The Iranian Hostage Crisis

What Happened?

The Six Escaped Hostages

On November 4, 1979 a group of Iranian students stood outside of the U.S embassy in Iran and began to protest. During the protest some iranian students became violent and decided to storm the Embassy. Once on the embassy grounds, the Iranian students desparately tried to enter the facility. Workers began shredding classified info and breaking things deemed important. The Iranians eventually made it inside, afterwhich they took all of the workers hostage. This would be the start of the 444 day Iranian Hostage Crisis. During these troubling 444 days eight people died, six people escaped and 62 were held as hostages. Whenever the U.S president (Jimmy Carter) tried to make a solution to this crisis the Iranians refused to deal with him given that he was the person that allowed the shah to seek medical treatment in America.

During the storm of Iranian students in the U.S Embassy, six of the workers at the Embassy escaped with a group of Iranians exiting the building. These Americans had to either flee the country or hide from the Iranians. Throughout most of the crisis the captors didn't even know that some people escaped. The only Embassy that would take the workers in was the Canadian Embassy while the CIA tried to make a plan to save the Americans. While in the Canadian Embassy these escapees had to hide from everyone. This was a very dangerous time for Americans in Iran because of the heated tensions between the U.S and Iran so everyone hiding Americans had to be careful or they would be killed. The first idea that the CIA came up with was to have secret agents disguised as school teachers. The plan was ruled out because of a logic flaw. So a CIA agent named Tony Mendez made another plan, to be disguised as a filmmaker, to make this look legit Barry Ira Geller put his name on the movie because he was a big time Screenplay writer. When Tony Mendez got to Iran he found the six Americans and they began their escape out of the country. Before they could actually escape, they had to act like they were making a movie. While they were acting, the captors of the Americans realised that there were missing Americans. The six Americans were able to fly out of Iran just in time.