It wasn’t long before the Lijeks and Anders settled into a routine at the Sheardowns’. In the morning, everyone would tend to keep to themselves, waking up at different times and making their own breakfast. Early on this had been a challenge since the only way into the kitchen was past a large window and glass door, through which they could easily be seen by the gardener. Realizing it was going to be a long stay if they couldn’t use the kitchen, they devised a solution by smearing shoe polish on the glass, which obscured the view.
After breakfast they would either read or find other ways to pass the time. Anders took to sunning himself and exercising in the courtyard, and developed a surprisingly good tan. Cora, meanwhile, remembers sleeping a lot. Mark decided to try growing a beard, something he’d always wanted to do. In the early afternoon the group would congregate in the den to talk and wait for John to get home. Zena tended to stick to herself in the master bedroom.
The Staffords, for their part, followed a similar routine. After breakfast Joe would invariably gravitate toward the radio in the den, where he would listen to the hourly newscasts and jot down notes. In the afternoon Pat would come home and keep Kathy and Joe company until Ken came home later that evening. Shy at first, the rattled Staffords needed some time before they truly felt comfortable in front of their hosts. And even then, Joe was never quite able to get over the feeling that he and his wife were imposing on them.
In the early days of their stay, John Sheardown had a TV and so the Americans were introduced to the spectacle of the hostage crisis. As Anders and the Lijeks watched footage of their former colleagues being paraded in front of news cameras, the one salient detail that became painfully apparent was how poorly treated the hostages looked. Cora found the images particularly disturbing. It was a real wake–up call—as if they needed one—that they were incredibly lucky to have gotten out.
Among those paraded across the TV screen were some of their colleagues working at the consulate the day it was captured. The other group of six Americans had been marched back to the ambassador’s residence, where they spent the first few days of their captivity bound hand and foot to chairs in the mansion’s formal dining room. They were not permitted to talk, or lie down, or even bathe, for that matter. Some, including Dick Morefield, were forced to undergo mock executions, while others underwent the indignity of being beaten and made to lie for long periods of time on cold, wet concrete without so much as a blanket. Eventually, one by one, they were brought before a group of militants, where they were interrogated and accused of being spies working for the CIA. Kathryn Koob and Bill Royer fared no better. All of them, with the exception of Richard Queen, who was released in July 1980 for health reasons, would remain in captivity for 444 days.
On November 21, Taylor received a curious phone call from the Swedish ambassador, Kaj Sundberg. The ambassador sheepishly explained that he had a bit of a problem that he was hoping Taylor could help out with.
Around this time, the militants had been able to find two alias passports made for two of the suspected CIA officers stationed at the embassy and were ramping up their rhetoric about trying the captured Americans as spies. The fact that the two passports were found was a huge embarrassment to the U.S. government and the CIA. It was also a cause of great concern to the Swedish ambassador, who began to worry about the repercussions of harboring Lee Schatz. It was then that Sundberg thought of Taylor, and after explaining his situation, asked if the Canadian ambassador would be willing to help. Taylor didn’t bat an eye, telling the ambassador that since he already had five Americans, it would be easy to just add Schatz to the group. This news, and Taylor’s nonchalance, flustered the Swedish ambassador, who’d had no idea that there were other Americans who had escaped.
While the Americans staying with the Canadians had been on the run, Lee Schatz had passed the time at Cecilia Lithander’s high-rise apartment in northern Tehran. He spent his days reading and avoiding the housekeeper, who came practically every morning. Cecilia had explained to the housekeeper that Lee was a friend of hers who was visiting, but he found it awkward to be hanging around every day while she did her cleaning. In the evening, Cecilia would come home and they would eat dinner and talk about any new developments in the hostage crisis. Some days they would take walks in the neighborhood, wandering through the crowded local market. No one ever bothered him, and it didn’t occur to Lee that he might be running a risk. “When you are a diplomat, you never think it is going to happen to you,” he would later say. He had kept in constant touch with Joe Stafford by phone, and knew the other five Americans had found a home and were safe, but he didn’t know where. For security reasons, neither told the other where they were staying. After two weeks, however, what was initially looking like a temporary situation was becoming more and more permanent, and the Swedish government was growing nervous.
