File 017 · 1953 · Coup

Operation Ajax: the 1953 Iran coup

In August 1953 the CIA and British intelligence helped overthrow Iran's prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh. The US government officially acknowledged its role in 2013.

Background

Mohammad Mossadegh became prime minister of Iran in 1951 and nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which Britain had controlled for decades. Britain responded with an embargo and lobbied Washington to act. After President Eisenhower took office in 1953, the United States agreed to a joint plan to remove him, known to the CIA as TPAJAX and in Britain as Operation Boot.

CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt Jr. directed the operation in Tehran. The plan aimed to get Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to dismiss Mossadegh, with paid agitators, propaganda and support from army officers loyal to the Shah. The first attempt in mid-August failed and the Shah fled. A second push days later succeeded.

What the record shows

• A secret CIA internal history written by Donald Wilber in 1954 described the planning and execution of the operation in detail.
• In 2000 US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called the coup a setback to Iran's political development; in 2013 the CIA released documents describing the coup as carried out under its direction.
• A State Department historical volume released in 2017 filled in more of the British and American role.
• Mossadegh was convicted of treason by a military court and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

Timeline

• 1951 Iran nationalizes its oil industry; Britain organizes a boycott.
• Jun 1953 The CIA and MI6 finalize the plan with US approval.
• 15–16 Aug 1953 The first coup attempt fails; the Shah leaves Iran.
• 19 Aug 1953 Pro-Shah forces take control; Mossadegh is arrested and later put under house arrest.
• 1954 A new oil consortium is created that includes US companies.
• 2000 The New York Times publishes a leaked CIA history of the operation.
• Aug 2013 The CIA releases documents acknowledging the agency directed the coup.

Checking the claims

The claim: the US overthrew Iran's elected government. What the record shows: the US and Britain organized and paid for key parts of the plot, and the CIA's own account says so. Historians still argue over how much the final outcome depended on foreign money and how much on Iranian politics, including military officers, clergy and street crowds opposed to Mossadegh.

The bigger debate is about consequences. Many historians see the coup as an important root of Iranian distrust of the United States and a factor in the later revolution of 1979. Others warn that the revolution had many causes and that a single event cannot explain it.

Claimed, but not shown

How decisive the CIA operation was compared with Iranian forces, and how far it led to the 1979 revolution, remains debated by historians.

Verdict

Sources

• CIA, Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran (Wilber history, 1954)
• CIA documents released August 2013
• US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954: Iran (2017)
• National Security Archive, George Washington University

Connected files (red threads)

• The Church Committee and the 'Family Jewels' — The 1975 investigations examined US covert action abroad
• Operation Gladio — Another Cold War covert operation later acknowledged
• The CIA and the media ('Operation Mockingbird') — Propaganda was part of the 1953 Iran coup plan

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