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- [00:04]
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.
- [00:25]
Gordon Carrera
6America diplomats race about to walk through Tehran airport. But with Canadian passports, will they make it through? And how does the real Argo end? Well, welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm Gordon Carrera.
- [00:38]
David McCloskey
And I'm David McCloskey.
- [00:40]
Gordon Carrera
And we are at the crucial moment of this story of these American diplomats who went into hiding, were bravely protected by the Canadians and especially Canada's James Bond. Ken Taylor. Big shout out to the Canadian spies out there before the CIA joined the rescue effort with Tony Mendez coming up with this wild idea of turning them into a Hollywood scouting location crew and giving them these false documents. But it is the moment, isn't it David? Early in the morning of Monday 28th of January 1980 when it's all going to be put to the test. This is what it's all about, make
- [01:23]
David McCloskey
or break another episode of our Argo series. Another opening with Gordon Carrera slobbering all over the Canadians. At this point I'm not even going to respond.
- [01:33]
Gordon Carrera
You're not going to bother, are you? Good.
- [01:35]
David McCloskey
It's early morning, Monday 28th January 1980 and we are just a few hours away from the Studio 6 film Cruise Flight from Tehran to Zurich. Now for those who have seen the film, we remember these tense, this tense sequence in which the Ben Affleck character is not sleeping that final night. He's kind of tossing and turning and pacing the hotel room and deliberating on what to do. The real Tony Mendez in his memoir says that he slept like a baby because he was exhausted and he went back to his hotel. He's at the Sheraton, he wakes up to his phone ringing at three in the morning. This is he, this is planned. He had scheduled to have his driver call at, at 3 and it seems like it's a Mendez character trait because when his flight actually originally he'd been scheduled to come into Iran on a different flight from his partner Ed and that flight had been canceled out of Zurich due to weather and he wound up finding a hotel out near the airport and apparently slept like a baby out there too. So Mendez is a good sleeper. The phone call is his ride to the airport. It's a Kiwi. A New Zealand diplomat who has brought the ambassador as Mercedes. So here again we've got some love, Gordon. Inside the five Eyes we've got the Kiwi Yeah, with the wheels. Which is. Which is great. Shout out to the New Zealanders.
- [03:01]
Gordon Carrera
Actually, all of the five eyes have been in on this because the Brits do, to be fair, shelter them at the start for a couple of days before it gets pretty hot for the Brits. Got the Americans, Got the Canadians. Got New Zealand. The Australians. We haven't got the Australians.
- [03:14]
David McCloskey
Where are the Australians?
- [03:14]
Gordon Carrera
Left out the Australians. Where are the Australians in this? I'm sorry, if there is Australians who somehow played a role in this, please get in touch. But otherwise we're nearly there. But anyway, here's the Kiwis with that. With the driver. This episode is brought to you by
- [03:30]
David McCloskey
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- [03:42]
Gordon Carrera
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- [04:02]
David McCloskey
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- [04:11]
Gordon Carrera
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- [04:19]
David McCloskey
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- [04:36]
Cancer Research UK Representative
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- [05:41]
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- [06:08]
David McCloskey
The Kiwis have got the driver. Mendez throws his stuff together in less than 15 minutes. And then Mendez and the Kiwi arrive. The plan is for them to arrive separately from the rest of the crew because he wants to. Mendez wants to have a look and see how you know what the situation is at the airport prior to the. The house guests arriving. So Bendez gets out of the car, walks into the terminal and takes up a position. So he's, he's the scout. The house guests are going to follow. A few minutes later, Ed, his partner on the mission, will be escorting them in a van from the Canadian embassy. So again, five eyes have got the, have got the wheels. The terminal is empty. It's very. I mean, it's, it's like for the boarding.
- [06:52]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah. Which is again, slightly different from the film version, isn't it? Because it's actually sleepy at this time, rather than bustling, which I guess they must have picked as a time when it's going to be, I guess, guards and everyone's going to be tired or less alert, rather than the kind of bustling peak moment of the day.
- [07:09]
David McCloskey
The Swiss Air Counter is staffed by a single agent. There are some Revolutionary Guards wandering around in green fatigues with rifles slung over the shoulders. But they're, you know, they look bored. Mendez confirms the situation and then has a position by a set of windows where he'll be visible from the outside. So he can presumably signal that it's okay to drop off the houseguests. And Ed, he has. Mendez has the Argo portfolio with him, which has that binder of Studio 6 material, business cards, the concept art, and he's kind of looking through it nonchalantly, which is the signal. So the rest of the crew, the house guests, where are they? So they're gonna, they're gonna come from the Sheardown residence. Roger Lucy, who had played the. The interrogator during their role plays, has, has spent that the morning trying to get the house guests up and moving. He's making pots of coffee. They obviously, they're tense. Many of them haven't slept several are very hungover, apparently from the previous night's farewell dinner in which they consumed large quantities of Cointreau. And Koroleichek remembers walking down the hallway and seeing Lee Schatz making a mad dash in his underwear to vomit in the bathroom. So whether that's, whether that's nerves or Cointreau, who could say?
