Toronto, Jan 24 (IANS) A former Canadian ambassador in Iran has revealed that he spied for the CIA after Iranian students took the US embassy hostage in 1979.
Ken Taylor, who served as Canada’s envoy in Tehran from 1977 to 1980, told the Globe and Mail newspaper that he actively spied for the CIA and helped them plot the evacuation of hostages at the time of the Iranian revolution.

Angry at the US patronage of the Shah of Iran who was forced into exile in January 1979, Iranians students had seized 63 Americans, including four CIA agents Nov 4, 1979 in the embassy.

The siege lasted 444 days, and ended only when the then president Jimmy Carter left and Ronald Reagan took over.

Taylor admitted that he was “the de facto CIA station chief” in Tehran after the seizure of the US embassy by Iranian students.

He said the then US president Jimmy Carter had requested then Canadian prime minister Joe Clark to assign this role to him. He said his espionage work was kept secret by Canadian and US governments to avoid public anger in Canada.

In this role, Taylor said, he sheltered six Americans and then helped them get out of Iran on Canadian passports.

The former ambassador said his head of security at his embassy, Jim Edward, became his clandestine operative to snoop for military intelligence.

He said the Canadian government also sent another operative named “Bob” to assist him.

The former ambassador said his security chief Edward would mingle with crowds of Iranians outside the US embassy to know what was going in and out.

Taylor said he and his two accomplices would also assess potential spots where US helicopters could land to carry out a commando raid to rescue the American hostages.

He told the newspaper that he undertook the role of a spy as Iran was in chaos and the risk was minimal.

“I saw this (the hostage-taking) as something that wasn’t right,” he added.

“Anything in a modest way that I could contribute… looking for some sort of solution to this, I was quite prepared to do. I felt strongly about it. And I felt we could get away with it. They weren’t going to catch us.”

Taylor’s role as a spy for the CIA has been narrated in “Our Man in Tehran” by Trent University historian Robert Wright that was released Saturday.