The Age of Eisenhower

by William I Hitchcock

  Was the situation so dangerous? Were the Soviets banging at the gates of Tehran? In fact, as Allen and Foster Dulles knew very well, events in Iran were rather more complex and fluid than they represented to the president. But in the forum of an NSC meeting, when many items are competing for the president’s attention, a cabinet officer who speaks of complexity and nuance will soon find his voice drowned out by those who insist on simplicity. And the Dulles brothers knew how to make their voices heard.

  Iran had been a source of anxiety for the United States for over a decade. In 1941, as the Second World War raged, the Soviet Union and Britain occupied Iran under an agreement that ensured vital Iranian oil would keep flowing northward into the Soviet war machine then fighting Hitler. The two Great Powers pledged to withdraw their military forces within six months of the end of the war. Until that time they used Iran as a valuable supply depot and transit station to supply the USSR in its hour of need. In 1943 FDR, Churchill, and Stalin met at Tehran to discuss war strategy, famously ignoring the 24-year-old shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, dismissing him as though he were an errand boy. After the war the Soviets were slow to depart; it took more than a year of tense negotiations and Anglo-American pressure to pry them out of northern Iran. Even after they withdrew in 1946, the West understood that the Soviet Union could if it wished sweep down into Iran and seize a valuable geopolitical prize.

  Although the Soviets had departed, Britain still exercised enormous influence in Iran through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which since the start of the century had pumped, refined, transported, and sold Iranian oil on the world market. Its principal stockholder was the British government, and for many Iranians the AIOC represented the foreign exploitation of Iranian resources. The forum for the expression of these grievances was the Iranian Parliament, which under the constitution was subject to the shah but which, given the passivity of the monarch, had come to assume a leading role in public life. Voices within the Parliament from across the political spectrum expressed a desire to take back control of Iran’s most valuable asset, its oil resources.

  The call to nationalize the oil industry held great political appeal to Iranians. In April 1951 a new National Front government came to power in Tehran, led by a Western-educated, 70-year-old anti-British nationalist named Mohammad Mossadeq, who promised the expulsion of foreign influence from the nation. Mossadeq rallied many Iranians to his cause by arguing that Iran could not modernize, nor democratize, as long as it was ruled by a powerful monarchy and policed by a royalist army, and as long as its principal source of wealth—oil—was controlled by foreigners. Just a few weeks after taking office, Mossadeq won approval from Parliament for the nationalization of the oil industry. His actions pleased Iranians but deeply worried American officials. According to the CIA, “the policy of the National Front at this time plays directly into Soviet hands.” The stage was set for an ugly confrontation.9

  The British briefly contemplated answering this challenge with an armed seizure of the vast British-built refinery works on the island of Abadan, just where the Shatt al-Arab river meets the Persian Gulf. But the risks were too great that the Soviets might intervene in response, and British forces were too small for such a daring operation. Instead the British tried economic pressure as well as diplomacy. The Royal Navy began to seize vessels carrying Iranian oil on the grounds that the cargo was stolen, while other large oil companies also ceased trade with Iran. The result was a virtual blockade of Iran’s oil exports. The British also demanded payment from Iran that would compensate them for the investment they had made in the oil industry and refineries. The Iranians refused. In July 1951 President Truman sent Averell Harriman to Tehran to try to broker a deal, but the Iranians did not yield. The British then asked the United Nations to take up their claim, arguing that Iran had violated an international treaty. But the UN decided it had no jurisdiction. Britain’s legal claims were exhausted by 1952. Casting Mossadeq as a dangerous, misguided Oriental zealot who could not see reason and whose policies were likely to do his country grave harm, the British government concluded that the only action left open to them was to replace him with a more pliant leader. But in October 1952, sensing that the British were likely to resort to such dirty tricks, Mossadeq severed relations with the British government and expelled all British officials from the country. The end of British predominance in Iran created an opening that the United States was quite willing to fill.10

  Mossadeq was a populist, a nationalist, and an anti-imperialist, but he was certainly not a communist. The CIA’s Iran analysts were smart enough to understand the difference. Yet the problem they faced was that Mossadeq’s power and popularity depended upon sweeping anti-British and anti-Western sentiments that, they feared, would surely open the way to more radical political ideas. His period in office had inflamed opinion in Iran against the West, had weakened the role of the shah—already a vacillating and fragile figure—and had triggered a serious crisis in the economy, since Iran’s oil income had disappeared. Mossadeq had created an atmosphere of upheaval and intrigue, and rumors in 1952 abounded that either the army or the Shi’a religious leader Abul-Qasim Kashani might attempt a coup to overthrown him. Mossadeq’s radicalism had also legitimated the political platform of the Tudeh Party (the Party of the Masses, or communists), which since the early 1940s had emerged as a major political actor in Iran, drawing support from labor groups, youth organizations, and intellectuals. If Mossadeq’s government were to fall, the CIA worried, the Tudeh might profit. The Americans came to see Mossadeq as a ticking time-bomb. While CIA analysts believed that an outright communist takeover in Iran was unlikely, Mossadeq had created a dangerously unstable climate that would open the way to communist, and hence Soviet, influence. No wonder, then, that the CIA concluded at the end of 1952, “The USSR appears to believe that the Iranian situation is developing favorably.”11

