A well crafted hoax — complete with a fake movie production company, script, shooting schedule, camera gear, make-up artists, trade ads, and of course, aliases, passports and visas that only the CIA can “legally” forge — saves six U.S. Embassy employees, who had escaped from the Embassy during the first hours of the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, but who were stranded in dire danger in Tehran for several months.
From: wired magazine: issue 15.05
by Joshuah Bearman
April 24, 2007
November 4, 1979, began like any other day at the US embassy in Tehran. The staff filtered in under gray skies, the marines manned their posts, and the daily crush of anti-American protestors massed outside the gate chanting, “Allahu akbar! Marg bar Amrika!”
Mark and Cora Lijek, a young couple serving in their first foreign service post, knew the slogans “” “God is great! Death to America!” “” and had learned to ignore the din as they went about their duties. But today, the protest sounded louder than usual. And when some of the local employees came in and said there was “a problem at the gate,” they knew this morning would be different. Militant students were soon scaling the walls of the embassy complex. Someone forced open the front gate, and the trickle of invaders became a flood. The mob quickly fanned across the 27-acre compound, waving posters of the Ayatollah Khomeini. They took the ambassador’s residence, then set upon the chancery, the citadel of the embassy where most of the staff was stationed. Continue reading “How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans from Tehran”
