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Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History
Unavailable
Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History
Unavailable
Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History
Audiobook9 hours

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

Written by Antonio Mendez and Matt Baglio

Narrated by Dylan Baker

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

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, Argo is the gripping account of the history-making collusion between Hollywood and high-stakes espionage.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 13, 2012
ISBN9781101579503
Unavailable
Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History
Author

Antonio Mendez

Antonio Mendez is the former chief of disguise for the CIA. A recipient of the CIA's Intelligence Star of Valor and the Trailblazer Award, he is the author of Argo and The Master of Disguise. Visit his website at TheMasterofDisguise.com.

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Reviews for Argo

Rating: 4.184782813043478 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I saw the movie last year and the book fills in more background information. Very interesting story. I listened to the audiobook and the reader did a good job.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fun and interesting.

    In 1979 the U.S. embassy is stormed in Iran and everyone captured by radicalized students under the sanction of the spiritual leader of their revolution. But this book is about the handful of American embassy workers who happened to get overlooked by the Iranians and were not captured, but hiding out and hoping help would come to rescue them. The book's author was that help, as head of the CIA's disguise and exfiltration team at the time. The author also tells stories of several other exfiltrations leading up to this big one.

    A few things surprised me about spys in the real world. It takes a lot of planning and negotiating and expertise to do relatively simple things, like create a cover story and fake documents. And a good plan should be thought through, straight forward, and as low risk as possible. It doesn't need to be a fast-paced, daring escape in order to be exciting. This is like a spy movie, but also like the opposite of a spy movie.

