Spy Who Smuggled U.S. Diplomats Out of Iran Dead
WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- Tony Mendez who smuggled out six American diplomats through the Canadian embassy in Tehran after the U.S. embassy had been stormed by Iranian students has died.
Mendez, who was 78 and had Parkinson's disease, died Saturday at an assisted living facility in Frederick, Maryland, outside Washington, according to the International Spy Museum, where Mendez was a founding board member.
Portrayed by Ben Affleck in the Oscar-winning 2012 sham, he was the CIA’s master of disguise. During his quarter-century at the spy agency, Mendez served in multiple foreign posts, spending much of his time in Asia.
He was a specialist in "exfiltration," the art quietly slipping people out of a country. For this reason, he was selected to travel secretly to Iran in January 1980.
In the previous year, the U.S.-backed shah of Iran fled the country after the Islamic Revolution. Angry Iranian students then stormed the U.S. embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, taking all the Americans there hostage because of the mission’s role in a coup and other skullduggeries in the country.
But six additional American diplomats, who were not at the embassy when it was overrun, made their way to the Canadian embassy.
Mendez slipped into Iran and met up with the six. Armed with Canadian passports and false identities, the six diplomats posed as a Canadian film crew doing location scouts for a sci-fi movie. They were smuggled out aboard a Swissair flight to Zurich on Jan. 28, 1980.
Mendez actually carried out the operation with another CIA officer. When Mendez returned to the U.S., former president Jimmy Carter gave him the Intelligence Star but it was all done secretly, and the CIA role in the operation was not revealed until 1997.
The 52 American hostages at the U.S. embassy were held for 444 days and not released until January 1981.
Mendez, who was 78 and had Parkinson's disease, died Saturday at an assisted living facility in Frederick, Maryland, outside Washington, according to the International Spy Museum, where Mendez was a founding board member.
Portrayed by Ben Affleck in the Oscar-winning 2012 sham, he was the CIA’s master of disguise. During his quarter-century at the spy agency, Mendez served in multiple foreign posts, spending much of his time in Asia.
He was a specialist in "exfiltration," the art quietly slipping people out of a country. For this reason, he was selected to travel secretly to Iran in January 1980.
In the previous year, the U.S.-backed shah of Iran fled the country after the Islamic Revolution. Angry Iranian students then stormed the U.S. embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, taking all the Americans there hostage because of the mission’s role in a coup and other skullduggeries in the country.
But six additional American diplomats, who were not at the embassy when it was overrun, made their way to the Canadian embassy.
Mendez slipped into Iran and met up with the six. Armed with Canadian passports and false identities, the six diplomats posed as a Canadian film crew doing location scouts for a sci-fi movie. They were smuggled out aboard a Swissair flight to Zurich on Jan. 28, 1980.
Mendez actually carried out the operation with another CIA officer. When Mendez returned to the U.S., former president Jimmy Carter gave him the Intelligence Star but it was all done secretly, and the CIA role in the operation was not revealed until 1997.
The 52 American hostages at the U.S. embassy were held for 444 days and not released until January 1981.