‘Unsung heroine’ of the Canadian Caper in Tehran
Mary O’Flaherty knew every secret of the “Canadian Caper,” the daring, cloakand-dagger plan to smuggle six U.S. citizens to safety after the 1979 Iranian revolution.
As the communications officer for Canada’s embassy in Tehran, O’Flaherty was privy to the top secret messages between Ambassador Ken Taylor and the highest levels in Ottawa. She would have known the details of the bold CIA plan to sneak out the Canadians’ “house guests,” which was told — somewhat inaccurately — in the Oscar-winning film Argo.
But only O’Flaherty’s closest friends knew the key role she played in the story of intrigue that made headlines around the world. Even they didn’t know much.
“She was old school. Her lips were sealed,” said Heather Martin, a friend of 40 years and executor of O’Flaherty’s estate. “Our son used to joke that she was like our 007, but she said she was just doing her job.”
O’Flaherty died May 13 at age 92. Her obituary, published just this week, makes no mention of Iran or her top secret job as a diplomatic cryptographer.
To former diplomat Roger Lucy, O’Flaherty is “an unsung heroine.” O’Flaherty was one of the last four Canadians to leave Iran after the Americans escaped, along with Taylor, Lucy and a soldier, Warrant Officer Claude Gauthier. She was one of five Canadians to receive the Order of Canada for their actions.
Lucy was the embassy’s political officer in 1979 when the Islamic revolution overthrew the Shah of Iran and took control of the U.S. Embassy where they held 52 American hostages.
He remembered O’Flaherty as dedicated and professional, with a keen sense of humour. She was unflappable under pressure. On the day the Shah was overthrown, Lucy remembers driving with O’Flaherty on an errand to the British Embassy in Tehran.
“It meant going across town through some rather dangerous looking mobs,” he recalled. “Guys were directing traffic with guns and swords and she was cool as a cucumber. I was not. She got the widget she needed from the British, then we got back and started reporting about the revolution.
“In this day of modern communication, it’s hard to understand her role. It seems pretty stone age,” Lucy said. “It’s a pretty arcane science. In fact, most of us weren’t even allowed to know what they were doing.”
In 1980, a communications officer would have been given a typed or written message that they would then put through an optical scanner and enter into an encryption machine using a one-time use coding tape. The message would be sent from the secure communication room in the bowels of the embassy, either by telex or, if the telex line was down, by radio.
The process was laborious and communications officers were called upon around the clock and expected to be ready to work within 30 minutes, said John Kruithof, a retired communications officer and friend of O’Flaherty’s. Secrecy and discretion was paramount, he said.
Kruithof was working in Ottawa during the hostage crisis and knew the danger the Canadians were in. If word leaked that Americans were being sheltered, mobs would have almost certainly attacked the Canadian embassy staff, he said.
“That’s what makes Mary a hero. She performed under extremely dangerous circumstances where you didn’t know, if something hit the fan, whether you’d survive the day or not.”
Lucy and O’Flaherty were at the embassy on Jan. 28, 1980, when the call came from Taylor that the Americans’ plane was “wheels up” and on its way to safety in Switzerland. Gauthier smashed the encryption machine. The four remaining Canadians were then invited for lunch with the Danish ambassador, and afterwards boarded a plane for Copenhagen.
Kathleen Stafford and her husband, Joseph, were among the six Americans saved by the Canadian Caper. Stafford said O’Flaherty gave her some of her clothes as part of the elaborate cover story for the escape, which included them being given false Canadian identities and passports. Stafford carried a suitcase stuffed with O’Flaherty’s clothes to the Tehran airport.
“We couldn’t just go to the airport empty-handed,” Stafford said in a phone call from Niger, where she and her husband are now living. “She and the other Canadians contributed everything for us so we wouldn’t have anything American. It all had to be Canadian brands. Even the Band-Aids we had were Canadian.”
Mary Catherine O’Flaherty was born in St. John’s, Nfld. on Feb. 10, 1926. In 1951, she began work in communications with the Department of National Defence, then transferred to External Affairs in 1961. She never turned down a posting and also served in Islamabad, Canberra, New York, Moscow and Ottawa.