    Also, a good cover story may be more needed to provide confidence for the escape party than in actually deceiving anyone. You need to stay cool to avoid detection.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the story of the rescue of the 6 American's who survived the Iranian takeover of the US Embassy, only to have to be hidden in the homes of Canadian officials. The author; Tony Mendez, was a graphic artist and head of the Technical Service Division at the CIA. His department was in charge of creating disguises and fake IDs and documents.It was due to his work with people in Hollywood, that he came up with the idea, when tasked with affecting the American's rescue, to use a location scouting party of a movie production company as cover for the escape.The story was the basis for Ben Affleck's movie, but I think the real story was more interesting. Less heightened stress that is in just about every action film every made and more of the real spycraft that came into play to get the job done. The movie also downplays the role that the Canadians played. If it weren't for the them, the whole plan could have never worked. A very interesting read, worth your time. Truth is better and stranger than fiction. 7/10S: 3/3/15 F: 3/10/15 (8 Days)
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The first chapter is great look at the history of the United States' involvement in Iran. It's riddled with U.S. mistakes, largely because the singular focus was keeping Iran out of the hands of the Soviets. As a result, the U.S. propped up malicious dictators. That lead to rise of the ayatollahs and the 1979 uprising to overthrow the bad government. The hatred towards the US was because of the bad actions of the U.S.While the embassy was being stormed, a handful of embassy workers escaped out a side door and fled to the Canadian embassy to hide. The hostages in the embassy were trapped, but the escapees had a chance to get out of Iran. If they could only come up with a plan.It was CIA operative Antonio Mendez who comes up with the plan. His area of specialty is documentation. They'll need good, fake paperwork to get out of Iran and avoid the clutches of the Revolutionary Guard.The rescue attempt is the best part of the book. It's what inspired Argo, the movie. I loved the movie. The book came out after the movie. It's written by Tony Mendez, the CIA operative who an the rescue. The role is played by Ben Affleck in the movie.Unfortunately, the book is more autobiographical, using the Iranian escape as scaffold to tell more spy stories. In the end I think Mendez is a better operative than he is a storyteller. I would recommend skipping the book and watching the movie instead.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I saw the movie and really enjoyed it, but this is a rare case I think the film is better than the book, to choose one over the other. The problem may be that Mendez is writing from the distance of time and it lacks the immediate sense of danger that is better portrayed in the movie. It also didn't help that I already knew the ending having seen the movie. So the strength of the book would rest on its ability to impart tension (film is better) and impart new information, but much of that seemed trivial and forgettable. Maybe if I was a more serious fan of spycraft and the CIA.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    During the hostage crisis in Iran, there were a few Americans who had managed to escape the round-up and were having a non-hostage crisis of their own. They were hiding out in Tehran, terrified that they would be found out and end up with everyone else in the US embassy. Although the main group of hostages were a priority for the American government, the 6 who were in hiding turned out to be a more solvable problem. Enter the CIA and Antonio Mendez, who had a background in exfiltrations, disguises and forging travel documentation.Most of the interest in the story is really to be found in a synopsis - the chosen cover story was that the Americans were a scouting team for a Hollywood production, and that cover was successful in getting them out of Iran. The prep of the escapees and their exit from the country are not all that involved or dramatic. I'm sure with a Hollywood treatment, the movie managed to make it a nail-biter, but the real story is rather bland and disappointing after all the buildup.I listened to the audio book, which was narrated by the actor Dylan Baker. His dramatic reading style put me off at first, but I got used to it. It was an okay read (or listen, in this case), but one of those rare cases where I imagine the movie is better.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I enjoyed the book much more than the movie. The book provided a lot more background about the hostage crisis and about the work of the CIA agent. (I mean, really, isn't "Chief of Disguise" about the best job title ever?) No, there wasn't a lot of tension, edge-of-your seat drama, but the problem set out, the solution worked through, and then carried out. The six actual American diplomats are less important than the CIA personnel, so their characters weren't as well developed, but that worked from the perspective of this book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Antonio Mendez, author of ARGO, first wrote this true story as a chapter in another book, then as a magazine article. I could tell. I knew before I read that because this is a great story with too much padding.I remember well the late 1970s when Iranian "students" (which is what the media at that time preferred to call these terrorists) took over the U.S. embassy in Iran and held captive everyone in it for more than a year. During that time, these hostages were tortured, sometimes killed, with the Iranian government's approval.But six people escaped and and were hidden by Canadian embassy officials. The CIA, with Hollywood and the Canadian government, managed their escape from Iran in 1980, before Iran let go the hostages and before they could find and probably kill Canada's "houseguests."For many years, Canada got all the credit for the six Americans' escape, and that was as the CIA wanted it. But now the true story is out, and it's a good one. This is the central story of ARGO.The problem is, it shouldn't be a book, a novella, maybe, but not a full-length book.I say "central story" because this book is padded with many side stories of other Mendez-CIA escapades, all interesting but also frustrating because they leave the central story to tell another one.The movie that is said to be based on this book is probably actually based on Mendez's chapter or article. I doubt the movie has time to go off on tangents as the book does. So I do intend to see the movie. This is a great story minus the padding.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I wanted to read this because of all the controversy over who gets the glory but didn't want to spend money - so this is my first "read at work" book. Basically, if it's slow at work, I pick up a book that looks interesting but not interesting enough to own and read whenever I have a few minutes! Yes, I work at a bookstore!

    So, to sum it up, we're all glory-hogs. Smuggling six Americans out of Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis was huge and made for a great story. But Antonio Mendez suggests that the only reason Canada got the accolades was because the CIA is not allowed to brag. Yeah, right.

    Put aside for a moment that the book mostly talks about how Mendez used disguises in OTHER situations. Then, forget about the fact that the Americans escaped from the embassy on November 4, 1979 but Mendez didn't hear about them until the middle of December (he says in the book). And add on top that he and his cohort were only in Iran for a couple of days. Do you see why I sort of laughed to myself when Ben Affleck called him "An American Hero" at the Oscars?

    The Canadians were the ones who put themselves in danger for months and caught mistakes on the "houseguests" visas that would have caused problems for them when they left. If Ken Taylor and the Canadian government had said "NO", Antonio Mendez never would have heard about them. But because we are all glory-hogs, all of this is glossed over.