Schatz wasn’t told about the call between the Swedish ambassador and Ken Taylor, or the fact that he was going to be moved. He remembers being in Cecilia’s apartment one day when he suddenly heard a key jiggling in the lock. The sound startled him, since Cecilia had already gone off to work and the cleaning lady had the day off. He braced for the possibility that a crowd of angry Iranians might burst through the door. Instead it was just Cecilia, who told him she had some important news. “We made arrangements for you to leave and I really can’t tell you any more than that. Someone will be here in a few minutes and you are to go with them. Don’t worry—it’s okay,” she told him.
Schatz was instantly spooked. Fuck me, he thought. This does not sound good.
He put the few things he had acquired into a backpack, including a sixteen-foot collapsible ruler, which for some reason he’d had with him on the day of the attack.
John Sheardown, meanwhile, was on his way over from the Canadian embassy, and had decided to play a little joke on Schatz. When Cecilia let him into the apartment, rather than introduce himself, he played the part of the tough guy and simply said, “You got everything?” Schatz looked him up and down and nodded. In his mind he was already beginning to wonder if this mysterious visitor was from the CIA.
Sheardown steered him out of the apartment and down to the waiting car, again without saying a word. When Schatz saw that there was a second car idling behind them, it seemed to prove his suspicions about Sheardown. I can’t believe there are a bunch of CIA guys running around in all this mess, he thought. Once they were in the car, however, Sheardown turned to him and disabused him of his fantasy by smiling and introducing himself. “You’re going to come and stay with me,” he said.
Schatz nodded, relaxing a little. “Okay, that sounds good,” he replied. He still had no idea that the other Americans were there and was thrilled when he entered the Sheardowns’ living room to see Cora and Mark Lijek and Bob Anders waiting for him. He wasn’t close with the Lijeks or Anders, but he knew them through embassy functions. It was a great relief to see their faces and to know that he was among friends. Given the circumstances, it seemed like an ideal place to ride out the storm.
News of the houseguests wouldn’t reach me until mid-December. Often, the only time to get any work done was after everyone had gone home, and since I lived about an hour’s drive outside Washington, sometimes I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. All of us were working around the clock, but I never heard anyone down at the office complaining. I was standing at my desk one morning having just come from the washroom, where I’d splashed water on my face, when Max, the chief of graphics, along with my deputy, Tim, showed up in my doorway. Max had a copy of a document in his hand, and he waved it about as he walked in.
“Have you seen this?” he said. “Some Americans have escaped from the embassy in Tehran.”
By this time I had been promoted from chief of disguise to chief of the authentication branch, and was now in charge of creating and maintaining the myriad false identities and disguises the CIA was using worldwide. I had a large staff of experts in all phases of identity alteration who could pe
netrate any border undetected, duplicate almost any document, alter anyone’s appearance, even change their gender if that’s what the job required.
Historically, the chief of the authentication branch was an officer who’d come from our document analysts’ ranks—or what we would have considered to be one of our best and brightest. The joke was that they were the only officers in our midst who could write (or spell). The fact was they were operationally more astute than some of our PhD technical officers and had a broader appreciation of the lifeblood of intelligence, which is communications. The work of our document analysts involved languages, area knowledge, travel, and writing—all skills highly valued in the CIA’s culture.
I had decided to put my name in the mix when I heard that the chief of OTS operations, Fred Graves, was looking to replace a branch chief. Graves was a man who, on the surface, appeared to be as hard as nails. You would swear he was a former marine—he certainly swore like one—but he was not. He had been a cadet at the Citadel and had acquired a military bearing and point of view that served him well in a CIA culture that was, in fact, modeled after the U.S. military. Fred needed to replace Ricardo, the chief of the graphics branch, who was retiring. When he asked Ricardo who should be his replacement, Ricardo said it should be me. Quite a compliment, actually, but it was not my cup of tea.
