Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History

by Antonio Mendez

  Now that we had Studio Six up and running, the next step would be to build up the portfolio, assign the houseguests their roles, and work on their secondary documentation. I knew we had a very small window in which to get this done, so we had to move fast.

  Joe Missouri had recently returned from Canada and I put him on the task of fleshing out the backstories for each of the houseguests. I had nothing but confidence in Joe. He could invent any story for any situation. I had shared with him some of the notes that Calloway and Sidell had given me about the various roles that each houseguest would most likely play as well as their credits. It would be Joe’s task to look at the personalities and ages of the houseguests and come up with the plausible jobs for each. For instance, we learned that Kathy Stafford had had an art background, so he made her the art director.

  I can remember seeing Joe at his desk, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he plucked away at his manual typewriter. Joe was as bright as they come and fit the mold of a new breed that was immersed in the world around him. He was having fun, and would occasionally come to show me what he’d done. In order to make it easier for the houseguests to remember who they were, Joe had come up with the ingenious trick of using details from their real lives. For example, in coming up with the name for Mark Lijek’s alias, “Joseph Earl Harris,” Joe had used the first and middle names of Cora’s father. Likewise, for the birth date of Mark’s alias, he’d used Cora’s father’s birthday.

  Trying to memorize an alias can be a daunting task, especially if your life depends on it. Sometimes you can’t help but get confused, especially when you’re traveling on multiple documents. I remember one instance when I traveled to Moscow on an alias and was checking in at a hotel when the clerk said, “Okay, Mr. Mendez, we have you staying two nights.” Without breaking stride, I slid across my alias passport and said, “Oh, Mendez couldn’t make it. I came instead.” Inadvertently, somehow the reservation had been made in my real name. In fact, sometimes when you sign into an embassy you can spot the people who have momentarily forgotten who they are supposed to be because they have signed in under one name, then scratched it out to write a different one in its place.

  When he was finished, Joe had taken the roles of various members of the production party and rewritten them in the form of résumés. Not only would this help the houseguests to learn their aliases, but it could also be carried out in the open in the production manager’s portfolio, which would lend credibility to my own cover.

  While this was going on, I met with Truman, our chief of production, to talk about the Studio Six business cards. Each houseguest would be given his or her own card, which contained the individual’s title and the phone number of our LA office. I had thought of an idea while on the trip back from LA and ran it by him. “How about a big red number six on them,” I said, “made out of film strips.” He nodded his agreement. I also handed him the exemplars for the guild cards that Calloway and Sidell had “borrowed” from their friends, as well as the script and Jack Kirby’s sketches. For the script we would need to take out any reference to the previous title and insert “Argo.” For the sketches, I wanted some of the illustrators from the bullpen to create their own versions of outer space creatures and far-out drawings, as if our art director had been working on her own ideas. I realized this was a strange request, but I had nothing but confidence in our artist-validators, who were hired because of their ability to do it all. No task seemed out of their reach, including fine technical schematics and forged writing. Most were blue-collar “tradesmen” who prided themselves on their quirkiness. They were a unique breed of cat in the midst of our bureaucratic organization. They were difficult to manage. More than once they threatened to go on strike. But they were highly competent at what they did.

  Truman, who was originally a typesetter, fit right into the mold of these blue-collar types. As chief of production, Truman oversaw anything we might need in the graphics department. He would assign a number to each of the jobs that came into the graphics branch and attach that number to a large manila envelope known as a job jacket. This was how the progress of the job was traced and the hours tracked from section to section. This was, of course, because almost every graphics job required multiple departments. OTS had ink experts, paper experts, photo experts, even a printing press at its disposal.

  Once I had given them the guild cards, the artists would pore over them from every angle. It’s not enough for a document to look right. It also has to feel right. For instance, how does it sound when you crinkle it? So you examine the paper and go down to your paper stock and get the one that fits. The same goes for laminated IDs. If someone is going to stop you in the middle of the night to examine your ID, he may not even be able to see it, but he can certainly feel it. Maybe one of the traps is that the laminate is sticky. All of these things are factored into how the graphics branch reproduces documents.

  Allen Dulles said it best: “Any intelligence service worth its salt can make the other fellow’s currency.” In other words, every nation needs to have its own airtight security measures, while at the same time be actively working in secret to reverse engineer those of the enemy faster then they can invent them.

  After we had fleshed out the portfolio, the next job would be to work on the houseguests’ travel documentation. Now that we knew who they were, we had to show how they’d gotten into Iran in order to get them out.

  This is not as easy as it sounds, as it entailed not only booking tickets but also inserting the various cachets and border stamps into the houseguests’ passports to show that they had indeed followed the particular itinerary we were saying they did. The process is always complex and involves dozens of highly skilled technical officers working in tandem. In this case we had decided on an around-the-world itinerary, with the houseguests making their final flight into Iran from Hong Kong. What this meant was that Joe needed to go to our archives and look up the particular cachet that was used by the immigration officer at Hong Kong the day the houseguests were said to have departed. This is why it is so important to continually update the travel records and why the CIA is constantly launching probes, sending officers or agents through areas to update our database. After finding the right cachet, Joe would then send it to the chief of production, whose job it was to see it through the various phases involving numerous departments within OTS. When the process was complete, Joe would be handed a travel document with an appropriate cachet stamped into it. But that would be for just one country. Imagine having to insert dozens of stamps into one travel document. Further, imagine hundreds of operations going on simultaneously, and you get an idea of the complex nature of the work going on in the graphics department.

