when they
announced We were out of iranian airspace.
At that point we ordered some bloody
mary's And toasted each other.
It was over.
Though it was over for the six, It wasn't
yet over for the 52 american hostages
Still held at the U.S. Embassy.
A few months later, on April 24, 1980,
A desperate president jimmy carter
Launched a military
rescue attempt.
It ended in disaster
in the desert.
Eight american
servicemen were killed.
Several more were injured.
Bill daugherty and 51
of his fellow americans
Would remain in captivity in iran until
January 20, 1981, A total of 444 days.
It was difficult
knowing they were still there.
That was really difficult.
At the time, any involvement by the cia
In the lijek's escape was kept secret,
To avoid reprisals against
the remaining hostages.
One of the unique things about tony And the
individuals like him who work in the cia,
Is they know that they
will never get credit.
But full credit was given to the canadians
For their heroic role in the escape.
Canadians invested a lot of effort
In keeping us safe all those months.
It was a pretty
big risk keeping us there.
Zena she was our protector From the outside
world, The barrier between us and them.
I don't regret any of it.
What would we have felt
like if they were caught?
I don't think I would have been
able To live with that myself.
Only when cia files were declassified 17
years later could the truth be revealed.
How one man devised a plot
Straight out of a hollywood movie,
To stage one of the boldest recuse
missions In the agency's history.
and an alias must be watertight.
This requires more than
just convincing paperwork.
It's how you look, what you say,
The way you act, And it means staying
in character no matter what.
This is the remarkable story Of how one
man used inspiration from hollywood
To school six frightened diplomats
In the art of being someone else,
And score a victory for the cia, In one of the
darkest moments for american foreign policy.
Iran was in the grip
of an islamic revolution.
Led by the shia cleric ayatollah khomeini,
Anti-american demonstrators had taken
To the streets in
their thousands.
Amid the chaos cia officer, tony mendez,
Entered Tehran on a covert mission.
To rescue a group of six american
diplomats From almost certain death.
Among the group
Were U.S. Embassy officials
mark and cora lijek.
Four decades on, The lijeks lead quiet lives
In a quiet corner of washington state.
But back in the summer of 1979, This young
married couple were looking for adventure.
I had completed my four years in the army
And went to work for the foreign service.
I was asked to volunteer
to go to Tehran.
I agreed to help reopen
the tourist visa unit.
I actually was very
excited about it.
My parents had lived there for four
years, And I'd visited twice before.
Tehran was very cosmopolitan.
Most of the women I saw were
dressed in western clothing,
So it seemed like it'd
be a fun place to go.
But the lijeks touched down
To an iran in turmoil.
Well, I arrived after
a very long and arduous flight.
The airport was chaotic.
Things were unstable and
people were not calm.
I was met by somebody from the embassy, So
that kind of got me past the worst of it.
But then we got in the van, And I noticed that the
driver Just drove through all the red lights.
Washington d.C. Had no idea What
was actually happening in Tehran.
In January 1979, U.S. Ally
shah mohammed reza pahlavi
Had been ousted from power
by the ayatollah khomeini.
The white house was now friendless in
the region, And completely in the dark
About the actions
of the new regime.
U.S. President jimmy carter and the cia Had
been slow to react to the escalating crisis.
The cia station in Tehran
At the time was minuscule,
With just one person basically
keeping the store open
Bill daugherty
arrived at the american embassy
In Tehran in the immediate
aftermath of the shah's ousting.
He was fresh out of cia training
And thrown in at the deep end.
It was my first
overseas assignment.
I didn't know anything
about the country.
I didn't speak the language.
I didn't know anything
about their culture.
I knew nothing about islam.
Bill daugherty's mission was to buildup A cia
station that was operating with a skeleton crew.
He faced an uphill struggle To cultivate
potential agents and informants.
For an iranian to be seen with an american
Was not particularly appropriate.
That individual could go back And be
called a spy and could lose his job
Or even be arrested or worse Just for being
with an american government official.
