1953 Coup D’état
Pro-monarchy, anti-Mosaddeq demonstrators, Tehran, 19 August 1953.
Date 1953 Location Iran Result The overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq, and his replacement by Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi on 19 August 1953.
Belligerents
Supporters of Shāh  United States  United Kingdom	Supporters of Mosaddeq

The 1953 Iranian coup d’état deposed the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq.^[1][2][3]

The United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) overthrew the government of the popular Prime Minister Mosaddeq at the request of, and with minor support from the British government. In what the CIA called Operation Ajax, the U.S. enabled Mohammed Reza Pahlevi to become an all-powerful monarch, who went on to rule Iran with an iron fist for 26 years until he was overthrown in 1979.^[4]

Two years earlier, in 1951, Mosaddeq, backed by his nationalist supporters in the Iranian parliament and throughout Iran, had angered Britain with his argument that Iran should begin profiting from its vast oil reserves instead of allowing profits to continue to flow to Britain. In 1951, Iran's Parliament, the Majlis, nationalized Iran's oil industry and then elected Mosaddeq to be prime minster. Since 1913, the oil industry in Iran had been controlled exclusively by the British government-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company,^[5][6] the UK's single largest overseas investment.^[7] The ejection of the British staff of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) from the now nationalized refineries in Iran triggered the Abadan Crisis, bringing the UK and Iran close to war.^[8] Britain accused Mosaddeq of violating the legal rights of the AIOC and mobilized a worldwide boycott of Iran's oil that plunged Iran into financial crisis. The British government tried to enlist the United States in planning a coup, but President Harry S. Truman refused. His successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, however, allowed the CIA to embark on its first covert operation against a foreign government.^[9]

The economic and political crisis in Iran that began in early 1952 with the British-organized worldwide boycott of Iranian oil, ended with the signing of the Consortium Agreement of 1954. Pahlevi signed the agreement with the result that, for the first time, United States oil companies shared in the profits of Iranian oil, with the U.S. and UK evenly splitting 80% and the remainder divided between French and Dutch interests.^[10] From Iran's perspective, the Consortium Agreement of 1954 was far less favorable than conditions set forth several months earlier in the joint 'Winston Churchill-Dwight D. Eisenhower' proposal to Mosaddegh.^[11][12][13] The Consortium Agreement of 1954 ended the crisis that led to the coup, and stayed in effect until it was modified in 1973 and then ended in 1979 when the Iranian Revolution deposed the monarch. For the 25 years it was in effect, the 1954 Consortium Agreement had determined which oil companies controlled Iranian oil and profited from it.

US support and funding continued after the coup, with the CIA training the Shah's feared and hated secret police, SAVAK. Originally, the Eisenhower Administration considered Operation Ajax a successful secret war, but, given its blowback, it is now considered a failure, because of its "haunting and terrible legacy".^[14] The anti-democratic coup d’état was a "a critical event in post-war world history" that replaced Iran’s post-monarchic, native, and secular parliamentary democracy with a dictatorship.^[15] The coup is widely believed to have significantly contributed to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which deposed the Shah and replaced the pro-Western monarchy with the anti-Western Islamic Republic of Iran.^[16]

Background

According to The Guardian newspaper, the principal motive for overthrowing Iran's elected government was US and UK refusal to accept the nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the business agreement between the Imperial British and the Iranian civil governments.^[17] However according to scholar Mark Gasiorowski, while "it is often argued that the main motive behind the coup was the desire of U.S. policy makers to help U.S. oil companies gain a share in Iranian oil production ... it seems more plausible" the U.S. policymakers "were motivated mainly by fears of a communist takeover in Iran."^[18] Gasiorowski's later book written with Malcolm Byrne and published in 2003 offers a different interpretation.

History professor Ervand Abrahamian^[19] and author of five books on Iran's history was interviewed on Democracy Now concerning the US motive for overthrowing the government of Iran.

Amy Goodman: That issue of the U.S. government funding both the people in the streets who pretended that they were for Mossadegh but communist, and against Mossadegh, pro-Shah, I would like our guest, professor Ervand Abrahamian, Middle East and Iran expert at Baruch College, to comment on. This was a time, the British had used the ruse of anti-communism supposedly to lure in the U.S. Do you think the U.S. was fully well aware of the issue of oil being at the core of this, and also them possibly getting a cut of those oil sales.

