Time seemed to stand still. The lounge became hot and stuffy and the haze of cigarette smoke filled the air. The noise grew louder. The press of the crowd became uncomfortable. What had started out almost as a game had turned into a grueling mental ordeal. Then, just when I thought one of the houseguests might crack, the PA announced that Swissair Flight 363 was now ready to board. Once again we filed past the security check and into the glassed–in room. This time, we were not turned back. As we scrambled onto the old airport bus, I could see that everyone was exhausted, myself included. We were so close now and we could all feel it.
Out on the tarmac, we disembarked from the bus and headed for the stairs. The cold air was a welcome change after the stifling heat of the departure lounge. Then, as we climbed up to the plane, Bob Anders punched me in the arm. “You guys think of everything,” he said, smiling ear to ear.
Turning, I saw what he was pointing at. There, painted on the side of the plane’s nose was the canton in Switzerland where it had come from. In big letters it read, AARGAU. I let myself smile, and took it as an omen that everything would be all right.
As the DC8 roared down the runway and into the air, I felt euphoric. As we say in the business, there is no sweeter feeling than wheels up. We still had two hours to go before we would cross out of Iranian airspace, but it seemed like a formality now. When the captain finally announced that we had passed out of Iran and into Turkish skies, the plane erupted into cheers (there were several escaping Iranians who had no doubt gone through their own private ordeals that morning). For the houseguests, it was as if a terrific weight had been lifted from their shoulders. I could see elation on their faces as the realization hit. We’d done it. Their long ordeal was finally over—they were going home.
When the flight attendants wheeled out the bar cart, everyone ordered Bloody Marys to celebrate. I raised my glass in a toast to the others. “Argo! We’re home free,” I said.
Back at the Canadian embassy, Ambassador Taylor sent word of the mission’s success to Ottawa via cable. Afterward, he asked Claude to wield his sledgehammer one last time to smash the communications equipment, which the MP did with gusto. Taylor then hung a TEMPORARILY CLOSED sign on the door to the Canadian embassy, and he, Lucy, Claude, and a fourth Canadian official went out to lunch. By the time the eight of us would land in Zurich, Taylor’s cable had made its way from Ottawa to Washington, where an anxious President Carter received a rare piece of good news from Iran—the six Americans had gotten out.
I will always remember the looks of joy on the faces of the houseguests as they descended the stairs in Zurich. Lee and Bob stomped their feet on the tarmac and raised their arms in triumph. Surprisingly, there was no one to meet us at the gate, and so we were forced to go through immigration controls, bogus documents and all. As we emerged into the parking lot, a group of U.S. State Department officials quickly approached. Without so much as a hello, they grabbed the houseguests and put them into a waiting van, then sped off. I would later find out that they were whisked to a mountain lodge where they were fed pizza and given six-packs of Heineken.
Julio and I, meanwhile, were left standing alone in the cold parking lot. Like any covert operative who values his or her anonymity, we hadn’t expected a ticker tape parade upon our return. Most CIA officers are quiet professionals who never get the recognition they deserve. For us it was just part of the job. I was happy to have done my part in helping to get the six Americans out of Iran, but I knew there was more work to be done. There were still fifty-three Americans being held hostage who needed our help.
“It’s time we talked about your future in the film business,” I said to Julio, my words wafting in the frosty night air. I explained that since the Argo cover story had worked so well, there was a real chance it would be used to infiltrate the Delta Force commandos into Tehran in the event of a rescue attempt. “They are going to want you to take some classes in international finance.”
“You think I can pull it off?” he asked me. He seemed younger for a second, saying it.
“My only doubt is what language you should do it in,” I said.
A cold wind knifed through the parking lot and I shivered, suddenly realizing I no longer had my coat. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “I’m freezing.”
“Where’s your coat?” Julio asked me.
“I lent it to Joe.”
He laughed. “B&F is going to have your ass for that one.”