The real concern I had
was not making a mistake
And getting caught.
There could have been enormous consequences
For being caught doing espionage work.
The american embassy in Tehran Was a
maze of buildings in a vast walled
Compound in the
heart of the city.
On the second floor of the main
building Was the cia station.
I was in my office writing cables
From what I'd done the night before.
The demonstration was outside,
And it was larger than usual.
But I was ignoring it.
I was told by people
who had been there,
"don't worry about
the demonstrations.
"They happen all the
time," and so I didn't.
That morning no one
inside the american embassy
Noticed the demonstration
outside was near boiling point.
Hundreds of students were heading
Towards the embassy building.
These seemed to be young people.
We didn't see any weapons.
There was concern, But the embassy
was supposed to be a fortress.
On the other side of the embassy compound,
Mark and cora lijek were oblivious
To the imminent danger.
We both were
working in the visa section.
Yeah, okay.
Our building was not near the front,
So maybe we didn't hear some of it.
We couldn't see
what was going on.
We were quite a distance away.
But by now the students had begun To
scale the embassy main gate and walls.
To avoid a bloodbath, Washington
ordered the U.S. Marines
Guarding the compound
to hold their fire.
We had been told time and time again
That the embassy was a secure facility.
Even if the iranians came over the
wall And tried to attack the embassy,
It was virtually impregnable.
I think it took them about
30 minutes to break into it.
The chief of station then told
me to destroy the documents
That were in the
vault in my office.
By 10.30 a.M., As daugherty
began to shred anything
That could expose the nature of his work for
the cia, A group of angry students broke
Into the main embassy building.
They seized everyone they could find
To be paraded before the baying mob.
The iranian hostage
crisis had begun.
They came in and they started
Blind folding and tying hands.
One of the first ones that they took away
Was one of the marine security guards,
And I'll never forget the look on his
face Because he didn't wanna surrender.
He wanted to fight.
Somebody claimed they smelt smoke, And that
they were gonna burn the building down.
People started saying they
heard footsteps on the roof.
The visa office was one of the few buildings In
the compound with its own exit to the street.
It was kind of a decision point.
We should leave the building.
Everybody, come on let's go.
In all, 13 embassy
workers made a break for it.
But, in the confusion they
were forced to split up.
We were all supposed to go left.
Nobody was supposed to go right.
Those who turned right Fell into the hands
of the iranian revolutionary guards.
We went the other way.
We went left.
We went toward the british, Which
was what we were supposed to do.
The safety of the british embassy
Was just over a mile away.
But the lijek's escape route Was
blocked by angry demonstrators.
The situation was
descending into chaos.
They were now attacking
other embassies.
It was clear that this thing
was getting pretty nasty.
Alone on the streets of a hostile
city And with no specialist training,
The fugitive diplomats faced
capture and even death.
Help would come from the
most unlikely of sources.
In November 1979, In the wake of the
fall of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran,
53 americans had been taken hostage
By islamic revolutionaries.
The ayatollah refused to
negotiate with president carter,
And he ordered his men to interrogate All the
american prisoners to root out cia spies.
Here was not an embassy.
It was a cia center.
This was a den of espionage Where they
were plotting against the iranian people.
Cia officer bill daugherty Was now one
of the hostages in the american embassy.
I was taken back to my office
Still blind folded, still tied.
I could hear them breaking into safes All up and
down the corridor, Basically looting the embassy.
There was a, not a student, But
a professional interrogator.
Convinced of a cia plot to crush the revolution,
The ayatollah had sent in his top interrogator
To break the will
of the americans.
My strategy was what had been Thoroughly
indoctrinated into me during my training.
I had a cover story to explain why I was
in iran And what my job in the embassy was
As a political military
affairs officer.
Most of it was true.
I didn't have to embellish it.
We would start after dinner, And we
would go till sunrise, so 12, 13 hours,
And they worked very hard
to break down my story.