Ervand Abrahamian: Yes, I think oil is the central issue. But of course this was done at the height of the Cold War, so much of the discourse at the time linked it to the Cold War. I think many liberal historians, including of course Stephen Kinzer’s wonderful book here, even though it’s very good in dealing with the tragedy of the ‘53 coup, still puts it in this liberal framework that the tragedy, the original intentions, were benign—that the U.S. really got into it because of the Cold War and was hoodwinked into it by the nasty British who of course had oil interests, but the U.S. somehow was different, that the U.S. Eisenhower’s interests were really anti-communism. I sort of doubt that interpretation. For me, the oil was important both for the United States and for Britain. It’s not just the question of oil in Iran. It was a question of control over oil internationally. If Mossadegh had succeeded in nationalizing the British oil industry in Iran, that would have set an example and was seen at that time by the Americans as a threat to U.S. oil interests throughout the world, because other countries would do the same. Once you have control, then you can determine how much oil you produce in your country, who you sell it to, when you sell it, and that meant basically shifting power from the oil companies, both British Petroleum, Angloversion, American companies, shifting it to local countries like Iran and Venezuela. And in this, the U.S. had as much stake in preventing nationalization in Iran as the British did. So here there was not really a major difference between the United States and the British. The question really was on tactics. Truman was persuaded that he could in a way nudge Mossadegh to give up the concept of nationalization, that somehow you could have a package where it was seen as if it was nationalized but, in reality, power would remain in the hands of Western oil companies. And Mossadegh refused to go along with this facade. He wanted real nationalization, both in theory and practice. So the Truman administration, in a way, was not that different from the British view of keeping control. Then, the Truman policy was then, if Mossadegh was not willing to do this, then he could be shoved aside through politics by the Shah dismissing him or the Parliament in Iran dismissing him. But again, it was not that different from the British view. Where the shift came was that after July of ’52, it became clear even to the American ambassador in Iran that Mossadegh could not be got rid of through the political process. He had too much popularity, and after July ’53, the U.S. really went along with the British view of a coup, indeed to have a military coup. So even before Eisenhower came in, the U.S. was working closely with the British to carry out the coup. And what came out of the coup was of course the oil industry on paper remained Iranian, nationalized, but in reality it was controlled by a consortium. In that consortium the British still retained more than 50 percent, but the U.S. got a good 40 percent of that control.^[20]

Early oil development

In May 1901, Mozzafar al-Din Shah Qajar, the Shah of Persia, sought to pay debts owed to Britain by granting a 60-year petroleum search concession to William Knox D'Arcy. The exploration took seven years and was almost canceled, but ultimately yielded an enormous oil field discovery— from which Persia would receive only 16 percent of the future profits.^[21]

The company grew slowly until World War I, when Persia's strategic importance led the British Government to buy a controlling share in the company, essentially nationalizing British oil production in Iran for a short time. It became the Royal Navy's chief fuel source during the war.

Post–World War I

The Persians were dissatisfied with the royalty terms of the British oil concession, the Anglo–Persian Oil Company (APOC), whereby Persia received only 16 per cent of net profits.^[22] Furthermore, the British exacerbated that business dissatisfaction, by intervening in the national, internal affair of the Persian Constitutional Revolution (the transition from dynastic to parliamentary government).^[23][24][25]

In 1921, a military coup d’état—“widely believed to be a British attempt to enforce, at least, the spirit of the Anglo–Persian agreement” effected with the “financial and logisti­cal support of British military personnel”— permitted the political emergence of Reza Pahlavi, whom they enthroned as the “Shah of Iran”, in 1925. The Shah modernised Persia to the advantage of the British and the Iranians (Persians); one result was the Persian Corridor railroad for military and civil transport.^[26]

In the 1930s, the Shah tried to terminate the APOC concession, but Britain would not allow it. The concession was renegotiated on terms favorable to the British. On 21 March 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi changed the name of the country from Persia to Iran. That is also when the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was re-named the Anglo Iranian Oil Company.^[27]

World War II

In 1941, after the Nazi invasion of the USSR, the British and Commonwealth forces and the Red Army invaded Iran, to secure petroleum (cf. Persian Corridor) for the Soviet Union's effort against the Nazis on the Eastern Front and for the British elsewhere; to wit, monarchic Britain and the USSR deposed the pro–Nazi Shah Reza, and enthroned his twenty-two-year-old son, Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, as the Shah of Iran.