- [08:26]
Gordon Carrera
It's always the way you want to start a big day and a big mission.
- [08:30]
David McCloskey
This is already going on, putting up
- [08:31]
Gordon Carrera
your Cointreau into the toilet. But yeah, I mean, as we talked about last time, they've been drinking, which is definitely a theme of this whole series.
- [08:39]
David McCloskey
Now their, their driver is an Iranian national who works for the Canadian Embassy and who has no idea who they are. Just he thinks they're a film crew that the Canadians have, have, you know, in their hospitality given a, given a lift to the airport too, apparently. The driver misses the correct turn for the Sheraton Hotel where they're going to pick up Ed. And Bob Anders has to remind him that they're supposed to pick someone up at the hotels. And he backtracks. They find Ed. He's been waiting in the Sheraton lobby reading a newspaper. He sees the van pull up and again they have these two separate pickups so that Mendez can scout at the airport. The houseguests plus Ed arrive at the airport. It's a little after 5am Inside the terminal, they see Mendez in position by the windows, flipping through the Argo portfolio. That's the signal. It's all clear. The house guests climb out of the van. So that's the six of them plus Ed approach a policeman standing outside the terminal entrance. Hand over their IDs. Cop flips through them, he sees their tickets, waves everybody through. No problems. The house guests link up with Mendez at the Swiss Air check in counter. Mendez writes that their eyes are ratcheted with tension and fatigue. Could also be the booze, but I, I think the tension and fatigue also would, would suffice because this is, you know, you're going through a immigration in Tehran with an alias passport is not something that these diplomats have, have ever done.
- [10:08]
Gordon Carrera
No, and I mean also you think that they've been, you know, how long has it been? It's been two months, more than two months that they've been held and they've not even been out very much since the seizure of the, the embassy and that moment. And so you can imagine the kind of overwhelming intensity of that moment as well as the nerves and the fear as, as they realize, well, it's you know, one way or another, it's out or bust, basically. Out or jail or out or dead, maybe even so. But they've got to kind of get into their characters as well as hungover Hollywood guys.
- [10:43]
David McCloskey
And on that front, Bob Anders is going method. Mendez sees him come in, sashaying through the door as he's got a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. And Mendes writes that he looked like a character out of a Fellini film. So he's loving it.
- [10:59]
Gordon Carrera
Totally in character.
- [11:00]
David McCloskey
He's probably having fun.
- [11:01]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah.
- [11:01]
David McCloskey
Now, the luggage that they have with them is light, and it's maybe too light for a Hollywood scouting party that's flown around almost around the world at this point. Because in the COVID they had come in from Asia. You think, okay, around the world trip. You should have a lot of gear. The Canadians had improvised larger cases for them. The weights may be a little light. The Swiss Air clerk, who Mendez and CIA had already decided was not so officious clerk doesn't really notice. Boarding passes are stamped, bags go through, no problems.
- [11:41]
Gordon Carrera
But the next bit is the hard bit, isn't it? Because it's passport control. That's Swissair. It's passport control, which I think is one of the key checkpoints that's worrying them.
- [11:52]
David McCloskey
And the plan here is for everybody to stay together if anything goes wrong. Mendez, who is the production manager and also the CIA officer, wants to be able to step in with the Argo portfolio and back up the COVID Lee Schatz, however, has some other ideas, or just blanks, because back in 1980, airline check in had there were two lines. There's a smoking and a non smoking. Out of habit, Lee Shatz jumps into the much shorter non smoking line. I love that the non smoking line is the shorter one. While everyone else is in the smoking line, by the time the rest of the group has their boarding passes, Shatz has already gotten to the immigration controls. So he's ahead of the. He's ahead of the group. Mendez is alarmed by this. He notices that the immigration window is being banned by a uniformed officer, which is, you know, he's a real official. He's not like an untrained thug. Shatz hands over his passport. He's got that yellow disembarkation form as well, which has been appropriately doctored. And the immigration officer studies Shatz's passport and says, is this your photo? Shad says, of course, you know, he's probably starting to freak out a little bit. Of course it is a photo of him. But any question about the documents would be extremely alarming. Then the immigration officer leaves his post, disappears into a back room with the passport. And that. That's gonna make you feel sick.