On the streets of Tehran, U.S. Consular
officials mark and cora lijek,
And their fellow escapees from the
embassy, Were in urgent need of sanctuary.
It's kinda frightening because we
just worried Somebody would see us.
There weren't that many foreigners still
in iran, And then I have dark hair.
I probably would've blended in a little better,
But mark had kind of dirty blonde hair.
In desperation, the lijeks managed To make contact
with america's Number two diplomat in the city,
The deputy chief of the american
Mission in Tehran, victor tomseth.
Tomseth had been across town At
the iranian foreign ministry
When the U.S. Embassy
had been overrun.
In those early days, The foreign
ministry people were still helpful,
So he was allowed to use the phone,
And, he, for whatever reason,
He kind of took
responsibility for helping us.
Tomseth knew he would be monitored By iranian
intelligence, So he decided to call the one person
With whom he could speak freely,
His friend, the embassy
chef, sam sriweawnetr.
Victor, speak thai to me,
Because I think he cannot speak english Over
there because all iranian could understand.
Tomseth had met sam when he'd worked in
thailand, And had given sam a job cooking
For the embassy staff in Tehran.
Now he asked him to risk his life
To save the diplomats on the run.
Victor tomseth told me, "sam,
I've got something new.
"I need your help.
"I need your help."
I said, "yes,
anything, you tell me."
He said, "now, sam listen
I got the americans.
"Can you help them
hide them some place?"
I said, "yes, yes,
I will do that."
I think its human to help.
That's what I think.
Some people need help
you have to help them.
Under the cover of
darkness, sam met the lijeks
And guided them to a safe
house belonging to the embassy.
We ran into the house
trying not to be seen.
They are scared.
I made the curtain
close all the time.
A lot of our fears were
Lessened because sam was there.
He was going to take care of us.
He could go out publicly.
He could buy food.
He could buy cigarettes whatever, So as
long as we had sam, we had a chance.
Yet, all the time, The threat
of capture was closing in.
We had the "Tehran times".
They has pictures on the
front page of the paper.
They were people in blindfolds.
It was immensely disturbing to me
Because that could be us down the road.
I kept thinking,
where's our president?
"What is our government doing?"
President carter's plan was to enforce
Both economic and diplomatic pressure,
To force the ayatollah to
release the american hostages.
It didn't work.
And inside the ransacked embassy The interrogations
of american prisoners were intensifying.
He never got excited,
never raised his voice.
The only reason I could tell That
maybe he didn't quite like an answer
Or two that I might have given him was that
He would sort of play with the revolver.
Of course, you can hear those
cylinders go click, click.
I did not discount the
possibility of an execution,
And I was certainly prepared
psychologically, Mentally for that.
I thought about that every day.
Three days after The storming of the U.S. Embassy,
Secreted in their safe house across town,
The lijeks began to realize there would
be No swift solution to their ordeal.
It was clear that this
thing was getting pretty nasty.
There was no government any longer for us to
negotiate with Other than the ayatollah personally.
So clearly the situation was descending into chaos,
And that made our predicament a lot worse.
It was pretty clear that our
absence would be detected.
I mean it was impossible
for it not to be detected.
It was only a matter
of for how long.
By now iranian revolutionary guards
Were examining embassy records
For evidence of U.S. Safe houses Where
fugitive diplomats could be hiding.
Sam sriweawnetr sensed the
mounting tension on the streets.
When I go shopping buy some food,
A lot of thing I see are bad.
Sam actually got worried And
thought somebody might be coming.
That I think really
heightened our nervousness.
His fear you know
was infectious.
I feel not safe for
them and not safe for me either.
If they catch the five
americans, they're gonna die.
If me, they catch
me, I'm gonna be die.
We have to help them
out, get out of here.
So the lijeks turn
to the one western nation
Whose embassy was not in the
ayatollah's crosshairs: Canada.
Zena sheradown's husband, Veteran
diplomat john sheardown,
Was the canadian's chief immigration
officer In Tehran at the time.
He was the lijeks
next port of call.