  In response to this evolving crisis, the British proposed the idea of a Western-organized plot to oust Mossadeq. The idea came from C. M. “Monty” Woodhouse, a senior officer in MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service. Like so many figures in the covert operations business, Woodhouse was a veteran of World War II: he had fought alongside the anti-Nazi Greek resistance, undertaking many hair-raising and successful acts of sabotage. In 1951–52 he led the MI6 office in Iran, and over the years he had developed close ties to Americans Allen Dulles, Walter Bedell Smith, Frank Wisner, and the U.S. ambassador in Iran, Loy Henderson. He was a trusted figure; a proposal from him would be entertained seriously. Woodhouse, now preaching to the choir, argued to his American friends that Mossadeq was an unwitting Trojan horse for Soviet influence; the longer he stayed in office, the more likely would be the penetration by the Tudeh Party of the Iranian bureaucracy. In mid-November 1952 Woodhouse presented these arguments to Smith, still head of the CIA, and to Kermit Roosevelt, head of the CIA’s Near East Division. The Americans were not ready to commit to a violent overthrow of Mossadeq. The outgoing Truman administration still held out some hope that the Iranian prime minister could be pressed one last time to work out an agreement to the oil problem with the British in exchange for greater development aid. But the seed had been planted, and by the time Ike’s new national security team was in place, the coup plan had taken root. The Dulles brothers had discussed it informally among colleagues, and in February 1953 Smith, who was on his way out as director, gave approval to CIA planners to draw up a proposal for discussion at the highest levels of government to oust Mossadeq from power.12

  It is not surprising to find the new Eisenhower team embracing the idea of a coup. This is not because they were reckless—Ike was always cautious about the use of force—but because of a convergence of factors that served to make Iran a critical test case for the new president. The campaign of 1952 had stressed the need for boldness in handling foreign affairs. Republicans had chided Truman for his failures in Korea, his “loss” of China, and his alleged satisfaction with standing on the defensive in the f
ace of the Soviet onslaught. Furthermore the CIA reports that reached the president summarized a complex picture in bold strokes: Mossadeq was not himself a communist, but his regime was letting the communists in through the back door. If he stayed in power, the West would be forever barred from Iran, and the “loss of Iran” would be added to the rolls of ignominy alongside the loss of Czechoslovakia in 1948, the loss of China in 1949, and the invasion of South Korea in 1950. The CIA’s most recent National Intelligence Estimate of the Near and Middle East, prepared in January 1953, stated, “The West has a specific and basic concern with the extensive oil resources and strategic location of the area.” Given that strategic picture, “the loss of Iran to Communism would be a blow to U.S. and Western prestige and would increase the vulnerability of the remainder of the Middle East and of the Indian subcontinent.” For the new president, Iran would be the place where he would draw the line.13

  Documents from the CIA files (some released quite recently) have allowed scholars to re-create the planning and execution of the coup in great detail. The documents show that, in the words of the 1974 secret CIA history of the operation, the coup was “conceived and approved at the highest levels of government.” On April 4, 1953, Allen Dulles approved a budget of $1 million to be used by the CIA station in Tehran for the coup. In mid-May British and American intelligence agents gathered in Nicosia, Cyprus, to hammer out a plan. After two weeks a proposal was sent to London and Washington for approval. The plan, code-named TP-AJAX, was quite simple. The British and American secret services had extensive contacts in the Iranian Army, industrial circles, the press, and police, as well as among politicians who were hostile to Mossadeq. Using these well-placed and well-bribed assets, the CIA would help to stir up intense anti-Mossadeq fervor in the press and on the streets. The shah would then dismiss Mossadeq from office in order to reestablish order. His replacement would be a senior army officer, Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi, a former member of Mossadeq’s cabinet, whose supporters in the army would stand at the ready to rally to him and the shah. The shah’s role was crucial, for he had the legal authority to act against Mossadeq, even if he proved to be an inconstant and fearful player in this drama. On July 1 Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Foreign Minister Anthony Eden approved the plan; on July 11 President Eisenhower and Secretary John Foster Dulles did the same.14

  The propaganda campaign against Mossadeq greatly intensified. “Every agent of the press with which we or the United Kingdom had working relations went all out against Mossadeq,” stated the CIA’s internal after-action report. “There can be no doubt whatsoever that this campaign had reached a very large audience.” The CIA Art Department prepared posters and handbills, copied them by the tens of thousands, and flew them into Tehran. These materials purported to show that Mossadeq was a tool of the communists and had secretly secured the support of the Tudeh Party to sustain him in power. The propaganda also asserted that he was planning to lash out against religious leaders and the army.15

  The coup started out well enough on August 15, when the CIA’s man in Tehran, Kermit Roosevelt, secured the shah’s signature on two decrees, one dismissing Mossadeq, the other appointing General Zahedi to succeed him. But Mossadeq got wind of the plan just in time, and army and police units that were still loyal to his government arrested a number of conspirators. By the morning of August 16 the coup seemed to have failed, and Zahedi went into hiding. Worse, the shah fled the country, flying to Baghdad and then on to Rome. Mossadeq’s allies hailed the failure of the coup and decried the alleged American role in it.16