- [13:22]
Gordon Carrera
That is the kind of moment where you think, the game is up, we're done. And it's the fact that the others are watching this, aren't they? Because they're in the different lines, so they're not together. But if his cover goes and they're all together, it's going to be bad for all of them, isn't it?
- [13:38]
David McCloskey
Mendez and the rest of the crew are just standing there staring, and I'm sure Mendes, in his mind, he's running through every contingency. Did they miss something? Somehow? In the passport is the official looking for the magic white disembarkation? What's he want? And there's no other way out. If this goes wrong, the airport's the only way out. Remember, Mendez had written up an escape and evasion plan, but even he acknowledged it was pure fiction. I mean, the way for them to get out is on a commercial flight out of Meribat Airport. The officer, after a few moments, returns, comes back and says to Lee Shatz, this doesn't look like you. And he shows Schatz the passport photo. The photo had been snapped several months earlier when Schatz had a larger, bushier mustache, like a Yosemite Sam mustache that almost completely covered his. His upper lip. He had since trimmed it back while he had been at the. At the Shootown's house. And Shatz uses his fingers to mimic a pair of scissors clipping the ends of his mustache. He says, it's shorter now. And the immigration officer glances the photo, looks at Shatz, and then stamps the passport. And Shatz disappears into the departure lounge. And I'm sure at that point, Mendez, the rest of the house guests are like, okay, yeah, deep breath. Shatz is through. The rest of them are not the lines itching forward. Occasionally it's stalling, as there's arguments that break out between passengers and some immigration officials. Several Iranians ahead of them are apparently trying to travel on false documents. And one woman is pulled into a back room when she refuses to cooperate.
- [15:19]
Gordon Carrera
I guess this is revolutionary Iran. You've got people trying to escape the country. You know, maybe they were linked to the old regime or other things. So it is already a kind of tenser situation where they're not just looking for these for Americans, but they're looking for anyone who might be trying to escape on false documents. So interesting as well with, you know, with Shats is there's no real disguise used in this, is there? I mean, not. I mean, they've slightly changed their appearance, but they are going effectively as the people they are, just under different names, which I guess helps. But then it's ironic that Schatz is, you know, trimming his moustache. Nearly kind of blows that rather than anything else, it's something he's done rather than a mistake in the kind of preparation.
- [16:02]
David McCloskey
The point on the disguise or lack thereof is an important one because it also paints a contrast with the film where in the film those basket weavers are reconstructing photos, pictures of the diplomats that had been captured for the embassy. And it is true that the Iranians did have weavers kind of stitching documents back together. The fiction that the, that the film develops to ratchet up the tension at the airport is that they're piecing together photos of the diplomats and then there's a clock ticking because will the Iranians actually figure out the face and the name of the people thereafter and be able to match that face at the airport? And what the reality is is that the Iranians knew that there were some people missing, but they didn't know who they were. They didn't have photos of them. And so Mendez and Ed and the Canadians could have some, some assurances that even with the light disguise, they would be okay.
- [17:07]
Gordon Carrera
They'd be okay.
- [17:08]
David McCloskey
So that they don't have the full on prosthetics or anything like that. Coralija, because they see this woman taken off though, is becoming concerned because she's read an article in the Tehran papers a few weeks earlier about a woman who had been caught smuggling money in her body cavities. And so she, Corey Lijak is thinking, well, what if we're just randomly searched, you know, like what happens then? So by the time they reach the counter, the immigration officer has mysteriously disappeared. She's gone. The group stands there for several minutes doing nothing. That's tense because you're just. Again, what's going on? We're just standing here. Are they onto us? Are they?
- [17:46]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah. Where is where? What's happening?
- [17:47]
David McCloskey
After a few more minutes, they have their answer because the officer returns to his desk with a cup of tea that he has fixed for himself, collects the passports, gives them their exit stamps, waves them through. He collects their yellow disembarkation forms. As he taps the edges of the stack down on the counter, one of them floats down to the floor as they walk past, Mendez writes that he bent down and picked up the form, slipped it in with his papers. And later looking at it, he realizes it's Bob Anders form. And so he's just walked off with the only physical record that a Robert Baker total alias was ever in Iran. And so they've made it through passport control, which is the hardest part. And they're at the gate.
- [18:32]
Gordon Carrera
And then just as they sit down and get to the gate, you've got the final security check. You're in the kind of boarding room, you're getting ready to board. We all know that feeling. And then what's the worst, you know, announcement you can possibly get over the loudspeaker? Flight has mechanical problems. We've all heard it and been like, no, but you imagine what it's like for them because, I mean, you must be so tense anyway, as well as hungover. But that's just going to compound it and compound the tension for them.