My husband said, "you are all
welcome "to come and stay with us."
All you're thinking is, "are we gonna be able to
"get them upstairs without being spotted by the
"revolutionary guards who
are up and down the street?"
When we left I think
sam took it almost as an insult,
Because we couldn't tell him where we were
going For his protection as well as ours.
The lijeks made
it out in the nick of time.
All the militants
come two hours after that.
They come to my apartment, "where's
the american, where's the american?"
With a gun pointed to me.
M16 points in my face.
Then I say, "no, I
live here by myself.
"Nobody here," I tell them that.
They keep looking around,
but I clean up already.
After that, they left.
By now the ljieks and their fellow fugitives Had
been smuggled from their embassy safe house
And driven to the
sheardown's home.
The car I remember pulled into the garage,
And then he rushed us inside the house.
We got some scotches and sodas
Right away for everybody.
We all needed a stiff drink,
And we started to get
to know each other.
The sherdowns figured they had The perfect
cover to keep the americans diplomats safe.
I don't think they
would suspect us.
Not the canadians they
keep to themselves.
They wouldn't say
boo to a goose.
They sent word back to ottawa, That the fugitive
diplomats had arrived safely with them.
Gar pardy was cia liaison for
the canadian foreign office.
The first reaction was, "god, we've got them,
"and at least they're reasonably safe."
But then the realization that This
could go on for some period of time.
It dawned on the canadian officials, The
longer they hid their american colleagues,
The greater the chance of canada becoming
embroiled In the wider conflict in the region.
The iranians themselves were probably starting
To realize that there were some people
That were not accounted for in the 52,
And they would be starting to sharpen
Their own investigation, if you like,
Their own looking for the six.
And then what do you
do at this point?
At the american embassy, Bill daugherty was under
increasing pressure To give up key documents.
I got a lot of questions as to why I was
in this office with this big vault.
The vault contained All the
cia intelligence reports
Bill had been working on when the embassy
had fallen, Names, dates, and places.
I kept telling them,
"no, I can't open the vault."
Daugherty now believed the iranians Were unlikely
to execute him until he'd opened the safe.
Frustrated by how long he had
Withstood brutal interrogation,
The revolutionaries
now upped the ante.
I wasn't necessarily under the belief That
they would actually execute me right away.
But then they said, "well, we'll get
the secretary "and bring her up here,"
And that's when there
was decision time.
If he refused to open the safe now, The iranians
made it clear they would execute his secretary.
Look there was nothing In
that embassy worth dying for.
Not a thing.
I said, "okay, the
combination's in my wallet."
I'd shredded all the documents.
I thought, "oh, I'm
really in trouble now."
Undeterred, the revolutionaries
Brought in teams of carpet
Weavers to piece together
the fragments of paperwork.
It was only a matter of time before
they'd work out That bill was cia.
But that wasn't the only information The
iranians would get from the paperwork.
For the six U.S. Fugitives Hiding at the
home of a canadian embassy official,
The tension was about to
ratchet to breaking point.
By January 1980, The iranian
hostage crisis had escalated.
The ayatollah's carpet weavers had reassembled
Thousands of pages of shredded cia documents,
Exposing the identities of U.S. Agents
And their informants in Tehran.
At the canadian embassy, roger lucy observed
How this stoked the hatred toward america.
The atmosphere in the city Was getting more and
more tense As the students pieced together
More gems from the not-very-well Shredded
paperwork at the american embassy.
More and more iranians
were getting arrested
Because they'd been mentioned
in some american's memo.
Of course, that was almost a death sentence For
people who got mentioned in these dispatches.
Trapped in the home of
a canadian embassy official,
Mark and cora lijek, and their fellow U.S.
Embassy workers, Were feeling the pressure.
We couldn't go out Because we just
worried somebody would see us.
People would ring the doorbell.
We'd have to lock
ourselves in the den.
Anything unusual, even the phone ringing,
It was just, "who's that calling?"
Even if you tried to be rational, You
can't totally get it out of your head.
