Original subtitles

I began making this film back home in Iran in 2009

And have since traveled thousands off miles

in search of witnesses and archive material

in 2012 I gave a TED talk

in which I spoke publicly for the first time about making this film

Coup 53

I am going to be telling the story of this man

doctor Mohamed Mossadegh

He was our first democratically elected prime minister

And the closest Iran came to having its own Mahatma Gandhi

My film has taken so long to finish

that some of the people I have interviewed have since died

In 1952 Time magazine named him man of the year

because he had nationalized Iranian oil and pissed off Winston Churchill

and the company that controlled our oil

you now know it as PB

so in August 1953 Eisenhower and Churchill

staged a coup and overthrew Mossadegh

In 1953 the United States together with Britain

have participated in

supporting a coup in Iran

that got rid off Mossadegh who was a left leaning leader of Iran

and restored the Shah to the power in Iran

I grew up in pre-revolution Iran under the rule of the Shah

went to the school and most of the teachers were political activists

frequently arrested by SAVAK: the secret police

My life under the Shah came to an end in 1975

when I was sent to England for school.

Suddenly at 15 whole new culture, new environment, new language

, and a new tribe to observe: the British

But unlike the Americans,

the British government has never officially

acknowledged its role in the coup.

I must insist that I do not think at any time we really planned a coup.

Mossadegh was potentially the father of a future democratic Iran

An Iran in which a young 12-year-old boy would

not have had to have his teachers arrested or be scared of reading a book

Nothing in my 30-year career as a documentary maker

has prepared me for the remarkable

discovery I am about to make on this journey

Evidence that has the potential to turn a dark chapter in history

inside out

I am the deputy director and research

director at the national security archive

which is a non-governmental organization based at George Washington University

so I oversee a lot of our research projects looking at declassified documents

from US and other archives

and then I have a couple of my own projects

The main one that I work on is on US-Iran relations

and I spend a lot of time looking at that historical issue.

So, these are the papers that I have been waiting

to see; you have seen them over and over again?

Yes. what have you got?

Well,all kinds of stuff from the whole period of post war of

US-Iran relations so we have been collecting over the years

So among other things I have got a small collection of CIA materials.

They are probably

I would guess maybe 200: 300 pages of CIA records that have been released

officially released over time over the years

200:300? Something like that, yeah

They’re at least three internal histories that the CIA has produced

In probably the late 1970s, one of these items was produced

Is this when you write to them asking for information?

This is the response letter to me saying

"we are enclosing this document that you requested"

and then here is the document itself called the battle for Iran

The battle for Iran! Which is still going on!

This is what is new about this release: covert action

In earlier versions which you will see, this is all plotted out

- keep that out - so, we can take this one out

There is still a lot there. I like the fact that there is still lot of blank pages

They are supposed to show you what was there. Right

And what came out that was new? I was in Tehran

On the sixtieth anniversary of the coup

August 19, 2013, I was in Tehran

what was new was essentially this page

the military coup that overthrew Modsadegh and his national front cabinet

was carried out under CIA direction

They had never to my knowledge officially acknowledged their role

- Right! - in the coup

And you see here the first part of that sentence there

As an act of US foreign policy

conceived and approved at the highest levels of government

It was not an aggressively simplistic solution, clandestinely arrived at

but was instead an official admission by both the United States and United Kingdom

that normal rational methods of international communication

and commerce had failed

i.e., Mossadegh was in the way

-And even acknowledged the British role -Right

So, this is the CIA outing the British

who have not yet confessed to it

Right Do you know what, Malcom? um

I am standing

in front of the filing cabinet

of a drawer full of documents

that essentially changed the fate of my country

and changed my fate: what happened to me, what happened to my family,my my..

It was like how your lives, your fate, your destiny is

- encapsulated - Yeah, in half a file drawer

This is it.This changed Iran

This box of papers

You had a million dollars in cash that will run the coup, right?

That is right, and we used about sixty thousand dollars of it. That was all

- Are you saying that sixty thousand dollars was all it took? -Yep

I do not know where the money went

and I did not ask because it was so damn little,that uh

that no one was going to ask me any questions

All they asked me was how the dickens did you get away with spending so little

For those among you who know anything about the coup

Kermit Roosevelt's name has become synonymous with the events of 1953

His version of the story, the stuff of books and TV documentaries

has been the received wisdom for decades

But what we are about to discover in the making of this film

will reveal the suppressed history of what really happened and who was responsible.

