162. Argo: How the CIA Made a Movie That Never Existed (Ep 3)

Summary

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The Rest Is Classified – Episode 162: Argo: How the CIA Made a Movie That Never Existed (Ep 3)

Date: May 31, 2026
Hosts: David McCloskey (former CIA analyst, spy novelist), Gordon Corera (veteran security correspondent)
Main Theme:
An in-depth look at the CIA’s real-life Argo operation: the audacious rescue of six American diplomats from revolutionary Tehran in 1980, disguised as a Hollywood sci-fi movie crew. This episode covers the on-the-ground preparations, the collaborative efforts between the CIA and Canadian diplomats, the complexity of fabricating identities, and the human drama behind the mission—contrasting true events with Hollywood’s narrative.

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1. Setting the Stage in Tehran

Key Scene:
Tony Mendez (CIA exfiltration specialist) and Ed Johnson arrive in Tehran on January 25, 1980, under the cover of being from “Studio Six Productions,” supposedly scouting film locations for the sci-fi movie "Argo."

• Atmosphere:
  • “It’s cold. There’s piles of dirty snow all over the runway…” (05:32, David)
• Mendez and Ed navigate arrivals discreetly, collecting important embarkation forms needed for their cover story (05:32–06:36).
• Human Touch:
  • Mendez is alert to danger—having been there before, exfiltrating another asset, “Raptor.” He wonders whether Iranian authorities have him on their radar (06:51–08:17).
• They walk through Tehran to the Canadian Embassy, getting lost and receiving help from a local Iranian—a brief moment of humanity amid tension (08:40).

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2. Canadian Cooperation & Tensions

Ambassador Ken Taylor’s Heroism:
Mendez and Ed meet Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor, praised for his courage in sheltering the Americans—even before telling his own government.

• Description: “He looks more like a kind of ’70s progressive rock band or a sci-fi novelist… but he’s cool. He is the real deal.” (09:37, Gordon)
• Notable Quote:
  • “He’s got a fully stocked bar in his office. So Taylor sits down Mendez and Ed and explains...” (10:28, David)
• Canadians are preparing to close their embassy—the clock is ticking, as they’ll be leaving on the same day as the planned exfiltration (11:09).
• Film criticisms: The episode addresses the “Argo” film’s downplaying of Canada’s role, emphasizing the real bravery of figures like Taylor and Xena Sheardown, who weren’t even a diplomat yet risked everything (13:12–14:01).

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3. The CIA’s Elaborate Cover Story: Hollywood Goes to Tehran

Pitching the Plan:
Mendez unveils his cover: the Americans will masquerade as a Hollywood film crew.

• Hostage Reactions:
  • “Lunacy would be my reaction, I think. Lunacy.” (15:30, Gordon)
• The CIA’s “go big or go Hollywood” mindset contrasted with more “realistic” cover ideas. Mendez’s confidence sways the group, as he provides full backstopping—including Variety ads, concept art, and forged paperwork (15:30–18:42).
• The group is sent to discuss among themselves:
  • “He doesn’t want to dictate to them… He wants them to feel bought in.” (18:42, David)
  • The agricultural cover is quickly dismissed as implausible—due to winter snow in Iran and shuttered schools.
  • Memorable Insight:
    • “It sounded to me like we were going to have one hell of a good time and I couldn’t wait to get going.” (20:05, Mark Licheck to Mendez, relayed by David)
• Joe Stafford is the main dissenter, worried about possible reprisals on American hostages if their escape is discovered (20:05–21:45).

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4. Training and Forging New Identities

Saturday – Document Preparation:

• Mendez and Ed work feverishly at the Canadian Embassy to create convincing forged passports and visas.
• They must fix a key error: initial Canadian-forged visas used the wrong date (Persian calendar starts March 21, not January 1). Roger Lucy, a Canadian diplomat fluent in Persian, catches the mistake (31:16–31:59).
  • Gordon’s Canadian pride: “I mean, this is a pretty bad mistake from the OTS, the CIA OTS team, which is picked up, I should say, by a Canadian…” (31:42)
• Forging Process:
  • Mendez painstakingly stamps passports to look authentically hasty, using mundane items (e.g., a manicure stick) (32:25–34:29).
• Notable Moment:
  • “Artist validators” (not forgers!) is the preferred term, as emphasized in the episode (34:29–34:30, David).
• Embassy Chaos: Embassy staff are simultaneously shredding and sledgehammering equipment for their own secure exit (35:22).

Resourcefulness Highlight:

• With special ink for the visas dried up, Mendez improvises—using single malt scotch from Taylor’s liquor cabinet as a solvent, successfully reviving the ink (37:19).
  • Ed: “Are you thirsty, Tony?”
  • Mendez: “Why not? The whole house being fueled by alcohol anyway…” (37:21, David retelling)

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5. Houseguests Prepare for the Role of Their Lives

Rehearsals:
The Americans spend hours memorizing new personas and rehearsing their cover stories. They even assemble small props and practice their Hollywood roles.

• Role Call:
  • Bob Anders → Robert Baker, Irish-Canadian locations manager
  • Mark Lyczek → Joseph Earl Harris, transportation manager (using his wife’s father’s name as a mnemonic)
  • Cora Lyczek → Teresa Harris, screenwriter
  • Joe Stafford → Sam Collins, associate producer
  • Kathy Stafford → Mary Collins, art director (matches her real-life art school background)
  • Lee Shatz → Henry Collins, cameraman (given a cameraman’s viewfinder to carry) (22:00–24:30)
• Mendez’s Method:
  • “I wasn’t pretending to be Kevin [alias]; I was Kevin and he was me.” (24:29, quoting Mendez)
• On the psychology of cover:
  • “When you can fool a person into thinking you were someone else, it feels very powerful…” (25:43, quoting Mendez)

Cover Under Fire:
Canadian diplomat Roger Lucy role-plays an Iranian Revolutionary Guard and interrogates each “crew member.”

