Joseph & Kathleen Stafford

Joseph Stafford is a retired Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. State Department, serving mainly in U.S. Embassies and Consulates in the Middle East and North Africa. First assignment was to the Embassy in Tehran, seized by student militants in November 1979. Together with his wife Kathleen, they avoided capture, hid out with Canadian diplomats, and returned to the U.S. in January 1981.  There story is documented in the Academy Award winning film Argo, starring Ben Affleck.  Kathleen is also an accomplished visual artist. Her works on paper can be found in American and Foreign embassies, museums, and private collections around the world, including the Museum Shop of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington.