SEE Presents: An Evening With Tony Mendez

Student Entertainment Events is very pleased to announce a lecture with Tony Mendez, whose career served as the inspiration for the film “Argo”. The event will take place at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 24 in the Hoff Theater of the Stamp Student Union. The first portion of the lecture will include a moderated discussion, followed by an opportunity for students to ask their own questions. This event is free, non-ticketed and open to members of the public.

Tony Mendez is a retired CIA officer, an author and an award-winning painter with an international reputation. After being recruited by the 1965 CIA’s Technical Services Division in 1965, Tony served a 25-year career with the agency, working under cover, often overseas, and participating in some of the most important operations of the Cold War.  To his friends he was a quiet bureaucrat working for the U.S. military. To the CIA he was their disguise master. From Wild West adventures in East Asia to Cold War intrigue in Moscow he was there.

At the CIA, Tony moved into the CIA’s executive rank over the course of his career. He and his subordinates were responsible for changing the identity and appearance of thousands of clandestine operatives, allowing them to move securely around the world. In January 1980, he was awarded the Intelligence Star for Valor for engineering and conducting the rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Iran during the hostage crisis. This rescue operation involved creating an ostensible Hollywood film production company, complete with personnel, scripts, publicity and real estate in LA.

When Mendez retired in November 1990, he had earned the CIA’s Intelligence Medal of Merit and two Certificates of Distinction. Seven years later, in September 1997 on the fiftieth anniversary of the CIA, he was one of fifty officers chosen from the tens of thousands who had worked at CIA over its first fifty years awarded the Trailblazer Medallion. This honor recognized him as an “officer who by his actions, example, or initiative…helped shape the history of the CIA.”

He published his first book, The Master of Disguise, in November 1999. Since then Mendez has appeared in various national media, including twenty-two documentaries. In September 2002, he published his second book with his wife Jonna entitled “Spy Dust.” Warner Brothers has made a feature film based on the rescue of the hostages out of the Canadian embassy in Tehran. The film, called “Argo”, which stars and was directed by Ben Affleck, opened nationally in October 2012 and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Tony’s new book, ARGO: How the CIA and Hollywood Pulled off the Most Audacious Rescue in History, was published prior to the film’s release.

Mendez continues to paint, lecture and consult to the U.S. Intelligence Community. He and his wife are founding board members of the International Spy Museum in Washington DC, and they currently reside on a forty-acre farm in rural Maryland.

View the event on Facebook