Risking his own freedom, Canadian ambassador Kenneth Taylor upheld diplomatic decorum and the international rule of law in the face of a tyrannical and dangerous regime.
Mohammed Mossadeq, right, meeting with American Secretay of State Dean Acheson
The Shah of Iran appointed a popular veteran politician, Mohammed Mossadeq, in April of 1951. Mossadeq quickly announced his intention to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian oil company, prompting the Anglo-Iran hierarchy to withdraw refinery operatives and block Iranian oil from the world market. The resulting economic downturn was unpopular but the embattled Mossadeq refused to waver. By 1953, the British were no longer the imperial power that could crush such a quasi-colonial upstart. But the US, under the newly installed Eisenhower administration, was already involved in Cold War conflicts in Korea and elsewhere and Iran, with a viable domestic Communist party and geographic proximity to the Soviet Union was another country run by an unpredictable individual who might embrace Moscow. This, and Mossadeq’s October, 1952 severing of all British diplomatic ties, precipitated clandestine US intelligence activity.
Jimmy Carter, King Hussein of Jordan, the Shan of Iran and his wife.
By 1978, even with the advent of the Carter administration and its focus on human rights, the Shah remained an important game piece of American international geopolitics and the US government’s tone deaf attitudes toward the growing national revulsion toward the Shah only intensified the anger of the Iranian people.
Cora Lijek, Mark Lijek, Robert Anders, Joseph Stafford, Kathleen Stafford and Lee Schatz were the six American diplomats who eluded capture when Iranian militants seized the american embassy.
All of the American escapees were eventually able to watch television and see footage of their comrades. Blindfolded, their hands bound, it was clear that the hostages were under great duress. Although spokesmen for the Student dissident group maintained that the detainees were being treated humanely, actually they were all subjected at minimum to physical restraints and verbal abuse and some, those suspected of being intelligence operatives were harshly interrogated, beaten, forced to endure mock executions and placed in solitary confinement in actual prison cells.
Iranian militants scaling the walls of the US embassy in Tehran
On the morning of November 4, 1979 a boisterous mob of protesters gathered in front of the US embassy in Teheran, Iran. Such demonstrations were frequent occurrences, the result of the political upheaval that marked the transition of Iran from an absolute, western aligned monarchy to an unaligned Islamic republic. On this day, the behavior of the crowd was markedly different with individuals, initially mostly women to discourage armed embassy Marine sharpshooters, beginning to deliberately scale the walls of the embassy compound. Some of the invaders carried bolt cutters which were used to sever the locks securing the embassy entrance and soon hundreds of individuals were pouring into the 27 acre embassy enclosure.
Risking his own freedom, Canadian ambassador Kenneth Taylor upheld diplomatic decorum and the international rule of law in the face of a tyrannical and dangerous regime.
The Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran in triumph.
Less than three weeks later, the Ayatollah landed at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport, the city greeting him with a crowd of over three million people. Khomeini’s political attitudes were made immediately clear. Any appointments by the shah were invalid, the result of an illegal government. Of Bakhtiar and others, Khomeini commented, “I will kick their teeth in, I decide on the government.” He also stated that although he would appoint his own Prime Minister, his long term intention was to construct a republic based on Islamic fundamentalism and sharia law. He routinely vilified the United States as, “The great Satan,” and mocked the Soviet Union as “The Lesser Satan.”
The Shah, in exile, in Cuernavaca, Mexico
By October of 1979, the Shah of Iran was languishing in Mexico. After Egypt, he made stops in Morocco and the Bahamas before proceeding to Cuernavaca. His doctors advised that treatment in the US for an obviously seriously spreading lymphoma was crucial but the Carter administration was wary of admitting the Shah, not wishing to worsen relations with the new Iranian government.
Anwar Sadat and the son of the Shah at the Shah’s funeral in Egypt.
The death of the shah in July, the Iraqi invasion of Iran in late September and the landslide victory of Ronald Reagan either sidetracked the hostage talks or prompted the Iranians to prolong the process.
Fake ad used in Hollywood trade publications to promote the fictitious, “Argo.”
Mendez hastily went to Los Angeles where he spent $10,000 renting an office, staffing it with enough bodies to make sure there was someone at the end of a phone in case the Iranians checked on the ruse. With a Hollywood contact, make-up man John Chambers, Mendez actually selected a film off the slush pile, an unproduced sci-fi fantasy called Lord of Light. It could certainly utilize the exotic locations but Mendez changed the title to something with more of a Middle-Eastern ring to it; Argo.
Jimmy Carter congratulates Tony Mendez, whose role remained secret until 1997
The CIA role in the Canadian Caper was declassified in 1997. Tony Mendez wrote about it extensively, initially in an-house CIA journal, and then then in his own books. The story remained under the radar until 2007 when Wired Magazine published an account of the Argo aspects of the rescue.
Ronald Reagan presents Ken Taylor with American Congressional Gold Medal
In the immediate aftermath of the Canadian Caper, Ken Taylor was given the plum assignment of Consul General in NY. But by 1984, despite both Canadian political parties encouraging to run for office, Taylor left the public sector to accept a key position with RJ Nabisco from a Canadian friend, Ross Johnson. This would place Taylor front and center for the wild leveraged buyout struggle over Nabisco, a struggle Johnson eventually and famously lost. Ken Taylor then started his own worldwide consulting firm that he operated for two decades and served as a chancellor at the University of Toronto. He died of cancer on October 15, 2015. Kenneth Taylor remains the only Canadian to receive the American Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award the US government can bestow.
“Argo: How The CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History,” by Antonio Mendez and Matt Baglio.
The intro in part one and outro in part two is, “Icelandic Arpeggios,” by DivKid and the outro in part one and intro in part two is, “Guava Juice,” by Aaron Lieberman
Of Some Very Famous People You've Never Really Heard Of…In Less Than An Hour.
