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      C.I.A. Discloses Identity of Second Spy Involved in ‘Argo’ Operation

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      The movie about the daring mission to rescue American diplomats from Tehran portrayed a single C.I.A. officer sneaking into the Iranian capital. In reality, the agency sent two officers.In the midst of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, the C.I.A. began what came to be noted as one of the spy agency’s most successful publicly known operations: the rescue of six American diplomats who had escaped the overrun U.S. Embassy — using a fake movie as the cover story.“Argo,” the real-life 2012 movie about the C.I.A.’s fake movie, portrayed a single C.I.A. officer, Tony Mendez, played by Ben Affleck, sneaking into Tehran to rescue the American diplomats in a daring operation.But in reality, the agency sent two officers into Tehran. For the first time on Thursday, the C.I.A. is releasing the identity of that second officer, Ed Johnson, in the season finale of its new podcast, “The Langley Files.”Mr. Johnson, a linguist, accompanied Mr. Mendez, a master of disguise and forgery, on the flight to Tehran to cajole the diplomats into adopting the cover story, that they were Canadians who were part of a crew scouting locations for a science fiction movie called “Argo.” The two then helped the diplomats with forged documents and escorted them through Iranian airport security to fly them home.Although Mr. Johnson’s name was classified, the C.I.A. had acknowledged a second officer had been involved. Mr. Mendez, who died in 2019, wrote about being accompanied by a second officer in his first book, but used a pseudonym, Julio. A painting that depicts a scene from the operation and hangs in the C.I.A.’s Langley, Va., headquarters, shows a second officer sitting across from Mr. Mendez in Tehran as they forge stamps in Canadian passports. But the second officer’s identity is obscured, his back turned to the viewer.Ed Johnson, right, receiving the C.I.A.’s Intelligence Star from John N. McMahon, the agency’s deputy director for operations at the time, in a photo provided by Mr. Johnson’s family. Mr. Johnson was the long-unidentified second C.I.A. officer in the rescue of six American diplomats from Tehran.The agency began publicly talking about its role in rescuing the diplomats 26 years ago. On the agency’s 50th anniversary, in 1997, the C.I.A. declassified the operation, and allowed Mr. Mendez to tell his story, hoping to balance accounts of some of the agency’s ill-fated operations around the world with one that was a clear success.But until recently, Mr. Johnson preferred that his identity remain secret.“He was someone who spent his whole life doing things quietly and in the shadows, without any expectation of praise or public recognition,” said Walter Trosin, a C.I.A. spokesman and co-host of the agency’s podcast. “And he was very much happy to keep it that way. But it was his family that encouraged him, later in life, to tell his side of the story because they felt there would be value to the world in hearing it.”After Mr. Trosin heard Mr. Johnson and his family were visiting C.I.A. headquarters early this summer, he arranged to meet them. At the meeting, Mr. Trosin and his podcast co-host saw how much the C.I.A.’s recognition of Mr. Johnson’s work meant to his family and started looking for a way to tell the story on the podcast.Mr. Johnson, 80, was unavailable to discuss his career on the podcast or with The New York Times because of health issues. Undeterred, Mr. Trosin dived into the agency’s classified archives.Soon after dangerous operations, the C.I.A. often records secret interviews with the participants, to capture so-called lessons learned for its own, classified histories. In addition, for many storied officers, the C.I.A. records classified oral histories at the end of their careers. C.I.A. historians had done one such oral history with Mr. Johnson.“We found out there was this prior interview,” Mr. Trosin said. “And at least portions of which could be made public.”Thanks to the “Argo” movie, the C.I.A.’s role in the rescue of the diplomats, who were being sheltered by the Canadians, has become one of the agency’s best-known operations.The C.I.A. museum, which has a tendency to dwell on the agency’s failures, features a display on the operation. Among the artifacts is a copy of the script — or at least treatment — of the fake movie complete with the Hollywood-esque tagline “A Cosmic Conflagration.” Also displayed are the business cards of the fake production company used as part of the cover story and the concept art for the movie, which featured drawings from Jack Kirby, the celebrated comic book artist who helped create the Marvel universe.Like the painting, the museum display did not identify Mr. Johnson.A painting depicting a scene from the operation hanging in the C.I.A.’s headquarters shows a second officer sitting across from Tony Mendez as they forge stamps in Canadian passports while in Tehran but does not show his face.