The Brits secured the oilfields and seaports.

By June 1941 the British had reasserted their influence in Iraq and planned to protect their interests more effectively. This decision was made more pertinent when Germany invaded the USSR (now Russia) on 22 June 1941. The Royal Engineers were given the task of executing and supervising a series of large works projects to secure the RAF stations at Habbaniya and Shaiba, the Kirkuk oilfields, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company's installations in south-west Iran, as well as the development of ports and communication infrastructure in both Iran and Iraq.^[28]

Post-World War II

In Iran, a constitutional monarchy since 1906, nationalist leaders became powerful in seeking reduction of long-term foreign intervention in their country—especially the greatly profitable British oil concession. In particular, the AIOC's refusal to allow auditing of accounts to determine whether or not the Iranian government was being paid its due royalties in full. The AIOC's refusal escalated nationalist demands to: an equal share of petroleum revenue. Finally, the crisis was the AIOC's closing rather than accepting Iranian government "interference" in its business. The AIOC and the Iranian government resisted nationalist pressure to a renewed deal in 1949.

1950s

In mid-1952, Britain's boycott of Iranian oil was devastatingly effective, and British agents in Tehran "were working to subvert" the government of Mossadegh who sought help from President Truman and then the World Bank to no avail. "Iranians were becoming poorer and unhappier by the day" and Mossadegh's political coalition was fraying. In the springtime, Mossadegh was preoccupied with parliamentary elections. "He had little to fear from a free vote, since despite the country's problems, he was widely admired as a hero. A free vote, however, was not what others were planning. British agents had fanned out across the country, bribing candidates, and the regional bosses who controlled them. They hoped to fill the Majlis with deputies who would vote to depose Mossadegh. It would be a coup carried out by seemingly legal means."^[29]

Iranian elections took several weeks to complete because of difficulties in transportation and communication. The first results came from big cities, and they were encouraging to Mossadegh. In Tehran all twelve National Front candidates were elected. Results in other parts of the country, where there was no one to monitor the voting, were quite different. These results did not in themselves disturb Mossadegh, whose faith in the popular will was boundless, but he became worried after violence broke out in Abadan and several other parts of the country where elections were being hotly contested. Aides told him that some of the candidates being elected were under the direct control of British agents. He was about to leave for The Hague to defend Iran against another British lawsuit at the World Court and feared that his absence might remove the last checks on his enemies' electoral chicanery. In June, after 80 candidates had been certified as winners of seats in the 136-seat Majlis, his cabinet voted to halt the elections. In a statement, he asserted that since "foreign agents" were exploiting the election campaign to destabilize Iran, "the supreme national interests of the country necessitate the suspension of elections pending the return of the Iranian delegation from The Hague." ^[30]

In a 1987 article, Mark J. Gasiorowski was sharply critical. He wrote "The referendum was rigged which caused a great public outcry against Mosaddeq.^[31]

Kinzer, however, wrote that "Mossadegh was legally entitled to take this step as long as the eighty seated members did not veto it, which they did not. He could also claim a measure of moral legitimacy, since he was defending Iran against subversion by outsiders. Nonetheless, the episode cast him in an unflattering light. It allowed his critics to portray him as undemocratic and grasping for personal power.

While Mossadegh dealt with this challenge, he also had to face another that most Iranians considered far more urgent. Their country was spiraling into bankruptcy. Tens of thousands had lost their jobs at the Abadan refinery, and although most understood and passionately supported the idea of nationalization, they naturally hoped that Mossadegh would find a way to put them back to work. The only way he could do that was to sell oil." ^[32]

Support for nationalization

In 1951, the AIOC's resistance to re-negotiating their petroleum concession—and increasing the royalty paid to Iran—created popular support for nationalising the company. In March, the pro-Western PM Ali Razmara was assassinated; the next month, the parliament legislated the petroleum industry's nationalisation, by creating the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). This legislation was guided by the Western-educated Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq, then a member of the Iranian parliament and leader of the nationalization movement; by May, the Shah had appointed Mosaddeq Prime Minister.