• “What, you mean you not remember, you big liar, you American spy?” (43:42, Lucy, as recounted by David)
• Ken Taylor’s amusement:
  • “Is this really necessary?” (43:48, Taylor to Mendez, as told by David)
• Gordon parallels this to BBC “hostile environment training,” adding real-world context.

Reenactments in the Movie "Argo” are debunked:

• The famous bazaar scene never happened in real life. Taking the group into the open would have been reckless (41:50–42:04).
• In reality, the role-play guard/interrogation isn’t done by Mendez (as Affleck did in the movie), but by Canadian diplomat Roger Lucy (42:04–42:42).

Pre-mission camaraderie:

• The night before the airport escape, the group enjoys a lavish seven-course dinner with fine wine and liqueurs—joined by Ken Taylor, Danish, and New Zealand ambassadors (40:07–41:21).

Gordon’s quip:

• “Surely if you’re maintaining your cover as Hollywood, that is exactly what Hollywood producers and casting—location scouts would be like… They would be going out and hungover and looking a bit, you know, worse for wear.” (40:30)

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6. The Run-Up to the Airport: Tension Mounts

• Final night: More rehearsals; stress and nerves are palpable.
• “Everyone needs to get into their roles… poke the COVID identity a little bit and see if anyone cracks.” (45:32, David)
• “Mendez occasionally stops the action to coach. And, of course, like your [Gordon’s] experience, Mendez thinks—and he’s probably right—this is necessary.” (45:32, David)
• The episode ends with the group readying for the escape run—the plan’s biggest test is about to unfold.

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7. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “If you’re going to create a cover story, go for it. That’s the Tony Mendes theory, isn’t it?” (16:43, Gordon)
• “Mark Licheck later tells Mendez … ‘it sounded to me like we were going to have one hell of a good time and I couldn’t wait to get going.’” (20:05, relayed by David)
• “The worst thing a forger can do is to forge the signature of an immigration officer before arriving in the country, only to discover the same officer is on duty when you try to leave.” (34:29, quoting Mendez)
• “This rug merchant Owalla is bringing these weathered antique Persian carpets in for the ambassador to consider… The embassy is—it’s total chaos.” (37:19, David)
• “Let me show you how an operation like this works. Here’s us and here are the bad guys. This is how we’re going to get out of each other’s way…” (22:00, recounting Mendez’s sleight-of-hand with corks)

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8. Timestamps for Key Segments

• Arrival and airport context: 05:32–08:17
• Canadian role in exfiltration, Ken Taylor: 09:26–11:09
• Pitching the Hollywood cover: 15:30–18:42
• Debate and buy-in from houseguests: 18:42–21:45
• Forging documents at the Embassy, resourcefulness (ink & whiskey): 31:16–37:19
• Embassy atmosphere, Ken Taylor’s “enjoyment” of the clandestine operation: 35:22–37:19
• Role rehearsal and cover drills: 24:51–25:43, 42:42–45:32
• Debunking Argo film scenes: 41:50–42:04
• End of episode, setup for airport operation: 46:13

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9. Tone, Humor, and Chemistry

• Playful teasing between David (defending CIA/American contributions) and Gordon (championing Canadian achievements).
• Good-natured ribbing on both Canadian and Hollywood stereotypes (jeans, cowboy boots, drinking).
• Candid, witty, always respectful of the source material and real-life personalities.

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10. Conclusion & Cliffhanger

What’s next:
The group is poised to make their dash for freedom. Will the elaborate cover hold up under Iranian scrutiny at the airport? The hosts tease more to come, including a bonus deep-dive into the real story vs. the “Argo” movie for subscribers.

Final words:
“Well, that sounds like a moment to leave it with this question hanging: What is going to happen at the airport? Is their cover going to hold…?” (46:13, Gordon)

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For More:
Join the Declassified Club at The Rest Is Classified for bonus episodes, deeper dives on film vs. reality, and expert interviews.

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Transcript

[David McCloskey]

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes ad free listening, early access to series first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter and discounted books, Join the Declassified club@the restisclassified.com.

[Gordon Carrera]

CIA man Tony Mendez has just landed in revolutionary Tehran. Now he must teach six terrified diplomats to be a Hollywood film crew, all in 72 hours. Well, welcome to the Rest Is Classified. I'm Gordon Carrera.

[David McCloskey]

And I'm David McCloskey.

[Gordon Carrera]

And David, last time we talked about the COVID Studio Six productions on the old Columbia lot of Hollywood, the Argo screenplay with its fantastic Middle east sci fi mythology, the concept art form, full page ads in variety, alias passports and documents, and President Carter approving the operation. So now all is set for this great rescue in which the CIA play their own small role. Now as Tony Mendes arrives to help out the Canadians on their rescue of the Americans, bailing them out as ever, I know you might have something to say about that, but wait. It's the early morning of January 25, 1980. Tony Mendes, who is, I have to say, quite a heroic CIA officer, and his partner Julio, also Ed, have just landed at the airport in Tehran undercover as a production manager and associate producer for Studio Six Productions, ready to scout locations for their new film project, Argo. And this is the moment where the plan is going to come into action, isn't it, David?

[David McCloskey]

You know, before we get into the amazing weekend, it's really, it's a weekend in which Tony Mendez and Ed Johnson are on the ground in Tehran to bring the diplomats out. I think we should acknowledge, we will acknowledge at the outset, and I'm, I'm not too proud to do this, that we are telling this story of this exfiltration largely from the perspective of Tony Mendez, who's written a book about the exfiltration and the CIA. We are not trying to diminish the amazing role that the Canadians play.

