161. Argo: Six Fugitives in Revolutionary Tehran (Ep 2)

18:29Gordon:And so the cover is kind of fun. It also gives, again, the idea that these house guests might need to lean into the cover and make it their own. It makes it fun in a way that maybe being a petroleum engineer isn't. Although we're bashing all kinds of occupations on the pod today, aren't we? I know. I'm sorry. And Mendes has deep connections in Hollywood to make this happen.

18:53David:The relationship between the CIA and Hollywood is fascinating, isn't it? Because it's got deep roots. I mean, Mendes personally has contacts in Hollywood, but also the CIA has long been working with it. I mean, I know that when you go back to the Second World War, you go back to propaganda films, you go back to, you know, this is pre, I guess, CIA, OSS. They were working on making propaganda films, pushing anti-Nazi messages, early Cold War. There's that whole era of Hollywood as propaganda, which has got deep roots further back. But there's also an operational side as well, which is interesting.

19:31Gordon:Yeah, this is the propaganda piece is its own. And it's honestly probably its own set of episodes because it's such a fascinating thing. I was struck just in looking into this a bit that the Office of Strategic Service, the forerunner to the agency, had film units that shot footage of the concentration camps after they were liberated. It was actually used at Nuremberg. And 12 OSS officers died while filming combat to use those and filming for propaganda purposes. So there's a whole separate kind of thread there. But the propaganda connections are not what produces the Argo operation. This is much less about propaganda and much more about technical expertise.

20:16Gordon:because from the early 70s onwards, the CIA's Office of Technical Service, which is Mendez's crew, has started contracting with Hollywood makeup artists, special effects builders, prop designers, even stage magicians to solve operational problems that Langley can't crack on its own. And one of the central contractors is this guy named John Chambers, who again is played by John Goodman in the film. Mendez calls Chambers Jerome Calloway throughout his memoir because when Mendez was writing, Chambers had not yet passed. Chambers, sort of like Goodman in the film, is a larger-than-life character in real life.

20:57Gordon:He's got his hair slicked back with a thick sheen of pomade on it. Mendez described him as looking more like a bouncer than a makeup artist. He wears white short-sleeved shirts and black ties. He's got a big pinky ring. He drives a big yellow Pontiac. Very Hollywood. Very Hollywood. And he and Mendez are thick as thieves. So Mendez first met Chambers in the early 70s on the set of a spy-themed TV show. And Chambers had won an honorary Academy Award in 1969 for the makeup work on the original Planet of the Apes.

21:30David:Very good film.

21:31Gordon:Very good film while researching this. The best makeup Oscar didn't exist until 1981. So up until that point, honorary awards were given out on a case-by-case basis. And because Planet of the Apes was such an amazing achievement in makeup, Chambers got the honorary award. He invented the foam latex prosthetic techniques that were being used in pretty much every sci-fi film of the 70s. He developed Mr. Spock's prosthetic ears.

21:59David:For Star Trek. Now that is a big, that's a big one for me. I mean, Mr. Spock. But yeah, Yeah, so he's a big, he's a really interesting character. And he's got this established record of working with the CIA. You were about to skip by the other John Chambers fact, weren't you, Gordon? Go on, give me more. There's more.

22:17Gordon:There is a claim that he also built the Bigfoot suit for the famous Patterson-Giblin footage.

22:23David:Sorry, is that fake footage of a supposed Bigfoot, basically?

22:27Gordon:Or real footage of the actual Bigfoot, depending on your persuasion.

22:32David:Okay. Okay. Maybe we should do an episode of Bigfoot.

22:34Gordon:We should. So Chambers may have faked Bigfoot, and he'll also play a role in staging a CIA rescue operation. So he's an interesting character. Back to Argo. So CIA disguise, this is how tight the connection had become between the OTS crew at Hollywood, is that CIA disguise officers are actually doing apprenticeships on Chambers' film sets. And Chambers, in some cases is rotating into training exercises that the CIA is doing at the farm in Virginia, where on at least one occasion, he role-played a fictional border guard. So he's enmeshed and he and Mendez really, really like each other. So Chambers helps Mendez with all kinds of wild operations, including how to make prosthetics that make case officers appear to have age 20 years overnight, to change their bone structure with dental appliances, to have a different gait, to walk differently.

23:30Gordon:Chambers has this great line about disguise where he says, the hardest part of the face to disguise is the ear. Nobody looks at ears, but they notice them when they're wrong. So this is a guy who I think, like Mendez, is a craftsman. You know, these are two craftsmen who just happen to end up in the middle of a spy story. So by January of 1980, Mendes is headed back to Ottawa for another trip. And this is a part, I mean, Gordon, I'll just nod here to the Canadian cooperation, because there's a whole piece to the preparation for this exfil that is deep connection between the CIA's Office of Technical Service and the Canadians over how to make these documents appear accurate for the exfil.