Mohammad Mosaddeq attempted to negotiate with the AIOC, but the company rejected his proposed compromise. Mosaddeq's plan, based on the 1948 compromise between the Venezuelan Government of Romulo Gallegos and Creole Petroleum,^[33] would divide the profits from oil 50/50 between Iran and Britain. This proved unacceptable to Britain and the Foreign Office began planning for his overthrow.^[34]

That summer, American diplomat Averell Harriman went to Iran to negotiate an Anglo-Iranian compromise, asking the Shah's help; his reply was that "in the face of public opinion, there was no way he could say a word against nationalization".^[35] Harriman held a press conference in Tehran, calling for reason and enthusiasm in confronting the "nationalization crisis". As soon as he spoke, a journalist rose and shouted: "We and the Iranian people all support Premier Mossadegh and oil nationalization!" Everyone present began cheering and then marched out of the room; the abandoned Harriman shook his head in dismay.^[35]

Nationalization

The National Iranian Oil Company suffered decreased production, because of Iranian inexperience and the AIOC's orders that British technicians not work with them, thus provoking the Abadan Crisis that was aggravated by the Royal Navy's blockading its export markets to pressure Iran to not nationalise its petroleum. The Iranian revenues were greater, because the profits went to Iran's national treasury rather than to private, foreign oil companies. By September 1951, the British had virtually ceased Abadan oil field production, forbidden British export to Iran of key British commodities (including sugar and steel),^[36] and had frozen Iran's hard currency accounts in British banks.^[37]

The United Kingdom took its anti-nationalisation case against Iran to the International Court of Justice at The Hague; PM Mossadegh said the world would learn of a "cruel and imperialistic country" stealing from a "needy and naked people". Representing the AIOC, the UK lost its case. Worried about the UK's other interests in Iran, and believing the misconception that Iran's nationalism was Soviet-backed, the UK persuaded Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that Iran was falling to the Soviets—effectively exploiting the American Cold War mindset. While President Harry S. Truman was busy fighting a war with in Korea, he did not agree to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq. However, in 1953, when Dwight D. Eisenhower became president, the UK convinced him to a joint coup d'état deposing Iran's democratically elected government^[22] in order to gain control of Iran's oil with the British.

Although nationalization of the oil industry increased Iranian revenues, it inevitably resulted in a socialist style economy, addicted to subsidization and impervious to taxation, according to a December 2008 article in the Washington Post. With all revenues flowing into the national treasury, the Iranian people saw the central government as the answer to their material needs. The government—rather than independent industries—became responsible for providing jobs, building the infrastructure and providing education. Moreover, the expectation grew that the government should provide heavy subsidies for most essential needs. However, the lack of effective mechanisms for distribution of subsidies or enforcing taxation lead to extremely poor distribution of wealth and an unsustainable economy^[38]—and became a main source of widespread dissatisfaction with both the Pahlavi regime and the Islamic republic^[39] .

Cold War origins

Among the controversies involved in the coup is the importance and/or legitimacy of American and British fears of Communist influence in Iran. In Iran, the well-organized, pro-Soviet Tudeh (Communist) Party, exceeded the National Front in the size of its rallies as the financial crisis caused by the global boycott, arranged by the British, of Iranian oil worsened.^[40]

In the view of American mainstream public opinion, the crisis in Iran was perceived as a part of a Cold War conflict rather than as a nationalist struggle against Western colonialism.^[41]

But in the words of Ervand Abrahamian, the coup d'état was "a classic case of nationalism clashing with imperialism in the Third World". Secretary of State Dean Acheson admitted the “`Communist threat` was a smokescreen” in responding to Pres. Eisenhower's claim that the Tudeh party was about to assume power.^[42]

Throughout the crisis, the “communist danger” was more of a rhetorical device than a real issue — i.e. it was part of the cold-war discourse ...The Tudeh was no match for the armed tribes and the 129,000-man military. What is more, the British and Americans had enough inside information to be confident that the party had no plans to initiate armed insurrection. At the beginning of the crisis, when the Truman administration was under the impression a compromise was possible, Acheson had stressed the communist danger, and warned if Mossadeq was not helped, the Tudeh would take over. The (British) Foreign Office had retorted that the Tudeh was no real threat. But, in August 1953, when the Foreign Office echoed the Eisenhower administration’s claim that the Tudeh was about to take over, Acheson now retorted that there was no such communist danger. Acheson was honest enough to admit that the issue of the Tudeh was a smokescreen.^[42]

