The Rest Is Classified - 2. The First CIA Coup: Turmoil in Tehran (Ep 2)

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

The first coup attempt has failed. The Shah has fled to Baghdad. The CIA have told Kermit he can leave if he's in a jam, but he chooses not to. He wants to finish the job. The streets of Tehran are chaos; protesters against the Shah are out in their thousands and things are getting violent. But in this Kermit sees an opportunity. If he stokes enough disorder will the majority of the capital turn against Mossadegh's radical supporters? What follows is a tale of dirty tricks, armed weightlifters, and, bizarrely, a series of Iranian politicians in their pyjamas... Listen as David McCloskey and Gordon Corera tell the story of the 1953 Iranian coup orchestrated by the CIA and MI6. Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.nordvpn.com/restisclassified It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! Email: [e-mail] Twitter: @triclassified Editor: Kieron Leslie Producer: Callum Hill Senior Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I was driven to number 10 Downing Street. At precisely four o'clock, I rang the doorbell. A military aide let me in. Mr. Roosevelt, come this way, please. He led me to a downstairs room, a living room, I guess, that had been made into a bedroom. Churchill, whom I had not seen since the White House Christmas party of 1941, was lying propped up by pillows in the middle of the bed. We met at your cousin Franklin's, did we not? I thought so. Well, you have an exciting story to tell. I'm anxious to hear it. So I went into my routine, giving him the dramatic highlights in considerable detail. Quite often he interrupted with questions, and quite often he would doze off for a few minutes. We talked for almost two hours. Finally, I quoted the Shah's words about owing his country to God and some others, including me. Churchill grinned and shifted himself further up on his pillows.

Young man, if I had been but a few years younger, I would love nothing better than to have served under your command in this great venture. Well, that is CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt briefing Winston Churchill on the CIA MI6 coup of 1953. Welcome to The Rest is Classified. And last time we left Kermit in a very dire situation in the middle of Iran. He has worked various angles to try to depose the Iranian Prime Minister, Mohamed Mosaddegh, and remove him from power because he nationalized Iran's oil and took it away from the Brits. And we last left him overnight on August 15th when it looked like his plan to ferment chaos and then get the shot at his Mosaddegh had failed horribly. That's right. We left him in the depths of despair probably hung over from his night where he'd been expecting to triumphantly overthrow Mossadegh but he doesn't give up and I think that's what's

fascinating about Kermit Roosevelt at this point and why he ends up sitting with Churchill in this amazing scene and telling Churchill you know a kind of beleaguered Churchill who's been ill recently and is not in his best state but he is clearly fascinated by this story of how Kermit pulls it out the back, how Kermit manages to organise the coup. So what happened that night? Why had the original plan gone wrong? Colonel Nasseri, the head of the Imperial Bodyguard, he had these decrees which were supposed to dismiss Mossadegh, but there'd been an informer, a leak in the Imperial Guard. And that was always the risk of having delayed the plan because of the weekend. And what it meant was that when Nasseri arrives at the military chief of staff's house, who he's supposed to arrest, there's no one there. The servants are gone, everyone's gone. And he realises at that point, something's gone

wrong. The cover's blown for the operation. He races to Mossadegh's house next to try and get him dismissed. And just before 1am on Sunday the 16th, he gets there with two trucks of soldiers with the decree to dismiss Mossadegh. But already by then, Mossadegh's got loyal soldiers with him. And so Nasseri has been arrested. And so by the next morning, Mossadegh goes on the radio. He says, I've defeated the coup. Crowds are out for Mossadegh, against the Shah. And it looks over for Kermit. But the crucial thing is Kermit, he basically holds firm. He stays the course. But he improvises. I think that's what's interesting at this point. And what's interesting to me is when you read these accounts about Kermit's days in Tehran, he actually has not been sending many messages to the CIA. Not much is in writing, and for very good reason, I think, given what he's up to. But the CIA does send a message to Kermit overnight that basically says, if you're in trouble, get out so you don't get killed. If you're not,

