In what became known unofficially as The Canadian Caper, he facilitated their escape by arranging plane tickets and persuading the Ottawa government to issue fake passports. “In fact, Pat, my wife, and I, we watched the movie for the first time at a screening in Los Angeles and Pat looked at me and said, ‘Did we really get out safely?’ halfway through the movie”.
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“Period”, Taylor once said.
Former Canadian prime minister Joe Clark, who was in office during the Iranian hostage crisis, called Taylor a “Canadian hero” and “an example of what we can be at our best”.
“As ambassador to Iran in 1979, Mr. Taylor acted with great heroism to protect the lives of American hostages”, Harper said.
Ken Taylor, former Canadian ambassador, has died at the age of 81. “He represented the very best Canada’s foreign service offers”.
Former Canadian diplomat Ken Taylor has passed away after a battle with cancer.
“On November 4, 1979, a mob of Iranians, mostly radical university students and supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini, surged over the wall around the United States compound in Tehran and occupied the American Embassy”.
Mr Taylor immediately agreed to take them in without checking with the Canadian government.
His actions during the hostage crisis were portrayed in two movies, most recently in Ben Affleck’s 2012 movie Argo.
He was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal by the Americans and also made an Officer of the Order off Canada.
“You really think your little story is going to make a difference?” the diplomat asks, to which Mendez responds with customary American bravado, “I think my little story is the only thing between you and a gun to your head”.
Those 1979 exploits – a high-stakes political drama with life-and-death implications – later became the subject of the film “Argo”. An initial New York Times description of Taylor after the escape from Iran perfunctorily described him as a diplomat “whose career has been spent primarily in furthering his country’s commercial interests”.
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In 2013, Taylor’s story was told once more for posterity at the Toronto global Film Festival, which debuted the documentary, “Our Man in Tehran”. Though he had lived in New York after leaving the diplomatic corps, Mr. Taylor never took USA citizenship.