- [19:07]
David McCloskey
It's Murphy's Law, isn't it? Everyone's of course, anxious because what if the flight gets canceled and then you have to come back and do this all again?
- [19:14]
Gordon Carrera
Do it again.
- [19:15]
David McCloskey
And the Canadian embassy is closing. So do you try to delay that a few days? You probably would have. I think that's probably not a huge factor, but I mean, it's a piece of the puzzle. So they file back into the departure lounge. The problem, it turns out, is a faulty airspeed indicator which is going to take about an hour to fix. They discuss switching over to a British Airways flight, but their bags already checked on Swissair, and switching means pulling the bags off, rechecking them. I think as the day goes on, the Revolutionary Guard presence is going to pick up at the airport. You want to get out on this flight if you can. So they decide to wait it out. It's agonizing. Sun's coming up, dawn breaks. Departure lounge is filling up. Now we have more Rev Guards circulating in the lounge. They're, you know, they're sort of getting tired. Mendez writes over time of picking on or checking out Iranians. There's. They're turning their attention to foreigners, addressing them in rough, broken English or in German. Now Joe Stafford, who's bored and nervous, is reading a Persian language newspaper.
- [20:23]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah, that's.
- [20:24]
David McCloskey
They're like, okay, wait a minute. What Canadian employee of Studio Six Productions can read, can read Persian. And so Stafford and Mendez seem to realize this at the same time. And Stafford kind of slowly puts the paper down. There is then some awkwardness at the Duty Free Shop, where I love it.
- [20:43]
Gordon Carrera
Sorry, they go to the Duty Free Shop. I mean, they can't wait for the booze. Basically the theme of this story.
- [20:51]
David McCloskey
No, no, no, it's not. Well, it is. Yeah, it is a theme. It's not booze though. Gordon, Joe and Kathy Stafford have disappeared into the duty free shop for several minutes. They come out with a sealed bag and Joe comes up to Mendez and says, we would like you to have this as a token of our esteem. And it's a huge container of Iranian Beluga caviar, which is not cheap. Mendez is kind of awkward. He understands the gesture, but it seems a little out of pattern to buy your production manager a huge container of caviar from a duty free shop. I mean, I guess you could say they're all together as a group. We wanted to buy this as a souvenir of our time in Iran. Anyhow. Mendez accepts. Then get the announcement that Swiss Air Flight 363 is ready to board. Scramble onto the airport bus. It's going to take them out to the plane. And as they're climbing the stairs the airstair to get up to the plane, Bob Anders kind of knocks Mendez at the arm. He says, you guys think of everything. And Anders is pointing up at the side of the plane and painted in big red letters near the nose is the name of the canton in Switzerland where the actual aircraft is registered. I don't know exactly how you pronounce this, but it looks like Argo.
- [22:06]
Gordon Carrera
Argau.
- [22:07]
David McCloskey
Argau.
- [22:09]
Gordon Carrera
A A R, G, A U. Yeah, I mean that's wild as a coincidence, isn't it?
- [22:15]
David McCloskey
It's an omen. It's an omen. So the plane rolls down the Runway, it lifts off. Mendez is feeling euphoric. The wheels are up. They've still got a couple hours before they clear Iranian airspace. So you still do have to wait it out, grid it out a bit because that plan could be asked to turn around. When the captain finally announces on the intercom that they've crossed into Turkish airspace, the cabin erupts into cheers. And it's. And it's not just the house guests, there's a bunch of other escaping Iranians on the flight who have presumably had their own, you know, tortured ordeals leaving the airport that morning.
- [22:52]
Gordon Carrera
Although sadly none of them memorialized into Holly, into movies. You wonder what the stories are. None of them quite as crazy as this.
- [23:00]
David McCloskey
Well, it gives you a sense of how tense that airport would have been. And that is something. The film plays it up tremendously, which we'll talk about in our. Which Gordon will rant about in his monologue on our declassified club episode. But the airport's a tense place and a high stakes place.
- [23:23]
Gordon Carrera
I mean, I should say I've flown out of Iran, out of that airport a couple of times. And I remember the last time I went out, I mean, it was friendlier times than now with Iran. But you're nervous when you go through it. You know, you, until you leave, you just think, well, what if someone's going to stop me and accuse me of being a spy and I'm suddenly going to end up in an Iranian jail cell? And that was me as a journalist during friendly times. So I think until you've actually, you know, the plane is flying and out of Iranian airspace, I think that is only the moment you can breathe out.
