Iranian History: 50 Excellent EEs History

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Investigating the Role of CIA and SIS in the 1953’s Iranian Coup
Introduction
The role of the U.S. Criminal Investigation Authority (CIA) and the British SIS (MI6) in the 1953 Iranian coup has been extensively analyzed. Their role was so damaging that even though the coup successfully ousted Mohammed Mossadegh, it left very negative long and short-term impacts on the relations between the United States and British on the one hand and Iran on the other. Much debate on the involvement of the CIA and SIS in the Iranian coup focuses largely on moral dimensions. In an American-Iranian Relations conference in 2000, U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright admitted that the U.S., through the CIA played a key role in staging the coup against Mossadegh. While reports by several authors show that the CIA and SIS planned the coup in a joint manner, it was the CIA that actually executed the coup (Gasiorowski 4). The involvement of the two agencies is mostly seen as corruption in which the support of various parties of interest was bought through money and resources and coercion in which various leaders were forced into agreeing to the demands of the agencies. This paper thus attempts to discuss in detail the role that CIA and SIS played in the Iranian coup of 1953.
The Involvement of British in the Iranian Oil Industry
The dispute leading to the coup was fueled by the formation of Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. (AIOC), a British owned oil company (Donald, 13). Anglo-Persian Oil Co. had until 1953 had exclusive rights to Iranian oil. The British government was by the year 1914 a major shareholder in Anglo-Persian Oil Co. British had a controlling stake in the company as it held 51% of the shares of the company. Anglo-Persian Oil Co. played a critical role in British national security given that navy ships had been converted to oil from coal before the commencement of the First World War. Further, British gained hugely from the immense profits the company made thus helping the British offset its deficit. Although a new agreement had been reached in 1949, in which Iranians had been given the highest share of the company’s profits, the sharing of the profits was still in strong favor of the British government.
In 1950, the Iranian government got less money from Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. compared to what it paid in taxes at home. Nevertheless, the demands by Persia for an even higher share of the oil profits grew even further. At the time, the agreement reached between by the Saudi Arabian government and the Arabian American Oil Co. (ARAMCO) in December 1950 following threats to nationalize the oil facilities served as a perfect model (Roger 128). However, Iran only received less than 20% of the profit share while ARAMCO gave half to Saudi.
Nationalization of the AIOC and the Subsequent Weakening of Mossadegh by SIS
The situation of profit sharing was to change in June 1950 with the rise of Ali Razmaara who had previously served as an army chief of staff as the new prime minister of Iran. He had vowed to get a better oil deal for Iran but was assassinated in 1951 even before a new deal could be reached. Razmaara though had been an opponent of the nationalization plans. Just a week after his death, a vote in the Iranian parliament and the senate gave way to the nationalization of the country’s oil industry and the same was signed into law by Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in 1951 May (Francis 61).
The turn of events was very critical for the Iranian government. Mossadegh had been a key player in the decision to nationalize Iran’s oil industry. Mossadegh who became the prime minister in April 1951, fused the anti-imperialism movement with the constitutional movement and his influence given that he had been a key Iranian politician for decades was immense (Richard 1). Mossadegh had alongside other leaders founded the National Front in 1949 acting as an umbrella party for different political groupings. One of the top most priorities of the National Front was to brig to an end the domination of the British in the Iranian oil industry. Thus, he strongly supported and implemented the new nationalization law and this made him even more influential. This came at a time when both the British and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. were hated strongly by the Iranians.
However, there had been attempts to have both sides renegotiate a new deal in 1951 but they failed. This failure was largely fuelled by the fact that the executives of the AIOC strongly rejected the idea of giving Iran a fairer share of the profits from its oil. The Iranian government had through the nationalization law violated the initial contact signed between Iran and the AIOC, British began issuing sanctions against Iran. The British also sought support from the United Nations in addition to suing the Iranian government in the International Court of Justice (Richard and William, 72). At the same time also, AIOC closed down the Abadan based refineries as well as the British navy blockaded access via the water.
Motivation of the SIS to initiate and plan the coup
The SIS role in the coup followed the threat to the British government of losing its controlling stake in Iran’s petroleum industry, which was critical in its national and economic spheres. British involvement in the oil business in Iran was based on the fact that it relied heavily on Persian oil for most of its economic and national security activities. Further, Mossadegh’s policy on nationalization of the Iranian petroleum industry brought great damage to British prestige as well as its imperial status (Donald 33). In addition to these, there were increasing worries that the turn of events in Iran would encourage other anti-British groups in other areas to act in a similar manner. A good example is in Egypt where they British were facing demands to cease its control of the Suez Canal. SIS was also motivated by the realization of the possibility of the control of Iranian oil being under the Soviets. This was even a great concern to the Americans. These activities motivated the contribution of the SIS to the coup.
Semi-covert campaigns by the SIS
In the same year that Iran nationalized its oil industry, the UK drew up plan to take over the oil refineries in Abadan. Although U.S. was by the time opposed to the move by the British to employ military action to intervene into the situation, London went ahead and planned an attempt to destabilize the government of Iran through a semi-covert campaign (Anne, 54). The position of the British would become even firmer with the 1952 election of Winston Churchill as the prime minister. However, Iran also hardened its stand and Mossadegh proceeded to end ties and diplomatic relations with Britain later in October 1952. The British government was angered by the move and purposed to get rid of Mossadegh by adopting measures to weaken his support base adversely.
