Iranian activists storm the United States embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, in retaliation for President Jimmy Carter giving the Shah asylum in the U.S. during the Iranian Revolution. More than 50 of the embassy staff are taken as hostages, but six escape and hide in the home of the Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor. With the escapees' situation kept secret, the U.S. State Department begins to explore options for exfiltrating them from Iran. Tony Mendez, a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency exfiltration specialist is brought in for consultation. He criticizes the proposals, but is at a loss when it comes time to propose a rescue, as an alternative. While on the phone with his son, he is inspired by watching Battle for the Planet of the Apes and begins plans for creating a cover story for the escapees: that they are Canadian filmmakers who happened to be in Iran scouting exotic locations for a similar science-fiction film.

Mendez and his supervisor Jack O'Donnell contact John Chambers,

ARGO (2012)