Stuff like this always pisses me off.
I remember the hostage crisis in Iran even though I was just a little girl. I remember the constant updates on the news, the real fear I felt for those people being held in terror so far away from their family.
But I also remember the great pride I took when Ken Taylor and the Canadian Embassy staff pulled off one of the greatest political tricks in history. That would be the protection and removal of escaped US Embassy staff who had taken refuge at our embassy.
But Hollywood, Ben Affleck and the movie Argo, had to go and change all that. They couldn't stick to the truth! No, they had to make it seem like the Americans came in to save the day.
Ken Taylor himself, the Canadian Ambassador in Iran at the time, hasn't been too kind about the whole thing...
“So much of the movie is total fiction,” says the 77-year-old former ambassador on the phone from his home in Manhattan. “My concern is that we’re portrayed as innkeepers who are waiting to be saved by the CIA.”
It’s their movie. But it totally distorts the relationship between Canada and the U.S. with respect to the episode. I just think they didn’t want to be bothered with the facts. It’s a good story, which they stole.”
Maclean's magazine
But thank you President Carter for finally speaking out! I should have known you'd be the guy who would try to set the record straight.
Citing one key discrepancy in the film, the former United States president makes a point to offer some just praise for America's neighbors to the north:
"The other thing that I would say was that 90 percent of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian," notes the 88-year-old. "The movie gives almost full credit to the American CIA. And with that exception, the movie's very good."
"The main hero, in my opinion, was Ken Taylor who was the Canadian ambassador who orchestrated the entire process," reveals Carter. "I was informed about it the first day, and I was very much involved with the Canadian government because the Canadian government would not legally permit six false passports to be issued. So the Canadian parliament had to go into secret session the first time in history, and they voted to let us use six Canadian passports that were false."
CNN
This whole thing reminds me of that stupid Submarine movie, U-571, that credits the discovery of the German Enigma machine to the US when it was the British who did it.
I wish I could be more eloquint but the whole thing just pisses me off.
But THANK YOU Jimmy Carter!