The 1953 Coup D'etat in Iran Author(s): Mark J. Gasiorowski Source ...

The 1953 Coup D'Etat in Iran 285
Kermanshah. Local army and air force units were to establish a base from which to seek control over
the whole country. Key oil and rail installations in Tehran were to have been sabotaged to create a
diversion. While a number of plans were discussed by the American and Iranian conspirators, none
of the CIA sources I interviewed could recall such a plan.
66The CIA role in organizing this "fake" Tudeh crowd, which played a critical role in the coup and
is not discussed in other published accounts, was confirmed to me in interviews with at least five CIA
participants. One retired CIA officer told me that the station later learned from its Tudeh informants
that the Tudeh's decision to pull its crowds off the streets came after it realized that the original
crowd was a "fake" (August 1983 interview). Several of my sources indicated that Nerren and Cilley
may have used their contacts with leaders of the Pan-Iranists to mobilize part of this crowd. This is
consistent with the observation by U.S. embassy personnel that this crowd contained "an unusual
mixture of Pan-Iranists and Tudeh" members. See Mattison to Dulles, August 17, 1953, Record
Group 59, Box 4110. Henderson's conversation with Mosaddeq is described in his 1972 interview
with the Columbia University Oral History Research Office (pp. 15-18). The Tudeh later reevaluated
its role in these events and concluded that it should have been more supportive of Mosaddeq. See
Sepehr Zabih, The Communist Movement in Iran (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966),
pp. 219-21.
67A report of the plan to organize demonstrations on Friday appeared several weeks later in The
Times of India. See "Transmits a Further Series of Articles," 16 June 1953, FO/371/104568. One
CIA participant told me in an August 1983 interview that by Wednesday Mosaddeq's forces had
located the general neighborhood where Zahedi was hiding and were preparing to seize him. Neither
of the CIA officers who delivered the money to Aramesh could confirm to me that it went to
Kashani; both, however, believe that it did (August 1983 and March 1984 interviews). Several days
after the coup the British received a report from the Iraqi ambassador in Tehran that the Shah and
Zahedi together had visited Kashani, kissed his hands, and thanked him for his help in restoring the
monarchy. See "An Account of Conversation," I September 1953, FO/371/104571. One CIA officer
told me that Kashani's son visited him several times after the coup to remind him of the role played
by his father (July 1984 interview). An observer of the coup reported later that so much American
currency had found its way into the bazaar that the black market exchange rate fell from over 100
rials to the dollar to under 50. See Love, "The American Role in the Pahlavi Restoration," pp. 40-
41. All of the people involved either directly or indirectly in the coup whom I spoke to believe that
the Aramesh-Kashani connection was not the only source of funding for the crowds that appeared
on August 19. Most of these sources assume that the other figures mentioned here were also involved,
though none could confirm this positively.
68See, e.g., Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign
Policy, 1945-1954 (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), pp. 412-20; and Bahman Nirumand, Iran:
The New Imperialism in Action (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969), p. 5.
69See Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower, Volume One (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), chs.
26-27; and Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate For Change, 1953-1956
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), chs. 5-6, esp. p. 163. One top policymaker described the plan
to overthrow Mosaddeq to me as a "high priority" for the Dulles brothers (Roosevelt interview).
7?See U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, The International Petroleum Cartel, The
Iranian Consortium and U.S. National Security, 93rd Congress, 2nd Session, February 21, 1974,
pp. 27-28; and Burton I. Kaufman, The Oil Cartel Case: A Documentary Study of Antitrust Activity
in the Cold War Era (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1978), chs. 2-3.
7'Byroade interview; interviews with Gordon Mattison (Bethesda, MD, June 30, 1984) and Roy
Melbourne (Chapel Hill, NC, February 1, 1984). Byroade and Henderson both went along with the
coup reluctantly, according to these sources. Central Intelligence Agency, Probable Developments in
Iran Through 1953, NIE-75, 13 November 1952 (this document was obtained from the CIA under the
Freedom of Information Act); Department of State, Office of Intelligence and Research, Iran's
Political and Economic Prospects Through 1953, OIR No. 6126, January 9, 1953; National Security
Council, United States Policy Regarding the Present Situation in Iran, NSC 136/1, November 20,
1952. The Tudeh's "popular front" strategy was described to me in a confidential interview with the
CIA desk officer for Iran at this time (July 1984). The original proponents of the coup seem to have
been the Dulles brothers, Wisner, and Roosevelt.