“I have another suggestion,” I’d said to Graves, sitting in his office in South Building. The GSA-issued furniture was only a backdrop to Fred’s unique brand of decorating. Most visitors walked away the first time with the wording on a shade on his door burned into their mind. THE SALOON IS OPEN, it read—or CLOSED, depending on whether or not he was in a meeting.
“We give a lot of lip service around here to cross-training our future managers. Why not get somebody from authentication down to run graphics and make me chief of the authentication branch—the first guy from graphics to do that?” I had said.
“Not bad,” he’d responded, nodding his head. “I’ll get back to you, Mendez. But remember, you can’t be out on trips, gallivanting around the world. You’ll need to be back here, managing the branch.”
“Yes, sir!” I’d said, trying to sound like a good marine, resisting the compulsion to snap a salute. Backing out the doorway, I bumped into a brass plaque that read: IF YOU’VE GOT THEM BY THE BALLS, THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS WILL FOLLOW. We all loved Fred Graves; we really did. There was something very tender lurking inside that barrel chest.
Thanks to my new promotion, it seemed as if my workload had nearly tripled in light of the hostage crisis. Because I was immersed in too many meetings at both Langley and Foggy Bottom and had many other matters that required my direct attention, I had instructed my secretary, Elaine, to send copies of important correspondence that required action directly to the line supervisor concerned.
So I was not surprised when Max and Tim walked into my office that morning with a copy of the State Department memo in their hands.
Max handed me the memorandum and took a seat while I looked it over. Tim sat at the conference table in front of my desk, scanning a copy of the same message.
The memo was addressed to CIA’s Central Cover staff, which handles all cover requirement. It was requesting the CIA’s advice about a potential exfiltration of six American diplomats who had escaped from the U.S. embassy in Tehran and were now in the care of the Canadians. It did not request that we take the lead in any rescue, but that we be available to consult during the planning stages. There was not a lot of information in the memorandum—certainly not enough to make any decisions.
I read it and thought it sounded interesting, but in the context of the hostage crisis it didn’t seem like a top-tier requirement. It did not sound urgent. While not stated precisely, by omission it seemed to imply that the six Americans were settled, were safe, and could weather another few weeks or months without danger. I was inclined to put it aside to concentrate on helping to rescue the hostages at the embassy.
The original plan to deal with the houseguests, it seems, had been to sit tight and wait it out. In his early communications with the Canadian government, Taylor had discussed the possibility of creating contingency plans in case the houseguests might have to be evacuated, but once they had been settled, and were relatively safe, the thinking in Ottawa, as well as at the U.S. State Department, was that the situation at the U.S. embassy should take precedence. Once the hostages were released, they reasoned, the problem with the houseguests would work itself out.
After Lee Schatz had joined the other Americans at the Sheardowns’, a couple of weeks had passed without incident. They’d spent the majority of their time reading. Sheardown had a pretty extensive library, including many spy thrillers by John le Carré. Occasionally the group would get together to play cards or board games. One of their favorites was Scrabble. A born competitor, Schatz took the game very seriously. His main rival was Anders, who had a knack for the game. After a grueling duel, Schatz pored through a two-volume British dictionary that Sheardown had on the shelf. It wasn’t long before he found a killer word—“dzo”—that helped him improve his score. When a skeptical Anders shook his head, Lee pulled out the dictionary. “Here it is,” he said triumphantly. “Dzo—a cross between a cow and a yak.”