24:18David:because again I think you know the film kind of glosses over the extent to which it is the Canadians who are generating the documents and the kind of a lot of the detail of the identities for these Canadians because they're going to need more than just a passport they're going to need credit cards driving licenses pocket litter the kind of things you keep in your pocket the Canadians are intrigued by Tony Mendez's contact Delgado is intrigued isn't he by the idea of this slightly crazy plan of of doing a hollywood uh scout a scouting crew going out to iran as being the cover story and it kind of makes again it kind of makes sense because canada has does do some filming i don't think as much as it does now but it has got its own domestic film industry so it is plausible so at this point the plan is starting to come back together between the canadians and Mendes.

25:17Gordon:I mean, to show how enmeshed the Canadians are in this, Mendes actually pitches the Canadians first on the Hollywood idea.

25:24David:They've got to buy into it. I mean, in that sense, it really is a joint operation, I think, isn't it? That's what I think when you read it. It is a joint operation rather than just a CIA operation. But anyway, let's keep going with this. And as with my thoughts on Bigfoot,

25:40Gordon:I will not, I will offer. No comment, no comment. I actually don't believe in Bigfoot. Do you have a Bigfoot thing in the UK?

25:49David:Well, we've got Nessie, we've got the Loch Ness Monster. That's probably the closest thing. No, I don't believe in Bigfoot.

25:55Gordon:I want to, but I don't. So, Mendez pitches the Canadians. Canadians kind of like the idea about the Hollywood cover. And Mendez starts to work on a plan. And he actually, inside Ottawa Station, writes up in longhand, on a yellow legal pad, a 16-page ops plan that gets cabled to Langley. And Mendez then flies back to Washington and has a meeting with higher-ups inside the agency's Near East Division. Because again, Mendez works in the Office of Technical Service. The Near East Division has primacy for operations in Iran. So they need to be on board with this. And there is a little bit of consternation about Mendez having run this through the Canadians first, but seems to be forgiven because the plan is, if not a good one, as the film says, it's the best bad plan that the CIA has.

26:48Gordon:Now, the Hollywood cover also could potentially solve more than just the houseguest problem. Because we talked about this in the last episode, the Pentagon is deep into planning a bigger rescue operation for the rest of the hostages who are being held at the embassy. This will become known as Operation Eagle Claw. The operation, the plans are not firmed up yet. By the time we're in January of 1980, the operation won't take place until April. And so the idea that there could be a pipeline of film scouts, a production company sending people to Iran, well, that could create some interesting possibilities to get more people throughout the spring into Tehran.

27:33Gordon:And further, there's thought that a film production might be welcomed by the Iranians because it could help promote tourism. And, you know, President Carter has just frozen a bunch of Iranian assets that the Iranian regime is desperate for cash. You know, maybe a film shoot would help in that regard. So there's a thought that the Iranians might actually want to issue visas for film crews going in and out of Tehran. Interesting though, Mendez says that even though bureaucratically it's starting, there's some traction. The Canadians like the idea. The Near East Division likes the idea. The Office of Technical Service where he's working, they like the idea.

28:12Gordon:he's starting to wonder if this is maybe not such a good plan he's expecting some pushback he's not getting any has he overlooked something but he seems to think in his gut that this is again the best bad plan that they've got that night mendez briefs his his boss on the operational plan says that you know this is the team i want this is another facet of the film that is incorrect which is that it's just Mendez. He'll have a deputy who works with him. There's a whole team of artists, validators, and documents people. And the Canadians, of course, Gordon, who are working with him. And on Thursday, the 10th of January, 1980, Mendez calls in his secretary and tells her to draw an advance of$10 ,000 cash from budget and finance, which is the maximum allowed without higher approval.

29:02Gordon:Mendez said that anything more than that required, quote, the right hand of God and he puts the$10 ,000 cash inside a concealment briefcase and flies out to Hollywood.

29:14David:So with Tony Mendez heading to Hollywood where we all should be going let's take a break and we come back we'll see how this bizarre remarkable slightly crazy plan unfolds see you after the break. Let's talk about Peyronie's disease or PD it's not widely talked about and some men may feel reluctant to bring it up, but it's more common than you'd think. PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis, causing a curve or the bump during an erection that for some men may lead to pain during intimacy and impact mental health. A trusted urology specialist can help diagnose PD and walk you through your options, including non-surgical treatment.

