You wouldn’t know it by watching the Ben Aflleck thriller Argo, but a Windsorite was at the centre of the covert rescue of six Americans from revolutionary Iran in 1979.
And though Hollywood did not mention that Canadian diplomat John Sheardown, born and raised in Windsor, risked his own life to hide four of the six American fugitives in his house in Tehran, his hometown has officially recognized his efforts.
Mayor Eddie Francis proclaimed today to be John Sheardown Day “in recognition of his daring exploits.” Why Nov. 10? That is the day in 1979 that Sheardown and his wife Zena welcomed the Americans into their home, where the U.S. diplomats remained for more than two months.
“It’s fabulous that the City of Windsor has finally recognized him,” John’s son Robin said Friday. “It means a lot to our family. What my father did was one of the most important things diplomatically that Canada has ever done.
Ben Affleck directed Argo. (KEVIN WINTER/Getty Images)
“And it was courageous. If they had been caught hiding the Americans, they no doubt would have been beheaded in the central square in Iran.”
The Canadian Caper, as the story became known, began Nov. 4, 1979, when militants stormed the American embassy in Tehran in retaliation for the U.S. sheltering the recently deposed Shah of Iran. More than 50 of the American staff were taken hostage, though six escaped.
One of the Americans on the lam, Bob Anders, was a friend of Sheardown, a World War II veteran and the second-in-command at the Canadian embassy. Anders contacted Sheardown a few days later.
“My husband received a phone call and it was Bob Anders and my husband said to him, ‘What took you so long?’” recalled Zena, who speaks for John these days since he is now 88 and in the Perley and Rideau Veterans’ Health Centre in Ottawa, living with Alzheimer’s. “When Bob told him he had four others with him, John told him they were all welcome to come and stay.”
Two of the fugitives soon moved to the home of Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor, but another American later showed up so that the Sheardowns had four guests throughout most of the ordeal.
“It was a very tense time,” Zena recalled about the era, shortly after the Islamic republic was born, when foreigners were closely watched by the state. “Not everybody felt inclined to help the Americans. It was dangerous. You had to give up your privacy, your safety, in a sense your life.”
Every day Sheardown, who his American guests called Big Daddy, would go to work like normal. He would return to his large home and to a different life, where the shopping was done at various stores to deflect suspicion over the amount and where even extra garbage posed a threat.
Affleck, who directed Argo and played the part of CIA operative Tony Mendez who helped rescue the fugitive Americans, first read about the story in Wired magazine. He might not have known of the entire Canadian involvement when he made the movie, but he eventually found out.
“I actually got a call from Ben Affleck,” shortly after the movie premiered in October, Zena said. “And he was very apologetic. He said he realized it was people like us who helped the Americans.”
The Sheardowns eventually left their home in mid-January of 1980. The Americans remained behind, to be spirited a couple of days later out of the country — using Canadian passports — by CIA operatives.
They also left with an enduring friendship with Canadians like Ken Taylor and John Sheardown.
