The View from Here

The screenwriter of the Academy Award–winning film Argo, which dramatized the daring exfiltration of six U.S. diplomats from Tehran during the 1979–81 hostage crisis, on what’s at stake in Iran today By Chris Terrio At a social event a few years ago, I was introduced to a former high-ranking official in the Obama administration—and when I say “high-ranking,” I mean about as high as it gets. When we were left alone for a moment, this person—who had been formal and reticent throughout the evening—touched my wrist in a gesture of unexpected intimacy, then leaned in to quietly thank me for writing the 2012 film Argo.I was puzzled and must have looked it. The former official went on to explain that the film had proved useful in negotiations, when the administration was trying READ ON