How the CIA used a fake sci-fi flick to rescue Americans from Tehran

By at 3:14 pm Thursday, Apr 26

Joshuah Bearman wrote a great story for Wired. He summarized it for me thusly:
200704261514 The story is a CIA rescue mission during the Iran Hostage Crisis, when six American embassy staff escaped the compound and were on the lam in Tehran for months -- until the CIA rescued them by creating a fake Hollywood production company and pretended to be in Iran location scouting for a big-budget sci-fi epic. I swear, it's all true. The CIA even got an office for their fake production company at Sunset/Gower studios, had a script and concept art, and took out ads in Variety. There are many more strange digressions in detail, but I'll let you find out about them in the story.
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Reader comment:

Luke says: In Errol Morris' First Person series, he did a documentary about the CIA agent responsible for the Sci-fi rescue. He talks about it in some detail. The episode is called "The Little Gray Man"

Mark Frauenfelder

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