Here Mr Williams, 71, who later was High Commissioner to Zimbabwe and New Zealand, says this is a gross misrepresentation of the part he and other British representatives played in rescuing five members of the group from anti-Western mobs roaming the streets . . .
IT WAS on a cold evening in January that my wife Sue and I set off from our home in Kent to watch Argo at the Odeon in Earls Court, West London. We had arranged to meet several colleagues who had also served in Tehran and were, naturally, looking forward to seeing how the film would depict what had been a significant and dramatic time in our lives.
I had been told in advance that it denied the crucial role British diplomats played – at significant risk to their own lives – in saving five of the six people who escaped being captured by the revolutionary students, during the storming of the American Embassy. However, even forewarned I could not help but grimace when, in the first ten minutes of the movie, one of the characters describing the fate of the escapees says: ‘The six of them went out a back exit. Brits turned them away, Kiwis turned them away. The Canadians took them in.’
I thought to myself: ‘That’s wrong. They shouldn’t have said that.’ Not only had the film-makers airbrushed British involvement, but they claimed we had actually turned our back on our closest ally at a desperate time of need. It was gratuitous, insensitive and completely inaccurate. My wife and I both bristled. You might wonder why it matters. It’s just a film, after all. Well, it matters because not many people know the truth about what happened. Argo has been touted as a ‘true story’, but it has been given such a Hollywood spin that it is actually historically damaging to the reputation of the British diplomatic service.
That is why so many of us who were in Tehran at the time are dismayed. It’s not that we seek recognition or accolade. The truth is that we decided very early on to play down our role, so as not to cause more difficulties while working with the Iranians. But now I think it’s important that the proper story be put out, so that people know what really happened.
I had been working in Tehran for nearly two years, during the time the revolution had thrown the country into a state of turmoil. There had been mass public anti-Shah and anti-Western demonstrations on the streets, incidents when soldiers fired into the crowds and the British Embassy had been invaded by angry students and set alight in 1978, while we were inside – fortunately without casualties. We continued to get regular anonymous threats, for while the Iranians considered America to be enemy No 1, or the Great Satan, Britain was the Little Satan. So it was not entirely surprising when a mob stormed the American Embassy on November 4. We didn’t know then how long it would last. But we had no hesitation in helping when, at about 5pm the following day, I was told that several people had evaded capture and I should go and find them. I set off in my dusty orange Austin Maxi, which Sue and I had driven all the way from England in late 1977. It was pretty distinct and the only one in Iran; it also had a prominent GB sticker on the back.
Gordon Pirie, our information officer, followed in the embassy Land Rover. We had no clear instructions about how many people there were or exactly where they were, only the general vicinity. It was in the southeast of Tehran, a part of the city that I didn’t know. Gordon and I couldn’t find the flat where they were holed up. We were reluctant to make any enquiries of local people, as we didn’t know who might be hostile. After about 30 minutes I called our embassy from a public phone box. The voice on the other end was unfamiliar and speaking in Farsi. I gathered that the British compound had itself been overrun and occupied by young Iranians. I realised that we were not going to get any help there; that Gordon and I were on our own. So I hung up. By now the streets were relatively empty and it was growing dark.
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