In the early years of the 19th century a discovery was made in Iran, which changed its politics forever – the discovery of oil. The site where it was found still holds the sign “Well Number One” in the town of Masjid-e-Suleiman in South West Iran. The site pumped oil for 70 years. The British controlled the Iranian oil industry for nearly 50 years; they had paid only $75,000 to pump oil in Iran for 60 years. The business of oil was under the control of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) which was mainly controlled by the British government, at the time it was the most profitable British business in the world. The main grouse that the Iranians had was that the money that came out of their natural resources went back to the fat cats in England, the injustice of it was visible everywhere, the British workers lived in swanky clean colonies separated from the Iranians who lived in ghettos and slums, without proper water and sanitation, and only the Britishers could hope to reach higher positions in the company, it was a monopoly of the British, by the British, for the British. The British had their own gardens, theaters, golf courses that were completely inaccessible to the Iranians; they were for Brits only, sounds familiar?
In the year 1931, Mohammad Mossadegh came onto the political scene and soon enough became symbolic of the Iranian anger against the AIOC and the British. By 1951 he had been elected as the Prime Minister of Iran, and soon after coming to power he nationalised the oil company. The Iranians were celebrating while the British were outraged.
The British reaction was swift, first, they tried to sabotage the workings of the Abadan Refinery they did all they could to ensure that the machineries wouldn’t work after they left, second, an embargo was imposed on Iran, crippling its economy and its people, but in spite of it, they managed to ride through it and their support for Mossadegh continued. When that didn’t work British turned to only other thing they knew at the time – armed action. They approached the US who under the Presidency of Harry Truman refused to take part in any such action. For the Americans at that time this was nothing less than imperialism, and they refused to be a part of it.
After the US refusal only two options were left, either “leave Mossadegh alone or organise a coup.” The British kept working behind the scenes trying to influence US foreign policy in their favour.
For the British, things took a turn for the better when Dwight Eisenhower came to power. The Britishers had soon realised that they had to change tactics to win any ground, and at point in history fuelling the paranoia over Communism was the perfect card to play. The brothers – John Foster Dulles and Allan Dulles – who had become the Secretary of State and CIA director respectively, “considered the world an ideological battleground” and for them Iran and its communist nationalism had to be stopped. And so together they went about changing the minds of people and politicians in the US, that if they did not intervene, Iran will fall to communism.
This moment forth started the beginning of the psychological warfare that was to bring down a government in a country far, far, away. Operation Ajax had started.
In the summer of 1953, the streets of Tehran were filled with CIA paid mullahs, politicians and channels with news commentators that denounced Mossadegh and his policies. According to the CIA papers about the coup, the whole campaign cost nearly $20 million. Fazlollah Zahedi who succeeded Mossadegh as the PM was already paid more than $100,000 by the CIA. In the history of the coup by Donald Wilber who himself was part of organising it, he writes, “covert agents would manipulate public opinion and turn as many Iranians as possible against Mossadegh…staged attacks on religious leaders and make it appear that they were ordered by Mossadegh…On the morning of “coup day” thousands of paid demonstrators would stage a massive anti-government rally.”
August 19th, 1953 was a turning point in Iranian history. It was the day that witnessed the end of the only democratic regime the country has ever had.
The campaign that had started months earlier came to revolve around two days – 19th and 15th of August – one turned out to be a failure while the other a success for the West.
On the night of 15th August, men in army fatigues walked down the streets of Tehran towards the home of Mohammad Mossadegh carrying a Firmaan authorising his dismissal as the Prime Minister of Iran. The Firmaan signed by the then Shah – Mohammed Reza Pahlavi – was in itself of dubious legality as only the Parliament could dismiss the PM and not the Shah.
Colonel Nasiri, who was a huge supporter of the Shah, led the men that night, and while they walked the streets confidently what they failed to notice were the signs of disquiet in the air, and as Nasiri reached Mossadeghs home, there was reversal in the possible outcome he imagined, instead of arresting Mossadegh, Nasiri himself was arrested by segments of the military that was still loyal to the government, he was stripped of his uniform and declared a traitor.
An hour after midnight the radios crackled to life as Mossadegh came on air announcing victory over a coup attempt organised by the Shah and ‘foreign elements’.
Kermit Roosevelt, a CIA officer, was sitting in a basement waiting for news that would have been just the opposite of what was being announced on the radio, and hence, the first failure. Soon after he got a call from back home (USA), ordering him to come back following the failure of the coup, which he had so carefully organised in the months before. He stoutly refused; he would only leave after he finished the job he came for.
He still had a few cards up his sleeves, and he would reveal them all climaxing at the “coup day”. First and foremost, he asked agents to go out and bribe who they can, the large network of gangs, paid thugs and protestors that they had organised in the months leading up to the coup were all given a chance to come out and play. Roosevelt also had on his payroll General Zahedi, who held considerable sway in “officer corps and was willing to do whatever was necessary to reach power.” His other weapon was the Firmaan in his hand, he gave that out to his agents who distributed it on the streets, and made sure they appeared in the newspapers the next day. The importance of the Firmaan was such that it gave them traditional authority. The people of Iran still respected royal power. Every day was worse than the last, paid gangs and mobs plundered and caused friction across Tehran in the name of Mossadegh. During this time Mossadegh made his own mistakes, naively believing that the first coup was organised by the Shah (Roosevelt spent months trying to convince the Shah to their cause, the Shahs sister was quite helpful after she was gifted a mink coat) who had fled the country and that they would not try again so soon. He also made the mistake of banning all public demonstrations after he was deceived into believing by and American ambassador that Iranians were harassing the US citizens in the country. To put a stop to this he gave this fateful order of no demonstrations, and he asked General Daftary to deal with the rioters, unknown to Mossadegh, Daftary was a close friend of Zahedi. So instead of working against the conspirators he turned against the government and Mossadegh himself. Since, Mossadegh himself had banned people from coming to the streets his supporters stayed at home, while the paid mobs walked to the city center.
Everything was in place and all that they had needed was chaos.
As the American agents in Tehran waited the radios again crackled to life, but this time the person on the other end spoke a different message, “The government of Mossadegh has been defeated. It was a government of rebellion and it has fallen.” Roosevelt and his team got up and left the basement they were working in, it was time to go home.
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