Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History Part 10

The undersecretary brought him up short. "Excuse me," she said, "but we haven't yet a.s.signed the responsibility to you. We understand you're here to give advice, not to take charge. I a.s.sure you that since these are our diplomats, the department has the utmost concern with how we should comport ourselves in effecting their rescue."

Our man sat down and one of the undersecretary's aides took the floor. He described what they thought was the way to go about mounting such an operation. They seemed to favor a plan to bring out the six incrementally, effectively running three or more operations in tandem, not necessarily coming out through Tehran's Mehrabad Airport. At this point I interrupted.

"Excuse me," I began, "but my experience tells me that when we are managing a complex operation for more than one or two people, it's best to consolidate your risk, put everyone together under an appropriate cover, and take the shortest and quickest route out. It's one of the principles of guerrilla warfare: choose the time and place for action and overwhelm their senses."

I looked around the room and saw that I had everybody's attention.

"Exfiltrations are like abortions," I said. "You don't need one unless something's gone wrong. If you need one, don't try to do it yourself. We can give you a nice, clean job."

The undersecretary looked at me, startled, obviously appalled. Then, with a wry smile, she said, "Well, you do have a way with words, Mr. Mendez. I think maybe we can get on with it, and with you, after all."

I had begun honing my skills in exfiltration in the early 1970s. At the time, the Soviets were moving out into the third world and as a result we were getting more and more "walk-ins." A walkin is just that: a defector who shows up at a U.S. emba.s.sy or otherwise presents himself to an official American ent.i.ty and either asks for asylum or has valuable information that he wants to share. Any good case officer needs to know how to handle a walkin, as it's the bread and b.u.t.ter of the spy business. Screw up a walkin and you're done-simple as that.

So many Soviet personnel were going missing without a trace during this period that the KGB thought we must have been kidnapping them. In retaliation, there was even talk at the highest levels of the KGB about a program to kidnap American officials, but ultimately Yuri Andropov, the head of the KGB, nixed the idea.

My first exfiltration involved a high-level KGB officer code-named NESTOR, who was posted to a Soviet emba.s.sy in a densely populated capital of the Asian subcontinent. At the time, I was stationed in Okinawa and running the twenty-five-man graphics branch when a cable arrived marked IMMEDIATE, asking for an artist-validator. The cable had been sent by a CIA officer I'll call "Jacob Jordan." He and I had first worked together on a job in Hong Kong in 1968, when I'd been asked to help forge the travel doc.u.ments for a top Chinese a.s.set.

Jacob, a senior OTS disguise and doc.u.ments officer for Asia, was already a legend when I started working with him. Despite being from the Midwest, Jacob had an appearance and demeanor more Savile Row than Sears Roebuck. He wore custom-made shoes and expensive suits and in every way affected the air of a British gentleman. In all the time I spent with him, I never once saw him break character. A gifted linguist, he spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and j.a.panese. After joining the CIA's Technical Services Division (the precursor to OTS), Jacob's first posting was to Shanghai in 1949. By the time China had fallen into the hands of the communist Red Army, he was considered the leading American expert on the region.

Less than twenty-four hours after receiving Jacob's cable, I found myself, along with a doc.u.ments officer, "David," holed up in a tiny vaultlike room in a Southwest Asian seaport. The two of us had flown into the country posing as tourists, and after checking into our hotel, had been picked up at a prearranged site by a local CIA officer, "Mac," and driven through back alleys to this secure location. The site was in a commercial office building that was a front for nonofficial contacts. The building stood amid a sea of similar office buildings, so it was no problem for us to blend in with the myriad British and American businessmen who plied their trade in this busy port.

Once we were inside, Mac introduced us to two more local CIA officers, "Raymond" and "Jane," who had been working around the clock for the past few days.

The whole reason for our being there had been set off twelve days earlier when NESTOR had walked out of the Soviet emba.s.sy and contacted a local CIA officer, telling him that he wished to defect. After confirming that NESTOR was indeed who he said he was, the CIA officer had given him instructions on how to get in touch, then promised to help organize his escape. NESTOR, meanwhile, had gone underground for several days before arriving at the prearranged rendezvous where Jacob was waiting.