- [23:54]
David McCloskey
So what do you do when you get out of Iranian airspace? You wheel out the bar cart. Everyone has bloody Marys, starts working on another bender. Mendez raises his glass. Argo, he says, we're home free. Maybe there, Gordon. Let's take a break and when we come back, we'll see how the operation is not by any means over. Hey, this is Michael and Hannah from the Rest Is Science.
- [24:21]
Cancer Research UK Representative
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- [24:32]
David McCloskey
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- [24:50]
Cancer Research UK Representative
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- [25:10]
David McCloskey
For more information about Cancer Research uk, their research breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit cancerresearchuk.org REST ISScience, snoring, gasping during sleep?
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- [27:26]
Gordon Carrera
So David, they are out. They're out of Iranian airspace. Not quite as it happens in the movie, it's fair to say. You don't have chases down the Runway.
- [27:38]
David McCloskey
Where was the chase scene?
- [27:39]
Gordon Carrera
Where's my chase scene? You promised me a chase scene. We'll, we'll deal with that question. I think in our movie review, if review is the right word, because there's quite a few things which happen in the film which, which don't happen in real life and which are put in to kind of get the tension. But I think what is important is that they're out of the country, out of Iran. But there are still things going on which are quite important, you know, which are going to lead to the long term legacy of this operation. I mean, one thing I think it's, it's interesting, isn't it? Back at the Canadian embassy they are shutting up shop and they are smashing that Como equipment. And I love the fact that one of the last messages that the Canadians get through from Ottawa before they smash up their covert equipment is see you later, exfiltrator. Which is my favorite, which must, which is a bit of a kind of telling message. But that's the one sent to the, to the brave Canadians for who finishing off the mission. But you know, back in Tehran, they're shutting up shop, but the story isn't quite over, is it?
- [28:52]
David McCloskey
No. The six Americans are out. They have descended from the plain in Zurich and joyfully stomped their feet on the tarmac. There's no one to meet them at the gate, which I think is great. They have to go through Swiss immigration controls on their alias passports. It's fine, no issues. As they come into the parking lot, there's a group of U.S. state Department officials that suddenly approach and they snag the house guests, push them into a waiting van and drive them off to a mountain lodge in the Alps where they'll be fed pizza, given six packs of Heineken, and informed that they can't yet contact their families to say they're safe. Because again, you don't want retribution against the hostages in Tehran.
- [29:35]
Gordon Carrera
And we should say that it's important, isn't it? Is that the plan at this point was to try and keep the whole thing secret, wasn't it? Effectively.
- [29:42]
David McCloskey
And Mendez and Ed are left alone in the parking lot. They're not part of their job's done right. They're not there to baby. They don't need to talk to the diplomats. Mendez writes that he realized he was freezing and he didn't have his coat anymore. And Ed is like, where's your coat? Mendez says, I lent it to Joe. So Joe heads off with his coat. And I think actually you wouldn't write it this way. Obviously Ben Affleck didn't in the film. But this is the end of the operation for the CIA team right there in a parking lot in Zurich. But it's by no means the end of the the story because how the story comes out and the pieces of it that are, that are not shared for a long time is actually part of the story itself. Because remember the COVID The Studio 6 Argo production team cover was at the time thought to be multi use and could be helpful in a potential rescue of the other hostages. And so in particular, what Ed ends up doing is he goes and over the course of that spring, takes classes in international finance and the entertainment industry so he could Potentially more credibly play another. An associate producer on another rescue of Americans out of Iran. So that operation, of course, comes to be known as Eagle Claw. Eagle Claw does not wind up using the Argo Studio 6 cover. But in January of 1980, nobody has any clue that that's how it's going to go down.
- [31:31]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah, so it's so interesting, isn't it? The plan is to effectively keep this whole operation hidden, keep what's happened hidden, and wait until they can get the other hostages out at the very least before even revealing that the. The house guests are, you know, back in the United States. Which must be weird for them because you think you've just, you know, you've just escaped. The first thing you want to do is call your family and you're being told not to do it. So it must be pretty frustrating. But word, we should say, has got back to the White House. And word is getting around, hasn't it? Because, you know, back in Tehran, you know, the Canadians, just before they shut up shop, have sent word of the mission's success to Ottawa via cable. And. And so even by this stage, you know, the President knows about it. It's a big deal.
- [32:20]
David McCloskey
It's amazing how quickly it becomes clear that the US Government won't be able to keep the secret. The plan to do that, to keep the house guests secluded in Florida until the hostage crisis is resolved, lasts less than two days. Because on 29 January, a Canadian journalist named Jean Pelletier, who's the Washington bureau chief for La Presse, writes that the six are out of Iran.