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesBut C.I.A. officials said Mr. Johnson, an expert in languages and extracting people from tricky places, was invaluable to the operation.At the time of the hostage crisis, Mr. Johnson was based in Europe, focusing his Cold War work on learning how to get in and out of countries that were not always hospitable to Americans.When Iranian revolutionaries overran the American Embassy and took 52 diplomats hostage, six Americans working in the consular office escaped. They eventually ended up under the protection of Kenneth D. Taylor, Canada’s ambassador to Iran, and the C.I.A. began working on a plan to sneak them out of the country.Mr. Mendez, who had worked with Hollywood experts to hone his tradecraft, came up with the plan to use a fake movie, which he named “Argo” after the story of Jason and the Argonauts, the ancient Greek heroes who had undertaken the arduous mission to retrieve the Golden Fleece.While some C.I.A. extraction operations at the time used single officers, the agency decided that for the rescue of the six diplomats, two officers would be needed, said Brent Geary, a C.I.A. historian who has studied the agency’s history in Iran.Mr. Johnson was fluent in French, German, Spanish and Arabic. He did not, however, speak Persian, the predominant language in Iran.Dr. Geary said the agency had Persian speakers, but could not risk sending in someone who might be known to current or former Iranian officials. The belief was also that someone fluent in the local language could draw questions, and what was critical to the mission was having people with Mr. Mendez’s and Mr. Johnson’s skill sets.“They had trained to get in and out of tight spots,” Dr. Geary said.Even without Persian, Mr. Johnson’s languages came into use. Soon after arriving, Mr. Mendez and Mr. Johnson mistakenly ended up at the Swedish Embassy, across the street from the U.S. Embassy, which was occupied by the Iranian revolutionaries.Tony Mendez, a master of disguise and forgery, was played by Ben Affleck in “Argo.”Mark Makela/Corbis, via Getty ImagesOutside the embassy, Mr. Johnson discovered that both he and the Iranian guard spoke German, and the two began talking. The guard then hailed a taxi and wrote the address of the Canadian Embassy on a piece of paper and sent the two fake movie producers off.“I have to thank the Iranians for being the beacon who got us to the right place,” Mr. Johnson said in his oral history.In the “Argo” movie, Mr. Affleck, portraying Mr. Mendez, is shown swiping Iranian forms that were needed to enter and exit the country. But in reality, it was Mr. Johnson who performed the sleight of hand to steal the documents. (Mr. Affleck did not respond to a request to comment.)In his oral history, Mr. Johnson said the “biggest thing” was to persuade the diplomats that they could pull off the movie team cover story.“These are rookies,” Mr. Johnson recalled in the recorded session. “They were people who were not trained to lie to authorities. They weren’t trained to be clandestine, elusive.”But Mr. Johnson recounted that the six diplomats pulled it off, putting aside their nervousness and adopting the persona of a happy-go-lucky film crew.The climax of the real movie — spoiler alert for a film that has been out for more than a decade — involves Iranian government officials reacting skeptically to the cover story, then realizing the “film crew” were American diplomats and chasing the plane down the runway. None of which happened.In reality, there was simply one last security check as the group left the departure lounge.“A couple of young Iranians, they’re patting people down as they went through,” Mr. Johnson recalled, noting that the diplomats were leaning into their parts, cracking jokes as they approached the checkpoint.With that, the diplomats, Mr. Mendez and Mr. Johnson were through the last checks. In the oral history, Mr. Johnson recalled boarding and seeing the plane’s name painted on the side. It was named Aargau, and Mr. Johnson thought to himself, “What the hell?”“After a bit, I forget when, I picked up The Herald Tribune and did the crossword puzzle,” Mr. Johnson said. “And one of the one of the clues was Jason’s companions … Jason and the Argonauts.”In the C.I.A. podcast, Mr. Trosin said the name of the plane and the crossword were simply coincidences.“To be clear,” Mr. Trosin said, “this is not C.I.A. officers with excess free time just planting clues.” More

