2023-09-16 18:30:05
by Monica Ricci Sargentini
The operation took place in 1980 and led to the escape of six American diplomats who disguised themselves as directors and actors. The Oscar-winning film Argo was born from the story.
For the first time, the CIA has revealed the identity of a second officer who played a key role in a rescue mission in Iran in 1980, right at the height of the revolution that led to the birth of the Islamic Republic. The operation consisted of smuggling six US diplomats disguised as film crews out of the country. The group was assisted by two CIA agents. The mission was so daring that it inspired the Oscar-winning film Argo. released in 2012 starring Ben Affleck.
The known history. With Canada’s help, the two CIA officers and six American officials pretended to be scouting locations to shoot a science fiction film called Argo. And in the end they managed to escape the Iranian security services and board a ship for Zurich. Until now only the name of one of the agents was known, the specialist in disguises and forgeries Tony Mendez, who died in 2019, but now the CIA has also revealed the identity of the second officer. This is Ed Johnson, an expert in secret extractions, also known by Mendez’s wife, Jonna, also a secret agent, who described him to
Bbc
as an extraordinarily skilled linguist, expert in creating false documents. He seemed to be perfectly suited to the job he was doing, he said.
The revelation was made last September 14th episode of the podcast Langley Files, in which the CIA revealed previously unpublished details of the mission, provided by Johnson himself. The most difficult part of the operation, it was said, was convincing the diplomats that they could deceive the Iranians and pass off as a film crew. “They were people who were not trained to lie to authorities,” Johnson said. The secret agent, who had extensive experience of the Middle East, speaks numerous languages, including Arabic, but not Farsi, the official language in Iran. However, German came in handy when he and Mendez found themselves involuntarily, right in front of the then occupied American embassy, where 52 US citizens had been taken hostage in 1979 (they would only be released in 1981, after 444 days). There, a German-speaking Iranian guard helped the two spies find a taxi to go to the Canadian embassy where the six diplomats had also taken refuge. I have to thank the Iranians for being the lighthouse that led us to the right place,” Johnson said in the CIA interview.
In the 2012 film, the group’s escape from Iran occurs on a razor’s edge with Iranian troops attempting to chase the plane. The reality, Johnson recalled, was much less eventful, the diplomats were relaxed and confident during the final stages of the mission.
16 September 2023 (modified 16 September 2023 | 18:29)
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