  To complete our scenario, Doris was busy putting together some disguise materials. These would be included in the bag that would eventually be sent by Ottawa to the Canadian embassy in Tehran. Since I was going to be heading into Iran, I was a little bit more hands–on than normal, and she would come to me from time to time with a progress report. Because of the houseguests’ inexperience in wearing sophisticated disguises, we chose to emphasize basic behavioral and visual clues for them to masquerade behind. Diplomats are traditionally conservative in their appearance; we would encourage them to become more flamboyant, edgier, sexier. Lots of perfume and aftershave, shirts unbuttoned, tight pants, gold chains, loud jewelry, hair blow-dried—outfits that they never would have chosen. Their behavior would have to change too: they would need to be louder, more aggressive, more histrionic, arrogant even. In short, all the stereotypes that an outsider would associate as characteristics of a person who worked in Hollywood.

  We also didn’t know how much space we were going to have, since the disguise materials would have to fit in the same bag along with all the documents. Doris came back with a small do–it–yourself kit for each of the houseguests, which included products such as styling gel, makeup, mod-style glasses, eyeliner, etc., as well as a typed sheet of detailed instructions on how the housegue
sts could alter their appearance. The props kit also included the viewfinder that Sidell had picked up for the cameraman to wear around his neck, as well as the materials I would be bringing with me in the portfolio, such as the script and sketch pad.

  With headquarters and the State Department still vacillating about the various cover options, I wrote an updated version of the operations plan in which I laid out my idea of taking all three options with me into Iran. I would then present them to the houseguests and let them decide whether they wanted to leave individually or as a group and choose which cover they preferred. It wasn’t an ideal scenario, but with so many different governmental organizations involved, I felt it was the only way we could get there in time. I also knew that since I was going to be the one to present the options to the houseguests, I could help steer them in the direction I thought we should go. Anything was better than just sitting around and waiting for the bureaucrats to make up their minds. I knew the Canadians were getting nervous as well. It was time to get our diplomats out before it was too late.

  About a week after my return from California, everything was ready. Joe and I hopped on a plane and flew to Ottawa to load the pouch.

  As soon as we were in Canada, Joe and I set about finalizing the documents and collecting yet more pocket litter, such as maple leaf pins, matchbooks, business cards, receipts—this time, things that would give the houseguests the appearance of being Canadian citizens.

  The Canadian pouch turned out to be the size of a pillowcase, barely big enough for our exfiltration kit of documents and disguise materials. The Canadian couriers apparently had a much easier time than the typical U.S. State Department courier, who usually accompanies several mailbag-sized pouches. The Canadian courier is allowed only one bag, and he keeps it with him at all times. So here was a final setback: some of our extra disguise materials would have to be left behind.

  Before flying to Canada, I had done a review of all the materials we had collected for the scenario of U.S. English teachers and I realized that it could possibly lead to an embarrassing situation. The Canadians had succeeded in getting backstopped Canadian documents for their proposed scenario—driver’s licenses, Canadian health cards, business cards for nutritionists—while permission from the various agencies for the CIA to obtain similar backstopped alias documents for the schoolteacher scenario had been too slow in coming. I remember going to the chief of graphics at seven p.m. the day before leaving to ask what he had on file. The only thing he could find was a credit card for a major department store. I thought it was better than nothing, but when I called Fred Graves, the chief of OTS operations, to ask if we could use the credit card, his response was essentially “Nope.” As a result, the U.S. alias document packages were going to be terribly outclassed by the Canadians’. In fact, the only reason for sending these U.S. alias documents was to appease one of the policy-making levels in the operations planning. But I was experienced enough to know that this comes with the territory. Besides, I didn’t bear them any ill will. I knew they were only doing what they thought was best for their people.

  If our Canadian counterparts took inventory of the documents when we loaded the pouch, we knew we would look fairly silly. This bothered us. As soon as we arrived at the U.S. embassy in Ottawa the next morning, we made the rounds collecting business cards and other wallet stuffers to fill out our package.

  As it turned out, the Canadians didn’t examine the contents of the bag. Embarrassment avoided.

  We had six Canadian passports and twelve U.S. passports. Of course, we had already forwarded a set of six Canadian passports, so this meant we had a redundant capability for both nationalities. For the first set, OTS techs in Canada had already forged the visas, which had come from a country in Europe. But for the second set, the operational visas had been left blank. Julio and I would complete the visas and entry cachets on the ground in Tehran, giving us some last-minute on–site flexibility.