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31:05David:So welcome back. Tony Mendez with his maybe preposterous, crazy plan involving Hollywood is heading out to California to try and see what he can do. And I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? He's come up with this plan, but he's also still going to get the Hollywood people on side. But perhaps Hollywood people like a crazy story.

31:26Gordon:Yeah. He's not going to get a lot of pushback on the idea. Spoiler alert from his friends in Hollywood. So, Mendez flies out, stays at a small Hawaiian-themed motel in Burbank near John Chambers' home, and the next morning shows up at Chambers' home at nine o 'clock. So, Chambers has someone with him at the house, and Mendez had asked him to bring someone that he trusts. The guy is Bob Seidel. Alan Arkin plays a composite of Seidel in the film. Seidel will be the third member of this trio constructing the cover out in LA. Seidel is 42 in 1979. He's also a veteran makeup artist. Chambers known him forever.

32:09Gordon:He is balding with a kind of neatly combed beard. He's got thick gold-framed glasses. And he has made a career mostly at NBC working on variety shows. And what Seidel brings to the table is that he has got a gift for the logistics the business of film production. Now, Seidel has no idea who Mendez is. And he's just been invited over by Chambers for a cup of coffee.

32:41David:Because I guess Chambers, I mean, it sounds like Chambers has got to be pretty discreet about working with the CIA, although it does sound like he may have told some of his friends. I mean, who can resist letting slip over a martini in Hollywood that, yeah, I'm doing some stuff for the CIA. But he's pretty discreet, isn't it, about his work. But Mendez still gets a confidentiality agreement for them to sign. You've got to do that to impress on someone that this really is secret. Sure.

33:10Gordon:Mendez is also aided by the fact that I think many Americans are furious about what's going on in Iran.

33:17David:About the hostages, yeah. About the hostages. The very visible, the publicly known hostages, yeah, rather than R6, yeah.

33:24Gordon:And Seidel is one of them. It apparently launches into an angry, you know, Mendez asks if Seidel has been watching the news about Iran. And he says, yes, and then launches into this kind of angry screed about how nothing's being done to bring the hostages back. And Mendez says, what if I was to tell you that not all of the diplomats are being held at the embassy? So, Mendez lays out the houseguests and that explains that the job is to get them out. And then he pitches the Hollywood cover, which is that these houseguests will be a film crew scouting a location for an upcoming movie. Seidel and Chambers love the idea.

34:00Gordon:They love the idea. Of course they do. But they want to know what Mendez needs them for. And Mendez spreads photos of the houseguests across the table. He's got photocopies of their Canadian passports. In other words, Mendez says, well, look, you know, one of them, Cora Leeak, her alias name is Teresa Harris. And Mendez says, well, you know, somebody might call and try to verify that Teresa Harris is a real screenwriter. So in other words, he needs the cover backstopped. He needs somebody to be able to answer the phone. And it sounds kind of simple. But then when you start to unpeel all the different layers, it becomes much more complicated.

34:40Gordon:So I also think it's interesting. Remember, he's brought the money. He's brought$10 ,000 cash in his concealment briefcase. He actually has a support, Mendez has a support officer show up, probably from LA station, and deal with the cash because Mendez wants to make sure that all the accounting is right. So LA, Mendez, Chambers, and Seidel, the money handled, they start working. mendez is going to need a production company and he's decided to name the production company studio six after the six house guests in tehran and the first priority is office space so seidel says okay that's that's easy hollywood production companies are constantly forming and dissolving and the rental market is built for short-term leases the mob in fact the mafia routinely launders money in this era through Hollywood by opening and closing production companies, sometimes weekly.

35:36Gordon:There's no shortage of office space. And it's not abnormal in 1980 for someone to just start a production company.

35:44David:Sounds like Soho these days, or round old. If you go around there, how many kind of TV production companies? I'm not saying they're funded by the mob, just to clarify legally. Just to clarify. Are they cousins of the candy,

35:56Gordon:the sweet shops off Oxford Street that are money laundering fronts.

36:01David:No, I think these are real production companies, but people who have not engaged with TV and film production, imagine that they're all really massive companies, but often they are one producer and an assistant and maybe, you know, one other person involved in development. Sometimes there can be two, three, four people. And that's how big a lot of the production companies are, who are actually, you know, kind of coming up with the development of ideas. And then they work with bigger companies and studios to make it work. So you're right. It is entirely plausible that this company exists.

36:30Gordon:And it takes about an hour to find office space. So there's a location called Sunset Gower Studios. It's independent, but it's on the old Columbia Pictures lot. And they've got space opening up the next day, Gordon. And specifically, these were offices that had recently been vacated by Michael Douglas, who had just finished producing the China Syndrome. room. So they've got three offices and a reception room. Mendez says, great. If it was good enough for Michael Douglas, it's good enough for us. So on Saturday morning, Mendez, Chambers, and Seidel drive down for a look at the office. Receptionist slides the word Studio 6 Productions onto a placard, slips it into a slot at the front door.