“Don’t I know it. Come on,” I said. We turned and walked toward a line of waiting taxis. It was time to get back to work.
16
AFTERMATH
None of the houseguests had given much thought as to what would happen after they got out of Iran. They probably assumed they would go back to their normal lives, but in Switzerland they would find out the truth. The State Department informed them that if news of their escape were to get out, there was a good chance the hostages could suffer reprisals. In addition, since there was the chance that the Argo cover story might be reused to help rescue the hostages, it would be important to keep the operational details of their rescue secret. So rather than being allowed to return home, they were going to be hidden away on a U.S. Air Force base in Florida until the fifty-three hostages were released. When they learned that they wouldn’t even be able to call their families to let them know they were safe, they began to grumble. Of course, Lee being Lee, he asked if they could be sent to Fiji instead.
They spent the night at the mountain lodge, eating pizza, drinking beer, and being observed by the senior medical officer from the local embassy. They were told there was no precedent for a group of State Department staffers being held in captivity for such a long period of time. The State Department was eager to learn all it could so as to be better prepared to deal with the hostages once that situation was resolved. At some point they would be asked to take an air force stress test for air traffic controllers, the results of which determined that most of them were very “high strung.” After being debriefed, they were told to hand over all of their alias documents as well as the Argo material. However, several of them held on to their Studio Six business cards and still have them today.
Despite the State Department’s best attempts to keep the escape of the six under wraps, it wouldn’t take long for the whole world to know what had happened.
Jean Pelletier of Montreal’s La Presse had been sitting on the story for over a month. When he found out on January 28 that the Canadian government was closing its embassy in Tehran, he concluded that the missing Americans must have gotten out. Since he’d originally agreed not to publish the story until after the danger had passed, he felt that he’d more than fulfilled his part of the bargain. He called the Canadian embassy in Washington once again for confirmation and was told by officials there that they would prefer if he held off publishing until after the entire crisis was over. Pelletier, however, claimed that his “instincts” were telling him that he had to publish it now. Worried that some other enterprising journalist would scoop him and pressured in part by his senior editors, he decided to finally run with it. The newspaper published the piece on the morning of January 29. Soon after, the story was picked up by radio and TV stations, and before lunch it was all over the world.
Now that the news was out, there was no longer any need to keep the houseguests in seclusion. Worried that the story might be connected to the Swiss government, which still had a functioning embassy in Tehran, State Department officials hastily loaded the houseguests into a van and drove them to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.
I was back in Frankfurt working on my after-action report when the news broke. Reports outlined how the Canadians had sheltered the six Americans for nearly three months before organizing their escape. No mention was made of the CIA, or Argo, which was just fine. The last thing the White House or headquarters needed was for the Iranians to know that the CIA had been conducting operations in Tehran, which would almost certainly have put the lives of the hostages
in jeopardy. Eventually a vague reference would be made in a New York Times article, saying that the CIA had provided technical assistance, but for the next seventeen years the world would never know the truth about Argo.
In the wake of Pelletier’s article and subsequent news pieces, the outpouring of gratitude by Americans toward the Canadian government was unprecedented. I remember landing at JFK on February 1 and picking up a copy of the New York Post, which had a massive three-inch headline on the front page that read: “Thanks, Canada!” In diners and bars, Canadians were treated to backslaps and free drinks. Just about everywhere you looked there were maple leaf flags, signs, even billboards expressing America’s gratitude toward our neighbor to the north.
On January 30, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution honoring Canada, while the following day President Carter called to personally thank Canada’s prime minister, Joe Clark.
