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It was almost four decades ago that staff of the Canadian embassy in Tehran, with the help of the CIA and Canadian government back home, smuggled half-a-dozen American diplomats out of Revolutionary Iran.
Four who escaped the November 1979 American embassy hostage-taking became the secret house guests of Zena Sheardown and her late husband, John, the head of the immigration section. It was he who first took the desperate call for help in the night. Two others went to the home of the ambassador, the late Ken Taylor.
Houseguests at John and Zena Sheardown’s home, about 7 days before their departure from Iran on Canadian passports. From left to right: Mark Lijek, Cora Lijek and Bob Anders (Americans); Zena Sheardown and Roger Lucy (Canadian embassy staffers); and Lee Schatz (American). Photo: John Sheardown.
“I don’t know how else to describe it — we were hiding fugitives,” Zena Sheardown recalled from her home in Ottawa Wednesday.
“I didn’t dare think about the consequences. I just knew I had to put one foot in front of the other, keep going, because peoples’ lives were dependent on us being strong. … I could not contemplate how this would end.”
Every knock on the door or ring of the phone signalled danger.
“It was terrifying,” Sheardown said. “At that point, they were executing their own citizens, people were being seized in the night, a lot of people disappeared for no reason. We were very conscious of the risk we were taking.
“My husband was a man of courage and a man of action so he decided these were colleagues in desperate need of help, we were in a position to help and we could not just stand by and wring our hands.”
While dozens of hostages at the embassy were held for 444 long days, those six Americans escaped Iran in January 1980.
They flew on Canadian passports to Frankfurt, under a CIA-concocted cover story that they were a film crew scouting locations for a science-fiction movie called Argo — which, of course, became the name of a real-life 2012 Hollywood movie which was directed by and starred Ben Affleck — that garnered an Oscar for best picture.
The episode was dubbed the Canadian Caper.
Now the Canadian Museum of History has acquired “unique, and even startling” materials, including raw footage of interviews with witnesses such as Taylor and the Sheardowns and the only photographs of the Americans in hiding, thanks to a donation by Canadian TV and film producer Les Harris.
In the months after the daring caper, Harris travelled to locations including Hong Kong, Norway and Italy to get eye-witness accounts of what happened.
Almost 2.5 million people saw Harris’ 1981 documentary when it ran on CBC and he also produced a dramatized version that aired in primetime on both CTV and American network CBS.
Photograph taken during the 1980 filming of the made-for-TV feature, Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper, in Toronto. The entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was reproduced in realistic detail.
Harris kept all the materials — reams of negatives, audiotapes and the daily rushes — and wanted them to be preserved permanently for posterity as a piece of Canadian history.
“This is diplomatically, politically, one of the most important things we’ve done since the Second World War,” Harris said, pointing to the headlines about the Canadian Caper around the world, even in Iran, and the global good will towards the country, particularly from Americans.
It’s also a story of courage, he said, pointing to the real danger faced by people like Zena Sheardown, who took “the highest risk” because while she’s now a Canadian, she was then a British citizen without diplomatic status.
“It’s such an important part of Canada’s history,” Harris said of the caper. “It was such a brave thing to do …”
“Everybody just sat still and did nothing — except the Canadians.
In 1980, Robert Anders, a member of the U.S. consular staff, and his wife Linda are interviewed in Oslo, Norway by producer-director Les Harris for the documentary Escape from Iran: The Inside Story. Robert Anders was one of six American diplomats who were helped by the Canadian embassy to escape and return home during the Iranian revolution.
Harris’ donation, including more than 300 reels of film, are an important addition to the Canadian Museum of History’s contemporary collection, according to Olivier Côté, the museum’s curator of media and communications.
“These are exclusive, uncut interviews,” Côté said. “It’s part of international history but it shows how Canada was involved in an important way in a world event. … It shows recent history and their perceptions of the events.
“Some of these people are now dead – it was crucial for the museum to preserve their memory of the events, and to have also a Canadian perspective.”
The Les Harris Collection will be available to researchers and academics and a plan is in the works to start the complex process of digitization, making the material available to the public — many of whom have likely seen the blockbuster Argo.
“It was more like the American take on the events,” Côté said. “But with this acquisition, we will be able to have … what did happen at the time, and their perceptions of the events and also a Canadian perspective.”
Trent University historian Robert Wright, who wrote the bestselling ‘Our Man in Tehran’, which was adapted into an award-winning film, said that Harris is both a very serious filmmaker dedicated to documenting the Canadian Caper almost from the moment news of it broke.
Beyond official sources, “there is no better archive” than his, Wright said.
The oft-told story of the Canadian Caper bears repeating for two reasons, he argued.
First, it’s a chapter of the Iran Hostage Crisis that still plays with “a great deal of passion and drama” on both sides of the border. Personified by the late Ken Taylor, it’s a rare episode where the Canadian-American friendship was celebrated without caveat, footnote or wariness of being too close to our powerful neighbour.
Second, the Oscar-winning — but “historically inaccurate” — Argo has been seen by millions. Before his death, Taylor was apprehensive that it would be the last word on the Canadian Caper, Wright said.
“The collection that’s going to reside at the Museum of History will attract Canadians who will remember the story, or even if they don’t remember the story, they’ll remember the controversy around Argo,” Wright said. “That’s for the good. The more Canadians who go and look at Harris’s original archival, uncut footage of people talking about the episode, the better.”