37:08Gordon:There you go. You got your office space. The rest of the day, they scrounge up furniture, typewriters, call in favors to get the phone lines connected. And they install, this is important, right, that the number doesn't look strange and that it's listed. So they install several working phone lines, including, and they make sure that a few are listed in kind of key directories. Seidel will man the office and the phones for the duration of the operation because you need a real person to answer the phone if someone in Iran calls to check out what's going on at Studio 6. Seidel's wife, Andy, is brought in to act as the production secretary.

37:47Gordon:And Seidel basically tells her what they're up to and that she's going to be working starting Monday in the offices of Studio 6 production. So by Sunday, now keep mind, Mendez has been in Hollywood for like 48 hours at this point. And he's already got a company. They've got the production company. They have an office. They have phones. They need a movie,

38:08David:gordon you need a movie you need a movie what sort of film would you choose well i have to say i would have been tempted maybe by a western but they go for i think my real choice which is i do like a bit of sci-fi star wars has just come out 1977 and which is the kind of a surprise hit as a kind of sci-fi western really set on Tatooine with those great desert sequences, which were filmed, I think, in Tunisia, weren't they? And it has been this huge hit for George Lucas. So you can see why sci-fi is in the air. You've had the Frank Herbert books, Dune as well, which have been a big hit, now a big in cinema.

38:51David:But again, have this kind of exotic sci-fi desert feel. That would be my choice. And it is their choice because I think it's absolutely the right one.

39:00Gordon:I think there might be some kind of analytic bias going on here with you choosing sci-fi in the desert. Well, the same is true with the Dune films, the recent films, which are largely the desert scenes shot in Jordan near Wadi Rum. So this connection of sort of desert, Middle East location and sci-fi, there's some grounding there from a film standpoint. And Chambers tells Mendez that he actually has come across a script. He'd been pitched months earlier. And it is a script based on Roger Zelazny's 1967 Hugo-winning science fiction novel, Lord of Light. Now, the Hugos are the premier annual literary awards for sci-fi and fantasy, so the novel's a big deal in the science fiction world.

39:55Gordon:And a producer named Barry Geller had bought the rights and put together a serious attempt to actually get this novel adapted for the screen. Jack Kirby, who's a Marvel Comics legend, he was the co-creator and illustrator of Captain America and the Fantastic Four. He'd been hired to do the concept art for this adaptation of Lord of Light. Barry Geller, the producer who bought the rights, had even envisioned a theme park based on the film in Aurora, Colorado, which was going to be called Science Fiction Land. He's getting a little bit ahead of himself thinking of the theme park. A little ahead of yourself.

40:35Gordon:I always, you know, Gordon, when I'm starting a novel, I always start with the theme park. What's the theme park?

40:42David:Damascus Station, the theme park.

40:44Gordon:Damascus Station, the theme park. I start with the theme park and then the story just kind of gets built around it. And there's concept art of what the theme park would look like. And And Barry Geller, when he was asked why it wasn't built, said, it gives a whole bunch of reasons that he's basically like, it was going to cost a half billion dollars. It was just good. It was insane. It had like levitating trains on magnets and stuff. You can find the art online. It's quite amazing. Now, the screenplay and the park had unfortunately, all of the financing for this had collapsed when Geller's business partner was indicted for embezzlement.

41:20Gordon:And so the screenplay, the concept drawings by Jack Kirby have basically been sitting on the shelf and Chambers has copies of this at his home. And he hands the stuff to Mendez. And it's pretty, I would, we got to create a link to this at the show notes because the concept art is a wild.

41:48David:I'm looking at something called Pavilions of Joy right now, which is kind of like it's semi samurai. A slightly, perhaps scantily clad woman stroke robots, some other things with guns. I mean, it's like, yeah, it's it's unique, but kind of I don't know. It's it looks almost more like Japanese inspired than Middle East inspired to me. But anyway, it'll do.

42:17Gordon:It's geographically ambiguous, I would say. And the slightly scantily clad woman, when I went deep in my researches on this, I discovered... Did you now, David? No, these are... So the big shape, the big kind of people in this Pavilions of Joy picture, those are 10 ,000 foot statues.

42:38David:Oh, I see. Okay, okay, okay.

42:40Gordon:And then beneath that is the sort of the city scale. Oh, well, now it makes sense.

