Argo-A Footnote in History

But they consider it a trifle odd that Argo is based on the tale of six embassy staff members who eluded Iranians,posing as students,who took over the embassy on Nov. 4,1979. They six spent weeks in hiding,sheltered by Canadian diplomats,until they slipped out of the country,three months into the 14-month crisis.

The six were greeted at the White House by President Jimmy Carter,and their return was a rare bright spot during a grim time. “Our little story is a footnote,” said Robert Anders,the informal leader of the six.

Anders is played in the movie by Tate Donovan. “It made me feel a little guilty,” said Anders,now 87. “The real hostages were the real heroes.”

Barry Rosen,a former hostage said the crisis,from November 1979 to January 1981,was no more than “a point of departure” for the movie,which he called a version of Mission: Impossible. Rosen,who has begun work on a documentary himself,added,“If people use this to understand the hostage crisis,then they know nothing about the hostage crisis.”

Ben Affleck said the escape made a good story,and so did the CIA’s ruse,that the six were Canadians scouting locations for a movie. As retold in Argo,the CIA set up a fake movie company as part of the cover story given to Iranian officials. And a movie about a movie,or even a fake movie,is an easy sell,Affleck said. “Maybe it speaks to the narcissism of Hollywood,” he said.

The movie captures a lot of the small details of the period: the sideburns,the cigarettes,the aviator glasses,the black-and-white TV screens,the cigarettes,Ted Koppel and David Brinkley as youthful-looking news stars and,of course,the cigarettes.

It also has lots of gritty detail about things that did not actually happen,like a trip by a solo CIA officer,assignments as movie crew members as cover identities and brave but passive Canadian Embassy workers. But almost no one seems to mind,mostly because the film tells the story at all.

The hostages want to stay in the news,because for two decades they have been trying to collect damages from Iran,to be paid from money frozen in American bank accounts by Carter in 1979,and their options are narrowing. They won a civil case by default,but then a judge ruled in 2002 that they could not collect damages,and this year the Supreme Court turned down their last appeal. The State Department has argued that damages are forbidden under the Algiers Accords,the agreement that freed the hostages. Their request comes at a time of new appreciation for the hazards of the Foreign Service,as demonstrated by the September attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi,Libya. But,increasingly,the hostages live in a country that views their ordeal as history.

The hostages have limited hopes of seeing a movie about themselves. Their return was a moment of national catharsis but something short of victory. As Rodney V. Sickmann,who was a Marine sergeant guard at the embassy in Tehran then,said after watching the film,said: “Hollywood likes happy endings. Our side of the story isn’t really happy.”