We thought somebody might be coming, And we
were afraid they might be coming any minute.
All we would try to do is survive,
Survive from one day to the next.
We were on the alert.
Every time I heard a car stop
in front, Especially at night,
I would get up and look
to see who was out there.
I hardly slept, Probably
awake for most of the time.
Eventually it does take a toll.
Yeah, I think, I
was a bag of nerves.
How would it end?
On the 71st day of the hostage crisis
The united nations security council
Proposed crippling economic
sanctions against iran.
But the soviet union saw an opportunity To
further weaken american influence in the region,
And vetoed the motion.
With no diplomatic solution in sight, The
situation was becoming More dangerous by the day.
I felt abandoned.
I thought that there
had to be some options.
That the U.S. Government,
A super power, has been
humiliated by the ayatollah.
In ottawa, the canadian government Was becoming
increasingly nervous Of hiding U.S. Fugitives,
And being dragged into
an american crisis.
Suddenly the canadian
press were counting the numbers.
The fact that there were more americans Within
the american embassy than the 52 accounted for.
And the journalists were putting all of this
together, And that's when the realization
Was we needed to do something
fairly quickly for the six.
If the canadian media had worked out There
were some western diplomats unaccounted for,
It was only a matter of time Before the
iranian revolutionaries did the same.
There was that realization,
"god, what do we do here?"
That's when the cia were called
in, And things started to get,
I guess you might say,
considerably more professional
When it came to the noble
art of exfiltration.
To get the american diplomats out,
The cia would have to send a man in,
A man with a very
special skillset.
When it came to who should the cia go to In
the operation to help these six americans
Who were hiding out in Tehran,
"how can we get them out?
"Who is the expert?"
It was tony.
Tony mendez was
the cia's exfiltration expert.
His specialty:
Rescuing clandestine agents
and political refugees.
Tony knew how to Get people
in and out of tough spots.
He'd done this
many times before.
He knew the dangers.
He knew what needed to be done.
Over the course of his 14 year career,
Mendez became the cia's undisputed
Master of forgery and disguise.
One of the things that tony brought to his
work Was this idea of looking outside
The traditional
areas of expertise.
So, he wasn't looking at defense
contractors and scientists.
He was going to hollywood.
He was working on the sets of
movies Learning the techniques.
Mendez applied his hollywood
skills To clandestine trade craft.
He turned to costume
designers and graphic artists
To provide agents with
perfect props and disguises.
It transformed the
agency's capabilities.
That was the beginning of making people in
the cia Understand that disguise wasn't
Just a bad wig and
a fake mustache.
This was the ability to actually turn
somebody Into a completely different person.
He took disguise
to another level.
But smuggling six terrified american diplomats
Out of Tehran would be his toughest mission yet.
His first job was, "how
can we get them out?
"Who are they let's come up with a
story "for why they're in Tehran."
He knew that at some point these people Were
gonna have to go through airport security,
Customs, border controls, And
they had no clandestine training.
So he was saying, "we need to create a
scenario that they will believe in,
"that will get them to buy into it, "and
give them the confidence to escape."
And then he thought, "what about a
hollywood location scouting party?"
Everybody knows a little bit
of something about hollywood.
Tony mendez knew The more
believable the cover story,
The easier it would be for
the diplomats to stick to.
So, he set up a fake
film production company.
Tony decided to name the
company studio six productions.
The connection being the six
americans who are hiding out.
Studio six needed a plausible film script,
So he called an old hollywood contact,
Award-winning make-up
artist john chambers.
At the time john had been given a
script About a science fiction movie.
One of the locations was set in a
bazaar In a middle easter country,
And tony thought, "you know,
this could be perfect."
Mendez re-named the script "argo", And wrote
articles for the hollywood trade press,
To give it the publicity
of a genuine project.
Hollywood being a town of make believe, It wasn't
long before they actually were sent scripts
From other producers
and writers.
By mid-January 1980, Mendez's cover, studio
six productions, was up and running.
