Banged Up Abroad: The Real Argo

This year’s “Best Picture” Oscar winner, Argo, about the rescue six Americans that unfolded behind the scenes of the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, features in a special episode of Banged Up Abroad.

Former CIA agent Tony Mendez, who was portrayed by Ben Affleck, gives his account of the Iranian hostage rescue, together with two diplomats involved.

Banged Up Abroad is a critically acclaimed international hit series and cult cable favourite known for taking viewers inside accounts of capture, incarceration and terror far away from home with intimate personal interviews and dramatic re-enactments. In The Real Argo, get behind-the-scenes details from the personal accounts of Antonio “Tony” Mendez, a retired CIA officer – portrayed in the film by Oscar®-winning producer Ben Affleck – and married diplomats Mark Lijek and Cora Amburn-Lijek.

The episode begins with U.S. Embassy workers Mark and Cora taking us back to November 4, 1979 – the day the Embassy is taken over by militants. While demonstrations were happening daily, this day would be different. “I don’t think there’s any way we could’ve had any sense of what would happen that day and what it would be like when we next saw each other,” says Mark.

The duo describes the noises outside, the lockdown ordered and tear gas grenades tossed. And soon after hearing colleagues talking about the Embassy gates being breached, the couple knows that protestors will break in. “It was kind of a moment you hold your breath,” says Cora.

They decide to leave the Embassy with a group of diplomats and try to find the British Embassy. But with protestors blocking their way, they formulate a new plan and eventually find refuge at a Canadian diplomat’s residence. But they know that is not a permanent solution; they need to be rescued. “Everyone understood we were now a sitting target,” says Mark.

The story then turns to the first-hand account of U.S.-based CIA Agent Tony Mendez as he describes how he is charged with developing a plan to rescue the diplomats. “I was home and thinking of all the things that we needed to do. I stopped for a moment. And I thought ‘Hollywood.’ They knew how to cheat…They knew how to lie,” says Tony.

His crazy (and the only viable) idea: pose as a Hollywood film crew, allowing him to swoop into Iran and smuggle the diplomats out through the airport. “This was one of the most dangerous missions that I’ve embarked upon. But this is the best bad idea we had,” says Tony.

In Banged Up Abroad: The Real Argo, Cora and Mark recount Tony’s distribution of false identities and Canadian passports, the time they spent learning their new “characters,” the fake interrogation Tony gave them for practice, their nerves entering the airport, the panic that ensued when their flight was delayed and the jubilation when the plane finally took off.

Wednesday August 7 at 7.30pm AEST on Nat Geo Adventure.