42:44David:Now it makes perfect sense. I mean, should we try and summarize the plot of Lord of Light? I think if so, perhaps briefly, because...

42:53Gordon:No, no. So what's really great is... That's where Bette just fades us down. Yeah, exactly. Fade to black. I tried really, really hard to summarize the plot in a coherent way. I will attempt it and I will try to do this punchily. Okay, so Lord of Light is set on a planet colonized by some remnants of Earth. These people have found themselves on a strange planet surrounded by hostile indigenous races and had to kind of carve out a place for themselves or perish to increase their chances of survival. The crew has used chemical treatments and electronics to mutate their minds and create enhanced self-images or aspects that, quote, strengthened their bodies and intensified their wills and extended the power of their desires into attributes, capital A, which fell with a force like magic upon those against whom they were turned.

43:50David:But that does sound like what the kinds of things some people in Silicon Valley are trying to do to themselves these days in terms of life hacking. It's ahead of its time. So you've not finished. I thought you'd finished. But please, please give us more of the plot of Lord of Light because I'm really enjoying it.

44:05Gordon:The crew has also developed a technology to transfer a person's soul electronically to a new body. Again, very Silicon Valley. Yeah, yes. Yeah, exactly. So we're ragging on this screenplay. I mean, the novel won the Hugo. I mean, this novel was a big deal in the sci-fi world of the 1960s. So, this reincarnation by mind transfer has created a race of potential immortals and allowed the former crew members to institute something like the Hindu caste system with themselves at the top. Eventually, the crew used their now amazing powers to subjugate or destroy the native non-human races whom they characterize as demons while setting themselves up as gods in the eyes of the many generations of colonist progeny.

44:52Gordon:Wow. I'm skipping over some parts here. Yeah, please do. Okay. The protagonist, Sam, has developed the ability to manipulate electromagnetic forces. He's a renegade crewman who has rejected godhood, Gordon, taking for himself essentially the role of Buddha. And Sam believes that this technology should be available to the masses and that reincarnation should not be controlled by the elite. It is basically Hinduism versus Buddhism in space.

45:20David:But it's also, I kind of, I'm actually having mocked it. I kind of think it's quite good because it's a bit like Sam, our protagonist. He is like fighting the Silicon Valley overlords who are trying to use AI to hack their own lives and upload the souls and create a caste system where they're at the top and dominating the rest of us. And Sam is like the everyman. You know, I like to think of him more like me, really, kind of heroic.

45:44Gordon:Yeah, you have many Sam-like qualities.

45:48David:I'm going to suggest if the option is still out there for Lord of Light, maybe we could set up a little film production company. I think it might have some relevance.

45:58Gordon:In some of the interviews he's given since the Argo operation was declassified, Barry Geller, the producer who had the rights, was kind of pissed that they didn't buy it from him because they essentially just kind of took it. I mean, so there's actually some IP theft at the center of the story.

46:12David:Okay. Well, we'd option it properly, whoever owns the rights, because I think there's a way of doing it. Anyway. That's right. Back to Tony Mendez. Yeah, back to Tony Mendez. Because I can see why he loves this, because it's so nuts and so crazy that if you're trying to explain it to some Iranian border guard or cultural official, I mean, they're going to go, yeah, kind of whatever. Okay. Good stuff.

46:38Gordon:You crazy Hollywood guys. If only they'd had the helpful summary that I wrote, they could have explained it coherently. Yeah, thank you for that. So there's maybe the impenetrability of the plot, which is an asset because it's hard to explain. There's also the setting. And we talked about the desert, you know, kind of sci-fi connection. The screenplay, it's set on a desert planet. Ron has deserts. The architecture in some of these drawings, domes, arches, kind of intricate geometry, kind of could be a Hollywood designer's idea of some place in the Middle East. There's a bazaar rendered in one of these drawings that kind of looks like the Grand Bazaar, the famous covered bazaar in Tehran.

47:19Gordon:So it makes sense why if you have this concept art, you have this script in hand, maybe Iran makes sense if you're trying to scout locations. Now, the title, Lord of Light, they think it's too on the nose. This is a country that's in the grip of religious revolution. They might also be changing the title for IP concerns later down the road. I'm just kind of guessing. Maybe they're thinking if we change the title and somehow this gets out, Barry Geller won't sue us for having stolen his script. And they go back and forth on some alternatives and Chambers suggests Argo. Now, Argo had been an office joke for a number of years.

48:04Gordon:It was actually a knock-knock joke that Chambers used when he was working with the OTS team, with Mendez's team. And it went this way, Gordon. It was knock-knock. Who's that? Argo.

48:21David:Argo who?