If anyone checked, the company
would appear legitimate.
Now tony mendez could enter iran using
his alias, A location production scout
Looking for a middle eastern location
For the hollywood blockbuster "argo".
It's actually a huge
risk to him to go into Tehran.
If he had been captured, He was convinced
that he would be tortured and killed.
In Tehran, mendez had no backup.
If his cover story was blown,
there could be no rescue.
The ayatollah had tightened his grip on power,
And there were few in iran the cia could trust.
Cia agents like bill daugherty Had been
tortured to give up their contacts,
Who were then being systematically
Rounded up and imprisoned or worse.
They named a woman
that I had been seeing.
She was a senior administrator
in the ministry of education.
There was nothing she could tell us That would
harm their government, absolutely nothing,
And he said, "oh, we shot her."
He was so casual about it,
And I was really pissed.
They took a plastic cord
and tied my wrists together.
It literally cut off the
blood flow to the hands,
And they waited, and
the hands swelled up,
And the skin became
very, very sensitive,
And then they laid them on the desk
And hit it with a rubber hose.
It was a lot more painful
than I would have imagined.
It was a kurd that did it.
That big beefy kurd,
And he took great
pleasure in it.
And I wanna kill that son
of a bitch to this day.
By the end of January 1980, Many
washington politicos believed
The only way to resolve the hostage
crisis Was to send in special forces.
What they didn't know Was that cia agent
tony mendez Was already at the airport.
Tony's cover he's flying in As
the location scouting manager.
He's in charge of
this film production.
He's traveling under an alias.
Mendez knew as long
as he could keep his cover,
Iranian security would have no
reason to suspect he was cia.
What he didn't know was If the
diplomats he was here to rescue,
Would be able to maintain
their cover stories.
By this time, the lijeks
and their fellow fugitives
Had been in hiding for 84
days, living on their nerves.
Tony needed to assess
their state of mind.
This was incredibly important.
He was worried.
He didn't know if
they would crack.
He didn't know if
they'd already cracked.
The door opens, the americans are
inside, And they're waiting for him.
Mendez had less than 36 hours To transform six
diplomats Into a credible canadian film crew
And get them on a
plane out of Tehran.
I don't understand.
I was supposed to be the
script writer for the movie.
I was the
transportation coordinator.
We were given enough information to memorize
That it would withstand cursory scrutiny,
But not so much that we'd be all
paranoid About forgetting some detail.
And this is when he brings out All the
things that he's been able to create
The script, the drawings,
the business cards.
He'd brought a copy of the "hollywood
reporter", With an ad for "argo".
He had people back in hollywood Who could be
called if someone were going to check on us.
We had what he called,
"pocket litter."
A key chain, other people's business
cards That you'd met along the way.
Of course, the main thing we
had was the canadian passports.
The canadian government Had supplied the american
diplomats With genuine canadian passports.
Now the U.S. Diplomats had
to become those people.
Tony lays out the plan, And he said, "okay,
guys, you need to practice these roles.
"You need to learn
these identities."
We weren't trained for that.
We weren't spies, and we didn't Have the
benefit of that kind of experience.
But tony stressed that
All we had to do was
follow instructions.
Most of the americans are on board
Except for one, joe stafford.
The concern was, "we all need
to be on the same page here.
"Is joe on the same page?
Tehran was joe stafford's First foreign
post with the U.S. State department.
Now, he was battling doubts as to whether He
should play along with the cover story at all.
Joe stafford didn't wanna leave.
He felt we were
abandoning the others,
And he made very little effort
to really get into his role.
Mendez's extraction plan relied On
everyone playing their parts convincingly.
And if the revolutionary guard Spotted
a flaw in anyone's performance,
It was gonna be tony
mendez in the firing line.
Tony goes in first.
There's a big thing that
he has is trust your gut.
If he doesn't like it,
they're gonna abort.
In the early morning, there were relatively Few
revolutionary guards on duty at the airport.
