Free Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History by Matt Baglio, Antonio Mendez

working as aspeechwriter for a high-ranking general. He eventually made it into the Foreign Service in 1978. His first choice of posting had been South America, but then he’d gotten a call from a junior officer asking him to volunteer for Iran. He thought about it. The shah was still in power at that point and it seemed like it might be an adventure. He said yes.
    Cora, a vivacious twenty-five-year-old Asian American, had also been excited when she heard the news. Her parents had lived in Iran for four years when she was nineteen and she had visited twice. She thought it was an exotic place. She hadn’t been following the news and thought it was going to be a lot of fun to go back. By the time she’d landed at Mehrabad Airport, however, her opinion had changed significantly. By then the country was in the midst of the revolution and under the strict rule of Khomeini. Things had changed dramatically. The biggest difference for her was now seeing all the women in their black veils, or chadors. She remembered how before the revolution only a few women wore them, and even then they were always colorful, some with floral prints. Now everyone was covered head to toe in black.
    Her friendship with Kathy had grown in Iran. Outgoing and sweet, with a small-town librarian’s wholesomeness, Kathy, who was twenty-eight and nearly a head taller than Cora, had studied art in college and hoped to one day become an artist.
    Like the Lijeks and Staffords, most of the staff at the consulate were recent replacements or acquisitions. Almost all of them had been in the country for less than four months. None of these Americans had been in Iran for the February 14 attack, but they’d all heard about it. When the shah had been allowed into the United States, everyone had been briefed on the new security measures andwas told to keep a low profile. The consulate had been attacked by rocket-propelled grenades during the summer, but it had been fortified since then. The building’s main entrance was from the street, but on the day of the attack Morefield had decided to close the consulate so some graffiti on the outside wall could be removed. Instead of the normal crush that morning, there were only about sixty Iranians who’d been permitted to keep their appointments.
    Upstairs, Robert “Bob” Anders was in his office helping an older Iranian couple with their immigrant visas. On the tall side with bushy gray hair, Anders had the handsome looks of a B–level actor and was always ready with a smile (in fact, he’d even once played a priest as an extra in the film The Exorcist ). At fifty-four, he was considered a bit of an old hand as far as the other consular officers were concerned. The Milwaukee native had served as a messenger for the Seventh Army during World War II, where he was wounded in the hand during a mortar attack around the time of the Battle of the Bulge. Upon returning home after the war, he attended Georgetown University and graduated in 1950. After failing to pass the foreign language part of the Foreign Service exam, he bounced around doing a variety of odd jobs until he was able to get a second chance. He took a probationary appointment and served for a time in Burma and Manila. Marital troubles, however, forced him out of the service. After a divorce and several more years of wandering the economic highway, Anders made it back into the Foreign Service working in the passport office as a GS5, the same level he’d started at more than twenty-five years earlier. A few years and several promotions later, he’d inquired about the chance to serve overseas once again. “How about Tehran?” they’d asked him. At that point the shah was still in power, and to Andersit seemed as good a place as any. But by the time he’d set out for the post, Khomeini had taken over, and by then it was too late to turn back.
    News of the attack on November 4 reached the consulate when some female Iranian employees who’d gone to get cookies