As part of the post–coup d'état political repression of the Tudeh, the Western-installed government of the Shah revealed that the party had 477 members in the Iranian armed forces but none that were members of the tank divisions, stationed around Tehran, that might have participated in the coup d'état.^[43]

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill insisted that the US not undermine his' campaign to isolate Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh: "Britain was supporting the Americans in Korea, he reminded Truman, and had a right to expect Anglo-American unity on Iran".^[44]

Planning

As a condition for restoring the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the US required collapsing the AIOC's monopoly; five American petroleum companies, Royal Dutch Shell, and the Compagnie Française des Pétroles, were to draw Iran's petroleum after the successful coup d'état—Operation Ajax.^[45][46]

As part of that, the CIA organized anti-Communist guerrillas to fight the Tudeh Party if they seized power in the chaos of Operation Ajax.^[47] Per released National Security Archive documents, Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith reported that the CIA had agreed with Qashqai tribal leaders, in south Iran, to establish a clandestine safe haven from which US-funded guerrillas and spies could operate.^[46][47]

Operation Ajax's formal leader was senior CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., while career agent Donald Wilber was the operational leader, planner, and executor of the deposition of PM Mossadegh. The coup d'état depended on the impotent Shah's dismissing the popular and powerful Prime Minister and replacing him with Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi, with help from Col. Abbas Farzanegan—a man agreed by the British and Americans after determining his anti-Soviet politics.^[46]

The CIA sent Major general Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr. to persuade the exiled Shah to return to rule Iran. Schwarzkopf trained the security forces that would become know as SAVAK to secure the shah's hold on power.^[48][49]

Execution of Operation Ajax

The BBC spearheaded Britain's propaganda campaign, broadcasting the go-code launching the coup d'état against Iran's elected government.^[50] At the start, the coup d'état briefly faltered—and the Shah fled from Iran. However, after a short exile in Italy, the CIA returned him to Iran. Gen. Zahedi replaced the deposed Prime Minister Mosaddeq, who was arrested, tried, and condemned to death.^[51][52] Mossadegh's sentence was commuted to three-years' solitary confinement in a military prison, followed by house arrest until his death.^[53]

Aftermath

Iran

An immediate consequence of the coup d'état was the political repression of National Front opposition and especially of the (Communist) Tudeh party, and concentration of political power in the Shah and his courtiers.^[54] Another effect was sharp improvement of Iran's economy; the British-led oil embargo against Iran ended, and oil revenue increased significantly beyond the pre-nationalisation level. Despite Iran not controlling its national oil, the Shah agreed to replacing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company with a consortium—British Petroleum and eight European and American oil companies; in result, oil revenues increased from $34 million in 1954–1955 to $181 million in 1956–1957, and continued increasing,^[55] and the United States sent development aid and advisors.

Jacob G. Hornberger, founder and president, of The Future of Freedom Foundation, said, "U.S. officials, not surprisingly, considered the operation one of their greatest foreign policy successes — until, that is, the enormous convulsion that rocked Iranian society with the violent ouster of the Shah and the installation of a virulently anti-American Islamic regime in 1979".^[56] According to him, "the coup, in essence, paved the way for the rise to power of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and all the rest that's happened right up to 9/11 and beyond".^[56]

Internationally

The 1953 coup d'état was the first time the US had openly overthrown an elected, civil government.^[57] In the US, Operation Ajax was a success, with "immediate and far-reaching effect. Overnight, the CIA became a central part of the American foreign policy apparatus, and covert action came to be regarded as a cheap and effective way to shape the course of world events"—a coup engineered by the CIA called Operation PBSUCCESS toppling the duly elected Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, which had nationalised farm land owned by the United Fruit Company, followed the next year.^[58]

A pro-American government in Iran doubled the United States' geographic and strategic advantage in the Middle East, as Turkey, also bordering the USSR, was part of NATO.^[59]

In 2000 US Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, acknowledged the coup's pivotal role in the troubled relationship and "came closer to apologizing than any American official ever has before".

The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. ... But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.^[60]

In June 2009, the US President Barack Obama in a speech in Cairo, Egypt, talked about the United States' relationship with Iran, mentioning the role of the US in 1953 Iranian coup saying, "This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is indeed a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I have made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward."^[61]

Historical viewpoint in the Islamic Republic

In the Islamic Republic, remembrance of the coup is quite different than that of history books published in the West, and follows the precepts of Ayatollah Khomeini that Islamic jurists must guide the country to prevent "the influence of foreign powers".^[62] According to historian Ervand Abrahamian, the government tries to ignore Mosaddeq as much as possible and allocates him only two pages in "high school textbooks." "The mass media elevate Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani as the real leader of the oil nationalization campaign, depicting Mosaddeq as merely the ayatollah's hanger-on." This is despite the fact that Kashani came out against Mosaddeq by mid-1953 and "told a foreign correspondent that Mossaddeq had fallen because he had forgotten that the shah enjoyed extensive popular support."^[63] A month later, Kashani "went even further and declared that Mosaddeq deserved to be executed because he had committed the ultimate offense: rebelling against the shah, `betraying` the country, and repeatedly violating the sacred law." [Cited by Y. Richard, `Ayatollah Kashani: Precursor of the Islamic Republic?` in Religion and Politics in Iran, ed. N. Keddie, (Yale University Press, 1983)] p. 109

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the main exposé of the 1953 coup d'état, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer, has been censored of descriptions of Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani's activities during the Anglo-American coup d'état. Mahmood Kashani, the son of Abol-Ghasem Kashani, "one of the top members of the current, ruling élite" whom the Iranian Council of Guardians has twice approved to run for the presidency, denies there was a coup d'état in 1953, saying Mossadegh, himself, was obeying British plans:

In my opinion, Mossadegh was the director of the British plans and implemented them ... Without a doubt Mossadegh had the primary and essential role^[64]

in the August 1953 coup. Kashani says Mossadegh, the British and the Americans worked against the Ayatollah Kashani to undermine the role of Shia clerics.^[65] According to Masoud Kazemzadeh, this theory is contradicted by the fact that "the second person who spoke on Radio Tehran announcing and celebrating the overthrow of Mossadegh was Ayatollah Kashani’s son, who was hand-picked by Kermit Roosevelt".^[66]

This allegation also is posited in the book Khaterat-e Arteshbod-e Baznesheshteh Hossein Fardoust (The Memoirs of Retired General Hossein Fardoust), published in the Islamic Republic and allegedly written by Hossein Fardoust, a former SAVAK officer. It claims that Mohammad Mossadeq was not a mortal enemy of the British, but had always favored them, and his nationalisation campaign of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was inspired by "the British themselves".^[67] Scholar Ervand Abrahamian suggests that the Islamic Republican authorities may have had Fardoust tortured, and the fact that his death was announced before publication of the book may be significant.^[67]

The coup and CIA records

The coup was carried out by the US administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower in a covert action advocated by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles under the supervision of his brother Allen Dulles, the Director of Central Intelligence.^[68] The coup was organized by the United States' CIA and the United Kingdom's MI6, two spy agencies that aided royalists and mutinous Iranian army officers.^[69]

CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., the grandson of former President Theodore Roosevelt, carried out the operation planned by CIA agent Donald Wilber.^[50] One version of the CIA history, written by Wilber, referred to the operation as TPAJAX.^[70][71]

During the coup, Roosevelt and Wilber bribed Iranian government officials, reporters, and businessmen.^[72] The deposed Iranian leader, Mossadegh, was taken to jail and Iranian General Fazlollah Zahedi named himself prime minister in the new, pro-western government.

Iranian fascists and Nazis played prominent roles in the coup regime. Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi, who had been arrested and imprisoned by the British during World War II for his attempt to establish a pro-Nazi government, was made Prime Minister on August 19, 1953. The CIA gave Zahedi about $100,000 before the coup and an additional $5 million the day after the coup to help consolidate support for the coup.

Bahram Shahrokh, a trainee of Joseph Goebbels and Berlin Radio's Farsi program announcer during the Nazi rule, became director of propaganda. Mr. Sharif-Emami, who also had spent some time in jail for his pro-Nazi activities in the 1940s, assumed several positions after 1953 coup, including Secretary General of the Oil Industry, President of the Senate, and Prime Minister (twice).