Thanks to a fluke, the house’s basement was filled with all manner of beer, wine, and hard liquor, and the houseguests wasted no time depleting the stores. This largesse was because the Canadian embassy had been next in line to host the Friday night party—the weekly bender held at a different Western embassy each week. The tradition was discontinued after the takeover, but not before the liquor had been transferred to Sheardown’s house. Eventually, they’d drunk so much that Sheardown had to get creative in disposing of the empties, which had been piling up. His solution was to parcel them out and take them with him to the Canadian embassy.
By all accounts, the highlight of their day was the evening meal, fondly remembered by all as a kind of traditional Norman Rockwell moment each night. John would come home from work and everyone would gather at the dinner table to hear the news. Since Sheardown’s TV had broken a week or so after the houseguests had arrived, they relied on John to keep them informed on events happening in the outside world. The vibe got to be so familial that Anders took to calling Sheardown “Big Daddy.”
On certain occasions, the Staffords would be driven over, giving the group a chance to catch up. On Thanksgiving, the Canadians threw a traditional dinner for everyone, which went a long way in helping to cheer them up.
They also had visitors. Roger Lucy, the first secretary of the Canadian embassy, was a frequent guest. Lucy, who was then thirty-one, had been in Switzerland visiting friends when the takeover had happened, but had since been brought up to speed on everything. He’d originally arrived in Iran in the fall of 1978, just days before the shah had declared martial law, and had been instrumental in helping Taylor organize the mass exodus of Canadian citizens out of Iran. An adventurous type, Lucy would become an important member of the local team looking out for the houseguests. Anders would later recall the first time he met Lucy at one of these early dinners. He described him as a character right out of Rudyard Kipling, with a bushy mustache and little circular glasses, wearing a pith helmet and carrying a little staff.
Two other frequent visitors would be ambassadors Troels Munk from Denmark and Chris Beeby from New Zealand. Beeby would prove to be especially helpful as the crisis evolved, going above and beyond what anyone had asked of him, including bringing in a case of contraband beer for the houseguests. Coals to Newcastle, perhaps, but welcome nonetheless.
For the most part, however, the houseguests tried to keep a low profile. Despite their living situation, the threat of discovery was still very real. On more than one occasion, the Taylors’ staff asked pointed questions about the Staffords, wondering why if they were tourists they always stayed indoors. The worry that an unexpected visitor might suddenly show up unannounced meant that the Americans tended to stay in the back of t
he house, or often shut up in their rooms. One evening, for instance, Taylor had ABC News correspondent Peter Jennings over for dinner. Jennings was one of the many Western journalists who had come to Iran to cover the hostage crisis. While the two were enjoying their dinner, the Staffords huddled in their room upstairs, worried they might make an inadvertent sound and be discovered.
On certain occasions Roger Lucy was asked to drive the Lijeks, Bob Anders, and Lee Schatz over to his own house. The owner of the house that Sheardown was living in was trying to sell it and would come over with prospective buyers from time to time. Lucy remembers these trips as being tremendously nerve-racking; one time they even got caught in the snow and Lucy had to ask a group of Iranians to help dig them out.
The houseguests were allowed to write letters home once a week, but it wasn’t long before they ran out of things to say. In one of his early letters to his parents, Mark wrote, “We are in a safe place but I can’t tell you where. If something happens to us you’ll probably know because it will be on the TV or you’ll get a call from the State Department, but unless something like that happens, you’ll know we are okay.”
As the weeks stretched on, concern began to grow among the Canadians that the secret of the Americans would get out. Amazingly, the local newspaper in Lee Schatz’s hometown of Post Falls, Idaho, ran a story about his hiding out at “at an undisclosed location in Iran” after the State Department told his mother he was safe but apparently forgot to tell her not to tell the press. In another instance, during a telephone interview, an American citizen named Kim King, who had been at the consulate the day of the takeover, told a local reporter that he was one of nine Americans who had been able to escape the embassy on the day of the attack. Though these stories surprisingly didn’t take hold in the United States, rumors began circulating in the Iranian press about the possibility that some Americans were hiding out in Tehran.
Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History Page 9