This is the most important document our film has discovered

in its nine-year history of production

This has gone on fifty or sixty years

With the United States has been involved in overthrowing governments

Mossadegh back in 1953. No body knows who Mossadeq was

Democratically elected prime minister of Iran

He was overthrown by British and American interest

because he threatened oil interest of the British

And as result of that, the Shah of Iran came in: terrible dictator

Result of that you had the Iranian revolution coming in

and that's where we are today

Good evening!

on day thirty-seven of the seizure of the American embassy

and the kidnapping of the hostages

the United States has now moved the crisis toward a showdown stage

For most Americans , the Iran story begins in 1979 and the hostage crisis

that gripped the world for 444 days and cost Jimmy carter his presidency

But for us Iranians, the story goes back to 1953

and the CIA/MI6 coup that crushed democracy in our homeland

Three hundred killed and hundreds wounded as a conservative estimate

Mossadegh and his government were swept from power in favour of general Zahedi

the man appointed by the Shah in the first place

The thoughts of Britain instinctively turned to Abadan

that monument of British enterprise and engineering skill

The force to abandon what we had created in the wilderness

Is it to much to hope

that we shall see once more the tankers of Britain at Abadan

maybe sanity will yet prevail

and Iran and Britain go forward in harmony.

You know I was here earlier looking through the titles on these boxes

Iran–Contra

CIA Family Jewels

Iran-US relations

Nest of spies, documents from Iran ,Chile Chile

Behavioral study,Mind control. and there is incoming FOIA

- that means new stuff coming in - Right we get stuff everyday

Because we have been filing requests for years and years

It's like a freight train or it just keeps coming and keeps coming

Are you okay for me to spend some time just going through these ?

Absolutely, this is the idea yep help yourself

Thank you very much. I don't know where to start

-Alright -Maybe, I will one day win the battle for Iran.

If I can read enough of those

- Happy reading! - Thank you so much, Malcolm.

The battle for Iran!

It is an entire CIA profile of Mossadegh

Mossadegh's power rose from his consummate ability

to appeal to national aspirations and emotions

The above fact is too little to explain his often bizarre behaviour as a politician

We would call him doughty in some respects

but he was not impersonal. Some of the very moderate person parliament

Parliamentarians would weep when he spoke

even though they knew perfectly well that it was ruinous for their country

and impractical

His way of living and general appearance did not stike one as being

the sort of person you would think of as a prime minister

and I do not mean that because he did not wear stripe trousers

In fact, he always wore pajamas

and that was a rather odd

figure for the future prime minister to cut

My uncle was someone who did not go in for formalities as such

He was who he was

And because of his dress

they didn't think they are prepared to make the difference

Of course, it was the first time that heads of state or politicians

came to a bed side of a prime minister to discuss politics with him

So, it was quite strange in western eyes

Mossadegh was truly a remarkable figure

his father had been finance minister of Iran for decades

his mother had been a princess coming out of the Qajar dynasty

While he was still a teenager,

he became the chief tax collector for his home province

And he greatly impressed people

with his honesty and his seriousness and his efficiency.

He went on to become highly educated. He was the first Iranian

to receive a doctorate in laws from a European university

He was probably the most highly educated Iranian of his generation

I do not think that there has been in the last 50 years

anybody more prestigious than Mossadegh in the history of the country. Why?

For one thing: Mossadegh was incorruptible

The second thing was: he was against the power

always stood up to the power.

End of Empire was a major fourteen-part television series

that chronicled the unwinding of the British empire country by country.

Even though, Iran was technically not part of the empire

it had been dominated for so long by British commercial interest

that it had to be included as one of the featured programs.

Alison Rooper!!

Look at this!

A bag full of stuff

from a basement in Paris

What you see here are the researched notes and transcripts and interview notes

made by the production team of End of Empire

British diplomats who were involved in the coup, foreign office officials

possibly MI6, I see a CIA name here.

who knows what combing through these papers will throw out for us

These words of these people have not been heard or seen for over thirty-four years.

These look like actual working copies of transcripts

interview transcripts

Pretty old school. The cut and paste school of structuring a film

They have cut the bits they liked

to edit into the film.

Darbyshire tapes

And you have come across the name of Norman Darbyshire?

Sure, yeah. He is named in the Wilber history

and he is the one who works with Wilber in Nicosia

-to put the plan together. -Okay.

So, he is high level MI6?

Right, and someone with Iran expertise.

This is amazing!

They have used quite a bit of him because there is so many

chunks that have been cut out.

But I do not recall watching End of Empire

and seeing a Darbyshire in it

Excellent! If we want the coup in detail and even if not

Why did they select bits of interview from him

cut it out, paste it into a script

probably edit it into the film

but he did not make the final cut?!

he is not in the finished film.

In a remarkable stroke of luck

we have discovered that the British film institute archive

hold the unused footage from the End of Empire Iran episode

After years of intense negotiation,we break through the red tape and financial barriers

and finally get access.

