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

by Mendez, Antonio; Baglio, Matt

• ISBN13: 9780670026227
• ISBN10: 0670026220
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-09-13
• Publisher: Viking Adult

Summary

The true account of the 1979 rescue of six American hostages from Iran On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the American embassy in Tehran and captured dozens of American hostages, sparking a 444-day ordeal and a quake in global politics still reverberating today. But there's a little-known footnote to the crisis: six Americans escaped. And a midlevel agent named Antonio Mendez devised an ingenious yet incredibly risky plan to rescue them. Armed with foreign film visas, Mendez and an unlikely team of CIA agents and Hollywood insiders-directors, producers, actors-traveled to Tehran under the guise of scouting locations for a fake film called Argo. While pretending to find the perfect scenery and backdrops, the team succeeded in contacting the escapees and smuggling them out of Iran without a single shot being fired. Antonio Mendez finally details the mind-bogglingly complex and dangerous operation he led more than three decades ago. A true story of secret identities and international intrigue, Argois the gripping account of the history-making collusion between Hollywood and high-stakes espionage.

Author Biography

Antonio Mendez served in the CIA for twenty-five years. He is the recipient of several honors, including the Intelligence Star for Valor, and the author of The Master of Disguise. He lives with his family in rural Washington County, Maryland.

Matt Baglio has worked for a variety of news organizations and magazines. Author of The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, he lives in Rome with his wife and son.