    The most exciting parts of the movie "Argo" didn't happen. There was no test-run of walking through the Iranian market acting like a film crew and the flight out of Iran was not almost thwarted by soldiers. The idea was cool and I suppose keeping the houseguests calm on the day they left was worthy of some attention but the true heroes, in my opinion, were the Canadians. Not that I'm biased or anything.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I made a big mistake here - reading a book after seeing the movie based on the book. The authors did a good job in writing this book, but I kept wanting them to hurry up, so they could explain it in the same time window as the movie. I have never enjoyed a book after seeing the same movie. This is not the book's fault, it is my fault. One thumb up.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Highly recommend - I enjoyed reading this adventure and loved the fact that the author didn't try to exaggerate the tale. It didn't need it, as the story itself was pretty exciting. Good balance of background mixed with the rescue timeline. I guess I'll have to see the movie now.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    What a fascinating page out of spy history! I hope that the real story gets made into a movie at some point, not the garbage that was already very loosely made from this book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    So much better than the movie. The hollywood crap that they tacked on to the end of the film really spoiled it for me. Reading about the CIA's 'forgery & decept' department made me squeamish but was also terribly interesting in a voyeuristic way. The book starts with a clear explaination of why the Iranians were so enraged by what America had done in their country. Middle Eastern politics is always so convoluted that it usually mystifies me but This I understood.

    What I will never understand is why the guy who wrote 'No Easy Day' got so much flack and this book didn't.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In 1979 a mob of 'student' protestors stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, Iran. Astonishingly the Iranian government flouted every international law and protocol, not only allowing the crisis to take place, but to keep it going. For 444 days the American diplomats and staff were held hostage. This is not their story.Instead Argo is the fascinating re-telling of the rescue of six of the diplomats who managed to escape when the embassy was first overrun and found sanctuary at the home of the Canadian ambassador. The CIA, with the assistance of the Canadian government and two Hollywood legends were able to pull off one of the most spectacular rescues in history. Argo is truly a story that is so fantastic that had it not actually happened, no one would believe it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Exciting and well-writen. This book really brings you back to the dark days of 1979-80. The Canadians really provided a ray of light.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fascinating look at the Iran hostage crisis of 1979 from the perspective of six American diplomats that escaped to a nearby residence in the initial chaos. The six became "house guests" of the Canadian ambassador. Speaking of which, the Canadians went to extraordinary lengths to assist the Americans - just amazing! It provides details of CIA operations, false identities, disguises, and methods of extracting people from dangerous situations, though I am sure a lot has changed since the seventies. The involvement of the Hollywood in the covert rescue mission was a touch of genius. Mendez does a bit of bragging, but I am sure he is deservedly proud of the group's accomplishments. If anyone thinks non-fiction cannot be exciting, give this one a try. The movie was released in 2012.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Very revealing for anyone interested in practical techniques of how to covertly "ex-filtrate". Gripping story that will give a much more accurate and less Hollywood account from the movie.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I haven't seen the movie Argo, but this book is about the same exfiltration of six American diplomats who managed to avoid being taken hostage during the Iran Hostage Crisis that's depicted in the movie. This book is an account of those events (the "Canadian Caper"), written by the CIA's then-head of authentication, who led the exfiltration, traveling to Tehran and escorting the diplomats out of the country.It wasn't necessarily anything special, but I found the book interesting enough, probably especially because I haven't seen the film. My favorite parts were definitely the descriptions of how Méndez and his fellow agents created a set of realistic personas for the escaping diplomats, from coming up with the idea for their careers to forging stamps in their passports.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Good to know, but it didn't hold my interest very well. I think it was all the side stories that left me aching to get to the end of the book and be done with it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked the movie quite a bit, but this gave way more detail (...obviously) that I found really fascinating. I did find myself wanting more of the spycraft stuff, but it makes sense that lots of it is glossed over, and overall the voice, comprehensive look at the political situation, and the human stories behind the big stuff made for compelling reading. Also, I would watch the Argo concept they created for their work, so someone in Hollywood should get on that.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Oh my goodness, they certainly did take some liberties with the movie script. A LOT of them. Which I guess in an ironic kind of way is appropriate, considering....

