Hollywood's political rewrite of history to benefit Democrats

In 'Argo' brag, critics say Jimmy Carter ignores Desert One deaths

Former President Jimmy Carter is winning new criticism over the 1979 Iran hostage crisis for his comments at the end of the blockbuster Ben Affleck movie "Argo" that everyone made it home safely and "we did it peacefully," overlooking the horrific deaths of eight killed in the Desert One fiasco, say critics.

The movie describes the clandestine and successful effort to extract six Americans who escaped the American Embassy before the remaining 52 were captured and held hostage for 444 days, until Ronald Reagan's inauguration in 1981.

In a bold but eventually embarrassing move, Carter ordered a separate rescue attempt for the 52 that ended in disaster at the "Desert One" military rendezvous point when a helicopter hit a C-130 transport aircraft, killing eight and ending the mission.

At the movie's end, Affleck shows an interview with Carter who praises the leader of Argo affair to win the freedom of the six non-hostages hiding in the home of the Canadian ambassador, kept secret at the time, before he judges the whole effort to bring back the hostages.

After briefly discussing the Argo scheme to pretend the six in the ambassador's house were part of a Canadian film crew, Carter said, "Eventually, we got every hostage back home safe and sound and we upheld the integrity of our country, and we did it peacefully."

A former intelligence official said that Carter's comments ignored the Desert One disaster. "The six people hiding in the Canadian embassy were never hostages. They did get the embassy hostages back safe and sound, although the death of the folks at Desert One was not exactly peaceful," said the official.

"Tell that to the men who died at Desert One," added Jed Babbin, a former deputy under secretary of defense. "And what's this 'we' stuff? He did nothing."

The aborted rescue, dubbed "Operation Eagle Claw," remains a sore spot for many in the military and intelligence community, while the Argo rescue is a high-point of the whole Iran affair.

Unfortunately for Carter's political situation, Argo had to be credited to the Canadians at the time because revealing that Washington was responsible might have undermined the safety of the 52 Americans held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Carter in his comments notes that secrecy and also praises the CIA official responsible for the plan, who is played by Affleck in the movie.

Said Carter: "We went in, as you know, under the guise of making a motion picture film, but it had a very high possibility of failure. And after it was successful, of course, it was a great temptation to reveal all the stories so maybe I could take a little bit of credit for it, since I was president, but we had to keep it secret.

"Tony Mendez has gone down in CIA history, after his retirement, as one of the 50 most important CIA operatives of all time."