If we could get him out of the country, NESTOR would be considered a huge catch. Not only was he an officer in the KGB's First Chief Directorate, the part concerned with foreign espionage, but he was also a member of a group that the CIA had dubbed the "Junior KGB." Under an alias, NESTOR had spent several years attending schools in England and the United States while posing as the son of Soviet officials legitimately stationed there-so he spoke fluent English with both a British and an American accent. After that, he had attended several KGB inst.i.tutes in preparation for being stationed in Asia. As a result, not only could he provide invaluable intelligence on the KGB's operations in Central and Southeast Asia, but as an added bonus he could also help identify other "juniors" who were being trained overseas.

As expected, NESTOR's disappearance had triggered an avalanche of activity on the part of the KGB and the local Special Branch (SB). Surveillance around Western emba.s.sies and border crossings increased dramatically, while the KGB and SB flooded the airport, bus depots, and railway stations with agents. In addition, newspapers across the country ran notices about a missing Soviet attache, and included a good photo of NESTOR to help anyone identify him. Being a Moscow-trained case officer, NESTOR had been able to avoid pursuit by shaving his head and disguising himself as one of the locals. But in order to get him past the thick security network arrayed against us, we would have to be at the top of our game.

We were especially worried about the security controls at the airport. Because of the manhunt going on, the airlines were requiring that all pa.s.sengers reconfirm their flight in person before leaving the country. Somehow we'd have to come up with a way to overcome this final obstacle. But we'd need to move fast. We had only three days until it was time to launch.

When it comes to exfiltrations, the uninitiated almost always think about "black options," usually involving a nighttime helicopter pickup or a desperate border crossing in a car involving hidden compartments and an American spy smooth talking his way out of danger. The problem inherent in most of these scenarios is that if anything goes wrong, then there is no chance for plausible deniability. The American flag is going to be draped all over that helicopter or car if the plan falls apart. In certain situations, you have no choice-the only options available are black and you take your chances.

In most situations, however, a quasi-legal departure on a commercial flight is usually the simplest and most effective means of getting an a.s.set out of the country. Jacob would provide the disguise for NESTOR, while David and I would create two sets of alias doc.u.ments for him to use.

As I sat down to look at the operational plan for NESTOR, I could see immediately that there was no shortage of ideas about what to do back at headquarters. Raymond had brought over a thick stack of cables, each offering a different opinion. It seemed that everyone was piling on, something I would come to call the "committee effect."

Later, after a few days of twisting in the wind, Jacob came to a decision. He had been sleeping out at the safe site with NESTOR, prepping him for his disguise, and he knew the situation better than anyone. NESTOR was getting anxious, and as Jacob read through the cable traffic he shook his head in amazement. "Okay," he said when he was finished. "Here is what we are going to do." As I listened to Jacob lay it out, I realized I was learning a valuable lesson, one that I would take with me for the rest of my career: never preempt the man in the field. In this case Jacob knew that NESTOR spoke fluent German and could easily carry off the persona of a German businessman, headquarters reservations be d.a.m.ned. More important, since NESTOR was beginning to lose his nerve, Jacob informed us that he was going to take him through the airport "trunk to tail," meaning that he was going to be physically present in the airport to run interference in case anything went wrong. It was a risky move as NESTOR might compromise Jacob, but it would also allow him to address the problem of NESTOR's having to physically reconfirm his reservation, since Jacob could do it for him.

Once the cover had been chosen, Jacob got to work on NESTOR's disguise, transforming the short and stocky Russian into a distinguished German businessman. Using a camera that I had provided, he snapped a few photos in various poses and lighting setups, allowing David and me to put together a full complement of alias doc.u.ments that would give the impression of a man at different stages of his life.

