(3 of 4)
The fugitives split up after walking about four blocks. They agreed to meet later at the British embassy. But by the next day the student militants had taken control of that embassy, too, holding it for about five hours. As King was not a U.S. diplomat, his problems were more financial than political. Equipped with new documents, he managed to borrow money for air passage home and flew out on Nov. 9.
For the American diplomats, however, there was no such easy way out. One of the carefully guarded secrets is just where they stayed in the days between fleeing their offices and Nov. 8, when one of them called the Canadian embassy to seek refuge. By then, Kathy Stafford and Mark Lijek had somehow been reunited with their spouses. Ambassador Taylor later said his staff had been "unanimous" in wanting "to do everything we could to help." On Nov. 10 the five Americans who had worked in the consular section showed up at the Canadian embassy. It was not until Nov. 22 that the sixth American, Schatz, also joined the group. He had escaped the siege because his office was outside the embassy compound. He had since been staying with "friends."
The six Americans spent more than two tedious months in the home of Canadian diplomats, reading whatever they could get their hands on. They played so much Scrabble, as Anders later explained, that "some of us could identify the letter on the front by the shape of the grain on the back of the tile." Said Taylor at a press conference in Ottawa: "I'd nominate any one of them for the world Scrabble championship. They are also probably the six best-read Foreign Service officers." Some of the six spent the time at Taylor's residence, others at the home of Roger Lucy, 31, the embassy's first secretary. A few also stayed temporarily in a safe house —until the landlord decided to show it to prospective buyers.
While the U.S. State Department kept close relatives of the six informed that the missing diplomats were safe, the relatives were not told who was harboring them. But as more reporters picked up bits of the story, Taylor worried about a leak that would send Iranians hunting down the missing, and endanger his own embassy staff as well.
Taylor devised a plan. On the pretext of keeping in touch with the three U.S. diplomats being held under house arrest at the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Taylor ingratiated himself with local officials as a friendly and neutral diplomat. He learned just what documents and procedures would be needed in the processing of embassy personnel in and out of Tehran under the erratic Ayatullah Khomeini government. He began sending some of his own staff" on unnecessary flights to establish a travel pattern and to study the clearance procedures.
The Canadian Cabinet met on Jan. 4 and approved a rare secret directive to issue Canadian passports to the six Americans—although not in their own names. The Americans were given the names of fictitious Canadian businessmen or technicians who would have valid reasons to travel to Tehran. U.S. sources have conceded that the CIA provided "technical assistance." This apparently consisted of helping to fabricate the necessary Iranian visa stamps.