- [32:47]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah, and we should say that he is the journalist who we discussed previously in one of the earlier episodes, who'd worked it out earlier, and he'd worked out by the fact that there was a discrepancy in the number of American diplomats and that the Canadians were kind of, you know, in the kind of political context, dropping hints that they were doing something to help the Americans. He'd worked it out and it had been agreed with his editor that they would hold the story until the hostages were safe. And, you know, he'd been, he'd. He'd given the Canadian government his word that he wouldn't publish anything. And I think, you know, that's testament to a kind of responsible journalist who had agreed to that. You know, there's always pressure to get a scoop as a journalist, but there are times when, you know, they're a public safety or they're hostages situation where you do get asked, can you not report this? Or not yet. Or can you hold it? And he'd held it until now.
- [33:42]
David McCloskey
How would you have viewed his from a journalistic perspective? How would you have viewed the decision to run a story before they had gotten out?
- [33:52]
Gordon Carrera
So I remember as a journalist you would particularly people think you get censored and there's denotes and there's all this stuff about, you know, told that you can't report things. But the one time you do get asked sometimes not to report something is when you have a hostage situation. And particularly in the early period normally of a hostage situation where you. I would get a message or the BBC or someone will get a message saying this is a very sensitive moment. We are trying to see if we can, for instance, negotiate, release or try to maybe there's a rescue mission going on and publicity regarding that could endanger that person's life. And you'd be a pretty crazy journalist to kind of go, hey, I'd rather have a scoop even if it endangers someone life. So I think that is something which almost all responsible journalists would do, would sit on. But then there's always that moment, and I think we see it with this journalist as well, where he learns on 28 January that the Canadian embassy is closing. And obviously he knows that that was the way most likely that these diplomats, American diplomats were being sheltered. So he works it out and calls, he does what a journalist should do, which he calls the Canadian embassy in Washington for confirmation and he's told they would like him to still wait. But at that point he feels he's got the story. So I think he's done, I think what most people say would be the response, the correct thing, which is wait. But then you get to the point and you can be frustrated if you're, you know, CIA because you'd like to have held it for longer. I think it would have been hard to hold it for much longer if I'm being honest. But there were lots of other people who knew about it, lots of diplomats, a lot of, lot of officials, a lot of people in multiple countries. I think these stories don't stay secret for that long. So, you know, he goes with the story. Then without, within hours, it's, it's out, isn't it?
- [35:49]
David McCloskey
What's so fascinating about the way the story breaks is that Pelletier, the Canadian journalist, doesn't have the CIA angle though when the story comes out, it's a Canada centric, Canada focused story about the effort to hide the house guests and to exfiltrate them. So you don't have, you don't have any of the COVID stuff, the Mendez side of it, the fake film crew, you know, the screenplay, John Chambers, all. None of that is in the initial round of reporting that comes out on, on the operation. And in fact, all of that remains classified until 1997 when President Clinton declassifies many of the details around that, around that operation. It is, it's, it's interesting to go back and look at the video reels of the pictures because in the, in the States, in the days after that story breaks, Canada is pretty cool, Gordon. We got maple leaf flags flying on private homes as billboards go up in Times Square that say, thank you Canada.
- [36:57]
Gordon Carrera
Can you imagine that today?
- [36:59]
David McCloskey
It's unimaginable today. Absolutely unimaginable. The US House of Representatives passes a resolution thanking the Canadians and your hero, Ambassador Ken Taylor becomes an overnight celebrity. He's all over the place. He's awarded the Congressional gold medal in 1981 by President Reagan in the Rose Garden, sharing company with the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul ii, which is, you know, it's quite, quite kind of esteemed company. And John Chambers, the makeup artist who had helped Mendez set up the COVID in Hollywood, takes out a full page ad in, in his local Burbank newspaper that reads, thanks Canada, we needed that. And Mendez goes home to Maryland in like a good CIA ban, doesn't tell anyone what he's done.
- [37:49]
Gordon Carrera
At this point, Canada gets full credit. Okay? And I agree the CIA does get written out the story for good reason. But I think in a sense, what you then get, you then get it declassified, as you said in 1997, and then eventually you'll get the film Argo made 2012. In a way, what you get is almost an overcorrection. So at that time it's like this is 100% Canada. And then the CIA bit gets revealed and it's like it's 100% CIA when the reality as we know is somewhere more in between. But it's interesting, there's an interview with Jimmy Carter by none other than Piers Morgan, which is, comes out around the time of the Argo film coming out. And it's so interesting because Jimmy Carter goes, great film, but the true story is it was 90%, he says 90% Canadian, which I think is a really, actually feels even a bit high for me, even with my pro Canada hat on. 90% seems a little bit high.
- [38:54]
David McCloskey
That seems a little.
- [38:55]
Gordon Carrera
But it's like it, in a way it's shame because the point you make which is that the CIA bit is classified and then it gets declassified and then people focus on that means that it's quite hard to ever get a really sensible, balanced view of the contribution. And maybe it's not something you should be rating in terms of percentages. Because the point is, it's a great allied effort, isn't it? I mean, that is part of the point of this story is rather than arguing about, as I have been, as
- [39:22]
David McCloskey
you have been at the opening of every episode of the series, you have, basically, it makes me wonder if you're taking Canadian money.
- [39:30]
Gordon Carrera
Gordon, is that an accusation that I'm on the payroll of Canadian.
- [39:35]
David McCloskey
The Canadian payroll?
- [39:37]
Gordon Carrera
Agent of influence for the Canadian Intelligence Service, Gordon Carrera.
- [39:42]
David McCloskey
You're right that it is perhaps not even an interesting question to say, well, what percent of the operation was the Canadians and what was CIA? I think what's more interesting is looking at this as a case study in how a joint operation actually works. When you have two services that are friendly with each other and there's some measure of trust and where there's shared national interest, you have a division of labor around what makes sense for each service to do. If you peel this whole thing back, you say, okay, well, what does each side bring to the table here? After the embassy is taken, the Canadians have the presence in Tehran. They have the diplomatic pouch that's going in and out that's so critical to this operation because it's the way you get in all of the forged documents, right? The disguise kits, all this kind of stuff. Instead of having to smuggle them through some rat line, which would be complex and take a lot of time, or airdrop, there'd do something, know, wild. You just. The Canadians can send them in. The US doesn't have that at that point because the embassy's gone. That's hugely valuable. You have properties, Canadian diplomatic properties around Tehran that you're hiding people in. You have an ambassador in Ken Taylor who is able to kind of ringlead this thing from the Canadian side and advocate for a. A rescue and exfiltration to kind of pound the table and make it happen. And then on the agency side, I think you have far more experience with exfiltrations, disguise, forgery documents than the Canadians would have had. You have a real deep technical expertise inside OTS that Mendez and his team bring to this problem. And you have the deep connection in Hollywood to establish the plausible cover. So we. When you add all of these things up, you get a great picture of how it actually makes a ton of sense for a really big service like the CIA and a smaller service like the Canadians to partner with one another. Because if we try to do something on our own and we bring a hundred units of something and the Canadians bring, you know, 30, when you put both of them together, and I'm not saying that was the percentage on this operation. I'm just saying conceptually, Canadians bring 30. When you put them both together, it's 130. So, like, you want. That's what you want.
- [42:10]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah, but it's also. It may not be. It might be those 30 units are vital units which make it possible. So the kind of. I completely agree that actually, this, to me, just shows the value of liaisons and partnerships. And, you know, one country, you know, in five eyes or somewhere else can have access to a. To a location, to an agent, you know, to a platform to be able to do something, and the other one may be able to leverage that. And the idea is simply about size or experience. It's not as simple as that, is it, in the intelligence game? I think this is a really good example about that. I mean, there are some other things which I think are really interesting about it, you know, in terms of COVID and tradecraft, aren't they? Could you do something like this today?
- [42:50]
David McCloskey
No.
- [42:51]
Gordon Carrera
No. Okay.
- [42:54]
David McCloskey
Because you wouldn't be able, I would say at most global airports, you'd have to work under the presumption that there would be biometrics or biometric capabilities that would create an anomaly between the person standing there, their iris fingerprint, whatever it might be, and what the document says, the passport. So that's a major problem that would have. Would have created issues in this. Another one is the backstopping is much harder in an era where you can look at someone's social media presence and say, okay, well, you know, there's ways around this, but it's. It's harder now because if Mendez was trying to do this today, he would have had to create a huge amount of kind of digital dust for these Personas that would look credible. If someone at Iran started to dig in, well, Studio six, What is that? Well, now there'd be a web presence. It wouldn't just be a couple ads, you know, in Variety, in the Hollywood Reporter, and. And a phone number that reaches an office on the old Columbia Productions lot. There would have to be a whole bunch of kind of digital trails that the Iranians could walk down to make it seem credible. And that's just more. That's more challenging to build.
