“Jay Kavara, a ruthless revolutionary, is intent on destroying the United States.”
“Chavar was a cold-blooded assassin. He had an unbelievable desire of killing people.”
“In the 60s, he’s causing mayhem in Bolivia to spark off revolutions throughout South America that will destabilize the area and threaten American interests. He has to be stopped.”
“So the CIA turns to top agent Felix Rodriguez.”
“I think it was very personal for Felix. He saw a lot of his friends die.”
“His mission: Captain Jay Cavara and bring him back alive.”
“Now, based on recently declassified documents, we can reveal the true story of this secret CIA assignment to hunt down one of the world’s most famous revolutionaries.”
In a remote area of the southern part of Bolivia, a unit of government soldiers are out on a routine patrol. Suddenly, out of the blue:
“Seven are killed. 12 soldiers are taken prisoner.”
The Bolivian soldiers are losing an ever-widening war against one of the world’s most notorious revolutionaries, Jakeof, who is determined to spread chaos. Chay knows the current Vietnam War is tearing the US apart. His aim is to create similar confrontations throughout South America to drag them into it. This, he believes, will allow communism to finally triumph.
“He wanted to create hundred Vietnams for the United States so that the United States would be putting out fires. He knew that the American public had no appetite to send troops all over the world. So that was his ultimate goal: bringing down America, which he believed was this imperial threat.”
“He hated America.”
In 1961, Chay wrote:
“The US is the great enemy of mankind. Against those hyenas, there is no option but extermination. We will bring the war to the Imperialist enemy’s very home, to his places of work and recreation. The Imperialist enemy must feel like a hunted animal wherever he moves. Thus we’ll destroy him.”
Born in Argentina, Chay is a professional revolutionary communist.
“He was this mysterious figure. I wouldn’t say to the extent of Osama bin Laden, because there were differences, but really the goals were the same: to bring down the United States.”
He fights against the US-sponsored coup in Guatemala. He leads the Cuban Revolution with Fidel Castro and overthrows the US-backed government.
“If you were going to be a revolutionary, you had to be a hard person. You had to be dedicated. You had to believe in what you were doing.”
And he truly did. To students and revolutionary youths the world over, he is a hero, a freedom fighter.
“He was young. He was handsome. He was articulate. He had this reputation.”
Chay believes the United States backs right-wing dictatorships, and those dictators exploit their own people. Only armed resistance, he argues, will address this imbalance.
“And that’s what made him really popular among the masses or amongst college kids in the United States, that kind of idealism that indeed we are in an egalitarian society and we’re going to level the playing field, so to speak.”
“He’s writing how-to books on revolution that are being used by revolutionaries all over the world and being read on college campuses in the United States. He was the picture of revolution.”
But to others, Chay is a cold-blooded killer.
“When we think of Chay, we think of him in the beret with the limpid eyes. But the real Chay Gavara was, uh, gangster, murderer, killer.”
And now, in 1967, Chay brought his armed revolution to Bolivia.
“The Bolivian government was afraid. They were getting reports from the countryside that there were men speaking a different kind of Spanish, and they had large sums of money, and they were doing it out, and they were trying to buy a huge amount of supplies.”
“They have soldiers out on a routine patrol and all of a sudden they’re ambushed. And it didn’t happen once, it happened several times.”
His successes early on terrified the Bolivians because they didn’t have the military to combat it. The Bolivian soldiers are reeling under the attacks from Chase Ming.
“All their equipment was old World War II surplus stuff. Uh, they were in desperate need of some, some modern equipment, but mostly they were in desperate need of some modern training.”
Desperate for assistance, the Bolivian president reached out to the US. The CIA, monitoring developments closely, is concerned that if Chay’s revolution in Bolivia is successful, communism could sweep through huge countries like Brazil and Argentina.
“Bolivia borders five other South American nations, and from Bolivia, that could be the epicenter of a revolution that would spread from Bolivia all throughout South America and Central America. If this happens, it will bring communism right into America’s backyard.”
At first, the American response is cautious.
“Clearly they need help, but we didn’t want American soldiers going into the field and dying, because we’re already engaged in Vietnam, and we did not want that to escalate into South America, into our hemisphere.”
Just 17 Green Berets have flown in. Their mission is simply to train the Bolivian soldiers. They are forbidden to fight against Chay’s guerrillas directly, through fear of inflaming the situation. Chay was right; America really didn’t want to be sucked into another big conflict.
“It was a classic Green Beret mission, which is send, you know, special forces into an area, train the locals, get them really up to speed militarily, train them in the intricacies of war and counterinsurgency, and let them do the fighting.”