go ahead and try again. Kermit effectively decides of re-roll the dice, doesn't he? And what's interesting is at this point, he's improvising. The original plan hasn't worked. So he realizes he's got to try and move fast. The first thing he does is go and get General Zahidi. So worth saying who he is, he is the kind of strong man, if you like, that the US and UK have picked as their replacement for Mossadegh. He's a former general. He's been involved in politics. He's been arrested at various points. He actually, in World War II, was seen as a bit pro-Nazi by the Brits. But nevertheless, they've come around to him because they think he's the guy who can restore order. I mean, it's a classic thing,

isn't it? Go for the strongman. That's right. Well, I mean, coup 101 here, you need the military either on the sidelines or in your camp, right? And Mossadegh doesn't really have the military, but at this point, the Shah kind of doesn't either, does he? Yeah. It's in the balance. It's kind of in the balance. That's right. And the next thing that Kermit realizes he's got to his advantage is he's got the decrees signed by the Shah, which dismissed Mossadegh and installs Zahidi. And so he's got to his advantage is he's got the decrees signed by the Shah, which dismiss Mossadegh and install Zahidi. And so he's got those already. So he realizes this is the card he can play. So he finds some of the few copying machines in Tehran, so photocopiers. And people who saw them had never seen these machines before, but he's able to copy the decrees and then get them handed

out to newspapers and distributed to military commanders and others to make the case that this is a legal process to get rid of Mossadegh. And it is a legal process though, isn't it? Because we've been using the C word a lot, coup. And it is not exactly a coup because the Shah can dismiss Mossadegh. He's unwilling to do so because Mossadegh has a power base, although it's narrowed over the course of the chaos in Tehran. But it's a little trickier, isn't it? I mean, there's a definition here where the CIA and MI6 are just encouraging the Shah to uphold his constitutional responsibilities. Now, if that was all they were doing, David, I would have some sympathy with your point of view that this isn't really a coup. But here's what else they're doing is they're fermenting chaos on the streets. They are organising crap.

That's good fun. No, that is getting crowds and mobs out to protest. Now, this is the bit which is the proper subterfuge bit, because at this point what they're doing is getting mobs out to pretend they're pro-Mosedec and to tear down statues and create violence. But they're actually being paid for by the CIA, particularly through the Rashidian brothers, who we mentioned last time, who were formerly the British agents on the ground. The network of supporters. Some of the documents describe them as guys who can hire ruffians to get out on the street. Exactly. And so the mobs are now out there, paid for mobs, creating chaos. And then there's this great bit on, I think, the Tuesday where, and this is, I have to say, real subterfuge from the Americans because the US ambassador goes to see Mossadegh.

And Mossadegh at this point doesn't seem to realize that the Americans are behind the coup. He thinks that Kermit is James Lockridge and he's just wasted at his villa playing tennis. He thinks it's the Brits. Mossadegh is like, these terrible Brits, they seem to be plotting something. The American ambassador is like, I'm really sorry, it's really bad. And actually says, but what I'm worried about is the safety of American citizens in Tehran, and you need to do something about these mobs that are out there. Now, this is naughty stuff, isn't it, David? It's a little naughty, although we should say that a year before this, Mossadegh has shut down the streets of Tehran with his own mobs.

Yeah. This sort of national front political coalition. So, using the street to affect politics, both sides have done this over the course of the last few years, right? And this all's fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But hang on a sec. Here, the American ambassador is saying, please restore order or else we might have to withdraw support from you. Well, the reason there's no order on the streets is because the Americans, thanks to Kermit, are paying for people to riot in Mossadegh's name and they're the ones trying to undermine him. Does the ambassador know that Kermit's there? Oh, yeah, I think he does.

I mean, he's just come back into the country to do this. And Mossadegh goes, oh, I'm really sorry. I mean, he kind of buys this because he likes the Americans. This is the interesting thing. Mossadegh likes the Americans because he sees them as anti-colonialists. He's still got this idea that, you know, the Brits are the real enemy, the crafty ones, the manipulative ones. But the Americans, you know, they're probably on my side. Poor guy. It is interesting. I mean, Kermit is sort of out of the vein of T.E. Lawrence. He's kind of a bit of an Arabist, Arab nationalist. And so he supported

