 "CIA lauds Ben Affleck's Argo, explains the 'real' version")
Marking the 35th anniversary of the rescue mission Canadian Caper (popularly known as Argo) during the US hostage crisis, the Central Intelligence agency (CIA) posted a series of ‘reel’ vs. ‘real’ tweets about the story of the mission that was declassified in recent times, in comparison to the academy award winning movie Argo directed by Ben Affleck.
The academy award winning movie was a chronicled account of the mission sanctioned by the CIA to rescue six American diplomats from the US embassy stuck in Tehran. On November 4, 1979, the US embassy was attacked and captured by a group of Iranian students and militants in support of the Iranian Revolution.
The Iran Hostage crisis was a result of a widely accepted perception of the United States’ support of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its attempt to negate the Iranian Revolution.
Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days from November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981. It was during that time that a joint covert rescue mission was sanctioned by the CIA and the Canadian government to rescue six American diplomats who had evaded capture by taking refuge in the Canadian Embassy.
The movie portrays the story of how the CIA agent Tony Mendez went to Iran and rescued the six American diplomats under the ruse of making a fake film. The movie was widely acclaimed and won the academy award for the Best Picture, Best adapted Screenplay and Best film editing.
The CIA’s twitter handle thanked Ben Affleck for telling the story of the mission and then went on to separate facts from fiction presented in the movie.
This is how the Argo mission really went down according to the CIA: