I watched a TV documenary made by the Canadian Broadcasting Company about the movie "Argo", which supposedly documents what happened during the 1979 Hostage crisis in Iran.

Those of you who are old enough to remember know that in 1979, religious radicals overthrew the government of Iran. They stormed the US embassy in Tehran and took twenty-something American diplomats hostage. Six American diplomats and agents were spirited off to the Canadian embassy in Tehran where they remained hidden until Canadian officials put a plan together to get them out of the country. Canada made up fake passports and ID for each of the hostages, and made up a story that they were a film crew out to scout a location in Iran to film a science fiction movie to be called "Argo".

The film has caused a bit of sarcastic humour here in Canada because it plays down the Canadian role in the crisis, and plays up the American role to the point where it depicts the whole "Canadian Caper" as it came to be called as being planned and executed by Americans, with Canada merely providing the embassy where it all took place.

Former President Jimmy Carter, while at Queens University in Toronto receiving an honorary doctorate degree for his charity work commented on the film. He said he was disappointed to see that all of the heroic and imaginative things done by Canadians to get the American diplomats out of Iran were left out, and they were largely replaced by even more heroic and imaginative, albeit fictitious, things being done by actors who played Americans in the film. He said that as President in 1979, he received updates every day on what was happening in Iran with the hostages, and the spiriting of 6 Americans out of the country by the Canadian embassy staff went down exactly as the news reports of the time said it did.

Ben Affleck, who plays the hero in the story who hatches the plan to get the US diplomats out, and supposedly organizes and executes the whole caper responded to reporters asking him about the storyline by saying: "Don't learn your history from the movies."

C'mon guys. We really helped you guys out back in '79. Don't gloss over our role and claim all the credit for yourselves.