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      ‘Rebel’ Review: A Family Caught in the Islamic State’s Snare

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      This musical drama about Islamic extremism (yes, you read that right) crowds out its finer points with spectacle.Directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, “Rebel” is the rare film about Islamic extremism that features musical numbers. These interludes — with actors rapping and singing à la “Hamilton” — are shot like slick dream sequences, indicative of the sprawling drama’s epic ambitions. Instead “Rebel” is cringe-y and off-putting; a sexual assault is envisioned as a highly choreographed dance.The film’s examinations of the horrors perpetrated by the Islamic State, or ISIS, begin in Brussels, where Kamal (Aboubakr Bensaihi), a Moroccan immigrant and amateur rapper, lives with his mother, Leila (Lubna Azabal), and a doting little brother, Nassim (Amir El Arbi). Disgruntled and directionless, Kamal heads to Syria as part of a slipshod humanitarian effort to assist war victims, but almost immediately he’s kidnapped by ISIS and forced to serve as the group’s videographer. Later, with a gun to his head, he’s pushed into becoming an executioner, his crimes captured on camera and disseminated by news networks back home.Nassim, refusing to believe that his brother has gone rogue, is played like putty by an extremist henchman in Brussels who brainwashes the boy into joining the cause. Only 13, Nassim, too, ships out to Syria where he joins a group of child soldiers. In the final section of the film, Leila ventures abroad to find her little boy.At best, this drama picks apart the Islamic State’s nefarious recruitment tactics, taking on the fresh perspective of a Muslim family in Europe. These dynamics are rich, and the consequences agonizing — so it’s too bad the filmmakers seem to think that the bigger the spectacle, the more powerfully communicated this whirlwind of politics and emotions. The opposite is the case.RebelNot rated. In Arabic, French, English and Dutch, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Radical Wolfe’ Review: The Substance of Style

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      This by-the-book documentary about Tom Wolfe, a pioneer of the New Journalism movement, can hardly match the stylistic flair that made the writer famous.For journalism students, it’s lore: The tale of how the famed writer Tom Wolfe sold a story about car customizers to Esquire, was hit by writers’ block and handed in a harried 49-page memo on deadline, which the editor published as is — minting a star and helping to usher in a new trend of literary reportage.Wolfe was a mythmaker who gained a mythical stature, with his white suit, contrarian takes and irreverently vivid way with words. For him, style was a kind of substance. This makes the new film about his life and career, “Radical Wolfe,” something of a letdown: Richard Dewey’s staid, by-the-book documentary can hardly match the flair with which Wolfe lived and wrote.The film adapts a 2015 Vanity Fair article by the writer Michael Lewis, who appears as a talking head alongside Wolfe’s peers, like Gay Talese, and loved ones, including his daughter. Their interviews are rather cursory, mostly touching upon Wolfe’s Southern upbringing and incongruously gracious off-page persona, while the archival footage in the film draws heavily on his television interviews.These offer a dazzling view of a time when long-form journalism held top cultural billing, yet there’s little here that interrogates the man behind the words, his process or his politics. Jamal Joseph, the writer and former Black Panther, is made the sole, thankless critical voice in a rushed section about Wolfe’s notorious New York Magazine piece, “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny’s,” a mordant account of Leonard Bernstein’s 1970 fund-raiser soiree for the Panther 21.Wolfe’s knack was for translating sights and sounds exuberantly into words. Jon Hamm’s actorly voice-overs of Wolfe’s writing, woven throughout the film, feel impoverished by contrast — a grasp at a master by lesser artists.Radical WolfeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 16 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘A Million Miles Away’ Review: From the Fields to Outer Space

