Former Canadian ambassador admits to being CIA spy

AFP: Canada's former ambassador to Iran, Kenneth Taylor, revealed Saturday that he worked as a CIA spy during the 1979 hostage crisis in wake of the Islamic revolution. MONTREAL (AFP) — Canada's former ambassador to Iran, Kenneth Taylor, revealed Saturday that he worked as a CIA spy during the 1979 hostage crisis in wake of the Islamic revolution.

Taylor broke his silence in an interview published in the daily Globe and Mail, as a book detailing his involvement hit bookstores.

"It had been under wraps for 30 years," Taylor noted, saying it was his "assumption… that it would be for another 30 years.

"I didn't expect to be here to talk about it."

The arrangement was set up by then-US president Jimmy Carter and Canadian prime minister Joe Clark, whereby Taylor would provide US intelligence with information from his position at the Canadian embassy in Tehran.

On November 4, 1979, Iranian students took control of the US embassy in Tehran and took 60 Americans hostage, beginning a 444-day crisis situation to get them freed.

Taylor was Canada's ambassador to Iran from 1977 to 1980. He was already known to have hidden six US embassy staffers at the time, but this is the first time he was revealed to be a covert CIA operative.