Often movies are used to document/retell history for contemporary audiences. Almost as often, these stories are skewed or just flatly made up (I’m looking at you, “Fargo”!). However, once in a very strange while, real history is not changed in movies but rather real history is changed by movies. In November 1979, Iranians seized the United States embassy in Tehran. About three months later a covert Canadian/American rescue team smuggled six American diplomats back to the U.S. under the guise of a film crew. This is the story of The Canadian Caper.
On November 4th, Iranian protesters, fans of Ayatollah Khomeini and young people rather disappointed by President Jimmy Carter, climbed above and broke down the gates surrounding the American embassy complex in the capital city. Unfortunately, the protesters weren’t just concerned about the gates’ zoning regulations and they stormed several building—including taking fifty-some hostages. Five Americans (and more than a token Iranian employee) escaped and made their way to an employee’s apartment outside of the complex. At the apartment, they turned on the radio, bitched about Jefferson Airplane becoming Jefferson Starship and then discovered the U.S. military forces had abandoned the city.
Unlike every other time in history, America turned to England for help. The escapees’ plan was to run through the city to the British embassy; a plan marginally safer than flying to California by jumping off the tallest building. Even then, though, they’d be risking more potential hostages and indeed could not be on the road for more than five seconds before spotted by mobs and given the sort of trial mobs are known to give. For days the Americans scuttled from empty apartment to empty apartment (fortunately, nearly fifty-some apartments had recently opened up). Eventually, they gave up on getting to the English embassy and called an employee at the nearby Canadian embassy. They got permission to crash at his, and the ambassador's, place and found one other American who had previously been shacked up with a Swede.
For weeks, the six Americans never left the Canadians’ place. Reportedly, the large amount of beer temporarily distracted the de facto prisoners from feeling like actual prisoners. Also unlike the Iranians, the Canadians rarely threatened their American guests with execution but rather just had them repeatedly play Scrabble. Any escape or rescue planned seemed impossible as the hostage takers down the street promised executions if they saw anything unusual--and the Iranians were also pretty sure six Americans had escaped during the initial chaos. So the Canadian ambassador called the Canadian Prime Minister and they both agreed getting the Americans out of Tehran was safer than keeping them there. For harboring the Americans, the Canadian Ambassador (Ken Taylor) later received the Congressional Gold Medal, and never had to pay for his beer in America ever again.
This reward inspired many Irishmen to push Americans out of the path of speeding cars.
Now the CIA has gotten a bad rap in recent years, but some thirty years ago, they had their shit together. Well, kind of. Like today, they were running thousands of secret identities around the world. Unfortunately, they only had three in Iran at the time. More unfortunately, all three had been captured during the revolution, so maybe 'undercover' has different definitions to some people. Regardless, for a few weeks, to no avail, the CIA worked on this hostage situation—including at least one plan using a dead body in place of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (who was the “emperor” of Iran). Frankly, there were probably several plans involving dead body doubles. Anyhow, word gets around that some Americans escaped the initial violence and are hiding out in Iran like disco-loving Anne Franks. So the CIA takes a break from trying to ‘punk’ Fidel Castro (read: exploding cigars) and decides to get these Americans out of Iran through the most obvious transport possible: the Mehrabad Airport. Other plans required swimming and/or bicycles.
But these plans take time, more time than secrets allow and pretty soon the 'Americans hiding in Tehran' became the Worst Kept Secret in the world of international intelligence. At least one newspaper had the story but didn't report it. Within the several plans formulated over two months one constant remained: the Americans would pose as legal visitors were going to have to appear oblivious to the political upheaval in the country. Anybody who knew anything wanted to be far away from Iran. So who can be a bunch of somebodies who know nothing? Why of course: Hollywood! It might have been a bit of a stretch, but the world is still round and it turns for money. A Hollywood production in Iran meant millions of dollars, not exactly chump change for the Iranian government. But being American was still too risky/impossible, so everybody was going to have to seem Canadian.
To be Continued…
(get over it, these people had to wait for 6 weeks).
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