these sort of anti-colonial movements all around the region. And then here he is in Iran doing precisely the opposite. Yeah. And it's worth saying maybe here as well, what the Shah is up to. Because the last time we heard about the Shah, he had flown away from the Caspian to Baghdad. Now he's pitched up, this is Tuesday now, in Rome. And he pitches up, you can see the pictures of it, gets off the plane with his wife. And they look like kind of film stars

and the cameras are there. He's worried it's over for him. He's left the country. He's left the country. He's telling his wife that they might have to sell their diamonds to fund their exile. At every critical juncture in the story, the Shah leaves. Yeah, he does a runner. But then there is the strangest thing. So he goes into to check in to the Hotel Excelsior in Rome, where he's going to stay. And who is checking in at exactly that moment? Alan Dulles, the head of the CIA. Now, officially, Dulles is there just on holiday.

He's just on a tour of Europe. I know that you wrote that this was a coincidence. I cannot believe it. Dulles supposedly says, after you, your majesty, at check-in, because they're both walking into check-in at the same time. Now, this is kind of crazy coincidence, isn't it? There is a conversation between two CIA officers that has come out in the declassified stuff, where they're talking, they're briefing each other. And one says, Dulles and the Shah are in Rome at the same time. What do you think is the worst thing that could have happened? And the CIA officer on the other line guesses, he says, Dulles ran him over with his car. And he said, no, it's even worse than that. They met at the hotel. Yeah. Because I initially thought, well,

this can't be a coincidence. This has all been set up. He's there to kind of manipulate the Shah. But actually, it's kind of bad, isn't it? Because the whole point is the American role in the coup is supposed to be hidden. Supposed to be classified. Yeah, supposed to be classified. So the idea that they're bumping into each other at the hotel. Anyway, it's just a kind of crazy coincidence. But as Tuesday finishes, it all hangs in the balance now for the final day, which is going to be Wednesday, August the 19th, Kermit makes his final push. And maybe we leave it there, take a break, and when we come back, we'll see what kind of dirty tricks Kermit gets up to.

Let's see. Welcome back. I'm going to start with a quote from Monty Woodhouse, who you might remember is the MI6 officer who first came up with the idea for Operation Boot. Ajax. Ajax, as the Americans call it. This is him from his memoir. He's now in Korea. Most of the daytime I spent with the British ambassador in his residence. He had a battery radio which could just pick up the BBC. His main interest was in the final test match between England and Australia, which was taking place at the Oval.

We were in the process of winning back the Ashes for the first time in 20 years. David, this is a big deal, by the way. So naturally, this took precedence over diplomatic business. But occasionally I was allowed to listen for other news. I expected to hear only that Mossadegh was on the rampage against the Shah's supporters, but gradually faint indications came out from the radio's feeble oscillations that something quite different was happening. The results showed that our organisations had done their work well, but it was not all plain sailing. What is the ashes equivalent in the States, Gordon? Oh, I don't think there is anything.

I mean, it's the most important thing in cricket, and for many people, the most important thing in sport, some in life, which is England, Australia, and cricket. So it's the Super Bowl meets a Taylor Swift concert. None of that even comes close, I think. Sorry. Back to Iran, though. Okay, back to Iran. It is the morning of August 19th, 1953. And Monty was hoping for some very good news. But we have a very delicate situation, don't we, on the streets of Tehran, where Kermit

Roosevelt is attempting to oust Mossadegh as the prime minister. Essentially, he's feeding the streets, isn't he? To create chaos, to secure the loyalty of military officers, and to really get this new prospective prime minister, Zahidi, to step in, take charge, and get rid of Mossadegh so the Shah can come back from his lovely vacation in Rome. And so this morning is the morning for the final push. And it's an amazing scene, really. The Rashidim brothers, these originally MI6 agents now working for the CIA, have been paying groups to come out. Truckloads of people are coming in. And particular, there's these groups which are called the Houses of Strength or the Athletics Clubs. Now, it's hard to understand quite what they are,

but they were bodybuilders, weightlifters. I mean, these are people who carry kind of barbells, they're tumbling, they're acrobats. And they were the stars, the kind of almost like the sports stars of Tehran and Iran of the day. I mean, they were celebrities. They were big figures. They were also kind of, obviously, given their build and what they did, tough guys who occasionally might be used to enforce things in the bazaars and amongst the merchants. But it gave it the look of almost a carnival

