Individual Narrative

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.