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Tony Mendez in 2012. File photo: The Washington Post

Tony Mendez, the CIA ‘Argo’ spy who smuggled US hostages out of Iran in daring mission, dies at 78

  • Tony Mendez was the CIA’s chief of disguise when the US Embassy in Tehran was seized by a militant Iranian student group on November 4, 1979
Obituaries

A forgery artist and master of disguise for the CIA, Tony Mendez once transformed a black agent and an Asian diplomat into a pair of white business executives, using masks that gave them an uncanny resemblance to the movie stars Victor Mature and Rex Harrison.

On another occasion, he devised an oversize “jack-in-the-box” – a spring-loaded mannequin – that enabled a CIA source to sneak out of his car while a dummy popped up in his place.

Mendez, a 25-year veteran of the spy agency, was effectively in the business of geopolitical theatre. Pulling techniques from magicians, movie makeup artists and even the television show Mission: Impossible, he changed one person into another, transforming agents into characters with backstories, costumes and documents that helped them evade detection and avoid capture in foreign countries.

Appropriately for a man whose career seemed drawn from a Hollywood thriller, his greatest triumph hinged on a bogus sci-fi film, a sham production office in Los Angeles and a fake location-scouting expedition to Iran.

Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez in ‘Argo’. Photo: Warner Brothers

Disguising himself as an Irish filmmaker, Mendez successfully smuggled six State Department employees out of Tehran during the 1979-1981 Iran hostage crisis, passing them off as a Canadian movie crew in a daring mission that formed the basis of the Oscar-winning movie Argo (2012).

Mendez, who was portrayed by actor-director Ben Affleck in the film, was 78 when he died January 19 at an assisted-living centre in Frederick, Maryland.

He had Parkinson’s disease, said his wife, fellow CIA veteran Jonna Mendez.

A painter of impressionistic landscapes and outdoor scenes, Mendez was working as a draftsman when he was recruited by the CIA in 1965, and ran an art studio after he retired.

“I’ve always considered myself to be an artist first,” he once said, looking back on his career, “and for 25 years I was a pretty good spy.”

After stints in Laos, India and the Soviet Union, he was serving as the CIA’s chief of disguise when the US Embassy in Tehran was seized by a militant Iranian student group on November 4, 1979.

The attack came months after the Islamic revolution forced out the country’s leader, the Western-backed shah, and replaced him with the hardline cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Sixty-six Americans, including six CIA officers, were taken hostage, while six other US diplomats managed to evade capture and took shelter in the homes of two Canadians, ambassador Ken Taylor and embassy official John Sheardown.

In the 444 days that followed, the hostage crisis drew unflagging news coverage, crippled Jimmy Carter’s presidency and resulted in the deaths of eight service members during a failed rescue mission in the Iranian desert.

Mendez completed his rescue operation January 28, 1980, but it took one more year before the last 52 hostages were released, on the day of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in January 1981.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Spy made famous in film Argo dies at 78
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