because you've got this group of people twirling, carrying weights, moving down the street, which of course then gathers even more crowds to come and watch them and join in as they march from the south of Tehran towards the center. And I must say the way you wrote this script, the first time I read it, it made me think of the scene in Aladdin where Prince Ali arrives. And it is, it's like a circus, isn't it? On the streets. I mean, so it's not, we think of Iran and we think of these horrible scenes from 1979. There's going to be a little bit of that. But this does have maybe a carnival atmosphere to it. A lot of people are out to have some fun. Yeah. And you've also got now, you have the religious groups coming out and they've

decided to come out against Mossadegh, which is also crucial in building the tide that's going to take him down. He's just got communists left on his side, doesn't he? Yeah, he's getting more and more isolated. It's not quite clear how far the religious groups were paid and how far they wanted to stop the communists. So there is an element of kind of spontaneity and domestic forces as well as people who are paid for and organised by the CIA. But meanwhile, the pro-Mossadegh crowds had been

dispersed the previous day because after the US ambassador had gone to Mossadegh and said, oh, you've got to kind of protect my people by getting rid of these nasty crowds. So all you've got, if you like, are the kind of anti-Mossadegh crowds who are now heading for the main squares, heading for government buildings. The military are certainly not intervening. They're either wavering or in some cases joining in and backing them. And at this moment, Kermit gets a message from Washington. Give up and get out is the message he gets. I don't like the sound of that. I don't think Kermit does either, does he? No. I mean, this seems to have been a message that was delayed coming into him. And it looks like Washington has lost its nerve and said, just give up,

get out there while you can. And Kermit just laughs and sends a message back going, it's all going to be fine. The Shah will be back in no time. Love and kisses from all the team. He sends back. That is a proper way to sign off any CIA cable. So there you go. So at this point, we're coming to the crucial moment in which the crowds, the military units are now heading for key locations. The radio station. We talked about radio a lot. You need the radio station.

Yeah. That's the main way people are getting the news. So going for the radio station, again, that's a classic thing in a coup, isn't it? Modern times, it's TV. Future's probably going to be the YouTube and the influencers. But in those days, it was the radio stations that you had to go to and get control of. And they're already taking control of it by about 2 o'clock, 4 o'clock. They've got control of it.

They're sending out messages that they've won, even though they haven't yet. And meanwhile, Kermit goes to get Zahidi, his strongman. And he finds him. Who's not in his sort of stars and bars. Is he? He's not in his uniform ready. Kermit finds him in his underwear in a basement. There's a real pajama underwear undercurrent to this series, isn't it?

These Iranian politicians are not in their clothing. Well, and you do wonder if that's a bit of the kind of Western accounts to try and slightly undermine them and make them come across as a bit silly. And the crowd is coming to get Zahidi. And Roosevelt, again, I mean, which is a theme in this, realises, I mustn't be spotted here. So he then hides in the basement so he's not spotted. And again, it's a desperate attempt to keep the American role hidden in this. But Zahidi's then taken in a tank to the radio station. And another kind of crazy detail, they decide before he goes on the radio,

they should play some martial music to introduce him and his speech. And someone had grabbed just a record from the US embassy and they think, well, we'll just put it on. And so they put it on and it's the Star Spangled Banner. That's not a good look. It's not a good look. That's, I guess, the equivalent of when we toppled Saddam in 03 and then put an American

flag over the statue. It just doesn't sit well. And it also is not the kind of point in a covert coup. It's playing the Star Spangled Banner on the radio. So they take it off pretty quickly, I think. So it's late afternoon and this is really going to crystallize around Mosaddegh. Mosaddegh has been at his house for the afternoon. There's been some unpleasantness there, some gun battles, some street action, but they send the military, some of these key units to actually get him. Yeah. So there's a full on gun battle at the house, middle of the afternoon. Mossadegh is

upstairs in his bedroom, in his pajamas, supposedly. Again, that's the story. Weeping when he hears the radio station has now fallen. Now at this point, tanks arrive, the ones that have been at the radio station. They now come to his house. A loyal colonel tells Mossadegh, it's looking bleak. They're outgunned. The ammunition is running low. I mean, at least 300 people died that day and about half of them at Mossadegh's house. So it is a pretty fierce battle. Because he does have some pull in the military, doesn't he? He's still got some royal units, that's right. And Zahidi, at about 5.30, broadcasts that he's now the prime minister.