    It is one heck of a story--and I suppose I can see why the scriptwriter(s?) made a few of the changes--essentially, most of the really dramatic edge-of-your-seat stuff was complete fabrication. It definitely made for a more dramatic story, but it didn't make it more true to life, unfortunately. Still, I'm glad I saw the movie--it was a good movie--but I'm definitely glad I read the book too, so I know what was fact and what was fiction. Without all the Hollywood drama (again, the irony!) it's still quite the rescue. It reminds me of the Mark Twain quote, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn't.” If someone had written a totally fictional story like this, no one would have thought it believable!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'd read an article about this a few years ago, and then eagerly saw the movie - but was disappointed by the changes to reality in the film. I was very excited to be able to read this book.The book and I, however, got off to a bad start - on page 10 I felt there was rather unnecessary apologism for the CIA's decision to overthrow the Mossadeq government in in 1953. It reminded me that I was reading a book by a CIA agent, not a historian, and to read with the proper critical mind. Once Mendez left the topic of setup and got to events as they unfolded, the book improved dramatically. I loved reading about the details, including past CIA operations and exfiltrations. It is very well-told, with a few overdone prose flourishes but generally easy to read. The story is, of course compelling, and I would recommend it either in addition to or instead of the movie - the real story is always preferable to (ironically) the Hollywood version.If you'd like to read more about the 1953 coup, check out Kinzer's All the Shah's Men - it's a great read on the topic.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Antonio Mendez originally planned to be an artist. He put his skill to work at the CIA where he became Chief of Disguise, worldwide, at the age of 33, and shortly after, he was promoted to Chief of Authentication. He used his skills to exfiltrate compromised agents, informers and operatives. He created scenarios, new identities and documents, for people in desperate need of rescue. He was good at what he did. He was good at most everything he tried. He built a home, created paintings, and was a family man, while at the same time he was an excellent undercover agent within the system.When the American Embassy in Teheran was overrun by militant students and hostages were taken, six employees were able to sneak out and get away before they could be captured. They wandered around seeking refuge and finally were given safe harbor by the Canadians. After being hidden for three months in the Ambassador’s home, time was running out. News of their escape was out and it was only a matter of time until it would be made public, possibly making their capture imminent, the treatment of the other hostages worse and creating an international incident for Canada.Mendez was in charge of the mission to rescue the Americans. They needed a cover story in order to be able to fly out of Iran without being recognized and detained. He originated the idea of making the movie, Argo, in Iran, in order to smuggle them out. Credible personas and plausible disguises had to be invented for all of them. He had to change mild mannered diplomats into flashy Hollywood personalities and himself into a Hollywood producer.When Mendez arrived in Iran to meet them, he had no idea if he could pull it off. He had no idea if they would be able to accomplish all they had to in order to escape, but he laid out the plan and helped to train them in their new incarnations as brash, outgoing Hollywood personalities. They had to look and carry themselves differently, and they had to really become that person in only a matter of hours, playing the part realistically in order to pass the checkpoints and be able to board the plane that would take them to freedom and safety.After the rescue, Mendez was promoted to full colonel and over the years, he received many additional honors, even though they were not made public because operations of the CIA are clandestine and kept secret. There are many unsung heroes working there. Until the 50th anniversary of the CIA, when it became public, no one really knew the truth about what took place or who was really responsible for the success of the operation to free the Americans in hiding. It was not easy to come up with a plan that would work, but ultimately, Mendez did and he pulled it off..The book is really exciting. Mendez has smuggled out other operatives and defectors, and he describes several of these missions. They were dangerous and harrowing. When he left his family for a mission, it was a wrenching moment. He never knew if he would return safely. Mendez, a mild mannered and rather ordinary looking man, was a courageous and dedicated secret agent, not in the manner of James Bond, but in the manner of an operative who had to fade into the crowd so as not to be noticed, an operative dedicated and loyal to his country. Mendez was a highly successful secret agent.