[Gordon Carrera]

Oh, thank you.

[David McCloskey]

In the exfiltration.

[Gordon Carrera]

Thank you for that.

[David McCloskey]

I think that you actually, in your extremism are minimizing, you're going too far to the other side and minimizing the CIA role. I'm attempting to be fact based, to be balanced and balanced as usual, as usual in describing the Canadian contribution to this amazing, this amazing exfiltration. So I just, I want to, I want to flag this for our Canadian

[Gordon Carrera]

listeners that we basically are just trying to not lose any Canadian listeners. That's basically. It's a mercenary move, Ben Affleck like.

[David McCloskey]

And we will, we will talk about that on our, our bonus episode in which Gordon will deliver a sort of Mussolini style screed against rant against against the historical accuracy of the film and and its denigration of Canada. Let's get to the exfiltration.

[Gordon Carrera]

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This is a police investigation.

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[David McCloskey]

we are in Tehran. It is the morning of January 25, 1980. It is a Friday. Tony Mendez and Ed Johnson have landed very early in the morning and it is it's cold. There's piles of dirty snow all over the Runway because they've taken a flight from Zurich. Many of the women who had not covered their hair in the flight go into the to the lavatory and don Black Jadors before they come out and disembark. Mendez and Ed walk into the arrivals terminal. It's quiet. It's very early in the morning. Now, one of the things they pick up are these yellow and white disembarkation forms. There's stacks of these lying around on the table. And basically it is filled out upon entry. One copy is taken by the immigration officer. You have the other copy, and you need to show that on your way out of the country. Ed Johnson grabs a few of these off of a table to basically fabricate them for the house guests.

[Gordon Carrera]

And it's a kind of clever sleight of hand, isn't it? Because doesn't he do something like put a newspaper down on top and then just kind of grab them as he picks up the newspaper? It's that classic way of, you know, using distraction or using techniques to try and pick something up. It's kind of, it's an important move.

[David McCloskey]

Well, actually, later they'll find, I think it might have been the Canadians already had a bunch of extras, but they didn't know that. So they, they pick up a bunch of extras, they get into line and immigration, there's, you know, plain clothes Revolutionary Guards officers milling around the lounge, but they seem much more interested in hassling returning Iranians than foreigners. Now remember, Mendez had been in Iran months earlier, exfiltrating another Iranian asset, Raptor, who I think actually Raptor I don't think was his CIA code name. I think this was the name Mendez gave the asset in the book, but he calls him Raptor. And Mendez is in the back of his mind wondering if the Iranians have a bead on him because he's been there before. And so he's thinking that it's possible he could be snatched or pulled into secondary or whatnot. When he is, when he arrives, this does not happen. Immigration officers don't pay any attention to him. They tear off those halves of the disembarkation form, they stamp the passport, wave them through. Mendez later learns, of course, the, you know, the militants over at the embassy have been piecing together the files that have been taken from the chancery, from the station in a bid to figure out who might have been a CIA asset, whether they have all of the Americans as hostages. Mendez will later figure out that the militants had found a document referencing the Raptor exfiltration in the. In a safe. But his name wasn't on it, which makes sense.

[Gordon Carrera]

So he's in the clear.

[David McCloskey]

So he's in the clear. So Mendez and Ed go to the Sheraton, check in. This is exactly where Western, you know, business People, a film crew, are going to stay in Tehran, chop off their bags and then actually walk instead of taking a taxi to the Canadian embassy, they walk to scout the city, but

[Gordon Carrera]

they get lost, which is not a great start.

[David McCloskey]

Mendez has a tourist map. You know, they're not going to have anything more complicated than that because again, they're, you know, they're a film crew. They stop an Iranian on the street and ask him, you know, for directions. The man, like Ed, speaks German and so he flags a taxi for them and points them, you know, toward the Canadian embassy, refuses payment. And, you know, there's this kind of moment of, you know, fleeting moment of kind of humanity and, and hospitality interaction between these, these two, these two Westerners and this random Iranian. So they arrive at the Canadian embassy a little bit before noon to see Gordon's personal hero, Canadian Ambassador Taylor.

[Gordon Carrera]

I think we have to always refer to him as Ken Taylor, Canada's James Bond. That. I mean, he's a slightly unlikely James Bond. It's worth people looking up pictures of him. He looks more like a kind of hangar.

[David McCloskey]

Does not look like James Bond,'70s progressive

[Gordon Carrera]

rock band or a kind of sci fi novelist, which maybe fits with the Argo thing, but, but he's cool.

[David McCloskey]

He's cool. I think he's cool.

[Gordon Carrera]

He is. He's definitely kind of. He's cool for an ambassador, I think. And he is the one who took the risk, you know, even before telling his government to take these guys in and who has been doing some kind of sneaky beaky work for the CIA. Both intelligence collection on what's happening at the old American embassy and, you know, potential safe houses for a team that might come in to do the rescue from there and sending material back. So he is the real deal. I think we should, we should say that. And he is wearing, I mean, he's wearing glasses. So he's got kind of thick glasses as well as this curly mop of hair, jeans and cowboy boots, which again, not your normal ambassador.

[David McCloskey]

I picture everything as being jeans. So it's a proper Canadian tuxedo. So it's just all jeans with the cowboy boots. That's in my head. It's probably not what it was, what he was actually wearing, but there we go. That'll take a little, take a swing at Canadian fashion. So he also, this is also what makes him cool. He's got a fully stocked bar in his office. So Taylor sits down Mendez and Ed and explains that the embassy is in the process of, of closing and his family will actually be leaving that afternoon, five Canadian staff remain, and they are all planning to depart on Monday, 28 January, which is the same day as the planned exfiltration.

