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==U.S. role== |
==U.S. role== |
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===Execution of Operation Ajax=== |
===Execution of Operation Ajax=== |
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The [[BBC]] spearheaded Britain's propaganda campaign, broadcasting the go-code launching the coup d'état against Iran's elected government.<ref name="BBC Coup" /> 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 Mosaddegh, who was arrested, tried, and condemned to death.<ref>[http://countrystudies.us/iran/17.htm Helen Chapin Metz, ed. ''Iran: A Country Study''. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987.]</ref><ref>[http://cryptome.org/cia-iran.htm The formerly secret story of the CIA overthrow in 1953 of Iran's democratically elected government written by the agent who said he planned the coup.]</ref> Mosaddegh's sentence was commuted to three years' solitary confinement in a military prison, followed by house arrest until his death.<ref>[http://www.iranchamber.com/history/mmosaddeq/mohammad_mosaddeq.php Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq: Symbol of Iranian Nationalism and Struggle Against Imperialism by the Iran Chamber Society]</ref> |
The [[BBC]] spearheaded Britain's propaganda campaign, broadcasting the go-code launching the coup d'état against Iran's elected government.{{cn}}<ref name="BBC Coup" /> The previous sentence is entirely false and the claim is not based on any reputable source. 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 Mosaddegh, who was arrested, tried, '''and condemned to death'''{{cn}}. The foregoing phrase is a false statement unsupported by any known reference. <ref>[http://countrystudies.us/iran/17.htm Helen Chapin Metz, ed. ''Iran: A Country Study''. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987.]</ref><ref>[http://cryptome.org/cia-iran.htm The formerly secret story of the CIA overthrow in 1953 of Iran's democratically elected government written by the agent who said he planned the coup.]</ref> Mosaddegh's sentence was commuted to three years' solitary confinement in a military prison, followed by house arrest until his death.<ref>[http://www.iranchamber.com/history/mmosaddeq/mohammad_mosaddeq.php Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq: Symbol of Iranian Nationalism and Struggle Against Imperialism by the Iran Chamber Society]</ref> |
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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.{{Citation needed|date=February 2010}} |
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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.<ref name="The 1953 Coup D'etat in Iran">{{cite web|title= The 1953 Coup D'etat in Iran|url=http://iran.sa.utoronto.ca/coup/web_files/markcoup.html|work=|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/5hOKkVZFE|archivedate=2009-06-08|deadurl=no|accessdate=2009-06-06}}</ref> 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.<ref name="web.payk.net">{{cite web|title= CIA Historical Paper No. 208 Clandestine Service History: Overthrow Of Premier Mossadeq Of Iran November 1952 – August 1953 by Donald N. Wilber|url=http://web.payk.net/politics/cia-docs/published/one-main/main.html|work=|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/5hOKk6ByB|archivedate=2009-06-08|deadurl=no|accessdate=2009-06-06}}</ref><ref name="The 1953 Coup D'etat in Iran" /> |
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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 Mosaddegh. 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.<ref name="web.payk.net" /> |
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The CIA sent [[Major general (United States)|Major general]] [[Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr.]] to persuade the exiled Shah to return to rule Iran. Schwarzkopf trained the security forces that would become known as [[SAVAK]] to secure the shah's hold on power.<ref>{{cite web|title=Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. <!-- BOT GENERATED TITLE -->|url=http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=norman_schwarzkopf_sr__1|work=|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/5j0t4BJgh|archivedate=2009-08-14|deadurl=no|accessdate=2009-08-11}}</ref><ref>N. R. Keddie and M. J. Gasiorowski, eds., ''Neither East Nor West. Iran, the United States, and the Soviet Union'', New Haven, 1990, 154–55; personal interviews</ref> |
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===The coup and CIA records=== |
===The coup and CIA records=== |
Revision as of 07:11, 29 March 2010
1953 Iranian coup d’état | |||||||
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Anti-Mosaddegh demonstrators on a Military tank, Tehran, 19 August 1953. | |||||||
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Supporters of Shāh United States United Kingdom |
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Fazlollah Zahedi |
The 1953 Iranian coup d’état, on August 19, 1953 (and called the 28 Mordad coup d'état in Iran), was the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh by the United States Central Intelligence Agency; [1] The crushing of Iran's first democratic government launched 25 years of dictatorship under Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, who relied heavily on U.S. aid and arms until he was overthrown in February 1979.[2] "For many Iranians, the coup demonstrated duplicity by the United States, which presented itself as a defender of freedom but did not hesitate to use underhanded methods to overthrow a democratically elected government to suit its own economic and strategic interests," the Agence France-Presse reported.[3]
In 1951 with majority support in Iran’s parliament, Mosaddegh had nationalized the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), so Iran could profit equitably from the sale of its oil, which was controlled of the British, who gave the Iranian government only 16 percent of Iran's oil profits.[4][5] Since 1913, the British had exclusively controlled Iranian oil through the AIOC,[6][5] and it was the British government 's single largest overseas investment.[7] Despite Mosaddegh’s popular support, Britain accused Mosaddegh of violating the 1913 Qajar era agreement that had given Britain control of Iranian oil through the AIOC. Britain instigated a worldwide boycott of Iranian oil to pressure Iran economically.[8] Initially, Britain mobilized its military to seize control of the Abadan oil refinery, the world’s largest, but Prime Minister Attlee chose instead to tighten the economic boycott against Iran.[9] The later British government, of Churchill, gained U.S. support for staging a coup d'état; while the Truman administration had opposed a coup, the succeeding Eisenhower administration administration supported it.[10]
The British and U.S. spy agencies persuaded the Iranian monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to order Mosaddegh's dismissal, while paying and organizing anti-Mosaddegh mobs, clergy, politicians and Iranian army officers, and waging a propaganda campaign against Mosaddegh and his government.[11] At first, the coup appeared to be a failure when on the night of August 15-16, Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri was arrested while attempting to arrest Mosaddegh. The Shah fled the country the next day. After several days of mass confusion, however, a pro-Shah mob marched on Mosaddegh's residence.[12] Subsequently, Mosaddegh was arrested, tried and convicted by the Shah's military court, jailed in solitary confinement for three years, then placed under house arrest for the remainder of his life.[13][14] Mossadegh’s supporters were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured or executed. The minister of Foreign Affairs and the closest associate of Mossadegh, Hossein Fatemi, was executed by firing squad on Oct. 29, 1953. [15]
In the wake of the coup, Zahedi was appointed prime minister of a military government by the Shah who returned to Iran to rule as an authoritarian monarch[16], for the next 26 years, until he was overthrown by a popular revolt in 1979.[17] The tangible benefits the United States reaped from overthrowing the coup was a share of Iran's oil wealth. "The British expected that once Mossadegh was gone, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which they renamed British Petroleum, would resume its old monopoly. To John Foster Dulles, though, that seemed unfair. Americans had, after all, done the dirty work in Iran, and he believed they deserved some compensation."[18]
Washington went on to become the major backer of Shah; the CIA training the Shah's secret police, SAVAK. 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.[19]
Background
Early petroleum development
In May 1902, 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 petroleum field discovery—from which Persia would receive only 16 percent of the future net profits. Calculating net profits was left to the company, and later became a source of serious conflict.[20]
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 petroleum concession, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC), whereby Persia received 16 per cent of net profits.[21] 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).[22][23][24]
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 modernized Persia to the advantage of the British; one result was the Persian Corridor railroad for British military and civil transport during World War II.[25]
In the 1930s, the Shah tried to terminate the APOC concession, but Britain would not allow it. The concession was renegotiated on terms again favorable to the British. On 21 March 1935, Pahlavi changed the name of the country from Persia to Iran. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was then re-named the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).[26]
World War II
In 1941, after the Nazi invasion of the USSR, the British and Commonwealth of Nations 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. Britain and the USSR deposed the pro-Nazi Shah Reza, and enthroned his 22-year-old son, Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, as the Shah of Iran.
The British 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.[27]
Post-World War II
After the war, nationalist leaders became influential by seeking a reduction in long-term foreign interventions in their country—especially the very 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 irked many. 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 Mosaddegh who sought help from President Truman and then the World Bank to no avail. "Iranians were becoming poorer and unhappier by the day" and Mosaddegh's political coalition was fraying. In the springtime, Mosaddegh 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 Mosaddegh. It would be a coup carried out by seemingly legal means."[28]
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 Mosaddegh. 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 Mosaddegh, 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." [29]
In a 1987 article, Mark J. Gasiorowski was sharply critical. He wrote "The referendum was rigged which caused a great public outcry against Mosaddegh".[30] Kinzer, however, wrote that "Mosaddegh 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 Mosaddegh dealt with this political 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 Mosaddegh would find a way to put them back to work. The only way he could do that was to sell oil." [31]
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. Mohammad Mosaddegh, then a member of the Iranian parliament and leader of the nationalization movement; by May, the Shah had appointed Mosaddegh Prime Minister.
Mohammad Mosaddegh attempted to negotiate with the AIOC, but the company rejected his proposed compromise. Mosaddegh's plan, based on the 1948 compromise between the Venezuelan Government of Romulo Gallegos and Creole Petroleum,[32] 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.[30]
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".[33] 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 Mosaddegh and oil nationalization!" Everyone present began cheering and then marched out of the room; the abandoned Harriman shook his head in dismay.[33]
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),[34] and had frozen Iran's hard currency accounts in British banks.[35]
The United Kingdom took its anti-nationalisation case against Iran to the International Court of Justice at The Hague; PM Mosaddegh 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. In August 1952, Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh invited an American oil executive to visit Iran and the Truman administration welcomed the invitation. However, the suggestion upset British Prime Minister Winston Churchill who insisted that the U.S. not undermine his campaign to isolate Mosaddegh: "Britain was supporting the Americans in Korea, he reminded Truman, and had a right to expect Anglo-American unity on Iran."[36] - Worried about the UK's other interests in Iran, and believing 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 Mohammad Mosaddegh. 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.[21]
U.S. role
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.[citation needed][37] The previous sentence is entirely false and the claim is not based on any reputable source. 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 Mosaddegh, who was arrested, tried, and condemned to death[citation needed]. The foregoing phrase is a false statement unsupported by any known reference. [38][39] Mosaddegh's sentence was commuted to three years' solitary confinement in a military prison, followed by house arrest until his death.[40]
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.[citation needed]
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.[41] 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.[42][41]
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 Mosaddegh. 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.[42]
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 known as SAVAK to secure the shah's hold on power.[43][44]
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, and implemented under the supervision of his brother Allen Dulles, the Director of Central Intelligence.[45] The coup was organized by the United States' CIA and the United Kingdom's MI6, two spy agencies that aided royalists and royalist elements of the Iranian army.[46]
According to a heavily redacted CIA document[47] released to the National Security Archive in response to a Freedom of Information request, "Available documents do not indicate who authorized CIA to begin planning the operation, but it almost certainly was President Eisenhower himself. Eisenhower biographer Stephen Ambrose has written that the absence of documentation reflected the President's style."
The CIA document then quotes from the Ambrose biography of Eisenhower:
Before going into the operation, Ajax had to have the approval of the President. Eisenhower participated in none of the meetings that set up Ajax; he received only oral reports on the plan; and he did not discuss it with his Cabinet or the NSC. Establishing a pattern he would hold to throughout his Presidency, he kept his distance and left no documents behind that could implicate the President in any projected coup. But in the privacy of the Oval Office, over cocktails, he was kept informed by Foster Dulles, and he maintained a tight control over the activities of the CIA.[48]
CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., the grandson of former President Theodore Roosevelt, carried out the operation planned by CIA agent Donald Wilber.[37] One version of the CIA history, written by Wilber, referred to the operation as TPAJAX.[49][50]
During the coup, Roosevelt and Wilber bribed Iranian government officials, reporters, and businessmen.[51] The deposed Iranian leader, Mosaddegh, 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 Persian-language 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).
The British and American spy agencies returned the monarchy to Iran by installing the pro-western Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the throne where his rule lasted 26 years. Pahlavi was overthrown in 1979.[21][54] Masoud Kazemzadeh, associate professor of political science at the University of Southern California, wrote that Pahlavi was directed by the CIA and MI6, and assisted by high-ranking Shia clerics.[55] He wrote that the coup employed mercenaries including "prostitutes and thugs" from Tehran's red light district.[55]
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.[56][57][58][59] Some Iranian clerics cooperated with the western spy agencies because they were dissatisfied with Mosaddegh's secular government.[51]
While the broad outlines of the Iran operation are known: the agency led a coup in 1953 that re-installed the pro-American Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi 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[60]
"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."[60][61][62]
"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 1950s and a successful C.I.A.-sponsored coup in Guyana in the early 1960s. Iran—there's nothing, Mr. Cullather said. Indonesia—very little. Guyana—that was burned.[60]
According to Donald Wilber one of the CIA officers who planned the 1953 coup in Iran wrote an account titled, Clandestine Service History Overthrow Of Premier Mossadeq of Iran: November 1952 – August 1953. Wilber said one goal of the coup was to strengthen the Shah.
In 2000, James Risen at The New York Times obtained the previously secret CIA version of the coup written by Wilber and summarized [63] its contents, which includes the following.
In early August, the C.I.A. stepped up the pressure. Iranian operatives pretending to be Communists threatened Muslim leaders with savage punishment if they opposed Mossadegh, seeking to stir anti-Communist sentiment in the religious community.
In addition, the secret history says, the house of at least one prominent Muslim was bombed by C.I.A. agents posing as Communists. It does not say whether anyone was hurt in this attack.
The agency was also intensifying its propaganda campaign. A leading newspaper owner was granted a personal loan of about $45,000, in the belief that this would make his organ amenable to our purposes.
But the shah remained intransigent. In an Aug. 1 meeting with General Norman Schwarzkopf, he refused to sign the C.I.A.-written decrees firing Mr. Mossadegh and appointing General Zahedi. He said he doubted that the army would support him in a showdown.
The National Security Archive at George Mason University contains the full account by Wilber along with many other coup-related documents and analysis.
U.S. motives
Historians disagree on what motivated the United States to change its policy towards Iran and stage the coup. Middle East historian Ervand Abrahamian identified the coup d'état as "a classic case of nationalism clashing with imperialism in the Third World". He states that 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.[64]
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 Mosaddegh 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.[64]
As part of the post-coup d'état political repression of the Tudeh, the Shah's "dragnet" caught only 477 Tudeh members in the Iranian armed forces, (22 colonels, 69 majors, 100 captains, 193 lieutenants, 19 noncommissioned officers, and 63 military cadets) and none were members of the tank divisions stationed around Tehran that might have participated in a coup d'état.[65][66]
Abrahmian further maintains that Iran's oil was the central focus of the coup, for both the British and the Americans, though the Cold War was at its height, and "much of the discourse at the time linked it to the Cold War".[67] Abrahamian further states that U.S did not want Iran to set a precedent: "If Mosaddegh 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."[67] Mosaddegh did not want any compromise solution that allowed a degree of foreign control. Abrahamian said that Mosaddegh "wanted real nationalization, both in theory and practice".[67] The belief that oil was the central motivator behind the coup has been echoed in the popular media by authors such as Robert Byrd[68], Alan Greenspan[69], and Ted Koppel.[70]
However, Middle East political scientist Mark Gasiorowski states that while, on the face of it, there is considerable merit to the argument that U.S. policymakers helped U.S. oil companies gain a share in Iranian oil production after the coup, "it seems more plausible to argue that U.S. policymakers were motivated mainly by fears of a communist takeover in Iran, and that the involvement of U.S. companies was sought mainly to prevent this from occurring. The Cold War was at its height in the early 1950s, and the Soviet Union was viewed as an expansionist power seeking world domination. Eisenhower had made the Soviet threat a key issue in the 1952 elections, accusing the Democrats of being soft on communism and of having "lost China." Once in power, the new administration quickly sought to put its views into practice."[30]
Gasiorowski further states "the major U.S. oil companies were not interested in Iran at this time. A glut existed in the world oil market. The U.S. majors had increased their production in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in 1951 in order to make up for the loss of Iranian production; operating in Iran would force them to cut back production in these countries which would create tensions with Saudi and Kuwaiti leaders. Furthermore, if nationalist sentiments remained high in Iran, production there would be risky. U.S. oil companies had shown no interest in Iran in 1951 and 1952. By late 1952, the Truman administration had come to believe that participation by U.S. companies in the production of Iranian oil was essential to maintain stability in Iran and keep Iran out of Soviet hands. In order to gain the participation of the major U.S. oil companies, Truman offered to scale back a large anti-trust case then being brought against them. The Eisenhower administration shared Truman's views on the participation of U.S. companies in Iran and also agreed to scale back the anti-trust case. Thus, not only did U.S. majors not want to participate in Iran at this time, it took a major effort by U.S. policymakers to persuade them to become involved."[30]
In 2004, Gasiorowski edited a book on the coup, whose "central goal" was to "resolve" controversy over who and what was responsible for the coup.[71] He argues that "the climate of intense cold war rivalry between the superpowers, together with Iran's strategic vital location between the Soviet Union and the Persian Gulf oil fields, led U.S. officials to believe that they had to take whatever steps were necessary to prevent Iran from falling into Soviet hands."[71] While "these concerns seem vastly overblown today"[71] the pattern of "the 1945-46 Azerbaijan crisis, the consolidation of Soviet control in Eastern Europe, the communist triumph in China, and the Korean War - and with the Red Scare at its height in the United States"[71] would not allow U.S. officials to risk allowing the Tudeh Party to gain power in Iran.[71] Furthermore, "U.S. officials believed that resolving the oil dispute was essential for restoring stability in Iran, and after March 1953 it appeared that the dispute could be resolved only at the expense either of Britain or of Mosaddeq."[71] He concludes "it was geostrategic considerations, rather than a desire to destroy Mosaddeq's movement, to establish a dictatorship in Iran or to gain control over Iran's oil, that persuaded U.S. officials to undertake the coup." [71]
According to journalist and author Steven Kinzer, for most Americans, the crisis in Iran became just part of the conflict between Communism and "the Free world." [72] "A great sense of fear, particularly the fear of encirclement, shaped American consciousness during this period. ... Soviet power had already subdued Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia. Communist governments were imposed on Bulgaria and Romania in 1946, Hungary and Poland in 1947, and Czechoslovakia in 1948. Albania and Yugoslavia also turned to communism. Greek communists made a violent bid for power. Soviet soldiers blocked land routes to Berlin for sixteen months. In 1949 the Soviet Union successfully tested a nuclear weapon. That same year, pro-Western forces in China lost their civil war to communists led by Mao Zedong. From Washington, it seemed that enemies were on the march everywhere." [73]
Consequently, "the United States, challenged by what most Americans saw as a relentless communist advance, slowly ceased to view Iran as a country with a unique history that faced a unique political challenge." [74] Some commentators and historians including Douglas Little[75], Abbas Milani[76] and George Lenczowski[77] have echoed the view that fears of a communist takeover or Soviet influence motivated the US to intervene.
In addition to fear of the Soviet influence in Iran, the Cold War influenced American support for, or at least lack of opposition to, Britain's policies there. Hardline British Prime Minister Winston Churchill used Britain's support for the U.S. in the Cold War to insist the United States not undermine his campaign to isolate Mosaddeq. "Britain was supporting the Americans in Korea, he reminded Truman, and had a right to expect `Anglo-American unity` on Iran." [78]
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.[79] 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,[80] and the United States sent development aid and advisors.
In the 1970s the Shah's government increased taxes that foreign companies were obliged to pay from 50% to 80% and royalty payments from 12.5% to 20%. At the same time the price of oil reverted to Iranian control. Oil companies now only earned 22 cents per barrel of oil.[81]
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".[82] 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".[82]
Internationally
The 1953 coup d'état was the first time the US had openly overthrown an elected, civil government.[83] 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.[84]
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.[85]
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.[86]
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."[87]
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".[88] According to historian Ervand Abrahamian, the government tries to ignore Mosaddegh 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 Mosaddegh as merely the ayatollah's hanger-on." This is despite the fact that Kashani came out against Mosaddegh by mid-1953 and "told a foreign correspondent that Mosaddegh had fallen because he had forgotten that the shah enjoyed extensive popular support."[89] A month later, Kashani "went even further and declared that Mosaddegh 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 Mosaddegh, himself, was obeying British plans:
In my opinion, Mosaddegh was the director of the British plans and implemented them ... Without a doubt Mosaddegh had the primary and essential role[90]
in the August 1953 coup. Kashani says Mosaddegh, the British and the Americans worked against the Ayatollah Kashani to undermine the role of Shia clerics.[91] 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 Mosaddegh was Ayatollah Kashani’s son, who was hand-picked by Kermit Roosevelt".[92]
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 Mosaddegh 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".[93] 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.[93]
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." [94]
The authoritarian 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."[95]
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 Mosaddeq, 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.
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."[97]
The administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower considered the coup a success, but, given its blowback, that opinion is no longer generally held, because of its "haunting and terrible legacy".[98] 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.[99][100] The 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 an authoritarian ruler.[101] 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.[19]
"The world has paid a heavy price for the lack of democracy in most of the Middle East. Operation Ajax taught tyrants and aspiring tyrants that the world's most powerful governments were willing to tolerate limitless oppression as long as oppressive regimes were friendly to the West and to Western oil companies. That helped tilt the political blaance in a vast region away from freedomand toward dictatorship." [102] The United States initially considered the coup to be a triumph of Cold War covert action, but given its blowback, Kinzer wrote that it is difficult to imagine an outcome "that would have produced as much pain and horror over the next half century as that produced by Operation Ajax" had "American and British intelligence officers not meddled so shamelessly in (Iran"s) domestic affairs."[103]
United States Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who visited Iran both before and after the coup, wrote that "When Mossadegh and Persia started basic reforms, we became alarmed. We united with the British to destroy him; we succeeded; and ever since, our name has not been an honored one in the Middle East." [104]
In 2000, the U.S. Secretary of State called the coup a "setback for democratic government" in Iran, saying "It is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs."[105] ] On June 4, 2009, in a major keynote speech in Cairo, President Barack Obama admitted U.S. involvement in the coup; the first time a sitting U.S. president had done so.[106]
See also
- Abadan Crisis
- Abadan Crisis timeline
- Iran crisis of 1946
- Anglo Iranian Oil Company
- Asadollah Rashidian
- CIA sponsored regime change
- Divide and rule
- False flag operations
- Hossein Fatemi
- United States and state terrorism
- Iran and state terrorism
- Special Activities Division
Footnotes
- ^ Kinzer, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (John Wiley & Sons, 2003), p.166
- ^ Charles Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran,(Harvard University Press, 2005) ISBN 978-0674018433 p.122
- ^ "Obama admits US involvement in 1953 Iran coup" June 4, 2009, Agence France-Presse
- ^ From Anglo-Persian Oil to BP Amoco Aug. 11, 1998 BBC
- ^ a b The spectre of Operation Ajax by Guardian Unlimited
- ^ From Anglo-Persian Oil to BP Amoco Aug. 11, 1998 BBC
- ^ "The Company File—From Anglo-Persian Oil to BP Amoco"
- ^ Heiss in Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, p.192 [Heiss says " ... at the end of Mosaddeq's premiership the government treasury had a net balance of 1.1 billion rials, a fact that gave lie to Anglo-American assertions that the government was bankrupt... the Mosaddeq government was able to keep domestic inflation to very manageable levels, performing in this area better even than its successor." (Heiss, p.192)]
- ^ Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran
- ^ Little, Douglas. American Orientalism: the United States and the Middle East since 1945, I.B.Tauris, 2003, p. 216. ISBN 1860648894
- ^ Gasiorowski, p.237-9, 243
- ^ Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, Edited by Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne, Syracuse University Press, 2004, p.xiv
- ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Iran Between Two Revolutions by Ervand Abrahamian, (Princeton University Press, 1982), p.280
- ^ Mossadegh – A Medical Biography by Ebrahim Norouzi
- ^ Persian Oil: A Study in Power Poltics by L.P. Elwell-Sutton. 1955. Lawrence and Wishart Ltd. London. p. 315.
- ^ LaTulippe, Steven. "America, Iran, and Operation Ajax: The Burden of the Past." P1
- ^ Kinzer, Stephen, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, John Wiley and Sons, 2003.[page needed]
- ^ Kinzer, Stephen, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (Henry Holt and Company 2006). p. 200-201
- ^ a b International Journal of Middle East Studies, 19, 1987, p.261
- ^ Kinzer, Stephen, All the Shah's Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, Stephen Kinzer, John Wiley and Sons, 2003, p.48
- ^ a b c Stephen Kinzer: "All the Shah's Men. An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror", John Wiley and Sons, 2003.
- ^ Mangol Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution: Shi’ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909, Studies in Middle Eastern History, 336 p. (Oxford University Press, 1991). ISBN 019506822X.
- ^ Browne, Edward G., "The Persian Revolution of 1905–1909", Mage Publishers (July 1995). ISBN 0-934211-45-0
- ^ Afary, Janet, "The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911", Columbia University Press. 1996. ISBN 0-231-10351-4
- ^ Coup d'Etat 1299/1921 in the Encyclopaedia Iranica, retrieved 8 July 2008.
- ^ Mackey, Iranians, Plume, (1998), p.178
- ^ (U.K.) Royal Engineers Museum history.
- ^ All the Shah's Men p. 135, 2008 edition ISBN 9780470185490
- ^ All the Shah's Men p. 136–37 2008 edition ISBN 9780470185490
- ^ a b c d Gasiorowski, Mark J (August 1987). "The 1953 Coup D'etat in Iran". International Journal of Middle East Studies. Vol. 19 (No. 3). Cambridge University Press: pp. 261-286.
{{cite journal}}
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has extra text (help) A version is available for public access at Web publication accessed from Document Revision: 1.4 Last Updated: 1998/08/23. Its is archived at Archived 2009-06-19. - ^ All the Shah's Men p. 136–7 2008 edition ISBN 9780470185490
- ^ Chatfield, Wayne, The Creole Petroleum Corporation in Venezuela Ayer Publishing 1976 p. 29
- ^ a b Kinzer, Stephen, All the Shah's Men : An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, Stephen Kinzer, John Wiley and Sons, 2003, p.106
- ^ Kinzer, All the Shah's Men (2003) p.110
- ^ Abrahamian, (1982) p.268
- ^ Stephen Kinzer: All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, John Wiley and Sons, 2003, p.145
- ^ a b "A Very British Coup" (radio show). Document. British Broadcasting Corporation. 2005. Retrieved 2006-06-14.
- ^ Helen Chapin Metz, ed. Iran: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1987.
- ^ The formerly secret story of the CIA overthrow in 1953 of Iran's democratically elected government written by the agent who said he planned the coup.
- ^ Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq: Symbol of Iranian Nationalism and Struggle Against Imperialism by the Iran Chamber Society
- ^ a b "The 1953 Coup D'etat in Iran". Archived from the original on 2009-06-08. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
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suggested) (help) - ^ a b "CIA Historical Paper No. 208 Clandestine Service History: Overthrow Of Premier Mossadeq Of Iran November 1952 – August 1953 by Donald N. Wilber". Archived from the original on 2009-06-08. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
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suggested) (help) - ^ "Norman Schwarzkopf Sr". Archived from the original on 2009-08-14. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
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suggested) (help) - ^ N. R. Keddie and M. J. Gasiorowski, eds., Neither East Nor West. Iran, the United States, and the Soviet Union, New Haven, 1990, 154–55; personal interviews
- ^ "Review of All the Shah's Men by CIA staff historian David S. Robarge". Archived from the original on 2009-06-22. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
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suggested) (help) - ^ p.15, "Targeting Iran", by David Barsamian, Noam Chomsky, Ervand Abrahamian, and Nahid Mozaffari
- ^ CIA document mentions who ordered the 1953 coup
- ^ Eisenhower, vol.2, The President by Stephen E. Ambrose,(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984), p. 111. "Ambrose repeats this paragraph" in Eisenhower: Soldier and President (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), p. 333, according to the note by a CIA staff member in the same document.
- ^ Michael Evans. "Secret Notes by CIA agent Donald Wilber on the overthrow of Premier Mossadegh of Iran (PDF)". Archived from the original on 2009-06-08. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
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suggested) (help) - ^ Notes, formerly classified as "Secret" by CIA agent Donald Wilber on the overthrow of Premier Mossadegh of Iran (plain text). Accessed 2009-06-06. Archived 2009-06-08.
- ^ a b How to Overthrow A Government Pt. 1 on March 5, 2004
- ^ " The Day Democracy Died: The 50th Anniversary of the CIA Coup in Iran by historian Masoud Kazemzadeh". Archived from the original on 2009-06-20. Retrieved 2009-06-18.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
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suggested) (help) - ^ Kinzer, pp. 6, 13. In addition to the secret $5 million dollars CIA delivered to Zahedi, the US government sent another $28 million in September 1953 to assist Zahedi in consolidating the coup regime. Another $40 million was delivered in 1954 as soon as the regime signed the oil consortium deal giving Iranian oil to American and British oil companies. See Ervand Abrahamian, "The 1953 Coup in Iran," in Science & Society, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Summer 2001), p. 211. See also Habib Ladjevardi, "The Origins of U.S. Support for an Autocratic Iran," in International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May 1983).
- ^ "Foucault and the Iranian Revolution" By Janet Afary, Kevin Anderson, Michel Foucault. University of Chicago Press: June 2005 ISBN 9780226007861 "protesters killed by the Shah's brutal repression"
- ^ a b ""The Day Democracy Died: The 50th Anniversary of the CIA Coup in Iran" by Masoud Kazemzadeh, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Department of History and Political Science at Utah Valley State College". Archived from the original on 2009-06-20. Retrieved 2009-06-18.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
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suggested) (help) - ^ Nasr, Vali, "The Shia Revival", Norton, (2006), p.124
- ^ Review by Jonathan Schanzer of "All the Shah's Men" by Stephen Kinzer
- ^ Mackay, Sandra, "The Iranians", Plume (1997), p.203, 4
- ^ Nikki Keddie: "Roots of Revolution", Yale University Press, 1981, p.140
- ^ a b c "C.I.A. Destroyed Files on 1953 Iran Coup" May 29, 1997 The New York Times
- ^ C.I.A. Is Slow to Tell Early Cold War Secrets by Tim Weiner April 8, 1996
- ^ "C.I.A., Breaking Promises, Puts Off Release of Cold War Files" by Tim Weiner July 15, 1998 The New York Times
- ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/16/world/secrets-history-cia-iran-special-report-plot-convulsed-iran-53-79.html "Secrets Of History: The C.I.A. in Iran -- A special report. How a Plot Convulsed Iran in '53 (and in '79)" April 16, 2000. The New York Times]
- ^ a b "The 1953 Coup in Iran, Science & Society, Vol. 65, No. 2, Summer 2001, pp.182–215". Archived from the original on 2009-10-20.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
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suggested) (help) - ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Iran Between Two Revolutions, Princeton University Press, 1982, p.92
- ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Tortured Confessions by Ervand Abrahamian, University of California Press, 1999, p.92
- ^ a b c Democracy Now. Goodman-Abrahamian interview.
- ^ Byrd, Robert (2004). Losing America: confronting a reckless and arrogant presidency. W. W. Norton & Company,. p. 132. ISBN 0393059421, 9780393059427.
{{cite book}}
: Check|isbn=
value: invalid character (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) - ^ Greenspan, Alan (2008). The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (reprint, illustrated ed.). Penguin Group. p. 463. ISBN 0143114166, 9780143114161.
{{cite book}}
: Check|isbn=
value: invalid character (help) - ^ Koppel, Ted (February 24, 2006). "Will Fight for Oil". Op-Ed. New York Times. Retrieved 27 March 2010.
- ^ a b c d e f g Gasiorowski, Mosaddeq, p.274
- ^ Kinzer, All the Shah's Men (2003), p.84
- ^ Kinzer, All the Shah's Men (2003), p.84
- ^ Kinzer, All the Shah's Men, (2003), p.205
- ^ Little, Douglas (2003). American orientalism: the United States and the Middle East since 1945. I.B.Tauris. p. 216. ISBN 1860648894, 9781860648892.
{{cite book}}
: Check|isbn=
value: invalid character (help) - ^ Milani, Abbas (2008). Eminent Persians: the men and women who made modern Iran, 1941-1979 :. Vol. Volume 1. Syracuse University Press,. ISBN 0815609078, 9780815609070.
{{cite book}}
:|volume=
has extra text (help); Check|isbn=
value: invalid character (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) - ^ Lenczowski,, George (1990). American Presidents and the Middle East,. Duke University Press,. p. 36. ISBN 0822309726, 9780822309727.
{{cite book}}
: Check|isbn=
value: invalid character (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) - ^ Kinzer, All the Shah's Men, (2003), p.145
- ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Tortured Confessions, (University of California 1999)
- ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Iran between Revolutions, (Princeton University Press, 1982), pp.419–20
- ^ Oil company history
- ^ a b Washington's wise advice. Ralph R. Reiland. Pittsburgh Tribune Review July 30, 2007.
- ^ Stephen Kinzer: All the Shah's Men. An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, John Wiley and Sons, 2003, p.x
- ^ Stephen Kinzer: All the Shah's Men. An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, John Wiley and Sons, 2003, p.209
- ^ Turkey joined NATO in 1952.
- ^ A short account of 1953 Coup
- ^ "Barack Obama's Cairo speech". Guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
- ^ Hamid Algar's book, Islam and Revolution, Writings and Declarations Of Imam Khomeini, ed by Hamid Algar, Mizan, 1981, p.54
- ^ Abrahamian, Ervand, Khomeinism : Essays on the Islamic Republic, (University of California Press, c1993). p.109
- ^ ISNA (Iranian Students News Agency) November 2003 interview in Persian with Mahmood Kashani
- ^ Review Essay of Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men, By: Masoud Kazemzadeh, PhD, Middle East Policy, VOL. XI, NO. 4, winter 2004
- ^ See page 71 at: http://cryptome.org/cia-iran-all.htm Cryptome was unable to recover the redactions in the section that deals with the religious leaders. The following is page 20 of the secret history that can be found at: http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html. Accessed 2009-06-06. Archived 2009-06-08.
- ^ a b Abrahamian, Ervand, Tortured Confessions, (University of California Press, 1999), pp.160–61
- ^ Joan E. Dowlin. "Excerpt from "Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran," edited by Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Bryne". Archived from the original on 2009-06-24. Retrieved 2009-06-21.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
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suggested) (help) - ^ Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran, Kermit Roosevelt, (New York: McGraw Hill) 1979
- ^ "The 1953 Coup in Iran by Ervand Abrahamian. Science & Society, Vol. 65, No. 2, Summer 2001, 182–215". Archived from the original on 2009-10-20.
