New York Times
Special Report on the Iranian Coup of 1953, 16 Apr. 2000. New York Times
Special Report on the Iranian Coup of 1953, 16 Apr. 2000.
For period photos, excerpts of the CIA history in PDF format, and timelines with links to contemporaneous New York Times stories, see: http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html.
This is author's brief lead-in to his main story.
The New York Times has "obtained" a copy of the CIA's secret history of the 1953 Iranian coup. The history was written in March 1954 by Dr. Donald N. Wilber, "the C.I.A.'s chief coup planner," and "was provided ... by a former official who kept a copy." The still-classified document "discloses the pivotal role British intelligence officials played in initiating and planning the coup, and it shows that Washington and London shared an interest in maintaining the West's control over Iranian oil....
"The history says agency officers orchestrating the Iran coup worked directly with royalist Iranian military officers, handpicked the prime minister's replacement, sent a stream of envoys to bolster the shah's courage, directed a campaign of bombings by Iranians posing as members of the Communist Party, and planted articles and editorial cartoons in newspapers."
"The C.I.A.'s history of the coup shows that its operatives had only limited success in manipulating American reporters and that none of the Americans covering the coup worked for the agency."
Lead sentences like the following make me nervous as to the author's understanding of the material being presented: "Except for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of its revolution, no leader has left a deeper mark on Iran's 20th century landscape than Mohammed Mossadegh."
"Donald Wilber ... was old-school C.I.A., a Princetonian and a Middle East architecture expert who fit neatly into the mold of the 'gentleman spy.'" Wilber died in 1997 at the age of 89.
Powers, Thomas. "Saving the Shah." The Nation, 12 Apr. 1980. Chapter 9 in Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda, 159-168. Rev. & exp. ed. New York: New York Review of Books, 2004.
Using Kermit Roosevelt's Coutercoup (1979), the author looks at the nature and meaning of the 1953 Iranian coup.
Roosevelt, Kermit.
Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979. 1981. [pb]
Kermit Roosevelt died on 8 June 2000 at the age of 84. Bart Barnes, "Kermit Roosevelt, CIA Mideast Agent, Dies," Washington Post, 10 Jun. 2000, B6.
Clark comment: The book details the planning and execution of Operation Ajax, the American-British operation which overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953 and restored the Shah to his throne. Roosevelt was the American case officer for the operation and was on the scene in Teheran to oversee its successful implementation.
Constantinides argues that Countercoup "is necessary for an understanding of the covert ... history of Ajax.... But its shortcomings lessen its usefulness as a fully reliable reference."
Powers, The Nation (12 Apr. 1980) and Intelligence Wars (2004), 159-168, notes the unusual history of this book. The first printing was pulped because of British concerns about mentions of the SIS role in the 1953 coup. The second printing was held for the release of the American hostages in Iran. According to the reviewer, Roosevelt's account has little to say about the politics of the coup, either in Washington or Teheran. "This version of events is not so much untrue as it is incomplete, offhand, and unreflective.... It is a book about clandestine technique, a kind of guide for covert political manipulation."
See Kenneth L. Adelman, "A Clandestine Clan," International Security 5 (Summer 1980): 152-171. This is a review essay on Countercoup and Powers' The Man Who. Adelman was Director of ACDA, 1984-1987.
Ruehsen, Moyara De
Moraes. "Operation 'Ajax' Revisited: Iran, 1953." Middle Eastern
Studies 29, no. 3 (Jul. 1993): 467-486.
ProQuest: "Several aspects of Operation 'Ajax' ... are examined. New light is shed on the degree to which Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower and [Iranian Prime Minister Muhammed] Musaddiq influenced the outcome of the crisis."
Wilber, Donald N. Adventures
in the Middle East: Excursions and Incursions. Princeton, NJ: Darwin,
1986.
Haglund, I&NS 4.3, notes Wilber's claim to have both developed the concept for Operation Ajax and played a major role in making that plan operational. Nevertheless, there is "not ... much new information about US intelligence operations in the Middle East, either during the 1950s or during the war, when Wilber was an OSS agent in Iran."
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