. Tony Mendez

Antonio "Tony" Joseph Mendez (born 1940) is a retired CIA technical operations officer who specialized in support of clandestine and covert CIA operations.Tony Mendez was decorated, and is now widely known, for his on-the-scene management of the "Canadian Caper" during the Iran hostage crisis, in which he and six American diplomats were exfiltrated from Iran. They posed as a Canadian film crew, were accompanied by the authentic CBC cameraman Dennis Packer, and the diplomats carried passports issued, specifically to misrepresent them as Canadians, by the Canadian government. That operation was the basis of the 2012 film Argo, directed by Ben Affleck, who also starred as Tony Mendez.Tony Mendez joined the CIA in 1963 and worked in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Prior to joining the agency, Tony Mendez was an artist and had worked as an illustrator and tool designer for Martin Marietta. His work in the agency frequently dealt with forging documents, creating disguises and handling other graphical work related to espionage. Tony Mendez was born in Eureka, Nevada in 1940, moved to Colorado as a teen and went on to study at the University of Colorado. Tony Mendez answered a blind advertisement in 1965, becoming an espionage artist for the Technical Services Division of the Central Intelligence Agency. He served in the CIA for 25 years.Since retiring from the CIA, Tony Mendez and his wife Jonna, herself a 27 year veteran of the CIA, have served on the Board of Directors for the International Spy Museum. He has authored three books: Master of Disguise (ISBN 0-06-095791-3), Spy Dust (ISBN 0-06-095791-3), and Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History (ISBN 978-0-670-02622-7) about his CIA experiences and lauded as "landmark memoirs" by former Chairman of the CIA's Publications Review Board John Hollister Hedley. Some photos of his works as a CIA chief of disguises were shown in the January 2005 edition of FHM magazine. He was interviewed by Errol Morris in the First Person TV series in the season one episode "The Little Gray Man," and works full-time as an artist.

Tony Mendez lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Maryland where he has his studios and gallery on a forty acre farm in rural Washington County. His son is sculptor Antonio Tobias Mendez.

Met dank aan Wikipedia

November 2012.

H.V. Anderz.

Laatst bijgewerkt op 9 november 2012.

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