McMahon thanked Perot for his call and told him he would call him back if he needed something. He put the phone down and came back across the room to our little group.
“Tell me what you need, Tony,” he said, “and I’ll make it happen.”
Saturday morning I went down to the DDI vault, which belonged to the Deputy Directorate for Intelligence, the analytical arm of the CIA, along with two of my best disguise and documents officers. Mountains of papers, photographs, journals, and files surrounded us. We combed through the paperwork, looking for anything that would help us on this reverse engineering project.
By noon we were ready to move to the next phase, to organize a “cattle call,” an invitation to a select group of Agency officers to audition for our starring role. We needed high-level authority to go to the Office of Security’s badge office and review the photos of all CIA employees. When we contacted those who seemed a suitable match, all but one were willing to come in on the weekend and work with us.
For those next ninety hours we worked nonstop, sleeping on the floor using our balled–up jackets as pillows. Our Hollywood consultant, a makeup great I’ll call “Jerome Calloway,” had flown in from LA on Sunday and worked right alongside us. That episode is an amazing story in itself, but the upshot was that by the time we were finished we had not one but two deceptions ready to go.
Unfortunately, by Friday, the president decided against using our plan because he didn’t want to appear to be backing down to the Iranians—a decision, I am told, he would later regret. In light of this, our master consultant returned to Hollywood, but I would be calling on him again for another favor in a couple of weeks.
With the end of November came the frustrating realization that while we were making incremental progress toward reestablishing our intelligence capability in Iran, as well as helping to plan a rescue mission, fifty-three American diplomats were still being held hostage. It was a hard fact to swallow, but if anything, it only made us redouble our efforts. There was plenty of work to do, and with other hot spots and ongoing clandestine operations grabbing our attention, we were being tasked with all that much more. Then, in the midst of this activity came a memorandum from the State Department marked URGENT. Surprisingly, not all the Americans working at the embassy in Tehran had been captured. Somehow, a group of six, who had been working at the consulate and at another building, had managed to escape and make their way into the hostile streets of Tehran. For the moment they seemed to be safe, but the Iranians were closing in, and there was a chance they could be discovered at any moment.
4
NOWHERE TO RUN
The consulate had gone relatively unnoticed during the first minutes of the attack. Located on the northeast side of the U.S. embassy compound, the building’s squat, two-story concrete structure had recently been renovated to handle the massive influx of visa applicants. So many had come in the wake of the shah’s departure that getting the building adequately staffed had been a challenge. On the morning of November 4, there were ten Americans, along with about twenty Iranian employees, working inside. Among the Americans were Consul General Dick Morefield, vice consuls Richard Queen and Don Cooke, consul officers Robert Anders and Bob Ode, as well as the building’s only security officer, Marine Sergeant James Lopez, known among the staff as Jimmy. There were also two young married couples, Mark and Cora Lijek, and Joe and Kathy Stafford (an eleventh American, Gary Lee, would later join this group during the assault).
The Lijeks and Staffords were particularly close. Mark and Joe, both twenty-nine years old, had met the previous year in Washington while attending language school at the Foreign Service Institute. Despite being nearly polar opposites, the two had become good friends. Mark’s straight blond hair and boyish appearance was accentuated by a pair of large glasses that somehow made him appear even more youthful and innocent than he was. He was a guy you could talk to about anything, and he did like to talk. Joe, meanwhile, was the serious and quiet type. With a receding hairline and a neatly trimmed mustache, Joe was slightly shorter than his wife, and cultivated the look of an economics professor, complete with glasses, a sweater vest, and sport coat. The two friends had spent nearly seven hours a day together for six months and had gotten to know each other quite well. To Mark, who had a hard time figuring him out at first, Joe was a reserved, hardworking guy who would suddenly surprise you with his deadpan sense of humor. He liked pushing Mark’s buttons, and it was only after the fact that Mark would realize Joe had just been pulling his leg.
Fortunately for Mark and Joe, Cora and Kathy had hit it off as well. They were all young, eager, and for the most part excited to be in Tehran, which was their first posting. (And in fact they were not alone—many of the diplomats working at the Tehran embassy had been drawn there specifically for the sense of excitement, and danger, that the posting offered.)
Mark had thought about joining the Foreign Service during his sophomore year in high school when a friend had turned him on to the idea. Originally from Detroit but raised in Seattle, he headed east after high school to attend Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., on a ROTC scholarship. After graduating in 1974, he spent the next four years in the army, two of them working as a speechwriter for a high-ranking general. He eventually made it into the Foreign Service in 1978. His first choice of posting had been South America, but then he’d gotten a call from a junior officer asking him to volunteer for Iran. He thought about it. The shah was still in power at that point and it seemed like it might be an adventure. He said yes.
Cora, a vivacious twenty-five-year-old Asian American, had also been excited when she heard the news. Her parents had lived in Iran for four years when she was nineteen and she had visited twice. She thought it was an exotic place. She hadn’t been following the news and thought it was going to be a lot of fun to go back. By the time she’d landed at Mehrabad Airport, however, her opinion had changed significantly. By then the country was in the midst of the revolution and under the strict rule of Khomeini. Things had changed dramatically. The biggest difference for her was now seeing all the women in their black veils, or chadors. She remembered how before the revolution only a few women wore them, and even then they were always colorful, some with floral prints. Now everyone was covered head to toe in black.
