Post 5

                Like 12 Years a Slave, and Glory the movie Argo is based off true events in history and documented in primary sources.  All three movies there is a conflict that makes the story so important. In Argo that conflict is freeing the American hostages from the Iran government and revolution soldiers.  This film was very accurate in the historical content. The Iranian students actually did storm the US embassy, the Americans were actually taken hostage, and the CIA actually did help create a fake movie and production company to save the hostages.  The reason for the storming of the embassy started with the Shah. The Iran former Shah Mohammed Reza Pehlav’s authoritarian rule sparks demonstrations and riots. The shah then flees the country, and in 1979 President Carter allows the shah to enter America for cancer treatment. Then, on October 22^nd, 1979 about 3,000 unarmed and armed citizens kidnapped 63 men and women. According to Britannica.com, the Iran citizens wanted to declare a break with Iran’s past and put an end to American interference in its affairs.  The film did an inaccurate job showing what was going on in America at this time. The Operation Eagle by President Carter had failed; two of the American aircrafts had collided, according the NY times newspaper.  There was also a President election race going on that film didn’t show much attention to, but the constant media attention of the hostage crisis made President Carter look unable to run America. The American people started to be against President Carter for allowing the Americans to be hostage for so long. This allowed President Ronald Reagan to get a nice lead in the election.  The movie did a great job of focusing on the “Canadian Six”, the six Americans that escaped the US embassy riot to the Canadian embassy offices. The movie showed the six Americans in the Canadian Embassy which was really true based off of cia.gov. The most accurate part of the movie is that it showed the CIA being involved in saving the six hostages. I learned that many producers contact the CIA to get true information for their productions. Researching on cia.gov I learned that the CIA really did work with a Hollywood producer to create a fake movie and production company. The name Argo came from the ship Jason and the Argonauts sailed in rescuing the Gold Fleece.  Though the CIA and Canadian embassy work together to free the Canadian Six, they could not free the other American hostages.  Ayatollah first freed all women and African Americans. The breakthrough to free the rest of the hostages didn’t come until September 1980.  The West German Ambassador to Bonn, Gerhard Rizel, convinced Sadek Tabbatabbai, brother in law of Ahmed Khomeini to in influence his father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to facilitate the US negotiations