Our Man in Tehran.

• Author: Jones, David T.
• Position: Book review

Our Man in Tehran: Ken Taylor, the CIA and the Iran Hostage Crisis by Robert Wright, Random House, January 2011, ISBN 978-1-59051-413-9 (1-59051-413-0), pp. 432, $25.95

One would have thought that there was nothing new to reveal about the 1979 Tehran Hostage Crisis--where American diplomats in various numbers (at the end 53) were held by Iranian militants/terrorists for 444 days. It would have seemed over the past 30 years that all of the hostages and every senior USG official of the era had recorded and published their experiences, thoughts, and conclusions from the diplomatic and foreign policy disaster.

With the U.S.-Iranian relationship still frozen over, however, and the overhang of the ongoing Egyptian succession crisis snarling in the background, Our Man in Tehran fills a north-of-the-border/made-in-Canada niche. Our Man is Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor, who in 1979 was the most famous diplomat in the world for having with unprecedented courage and panache orchestrated the exfiltration of six U.S. diplomats that he had concealed in his residence for nearly three months. The elements of the story are well known, and Taylor and his Canadian diplomatic colleagues have "dined out" on the event for a generation. But there is more to the story than cool courage and diplomatic aplomb--and Our Man delves into previously unexplored elements.

Robert Wright, professor of history at Canada's Trent University in Ontario, has stepped into the breach in retelling a much-told story, but with convolutions not previously exposed. Wright obtained access to formerly classified material through "freedom of information" requests to Canadian archives and benefited from extended interviews with Ambassador Taylor; the revelations leave a "should this really have been told?" question with ramifications still to be played out. WikiLeaks is not the only source of explosive "confidential" material.

Our Man is biography as well as history, and Ken Taylor's personal career in the Canadian Foreign Service would remind U.S. diplomats of comparable progress through the ranks. Taylor was an economics officer, and was assigned to Tehran as ambassador in 1977 during the flood of the Shah's oil-fueled power and prosperity. Ottawa had the expectation that Canadian business could get a substantial slice of the goodies. Taylor's efforts were designed with that objective at the forefront; the thoughts of revolution were pipedreams of wild mullahs in foreign exile. The...