The situation was dire. Unbearably tense. Three months after the late-1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries, six American diplomats who had secretly escaped the compound were attempting to flee the country.
Through the capital city's airport.
Disguised as a flashy, oblivious Hollywood film crew.
Led by an undercover Central Intelligence Agency officer.
The building was crawling with Iranian security, both regular Mehrabad International Airport police and militants from the Revolutionary Guard. Foreigners were viewed with intense suspicion. Discovery and capture would have been an international fiasco — at best, the Americans would rejoin the rest of the embassy's staff who were being held hostage; at worst, they would be killed.
As the group's airplane idled on the windy tarmac, the CIA officer felt a familiar pit in his stomach: Did I miss something? Have I blown cover?
As he watched a dramatic re-creation of that moment during a recent screening of the new film “Argo,” he felt the uneasiness all over again.
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