查看原文...
Four who escaped the November 1979 American embassy hostage-taking became the secret house guests of Zena Sheardown and her late husband, John, the head of the immigration section. It was he who first took the desperate call for help in the night. Two others went to the home of the ambassador, the late Ken Taylor.
Houseguests at John and Zena Sheardown’s home, about 7 days before their departure from Iran on Canadian passports. From left to right: Mark Lijek, Cora Lijek and Bob Anders (Americans); Zena Sheardown and Roger Lucy (Canadian embassy staffers); and Lee Schatz (American). Photo: John Sheardown.
“I don’t know how else to describe it — we were hiding fugitives,” Zena Sheardown recalled from her home in Ottawa Wednesday.
“I didn’t dare think about the consequences. I just knew I had to put one foot in front of the other, keep going, because peoples’ lives were dependent on us being strong. … I could not contemplate how this would end.”
Every knock on the door or ring of the phone signalled danger.
“It was terrifying,” Sheardown said. “At that point, they were executing their own citizens, people were being seized in the night, a lot of people disappeared for no reason. We were very conscious of the risk we were taking.
“My husband was a man of courage and a man of action so he decided these were colleagues in desperate need of help, we were in a position to help and we could not just stand by and wring our hands.”
While dozens of hostages at the embassy were held for 444 long days, those six Americans escaped Iran in January 1980.
They flew on Canadian passports to Frankfurt, under a CIA-concocted cover story that they were a film crew scouting locations for a science-fiction movie called Argo — which, of course, became the name of a real-life 2012 Hollywood movie which was directed by and starred Ben Affleck — that garnered an Oscar for best picture.
The episode was dubbed the Canadian Caper.
Now the Canadian Museum of History has acquired “unique, and even startling” materials, including raw footage of interviews with witnesses such as Taylor and the Sheardowns and the only photographs of the Americans in hiding, thanks to a donation by Canadian TV and film producer Les Harris.
In the months after the daring caper, Harris travelled to locations including Hong Kong, Norway and Italy to get eye-witness accounts of what happened.
Almost 2.5 million people saw Harris’ 1981 documentary when it ran on CBC and he also produced a dramatized version that aired in primetime on both CTV and American network CBS.
Photograph taken during the 1980 filming of the made-for-TV feature, Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper, in Toronto. The entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was reproduced in realistic detail.
Harris kept all the materials — reams of negatives, audiotapes and the daily rushes — and wanted them to be preserved permanently for posterity as a piece of Canadian history.
“This is diplomatically, politically, one of the most important things we’ve done since the Second World War,” Harris said, pointing to the headlines about the Canadian Caper around the world, even in Iran, and the global good will towards the country, particularly from Americans.
It’s also a story of courage, he said, pointing to the real danger faced by people like Zena Sheardown, who took “the highest risk” because while she’s now a Canadian, she was then a British citizen without diplomatic status.
“It’s such an important part of Canada’s history,” Harris said of the caper. “It was such a brave thing to do …”
“Everybody just sat still and did nothing — except the Canadians.
In 1980, Robert Anders, a member of the U.S. consular staff, and his wife Linda are interviewed in Oslo, Norway by producer-director Les Harris for the documentary Escape from Iran: The Inside Story. Robert Anders was one of six American diplomats who were helped by the Canadian embassy to escape and return home during the Iranian revolution.
Harris’ donation, including more than 300 reels of film, are an important addition to the Canadian Museum of History’s contemporary collection, according to Olivier Côté, the museum’s curator of media and communications.
“These are exclusive, uncut interviews,” Côté said. “It’s part of international history but it shows how Canada was involved in an important way in a world event. … It shows recent history and their perceptions of the events.
“Some of these people are now dead – it was crucial for the museum to preserve their memory of the events, and to have also a Canadian perspective.”
The Les Harris Collection will be available to researchers and academics and a plan is in the works to start the complex process of digitization, making the material available to the public — many of whom have likely seen the blockbuster Argo.
“It was more like the American take on the events,” Côté said. “But with this acquisition, we will be able to have … what did happen at the time, and their perceptions of the events and also a Canadian perspective.”
Trent University historian Robert Wright, who wrote the bestselling ‘Our Man in Tehran’, which was adapted into an award-winning film, said that Harris is both a very serious filmmaker dedicated to documenting the Canadian Caper almost from the moment news of it broke.
Beyond official sources, “there is no better archive” than his, Wright said.
The oft-told story of the Canadian Caper bears repeating for two reasons, he argued.
First, it’s a chapter of the Iran Hostage Crisis that still plays with “a great deal of passion and drama” on both sides of the border. Personified by the late Ken Taylor, it’s a rare episode where the Canadian-American friendship was celebrated without caveat, footnote or wariness of being too close to our powerful neighbour.
Second, the Oscar-winning — but “historically inaccurate” — Argo has been seen by millions. Before his death, Taylor was apprehensive that it would be the last word on the Canadian Caper, Wright said.
“The collection that’s going to reside at the Museum of History will attract Canadians who will remember the story, or even if they don’t remember the story, they’ll remember the controversy around Argo,” Wright said. “That’s for the good. The more Canadians who go and look at Harris’s original archival, uncut footage of people talking about the episode, the better.”
查看原文...
