Ken Taylor, the former Canadian ambassador to Iran who famously helped six Americans escape Tehran after the 1979 hostage crisis, has died.
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Former Canadian diplomat Ken Taylor has passed away after a battle with cancer.
The ambassador, who was played by Victor Garber in Ben Affleck’s Oscar-winning Argo, took issue with the hit film’s focus on Affleck’s character, Central Intelligence Agency agent Tony Mendez, and rightfully so.
Despite the controversy over the credit paid to Taylor in the film, he told NPR’s Scott Simon in a 2011 interview – before the movie was released – that “not a month goes by” that a few American doesn’t approach him and shake his hand to thank him for his actions. Taylor, Harper said, “represented the very best that Canada’s foreign service has to offer”.
“It is with sadness that I learned of the passing of Ken Taylor”.
Taylor kept the Americans hidden at his residence and at the home of his deputy, John Sheardown, in Tehran for three months.
Taylor’s heroism was portrayed in the movie Argo.
She said Taylor, born in 1934 in Calgary, has a legacy of generosity.
In a statement, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that Taylor “valiantly risked his own life by shielding a group of American diplomats from capture”.
With the co-operation of the Central Intelligence Agency, Taylor helped the six get Canadian passports to deceive the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and escape the country.
US ambassador Bruce Heyman hailed his “valour and ingenuity” in harbouring the six Americans, an act of bravery for which he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
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“There were folks who didn’t want to stick their necks out and the Canadians did”, Affleck told a Toronto worldwide Film Festival press conference. Friends of Taylor were outraged when “Argo” debuted at the Toronto worldwide Film Festival in 2012.