[Gordon Carrera]

That is partly because they've been coming under more pressure and they've decided to close down. But also I think there is the knowledge that this exfiltration, particularly if it goes wrong or if anything's discovered, it's going to point quite quickly back to at the Canadians, and they're going to be in a hell of a. Hell of a lot of trouble. So it probably makes more sense for them to be out if that happens and to have, you know, handed over diplomatic functions. I think they're going to hand them over to the Kiwis and others to do so. So they are also getting ready to pack up. So the clock is really ticking on this.

[David McCloskey]

The film strongly insinuates that the Canadians had gotten, like, cold feet about. About holding the diplomats, the house guests. And I don't. That's not true. I think that the Canadians. I mean, there were. There were ticking clocks, right? They. The longer they're there, the more likely it is that they're. They're discovered, and then who knows what happens to the Canadian diplomats.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, journalists have found out about this. So, yeah, there's. There are worries that they can't. They can't keep this going much longer, but suddenly this is speeding up.

[David McCloskey]

Speeding up.

[Gordon Carrera]

There had been a plan, though, originally, I think, that the Canadiens might have just got, because the documents have already come in that the Canadians might have just left themselves. And then the idea is, no, they're going to be escorted out by Tony Mendes, and that. That's going to be part of the plan, and that's why he's there now. But that. It does create a sense of pressure, as you said. We've basically got a weekend. We've got under three days for this all to happen.

[David McCloskey]

So first stop after the visit with Ambassador Taylor at the embassy is to head to John Sheardown's house up in North Tehran in the Chemeron district that evening. It's in an affluent part of the city. Now, remember, this is where four of the houseguests are being housed. It's in an affluent part of the city, kind of a Tehran equivalent of Bel Air. Does that mean. Does that mean anything to Brits? Gordon, a Bel Air reference.

[Gordon Carrera]

Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

[David McCloskey]

The Fresh Prince. Yeah, exactly. So they're in the. They're in the Bel Air of Tehran. The. The Sheardowns, though, are gone by now because the Canadian embassy is is drawing down. And again there's an operational reason for this to the point you raised earlier, which is that if this exfiltration goes wrong, the trail is going to lead back to the Sheardown house. And really this is an important detail. We haven't talked about it yet. John Sheardown's a diplomat. His wife is not. His wife, Xena is not. So the level of the personal risk that that family took shouldn't be downplayed.

[Gordon Carrera]

Brave Canadians.

[David McCloskey]

Brave Canadians. And the consequences in particular for Xena Sheardown would have been very uncertain.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

If, if they had actually been caught. So the sheer downs are gone. By late January though, there's a first secretary from the Canadian embassy named Roger Lucy who is house sitting for the Sheardowns and he is at the house. The Staffords have come over from the Taylor's for the meeting. So you have all six of the house guests in the same room together to meet Mendez and, and Ed. Lee Schatz, apparently the agricultural attache opens the door and he says that. So I guess Mendez and Ed have decided to wear trench coats. I mean it's cold but maybe they look exactly like, like CIA guys showing up on the, on the doorstep to, you know, say hello. Mendez in his memoir wrote that he can still remember the face of Lee Shatz at the moment, who he writes look like an overgrown kid full of mischief with a swooping mustache overtaking everything else. So everyone comes to meet Mendez and Ed. They sit down in the Sheardowns living room. Mendez apparently doesn't actually say he works for the CIA, but presumably everyone knows. And then he starts to lay out the COVID the Hollywood cover. And what would you, if you had been playing Scrabble and drinking yourself into oblivion in a stressful like experience like this? What would your reaction be Gordon, to someone showing up from the CIA and telling you that you were going to be an associate producer as you were whisked out of Tehran?

[Gordon Carrera]

Lunacy would be my reaction, I think. Lunacy. I mean it is. This is the bit that I still come back to as being fascinating because when you look at the story there'd been all these other cover options and I think some of them are still on the table potentially as fallbacks when these are presented. But even the Canadians I think had come up originally with the idea of them being a documentary film crew. And then it had been the CIA and Tony Mendez who go no, no, no, no, Hollywood. I mean there's something quite American about that. But you could, you know, and CIA about that, dare I say. I think The Tony Mendez contribution really is to go, no, no, no, no, no, we're not going to underplay this. If you're going to do it, go big, Go Hollywood. He's got the kind of Variety ad of the film Argo and the concept art, all this crazy stuff, the spaceships, temples and alien gods, all this weird stuff. And I mean, I. You would think it's lunacy, wouldn't you? I mean, it is worth thinking about the logic of it because I do think it's almost so lunatic that it's more plausible than trying to do something close to life. It gives you, you know, if you're going to create a cover story, go for it. That's the Tony Mendes theory, isn't it?

[David McCloskey]

Oh, I think that's part of it. I also think that, let's say the Canadians come up with a documentary film crew as an idea first. That could actually depending on the level of connection between the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service in Ottawa and whatever film production studios, you know, existed in Ottawa at the time. When you compare that to the connections that Mendez has in Hollywood.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

You could also say, well, look, that's a good idea, that they're a film crew. We can backstop this much more effectively and much more quickly than you can, so let us do that.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

I don't exactly know where the idea came from because that's going to. That is going to. That was in a conference room somewhere in Ottawa or in. In Washington where people are throwing ideas around, or in Tony Mendez's art studio or wherever. But I could see that from the standpoint, like the way a joint operation might work, I could see them kicking ideas around. And then the Americans saying, well, that's easier for us to do. Let us do that piece of it you handle with ROTS guys that we'll send up to Ottawa a lot of the documents, like there's a division of labor here that obviously the film misses.

