Tony Mendez

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Tony Mendez

Tony Mendez (left) with Jimmy Carter (right) afterCanadian

Caper.

Birth name

Antonio Joseph Mendez

Born

November 15, 1940 (age 74)

Eureka, Nevada[1]

Allegiance

United States of America

Service/branch

Central Intelligence Agency

Years of service

1963-1990

Rank

SIS-2

Unit

Graphics and Authentication

Division

Battles/wars

Iran hostage crisis, Cold War

Awards

Intelligence Star (1980)

CIA Trailblazer Award (1997)
Order of the Sphinx (2000)

Antonio Joseph "Tony" Mendez (born 1940) is an American CIA technical operations officer,
now retired, who specialized in support of clandestine and covert CIA operations. He has written
three memoirs about his CIA experiences.
Mendez was decorated, and is now widely known, for his on-the-scene management of the
"Canadian Caper" during the Iran hostage crisis, in which he exfiltrated six American diplomats
from Iran in January 1980. They posed as a Canadian film crew, and as part of their cover, the

diplomats carried passports issued by the Canadian government to document them as Canadian
citizens.
After declassification of records, the full details of the operation were reported in a 2007 article
by Joshuah Bearman in Wiredmagazine.[2] This was loosely adapted for the screenplay and
development of the 2012 Academy Award-winning film Argo, directed by Ben Affleck, who also
starred as Mendez. Mendez also attended the 70th Golden Globe Awards to give a speech about
the film, where it was nominated (and later won) for Best Motion Picture Drama.[3]
Contents
[hide]

1 Early life and education

2 Career

3 Marriage and family

4 Later years

5 References

6 External links

Early life and education[edit]

Mendez is of Mexican descent, and has Italian, French and Irish ancestry from his mother's side.[4]
[5][6][7][8]
He was born inEureka, Nevada, in 1940, where he attended local schools. Mendez was
interviewed in Open Your Eyes magazine, and he explained that he never learned to speak
Spanish, since his father died when he was quite young.[9] "I think of myself as a person who grew
up in the desert" he claimed, and saw no problem with Ben Affleck portraying him on screen.[4]
[5]
He moved with his family to Colorado as a teen. After graduating from high school, he went on
to study at the University of Colorado.[10]

Career[edit]
Mendez continued to work as an artist after college. He supported himself by working as an
illustrator and tool designer for Martin Marietta.[10]
In 1965 Mendez answered a blind advertisement for a graphic artist. He was hired by the Central
Intelligence Agency in 1965, becoming an espionage artist for the Technical Services Division.[8][10]
Mendez worked as a CIA officer in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. His work in
the agency frequently dealt with forging documents, creating disguises, and handling other
graphical work related to espionage. He served in the CIA for 25 years. He was awarded
the Intelligence Star on 12 March 1980.[8][10]

Marriage and family[edit]

Mendez and his first wife, Karen, had three children, including a son Ian who died in 2010, and
sculptor Antonio Tobias Mendez. Karen Mendez died of cancer in 1986.[11]
In the mid-1980s, Mendez worked with Jonna Goeser, also a CIA officer, on rebuilding the US
security organization in the Soviet Union and later Russia. They married following Mendez's
retirement in 1990, and had a son together.[11]

Later years[edit]

Since retiring from the CIA in 1990, Mendez and his wife Jonna, herself a 27-year veteran of the
CIA,[10] have served on the Board of Directors for the International Spy Museum. He works fulltime as an artist.
Mendez has written three non-fiction books:

Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA (1999), memoir of his CIA experiences[12]

Spy Dust: Two Masters of Disguise Reveal the Tools and Operations that Helped Win the
Cold War (2003), with Jonna Mendez and Bruce B. Henderson.

Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in
History (2012), with Matt Baglio, a more lengthy account of the Canadian Caper.

His first work was lauded in 2002 as one of three "landmark memoirs" [12] by John Hollister Hedley,
former Chairman of the CIA's Publications Review Board.[13]
Some photos of his works as a CIA chief of disguises were featured in the January 2005 issue
of FHM magazine. Mendez was interviewed by Errol Morris in the First Person TV series in the
season one episode "The Little Gray Man."
He is played by Ben Affleck in the film Argo.

References[edit]
1.

Jump up^ "Antonio J. Mendez". The Best Reviews. 2002-09-17. Retrieved 2012-1006.

2.

Jump up^ Bearman, Joshuah (24 April 2007). "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick
to Rescue Americans From Tehran". Retrieved 26 February 2013.

3.

Jump up^ Rosenwald, Michael S. (January 14, 2013). "Golden Globes: A big night for
the real Tony Mendez". Washington Post. Retrieved February 25, 2013.

4.

^ Jump up to:a b Rico, Jack. "Exclusive! Argo's real Tony Mendez: "I'm not
Hispanic"".ShowBizCafe.com. Retrieved 15 March 2013.

5.

^ Jump up to:a b Rico, Jack. "Argos real Tony Mendez: Im not

Hispanic". ShowBizCafe.com. NBC Latino. Retrieved 15 March 2013.

6.

Jump up^ Esparza, Moctesuma. "Ben Afflecks Argo and the whitewashing of the
Mexican-American". Al Da (Philadelphia). Retrieved 15 March 2013.

7.

Jump up^ Esparza, Moctezuma. "Ben Afflecks Argo and Whitewashing MexicanAmericans". Al Da (Philadelphia). News Taco. Retrieved 26 February 2013.

8.

^ Jump up to:a b c Carswell, Simon. "The agent behind the 'Argo' mask". The Irish
Times. Retrieved15 March 2013.

9.

Jump up^ Melendez, Victor. "Tony Mendez: The Real Life James Bond". Open Your
Eyes (magazine). Retrieved 15 March 2013.

10.

^ Jump up to:a b c d e "Antonio Mendez: Author of the Master of Disguise and Spy Dust".
Themasterofdisguise.com. Retrieved 2012-10-06.

11.

^ Jump up to:a b Gardner, Karen (December 11, 2011). "Undercover no

more". Frederick News-Post. Retrieved 5 December 2012.

12.

^ Jump up to:a b "Three Memoirs from Former CIA Officers". CIA. Retrieved 2012-1006.

13.

Jump up^ "John Hollister Hedley". Missouri Southern State University.

Retrieved 2012-10-06.

External links[edit]
Wikisource has original
works written by or about:
Antonio Joseph Mendez

"Review of Master of Disguise", Studies in Intelligence v. 46 #1 (2002)

A Classic Case of Deception Menedez on the background of the Canadian

Caper, Studies in Intelligence Winter 1999-2000

"Tony Mendez, clandestine CIA hero of Ben Afflecks Argo, reveals the real story behind
film smash". The Washington Times. October 10, 2012.