48:22Gordon:Argo, f*** yourself. Bleep gun, Becky, please. Yeah, please. Because I want to listen to this with my children. But that was so they would use that knock-knock joke when they were working together to kind of blow off steam. And Chambers suggests Argo. They have a name for this film. So the film, the operation is not Argo. The film is Argo. Mendez grabs a yellow legal pad, sketches the Studio 6 logo himself. It's a big red number 6 made out of film strips. Seidel and Chambers, as part of the cover, recommend they place an ad in the trades. So, a variety of the Hollywood Reporter print that this project is happening, then it can look like it's happening.

49:02Gordon:There can be sort of, you know. Plausible. Yeah. It's plausible. They create a full-page black background ad with a planet exploding in the center and asteroids spelling out the title. The tagline they come up with, which I think is great, is Argo, a cosmic conflagration. Yeah. Which was, you know, it would be a good subtitle for The Rest is Classified as well. On Monday morning, Chambers, Mendez, Seidel, they walked the ad down to The Hollywood Reporter and Variety to place it. It's going to run on Wednesday, the 16th of January. The text inside the ad lists the director, who's one of the personas, alias personas of the six.

49:46Gordon:Yeah, six American diplomats. A producer, same thing. And a screenwriter credited as Teresa Harris, who in fact is Cora Liek, who is one of the house guests in Tehran. The phones, this is crazy, the phones at Studio 6 start ringing immediately because real Hollywood agents and screenwriters... See the ad. See the ad. Yeah, they're like, who's directing? How do we get involved? Interestingly, after the operation is over and the office has been shut down, 26 unsolicited screenplays will have arrived in the mail at the Studio 6 address.

50:22David:I feel really sorry for those people who had sent their screenplay thinking that they might have a chance. It's just ended up in the kind of rubbish bin of the CIA. So, I mean, this has all happened incredibly quickly. I mean, Tony Mendes basically spends a weekend, doesn't he? Four days, something like that, a long weekend. in LA and sets up the whole thing, sets up the company, comes up with the idea, gets the adverts placed, and they're off. I find that extraordinary how quickly they've got the whole package together, including the screenplay, the drawings, the logo, the press placement, a name, everything is suddenly together within that really short period.

51:05Gordon:But of course, you need so much more. You've got the cover, you've got the backstopping in Hollywood, but this is the kind of non-sexy part of this, I suppose. You need a lot of documents. Not just the passports that you have from the Canadians. You need a load of documents.

51:28David:I mean, what documents would you need, Gordon? Well, as well as the passport, you either need a driving licence or something else. You might need a credit card or a bank card. You also just need the stuff that you would carry around plausibly, which is, I don't know, a library card. Or if you're a screenwriter, you might have something from the Screenwriters Guild, I guess your union membership. It's all those kind of things you'd need. little bits and pieces which which are more than the one document it's the pocket litter isn't it the pocket litter of of that creates a plausible identity and particularly for these group of people who are supposed to be have particular professions you need all of that all of that is as i understand it being developed in canada it's mainly being created by the canadians using real Canadian documentation rather than by the Americans.

52:22David:Isn't that right?

52:23Gordon:It's a leading question, Gordon. I think, yes, Canadian identities, Canadian pocket litter, Canadian driver's licenses, right? All of this stuff is Canadian documentation.

52:35David:Again, the Canadians, not the CIA, are going to be the ones to deliver it through the diplomatic pouch, which I guess is an established way you can smuggle things into the country and hope that they're not seen or checked because the bags are carefully sealed. Well, they're not checked. But you have to be pretty confident of that if you're smuggling in fake identities. Because if they were checked and you could see that fake identity documents are coming in, then you'd be looking for those people when they come out. So you've got to be very confident it's not being checked, haven't you? I always find diplomatic pouches fascinating because they're not pouches.

53:11David:A pouch makes it sound like it's a kind of large wallet or something like that. They're big bags, aren't they?

53:16Gordon:Big bags. And in this case, it's the Canadian diplomatic pouches. I mean, it's literally a guy who takes a bag into the embassy. A hand carries it. And a hand carries it the whole way, a Canadian citizen. So it's not an Iranian national is not handling that bag at any point in its journey. So it's not x-rayed, intercepted, searched, nothing like that. So all of that, you're right, it's being produced in this joint operation between the Canadians and the CIA in Ottawa, and then sent by diplomatic pouch to Tehran. They disguise kits. Now, disguise full on transformational disguises don't play a role in this operation.