{{cite web}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ "The C.I.A.'s Missteps, From Past to Present" The New York Times, July 12, 2007
- ^ Stephen Kinzer: "All the Shah's Men. An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror", John Wiley and Sons, 2003, p.215
- ^ "U.S. Comes Clean About The Coup In Iran", CNN, April 19, 2000.
- ^ The comments were not an apology.
- "U.S. Comes Clean About The Coup In Iran", CNN, April 19, 2000 mentions apology in four places: "apology", "guarded apology", "semi-apology" and "close to apology"
- "[Albright] medger USA:s roll i störtande av Mossadeq 1953, men ger ingen ursäkt." "[Albright] acknowledges America's role in the coup, but does not offer an apology." "Rapport om Irans kärnprogram försvagar Bushs argumentation", Sveriges radio
- "While Mrs. Albright did not actually apologize" "U.S. Offers Olive Branch to Iran". Accessed 2009-06-06. Archived 2009-06-09.
- ^ "The Lessons of History: "All The Shah's Men"". Archived from the original on 2009-06-19. Retrieved 2009-06-17.
{{cite web}}
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suggested) (help) - ^ Farmanfarmaiyan, Manuchihr, Roxane Farmanfarmaian Blood and Oil: A Prince's Memoir of Iran, from the Shah to the Ayatollah (Random House 2005.) p. 204
- ^ Kinzer, All the Shah's Men 2003, p.215
- ^ Kinzer, Stephen, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (Henry Holt and Company 2006). p. 200
- ^ "U.S. Comes Clean About The Coup In Iran", CNN, 04-19-2000.
- ^ http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j8-a9Bpq471PDjYA2z6WazPmIZqw "In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government," President Obama said in a keynote speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.
Books
- Dorril, Stephen, Mi6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service ISBN 9780743203791 (paperback is separately titled: MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations Fourth Estate: London, a division of HarperCollins ISBN 1857027019)
- Dreyfuss, Robert, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (Henry Holt and Company: 2005)
- Elm, Mostafa. Oil, Power and Principle: Iran's Oil Nationalization and Its Aftermath.(Syracuse University Press, 1994) ISBN 9780815626428 Documents competition between Britain and the United States for Iranian oil, both before and after the coup. Publishers Weekly summary: "an impressive work of scholarship by an Iranian economist and former diplomat [showing how] the CIA-orchestrated coup, followed by U.S. backing of the dictatorial Shah, planted * Elwell-Sutton, L.P.[1][2] Persian Oil: A Study in Power Politics (Lawrence and Wishart Ltd.: London) 1955. Reprinted by Greenwood Press 1976. 978-0837171227
- Farmanfarmaiyan, Manuchihr, Roxane Farmanfarmaian Blood and Oil: A Prince's Memoir of Iran, from the Shah to the Ayatollah (Random House 2005.). A cousin of Mossadeq, Farmanfarmaiyan was the Shah's oil adviser. Sympathetic to the Shah and antagonistic to Khomeini, Farmanfarmaiyan offers many insider details of the epic battle for Iranian oil, both in Iran's historic relationship with Britain and then, after the coup, with the United States.
- Gasiorowski, Mark J. U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran (Cornell University Press: 1991). Traces the exact changes in U.S. foreign policy that led to the coup in Iran soon after the inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower; describes "the consequences of the coup for Iran's domestic politics" including "an extensive series of arrests and installation of a rigid authoritarian regime under which all forms of opposition political activity were prohibited." Documents how U.S. oil industry benefited from the coup with, for the first time, 40 percent post-coup share in Iran's oil revenue.
- Gasiorowski, Mark J., Editor (2004). Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 978-0815630180.
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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.
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ignored (help) - Kapuscinski, Ryszard (1982). Shah of Shahs. Vintage. ISBN 0-679-73801-0.
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(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.
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(help) - Kinzer, Stephen, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (Henry Holt and Company 2006). ISBN /9780805082401 Assesses the influence of John Foster Dulles on U.S. foreign policy. "Dulles was tragically mistaken in his view that the Kremlin lay behind the emergence of nationalism in the developing world. He could... claim consistency in his uncompromising opposition to every nationalist, leftist, or Marxist regime on earth."
- McCoy, Alfred, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror (Metropolitan Books 2006)
- Rashid, Ahmed. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (Yale University Press 2010) ISBN 9780300163681
- Roosevelt, Kermit, Jr. (1979). Countercoup: The struggle for the control of Iran. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0070535909.
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(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA (Doubleday 2007) ISBN 9780307389008
- Wilber "Clandestine Service History: Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran, Nov. 1952-1953" [CIA] CS Historial Paper no. 208. March 1954.
- Yergin, Daniel. The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (Simon & Schuster 1991) ISBN 9780671502485
Articles
- Behrooz, Maziar (2001). "Tudeh Factionalism and the 1953 Coup in Iran". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 33 (3): 363–382.
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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.
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suggested) (help)</ref> - History Channel film footage from Iran, the coup and its aftermath.
- The 1953 Coup in Iran by Professor Ervand Abrahamnian (Archived 2009-10-20) 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