On the night of the exfiltration, my job was to watch from the rooftop departure lounge to see if Jacob and NESTOR had made it onto the plane. We had chosen a TWA flight that was set to depart at one in the morning. The flight was an hour late, however, and when it did finally arrive, the "smit"-a thick haze that hugs the ground composed of equal parts smoke and burning s.h.i.t-was so dense that I could barely make out the silhouettes of the pa.s.sengers as they made their way out onto the tarmac. When I didn't see Jacob or NESTOR among the embarking pa.s.sengers, I became nervous. I was to learn later that everything inside had gone according to plan until NESTOR had arrived at the customs counter, where a turbaned official had promptly taken his pa.s.sport and disappeared into a small room. A few minutes later the official returned followed by a European who was actually one of NESTOR's KGB colleagues. The two men stared at each other for a few long seconds before NESTOR, caught up in his persona, lit a Cuban cigar that Jacob had furnished him and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke in the direction of the KGB officer. The man continued to study NESTOR, but finally waved him through. The cigar had been the final piece that had fooled his excolleague.

A few minutes later I was able to see Jacob and NESTOR boarding the plane along with the remaining pa.s.sengers.

When the plane finally took off for Athens a little before three in the morning, it fell to me to call Raymond and let him know that the operation had been a success. As I fumbled for a coin at the public pay phone, my body sagged from the heat and stress of the last three days. I had a sudden flash of panic that the phone wouldn't work, something that would haunt me for many years. But after dialing I heard it ring and then the unmistakable click as Raymond picked up the other line. As per our prearranged code to indicate that NESTOR had gotten out, I asked, "Is Suzy there?"

Playing along, Raymond shouted, "No!" and slammed down the phone.

When I finally made it back to my hotel, I was exhausted but couldn't sleep as the gravity of what we had accomplished sank in. Not only had we just pulled off one of the most important exfiltrations in the history of the Agency, but in my mind, we had also established a sort of framework by which all other exfiltrations would be run.

Every intelligence agency is ultimately judged on its ability to successfully rescue people and bring them out of harm's way, which is essentially what an exfiltration is. The key to doing this is readiness, and in the wake of NESTOR, the CIA began looking at ways we could improve our capabilities. One of the main lessons I had learned is that exfiltrations are almost ninety percent logistics-just making sure everything is lined up as it needs to be. Antic.i.p.ating each one of those logistical problems can really mean the difference between success and failure. This need for readiness had already been highlighted in an earlier exfiltration involving Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, who had decided to defect while on a trip to India in 1967. She had been married to a man from India, and when he died, she had brought his ashes back to the country. Normally when Soviet citizens traveled, they were required to leave their pa.s.sports at the local emba.s.sy. But she had convinced the Russian official that she was going to be leaving early the following morning and asked to have her pa.s.sport so she could go without having to wait. After he handed it over, similar to NESTOR, Svetlana then left the Soviet emba.s.sy and walked straight over to ours. This was at midnight and the case officer sent an immediate cable to Washington asking for guidance. The response from headquarters was something to the effect that if Stalin had had a daughter, she would never have married an Indian. The case officer was now on the spot. Here was the one walkin that could define the rest of his career. If it really was Stalin's daughter, then by morning the emba.s.sy was going to be surrounded and there'd be little chance of getting her out. Luckily, she had brought her doc.u.ments along with her, which made things easier. Deciding that he couldn't take the chance, the officer put her on a plane and flew her out of the country in the early hours of the morning, before a proper search could be organized. She eventually made it into the refugee channels in Europe. As it turned out, she was telling the truth.

This operation as well as NESTOR's taught us that it would be in the best interest of the Agency to forward-deploy materials that would enhance our readiness. We began looking at probes and establishing prearranged routes for certain areas. One such route even included a border crossing on elephant back.