^[73][74]

The British and American spy agencies returned the monarchy to Iran by installing the pro-western Mohammed Reza Pahlevi on the throne where his rule lasted 26 years. The story is detailed in Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. Pahlevi was overthrown in 1979.^[22][75] "Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, under the direction of CIA and MI6, and with the help of high-ranking Shia clerics, anti-democratic military officers, and paid mercenary mobs composed of prostitutes and thugs from Shahr-e Nou (Tehran's red light district) attacked our democratic government and replaced it with a brutal tyranny."^[76]

The overthrow of Iran's elected government in 1953 ensured Western control of Iran's petroleum resources and prevented the Soviet Union from competing for Iranian oil.^{[77][78][79][80]} Some Iranian clerics cooperated with the western spy agencies because they were dissatisfied with Mossadegh's secular government.^[72]

While the broad outlines of the Iran operation are known: the agency led a coup in 1953 that re-installed the pro-American Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi to the throne, where he remained until overthrown in 1979. "But the C.I.A.'s records were widely thought by historians to have the potential to add depth and clarity to a famous but little-documented intelligence operation," reporter Tim Weiner wrote in The New York Times May 29, 1997^[81]

"The Central Intelligence Agency, which has repeatedly pledged for more than five years to make public the files from its secret mission to overthrow the government of Iran in 1953, said today that it had destroyed or lost almost all the documents decades ago."^[81][82][83]

"A historian who was a member of the C.I.A. staff in 1992 and 1993 said in an interview today that the records were obliterated by a culture of destruction at the agency. The historian, Nick Cullather, said he believed that records on other major cold war covert operations had been burned, including those on secret missions in Indonesia in the 1950's and a successful C.I.A.-sponsored coup in Guyana in the early 1960's. Iran -- there's nothing, Mr. Cullather said. Indonesia -- very little. Guyana -- that was burned.^[81]

According to the CIA officer who planned the coup in his account titled, Clandestine Service History Overthrow Of Premier Mossadeq of Iran: November 1952-August 1953, one goal of the coup was to strengthen the Shah.

By the end of 1952, it had become clear that the Mossadeq government in Iran was incapable of reaching an oil settlement with interested Western countries; was reaching a dangerous and advanced stage of illegal, deficit financing; was disregarding the Iranian constitution in prolonging Premier Mohammed Mossadeq's tenure of office; was motivated mainly by Mossadeq's desire for personal power; was governed by irresponsible policies based on emotion; had weakened the Shah and the Iranian Army to a dangerous degree; and had cooperated closely with the Tudeh (Communist) Party of Iran....

It was the aim of the TPAJAX project to cause the fall of the Mossadeq government to reestablish the prestige and power of the Shah; and to replace the Mossadeq government with one which would govern Iran according to constructive policies. Specifically, the aim was to bring to power a government which would reach an equitable oil settlement, enabling Iran to become economically sound and financially solvent, and which would vigorously prosecute the dangerously strong Communist Party. Clandestine Service History Overthrow Of Premier Mossadeq of Iran: November 1952-August 1953 by Donald Wilber

The author of that account, Donald Wilber, "played an active role in the operation," according to CIA historical officer Dean L, Dodge, who released the account in March, 1969. [1]

Blowback

According to the history based on documents released to the National Security Archive and reflected in the book "Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran," edited by Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Bryne, the coup caused long-lasting damage to the U.S. reputation.

"The '28 Mordad' coup, as it is known by its Persian date, was a watershed for Iran, for the Middle East and for the standing of the United States in the region. The joint U.S.-British operation ended Iran's drive to assert sovereign control over its own resources and helped put an end to a vibrant chapter in the history of the country's nationalist and democratic movements. These consequences resonated with dramatic effect in later years. When the Shah finally fell in 1979, memories of the U.S. intervention in 1953, which made possible the monarch's subsequent, and increasingly unpopular, 25-year reign intensified the anti-American character of the revolution in the minds of many Iranians." ^[84]

But the all-powerful monarch installed in the coup appreciated the coup, Kermit Roosevelt wrote in his account of the affair. "'I owe my throne to God, my people, my army and to you!' By 'you' he [the shah] meant me and the two countries—Great Britain and the United States—I was representing. We were all heroes."^[85]

On June 16, 2000, The New York Times published the secret CIA report, "Clandestine Service History, Overthrow Of Premier Mossadeq Of Iran, November 1952-August 1953," partly explaining the coup from CIA agent Wilber's perspective. In a related story, The New York Times reporter James Risen penned a story revealing that Wilber's report, hidden for nearly five decades, had recently come to light.

In the summer of 2001, Ervand Abrahamian wrote in the journal Science & Society that Wilber's version of the coup was missing key information some of which was available elsewhere.