[Gordon Carrera]

But I still think it's fascinating because he does present to them in this house at this moment, the fact that there are other cover stories that, you know, the Canadians and the State Department had had, you know, that they could be unemployed American schoolteachers or Canadian nutritionists, which. Which I guess suggests that even some people back at headquarters in both countries knew that the Hollywood one might be a stretch, but Mendez is still going to kind of push that one as the best option. I can see why. If you were one of those hostages or, you know, one of those diplomats, you'd be thinking, that's the crazy one. I think in hindsight, it does make more sense to go for the crazy option. But I can absolutely see if you're in the room at that moment where someone is telling you you're working on, on this crazy sci fi film, you'd go, oh, come on.

[David McCloskey]

Nonetheless, he does. He brings the other options. He brought supporting paperwork from Ottawa and backstopping for the alternative packages. So the, you know, agricultural survey and the school teachers. All right, so they've, they've got an option. I think Mendez goes in with full confidence that he will convince them that the Hollywood option is the right approach. But he doesn't want to, it seems he doesn't want to dictate that to them, which I think is. It is interesting. He wants, he wants them to feel bought in. So he pitches the Hollywood idea and then sends everybody into the dining room to discuss it among themselves. And in that dining room, they work it through. So Lee Shatz, the agricultural attache, basically says the nutritionist crop survey cover is totally unconvincing. I mean, he's the ag attache, after all. And he raises similar points that Mendez and the Canadians have already raised, which is that Iran is snowbound in January. This doesn't make a ton of sense. And again, same problem with English school teachers. You know, the English schools in Tehran have been shuttered for months. So why are they turning up now to leave? Apparently, Cora Liecheck is one of the first to warm up to the Argo option. She likes movies. She can picture herself being a Hollywood screenwriter.

[Gordon Carrera]

Can't we all?

[David McCloskey]

Can't we all, you know, at some point, tweak a dream, you know, and you can see how it kind of. The realization begins to ripple through this crew of six diplomats that it makes a lot of sense, even at, even if, at sort of first blush, it's crazy. Mark Licheck later tells Mendez it sounded like. He kind of warms to the idea and says, it sounded to me like we were going to have one hell of a good time and I couldn't wait to get going. And you can imagine also why people would be excited to leave because they've got to be going stir crazy with boredom and a bit of paranoia and fear of being locked up. Lee Shatz is excited about it and figures he can wing it. There is one dissenter in the end, and that's Joe Stafford, who is skeptical about the plan. And I think it's. It's less because he is. He thinks the Hollywood idea is crazy, although that might be part of it. I think it's more that he fears if they leave and something goes wrong, that there could be retaliation against the other American hostages who are being held. Who are their co workers and friends from the embassy. They know these people, which I think is a fair question. But with the Canadians getting ready to close the embassy and the kind of, again, the clock we've been talking about ticking, I think he's essentially eventually convinced over the course of this dinner table conversation that they need to do something. So what's the best bad option?

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, And I find it interesting that Mendes has left the room for them to argue it out because he knows he's got to get them to buy into it. He doesn't come in and order them. You know, this is how we're going to do it. He lets them work it out themselves, I guess. Clearly there's a bit of tension there.

[David McCloskey]

Apparently at one point, Tony Mendez, who could sense this, the tension of the room as, as the house guests are working this through, he picks up two corks off a counter, which gives you some idea of how much they're drinking. There's already, there's already two quarks, and they're in the midst of an operational discussion. And he apparently interlocks them between his thumbs and forefingers, kind of forming 2D shapes. And Mendez writes that he told them, let me show you how an operation like this works. Here's us and here are the bad guys. This is how we're going to get out of each other's way. And then he kind of does this sleight of hand, pulls his hands apart and the corks appear to pass through each other. And I guess the point of this is to demonstrate that, you know, they're in good hands or something like that. But I love that after this, Stafford is still unconvinced. He's still, he's still a holdout. You want him to. You want, want him to go all in and, you know, he's like, no. So the group is. It's kind of five to one in favor of the Argo cover and obviously getting out. But Stafford eventually will. Will later come around now, the next day. So Saturdays, Saturday, Mendez is going to go with Ed over to the. To the embassy, to the Canadian embassy and work on some documents. We'll talk about that in a second. But the next day for the house guests is rehearsal because they have. They have to memorize their new identities and have some confidence that if they're questioned by an immigration officer that they can explain what they're doing and who they are and where they've been. All these basic questions that. That someone might ask. So Bob Anders becomes Robert Baker. He's Irish Canadian. He's from a small town outside Toronto. He's the locations manager. Got 22 years in the film business. Mark Lyczek is Joseph Earl Harris. He's the transportation manager. The name and birthday come from Cora's actual father, his wife Cora's actual father. So it's like a memory hook. So he'll remember the information under stress. Coraliecheck is Teresa Harris, who's the screenwriter for Argo and is up on the Argo posters. Joe Stafford is Sam Collins, the associate producer. Kathy Stafford is Mary Collins, the art director. In real life, Kathy Stafford has an art school background. So it's covered. That's close ish to her actual lived experience. And Lee Schatz is Henry Collins, who is the cameraman. Mendez gives him a cameraman's viewfinder for him to carry. And Mendez basically tells them, you know, here's how you should think about operating an alias. And he's referring to his own alias identity that he is using on this trip of Kevin Costa, Harkins. And Mendes says, I wasn't pretending to be Kevin. I was Kevin and he was me. Which I think is a fascinating kind of psychological insight into the way cover works.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, it's like what you hear actors have to do, isn't it? You have to inhabit the personality. You're not just putting it on. You have to be that person and turn yourself into that. And I imagine it's something that some people can do and some people may find a little bit harder to do. But the problem is not just doing it, but doing it under pressure, doing it when you're getting interrogated by some Revolutionary Guard with your life on the line. I mean, that is really challenging, isn't it? But Mendez, I guess that is the advantage of having sent Mendes in is for precisely this kind of drilling of the team. Because they could have just sent them the documents and said, go and try and get out. But it's his ability to kind of explain to them, as someone who's done this before, how to do it that really gives them an edge.

