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Stranger than Fiction: The CIA, Iran hostages, and a sci-fi film

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It's 1979. Several Americans have escaped the militant takeover of the embassy, and are hiding, Anne Frank-style, in various other diplomatic residences. The US knows they are there, but how to get them out? In a story that Robert Ludlum's editors would have rejected, the CIA invented a fake science fiction film, hired Hollywood professionals, and, improbably, used it as a cover to smuggle these people out.

This is too good to be believed. Read for yourself, courtesy of Wired Magazine.
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