Aryanews- The morning of August 19, 1953 formed one of the most important events in Iran's contemporary history as a crowd of demonstrators operating at the direction of pro-Shah organizers with ties to the CIA made its way from the bazaars of southern Tehran to the center of the city.
The pro-shah forces joined by military and police equipped with tanks, sacked offices and newspapers aligned with Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq and his advisers.
By early afternoon, clashes with Mosaddeq supporters were taking place, the fiercest occurring in front of the prime minister's home. Reportedly 200 people were killed in that battle before Mosaddeq escaped over his own roof, only to surrender the following day. At 5:25 p.m., retired General Fazlollah Zahedi, arriving at the radio station on a tank, declared to the nation his appointment as the new legal prime minister with the Shah's blessing, announcing that his forces were in full control of the city.
Although official U.S. reports and published accounts described Mosaddeq's overthrow and the shah's restoration to power as inspired and carried out by Iranians, this was far from the reality which occurred those days.
Memoirs of key CIA and British intelligence operatives and historical reconstructions of events have long established that a joint U.S.-British covert operation took place in mid-August, which had a vital impact.
Yet, there has continued to be a controversy over who was responsible for the overthrow of the popularly elected Mosaddeq. Those versions of events virtually ignored the possibility that any outside actors played a part, claiming instead that the movement to reinstate the Shah was genuine and nationwide in scope.
However, the most popular version of the story takes Britain in account for the overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddeq, since the government of the United Kingdom had grown increasingly distressed over Mosaddeq's policies and was especially bitter over the loss of its control of the Iranian oil industry. Repeated attempts to reach a settlement had failed.
Unable to resolve the issue single handedly due to its post-World War II problems, Britain looked towards the United States to settle the issue. Initially America had opposed British policies. After American mediation had failed several times to bring about a settlement, American Secretary of State Dean Acheson concluded that the British were "destructive and determined on a rule or ruin policy in Iran."
By early 1953, however, Dwight D. Eisenhower won the presidential election in the United States and a change in US policy toward Iran ensued.
Despite Mosaddeq's open disgust with socialism, Winston Churchill told the United States that Mosaddeq was "increasingly turning towards communism" and was moving Iran towards the Soviet sphere at a time of high Cold War fears.
Acting on the opposition to Mosaddeq by the British government and fears that he was, or would become, dependent on the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party at a time of expanding Soviet influence, the United States and Britain began to publicly denounce Mosaddeq's policies for Iran as harmful to the country.
In the mean time the already precarious alliance between Mosaddeq and Kashani was severed in January 1953, when Kashani opposed Mosaddeq's demand that his increased powers be extended for a period of one year.
In October 1952, Mosaddeq declared Britain an enemy, and cut all diplomatic relations. In November and December 1952, British intelligence officials suggested to American intelligence that the prime minister should be ousted. The new US administration under Dwight D. Eisenhower and the British government under Winston Churchill agreed to work together toward Mosaddeq's removal. In March 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directed the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was headed by his younger brother Allen Dulles, to draft plans to overthrow Mosaddeq.
On 4 April 1953, CIA director Dulles approved US$1 million to be used "in any way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddeq". Soon the CIA's Tehran station started to launch a propaganda campaign against Mosaddeq. Finally, according to The New York Times, in early June, American and British intelligence officials met again, this time in Beirut, and put the finishing touches on the strategy. Soon afterward, according to his later published accounts, the chief of the CIA's Near East and Africa division, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. the grandson of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, arrived in Tehran to direct it. In 2000, The New York Times made partial publication of a leaked CIA document titled, Clandestine Service History – Overthrow of Premier Mosaddeq of Iran – November 1952-August 1953. This document describes the point-by-point planning of the coup by agent Donald Wilbur, and execution conducted by the American and British governments. The New York Times published this critical document with the names censored. The New York Times also limited its publication to scanned image (bitmap) format, rather than machine-readable text. This document was eventually published properly – in text form, and fully unexpurgated. The complete CIA document is now web published. The word ‘blowback' appeared for the very first time in this document.