Around that time as well, the window behind Mossadegh shatters. He realises he's in danger. And at one point, I think he thought he might stay and be a martyr, but he decides he's going to run. So he flees out the back over a ladder through the garden and house to house. It's one of those amazing scenes where they're kind of going rooftop to rooftop and they go to one rooftop and there's a group of people on the rooftop drinking tea and watching the shelling of his house. And he's kind of walking past them as if it's a kind of- It's a show.

It's a show. Yeah, it's a show. So he escapes at that point, but by the morning, he's decided it's all over and he's surrendered. So at that point, effectively, it's over. The Shah, meanwhile, back to the Shah, who is in Rome, ensconced in his fancy hotel. He's having dinner with his wife when reporters come and tell him that there's been a coup. And he says, I knew it. They love me. That is the wrong takeaway, isn't it? Yeah. That is the wrong takeaway. I mean, it tells you quite a lot about him, doesn't it?

That he thinks it's him. It's me. They want me back. There's so much foreshadowing of 79 here, isn't there? Of him fleeing when it gets tough and the delusion. I mean, you'd think so many of these Brits and Americans after this must have sensed that they were dealing with a fundamentally flawed guy to sort of prop up your regime with. And yet by Saturday, he's returning in triumph and he is back to being his imperial majesty. And I think his ego is probably wrongly inflated by events that day. And so in the aftermath, I mean, it does look like a success, doesn't it? Well, they have Mosaddegh under house arrest.

They've got Mosaddegh under house arrest. He sort of fades into obscurity. Yeah, yeah. It dies eventually in 67. Kermit is paraded around. He comes to London and that scene that you memorably described with Churchill, where he tells his story and he loves telling the story to people, Kermit, and they love listening. And meanwhile, we said at the start of our first episode,

it was all about oil. So with the oil, it's quite interesting. BP, what becomes BP is back, Anglo-Iranian, but it doesn't quite get back to what it was. So it gets 40% of the Iranian oil. American companies get another 40%. Some other internationals get the rest. I think that's quite telling, isn't it? Well, and Kermit goes to work for an American oil company after this, doesn't he? He goes to work for Gulf Oil in a few years. But the Brits have got their oil back, but they're now sharing it with the Americans. Which is also an apt analogy for the way this partnership will have changed from pre-Second World War to the early Cold War. And we talk about the money. It is interesting to see how it kind of

changed Iran because we don't have the money going into Mosaddegh's coffers. We now have it going to the Shah. And the Americans are going to write almost a billion dollars of checks over the coming decade to prop this guy up, to feed his military and security services. So in some ways, it is a bit of a transfer. I mean, the Americans are cut in, certainly, but it is a transfer from Mossadegh and his government to the imperial government of the Shah. And it is also a transfer of Iran effectively being under British influence to being under American influence. That's the shift, isn't it?

Is that he becomes a kind of an American man, the Shah, effectively, you know, until 1979 when he's deposed. And, you know, there is a very kind of short-termist view, which I do think Kermit trades in for a little bit, which is this was an astoundingly successful piece of covert action work, where he is, for not much money, a couple million dollars in the end- Most, a few hundred thousand. A few hundred thousand, maybe.