Her friendship with Kathy had grown in Iran. Outgoing and sweet, with a small-town librarian’s wholesomeness, Kathy, who was twenty-eight and nearly a head taller than Cora, had studied art in college and hoped to one day become an artist.
Like the Lijeks and Staffords, most of the staff at the consulate were recent replacements or acquisitions. Almost all of them had been in the country for less than four months. None of these Americans had been in Iran for the February 14 attack, but they’d all heard about it. When the shah had been allowed into the United States, everyone had been briefed on the new security measures and was told to keep a low profile. The consulate had been attacked by rocket-propelled grenades during the summer, but it had been fortified since then. The building’s main entrance was from the street, but on the day of the attack Morefield had decided to close the consulate so some graffiti on the outside wall could be removed. Instead of the normal crush that morning, there were only about sixty Iranians who’d been permitted to keep their appointments.
Upstairs, Robert “Bob” Anders was in his office helping an older Iranian couple with their immigrant visas. On the tall side with bushy gray hair, Anders had the handsome looks of a B–level actor and was always ready with a smile (in fact, he’d even once played a priest as an extra in the film The Exorcist). At fifty-four, he was considered a bit of an old hand as far as the other consular officers were concerned. The Milwaukee native had served as a messenger for the Seventh Army during World War II, where he was wounded in the hand during a mortar attack around the time of the Battle of the Bulge. Upon returning home after the war, he attended Georgetown University and graduated in 1950. After failing to pass the foreign language part of the Foreign Servi
ce exam, he bounced around doing a variety of odd jobs until he was able to get a second chance. He took a probationary appointment and served for a time in Burma and Manila. Marital troubles, however, forced him out of the service. After a divorce and several more years of wandering the economic highway, Anders made it back into the Foreign Service working in the passport office as a GS5, the same level he’d started at more than twenty-five years earlier. A few years and several promotions later, he’d inquired about the chance to serve overseas once again. “How about Tehran?” they’d asked him. At that point the shah was still in power, and to Anders it seemed as good a place as any. But by the time he’d set out for the post, Khomeini had taken over, and by then it was too late to turn back.
News of the attack on November 4 reached the consulate when some female Iranian employees who’d gone to get cookies suddenly rushed back into the building. The ex–husband of one of the women was a policeman at the gate and he’d told her to get back inside. As they were hurrying back, the mob was already entering the compound.
While she was reporting back to the others what she’d heard, Jimmy Lopez’s radio suddenly squawked to life: “They are coming over the walls!”
It wasn’t long before the militants had converged on the consulate. A group rushed to the building’s back door and tried to smash it down. The door was made of bulletproof glass and was electronically sealed. It didn’t budge. Lopez watched as the militants fanned out. The consulate’s windows were protected by metal bars. Undeterred, the militants smashed through the glass and reached in, grabbing whatever they could off desks and out of file cabinets. Lopez hurried to the windows wielding his nightstick, trying to beat their arms back.
He heard Morefield shout, “Everyone upstairs!”
The staffers and Iranians quickly complied.
Bob Anders was still in his office on the second floor when Morefield hurriedly popped his head in and told him to quickly lock up. The Iranian couple Anders had been helping stood to leave, but Anders reminded the woman that she hadn’t yet completed her immigrant visa application. He watched as she signed her name. Her hand shook the entire time.
Everyone huddled on the second floor and waited. Cora was reassured by the fact that none of the American staffers seemed overly worried, but she noted that the same couldn’t be said for the Iranians, who kept their heads down and kept quiet. Like the other Americans, Cora had heard about the February 14 attack and thought it would all be over quickly. She sat down near a Filipina woman who was employed as a secretary, and to pass the time they struck up a conversation. As it turned out, the woman had been working at the embassy during the Valentine’s Day attack, and recounted how several Iranians had been shot during that first assault. This immediately sobered Cora up.
As they waited, they heard footsteps racing across the roof, followed by a loud pounding. “They’re trying to smash through the roof,” Cora heard someone say.
Then the power was cut and the building was thrown into darkness. Some of the Iranians moaned, but for the most part everyone remained calm—something Cora found remarkable. A few minutes later, however, everyone straightened up when they heard glass breaking somewhere on the second floor. It sounded as if a window had just been shattered. Waiting in the hallway, Lopez raced to investigate. A bathroom on the second floor had a window that wasn’t secured, so he headed there. Before entering, he pulled out his pistol, popped the spoon on a tear gas canister, and threw open the door. Inside, he found a lone Iranian climbing through the broken window. Seeing the marine, the militant quickly jumped back out through the opening and Lopez threw the canister out after him. He then popped the spoon on a second canister and tossed it into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. There was no way to lock the door, so he used some coat hangers from a nearby storage closet to wire it shut.
At that point, Morefield told everyone that he had just talked to Golacinski on the radio. The plan was for everyone to go out the back door and head over to the chancery as a group.
