Canadian Caper

Part of a series on the
Iran hostage crisis
Topics Timeline Background The Interim Government Islamic Republic
Hostage leaders Ruhollah Khomeini Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha
Parties and organizations Student Followers of the Imam's Line People's Mujahedin of Iran Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization
Events Canadian Caper Operation Eagle Claw Operation Credible Sport
v t e

The "Canadian Caper" was the joint covert rescue by the Canadian government and the CIA of six American diplomats who had evaded capture during the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran, Iran, on November 4, 1979, after the Iranian Revolution, when Islamist students took most of the American embassy personnel hostage, demanding the return of the US-backed Shah for trial.^[1]

After the diplomats had been sheltered by the British mission and Canadian diplomatic personnel, the Canadian and United States governments worked on a strategy to gain their escape through subterfuge and use of Canadian passports. The "caper" involved a CIA officer (Tony Mendez and his colleague Ed Johnson) joining the six diplomats in Tehran to form a fake film crew. It was purportedly made up of six Canadians, one Irishman and one Latin American, who were finishing scouting for an appropriate location to shoot a scene for the science-fiction film Argo, production of which had in fact been abandoned. On the morning of Sunday, January 27, 1980, the full eight-person party passed through passport control, at the Mehrabad Airport in Tehran, boarded a Swissair flight to Zürich and escaped Iran.^[2]

An article written about these events was published in Wired in 2007. The article was used loosely—alongside a memoir Mendez wrote—as the basis of the 2012 film Argo.

On September 14, 2023, as part of the season finale of The Langley Files podcast, the CIA disclosed the identity of "Julio" to be Ed Johnson, a linguist and expert in extractions.^[3]