[David McCloskey]

And Mendez writes that, you know, he's talking about COVID When you can fool a person into thinking you were someone else, it feels very powerful being the only one who is in the know. Which I think is a very. It's a very similar insight to the way case officers talk about conducting a surveillance detection route when they get black when they know they're free of surveillance. This kind of almost godlike feeling where the opposition doesn't know that you're there. You know what's going on and they don't. And in that gap, in that space, that's where you can make the operation succeed. So maybe there. With the houseguests role playing and Tony Mendez and Ed about to head to the Canadian Embassy to work on some documents, let's take a break.

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[Gordon Carrera]

So good, so good so good.

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[Gordon Carrera]

Welcome back. It's Saturday morning, the 26th of January. Antonio Mendez and Ed have got work to do at the Canadian Embassy while the the diplomats are preparing their cover story, haven't they?

[David McCloskey]

The first thing Mendez does in the embassy is send an updated ops plan and a situation report both to Ottawa and to Langley. He also sends a cable which is a piece of total fiction for anyone who might read this later, saying that six Canadians from Studio six Productions had called on the ambassador in Tehran hoping that he could set up with a meeting with the Iranian Ministry of National Guidance to lease the local bazaar for Argo and Taylor because the security situation in Tehran is disintegrating and the Canadians are about to leave, basically advises Studio 6 to look elsewhere and the Canadians you Know, in this cable that he's writing up as cover, this Canadian film crew says, okay, you know, we'll probably leave the country then on Monday.

[Gordon Carrera]

Which makes it out to be a bit of a failed trip, doesn't it? Because they've just arrived and they're just going to leave again. You think you'd have called and checked that out before. But it's interesting, isn't it, because this cable is just to preserve the COVID story for later, to keep it going, if they can, about why there were a group of Canadian filmmakers in Tehran and why they left so quickly, I guess, but it's clever because it also, I guess, because the. It involves the embassy in the discussions, at least on the official story level, which then will justify using some embassy vehicles, I think, and drivers to take them to the airport, because I guess you're claiming, well, these poor Canadian filmmakers, they've turned up. They can't, you know, do the location scouting that they wanted to, but we'll at least drive them to the airport.

[David McCloskey]

Right, Exactly. And so Mendez sends the cable out, and then he and Ed settle in to work on the documents. They do a lot of this from Ambassador Taylor's office. This is the most operationally critical piece of the whole thing, which is forging the Iranian visa stamps that the house guests will hand to the immigration officers at the airport. This is going to show because, remember, those passports that they'll walk out on need to look like they walked in a few days earlier and need to be stamped appropriately. Here's the thing. There's a problem. Roger Lucy, the first secretary at the Canadian Embassy, who is now living at the Sheardowns House with the. With the house guests, with four of them, had been responsible for picking up the diplomatic pouch at the airport, bringing that back into the embassy and having a look at the documents. And he sees that the OTS team that had fabricated these documents or these. These stamps in Ottawa had made a mistake. The Persian calendar begins on the 21st of March, not on the 1st of January. Lucy is a fluent Persian speaker, and he sees that the visas were mistakenly dated as having been issued in the

[Gordon Carrera]

future, which is not a good thing.

[David McCloskey]

Which is not a good thing. Mendez and Ed had been aware of this before they'd gone into Tehran, and Mendez had basically said. Mendez got this news when he was in Frankfurt. He assures Lucy that they could address this with the second. The second set, the contingency set of passports, and they'll work on the visas from the Canadian embassy when Mendez and Ed are on the ground in Tehran.

[Gordon Carrera]

I mean, this is a pretty bad mistake from the ots, the CIA OTS team, which is picked up, I should say, by a Canadian for those not

[David McCloskey]

watching on the video, Gordon's eyes lit up as soon as I got to this point in the outline where he could, he could point out yet another Canadian contribution. Which is true. Which is true, Gordon.

[Gordon Carrera]

I mean, it is true, Roger. Lucy is the one who spots it. But it's also true that it is interesting the fact you have to have the contingency of having a second set of passports and the fact that Tony Mendes is able to think, well, we have got a backup. It's that point, isn't it, of having redundancies of backups in case something like that goes wrong. And I think it's an interesting example about how important that's going to be, that kind of detail of preparation, because now they've got to get to work on it.

[David McCloskey]

Ed gets to work first on the disembarkation and the embarkation forms, that kind of the two part white and yellow cards that the Iranian government in January of 1980 is using. But they've actually inherited the same forms from the Shah's, the Shah's government. Ed completes the Persian and English annotations on about 20 of them. He's working from the wording on the genuine yellow sheets that he and Mendez remember when he had pocketed those and kind of slipped them under his, under a newspaper when he had arrived at Meribad. He works off of those, those forms. Mendez turns to the passports and his job is to insert those Iranian visas and to set in the arrival stamp for Merabad airport to make it look again like these houseguests had arrived a few days earlier along with Mendez and Ed. The example that Mendez is working from on the arrival stamp is the impression in his and Ed's own passports from their entry the day before. So he wants to make it look similar. He works off of that. Mendez uses a sharpened stick. He describes it as similar to a manicure stick my wife would often use to kind of stipple in the dates on the forged arrival stamps in the Houseguests alias Canadian passports. Now one of the things that Mendez writes, the worst thing a forger can do is to forge the signature of an immigration officer before arriving in the country, only to discover that the same, the same officer is on duty when you try to leave. Also bad is putting in a stamp that's no longer in use. And OTS and the Canadians, I presume Gordon have been monitoring the stamps kind of week by week through the late stages of the revolution. Doing this specifically to prevent these kind of errors when they're. When they're forging documents or when the. I'm sorry, when the artist validators are working on the documents. Gordon, because I believe I corrected you the right term earlier in the series about.