Shift in America’s Stand on Military Intervention and the Involvement of the CIA
Dwight D. Eisenhower came to power after the election of November 1952 giving the British new hopes for more Washington support. British sent a MI6 officer to convince Eisenhower just before his inauguration of the necessity of a coup in Iran. Cautiously though, British focused on emphasizing the danger of a Communist uprising to Iran instead of the need to take over the oil field, yet this was the ultimate goal of the British. Further intensive consultations between the U.S. and British commenced in February 1953 (John 119). Soon the decision to oust Mossadegh gained popularity in the State Department and the CIA following the immense contribution of the two brothers: Allen Dulles (Director of Central Intelligence) and John Foster (Secretary of State) serving under Eisenhower (Anne 57). By April the CIA committed a budget of $I million for the military intervention and an agreement was reached to conduct the intervention jointly with the British.
Joint approval of coup plans by the CIA and SIS
Between June and July 1953, both Washington and London approved plans to engage in military intervention. As such, they planned to have the Shah signed two royal decrees that were referred to as ‘firmans’ (Rashed 68). One decree involved the ousting of Mossadegh and the other was to install General Fazlollah Zahedi as the new Iranian prime minister. In searching for the decree, the two governments’ agencies sought a legal or quasi-legal rather than an outright coup (Jeffrey, 94). This came at a time when internal power struggles funded and facilitated by SIS had made Mossadegh powers and influence considerably weak. His National Front party had become very fragile due to the buying of the influence of key leaders in Mossadegh’s camp and as such much of Mossadegh support then only came from the Communist-based Tudeh Party (John 40).
CIA’s Lead Role in Organizing the Iranian Coup
The CIA through agent Kermit Roosevelt played a crucial role in organizing the coup. This was after the CIA sent Roosevelt to Iran using false identity as James F. Lochridge to organize the coup (Rashed 77). The role of the CIA was critical to staging the coup since British were not allowed to operate directly from Iran. CIA through Roosevelt and other agents employed the use of various resources and money to garner the support of sections of the army, prominent religious leaders and even bribed journalists and Iranian members of parliament. Eventually, CIA’s efforts persuaded the Shah to sign the two decrees installing Zahedi as prime minister and dismissing Mossadegh. However, their first coup attempt between 15 and 16 August 1953 failed as Mossadegh had information of his planned arrest (John 122). The CIA played further roles in initiating the coup as it helped hide general Zahedi and helped Shah to return into the country.
CIA’s Persistence, Stage-Managed Demonstrations and Use of Media to Promote the Coup
Although Washington ordered Roosevelt to cease further progress with the coup, he led the CIA men within Tehran as well as their Iranian allies in orchestrating several measures such as staging an organized demonstration against Mossadegh using crowds paid to pretend to be supporters and members of the Tudeh party (Mark 1). Further success to the CIA followed with the publicizing of the Shah’s ‘royal decrees’. The American Press played a crucial role in supporting the CIA both directly and indirectly in conducting coup promoting activities. For instance, the New York Times supported and put in its editorials the biased articles written by one of its correspondents – Kennett Love discrediting Mossadegh and seeking to draw support for the coup (Francis 59). Love used all manner of language to discredit the legitimacy of Mossadegh portraying him as a dictator and immoral.
Weakening of Mossadegh’s support base through the Three-Track Strategy
Having failed in all its previous attempts to retain its control of the Iranian oil industry, the British government resolved economic sanctions coupled with military intervention organized by the SIS. The first two of British three-track strategy to regain the control of the oil industry failed (Kinzer 3). The three track strategies included persuading the Prime Minister Mossadegh into opting for a favorable agreement or else remove him from office. A series of legal maneuvers was the first strategy and it failed badly. The second attempt involved undermining the base of support for Mossadegh through economic sanctions coupled by military intervention.
Having failed in the two strategies, SIS assumed a critical role in executing the third of the three-track strategy (Mark 1). This strategy involved removing Mossadegh from his position. Other than the military action through the SIS, covert political action was also employed with the assistance of pro-British military officers, politicians, religious figures and businessmen.
SIS’s support for rebel Pan-Iranist party
After Mossadegh resigned from office on July 16 1953 due to a disagreement between him and the Shah on whose responsibility it was to control the military, a new Prime Minister – Qavam who had been by trying to lobby the support of the British and its Iranian allies in leading the country was appointed (Keddie and Yann 58). Massive violent demonstrations later ensued and were organized by the National Front coalition to reinstate Mossadegh. The SIS had tried to persuade the Shah to deploy the police to deal with the demonstrations. Nevertheless, its involvement led to the death of 69 people. The SIS was concerned of the growing drift towards communism where the consent of the mob held the decisive factor of determining important events such as who became prime minister as in the case of Mossadegh who previously was determined by the few in the ruling class and the Shah. The SIS played a crucial in helping factions of the Pan-Iranist party which was splitting rapidly at the time alongside a couple of military officers under the leadership of Zahedi and the Rashidian brothers in planning an ousting of Mossadegh.
Zahedi and the Support of SIS: Supply of Arms
The role of SIS in the coup was also evident when Zahedi approached a British embassy official regarding dissatisfaction with Mossadegh. The official had consulted with the London office citing the need for clarification so as to avoid staging the coup together with the Rashidians and then having to call it off. In later accounts, Zahedi sought to obtain British assurance for support during his anticipated leadership as well as in the coup plot against Mossadegh (Dan and Jason 1). London had later after being contacted by Middleton who was working closely with Zahedi confirmed support and directed Middleton to offer Zahedi the assistance he required. As such, Bakhtiari received ammunition from MI6. However, Mossadegh learnt of the plans and soon frustrated the plans by having those involved arrested. Mossadegh broke diplomatic relations between the two countries and British immediately lacked an operating base in Iran and thus had to rely on the role of CIA and U.S. at large to execute the coup.
CIA’s Cover...