Yeah. Get in and work the levers of power in Tehran effectively to get an exceptional outcome. But even Kermit, I think, is skeptical, isn't he, about the long-term lessons that were to take from this. Because the CIA kind of looks at this and says, well, we could do coups. There's one in Guatemala, an attempt in Guatemala that doesn't go well. There's one in Syria in 57 that doesn't go well. So there's a sense of this playbook that actually doesn't quite translate anywhere else, but

the CIA is quite keen to use in this period. One of the people from that era says, success gave the CIA its first pair of pants, which is- We were pantsless prior to 53. We were pantsless before. But I guess the point you're making is that the CIA suddenly thinks, hey, we can do coups. We can overthrow countries. It's easy. It's possible. And I think Kermit himself suggests that they learned the wrong lessons and that actually what you need to do is understand the dynamics of the country, what's going on on the ground, the instability, the different forces at play, and work those and kind of go with the grain, if you like, and you can guide it and manipulate it. But you can't necessarily do a coup out of nothing if you

haven't got those forces at play already in the country. That seems to be his conclusion of it. And I think he regrets that they don't learn that lesson. Well, he actually said, now we'll think we can walk on water everywhere. It's not actually the case. In Iran though, it's very interesting, isn't it? Because I think there's an argument to be made that this coup, whatever we want to call it, this attempt to really shape Iranian politics, I'm not sure how much of a straight line it has to 1979, which is when the Shah is deposed. Exactly. I think in some respects, it delays that because it creates certainly a pro-American for for a time, stable, air quotes, dictatorship that's formally out of the

Soviet sphere of influence, that is open for business to America, Great Britain, Israel, but it can't prevent that kind of unrest from popping up again. So in some ways, I think it's a bandaid over a bullet hole here to put a cap on Iranian political instability. Yeah. And there is a debate about whether you can draw a line between 53 and what comes after. I think what you can say, though, is it feeds a narrative, a resentment against the US and UK, doesn't it, in Iran, in the Middle East. It creates this idea that the countries are manipulating politics, that it's all about oil, that they're carrying out coups, that the CIA is this kind of great arch manipulator. And also, particularly in Iran, that even behind that is

Britain often, which is even more powerful, they think. And so it does feed a resentment against the US and UK, which certainly lives on in Iran and other countries, doesn't it? No, absolutely. And I think Iranians love a good conspiracy and not without reason. This is a country civilization that's really been sort of pushed and pulled from all different directions, constantly invaded, conquered. I mean, it is people who I think are sort of prone to seeing the hand of others in their own politics. And this is an example where I don't think it's the case that there wouldn't have been protests and street action and chaos if the CIA and MI6 weren't involved. They certainly didn't light the fire, but they certainly helped to feed

it and to really direct the outcome, I think. So it's a more complicated story, I think, than the one we often get, which is that Mossadegh is a liberal Democrat who's running a democracy and who's sort of ousted and everything is fine before the Brits and the Americans come in. It's not that, but it's certainly, I think it's obvious that the CIA and MI6 played a critical role in directing Iranian politics for the next couple of decades to come. But it is interesting how in hindsight, many of those involved do later regret it, including Kermit, I think, and who do feel it was a mistake. Some of them even in the CIA draw a line between the success in 53 and then the Bay of Pigs in 61, which actually kills off the career

of Alan Dulles, CIA director, because again, that sense of overconfidence that you can do these things. One interesting point to end with is that the CIA has declassified- Exactly. Put some documents out. Put some documents out about its role in the coup, partly in the context of, if you like, when they were trying to make better relations with the Iranians to almost apologize. It's happening about a decade ago in 2013. At a time when they were trying to improve relations to say, look, we're going to take

responsibility. We were involved in this coup. We're going to come clean about it. The Brits though. Well, one point we should make on the Americans is coming clean, you look at those documents, huge amounts of them, I would argue the juiciest parts, are still not declassified. And a bunch of the initial kind of hard copy stuff was actually put into safes at Langley in the 50s. And then in the early 60s, the report says that basically a lot of CIA officers ran out of space in their safes. And so they destroyed a lot of the hard copy cables

and material about Ajax. So there's a whole story here, I think, that remains in the classified portion of The Rest is Classified. Yeah, but hang on, even that is more than the Brits have done, because the Brits still will not acknowledge their role in the coup of 53. MI6 won't acknowledge it, the Foreign Office won't acknowledge it, despite the fact that people like Monty Woodhouse have written memoirs about their role in it and that they were in MI6 and planned the whole thing. Officially, Britain will not comment about its role in the coup and says that is still

classified. Well, I think that is a good place to leave it. On the rest is classified. Well, thank you, David, and look forward to our next story next time. Thanks very much, Gordon. See you then.