He gives the signal.
Send in the six americans.
I was scared, you
know, it was a scary thing.
But then there was tony, and he was smiling
That meant everything was good, just proceed.
The six diplomats and tony joined The queue
for passport control at Tehran airport.
Crew member of studio six productions
Heading home from a location scouting trip.
I was worried
somebody might recognize us.
When you arrive at post, you have to submit A
bunch of photographs to the foreign ministry.
Who knows where those
photographs were.
They could be on the wall at the airport,
And so that was a little bit concerning.
Butt, there's no help for it.
You just have to
hope for the best.
The canadian
passports were genuine.
But the rest of their
documents were a problem.
Mendez had expertly forged
the diplomats' exit visas.
The trouble was they were supposed to match A
counterfoil entry visa at passport control,
A counterfoil that didn't exist.
The fellow was supposed to take The
yellow visa paper out of our passports
And check for the matching
copy in the files.
The guy took the papers,
But he didn't check anything.
Thank you.
One by one the american fugitives
Cleared passport security.
Then in the departure lounge,
They heard an announcement.
Their 7:30 a.M. Flight
had been delayed
So at that point
I'm freaking out.
The longer we're there the better the
chance Of something going wrong.
The plane had
a mechanical problem.
But that wasn't the only issue.
The revolutionary guards tony was hoping Weren't
gonna be there are now making the rounds.
They're harassing people.
The americans begin to worry About whether
or not this cover story is gonna hold up,
And tony becomes a little concerned
That one them might crack.
By now, the tension Was taking
its toll on joe stafford,
And he had stopped playing
his part altogether.
Joe made no effort.
He was reading a farsi newspaper
Before tony took it away from him.
He kept calling cora
by her real name.
We were definitely worried
That joe might give us away.
It was clear that joe was
feeling Guilty about leaving.
He didn't want to leave Tehran While these
other americans were being held hostage.
If stafford blew their cover, The
consequences for the group were dire.
But for a cia officer, they
were likely to be fatal.
Everybody is nervous.
The mood is anxious.
Tony is looking at the scenario Through
the lens of problems, solutions.
They just have to wait, And they
just have to keep their cool.
Tony he inspired
a lot of confidence.
He said, "just stay calm.
"We'll just hang here," so
I was able to calm down.
After 30 minutes they announced That
the plane was ready to be boarded.
Every step was
another step closer.
At 8:30 a.M., on January 28, 1980, The lijek's
plane finally left Tehran for zurich.
85 days after they'd fled their besieged embassy,
And accompanied by the cia master of disguise
Who'd orchestrated their escape, The american
diplomats were at last on their way home.
We figured we finally were safe when they
announced We were out of iranian airspace.
At that point we ordered some bloody
mary's And toasted each other.
It was over.
Though it was over for the six, It wasn't
yet over for the 52 american hostages
Still held at the U.S. Embassy.
A few months later, on April 24, 1980,
A desperate president jimmy carter
Launched a military
rescue attempt.
It ended in disaster
in the desert.
Eight american
servicemen were killed.
Several more were injured.
Bill daugherty and 51
of his fellow americans
Would remain in captivity in iran until
January 20, 1981, A total of 444 days.
It was difficult
knowing they were still there.
That was really difficult.
At the time, any involvement by the cia
In the lijek's escape was kept secret,
To avoid reprisals against
the remaining hostages.
One of the unique things about tony And the
individuals like him who work in the cia,
Is they know that they
will never get credit.
But full credit was given to the canadians
For their heroic role in the escape.
Canadians invested a lot of effort
In keeping us safe all those months.
It was a pretty
big risk keeping us there.
Zena she was our protector From the outside
world, The barrier between us and them.
I don't regret any of it.
What would we have felt
like if they were caught?
I don't think I would have been
able To live with that myself.
Only when cia files were declassified 17
years later could the truth be revealed.
How one man devised a plot
Straight out of a hollywood movie,
To stage one of the boldest recuse
missions In the agency's history.