Mark looked out the window to see what was happening outside. The grounds were swarming with militants. A group of Iranians had smashed open the commissary door with some steel bars and had begun ransacking the place. Going out into that mess didn’t seem like a good idea to him.
As soon as they reached the back door, Morefield came to the same conclusion. By this time there was a ring of nearly a thousand militants surrounding the chancery screaming and cheering, and he realized the plan wasn’t going to work.
Doubling back, Morefield called the chancery and conferred with Ann Swift on the phone. She told him that someone had called the police, that help was on the way, and that everyone should sit tight and wait it out. Then Lopez got word on his radio that the militants had broken into the chancery. Since the consulate had a door that led out onto the street, at that point they realized their best option was to flee the compound, take their chances in the city streets, and try to make it to a friendly embassy.
Before leaving, Don Cooke smashed the visa plates with a steel bar so that they wouldn’t fall into the Iranians’ hands. Mark, who was in charge of the cashiering, debated taking all the money and stuffing it into his pockets as he locked up. In the end he decided against it. Much like everyone else, he was still under the assumption that they would all return in a few days and business would be back to usual. Several days later, when he was out on the streets and needed money, he would regret that decision.
The front entrance to the consulate opened onto a small side street far away from the chaos at the chancery. After unlocking the door, Richard Queen poked his head outside and was surprised to see that there were only a couple of Iranian police officers standing around. Other than that, the street was completely empty.
The plan was to let the Iranian visa applicants go first, then the Iranian employees, then the Americans. In order not to attract too much attention, Morefield suggested that the Americans split into two groups. Kim King, an American tourist who had overstayed his visa and had come to the consulate that day to get it sorted out, decided to head off on his own, and instantly disappeared.
Mark, Cora, Joe, Kathy, Bob Ode, and Lorraine, an American woman who had come to the consulate that day to get a visa for her Iranian husband, were all in the first group of Americans to leave. With them was an Iranian employee who said she could act as a guide to help them find the British embassy. Cora remembers that, as they left, for some reason one of the Iranian policemen checked everyone’s bags.
As they started off, Ode went back to help a blind Iranian man who said he was waiting for somebody to pick him up. Seeing the first group heading off, Bob Anders hurried after them and caught up.
They walked for about fifteen minutes down one of the side streets toward the British embassy. It was raining pretty heavily and it wasn’t long before they were completely soaked. Mark felt particularly conspicuous in the rain, wearing a three-piece suit without a raincoat. Cora and the Iranian woman had gotten out in front a little, and when they rounded a bend they were surprised to see that the British embassy was having its own problems. A huge crowd of demonstrators was out front, shouting and screaming and banging on the gates. The two women headed back to confer with the rest of the group. The British embassy was out. Where should they go now? As they discussed their options, they became increasingly aware that more and more Iranians were beginning to stare at them. The Iranian employee offered to take them to her house, but none of the Americans wanted to impose. Since Anders’s apartment was the closest, he suggested they go there to get dry and wait it out. Everyone agreed; the Iranian employee said good-bye and melted into the streets.
After helping the blind man into a car, Ode had joined the second group of Americans, consisting of Morefield, Lopez, Gary Lee, Richard Queen, and Don Cooke. They couldn’t have been more obvious. Unlike the first group, they’d decided to turn down a larger street that ran parallel to the embassy. They didn’t get far before a crowd of Iranians began shadowing
them, shouting, “CIA, CIA!” and “SAVAK!” Finally one of the policemen who had been checking bags outside the consulate ran up and fired his pistol into the air. “Stop!” he shouted. Morefield turned to him and explained that the building was empty and they could do with it whatever they wished. Soon an armed group of komiteh rushed to join the fracas, and they knew that was it. One of the militants grabbed him by the arm. “You are our hostage!” he said. Morefield was stunned. “Hostage for what?” he asked. It was the first inkling that this was more than just a simple demonstration. Much to their horror, they were declared prisoners and marched back to the embassy.
With Anders leading the way, the first group took a circuitous route back to his apartment, walking past a komiteh guard post in single file in order to avoid suspicion. The one-room apartment was on the ground floor of a two-story building, with an entrance right off the street. The street was quiet, however, and when the group got inside they finally felt safe. They dried off and Anders handed out whatever extra clothes he had. Mark received a bright yellow sweater. Great, he thought, they’re going to be able to spot me a mile away.
Next, Anders took some frozen leftover chicken curry out of the refrigerator, heated it up, and made everybody a late lunch.
Like all embassy personnel, he had a small standard-issue “lunchbox” escape-and-evade radio, and everybody crowded around it to listen. Events at the chancery were still unfolding. At this point Golacinski had been captured, but the Americans on the second floor had yet to surrender. Occasionally a voice would come on the net speaking Farsi, indicating that someone’s radio had been taken and the person most likely captured as well. They took note how as the day progressed more and more Farsi voices were coming on the net.
Someone calling himself by the code name Palm Tree was relaying information about the assault from somewhere off the compound. “Now they’re trying to break the lightning rods on the roof,” the voice said. “The idiots must think they’re the communications antennas or something.”
Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History Page 6