Argo

How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History

De: Antonio Mendez, Matt Baglio

Narrado por: Dylan Baker

The true account of the 1979 rescue of six American hostages from Iran

On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the American embassy in Tehran and captured dozens of American hostages, sparking a 444-day ordeal and a quake in global politics still reverberating today. But there’s a little-known footnote to the crisis: six Americans escaped. And a midlevel agent named Antonio Mendez devised an ingenious yet incredibly risky plan to rescue them.

Armed with foreign film visas, Mendez and an unlikely team of CIA agents and Hollywood insiders—directors, producers, actors—traveled to Tehran under the guise of scouting locations for a fake film called Argo. While pretending to find the perfect scenery and backdrops, the team succeeded in contacting the escapees and smuggling them out of Iran without a single shot being fired.

Antonio Mendez finally details the mind-bogglingly complex and dangerous operation he led more than three decades ago. A true story of secret identities and international intrigue, Argo is the gripping account of the history-making collusion between Hollywood and high-stakes espionage.

Details bog down fascinating story

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I would have enjoyed an abridged version more than this one. Although the story itself is fascinating, I found the abundance of detail distracting and boring at times.

What did you like best about this story?

The actual escape process and the creativity leading up to it were fascinating.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

The material was monotonous at times, so the reading came off a bit dull. It was not necessarily the narrator's fault.

Did Argo inspire you to do anything?

See the movie.

Liked the movie better.

This was an interesting read, but a rare case where the movie is much better than the book. There was some interesting background but not enough focus on the core of the story.

Outstanding Book and Performance

What a great story, and equally great performance! The movie was a good watch, too,, but anyone minimally familiar with cinema knew that all that drama was obviously too much unlikely to be true. So the book was a very welcome dose of reality to see the true facts brhind the fantasy. And when you know it, you realize that reality can be even more surprising than fiction.

Great listen

I thoroughly enjoyed this audio book. However, I’m surprised (candidly disappointed) that so much detail about CIA methods was divulged. Great story, well written and the audio performance was excellent.

Amazing story!

Love this story - makes me want to be a spy! Just make sure you listen to it at 1.25x b/c I almost returned it due to the narrator.