For the next four months, the US instructors, many veterans of Korea and Vietnam, train the Bolivian soldiers.
“The men that come to camp are Bolivian conscripts, and most of them were, had maybe a fourth or fifth grade education. So now you’re trying to teach basic concepts to people who don’t even have basic math skills.”
“The military has a term, uh, for training: ‘crawl, walk, and run.’ And when the Green Berets got to Bolivia, the Bolivian army was crawling. They did a lot of physical training because a lot of the campesinos didn’t have the physical strength that they needed. So they would climb ropes, obstacle courses, uh, and then as, as they got out of the crawl phase where they were able to use their weapons correctly and patrol correctly, then they got into some walking. They really had to build this Bolivian military from the bottom up in order to be at the level they needed to to take on these guerrillas.”
They teach them how to march, shoot, move at night, detect booby traps, fight hand-to-hand, and avoid ambushes. Building aggression and building them into soldiers was a key part of the training.
“So we instilled a very aggressive spirit into them. You got to be tough. You got to—once the shooting starts, you know, don’t, don’t sit down.”
“In Bolivia, you were forced to serve. So I think you had to start the training by building that aggression and that fervor to fight, fight the enemy.”
The problem facing Washington is not only are the Bolivian army poorly trained, but intelligence on the ground is virtually non-existent.
“Our intelligence network at that time wasn’t great. We were so focused on the Soviet Union. We had very little intelligence on him. There was so much conflicting information. And that built into the whole myth of Chay.”
“This of that room and onto the airplane.”
The presence of the revolutionary guards who are now coming on duty ramps up the pressure to another level. The departure lounge itself is filling up. As the day is progressing, more and more revolutionary guards are coming in. They’re beginning to harass the people. As they wait, Menddees sees that the revolutionary guards are stopping other passengers and questioning them. They’re looking for Iranians who are trying to steal wealth and leave the country, but they’re starting to turn and look at foreigners as well.
After years of carrying out undercover exfiltrations, Menddees knows that it’s in these unexpected moments that the escapees are most likely to panic. They have already begun to make their first mistakes. For Mendes, this is nerve-wracking.
“One of the people in the group really didn’t want to leave. He felt we were abandoning the hostages. He never really got into the story and the role. In fact, when we went to the waiting room, he called me by my real name, Cora Mark, and I moved away from that person and decided to kind of keep a distance from them.”
Another mistake is when a nervous house guest picks up an Iranian newspaper written in the local language of Farsi.
“It will be highly unlikely for a Hollywood filmmaker to be doing this.”
Exactly the kind of giveaway a trained revolutionary guard would be looking for.
“Tony went over to him and said, ‘You know, put the paper down. You should probably not be a Farsi speaker or be able to read it.’ And he did. He put it down.”
Menddees cannot afford a third mistake. Just one glance by a revolutionary guard at the wrong moment, and they all go down.
“During the delay, Tony could do essentially one thing to assuage the fears of the six, and that’s: be calm. Those last 30 minutes in the waiting area seemed to drag on forever. Every minute passing very, very slowly.”
“When they glanced over at him, they couldn’t see panic. They couldn’t see fear. Only the normal countenance, the rock, the steadiness.”
“If you could take your blood pressure at each different point along the line, it’d probably be pretty high. This was kind of a draining experience going through the airport, and I just wanted to be on the aircraft at that stage. That, that was it.”
Finally, at around 8:30 a.m., there’s a second announcement.
“Passengers for Swiss Air Flight 363 for Zero, please approach the boarding gate.”
Finally, they hear the announcement: “Swiss Air Flight is boarding.”
“We really felt good, actually getting on the bus, coming onto the plane. That was beginning to feel, well, maybe it’s really going to work. You know, it’s really going to happen.”
As they leave, there is no dramatic police chase along the runway. Flight 363 takes off without further incident. A few hours later, it lands in Zurich, Switzerland.
“I wanted to say thank you and goodbye to Tony, but when I turned around, he was gone. I’m not even sure we had a chance to shake hands with Tony and Julio. They went off, and, you know, for them, it was just another day at the office, I guess. But obviously for us, it was a life-changing experience.”
Tony knows they’re going on with their lives, but he knows that this is just one of many operations, and his primary objective at that point is to drift off into the shadows. The Argo escape plan is kept secret for 17 years. The files are eventually declassified, and the world would learn of one of the CIA’s most extraordinary operations. It’s the secret story of how the CIA fooled everyone.
“Argo is a perfect example of truth being stranger than fiction. I mean, it’s hard to imagine that this is real. And I think that’s was the genius of Argo.”