- [44:20]
Gordon Carrera
Yeah. I mean, on a simple Level, you'd go, well, what's the LinkedIn profile? Or what's the social media profile for the production manager or for the screenwriter? What other things have they done? When was that profile set up? I remember someone from MI6, it was in the 2000s when they started to realize the old ways of COVID didn't work because they actually started to run tests and they looked at it and they said, the old ways, we used to do a cover with a false passport. How long would that work against a genuinely curious and capable border guard, the equivalent of the border guards in the airport there, who had access to Google, the 2000s, when Google is just starting. And the answer was it'd take about a minute to unwind the old ways of COVID with just a bit of light Googling in those days. And that's even before you get to biometrics. So this does feel like something from a different era. But I take your point, which is that there are new ways of doing this, aren't there? And some of those are going to be secret of building cover and deepening cover and of creating, whether it's companies or productions or backstories for people which do make it possible. But I guess it's just harder, isn't it? Takes a lot more work than just some stamps and some passports.
- [45:33]
David McCloskey
Right. And I still think that those, those talents, the kind of trade skills inside the CAA are still there in many respects. It's just that it's harder to manage cover now. But one way that, or one thread out of this story that you can pull forward to the present is there is still a group inside the CIA that's focused on disguise. We call it getting programmed for a disguise. And the techniques, disguises have come a long, long way from the 70s and 80s. But it's interesting the way that the agency builds them today. The foundation for that are still techniques and technology that come out of the entertainment industry in Hollywood.
- [46:23]
Gordon Carrera
Out of Hollywood.
- [46:24]
David McCloskey
So it's very similar to the way that the CIA absorbed techniques for prosthetics back when John Chambers and Tony Mendes were working together for a disguise. You're getting program for this by sitting in a chair kind of inside a cage. There's an array of maybe 50 or 60 cameras around you. Shots get taken from all angles in all different kinds of lighting. And then all of that is fed into a program that recommends a new face based on those photos. And so basically you can have masks that are sort of like Mission Impossible that are just pull on, but they're not particularly Convincing because it's got a lot of gaps by the mouth and the eyes. It's thin, it's fragile. So it's not convincing if you're going to sit in front of someone and talk. But there's another type of mask which is very similar to what an actor would wear in Hollywood if they were, you know, in a sci fi movie where it's like an additive process where they build pieces of silicone that essentially are adhered to your, to your face. So you could have new chin, cheeks, forehead, neck, nose, dental appliances for new teeth, kind of puff out, puff out your mouth. All applied with a spirit gum and then covered with the custom makeup. And all of that stuff is, that's done inside the Agency when there is still a need for a disguise, which is increasingly rare, but there are still operational reasons to do it is very similar to what's done in Hollywood. So you still have that pipeline going between the agency's technical people in Hollywood that, you know, guys like John Chambers and Tony Mendez really built out in the 70s and 80s.
- [47:58]
Gordon Carrera
So there's still that liaison because you sometimes hear about Hollywood liaison from CIA, which we often think about, and we talked about this right at the start as being more about can you influence the screenwriting side of things and the plots and make them accurate or less accurate or things like that. But it's actually, I find it so interesting that it's actually the tradecraft side of things is, is the other bit of that connection between Hollywood and the CIA and which was there then with John Chambers and must be still there now. And you can imagine it in lots of ways with production design as well. And, and, and, and maybe it's going to get even more so with some of the things you can do with artificial intelligence, some of the things you're going to create. Creating false identities or creating theater is something that spy agencies do as well as Hollywood. And Hollywood's got the money for it, frankly, and the experience. So why not tap into it?
- [48:48]
David McCloskey
I was going to end with a little coda about Tony Mendez Gordon, but I'm afraid that you, you will then end on top of that with a rival coda about the Canadians. And I think your point on theater is maybe the right place to end this story because it is also, I think it's sort of this great irony. There's this feedback loop of Hollywood feeding the Agency and then also reflecting the Agency back out into the world through the medium of film. I think that might be the place to end it and tease it as we we prepare ourselves mentally, physically and spiritually for Gordon Carrera's demolition of the film Argo in our in our our episode for Declassified Club members Ben Affleck,
- [49:33]
Gordon Carrera
if you're listening, please. Well first of all, please join the club. You still have to pay for membership, even if you're Ben Affleck. And then you can hear what I really think of Argo, as can everyone else. If you join up at the Declassified club@the restisclassified.com where we're going to be talking a bit more about the film. And yeah, I think getting into not just the lack of realism of certain aspects of it, but I think the story around the film is is genuinely really interesting and what's in there and what's not and the reaction to the film, including yes, from Canada. So a chance to listen to that. You can also sign up for our newsletter, which is free to everybody. You don't need to be a club member, but you can do that@the restisclassified.com but we hope you enjoyed the series and get that disguise on and we'll see you next time.
- [50:14]
David McCloskey
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