Former CIA agent Tony Mendez, known for his spectacular rescue operation by US diplomats in Iran, is dead. Mendez, who was honored with the Oscar-winning Hollywood movie „Argo“, died on Saturday at the age of 78, such as his family communicated. The former employee of the US foreign intelligence service CIA had suffered from Parkinson’s for more than ten years.
Mendez had dramatically taken six escaped US diplomats and US diplomats out of the country following the storm of the US Embassy in Tehran in late 1979. The diplomats had escaped from the US embassy and hid in the Embassy of Canada.
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Specializing in undercover missions, Mendez then devised a Hollywood production – the title of the fictitious sci-fi film, „Argo“ – and traveled to alleged preparations for filming in Iran. On January 27, 1980, Mendez then left with the six US diplomats and US diplomats, who posed as coworkers and employees of the film crew and had received false Canadian passports.
The story was filmed in 2012 by director and actor Ben Affleck. „Argo“ won three Academy Awards the following year, including the Best Picture Oscar.
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Affleck now wrote in the short message service Twitter, Mendez was a man of „extraordinary decency, extraordinary modesty and friendliness.“ „I am so proud to have worked with him and to have told one of his stories.“