With the CIA’s involvement a secret, the lion’s share of the credit for the operation went to Ken Taylor. He became an overnight sensation and was nicknamed the “Scarlet Pimpernel” of diplomacy. After flying from Tehran to Copenhagen, he eventually arrived in Paris, where he was mobbed at Charles de Gaulle Airport by a horde of photographers and reporters. He would give a press conference the next day and follow that up with an eleven-month public relations tour that would take him to practically every major city in the United States and Canada. He would receive both Canada’s and the United States’ highest honors, including the Congressional Gold Medal (an award shared by the likes of the Dalai Lama and Pope John Paul II). Wherever he went he was always gracious in trying to defer credit onto others, but he clearly didn’t shun the limelight. Of course Taylor was only doing what we wanted him to do, which was to deflect attention away from the United States and onto Canada. Even if he had wanted to, he couldn’t have mentioned the CIA’s role. And in a way, what he was doing was carrying off another cover story that shifted the blame away from America and onto Canada.
Among those in the know, however, the idea that Canada had acted alone became an opportunity to have a little fun. I later heard that, typical of the man, Jerome Calloway had taken out a full-page ad in the local Burbank newspaper that said: “Thanks, Canada—we needed that!”
As word of the rescue reached Iran, reactions there were predictable. At the foreign ministry, Bruce Laingen, Vic Tomseth, and Mike Howland were accused of somehow aiding and abetting the escape and had their telephone and telex privileges permanently taken away. Down at the U.S. embassy, meanwhile, it was reported that one of the militants had called the rescue “illegal.” Though perhaps the most famous response came from Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, Iran’s foreign minister, who said, “Sooner or later, here or anywhere in the world, Canada will pay for this violation of the sovereignty of Iran.” Ghotbzadeh, as it turns out, would eventually be executed by the Iranian government, shot by a firing squad for suspicions of colluding with the West.
Now that the rescue was the worst-kept secret in the world, the houseguests were finally told they could go home. They spent a few more nights at the military base in Germany, then flew back to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on an Executive 707 that belonged to the commander of NATO, dining on filet mignon and fresh pineapple flown in from Hawaii.
When they arrived at the State Department, they were met in the lobby by a cheering mob. One woman held up a sign that read, WE LOVE YOU BOB ANDERS, AND CANADA TOO! The atmosphere was electric. After hearing nothing but bad news about their colleagues trapped at the embassy, here at last was a chance to finally celebrate a victory. All their pent–up emotions came pouring out: they clapped, whistled, waved signs, and cheered with abandon. When asked about it later, Lee described the moment as one of the few times he felt like crying in public.
Their next stop was at an auditorium in the State Department, where Bob Anders read a prepared statement, saying that due to the sensitivity of the situation, neither he nor any of the other houseguests could go into any details about their escape. When discussing their time at the Sheardowns’, Bob said that the majority of their days had been spent playing Scrabble and following the news of the world. Eventually, each of them would be sent a deluxe Scrabble set and a letter from the president of Hasbro.
After the press conference, they would meet with Cyrus Vance, and then later with President Carter at the White House. For the houseguests, who had vilified Carter while discussing the stalemate of the hostage crisis at their nightly dinners with the Sheardowns, it was an awkward meeting. Some of them, like Mark, still felt that the president had mishandled the whole affair by allowing the shah to enter the United States without first doing more to protect the embassy. In the end, Carter’s southern charm won them over and they left feeling that the president was genuinely concerned for the well-being of the hostages.
It was around this time that I landed at JFK in New York. I’d flown over on a TWA flight from Frankfurt and had trouble getting them to refrigerate the huge tin of caviar that Joe Stafford had given me. The stewardess took one look at the tin and said, “Sir, that caviar is either Iranian or Russian. If it’s Iranian, I am not refrigerating it until the hostages are released. If it’s Russian, after they get out of Afghanistan and the Olympics are rescheduled, we would be glad to find room for it in our fridge.” I looked at her with newfound admiration. I took all of my laundry out of my carry–on bag and swaddled the tin in my American underwear.
Before hopping on my connecting flight, I called my family from JFK to let them know that I was going to be arriving on time.
