Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with RetroPod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

So in the last few episodes, I've told you some pretty wild stories from the world of espionage.

I'm putting on an extremely tight latex club, and it's a good...

That was me at the CIA's museum about to hold a dead rat used

during the Cold War. Operatives would stuff film and other secret messages into their bellies.

Cool stuff. Oh, and that time the CIA stole a sunken Soviet sub from the ocean floor. That was pretty neat.

At the heart of those stories, at the very heart of the spy business, are audacious

deceptions.

It's like, it's like magic.

And in the long history of espionage, there was one man whose deceptions and sham identities

were so enterprising and successful that he earned the nickname Master of Disguise. His name was Tony

Mendez. In the winter of 2012, my wife and I saw the movie Argo, the story of how Mendes,

played by Ben Affleck, came up with an ingenious plot to slip six Americans out of Iran

during the hostage crisis that began in 1979. Before the credits rolled, the screen flashed pictures of the real-life characters with

updates about what they were doing now.

Mendez, it said, lives in rural Maryland with his family.

My jaw dropped.

Let me explain.

Not long before I saw the movie, I was out in rural Maryland,

where I stopped into an art gallery. The friendly owner showed me some paintings by local artists.

This one's by Tony Mendez, she said, pointing to a beautiful landscape. You probably know

that whole crazy story.

...