54:01Gordon:So there's no prosthetics or anything like that. that Mendez did consider it, but none of them had any experience with prosthetics. And he felt like, you know, again, if you're going through the airport and your ear falls off. It doesn't look good. People pay attention. Your mustache goes like that. Yeah, exactly. So, but they do have a version of kind of lighter disguise. So they send, you know, stylic gel, makeup, kind of mod glasses with thicker rims, eyeliner, you know, typed instructions for each person on how they could modify their appearance. Because at this point, the agency, I think, is working under the presumption that the Iranians know that there are missing Americans, maybe not exactly who is missing yet, but that there are missing Americans, and they might have photographs of these people.

54:54Gordon:And so you want to modify your appearance slightly. They also send, you know, for example, I mean, if they're a film crew, well, you would need, you know, cameras, right? So they send prop kits, cinematographers viewfinder, a schedule of the phony film shoot because Argo is commencing principal photography in March of 1980. And so there's going to be a schedule for how the film would be made. Studio 6 business cards, a copy of the screenplay, the Jack Kirby concept art, those sketches. You also need plane tickets. Mendez wants to do this on Swiss Air. There's a Tehran to Zurich flight. It's exactly the route that he used to exfiltrate Raptor early in the year.

55:37Gordon:Switzerland, obviously a neutral country. The Swiss Air desk at Meribat International Airport historically had light scrutiny. This is one of the other things that I think Bendez talks about pretty extensively in his book that you don't see in the film is the CIA and potentially the Canadians having sent in kind of people who had a legitimate reason to go in and out of Maribald as kind of probes to figure out exactly how it works. Sort of how it works. What documents do you need? How are they checked? Yeah, really important. That very up-to-date, nitty-gritty detail is really, really important.

56:16Gordon:The Canadian ambassador, so to Taylor's wife, had been booking and rebooking tickets across multiple dates so that whenever the green light for the operation came, they would have seats on a flight on that day. The film shows the Bryan Cranston character, Affleck's boss, in charge of the tickets. But the real tickets had been purchased in Tehran by the Canadian ambassador's wife. The secondary documents you talked about, Gordon, Canadian driver's licenses, apparently very difficult to maintain because, again, you want that to be a real driver's license. Mendez had one of his guys spending over a week in Ottawa working out with the Canadians how you get the driver's licenses.

56:58Gordon:You need health cards. You need business cards, obviously, in each houseguest name. You mentioned the Guild Union cards, you need those. Receipts, ticket stubs, dry cleaning slips. You need to look like you are coming from Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, LA, and that in your wallet, in your belongings, is the actual life of a person. Because you think you don't travel with a bag that's totally empty of this stuff.

57:24David:Yeah. So once you've got all of that together, we're heading towards the end of january now aren't we where effectively you've got this plan and then you've still got to get it signed off haven't you from the top and i think the other bit that's so interesting is the idea that it's going to be two people at least who are going to go into iran to do it so this goes back to this really interesting point that it's not just sending these documents into iran and then saying to the team, you get out yourself, but that Mendez is going to go into Iran to walk them out because he's got the experience to know how to help them build the cover and to talk through the cover and to talk through the security at the airport to be able to do it properly.

58:12David:So that, I think, is one of the fascinating details of the operation. And he's not going alone, is he?

58:18Gordon:He's not, and this guy's totally written out of the film. But by late January, Mendez and his partner are in Frankfurt, Germany, doing final preparations. Now, his partner is a guy he calls Julio in the book. Julio is actually a guy named Ed Johnson, who is a CIA linguist who had worked with Mendez on previous operations. And he's also got a lot of documents, expertise. He is originally from the Midwest, but he'd studied at the Sarbonne in Paris. He speaks German, Spanish, Persian, and French. Fairly valuable and very good with documents. And in Europe, both guys were going to go in, Ed slash Julio and Tony, they're going to go get legal visas to Iran under their alias identities.

59:09David:Yeah. And we should say that actually Julio, his name is now public and it's since been revealed, hasn't it? Because on the shout out to the CIA's own podcast, everyone's got a podcast, David, even the agency. The Langley Files. Shout out to Walt who presents it, who I know. They actually talk to the guy or they hear from him on the podcast and name him for the first time. Julio as Ed Johnson, a CIA linguist who'd worked with Mendez. that's just come out in the last few years, the true identity of this person, who'd previously, as you said, been kind of written out of the story to some extent.

59:44David:But he is going to be going in on the ground with Tony.

59:47Gordon:So both guys get these legal visas to Iran under their alias identities. Again, you don't want to forge those if you can help it. And so Mendez on the morning of the 23rd of January, drives from Frankfurt to Bonn with a disguise officer to obtain his own Iranian visa. Now, Mendez is going to use an alias of Kevin Costa Harkins, who is allegedly the Studio 6 production manager in charge of Argo. It is an alias that he has used before. He's already got these documents. He's got the sort of identity of Kevin Costa Harkins, although now he'll be a production manager working on Argo. Harkins Thalias has an apartment off Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco.

