Ben Affleck’s Argo movie, which he directed and starred in, is no longer entirely accurate as the CIA declassifies new information about the real mission. Released in 2012, Argo stars Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez and tells the true story of how the C.I.A. operative led the rescue of six American diplomats in Tehran during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis under the facade of filming a fake science-fiction film. The real movie, Argo, received much acclaim and won three Academy Awards including Best Picture.
Now, the CIA has declassified new information about the real rescue mission that makes the Argo movie sightly inaccurate. On the CIA’s podcast The Langley Files (via The New York Times), the government agency revealed that they actually sent two officers into Tehran. They even released the identity of the second officer, Ed Johnson, a linguist who accompanied Mendez on the mission to rescue the American diplomats.
What The Argo Movie Gets Wrong
Since Johnson’s involvement in the rescue mission was just recently declassified, it’s difficult to fault the Argo movie for not including him. In his 1999 memoir The Master of Disguise, on which the Argo movie is partially based, Mendez wrote about being accompanied by a second officer, although an alias, Julio, was used. According to Walter Trosis, co-host of The Langley Files podcast, Johnson “spent his whole life doing things quietly and in the shadows, without any expectation of praise or public recognition.” In that way, the Argo movie honors the officer who was invaluable to the operation.
Other aspects that Argo gets wrong, like almost every historical film, are due to artistic liberties taken for the sake of storytelling and dramatic effect. For instance, the Argo movie ending sees the Iranian airport authorities being alerted to the ruse and chasing the plane down the runway carrying the American diplomats back home, which didn’t happen quite so dramatically in real life. It is because of moments like these that those involved in the actual operation have criticized the movie for its historical inaccuracy. Argo, for all its faults, is still an effective recreation of an important historical event.