In order to tackle this concept of readiness, I came up with the idea of cross-training a select group of technical officers in various disciplines such as disguise and doc.u.ments. It seems like a n.o.brainer now, but at the time it wasn't the way we did things. Dubbed the "generalist program," the idea was to create technical officers who could do things that were critical in the field and needed to be done quickly. Ideally, one officer could do the work of two specialists. In addition, a new position at headquarters would eventually be created, known as the special a.s.sistant to exfiltration, whose job it would be to keep tabs on all the CIA's exfiltration cases active worldwide. This would give us the ability to marshal resources at a moment's notice. When it came time for the next walk-in or exfiltration, we would be ready.

7

a.s.sEMBLING THE TEAM

Walking back to Foggy Bottom from our meeting with State, I realized that, much like the NESTOR case, there was no shortage of opinions when it came to the houseguests. Headquarters, Ottawa, and the State Department were all piling on. With the houseguests settled, however, it appeared as if we had some time to weigh our options. And then, just when I thought it couldn't get any more complicated, I learned that a Canadian journalist in Washington was onto the story and was about to go public.

In mid-December, the Canadian emba.s.sy in Washington, D.C., got a call from a journalist asking for confirmation on a story he was writing. Was it true, he wanted to know, that the Canadian emba.s.sy in Tehran was housing a group of fugitive American diplomats? The reporter was Jean Pelletier, and he was the Washington correspondent for the Montreal-based newspaper La Presse. Early in the hostage crisis, Pelletier had begun to question the logic behind why the State Department was being so secretive about how many Americans had been working at the emba.s.sy the day it was captured. The White House had yet to release an official list of names, or discuss details, which struck him as odd. He put himself in their shoes: Why? Then it hit him-had some Americans gotten out? Working his contacts at the U.S. State Department as well as at the Canadian emba.s.sy in Washington, he was able to eventually get confirmation to support his theory. For Pelletier it was the scoop of a lifetime, but he also had reservations. If the story were to be published prematurely, he realized, it could do more harm that good. Later in the afternoon his suspicions were confirmed when he got a call from the Canadian amba.s.sador to the United States, Peter Towe, who asked him to sit on the story until the Americans had gotten out.

Pelletier agreed, but the fact that the story was beginning to leak made the Canadian government extremely apprehensive. What was to stop another journalist, one not as sympathetic, from writing a similar story? The last thing Canada needed was an international scandal involving its emba.s.sy in Tehran. The fact that the six Americans had gotten away did not bode well for them, as it might help to convince the militants that they had clandestine training-more "proof" that they were spies and not diplomats.

As word spread through Canadian diplomatic circles that a journalist was on to the secret of the houseguests, Ottawa began scrambling. In several cables back and forth to Iran, Amba.s.sador Taylor was asked to give his opinion on possible scenarios to get the six out of Iran. Being that it was a small emba.s.sy, he often conferred with Roger Lucy, as he'd been a big help to Taylor during the evacuation of Canadian nationals from Iran the previous year. Most of the Canadians had been located in the Caspian region, so Lucy had taken a driver and scouted along the Turkish and Russian borders, seeing if it was feasible to try to get them out overland. Ultimately they had decided to use a nearby airfield to fly them out instead.

The various ideas being floated for the houseguests ranged from driving them down to the Persian Gulf and getting them out on a ship to smuggling them out through a ratline and into Turkey. Both Taylor and Lucy felt that any scenario that involved driving overland was probably not going to work, as it would just increase the chances of getting caught if something went wrong.

When Canadian foreign minister Flora MacDonald heard the news, she was particularly alarmed. Something had to be done about the houseguests, and fast. At a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on December 13, she cornered U.S. secretary of state Cyrus Vance and expressed her frustration that the United States was not doing enough. She then told him about Pelletier and the potential damage that could happen if the story of the houseguests ever became public. She was blunt and to the point, telling him that if nothing was done about the houseguests, she would put them on bicycles and have them ride for the Turkish border.

Informed by a colleague of the various catastrophes afoot, I realized we had to move fast. In the leadup to the emba.s.sy takeover, gangs of komiteh had executed countless members of the shah's former government as well as any perceived collaborators. There was little doubt in my mind what would happen to the six Americans if captured. I spread the word that there was going to be a meeting in my office. I knew each member of my team was hard at work on other projects and that what I was about to tell them was only going to add to their already busy workload, but they were professionals and would give me everything they had no matter how much I asked from them.

