Iran and the CIA: The Fall of Mosaddeq Revisited

In the early 1950s the Prime Minister of Iran, Doctor Mohammad Mosaddeq, shook the world when he nationalized the British-run oil industries operating in his country. At the time, Britain was still a global power and Mossadeq a frail, yet popular, secular leader.

On 19th August 1953, Mosaddeq was removed from office in a series of events that changed the course of Iranian history and still haunts the nation and its people today. For over half a century, popular wisdom has attributed these dramatic events to foul play by the CIA and its British allies, creating a myth of CIA power and success that has mesmerized opinion ever since and cast a shadow over Iran's continuingly troubled relations with the USA.

This pathbreaking study unearths compelling new evidence to suggest a different version of events, revealing that Mosaddeq's fall actually took Washington and London by complete surprise. Britain and the US did indeed collaborate in a plot to remove Mosaddeq but when they put their plan into action, it failed to ignite. Three days later however, Mosaddeq was ousted, a victim less of external agitation than of internal Iranian politics and the actions of prominent clerics, most notably the then grand Shi'ite Marja, Ayatollah Boroujerdi.