1:00:32Gordon:Nice. Lovely. Mendez doesn't say, but I think, I'm reading between the lines a little bit here, but I think in reading the memoir, I think it's an Irish identity. That is my guess.

1:00:46David:Because I guess less likely to be, I mean, the Irish identity is one that's probably going to arouse less hostility than a lot of other European or Western identities, if you take it, you know, not in NATO. But it's interesting, isn't it, that people will still be quite careful about admitting what nationality they might have used falsely to go places, because it can still cause a diplomatic row. I mean, it's caused it when we've seen other countries use fake British identity. We've seen the Israelis, Mossad, use it on operations, and it tends to lead to a bit of upset. So yeah, probably Irish, but we don't know for sure.

1:01:22David:And he uses a little bit of disguise, doesn't he, to get in as well?

1:01:25Gordon:A little disguise. Yeah. Green turtleneck, tweed blazer, clothing he'll wear throughout the operation. He's got the Argo portfolio, the screenplay that catches with him in case any Iranian consular officer pushes back. The clerk, when he's getting the visa, asks, why are you doing this in Germany rather than in home, and Mendez basically says that, oh, my idiot boss sent this telex about a meeting in Tehran. I'm already on the road. And 20 minutes later, he's got a one-month Iranian visa stamped into the Kevin Costa Harkins passport. And presumably, although we don't hear about it in the memoir, Ed Johnson, known as Julio, does the same thing to get a legal visa to go into Iran.

1:02:06Gordon:Now, Now, Mendez and Julio file a final flash cable for approval on the 23rd of January 1980. Stansfield Turner, who's the director of the CIA at the time, replies very quickly, your mission is approved. Good luck. And per that plan, Mendez is going to depart first, and then Ed will follow him. And the idea here is you don't want both guys to be together, You want to space it out so you're arriving separately, but the weather conspires against them. Mendez's flight is canceled, and so he and Ed are going to be on the same flight. And, you know, Mendez, this is very interesting because Turner, the head of the CIA, has approved the mission.

1:02:56Gordon:But as they're getting ready to go, they get word that the president, President Carter, is actually going to weigh in and they should hold off as Carter makes a final decision.

1:03:07David:I mean, in the film, this becomes a big thing. But actually, the idea that this rises up to a kind of presidential decision, I guess it's because of the risks involved, particularly when you've got a hostage crisis with the known about hostages who are being held at the embassy receiving huge attention. I guess the political risks are quite real for President Carter, because if he authorizes an operation to get these people who actually the Iranians maybe don't even know about out, and it goes wrong, and you then have Tony Mendez and Ed getting captured, or these hostages being captured, that's politically disastrous, isn't it?

1:03:47David:And we do know how sensitive these hostage situations are for politicians, particularly for Jimmy Carter. So I guess there is that risk that he's going to do it, but credit to Jimmy Carter, he backs them. He goes for it, doesn't

1:04:03Gordon:he? He approves it. And the cable comes in, the President of the United States approves your mission. Good luck. And Mendez is, I think, struck that he has the personal message from the President, but he's out the door. He goes to Frankfurt Airport. He's going to be on a Lufthansa a flight to Zurich and from there to Tehran. Now, he's sitting in the transit lounge in Zurich and Bendez is going through this kind of last minute gut check, trying to feel out if there's any reason he should abort the operation. And he's doing this almost last minute risk assessment. And he writes that he has some momentary uncertainty because again, he's just been in Iran helping exfil Raptor months earlier.

1:04:45Gordon:And the embassy has been overrun. So, in the back of his mind, he's wondering, are the Iranians going to know that it's me? And might they be waiting to nab me? But he thinks it's a very unlikely, the moment of uncertainty passes. And he writes, this was a good ops plan and we were ready. And he will have three days to take six American diplomats out of a country that is going wild with revolution.

1:05:13David:So there with Tony Mendes having his gut check, believing the plan is good, but heading really into enemy territory with not just the lives of those six hostages at risk, but also his own as he and Ed head out there. Let's stop and next time we'll see how this slightly crazy plan unfolds. Just a reminder, of course, if you want to hear those episodes now, then you can by joining the Declassified Club at therestisclassified.com. You can also sign up for our free newsletter there and lots of other things, including bonus episodes with CIA officers who've worked Iran, as well as our more detailed take on the Argo film and what gets right and wrong, particularly about our friends, the Canadians.

1:05:58David:So do sign up at the club for that. But otherwise, we will see you next time. We'll see you next time.

1:06:07Thank you.