Brenna Gustafson
Stacy Knapp
English 1a
9 March 2013
Argo/The 1979 Revolution In
Joshuah Bearman's article “The Great
Escape” on November 4, 1979 in
Tehran, Iranian revolutionists
were protesting outside the American Embassy.
The Shah had been overthrown by
Ayatollah Khomeini and was in exile. The
revolutionist had climbed over the
gate surrounding the front of the American Embassy.
The Embassy workers were in a
panic trying to shred documents and destroy plates that
made visas before being captured.
52 Americans and a dozen Iranians that either worked
in American Embassy or were
trying to get visas were captured. Six American embassy
workers managed to escape out a
door which exited onto the street of Tehran. The six
people, who escaped, over a three
week period of time, were eventually able to find
sanctuary in the Canadian
ambassador’s house in Tehran. The six American embassy
workers were able to stay hidden
from being captured by the revolutionist.
In
America the C.I.A. was trying to come up with the best solution to free the
Americans which were being held
captive. The C.I.A. was also devising a plan to extract
the six fortunate Americans that
were able to elude captivity. Tony Mendez was an
“authentication chief” working for
the C.I.A. he was specialized in fake identities and
matters of that source. He was
tirelessly devoting an immense amount of time and energy
to putting together a plan that
the white house would not reject. He started to come up
with a solution that involved an
agent heading into Tehran posed as a movie producer
looking for a suitable place to
film a movie, and flying back with the six Americans that
were in hiding. He would make fake
identities for the six Americans who would try to
pose as his film crew.
It was
only a matter of time before that Iranians discovered that they had not
captured all of those who were
supposed to be in the American embassy at that time. The
situation with the Americans, that
were being held hostage, was becoming a dire
situation. They were starting
trials and carrying out executions. The Iranians were also
getting close to discovering that
they had not captured everyone. As Joshuah Bearman
stated “they had even hired teams of carpet weavers to successfully reassemble
shredded
documents (The Great Escape).” If the Iranians discovered that they didn’t have all
the
people in captivity that were
supposed to be they would mount a search and discover the
Americans.
Tony
Mendez had a friend named John Chambers who was discreetly working
with the C.I.A on previous
operations. Together they created a movie company so that if
the Iranians check their
credentials they would appear to be a legit company. Now that
they had that part of the
operation completed all they needed was a movie. They found a
movie that best fit the
description of landscape that was in Iran, and it just so happened
that they had the rights to this
movie. Tony Mendez then renamed the movie Argo.
Works
Cited
Joshuah Bearman."The Great
Escape." Longform.
N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2013.
