Canadian Caper

Americans were grateful for Canadian efforts to rescue American diplomats during the Iran hostage crisis.

The "Canadian Caper" was the popular name given to the joint covert rescue by the Canadian government and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of six American diplomats who had evaded capture during the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran, Iran, and taking of embassy personnel as hostages by Islamist students and militants on November 4, 1979.

The "caper" involved two CIA agents (Tony Mendez and a man known as "Julio") joining the six diplomats to form a fake film crew made up of six Canadians, one Irishman and one Latin American who were finished scouting for an appropriate location to shoot a scene for the notional sci-fi film Argo. The charade was carried off on the morning of Monday, January 28, 1980, at the Mehrabad Airport in Tehran. The eight Americans successfully boarded a Swissair flight to Zurich, Switzerland, and escaped Iran.

Sanctuary

Robert Anders, Cora Amburn-Lijek, Mark Lijek, Joseph Stafford, Kathleen Stafford and Lee Schatz were the six American diplomats who were harbored by Canadian diplomats Ken Taylor and John Sheardown and exfiltrated from Tehran in 1980. They were working in the consulate, a separate building in the embassy compound, when the Iranians swarmed over the wall. Two groups of diplomats fled into Tehran's streets with orders to walk to the British Embassy: The Anders group, along with two Americans seeking services (one eventually obtained an exit visa and was able to get a plane out of Iran with the help of a local embassy employee); and another group, including Consul General Richard Morefield, that took an indirect route and was soon captured and returned to the compound. The Anders group neared the British embassy but saw a huge crowd staging a protest in their path. Robert Anders invited the others to his home, as he lived nearby. That began a six-day odyssey as the group, aided by Thai cook Somchai "Sam" Sriweawnetr, went from house to house and spent one night at the British residential compound. After three days, the Bazargan government fell, and everyone realized the ordeal would not be over quickly. Looking for options, Anders contacted his old friend John Sheardown , a Canadian immigration officer, and received an enthusiastic invitation for the entire group. On November 10, the five arrived at the Sheardown residence, where, in addition to John and Zena Sheardown, they were greeted by Canadian Ambassador Taylor. The Staffords joined Ken and his wife Pat at their home, while the other three stayed with the Sheardowns. Two weeks later, Lee Schatz, from the US Agriculture Department, joined the Staffords at the Taylor home. He had initially slept on the floor at the Swedish embassy and had then stayed at the apartment of Swedish consul Cecilia Lithander. The six were now in hiding and would remain there for 79 days.

Movie poster created by the CIA as part of the cover story

The operation itself was initiated at great personal risk by then Canadian ambassador to Iran, Ken Taylor, and Canadian immigration officer John Sheardown who provided sanctuary in their own private residences for the six endangered American diplomats. Two "friendly-country" embassy officials assisted as well, and an unoccupied diplomatic residence was used for several weeks.

Ambassador Taylor contacted then Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs Flora MacDonald and Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark for assistance, who expressed support for the effort. They decided to smuggle the six Americans out of Iran on an international flight using Canadian passports. To do so, an Order in Council was made for the issuance of Canadian passports to the American diplomats in Canadian sanctuary. The granted passports contained a set of forged Iranian visas prepared by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency that would be used to attempt an escape from Iran.

The CIA enlisted its disguise and exfiltration expert, Tony Mendez, to provide a cover story, documents, appropriate clothing, and materials to change their appearance. Mendez worked closely with Canadian government staff in Ottawa, who forwarded the passports and other supporting material to the Canadian embassy through a Canadian diplomatic courier. Mendez then flew to Tehran with an associate known as "Julio" to assist with the rescue. Julio and Mendez had previously worked together in the CIA's Office of Technical Service (OTS) branch. There were alternate passports and identities for a variety of scenarios, but the cover story selected had the six being a Hollywood crew scouting movie locations. The elaborate back-story involved a film named Argo, for a Middle-Eastern feel, and a functioning office in Hollywood set up with the help of John Chambers, a veteran Hollywood make-up artist. The script used had been based on the 1967 Roger Zelazny science fiction novel Lord of Light. The six were told that telephone calls to the "Studio Six" office in Los Angeles would be answered. Display ads for the "Studio Six" production were placed in Hollywood publications and one paper was carried by Cora Lijek as part of her cover materials.

A mistake was made in dating the visas. Whoever prepared them was unaware that the Iranian year begins in late March. One of the Canadian embassy officers spotted the mistake while checking the documents. Thanks to the inclusion of extra passports, Mendez was able to insert new visa stamps with dates based on the Iranian calendar.

As the weeks passed, the Americans read and played games, mainly cards and Scrabble, while Taylor made efforts to fly out non-essential personnel. Taylor sent others on fake errands to establish erratic patterns and to case airport procedures. Tension rose as suspicious telephone calls and other activity indicated that their concealment may have been discovered.

