It was a blind ad in a newspaper that caught Tony Mendez’s eye in 1965. The ad (“Artists to Work Overseas — U.S. Navy Civilians”) did not identify the employer, but it carried the whiff of adventure.

"Argo" was the name of a film that was supposedly being shot by a group of Canadians in Tehran at the time of the Iranian Revolution in the late '70s. In reality, it was an undercover operation ...