Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History (24 page)

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.

B
ack 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 analyst, 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.

My plan was to get my visa the following morning, on the twenty-third, before flying into Iran later the same evening. In the meantime, I had a lot to do and only a short amount of time to get it done.

I spent the morning of the twenty-second finalizing my alias documents package. OTS techs had been hard at work preparing my Kevin Costa Harkins alias even before I had arrived, but there were still a few details to work out, such as getting my photo taken. Since my cover was that of a European, I had to look the part. Back in the late seventies especially, there were several identifying traits that could peg you as an American just based on the style of clothes you wore. European shoes, for one, were very different. The importance of these subtle details could not be overstated. I had seen numerous case officers get tripped up despite having perfect documents because they were wearing obvious American brands. As any experienced covert officer knows, success is about paying attention to the little things. An OSS officer once told me that he’d kept alive in Italy behind enemy lines because he’d put a pebble in his shoe, which reminded him to limp since he needed an excuse for not being in the army.

For this reason, one of the first things I’d done in Frankfurt was
go shopping. The city had a large department store called Kaufhof, which was like a German version of Macy’s. It may seem humorous to picture a spy trying on outfits in the men’s section of a department store, but that is exactly what I did. At the time, trench coats were in vogue, so I picked one up, along with a change of clothes and, of course, shoes. Beyond the style, I made sure that anything I bought was as drab as possible. Anything flashy would just draw attention to myself. Buying the clothes would also give me pocket litter, which would help to lend credibility to my disguise.

Later that afternoon, we received a
FLASH
cable from Ottawa. Our first batch of six Canadian passports had arrived in Tehran, but Roger Lucy had discovered a problem. Lucy had gone down to the airport to retrieve the pouch, which had been flown into the country on an Iraqi Airways flight. The Revolutionary Guards would sometimes intercept the pouches of Western embassies and as a result the courier carrying it had been instructed to physically hand it to Lucy. Lucy had been collecting the diplomatic mail for nearly ten months by this point and was well known at the airport. The pouch was handed off to him without incident; however, after he’d returned to the embassy and examined the passports he found a flaw. Somehow the handwritten Farsi fill–in on the Iranian visas showed a date of issue sometime in the future. Lucy had taught himself Farsi and realized immediately that the problem lay in the fact that the Persian calendar begins on March 21. This meant that the visas would have been issued to the houseguests after they supposedly had already entered the country. As to how this had happened, I could only think that the Farsi linguist assisting our team in Ottawa had misinterpreted the Farsi calendar. Taylor and Lucy were both concerned that the mistake would set back our departure
by several days, something that would cause them a considerable headache, since they were planning on closing down their embassy almost immediately after we’d extracted the houseguests.

We fired a message back through Ottawa assuring Taylor that this was not a problem, since we could easily alter the mistake once we arrived in Tehran. In addition, these were the contingency passports, only to be used in the event that Julio and I couldn’t get into Iran. If that happened, then we would forward instructions to Taylor and Lucy so that they could correct the mistake themselves. However, if our insertion was successful, we would use the second set, which had yet to be imprinted with the operational visa.

By this time the Canadians were hastily closing up shop in Tehran and readying for the exfiltration of the houseguests, which was scheduled for Monday, January 28, the day of the Iranian national election. In preparation, Taylor had asked John and Zena Sheardown to return to Canada. For John Sheardown, who had really been the first person to welcome in the Americans, it was a very emotional farewell. The group gathered around the living room and John broke the news. As some of the houseguests would later explain, John wanted to tough it out until the end and felt like he was abandoning the houseguests, whom he had come to feel responsible for. The Sheardowns complained about having to leave, but in the end they had little choice. “I want to stay and finish the job,” he told them. The houseguests, for their part, encouraged the Canadians to go. They knew how much danger the Sheardowns had been in for harboring them and in some strange way they felt a sense of relief not to have to carry that burden anymore. Still, it was hard to say good-bye. As Bob Anders would later tell me, they felt as if their base of support and strength was being taken away.

After the Sheardowns had gone, the houseguests were on their own for a day or so, but felt nervous about what they might do if a person came to the door or the phone rang. At that point, Taylor gave Lucy the task of taking care of the six, and he left his place to move in with them. However, since Lucy was busy during the day helping Taylor at the embassy, a Canadian MP, known as Junior, was sent over to watch the house while Lucy was away.

The six Americans were a bit surprised by the Sheardowns’ hasty departure. But it also raised their suspicions that a plan might be in the works to get them out. Mark reasoned that since Zena didn’t have diplomatic immunity, it only made sense that she would leave before any sort of rescue operation was attempted. Earlier clues as to the possibility of their escape had come when Taylor had discussed the issue of whether they wanted to use Canadian or U.S. documentation. The mere fact that the question had been asked had indicated to the houseguests that a plan of some sort was being put together. However, since neither Sheardown nor Taylor had given them confirmation that someone was coming to get them out, they tried not to get their hopes up.