[Gordon Carrera]

Correct. Calling them forgers.

[David McCloskey]

Forgery. No, no, artists. Artist validators. Mendez places each stamp carefully in the passports. He's using a technique to make the impression look as if it's been done very hastily by a very bored immigration officer at the end of a shift. Which makes total sense when you think about it, because it's. If you stamp it and kind of make it look really clean, that's not the way most order guards, immigration officers are stamping these things. It is just, you know, next, next, next. So he makes it look similar to that. Now down the hall, the Canadians who remember, are shuttering their embassy on Monday. This is Saturday. They're shuttering the embassy on Monday. They're destroying communications equipment, apparently with a sledgehammer, and it's making an absolute ton of noise.

[Gordon Carrera]

You get this sense of the. That it's all coming to a head. After so many months of waiting for these people, suddenly it's all going to matter. What happens in the last few days. And Ken Taylor, James Bond, comes and, you know, sees Tony and Ed in the office, and he sits on the sofa and looks at them and talks them about making this artist validation forgery. And what I like is you get this sense that Ken Taylor and Mendez, you know, says that Taylor enjoyed being in the midst of this clandestine skullduggery. So you get the feeling that this is a guy who's really relishing actually his moment doing this and being part of this. And as we said, he's been doing kind of secret communications or all kinds of things. But it's. It's that sense of, like, this is it. The adrenaline is kicking it. I mean, this is one of the things that I do like. The truth of the story is a bit more exciting than the film where Ken Taylor is this kind of marginal figure. He just opens the door a few times. But here you get this sense of the ambassador really enjoying the fact that he. He's, you know, hosting a spy team.

[David McCloskey]

Well, and as we discussed, you know, he's been playing something like a version of the CIA chief of station for the CIA and for the Canadians over the course of the last few months. So he's, you know, he's he's in the mix also, what he's up to. This reminds me so much of diplomats or intelligence officers overseas. When your tour is coming to an end, you've got to make sure you've got the appropriate souvenirs and goods purchased from the country. And in the middle of all this, Ken Taylor's secretary comes in and says, excuse me, Mr. Ambassador. The. The rug merchant you've requested show up here. He's here. And this. This rug merchant, Owalla, is bringing these weathered antique Persian carpets in for the ambassador to consider buying a few before he leaves the country. And when Taylor is informed about this, you know, Mendez and Ed are working on the documents. He's like, oh, oh, right. You know, I forgot about that guy.

[Gordon Carrera]

And he still welcomes him in.

[David McCloskey]

He welcomes it. Obviously, he's not welcome again, Wal Mendez and, you know, into the same room working on fake documents. But at some point, point, you've got the combination of Mendez and Ed working on these documents, the ambassador reviewing the wares of this Persian rug merchant, and then the guys sledgehammering the commo equipment down the hallway. So the embassy is. It's total chaos. So Bendez, back to the documents. Mendez hits a problem when he switches over to backdating the visas. Because he opens up, he's got a special ink pad that he's going to use to create the Iranian visa stamp. And he sees that the ink has dried up. And without the visa, of course, you know, the rest of the package is worthless. And he looks around and sees that Ambassador Ken Taylor has. He sees the liquor cabinet, which, of course, is fully stocked, and he walks over, he looks at the labels, finds a single malt scotch he presumes will have a lot of alcohol in it, pours two fingers into a highball glass, brings the bottle and the glass back to the space where he and Ed are working on the documents and sets them down. And Ed is kind of reviewing him coming in with this bottle of scotch, and he says, are you thirsty, Tony? And he says, you know, why not? You know, the whole. The whole house being fueled by alcohol anyway. You know, the house guests are boozing over at the. Over at the Sheer Downs. Why don't we dive in? Bendez, though, of course, is not thirsty. He wants to use it as solvent for the dried ink. And the whiskey activates this. The OTS chemists had specially formulated this kind of fluorescent ink, and the whiskey reactivates it. And Mendez is able to then complete the visas. Anyhow, by midday Saturday, the documents are done. The Visas are dry. They're incinerating or shredding all of the supplies that they have brought in. Mendez and Ed leave the Canadian embassy with the six finished passports, the disembarkation forms, all in a concealment briefcase. They head back to the Sheardown house where the house guests, as we have discussed, have been spending the day learning their cover resumes and assembling disguises for a dress rehearsal that Mendez has scheduled for them. So Sunday 27th January, this is the night before the rescue. What better way, Gordon, to prepare yourself for an absolute nail biter at the airport other than a seven course farewell dinner with champagne, fine wine and liqueurs? This sounds like dinner at the Carrera House. Just another Tuesday night at the Carrera House.

[Gordon Carrera]

I mean, it does make you realize embassies, ambassadors, ambassadors, residents were working well stocked with booze, weren't they? Logically, you'd think like, you know, the night before a big game, you, you know, you'd be dry. But I can see why they do it. I can see why they do it. I think I'd be with them.

[David McCloskey]

Wouldn't being awfully hungover impair your ability to answer questions from an immigration officer?

