CARTER: CIA AIDED ESCAPE FROM IRAN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000101020008-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2010
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: July 21, 1983
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000101020008-1
__ I APFP.4n PHILADELPHIA INQUIRE
I 21 July 1983
Carter: CIA
aided escape
from Iran
TOKYO - .Ci[] i -r_-~? ???w...uvaa aa?t !Cal l 7 WIaI]
agents? some of .1 on Jan. 20, 1981, after. 444 days as
them disguised as -.film crew mem hostages. Eleven captives had been
hers, helped Canadian diplomats freed earlier.
smuggle six Americans out ?of Iran
-Carter, discussing the CIA agents
while Islamic militants held.63 ,oth- who entered Tehran to assist ?the
ers hostage, former President Jimmy Canadians, said that one using a
Carter..has disclosed. = -- West German passport was stopped
Carter revealed details of the'oper- :1 by an Iranian immigration off
ation at a news conference ?Lesday, but got through by recalling Nazi
during a private six.day visit he .is ` dictator Adolf Hitler.
making 'to Japan. - .Carter said the. agent showed his
The six Americans fled to the Ca-. passport, which carried the middle
radian Embassy in Tehran when? initial "H.", to the Iranian official,
militants.of Ayatollah Ruhollah Kho who told him, "Stop.* Something's
meini's revolutionary Islamic regime wrong."
seized the U.S. Embassy and the hos . The official then said, "I have-been
tages Nov. 4, 1979. ' ~~ here 25 years and I have never seen a
Aft r C
e
d
f
on Jan. 28, 1980, with forged Canadi.
an passports and visas.
The Americans left Tehran on a
morning flight with Canadian diplo.
manc personnel, and Taylor depart-
ed on an evening flight. The Canadi-
an Embassy in the Iranian capital
then was closed, but Canada and Iran
have not severed diplomatic rela-
tions.
The last 52 American ?bostages
were released through Algerian-
German passport with a middle ini.
a
na a in
ormed the United
States of the presence of the six
Americans. Carter said, "I directed
that intelligence agencies, primarity
the CIA, begin to go into Tehran with
disguises - sometimes as a motion
picture crew, sometimes otherwise
- to go privately into the Canadian
Embassy and train the six ?Ameri-
cans and the Canadians on how,they
might best be extracted from Teh-
ran."
He described Ken Taylor, who was
then the Canadian ambassador to
Iran, as "justifiably an American
hero." -
Taylor. now the 'Canadian consul-
general in New York, said the U.S.
intelligence agents "made a vital
contribution" to the escape of the six
Americans, who flew out of Tehran
tial, so I'll have to find out something
more about you before you can pass,"
Carter told the news conference-
, said the "very quick-thinking
CIA agent went back and said, 'Well, I
wonder if I could talk to you private-
1j'" and he then told the official, "I
was born in the late 1930s, and my
parents gave me the middle name of
Hitler, and I've always gotten permis-
sion to conceal this fact in my pass
port"
Carter said the official then told
the agent, "Well, I understand. You
go right ahead."
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000101020008-1