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Reza Shah was a harsh tyrant but also a visionary reformer. The British forced him from his throne in 1941. His eldest son, the future Mohammad Reza Shah, stands second from left.
The British built the world’s largest oil refinery at Abadan on the Persian Gulf and made huge profits there. Their Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was supposed to be a partnership with Iran, but Iranians were not permitted to audit the books.
Abadan was a colonial outpost, with swimming pools and tennis courts for the British administrators and slum housing for tens of thousands of Iranian workers. Buses, cinemas, and other amenities were reserved for the British.
Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh thrilled Iranians when he nationalized the oil company in 1951. Here he is shown in the bed from which he often conducted business.
Mossadegh visited the United States in 1952. President Harry Truman tried to arrange a compromise between Iran and the British.
Henry Grady, the American ambassador to Iran, sought to prevent a clash between Mossadegh and the West. So did President Truman’s special envoy, W. Averell Harriman.
On October 4, 1952, the unthinkable happened: the last Britons sailed away from Abadan. It was a triumph for Iranian nationalism and a humiliating defeat for the British. They set out to reverse it by overthrowing Mossadegh.
Mohammad Reza Shah wanted to guide Iran’s future, but Prime Minister Mossadegh believed that monarchs should leave politics to elected leaders. The Shah bitterly resented Mossadegh’s efforts to reduce his power.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill believed in covert operations and strongly encouraged the coup. He and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden failed to win American support while President Truman was in office, but succeeded after Dwight Eisenhower assumed the presidency in 1953.
Soon after Eisenhower approved the coup, the CIA sent one of its most resourceful agents, Kermit Roosevelt, to Iran to carry it out.
The brothers who ran the overt and covert sides of American foreign policy during the Eisenhower administration were determined to overthrow Mossadegh: Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles.
The campaign against Mossadegh intensified after an anti-Mossadegh diplomat, Loy Henderson, arrived as American ambassador. Henderson is shown talking to the illfated Foreign Minister Hussein Fatemi.
Sir Francis Shepherd, the British ambassador to Iran, worked tirelessly to undermine Mossadegh’s government.
Asadollah Rashidian, one of Kermit Roosevelt’s key Iranian agents, built support for the coup by bribing politicians, mullahs, newspaper editors, and gang leaders.
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, father of the Gulf War commander, headed a crack police brigade in Iran during the 1940s and returned on a clandestine mission to help arrange the coup.
Ayatollah Abulqasim Kashani, a powerful fundamentalist cleric, supported Mossadegh at first but then turned against him. Kermit Roosevelt sent him $10,000 the day before the coup.
Princess Ashraf, the Shah’s tough-minded twin sister, helped persuade her brother to support the coup. A British agent said he secured her cooperation by gifts of cash and a mink coat.
CIA agents persuaded the Shah to sign a decree dismissing Mossadegh from office and another naming a disaffected officer, General Fazlollah Zahedi, to replace him. The decrees were of dubious legality, but they helped rally support for the coup.
The British and Americans chose General Zahedi (left) as the figurehead leader of their coup. Another key collaborator was Colonel Nematollah Nasiri, commander of the Shah’s Imperial Guard.
On August 19, 1953, anti-Mossadegh crowds surged through the streets of Tehran. Some military units joined them, and by midnight they had succeeded in overthrowing the government.
The Shah, who had fled in panic when the coup seemed to be failing, flew home to reclaim his throne. Soon he began centralizing power in his own hands.
Mossadegh was arrested, tried by a military tribunal, and found guilty of treason. He spent three years in prison and the rest of his life under house arrest. He died in 1967.
Mohammad Reza Shah ruled harshly for twenty-five years and was finally overthrown in 1979. Revolutionaries like these carried portraits of Mossadegh, symbolizing their determination to take revenge for the 1953 coup. The new regime in Iran imposed fundamentalist rule, aided anti-Western terror groups, and inspired Islamic radicals in many countries.
INDEX
Abadan. See also Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
British evacuation of
conditions at
construction of
strike at
violence at
Abbas Shah
Achaemenians
Acheson, Dean
Afghanistan
Afshartus, Mahmoud
Ahmad Shah
Ala, Hussein
Alam, Assadollah
Albania
Alborz College
Albright, Madeleine
Alexander the Great
Ali (caliph)
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. See also Abadan
colonialism
contract terms of
Mossadegh and
nationalization of
origin of
post-coup efforts
Reza Shah and
strikes at
Supplemental Agreement
United Kingdom
United Nations
United States
Anglo-Persian Agreement
Anglo-Persian Oil Company. See also Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
anti-Americanism, Islamic Revolution of
antiCommunism, United States. See also communism
anti-Semitism
Buenos Aires bombing (1994)
Reza Shah
Arab conquest
Arachosians
Aramash, Ahmad
Aramco
Arbenz, Jacobo<
br />
Archimedes
Argentina
Aristotle
Armenia
Aryans
Ashraf, Princess
Asia Minor
Assyria
Atatürk, Kemal
Athens
athletes
Attlee, Clement
Azerbaijan
Azeris, oppression of
Babylon
Bakhtiar, Shapour
assassination of
Baltic countries
Bani-Sadr, Abolhassan
Baqai, Muzzaffar
Baskerville, Howard
bast,
Batmanqelich, Nader
Bazargan, Mehdi
Bedamn network
Beirut bombing (1983)
Berlin blockade
Bevin, Ernest
Bill, James A.
bin-Laden, Osama
“Bloody Monday,”
Boer War
Bohlen, Charles
Bolsheviks
Bolton, George
Bowie, Robert
Bradley, Omar
British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). See Secret Intelligence Service (MI U.K.)
Buenos Aires bombing (1994)
Butler, R. A.
Byroade, Henry
Byzantine Empire
Cadman, John
Carroll, Lewis
Carter, Jimmy
Central Asia
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). See also Office of Strategic Services (OSS); Operation Ajax; Secret Intelligence Service (MI U.K.); United States
antiCommunism of
covert activities of
creation of
Islamic Revolution of
MI6 and
Mossadegh and
Operation Ajax
opposition within
Chafik, Madame. See Ashraf, Princess
Chiang Kai-shek
Chile
China
Churchill, Winston
Eisenhower and
embargo
Mossadegh and
Operation Ajax
petroleum
reelection
Truman and
clerics, secular reformers and
Clinton, Bill
Cold War, impact of
colonialism
democracy
Iran partition
Kashani and
Majlis (parliament)
Middle East
Mossadegh and
Muzzaffar al-Din Shah and
Nasir al-Din Shah and
petroleum
Reza Shah and
All the Shah’s Men Page 31