Rescue

Early in the morning on Monday, January 28, 1980, Mendez, "Julio", and the six American diplomats, traveling with real Canadian passports and forged entry documents, made it easily through security at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport. After a short delay because of mechanical difficulties with the jet airliner, the group of eight boarded Swissair flight 363 for Zurich, Switzerland. By coincidence, the aircraft was named Aargau, after the Aargau canton in northern Switzerland. Upon landing in Zurich, the six diplomats were taken by CIA operatives to a mountain lodge safe house for the night. There, they were told that, for diplomatic purposes, they would not be able to talk to the press, and that they would be kept hidden in a secret location in Florida until the hostage situation was resolved. Mendez and Julio continued to Frankfurt, Germany, where Mendez wrote his after-action report. The next day, the story broke in Montreal, written by Jean Pelletier for La Presse; it was quickly picked up by the international press. The six diplomats were driven by the CIA from Switzerland to Ramstein Air Force Base in West Germany to be flown across the Atlantic to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

After the six American guests left on Monday, January 28, the Canadian embassy was closed that same day, with Taylor and the remaining staff returning to Canada. The six Americans arrived home on January 30, 1980.

The six rescued American diplomats:

• Robert Anders, 54 – Consular officer
• Mark J. Lijek, 29 – Consular officer
• Cora A. Lijek, 25 – Consular assistant
• Henry L. Schatz, 31 – Agricultural attaché
• Joseph D. Stafford, 29 – Consular officer
• Kathleen F. Stafford, 28 – Consular assistant

Ambassador Taylor, Sheardown, and their wives, Patricia Taylor and Zena Sheardown, along with embassy staff members Mary Catherine O'Flaherty, Roger Lucy, and Laverna Dollimore were appointed to the Order of Canada, Canada's second highest civilian award. Zena Sheardown, a Guyanese-born British subject, would normally have been ineligible, but was awarded the membership on an honorary basis, due to the intervention of Flora MacDonald. Taylor was subsequently awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress for his assistance to the United States of America.

Pelletier, then the Washington correspondent to La Presse, had uncovered some of the facts of the diplomat situation before January 28, 1980, but he did not publish the story in order to preserve the safety of those involved, despite the considerable news value to the paper and writer. Several other news organizations were also in possession of some elements of the story. Pelletier's article ran on January 29 as soon as he knew the hostages had left Iran, but by exposing the operation, the story demolished plans by the US to secretly house the six Americans in Florida while the hostage drama continued. The Argo story was blown, but the CIA role was kept secret by both the US and Canadian governments at the time for the safety of the remaining hostages; its full involvement was not revealed until 1997.

Officially, Jimmy Carter had maintained for negotiation purposes that all of the missing American diplomats were held hostage, so the rescue came as a complete surprise to the public. American gratitude for the Canadian rescue effort was displayed widely and by numerous American television personalities and ordinary people alike, with Taylor a particular focus of attention. The Canadian flag was flown across the US, along with "Thank You" billboards.

In popular culture

In March 1980, Mercury Records released a spoken-word record by seven-year-old Shelley Looney, called "(This Is My Country) Thank You, Canada". The record received some airplay and made Cashbox's Top 100 (two weeks at #99) and Billboard Magazine's "Bubbling Under The Hot 100" chart nationally, peaking at #109. (Looney would grow up to play for the US Olympic women's ice hockey team in 1998 and 2002 -- coincidentally, it was her goal against the Canadians that clinched the gold medal for the USA in 1998.)

In 1981, a television movie about the Canadian Caper was made, Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper, directed by Lamont Johnson, with Ken Taylor and John Sheardown played by Gordon Pinsent and Chris Wiggins, respectively. The movie was filmed in and around Toronto, which the cast and crew nicknamed "Tehranto".

Laura Scandiffio wrote a short story based on this event: "Fugitives in Iran" (2003, Puffin).

The film Argo, loosely based on the episode, was released in US theaters on October 12, 2012. In the film, the role of John Sheardown and his wife Zena were omitted for reasons of length and cost.

Further reading

• Pelletier, J. & Adams, C. The Canadian Caper, Macmillan of Canada 1981, illustrated, 239 pages. ISBN 0-7715-9583-2
• Joshuah Bearman. "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran", Wired Magazine, issue 15.05.
• Jones, Nate "The True Spy Story Behind Argo," ForeignPolicy.com, published 18 October 2012.
• Lijek, Mark, "The Houseguests: A Memoir of Canadian Courage and CIA Sorcery," e-book published September 2012
• Wright, Robert Our Man in Tehran: Ken Taylor, the CIA, and the Iran Hostage Crisis, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 2010, 406 pages. ISBN 978-1-59051-413-9

External links

• Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper at IMDb
• Ken Taylor and the Canadian Caper - from Foreign Affairs Canada