Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History by Matt Baglio, Antonio Mendez Page A

and they wouldn’t even be able to enter the kitchen without the whole world knowing. Despair set in once more; they had to find yet another hideout, and fast. Luckily, Anders had a plan.
    Two days earlier, on November 8, after Laingen had called to tell the Americans they were on their own, Anders, who had a few numbers with him, phoned a good friend at the Australian embassy. Delighted to hear that Anders was fine, the friend readily agreed to take him in, but when Anders mentioned the others, the friend begged off, saying he just didn’t have the room. Anders then remembered John Sheardown, a colleague at the Canadian embassy whom he’d gotten to know well over the previous months. The two had met at one of the many Western-embassy functions that had become so popular in the absence of any nightlife in the city. They had a lot in common. Like Anders, Sheardown had served in World War II, and at fifty-five he was considered to be an old-timer among the Canadian diplomats in Iran. A distinguished balding man with a penchant for smoking pipes, Sheardown was the chief of the immigration section at the Canadian embassy. Since Bob had been in Iran without his family, John had frequently invited him over to his house for dinner. John’s wife, Zena, was not a Canadian citizen but was originally from British Guiana (now the independent nation of Guyana). This meant she didn’t have diplomatic immunity. A warm and vivacious person, she loved to entertain but rarely left the house.
    After striking out with his Australian friend, Anders picked up the phone again and dialed the Canadian embassy. Sheardown, of course, knew about the attack on the U.S. embassy and had just assumed that Anders had been taken along with everyone else. He was amazed to hear that his friend had gotten out. “Where are you?” he asked with incredulity.
    Anders tried to explain but gave up after a few minutes. The streets in Tehran were complicated enough, and to make mattersworse they’d all been renamed after the revolution. “I don’t know where I am exactly,” he said.
    Sheardown asked him what he needed. This was on Thursday, before the Americans knew they would soon be moving to Koob’s house. Anders told him that they were okay for the moment but that they might need to find another place soon. “We’re in a bit of a bind,” he said.
    Sheardown didn’t hesitate. “Why didn’t you call me before?” he said. “What took you so long?”
    Anders explained that he was with four other Americans and that they had decided to remain as a group. Because of this, they’d been reluctant to impose on anyone for fear of putting lives in unnecessary danger. Despite not having official permission to do so, Sheardown told Anders that he’d be happy to help in any way he could. Like most Western diplomats in Tehran, he was incensed when Khomeini had endorsed the embassy takeover. The diplomatic community in Tehran was a tight-knit group, and not only did Sheardown know many of the people who were now being held against their will, but the entire exercise went against the conventions of international law and diplomacy. The fact that it was Anders who was calling only made him all the more willing to break with conventions. “We have plenty of room here,” Sheardown said.
    Anders thanked him and they agreed to keep in touch if the situation ever changed.
    As soon as he had gotten off the phone with Anders, Sheardown walked upstairs to see his boss, Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor. At forty-five and sporting a salt-and-pepper 1970s perm and mod-style glasses, Taylor was a bit of an iconoclast among the senior diplomats in Tehran. Born in 1934, Taylor had entered the CanadianForeign Service in 1959 and made his way up the ranks as a trade counselor. Eventually he had become the director of Canada’s Trade Commissioner Service in 1974. Taylor had always had a bit of an unorthodox working style that sometimes rubbed the more genteel types in the Canadian