{"id":36,"date":"2013-02-24T21:09:40","date_gmt":"2013-02-24T21:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/curtaustin.com\/bookshelf\/?p=36"},"modified":"2017-09-11T21:10:32","modified_gmt":"2017-09-11T21:10:32","slug":"argo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/curtaustin.com\/bookshelf\/2013\/02\/24\/argo\/","title":{"rendered":"Argo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As a movie, the story of Argo captivates and illuminates the story of American fugitives trying to stay alive during the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 and 1980.\u00a0 The award winning and Academy Award Nominated film keeps you on the edge of your seat, despite knowing the outcome and plot.<\/p>\n

As a book, the story of Argo does none of this.\u00a0 In fact, it doesn\u2019t even come close.<\/p>\n

The book, Argo is the self-centered retelling of the brilliance (at least in his own eyes) of Antonio Mendez and his one-man rescue of the hiding embassy personnel.\u00a0 To hear Mendez\u2019s version of the story, it is amazing that the CIA can function without him.\u00a0 He\u2019s developed programs, he\u2019s set policy, he\u2019s changed the face of international espionage.\u00a0 If it weren\u2019t for his brilliance and cunning, the embassy personnel would still be hanging out in the Canadian Ambassador\u2019s home to this day.<\/p>\n

In fact, this book appears to be Mendez\u2019s attempt to gain the credit that he had to hide for so many years.\u00a0 Because of the CIA\u2019s code of secrecy and the classified status of this operation, Mendez was prevented from blowing his own horn for more than 30 years.\u00a0 It appears to eat at him, gnaw at him to a point that he spends several pages of the last chapter on the awards he received and the humble way he accepts them.<\/p>\n

The story of Argo is one for the books, there is no doubt about it.\u00a0 But the book Argo, leaves this reader in serious doubt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a movie, the story of Argo captivates and illuminates the story of American fugitives trying to stay alive during … More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Argo","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookshelf","","has-post-thumbnail","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s9aBd1-argo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/curtaustin.com\/bookshelf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/curtaustin.com\/bookshelf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/curtaustin.com\/bookshelf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curtaustin.com\/bookshelf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curtaustin.com\/bookshelf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/curtaustin.com\/bookshelf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38,"href":"https:\/\/curtaustin.com\/bookshelf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36\/revisions\/38"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/curtaustin.com\/bookshelf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curtaustin.com\/bookshelf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/curtaustin.com\/bookshelf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}