I had an emotional reunion with my family at Dulles when Karen and the kids came to pick me up. Much was left unsaid, but I think all of them could tell that I was relieved to be home. Later that night, when Karen and I were going to bed, the two of us lapsed into a minute or two of silence. Eventually she turned to me. “You’re a national hero,” she said, and then, after a short pause, “but nobody will ever know.”
About a week later, I went to Los Angeles with Hal and our wives to meet with Calloway and Sidell and their spouses. In the wake of the story being published, Studio Six had quietly faded away and it was time to express our gratitude. Dave, the CIA officer I had handed the ten thousand dollars to in LA, had come down for the celebration with his wife as well. As we pulled into the parking lot at the Universal Studios Sheraton, we saw on the marquee the now familiar slogan THANKS, CANADA! and as we checked in we were given round metal Sheraton lapel buttons emblazoned with the same expression. We each proudly pinned them to our lapels. Our “wrap” party, the Hollywood tradition celebrating the last day of filming, was being held secretly in the midst of the celebration of Canada’s great rescue operation. A casual observer might have thought we were Canadians, from the way we were celebrating.
At the end of the evening I proposed one last toast. Standing at the end of the table and swaying only slightly, I raised my glass and uttered a word that few outside of our group would hear or understand. “Argo!”
On March 11, Stansfield Turner invited me to join him at the White House for his morning meeting with President Carter. I was told I had two and a half minutes with the president to tell him briefly the story of Argo and how we were able to pull it off. The only other person in the Oval Office was Zbigniew Brzezinski, the president’s national security adviser. The president was on the phone when we entered the office, standing in his shirtsleeves poring over a memo. He was telling someone to change the word “hate” on the bottom of page two to “abhor.” Classic Jimmy Carter—all about the details. Turner introduced me to the president and he shook my hand, but looked perplexed as to who I might be or what I might have done. Turner attempted to clarify, but I was prompted to move through my story quickly while trying to keep the president on schedule. When it came time for the obligatory photo, the White House photographer came forward and snapped several frames. Admiral Turner immediately threw himself in front of the camera. “No, no,” he said, “we can’t show his face. He’s undercover!” The presid
ent asked if it couldn’t be just between the two of us. “Sure,” I said. It would only take me seventeen years, but eventually I would be allowed to have the photo. Today it hangs in my library.
When I got back to Foggy Bottom, I went to Fred Graves’s office and he immediately took me to see the director of OTS, Dave Brandwein. I tried to tell them about my meeting with President Carter, but they seemed uninterested. “Here,” they said, “this is more important.” They told me I had been promoted to GS15, the equivalent of a full-bird colonel in the U.S. Army.
After I walked out of South Building and went up to the third floor of Central Building to my office, I caught my secretary elbows deep in her safe drawer. “Guess what, Elaine?” I said. “I got promoted and I saw the president, but not in that order.”
“Did you get my message?” she asked. “You’re having dinner at the White House tonight. Call Jacques Dumas. You’re supposed to be there at five o’clock.”
I called Jacques on the green phone, the secure line between our offices and headquarters, to ask him what was going on. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “I put that part about having dinner at the White House to be sure you’d call me back. Actually, you’re going to meet with Hamilton Jordan, White House chief of staff, at five o’clock.”
My instructions were to go to the West Wing and meet Jordan in his office. I found my way back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for the second time that day. I was ushered into Jordan’s office by his secretary, Eleanor, who informed me that “Ham” would be there shortly. Eventually the door opened and a smiling face came bobbing into the room. Hamilton Jordan shook my hand and we settled into a couple of chairs in his sitting area while he proceeded to tell me what he needed. Jordan wanted a disguise, the best disguise that we could build in a short time. He then explained why. He’d arranged a secret back-channel meeting with Sadegh Ghotbzadeh in Paris to discuss the release of the hostages. However, the slightest hint that Ghotbzadeh was meeting with Jordan would throw the whole thing out the window.
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