The Foreign Service Journal, January 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY 2013 39 BOOKS Both these books are worth reading. But if you only have time for one, pick The Houseguests. They Were There Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History Antonio Mendez and Matt Baglio, Viking, 2012, hardcover, $26.95, 310 pages. The Houseguests: AMemoir of Canadian Courage and CIA Sorcery Mark Lijek, Amazon Digital Services, 2012; paperback/$9.99, Kindle Edition/$8.99; 318 pages. Reviewed by Steven Alan Honley We all know that on Nov. 4, 1979, Ira- nian militants stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, for the second time in nine months, subjecting 53 American hostages to a 444-day ordeal. The episode set off geopolitical shock waves that still resonate today. Happily, six American diplomats (four men and two women) escaped in the initial chaos and eventually found refuge with their Canadian colleagues for the next two months. They were then spirited out of the country in January 1980 via an ingenious covert operation that was known as “The Canadian Caper” before the CIA declassified it in 1997. Many of you have likely seen, or are planning to see, the excellent newmovie based on that incident, “Argo,” directed by and starring Ben Affleck. And hopefully you’ve all read the article about it in the October 2012 issue of The Foreign Service Journal, “‘Argo’: How Hollywood Does History,” by Mark Lijek, one of the rescued American diplomats. So the logical ques- tion is whether reading either of these books is worth your while. In a word, yes. However, since few of us have time to read two books about the same subject, choosing between them is a tougher call. The account by Antonio Mendez, the CIA agent who masterminded and executed the scheme, certainly lives up to the promise of its title. Even (or perhaps especially) if you saw the Affleck film, you’ll appreciate the additional details about howMendez and his cohorts passed off six Americans as members of a Canadian film crew in Iran to make a fake science-fiction movie. As a bonus, he also shares details of other “exfiltrations” he carried out during his 25 years with the agency. Mendez is generous about sharing credit with colleagues inside the agency and elsewhere, and candid about some mishaps that could have torpedoed the mission. And unlike many examples of the “as told to” genre, the fast-paced yet smooth prose indicates that he and co-author Matt Baglio, who has worked for many news organizations and magazines, developed a good rapport during the project. I was, however, taken aback by how little Mendez seemed to know about the Foreign Service officers he was helping. When he first learns of the existence of the “Houseguests,” the codename for the six Americans, for instance, he claims that he had no reason to believe any of them could speak a foreign language. In fact, most of them spoke Farsi (at least one fluently), among other languages. Mendez also makes some rather disdain- ful remarks about other State Department personnel he encounters, which detract from an otherwise enjoyable read. Mark Lijek provides a valuable insider corrective in his memoir, though its title is a bit misleading. Although he appro- priately extols “Canadian courage,” Lijek devotes little space to describing the “CIA sorcery” that got him and his fellow houseguests out of Iran—perhaps because he knew his version of events would be competing with the Mendez book. Fortunately, Lijek’s droll account of how and why he came to join the Foreign Service, via a somewhat circuitous route that first took him fromGeorgetown to the Army, would be worth the price of the book in its own right. In the next section, “How to Visit a Really Rotten Place and Drag Your Wife Along Too,” he explains how he ended up in Iran for his first assignment—and how his wife, Cora, joined him there just two months before the November 1979 embassy takeover. (It must be said that he seems to have had a real chip on his shoulder about Iranian culture long before he arrived.) Though the Affleck movie made a good-faith effort to convey what the Lijeks and their fellow “Houseguests” endured, that was not really its focus. So reading this book is the only way to truly appreciate the emotional roller-coaster the six Americans rode. Though there were lighter moments along the way, one can practically feel the walls closing in on them as the days go by. While the tension of the escape comes through loud and clear, I must admit I found the screen version of that episode more gripping. (Of course, as some have pointed out, Affleck skillfully embellishes that part of the story to keep the audi- ence’s adrenaline pumping.) However,