  Yet the CIA team in Tehran did not give up. They worked quickly to disseminate the shah’s decrees, which legitimated Zahedi as the new prime minister. Roosevelt bankrolled gangs of youths to stage riots and vandalize public buildings while posing as Tudeh supporters, thus stirring fears of a communist takeover. The shah appealed on the radio to respect Zahedi as the legally appointed premier. By August 19 the army, key politicians and clerics, and the Tehran crowds began to move away from Mossadeq. In this atmosphere of crisis and uncertainty, spontaneous pro-shah demonstrations—quite unrelated to CIA activity—began to gather across the capital. Gaining courage, Zahedi came out of hiding and made a radio broadcast claiming he was the rightful prime minister, while soldiers loyal to the shah routed pro-Mossadeq forces in a number of skirmishes that left over 100 people dead. By the evening of August 19 Mossadeq had fled; his home was ransacked and set on fire, and Zahedi’s military men imposed a curfew in Tehran and started rounding up Mossadeq’s supporters. The aged prime minister himself surrendered in the early morning hours on August 20, and the shah flew back to Tehran two days later to a tense but quiet city.17

  Eisenhower was kept abreast of developments in Tehran while he was in Denver on vacation, as cable traffic from Washington to Lowry Air Force Base makes clear. In Washington the NSC looked on with relief at the positive turn of events. Meeting on August 27, Vice President Nixon and the NSC team heard the deputy director of the CIA, Gen. Charles Cabell, report on Zahedi’s success in shoring up his power. According to Cabell, Zahedi was about to form a new government and eventually hold elections, which “the army will doubtless manipulate” to ensure a desirable result. Most important, “the Tudeh Party will be ruthlessly curbed.” Secretary Dulles asserted that “the United States now had a second chance in Iran.” In the following months thousands of Mossadeq supporters, National Front members, and Tudeh Party members were arrested. Mossadeq himself was tried and convicted and would spend the rest of his life under house arrest. The bureaucracy and military were thoroughly purged of unreliable elements. Zahedi successfully put into place the foundations of an authoritarian regime that would endure until 1979.18

  The U.S. government quickly turned on the spigot of economic and military aid to Zahedi and his new government: $45 million in economic aid available right away, plus a $100 million military aid program. The NSC reasoned that although Iran’s army was many years away from being an effective force, “military aid to Iran has great political importance apart from its military impact. Over the long term, the most effective instrument for maintaining Iran’s orientation toward the West is the monarch, which in turn has the Army as its only real source of power.” Military aid would “cement Army loyalty to the Shah and thus consolidate the present regime.” This remarkably candid analysis dispelled any notion that the new government in Iran was based on popular support: the army, and American military aid, would prop up the shah for the next quarter century. Nixon, who visited Iran in late 1953 and met with Zahedi, reported back to the NSC in fairly blunt terms: “This government in Iran is ours. . . . Now that Mossadeq is out of the way things should be a lot better. What he did to that country is enough to hang him.”19

  The whole affair looked wonderfully successful from Washington. Naturally Eisenhower dissembled when he spoke in public about Iran. He tended to describe the events there by saying that “Iran threw off a threat of Communist domination and came strongly to our side.” But in his diary he was more candid. “The things we did were ‘covert,’ ” he wrote. “If knowledge of them became public, we would not only be embarrassed in that region, but our chances to do anything of like nature in the future would almost totally disappear.” He praised Kermit Roosevelt’s courage in carrying out the plot, which “seemed more like a dime novel than an historical fact.” By sustaining the shah and Zahedi in power, Ike felt, the United States might “give a serious defeat to Russian intentions and plans in that area.” That was how he saw the coup: as a strike against Soviet communism in a dangerous part of the world.

  Eisenhower had not the slightest concern that the United States had interfered in the parliamentary functions of a sovereign state. The cold war was a long game of position, and every test mattered. By the end of 1954 his assessment of the coup had only improved. “A year ago last January,” he wrote in a letter to his brother Edgar, “we were in imminent danger of losing Iran, and sixty percent of the known oil reserves of the wor
ld. You may have forgotten this. Lots of people have. But there has been no greater threat that has in recent years overhung the free world. That threat has been largely, if not totally, removed.”20

  III

  To Eisenhower and his advisers, the Iran operation fit neatly into a particular view of the world. The Soviet Union sought to penetrate and destabilize vulnerable states and would use any means to achieve its purpose. In response the United States must use its own cunning, as well as inducements of aid and arms, to create strong points around the world to resist such communist subversion. In Iran, the Americans told themselves, Mossadeq was a tool of foreign interests. The shah represented tradition, continuity, and above all constitutional authority. In this telling America had sought to protect Iran from a radical and misguided opportunist. Indeed Kermit Roosevelt, the chief CIA operative in Tehran, titled his memoir Countercoup precisely to suggest that it was Mossadeq who was the usurper: the United States merely assisted the shah and the Iranian Army in restoring power to the nation’s rightful rulers.