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

diplomatic corps the wrong way. He worked at a table instead of a desk, and refused to use in/out boxes. But whatever his style, he got results. He was a tireless worker and a good manager, and his employees enjoyed working for him.
    Taylor had been in Tehran since 1977 and had garnered a reputation for being decisive and calm under pressure for his handling of the evacuation of a sizable contingent of Canadian nationals just weeks before the shah had abdicated.
    Sheardown had been relatively certain that Taylor would support his decision to help the Americans. Like Sheardown, Taylor was disgusted by the notion that innocent diplomats should be taken hostage and used by a government as leverage. Almost immediately after the attack, Taylor had begun working with the heads of other foreign embassies in Tehran to try to lodge an official protest of some kind against the Iranian government. In addition, a few days after the takeover, he’d been asked by the U.S. State Department to liaise with Bruce Laingen at the Iranian foreign ministry, which he would eventually do a week later, bringing with him, among other things, books and a bottle of English Leather cologne that was actually filled with single-malt scotch.
    Sheardown explained his phone call with Anders and brought Taylor up to speed. He reiterated that the Americans were safe for the moment but would probably need a place to stay very soon. Taylor, to his credit, didn’t hesitate, and agreed that they should do whatever they could to help. The two then began discussing thebest place to hide the Americans. The Canadian embassy had the benefit of security, but was heavily trafficked and didn’t have any living quarters. In addition, it was located downtown, close to the U.S. embassy. In the end they decided they would split the Americans between Sheardown’s and Taylor’s private residences. Both were in a quiet part of town and, more important, far away from the U.S. embassy. As an added bonus, the houses also fell under the protection of diplomatic immunity, not that that amounted to much in Iran. But it was something.
    At that point, Taylor began working on a cable to send back to Ottawa, in the hopes of obtaining his government’s official permission. In it he outlined his own opinions on the matter and also the plan that he and Sheardown had just worked out.
    Of America’s many allies, Canada had been one of the most outspoken in condemning Iran for the embassy attack, and it took only a day for Taylor to get his answer, which arrived the following morning. In the cable from Ottawa, he was told to use discretion, but was given a green light to do whatever he thought necessary to help the Americans. The approval had come directly from the Canadian prime minister, Joseph Clark.
    The timing could not have been more fortuitous for the fugitive Americans. Bob Anders called Sheardown a second time from Kate Koob’s house Saturday morning just hours after Taylor had received the cable.
    “Well, John,” Anders said. “I guess now’s the time.”
    “Do you have a way of getting over here?” Sheardown asked.
    “Not really,” Anders responded. He explained how the two British staffers had driven them over to Graves’s house, and Sheardown agreed to track them down.
    “Sit tight,” he said.
    The cars came to pick them up a little after one o’clock in the afternoon. Anders had explained to Sheardown that Koob’s was right down the street from Graves’s house and the drivers had no trouble finding the place. It wasn’t ideal to be navigating the afternoon traffic, but the British staffers knew the roads well and kept off the main avenues.
    Sheardown’s house was located in the fashionable Shemiran district, Tehran’s version of Beverly Hills. Situated on the heights in the northern part of the city, the hilly neighborhood, with its large walled compounds and neatly trimmed gardens, was popular with senior diplomats, wealthy Iranians, and foreign