10 Of the Craziest Covert Operations And Rescue Missions

THE CANADIAN CAPER

Americans have talked a lot of crap about Canadians, but our syrup-loving funny-talking neighbors to the north have never ever done us wrong. Case in point: the infamous Iran hostage crisis of the early 80s, where six American diplomats were sheltered and eventually evacuated by Canadian diplomats despite enormous personal risk to the steadfast and courageous Canucks.

While the majority of America’s Iranian diplomatic staff was impounded/kidnapped by Iran’s nascent Revolutionary Council, a handful of the Great Satan’s functionaries managed to sneak out of a consulate building and eventually found their way to the home of Canadian immigration officer Robert Sheardown, who greeted the desperate Yankees alongside Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor.

Taylor and his subordinates wrangled Canadian passports for the American team, while the CIA established a cover story for the operation that claimed that the pretend-Canadians were a location scout crew for a fictional film called “Argo,” a nonexistent movie that the CIA went so far as to create fake posters for.

The American diplomats were soon evacuated to Frankfurt, and thirty years later the fake film "Argo" became the real film "Argo", a fictional and romanticized account of the Canadian Caper that screws up the boundary between real life and metafiction. At any rate, the next time you want to make fun of a Canuck for the way s/he pronounces “sorry,” please remember the brave Canadians who went out of their way to help the USA during one of its darkest hours.