1953 Iranian coup d'état

Front cover of Tehran Mosavar, a Tehran weekly, showing the events of the coip d'etat in 19 Aug. 1953.

The 1953 Iranian coup d'état deposed the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and his cabinet, it was effected by Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi, Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), and CIA agents working with anti-Communist civilians and army officers. The attempt to encourage a coup d'état, Operation Ajax required CIA man Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.'s bribing government officials, the news media, and businessmen, to allow imposing retired Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi and Imperial Guard Col. Nematollah Nassiri as the government.

This deposition of a formerly elected civil government saw the return to power of the pro-Western Shah, who exercised dictatorial rule until he was eventually deposed by the Islamic Republic of 1979. The coup was a Cold War incident; it was feared that Mosaddeq's government would shift Iran into the Soviet Union sphere of influence. The coup was precipitated when he nationalized Iran's oil industry, which hasd been owned and run by the British since 1908, with hardly any revenue benefiting Iran. In the U.S., Operation Ajax (originally viewed as a triumph of covert action), now is considered "a haunting and terrible legacy." In 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, during President Bill Clinton's reign, called it a "setback for democratic government" in Iran.

Reasons given for why the coup occurred include significant domestic dissatisfaction with the Mossadegh government (especially within the Iranian military) and a CIA propaganda campaign. Motivations given for the foreign coup planners include desire to control Iranian oil fields and more benign concerns over Iran's coming under the control of the Soviet bloc of Iran's traditional enemy Russia. The Pahlavi dynasty had risen to power promising to reduce foreign influence in Iran. In the first half of the twentieth century, Iran has been more or less run from the British and russian embassies. Ironically, the leaders of the 1979 revolution condemned the Shah as a puppet of the decadent West.

Background

The principal cause (among others) of Operation Ajax (the coup d'état) was Western (American and European) dispute over the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company between the Imperial British government and the civil Iranian government.

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. These debts were in the main due to the Shah's extravagant life-style. The exploration took seven years, was almost canceled, but yielded an enormous oil field—from which Persia would receive only 16 per cent of the future profits.

The company slowly grew, 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, becoming the Royal Navy's chief fuel source in defeating the Central Powers; British soldiers occupied Persia's strategic parts. Not only did Britain control the oil but treated Iran as if it were a colony; the country was governed from the British and Russian embassies, so that even nominations for membership of the Majlis (Assembly} were controlled by the ambassadors, who each handed a list to the Prime Minister.

Post-World War I

The Persians were dissatisfied with the British oil concession and the royalty terms, whereby Persia only received 16 per cent of net profits, and with the degree of influence exercised by Britain over Iran's government. The dissatisfaction was exacerbated when the British tried to use Iran to attack Russia to overturn the Bolshevik Revolution's deposition of Tsar Nicholas II.

In 1921, a British military coup d'état enthroned Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Persia, who then undertook modernization advantageous to the British and the Persians such as the Persian Corridor railroads for military and civil transport.

In the 1930s, Nazi Germany courted the Shah for secure access to oil for their war effort. The Shah turned to Germany to counter British influence but he was also influenced by Nazi "phrases and methods which suited his dictatorial and nationalistic aspirations." For his part, Adolf Hitlker declared that Iran was a "a oure Aryan country." On the "eve of World War II, Iran housed German agents and the government had economic and political commitments tying it to a pro-German policy."The Shah ended the APOC's concession and resettled it within a year: a reduced drilling area and increased Persian government profit from its natural resources.

On 21 March 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi, decreed that foreign delegates use the country term "Iran" instead of "Persia" in formal correspondence; the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).

In 1941, after the Nazi invasion of Russia, British and Commonwealth forces and the Soviet Union invaded Iran, securing the Persian Corridor supply lines for the Soviet-Nazi fight in the Eastern Front, and Iranian oil fields for the Allies. Moreover, they deposed the supposedly 'pro-Nazi' Reza Shah and enthroned his twenty-two-year-old son, the Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

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

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; the nationalisation impulse was not only strong, but passionate. In March, the pro-Western P.M. Ali Razmara was assassinated; the next month, the parliament legislated the petroleum industry's nationalization, 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 nationalisation movement; by May, the Shah had appointed Mosaddeq Prime Minister. Commenting that Mosaddeq had opposed his father's appointment as Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi explained that though wary of Mosaddeq's brand of nationalism and of his "violent anti-British sentiment" he believed that his experience was needed at this time of crises. He also hoped that he would be cautious in asserting Iran's rights, since the "path to political and economic independence was full of pitfalls."

That summer, American diplomat W. 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." 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.

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 force Iran to not nationalize 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), and had frozen Iran's hard currency accounts in British banks.

The United Kingdom took its anti-nationalisation case against Iran to the International Court of Justice at The Hague; P.M. Mossadegh said the world would learn of a "cruel and imperialistic country" stealing from a "needy and naked people." Representing the AIOC, the U.K. lost its case, yet, worried about its other Iranian interests, believed the misconception that Iran's nationalism was Soviet-backed. In the event, they persuaded Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that Iran was falling to the Soviets—effectively exploiting the narrow, American Cold War mindset—yet President Harry S. Truman never agreed to their overthrowing of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq; but, later, in 1953, when Dwight D. Eisenhower became president, they convinced him to a joint coup d'état deposing Iran's only democratically-elected government in order to re-establish foreign (British) control of Iran's petroleum.

Origins

Overthrowing Mosaddegh's government was a British idea for which they asked President Truman's aid; he refused. Later, in 1953, when Eisenhower became president, the British asked him and he agreed to their jointly deposing the elected Iranian civil government.

Prime Minister Mosaddegh, having decided that Iran must profit from its own petroleum, acted to nationalize that natural resource previously controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Britain complained the Iranian government was violating the AIOC's legal rights and headed a world-wide boycott of Iranian petroleum, provoking a financial crisis for Iran's economy. The monarchy, supported by the U.S. and the U.K. invited Western oil companies back to exploit Iran's petroleum.

"The crushing of Iran's first democratic government ushered in more than two decades of dictatorship under the Shah, who relied heavily on U.S. aid and arms," wrote Dan De Luce in The Guardian in reviewing All the Shah's Men, by New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer, who, for the first time, reveals the details of the coup d'état.

Cold War

Contemporary controversy about the Operation Ajax coup d'état is whether or not the Americans and the British had legitimate fears of Communist influence in Iran that might have limited their access to its petroleum. After World War II, the U.S.S.R.'s Allied-agreed domain included Central Asia and much of Eastern Europe. As the Iranians nationalized their country's petroleum, on 26th June 1950, North Korea, with Soviet approval, crossed the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea in a reunification war known in the West as the Korean War. Three years later (just before the Anglo-American coup d'état against P.M. Mossadegh) the Soviets crushed an uprising of strikes and protests in East Germany.

From the Anglo-American perspective, Iran's internal affairs crisis, featuring the large and popular pro-Soviet Tudeh (Communist) Party, which was known to receive Soviet assistancebecame just another part of the Cold War between Communism and "the Free world." British diplomat Sam Falle says:

[the year] 1952 was a very dangerous time. The Cold War was hot in Korea. The Soviet Union had tried to take all Berlin in 1948. Stalin was still alive. On no account could the Western powers risk a Soviet takeover of Iran, which would almost certainly have led to World War III.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi says that the Soviets supported Mossadeq, planning to use him to overthrow the monarchy, then to eliminate him "two weeks after my departure." According to the Shah, Mossadeq wanted nothing more than to oust the "Pahlavi dynasty." Others argue that the “communist danger” did not pose a real threat, that the Tudeh party lacked sufficient support to take over the government. Halliday points out that the anti-Mossadeq coup could only have been successful, too, because of the weakness of his own position and the opposition of "the dominant class": "had Mossadeq had a following that was organized, and based on the oppressed in town and country, the resistance to the coup would have been much more substantial than it was."

As part of the post–coup d'état political repression of the Tudeh, the imposed imperial government revealed that the party had 477 members in the Iranian armed forces: "22 colonels, 69 majors, 100 captains, 193 lieutenants, 19 noncommissioned officers, and 63 military cadets," however, none was member of the tank divisions, stationed around Tehran, that might have participated in the Shah's anti-democratic coup d'état; he had carefully screened them.

Besides fear of Soviet influence in Iranian internal affairs, the Cold War influenced the U.S. to support—or not oppose—Britain's anti-Mossadegh policy towards Iran; using British support of the U.S., the reactionary P.M. Winston Churchill insisted they not undermine his campaign to isolate Iranian P.M. Mossadegh: "Britain was supporting the Americans in Korea, he reminded Truman, and had a right to expect Anglo-American unity on Iran."

Under the Shah, a pro-American government gave the U.S. a double, geographic and strategic advantage, as Turkey, also bordering the U.S.S.R., was part of NATO.

Planning Operation Ajax

As a condition for restoring the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the U.S. 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.

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. 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 U.S.-funded guerrillas and spies could operate.

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 P.M. 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.

The BBC spearheaded Britain's propaganda campaign, broadcasting the go-code launching the coup d'état against Iran's elected government. At the start, the coup d'état briefly faltered—and the Shah fled from Iran, however, after a short Italian exile, the CIA successfully returned him to Iran. Gen. Zahedi replaced the deposed Prime Minister Mosaddeq, who was arrested, given a show trial, and condemned to death. Showing "generosity of spirit," the Shah commuted Mossadegh's death sentence to three-years' solitary confinement in a military prison, followed by perpetual house arrest.

In 2000, The New York Times newspaper partially published a censored version of the CIA document Clandestine Service History—Overthrow of Premier Mosaddeq of Iran—November 1952–August 1953 describing the planning and execution of the Anglo-American coup d'état. The newspaper published this as a scanned image, not as machine-readable text; in the event, the document was properly published uncensored. Linguistically, in this document the word 'blowback' publicly appears for the first time.

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. Halliday says that the Shah exercised complete political control, using his secret service (SAVAK) and the military to crush anyone critical of the regime. Another effect, however, was sharp improvement of Iran's economy; the British-led oil embargo against Iran ended, and oil revenue increased significantly beyond the pre-nationalization 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, and the United States sent development aid and advisers. The CIA maintained a presence in Iran, where Soviets agents were also located.

Moreover, the sight of the Shah of Iran fleeing the country until foreigners re-enthroned him was the major cause of his deposition in the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The CS Historical Paper No. 208 by the religious revolutionaries severed American-Iranian relations. Remembering the embassy's command-centre role in the 1953 coup d'état led them to its preventive occupation in 1979.

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." 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."

Internationally

The 1953 coup d'état was the first time the U.S. had openly overthrown an elected, civil government. In the U.S., 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 against the elected Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, which had nationalised farm land owned by the United Fruit Company, followed the next year.

Conspiracy theories

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 Council of Guardians have 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

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. Per 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."

This allegation also is posited in the book Khaterat-e Arteshbod-e Baznesheshteh Hossein Fardoust (The Memoirs of Retired General Hossein Fardoust), by Hossein Fardoust, a former SAVAK officer, 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." Scholar Ervand Abrahamian suggests that the Islamic Republican authorities had Fardoust tortured; they announced his death before the publication of his book.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Abrahamian, Ervand. 1982. Iran between two revolutions. Princeton studies on the Near East. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691053424
• Halliday, Fred. 1978. Iran, dictatorship and development. Harmondsworth: Penguin. ISBN 9780140220100
• Kapuściński, Ryszard. 1985. Shah of shahs. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich. ISBN 9780151814831
• Keddie, Nikki R. and Richard, Yann. 2006. Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution. New haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300121056.
• Kinzer, Stephen. 2003. All the Shah's men: an American coup and the roots of Middle East terror. Hoboken, N.J.: J. Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9780471265177
• Mackey, Sandra. 1996. The Iranians: Persia, Islam, and the soul of a nation. New York: Dutton. ISBN 9780525940050
• Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. 1980. Answer to history. New York: Stein and Day. ISBN 9780812827552
• Roosevelt, Kermit. 1979. Countercoup, the struggle for the control of Iran. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 9780070535909

External links

• 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 U.S.-backed coup in Iran
• The C.I.A. in Iran—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 David S. Robarge
• A Very Elegant Coup—critique of All the Shah’s Men
• The spectre of Operation Ajax by Guardian Unlimited

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