Ken Taylor: Canada

Antonio Tony Mendez Dept: Canada was still the real hero in the whole thing, said Mendez over lunch back in September, before Argo had ever screened to the public. He gives particular credit to former Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor. Ken took a huge risk and he handled it wonderfully. He got the blame and he got the glory, according to The Star. But as Mendez stresses in his new book , Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History published by Viking , the Canucks were his backbone throughout. The book, co-written with Matt Baglio, retells the story from Mendez s point of view and if anyone had bothered to ask Antonio Tony Mendez, the real-life CIA agent portrayed by Ben Affleck in the new thriller Argo , about Canada s contribution to the rescue of six American diplomats from Iran in 1980, there would never have been any trouble. Following the film s premiere at TIFF, protests from concerned Canadians as well as a personal request from Taylor got director Affleck to change a postscript that originally slighted Canada s contribution to the dramatic Tehran rescue after the violence that followed Iran s 1979 revolution. The movie opens in theatres this weekend. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.