  Lastly, a highly detailed set of instructions on the use of the documents and on the final briefing of the subjects had also been prepared for easy reference—written by nonexperts—while airline tickets were enclosed showing around-the-world itineraries. I felt good as I left Canada, knowing that we were a few steps closer to getting the houseguests out.

  Back home in Washington, I began preparing for the next phase of the operation, which would be to travel to our OTS office in Europe. There, I planned to link up with Julio, prepare my alias documents, and get my visa.

  Before leaving, however, I paid a final visit to OTS. As I was walking down the hallway, I happened to pass Fred Graves’s office. “Mendez!” he called after me as I walked by, sounding a lot like a marine corps drill instructor. “You are not out there in the field anymore having fun!” he shouted. “You’ve got to come back here and manage—you are no longer an operator!” I knew it was just Graves’s way of keeping me on my toes, but it was also a good reminder that if anything went wrong my ass was on the line.

  The following evening I drove with Karen to Dulles International Airport. With my kids, I had tried not to make a big deal of the departure. They were teenagers by this point and had more important things to worry about. Karen was different. As we pulled up to the curb at the airport, I could tell she was worried. I also knew that she understood the importance of what I had to do.

  We had said good-bye numerous times before. It almost had a rhythm to it. It wasn’t like looking down the barrel of a gun and your life flashing by. It was more of a tradition, knowing there was danger ahead but that it could probably be managed. Of course, we all think we can manage it until we can’t. There was always a heavy sadness when I left on one of these jobs. I had last been overseas on the exfiltration operation in April, nine months before, when I had rescued RAPTOR. Karen had known then, as she knew now, that I would be in danger, but she never knew the details. Not before, not even after. It was better that way.

  I took the key out of the ignition and turned to face Karen. Pulling her toward me, I kissed her and held her close for a long moment. I could feel her heartbeat. There was a pause—we just sat there not saying anything. She finally broke the silence. “You need to get a real job,” she said.

  “This is a real job,” I said. “It’s a good job.”

  “You need to get another job,” she said.

  I got out of the car and swung my bags out of the trunk. Karen got out too and walked around the car to where I was holding the driver’s door open. I handed her my wedding ring—officers always use cover legends of single people. I could have left the ring at the office. Or on my dresser. But the handing of my ring to Karen was part of our tradition. “Here,” it said, “keep this for me and I’ll be back to get it.” We never said those words. But they were the words. “I’ll be back.”

  As she drove away and left me at the curb, a momentary wave of sadness passed over me. I hoped I would be able to keep my promise.

  12

  GETTING READY TO LAUNCH

  I arrived in Europe on the morning of January 22. I planned to meet up with Julio before my final launch into Tehran, which was tentatively set for January 23. Julio would follow one day later, which would give us redundancy in case one of us didn’t make it. Julio and I had been in communication for some time as I finalized the details of my documents package with the OTS office in Europe. The plan was for the two of us to apply for Iranian visas separately in different European cities, and then to link back up in Frankfurt before finally infiltrating Iran. In case neither of us had any luck, I had already arranged a fallback position. One of our colleagues in Europe had an OTS-issued alias passport he used from time to time. Early on, I had instructed him to obtain an Iranian visa in this passport so we would have an exemplar, an original and up–to–date version of the actual visa. He had no problem getting the visa, and if necessary, I would piggyback on his alias if I wasn’t able to get one of my own.

  We had about ten people working on the Argo operation in Frankfurt: a document anal
yst, a disguise officer, and a half dozen people from graphics. The chief of our local office was in the middle of things with his cigar fired up at all times, but was not what we would call hands–on. His deputy, Al, on the other hand, was very much involved. A lawyer by training who had also taken a degree in engineering, Al was a high-energy, insightful, meticulous man who understood the nuances of what we were about to undertake. He was a good man to have on our team, grounded and careful.

  On the morning of January 21, the same day I left Washington, Julio had traveled to Geneva on his alias passport to apply for his Iranian visa there. The reason it is so important to get a legal visa is because it’s very easy to check to see if the person you are claiming issued you your visa was actually on duty that day. It was also important to have an exemplar to compare to the OTS forgeries we had prepared for the houseguests and sent along to Tehran. As a part of their security measures, countries were constantly changing their stamps, or inserting traps or other such devices that would signal the document had been forged. During my first assignment at the Agency as an artist-validator, it had been my job to study these stamps to look for irregularities and traps. They could be anything from a slightly faded letter to the color of the ink. I remember one country specifically used cheap staples that rusted easily. If they examined the visa and didn’t see this rust on the staple, then they would know that something was not right.

  By the time I had arrived in Frankfurt, Julio had already returned from Geneva with his visa. “No problem,” he said, holding up his freshly stamped passport. “They seemed eager to have me visit their country.” Despite being almost milky white, he’d had no trouble convincing the clerk that he was an associate producer from South America. Of course, I’d never doubted him for a second. The genius of spies like Julio is that they could be almost anybody. There was nothing remarkable about his appearance in any way. He was of average height, weight, and build; his hair was thinning and he wore glasses. He was an everyman. When coupled with his.talent for mastering foreign languages, he was a chameleon.