Argo: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History by Antonio Mendez & Matt Baglio

Author:Antonio Mendez & Matt Baglio
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: United States, 20th Century, History
ISBN: 0670026220
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2012-09-13T07:00:00+00:00

9

HOLLYWOOD

I met Jerome Calloway for the first time during the early 1970s, on the set of a spy-themed TV show. The show was popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s, known for pushing the limits of visual effects and makeup. Calloway had been brought in by the production specifically to devise each episode’s signature shot—the crafty spy finally revealing his true identity. The show, along with a film that Calloway had worked on around that time, had caught the eye of Lou Terno, then the CIA’s chief of disguise. Much like in the TV show, during the film a succession of well-known actors magically revealed their movie star good looks after taking off a series of outlandish, but entirely believable, disguises. For instance, a famous male singer with one of the most recognizable faces in the world was disguised as an old woman, but you would have never known it. For Terno, the wonder he experienced as he watched the star emerge from his vulcanized chrysalis was akin to that of a remote Amazonian tribe suddenly witnessing a Fourth of July fireworks display. It was miraculous. “How come we can’t do that?” he exclaimed.

Terno had then flown out to Los Angeles to meet with Calloway. This was right after NESTOR, when the CIA was beginning to think about forward-deploying “kits” to improve our readiness in case we might need to carry out an exfiltration within a moment’s notice. Terno wasn’t sure what Calloway could do, but hoped he’d be open to advising us in some way.

Calloway, who had served in the army in World War II, was only too happy to help. He was a patriot through and through, and loved the idea that he could again do something for his country. Before getting involved with Hollywood, he had worked for many years creating false noses and glass eyes for wounded soldiers. In fact, even after he had become a lion in the entertainment industry, this aspect of his early professional life was always the one that had most gratified him. To him, producers were just a bunch of barracudas out to take your lunch.

A few months after Terno’s trip, I had flown back to Washington from Okinawa to receive some training as part of authentication’s new generalist program. This was the very same program that I had proposed after the NESTOR operation as a way to deploy cross-trained technical officers closer to the action. Jacob and I were given the opportunity to test out the theory by forming the first team. We were to be stationed in the Far East, but first I would need to get trained in disguise.

Back then the disguise techniques used by the CIA really weren’t anything to write home about—mostly utilizing off-the-rack department store wigs, glasses, and hats. It’s no wonder, I thought, that most officers in the field refused to wear this stuff. In all, the training lasted about ten days, at which point I was certified an “expert.” It was while I was on my way back to Asia that Terno asked me to stop off in LA and visit with Calloway.

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