The plot, known as Operation Ajax, centered on convincing Iran's monarch to issue a decree to dismiss Mosaddeq from office, as he had attempted some months earlier. But the Shah was terrified to attempt such a dangerously unpopular and legally questionable move, and it would take much persuasion and many U.S. funded meetings, which included bribing his sister Ashraf with a mink coat and money, to successfully change his mind.
Mosaddeq became aware of the plots against him and grew increasingly wary of conspirators acting within his government. Soon Pro-Mosaddeq supporters, who were actually paid plants of the U.S. operation, threatened Muslim leaders with "savage punishment if they opposed Mosaddeq", giving the impression that Mosaddeq was cracking down on dissent, and stirring anti-Mosaddeq sentiments within the religious community. Mosaddeq then moved to dissolve the heavily-bribed parliament,under his emergency powers. After taking the additional step of abolishing the Constitutional guarantee of a secret ballot, Mosaddeq's victory in the national plebiscite was assured. The electorate was forced into a non-secret ballot and Mosaddeq won 99.93% of the vote. The tactics employed by Mosaddeq to remain in power were dictatorial in their result, playing into the propaganda efforts of those who favoured his removal. Parliament was suspended indefinitely, and Mosaddeq's emergency powers were extended.
Apparently, in August 1953, the Shah finally succumbed to the CIA plot, having been finally told by Roosevelt that the U.S. would proceed with him or without him, and formally dismissed the Prime Minister in a written decree, an act explicitly permitted under the constitution.Then, as a precautionary measure, he flew to Baghdad and from there hid safely in Rome, Italy. He actually signed two decrees, one dismissing Mosaddeq and the other nominating the CIA's choice, General Fazlollah Zahedi, as Prime Minister.These decrees, or Farmāns as they are called, were specifically written as dictated by Donald Wilbur the CIA architect of the plan, which were designed as a major part of Wilbur's strategy to give the impression of legitimacy to the secret coup, as can be read in the declassified plan itself which bears his name. Wilbur was later given a letter of commendation by Alan Dulles, CIA head, for his work. It too is now declassified, and appears in Wilbur's autobiography.
Soon, massive protests, engineered by Roosevelt's team, took place across the city and elsewhere with tribesmen paid to be at the ready to assist thecoup. Fake anti- and pro-monarchy protesters, both paid by Roosevelt (as he reports in his book, cited), violently clashed in the streets, looting and burning mosques and newspapers, leaving almost 300 dead. The pro-monarchy leadership, chosen, hidden and finally unleashed at the right moment by the CIA team, led by retired army General and former Minister of Interior in Mosaddeq's cabinet, Fazlollah Zahedi joined with underworld figures such as the Rashidian brothers and local strongman Shaban Jafari, to gain the upper hand on 19 August 1953 (28th of Mordad). The military joined on cue: pro-Shah tank regiments stormed the capital and bombarded the prime minister's official residence, on Roosevelt's cue, according to his book. Mosaddeq managed to flee from the mob that set in to ransack his house, and, the following day, surrendered to General Zahedi, who was meanwhile set up by the CIA with makeshift headquarters at the Officers' Club. Mosaddeq was arrested at the Officers' Club and transferred to a military jail shortly after.
Shortly after the return of the Shah, on 22 August 1953, from his flight to Rome, Mosaddeq was tried by a military tribunal for high treason. Zahedi and the Shah were inclined, however, to spare the man's life (the death penalty would have applied according to the laws of the day). Mosaddeq received a sentence of 3 years in solitary confinement at a military jail and was exiled to his village not far from Tehran, where he remained under house arrest on his estate until his death, on 5 March 1967.
Zahedi's new government soon reached an agreement with foreign oil companies to form a consortium and "restore the flow of Iranian oil to world markets in substantial quantities", giving the U.S. and Great Britain the lion's share of Iran's oil. In return, the U.S. massively funded the Shah's resulting government, including his army and secret police force, SAVAK, until the Shah's overthrow in 1979.