[Gordon Carrera]

Ah, but surely if you're maintaining your cover as Hollywood, that is exactly what Hollywood, Hollywood producers and casting, you know, and, you know, location scouts would be like. They would be going out and hungover and looking a bit, you know, worse for wear, wouldn't they, rather than looking perky. So I think it's perfect.

[David McCloskey]

The immigration officer would be, would be concerned if they weren't totally shattered and hungover. Yeah, that's good. That's right, Gordon. So the group is joined, of course, by Ken Taylor, the Canadian ambassador, but also by the Danish and the New Zealand ambassadors. The Kiwis are there too, Gordon. And the Danes, it's like the Canadians and the Danes. It's a, you know, we just. What's happened, Gordon? How my. How far, how far we've fallen.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. Wouldn't happen these days.

[David McCloskey]

So the houseguests have, of course, spent the day continuing to work on their identities and on their cover stories. I will say there is, for those who have seen the film, there is the iconic scene in which Mendez, played by Affleck, takes all of the houseguests out of the house and they go through the, you know, the Grand Bazaar in Tehran and go around the city and they have a run in with Iranian officials. This did not happen.

[Gordon Carrera]

Spoiler alert, didn't happen. I mean, it would have been mad to do that, well, they would have it.

[David McCloskey]

They would have been. Would have been captured. There's no way that they would have taken them out and paraded them around Tehran. It just was never. Was never gonna happen.

[Gordon Carrera]

And it's one of a few ways the film doesn't quite quite match the reality, which we will look at in our bonus episode for club members, where we do a deeper dive on some of those things. But, yes, in the real event of that last night as well, I think in the film there is this questioning of the diplomats pretending to be a Revolutionary Guard, which is done, I think, by Ben Affleck in the film as Tony Mendes. But in reality, I think it's Roger Lucy, isn't it? The one who. One of the Canadian diplomats who I guess speaks Farsi as well, who offers to play a Revolutionary Guard interrogator and put them through their paces to see if those cover stories match up.

[David McCloskey]

And he gets into character, it's fair to say. He puts on military fatigues, boots, he's got a swagger stick with him. Mendez says that he looked to be like something right out of the man who Would Be King, the John Huston film starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine. So he goes all in here and takes Lucy as playing the role of a inquisitive immigration officer. So he says, who's first? And Lee Shatz, the agricultural attache volunteers, walks up to him, hands over his documents, and where visa you get this is. Lucy is using the accent of a Persian speaker attempting to speak English and chats, apparently, maybe as a sign of how much they'd been drinking or how little homework he had done. He's like, you know, or maybe how obscure the question was. Shad says, you know, funny thing, I. I don't remember. And then Lucy goes nuts and gets right up in Lee's, you know, Lee Shat's face. He says, what, you mean you not remember, you big liar, You American spy? And then apparently Taylor turns to Mendez and he's like, is this. Is this really necessary? Do we need to be doing this?

[Gordon Carrera]

And it does remind me I had to do my hostile environment training when I was at the BBC. And one of the things they do is they put us through the paces of. Of borders like this and make you get kind of mock interrogated. Normally it was someone pretending to be a kind of vaguely Slavic border guard.

[David McCloskey]

Vaguely Slavic, but that would be with

[Gordon Carrera]

a really bad accent. I mean, there was always this one person people at the BBC will know exactly I'm talking about. And she was about quite short, 5 foot tall blonde woman who was, who if the worst thing you could possibly do is, is smile or as she shouted at you to show your passport, ask you where you're going from. Because if she sensed even the hint that you weren't taking it seriously, she would just get in your face and just scream at you. And then they would do, they would like, you know, to get, to make you realize what it's like. They would kind of twist your arm behind your back and actually, you know, by the end of it you'd be like, okay, okay, I'm not going to, I'm going to take this seriously. Like this could happen to me for real. So I sympathize with those people who are like, do I really need to do this? Oh, no, you really need to do this.

[David McCloskey]

Did your hostile environment training prepare you for the rest is classified experience, Gordon.

[Gordon Carrera]

It prepared me for lots of things. We get kidnapped on it, you get kidnapped, you get, you know, hooded, you get kind of dogs, you know, barking at you, all that kind of stuff. It's the full thing by these former members, like that woman who are former members of the Special Forces, who love intimidating journalists. Yeah, I mean, they just love it.

[David McCloskey]

Bunch of soft journalists.

[Gordon Carrera]

The fact they're getting paid, it's their job to knock around some journalists and scare them. So it's good. So, yeah, I sympathize with the diplomats in this case.

[David McCloskey]

Mendez occasionally stops the action to coach. And of course, like your experience, Mendez thinks this is, and he's probably right, this is necessary. Everyone needs to get into their roles. They need to start to feel like they're in the roles. They need to get some, you know, pressure, poke the, poke the COVID identity a little bit and, and see if anyone cracks. Around 11 o', clock, Mendez says good night. And he and Ed go back to the Sheraton. And early the next morning, very early in fact, everybody is going to head to the airport and that is going to be the moment where they put the entire cover to test.

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, that sounds like a moment to leave it with this question hanging. What is going to happen at the airport? Is their cover going to hold under that hostile interrogation and confrontation with those Iranian officials waiting for them as they try and make their dash for freedom? So David, if people want to hear that right now, of course they can. They don't have to wait because they can join the Declassified [e-mail] and they'll also get access to the bonus episodes. A very interesting talk about Iran we had with a CIA officer who's worked Iran, joined doing Iran in the 80s. And of course, there's also the bonus episode in which we dive deep into Argo and how realistic it is. So do join up for that. But otherwise, we will see you next time.

[David McCloskey]

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