The New York Times recently leaked a CIA report on the 1953 American–British overthrow of Mossadeq, Iran’s Prime Minister. It billed the report as a secret history of the secret coup, and treated it as an invaluable substitute for the U. S. files that remain inaccessible. But a reconstruction of the coup from other sources, especially from the archives of the British Foreign Office, indicates that this report is highly sanitized. It glosses over such sensitive issues as the crucial participation of the U. S. ambassador in the actual overthrow; the role of U. S. military advisers; the harnessing of local Nazis and Muslim terrorists; and the use of assassinations to destabilize the government. What is more, it places the coup in the context the Cold War rather than that of the Anglo-Iranian oil crisis — a classic case of nationalism clashing with imperialism in the Third World.

^[86]

In a review of Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes, historian Michael Beschloss wrote, "Mr. Weiner argues that a bad C.I.A. track record has encouraged many of our gravest contemporary problems... A generation of Iranians grew up knowing that the C.I.A. had installed the shah," Mr. Weiner notes. "In time, the chaos that the agency had created in the streets of Tehran would return to haunt the United States."^[87]

The administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower considered the coup a success, but, given its blowback, it is now considered a failure, because of its "haunting and terrible legacy".^[14] In 2000, Madeleine Albright, US Secretary of State, said that intervention by the U.S. in the internal affairs of Iran was a setback for democratic government.^[88][89] This anti-democratic coup d’état was "a critical event in post-war world history" that destroyed Iran’s secular parliamentary democracy, by re-installing the monarchy of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, as absolute ruler,^[90] replacing an elected native democracy with a pro-foreign monarchic dictatorship. The coup is widely believed to have significantly contributed to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which deposed the pro-Western Shah and replaced the monarchy with an anti-Western Islamic Republic.^[16]

See also

• Abadan Crisis
• Abadan Crisis timeline
• Anglo Iranian Oil Company
• Asadollah Rashidian
• CIA sponsored regime change
• Divide and rule
• False flag operations
• Hossein Fatemi
• Mohammad Mossadegh
• Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
• United States and state terrorism

Footnotes

References

• Behrooz, Maziar (2001). "Tudeh Factionalism and the 1953 Coup in Iran". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 33 (3): 363–382. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Elm, Mostafa. "Oil, Power and Principle: Iran's Oil Nationalization and Its Aftermath." (Syracuse University Press, 1994) ISBN 9780815626428
• Gasiorowski, Mark J., Editor (2004). Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0815630180. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Gasiorowski, Mark J. (1987). "The 1953 Coup D'etat in Iran". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 10 (3): 261–286. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Kapuscinski, Ryszard (1982). Shah of Shahs. Vintage. ISBN 0-679-73801-0. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Kinzer, Stephen (2003). All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-26517-9. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Roosevelt, Kermit, Jr. (1979). Countercoup: The struggle for the control of Iran. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-053590-6. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Doubleday 2007) ISBN 9780307389008
• Yergin, Daniel. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (Simon & Schuster 1991) ISBN 9780671502485

External links

• Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq: Symbol of Iranian Nationalism and Struggle Against Imperialism by the Iran Chamber Society
• "Clandestine Service History — Overthrow of Premier Mosaddeq of Iran — November 1952 – August 1953". Archived from the original on 2009-06-08. Retrieved 2009-06-06. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)</ref>
• History Channel film footage from Iran, the coup and its aftermath.
• The 1953 Coup in Iran by Professor Ervand Abrahamnian Science & Society, Vol. 65, No. 2, Summer 2001, 182–215
• 50 Years Later—a look back at the 1953 US-backed coup in Iran
• The C.I.A. in Iran—The New York Times report based on uncovered CIA documents
• The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup, 1953—Provided by the National Security Archive
• Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran—new book from the National Security Archive reexamines the coup
• How to Overthrow a Government—interview with Stephen Kinzer, author of All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
• US-Iranian Relations, the 1953 CIA Coup in Iran and the Roots of Middle East Terror—Interview with Stephen Kinzer, author of All the Shah’s Men
• All The Shah’s Men—interview with Steven Kinzer
• Review of All the Shah's Men by CIA staff historian David S. Robarge
• A Very Elegant Coup—critique of All the Shah’s Men
• The spectre of Operation Ajax by Guardian Unlimited