Kenneth Taylor, the Canadian envoy whose exploits in helping US embassy staff escape Iran after the country’s revolution were featured in the Oscar-winning triller Argo, has died at 81.
Mr Taylor died yesterday after a two-month battle with colon cancer.
As Canada’s ambassador to Tehran, he and his deputy, John Sheardown, risked their lives to shelter six Americans at their homes for six months during the 1979 hostage crisis.
In what became known unofficially as “the Canadian Caper”, he facilitated their escape by arranging flight tickets and persuading the Ottawa government to issue fake passports.
He was heralded as a hero in both the Unitred States and Canada for helping to save the Americans in the clandestine operation.
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Many, including President Jimmy Carter, felt the 2012 film underplayed the role Mr Taylor played in rescuing the six.
His wife Pat said that her husband, who was born in Calgary in 1934, had a legacy of generosity.
“He did all sorts of things for everyone without any expectation of something coming back,” she said in a telephone interview.
“It’s why that incident in Iran happened,” she said. “There was no second thought about it. He just went ahead and did it. His legacy is that giving is what is important, not receiving. With all his friends that’s what he did.”
The six US diplomats had managed to slip away when their embassy was overrun by the revoluitionary mob that overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979. They spent five days on the move, then took refuge at the Canadian embassy for the next three months.
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The CIA consulted Canadian officials on how to organise a rescue, and Canada gave permission for the diplomats to be issued fake Canadian passports.
Stephen Harper, the Canadian prime minister, said: “ Taylor valiantly risked his own life by shielding a group of American diplomats from capture. [He] represented the very best that Canada’s foreign service has to offer.”
Joe Clark, who was prime minister of Canada in 1979, called him a Canadian hero and a valued friend.
Although Mr Taylor’s actions were made famous again in the film, which starred Ben Affleck, the retired diplomat said it made Canada look like a meek observer to CIA heroics.
Friends of his were outraged when the film made its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2012. Its original postscript said that Taylor received 112 citations and awards for his work in freeing the hostages and suggested that he did not deserve them because the film ends with the CIA deciding to let Canada have the credit for helping the Americans escape.
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In 2013 Mr Taylor’s story was told again at the Toronto International Film Festival, which showed the documentary Our Man in Tehran.