The authentication branch had its offices on the third floor of Central Building at Foggy Bottom. As chief of the branch, I had an office suite located midway down the building's main corridor. Stepping through the open doorway, you were in a s.p.a.cious outer office with a desk for the branch secretary, a reception area, and a registry area where members of the branch would come to collect or send out the cla.s.sified mail. More urgent or highly sensitive communications would be moved around by hand-carry.

If you stood in the entrance of the branch offices and looked left, you would see the doorway to the deputy branch chief's office. Tim Small had been at one time my boss. Now I was his. Tim was older, in his fifties, an austere, humorless man from Eastern Europe whose office reflected his personality perfectly. There was no personal decor. Everything was in order; the desk was clean, the inbox empty. Tim dotted his I's and crossed his T's before anything else. "It pays to check" was his mantra. In fact, he was right. Nevertheless, we called him "the old fart," a nice balance to some of our younger officers.

Looking to the right, you would see the doorway to my office. Front and center on my desk was a sign about a foot long and six inches high. WORK STINKS, it read. On the walls were some paintings I had recently completed; my art rotated through the office as I completed fresh pieces and sold older ones.

The tall windows behind my secretary, Elaine Younger, looked down onto the interior courtyard of the compound. Elaine had a voice like a foghorn, partly due to her long history of smoking. Callers who had not personally met her would call her "sir" on the phone. She had been in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II and was a nononsense woman. She typed with a cigarette hanging from her mouth. She guarded the door to our offices with true vigor and was as loyal to me, her new boss, as she was to her country, and G.o.d help anybody who crossed either one of us. Elaine had been there long before any of us arrived and would be there after most of us had gone. We were just pa.s.sing through, as far as she was concerned.

The group entered my office one by one. In addition to Tim Small, there was Truman Smith, chief of production from graphics. Truman was a consummate graphics guardhouse lawyer-bureaucrat. He knew how to please his boss and how to commit mayhem on a guy's morale. Tall, blond, and with bad posture, the fiftysomething had the physique of an aging former football player-a lineman perhaps. Not particularly well liked, he was effective. "Deadlines R Us" might have been his motto. He and Tim Small had reached a cosmic balance of dislike. While there was room for only one of them, the jury was still out on which was worse.

Next came Joe Missouri and Dan Varga, two bright, young, energetic a.n.a.lysts from doc.u.ments.

Joe had been in the CIA only about two years. He was a prime example of a "young fart," the kind that would balance out Tim Small's sometimes closed mind. I liked to put young and old in the same room because they would certainly have different takes on the same problem. Joe would eventually become our man in Canada on this operation, but that's getting ahead.

Joe was only about twenty-four years old. He was talented, not so much in languages as so many in Docs were, but in creating cover stories that were enormously credible. He was audacious. He also had a fierce sense of humor that served him, and us, well. Piercing dark brown eyes, a Mediterranean complexion, and a not-too-tall stature: Joe was a good "inside man."

Dan, meanwhile, came from the a.n.a.lytical portion of the CIA, the Deputy Directorate for Intelligence (DDI). He held an advanced degree in Chinese and was the picture of a young professor: receding hairline, trimmed beard, longish hair, plastic-rimmed gla.s.ses that looked like the standard GI issue. He had quite a sense of humor and was extremely smart. I was anxious to see what he would bring to this endeavor.

Next there was Doris Grange, our chief of disguise. Doris was a pet.i.te woman, but with a demeanor that prevented her from being overlooked when she spoke. She was both stylish and businesslike in her professional appearance, and one of the most capable disguise officers we had-she was the chief of her division, after all. Doris was charming but ambitious. She was considered a role model by many of our junior female officers. But underneath the aggressive facade, she had a soft nature and was a natural mentor.