Tony Mendez

Antonio Joseph Mendez (November 15, 1940 – January 19, 2019) was an American technical operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who specialized in support of clandestine and covert CIA operations. He wrote four 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. He exfiltrated six American diplomats from Iran in January 1980 by arranging to have them pose as a Canadian film crew. 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 Wired magazine. 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 attended the 70th Golden Globe Awards to give a speech about the film, where it was nominated for (and later won) Best Motion Picture – Drama.

Early life and education Mendez was born in Eureka, Nevada, in 1940 to John George Mendez and Neva June Tognoni. He attended local public schools. His father was of Mexican descent, and his mother had Italian and French ancestry. In an interview by Open Your Eyes magazine, Mendez said that his father died when he was quite young. As he never really learned to speak Spanish and was cut off from his father's Mexican-American culture, he did not identify as Hispanic.

When Mendez was a teen, his family moved to Colorado. After graduating from Englewood high school, he studied art at the University of Colorado.

Career Mendez continued to work as an artist after college. He first worked as an illustrator and tool designer for Martin Marietta, a large aerospace firm. One son, Ian, died in 2010. Another son, Antonio Tobias Mendez, became a sculptor.

In the mid-1980s, Mendez worked with Jonna Hiestand Goeser, also a CIA officer, on rebuilding the U.S. security organization in the Soviet Union and later Russia. Following Mendez's retirement in 1990, they married in 1991. They had a son together. 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. The Moscow Rules: The Secret CIA Tactics That Helped America Win the Cold War (2019), with Jonna Mendez.

His first book was lauded in 2002 by John Hollister Hedley, former Chairman of the CIA's Publications Review Board, as one of three "landmark memoirs" by former CIA officers.

Mendez was interviewed by film director Errol Morris for the First Person TV series. He appeared in the season one episode 11, "The Little Gray Man."

In 2009, Mendez was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. He died on January 19, 2019, from complications of Parkinson's disease. He was 78.

Representation in other media In the first decade of the 21st century, records related to the Canadian Caper were declassified. Journalist Joshuah Bearman wrote a full article about this in the April 2007 issue of Wired magazine.

Bearman's account was loosely adapted for the screenplay and development of the feature film Argo (2012). It was directed by Ben Affleck, who also starred as Mendez. The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture. When interviewed in 2013 by ShowBizCafe.com, Mendez was asked how he felt about being portrayed by Ben Affleck, who is non-Hispanic. Mendez noted that losing his father when he was young meant he did not learn Spanish nor much of his father's culture. He said, "I don't think of myself as a Hispanic. I think of myself as a person who grew up in the desert."