In The Article “The
Great Escape” by Joshua Bearman Tony Mendez was head of Disguise and
Authentication chief for his division for the CIA. Over time Mendez would to
try to rescue the hostages from the Canadian Ambassador house. Soon after he
came up with an idea that he felt best suited his skills as part of the CIA.
His plan was to give the Americans who were held hostage at the Canadian
Ambassador a false identity to walk out of the Mehrabad Airport. For his plan
to work he would have to sneak in himself to organize and lead the escapes for
his plan to be successful.
According to
Joshuah Bearman “Mendez knew that rescuing the hostages alone couldn’t be done by
using his real name, so he decided to give himself a false identity as “Kevin
Costa Harkin,” an Irish film producer.” He would call his Hollywood friend by
the name of John Chambers, a veteran make up artist who won an academy award
for Planet Of the Apes in 1969. They would come up with a production company by
the name of “Studio Six Productions.” The name comes from the six hostages they
plan to rescue from the Canadian Ambassador.
According to
Bearman “Their plan was to pretend that they were going into Iran to film a
movie based off a previous script writing by Chambers long ago that evaporated
due to funds.” The name of the script was “Tale of Hindu-inspired a mystical
science fiction.” Mendez agreed and quickly changed the name of the script to
“Argo.” Meaning a vessel used by Jason on his daring adventure across the world
to retrieve the Golden Fleece. He was sent into Iran after getting a cable
approval from president Carter to produce his film.
Mendez would fly
into Europe where he obtained visa’s from the Iranian consultant and six
passports that the Canadian government issued to him. He turned the six
passports into “real fakes” which were genuine documents that were prepared by
the Canadian government for the Hollywood aliases devised by the CIA. Canadians
law prohibits any counter fit for these documents but country parliament held
an emergency secret session to make an exception. This was the first since
World War II. Mendez met up with the six hostages the day before at the
ambassador’s place for dinner, where he explained to them that he had prepared
to rescue them from Tehran. Soon after Mendez gave them the details about the
escape plan and it took them four days to get ready for their escape.
While back at home
at Studio Six Production studios they were getting busier by the day as the
news for the movie film continue to get out. They had three lines two for
business calls and one line was for if the plan was to fail or if the plan was
a success. The hostages haven’t been in public for almost 80 days before they
entered the airport. As they proceed through the airport some of the hostages
began to get a bit worried as if the plan wasn’t going to work. Once the
Iranian officer disappeared with the rest of the passports everyone kept their
heads down as the airport began to fill up with people. Once they announced that
their plane was ready for departure one of the hostages realized that the name
of the plane was similar to the name of the plane in the cover story, as he sat
down on the plane and asked Mendez “you guys planned everything didn’t you?”
Mendez smiled as everyone order themselves a drink and he turned and looked
back at the group and said “We’re home free.” a few hours later the production
company third line rings and they get the good news that they made it out.
WORK CITED
Bearman, Joshuah. "The Great
Escape." N.p., n.d. Web.
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