Ambassadors aren't always attending fancy events and sipping champagne with a country's elite.
This is a sketch of Mehrabad Airport's interior by Ambassador Ken Taylor, which he drew on the evening just before the 1979 Iran hostage escape. Somehow the film Argo, which is an account on the crisis, forgot Taylor's role.
Argo, directed by Ben Affleck (he also stars in the film), is the story of Canada's role in helping Americans escape the hostage crisis. The movie recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and some of the audience members--many of whom are friends with former ambassador Ken Taylor--were upset at how Argo's ending actually minimized Canada's involvement in the story.
The film's postscript solidified this reaction, which "implied that Canadians took credit for the rescue before the CIA's role was revealed." By now it's obviously too late to rewrite and reshoot, so the next logical solution was to have ambassador Taylor write a new version of the postscript:
The involvement of the CIA complemented efforts of the Canadian Embassy to free the six held in Tehran. To this day the story stands as an enduring model of international cooperation between governments.
That's better, though it's a little concerning how such a significant detail slipped through the cracks. Ambassador Taylor even acquired the nickname the "Canadian Caper" from his crucial role in getting the hostages to safety, and was thanked and admired profusely by Americans across the border at the time.
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