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      In this biopic, a boy from a family of migrant farm workers watches the moon landing in 1969, which ignites his desire to be an astronaut.The dream of being an astronaut was planted in José Hernández (Michael Peña) early, when he and his family were migrant workers in 1960s California. Back when the U.S. immigration policy resembled a revolving door more than a steel wall, tens of thousands of families would travel north to harvest seasonal crops. For his parents, the work was in service of a long-held dream: to build a house in their native Michoacán. The children were frequently uprooted and placed in new schools as the family zigzagged across the state, following the work. It wasn’t until a teacher, Ms. Young (Michelle Krusiec), intervened that the Hernández parents settled in Stockton, Calif., forsaking their dream for their children’s education. That’s where young José saw the 1969 moon landing on T.V., a moment that ignited a lasting passion for flight.Sacrifice, grit, perseverance, tenacity: These are the themes that drive “A Million Miles Away,” directed by Alejandra Márquez Abella and based on José Hernández’s memoir, “Reaching for the Stars: The Inspiring Story of a Migrant Farmworker Turned Astronaut,” a true up-by-the-bootstraps tale. The film spans decades, from childhood to, eventually, the NASA space program. He married Adela (Rosa Salazar), a car saleswoman and aspiring chef, with whom he had five children; along the way he also worked as an engineer at a federal research facility. He is propelled by the support of his wife and family as well as a “recipe” for success from his father, Salvador (Julio César Cedillo), around which the film is framed.Beautifully shot and interspersed with historical footage of migrant workers and spacecraft launches, the film’s most effective and touching scenes revolve around the family relationships, particularly José’s with his cousin Beto (Bobby Soto), who became a farmworker like his parents. In one scene, Beto says: “I just think it’s great that I get to be so freaking proud and have no idea what you’re talking about, cousin.” It’s a line that aptly distills what many upwardly mobile immigrants face. There are moments that show the clashes of the two worlds, and those that show their melding: José’s driving to work blasting a ranchera on the radio; using a corncob as a spaceship; or washing dishes in his astronaut uniform. These are heartwarming scenes, and it’s hard not to be moved by the enormity of the challenge he undertook and conquered.But the grit narrative at times becomes a bit heavy-handed, with quotes such as “Hard work or nada,” from his father, and “Tenacity is a superpower” from his NASA trainer, Kalpana Chawla (Sarayu Blue). José Hernández applied to the space program 11 times before succeeding, and the film centers almost exclusively on this plight. There are meaningful glances at his hands, an echo of the calloused hands that supported him, and montages of his persevering through training.In peddling the mythical American dream narrative, the film misses an opportunity for conflict or character development and falls short of delving into bigger, more interesting themes: assimilation, immigration, gender roles, family conflict. Doing so would have made for a more meaningful watch and felt more in line with our present understanding of the reality of migrants’ lives.A Million Miles AwayRated PG. Running time: 2 hours. In theaters, and streaming on Prime Video Sept. 15. More

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      ‘Outlaw Johnny Black’ Review: A Gravel-Toned Gunslinger

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      This misguided Western parody, starring and directed by Michael Jai White, struggles to establish a comedic rhythm.A gravel-toned gunslinger rolls into town. He’s got a bullet with his nemesis’s name on it and vengeance on his mind. It’s a familiar image that “Outlaw Johnny Black,” directed by Michael Jai White, intends to spoof, but the punchlines don’t quite land properly in this misguided Western parody.This is the second movie that White has written with Byron Minns; the first was “Black Dynamite,” the 2009 Blaxploitation spoof that White also starred in. But whereas the latter understood the specific visual language and tricky tone of its genre satire, “Outlaw Johnny Black” struggles to establish a consistent comedic rhythm.Much of the flaws come from its bagginess and lack of expositional focus (plus several needlessly cringe-worthy scenes involving Native American characters). The first third of the film — which concerns the relationship between the titular Johnny Black (White) and Brett Clayton (Chris Browning), the man who killed his father — becomes practically irrelevant after Johnny winds up in a small town impersonating a preacher and enmeshed in political schemes over oil-rich land.There are some funny moments in this stretch, particularly when the actors are allowed to run with some of the purely inane gags. But the laughs are lost within an overly long, meandering plot and scenes that miss visual polish or comedic concision. The gunslinger can land a punch, but the film doesn’t pack any.Outlaw Johnny BlackRated PG-13 for violence, strong language and some sexual material. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Remembering Every Night’ Review: Separate Lives, Intertwined

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      Yui Kiyohara’s slow and graceful film follows a day in the life of three women of different ages as their paths crisscross in a Tokyo suburb.The trees are omnipresent in Yui Kiyohara’s hushed and graceful film “Remembering Every Night” — perhaps even, one imagines, omnipotent. They frame each view of the suburban housing blocks where the film is set. They flutter in the sunlight. They rustle in the breeze. They loom as reminders of the ephemerality of life and memory amid all that neatly ordered steel and concrete.For the unemployed, middle-aged Chizu (Kumi Hyodo), whom we follow through a single spring day, Tama New Town is a kind of limbo where, as one man tells her: “It all looks the same here. It’s easy to get lost.” A planned community near Tokyo designed in the mid-1960s, its sidewalks and gardens have grown worn and wild with age and neglect. The same goes for its older residents, who miss the days when they knew their neighbors. Tama may be a modernist dream or nightmare, depending on your perspective or age; ideas grow old, are forgotten and disappear, just like people. Still their legacies abide.As Chizu searches for a friend’s address, she crosses paths with two younger women, whose narrative branches intertwine quietly with her own. Sanae (Minami Ohba), a gas meter inspector in her early 30s, helps a lost old man (Tadashi Okuno) find his way home; a college student, Natsu (Ai Mikami), grieves the loss of a childhood friend. Tama is for them, too, a space of transitory isolation.Ghosts linger, cameras linger. This is pensive, slow-slow cinema, like Bela Tarr with color but less compositional heft or, sometimes, clarity. Behind it all, the persistent chirping of the birds and insects in the trees.Remembering Every NightNot rated. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Love at First Sight’ Review: Sense, Sensibility and Statistics

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      Two lovebirds-to-be meet at an airport in this unoriginal but sturdy Y.A. romance, which pivots on the probability of falling in love.It may be a cliché to suggest that a streaming original feels as if it were created to serve an algorithm, but rarely is a movie as openly besotted with patterns of data as “Love at First Sight,” on Netflix. Not only is the movie derivative, but its story actually pivots on the statistics of romance, and by extension the supposed romance of statistics.As in “500 Days of Summer,” the romance story whose fabric was recycled for this fleece pullover of a film, “Love at First Sight” features a narrator hyper-fixated on numerical values. Case in point: when we meet our two protagonists, Hadley (Haley Lu Richardson) and Oliver (Ben Hardy), the film encumbers us with a pedantic voice-over recitation of their heights, ages and average cellphone battery charges.Based on the Y.A. book “The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight,” the movie traces 24 hours in the lives of these two students, who are both flying to London for significant family ceremonies. The pair meet cute at Kennedy International Airport, nap in conjoining business-class seats and very nearly kiss in line for the lavatory. Jameela Jamil, perhaps embodying the pair’s cosmic good fortune, narrates their budding romance while appearing in a variety of background roles.The movie, directed by Vanessa Caswill, hits its stride once the lovebirds touch down across the pond, where the stats subside and the cast, particularly Richardson and Sally Phillips as Oliver’s ailing mother, come aglow with authentic feeling. What are the odds that a premise as unimaginative as this one should emerge as a sturdy little romantic drama? Jamil would know.Love at First SightRated PG-13 for language and qualitative variables. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Lift’ Review: The Choreography of Mentoring Young Talents

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      In this documentary, ballet has life-changing power for three New York dancers whose toughest struggles are not matters of technique.Three young New York ballet dancers get the spotlight in David Petersen’s new documentary, “Lift.” Filmed over 10 years, it focuses on the dancer-choreographer Steven Melendez. He grew up in the Bronx and learned ballet while moving in and out of the city’s shelter system. He came back to teach share what he had learned by conducting a workshop for underserved young people.The impressive time span allows the film to follow Victor Abreu, Yolanssie Cardona and Sharia Blockwood as they grow into promising young ballet stars while facing the challenges of poverty and housing insecurity. Melendez, the artistic director of New York Theater Ballet, sees himself in the struggles of his students. He’s visibly retraumatized when he first returns to the shelter where he grew up, and where he teaches the workshop. But over the years, we see this personal history help Melendez connect with his students as they go through trials he knows well.Petersen’s bare-bones, on-the-ground production works well for a story like this, highlighting how vital these small workshops in homeless shelters and community centers can be. There’s a motif of buzzing into locked buildings — a familiar noise to any New Yorker — and close-up shots of barbed-wire fences outside the shelter where the kids practice. Those surroundings stand in obvious contrast to the dance classes inside, where Melendez encourages students to mold the rarefied art of ballet into something of their own making.LiftRated PG-13 for language. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters. More