Thirty-six cans of film

five hundred and twenty minutes of interview

among which we hope to find Norman Darbyshire

and it is recording. Great!

We have Digitized the entire collection of End of Empire given to us by the BFI

We did not find Norman Darbyshire.

This is End of Empires' cast list

and number one is Darbyshire

gets a tick and an asterisk.

Darbyshire features here

plan conceived by Darbyshire and Woodhouse

Darbyshire was the undercover man

Samuel Falle worked under Darbyshire

British embassy staff photograph, Tehran, class of 1952

an this is Norman Darbyshire

looking very much the cool undercover spy

Darbyshire would have been twenty-nine, when this photograph was taken

He was born on the first of October 1924.

And he died on the seventeenth of June 1993

His CIA counterpart was Stephen Meade.

We found his can of film

even though he too was cut out of the finished film

Stephen Meade on Iran

This is what End of Empire production team thought of Stephen Meade

A young 69,hatchet-faced

like a bit part player in B movie thriller.

and above all,Good.

This is brilliant!

Wow!

Your British counter part was in fact blank

could you tell me something about the man,blank

-Your British counter part was in fact Norman Darbyshire -yes

could you tell me something about the man,Norman Darbyshire?

Well, I did not know him at all before I met him

What kind of a man was blank?

What kind of a man was Norman Darbyshire?

Darbyshire has been wiped out

cleaned out

everywhere

But, amazingly

I have not found an identical Darbyshire interview uncut.

One Norman Darbyshire original interview cut up.

And then

a Darbyshire interview intact.

So, this Darbyshire interview which is exactly the same.

Darbyshire Darbyshire

Here Darbyshire has been blanked out.

This has not been cut which means

All the bits that they selected

for the film

and cut out of this one

are in this one

Afshartous was one of the few generals who was very pro-Mossadegh.

Tough minded guy

so, Mossadegh appointed him chief of police

and for the anti-Mossadegh army officers

he was a bit noir.

Police chief Afshartous claimed to have a list of Iranian officials

who were conspiring with the Americans to unseat Mossadegh

and he was going to publicize this.

I know it is so English.

Hello!

Nice to meet you!

Lovely to meet you!

-Thank you so much for coming in ,Alison. -Pleasure!

Absolutely. I also just wanted to compliment you on the depth of your research.

which was a great service to us.

And now because we have gotten all of that material from the BFI

meshing very nicely with our interviews

with the Iranian side of the equation

So, this would give you an idea of the style of our film

like how we are approaching the story

Look at this!

A bag full of stuff

from a basement in Paris.

What you see here are the researched notes and transcripts and interview notes

made by the production team of End of Empire

These look like actual working copies of transcripts

interview transcripts

The cut and paste school of structuring a film.

They have cut the bits they liked

to edit into the film.

Darbyshire tapes

Darbyshire tape one

Oh yes

He was the man.

But I do not recall

seeing a Darbyshire in it.

He is not in the finished film.

So, a big mystery as now evident there is Darbyshire is missing.

-What is the story of Darbyshire? -OK so

Just remind me did I interview him sound only

in a pre-interview?

or did I not?

Was it on the phone? I mean what how did we

We did an interview.

You interviewed Darbyshire?

-Not filmed. -Not filmed him?

That's the whole point. He never agreed to be filmed.

I do not even remember whether this was our interview

or somebody else did it.

But Mark may remember.

How are you, Mark? Long time.

I am sitting in a film cutting room with Taghi Amirani

and he has managed to persuade the BFI to let him

use all the rushes from the End of Empire program

and there is one question I can not answer at all

which concerns Mr.Darbyshire.

-Hello -Yeah, I have just put you on speaker phone so Taghi can hear that.

Yeah, he had that kind of spy a fake news

you know deniability.

He never came up with anything concrete

We were always after you know "he said","I said"

uhhm nothing I said cause he was not ever going to say anything anyway.

You know I really I can not picture him.

I do not believe he was in the program

But Taghi has found one

one thing which was about the assassination of the police chief in Tehran

-Well -He was asked point-blank

were you involved in the assassination of the chief of police of Tehran?

And he says point-blank Yes.

and that is the one thing that jumps out in the transcript.

Yeah,okay. I do not remember that

but if he said he was, he probably was

(Inaudible noise)

Sorry!

We are losing you.

oh reception is gonna (mumbles)

will have to picture it

Yeah,she will text you.

-Lovely fantastic ,Mark. -Okay.

-we will say goodbye.Thank you very much. -Okay.

-Bye. -Thank you so much.

Thank you ,Alison.

Was there ever a version of the film with Darbyshire in it?

I do not remember that.

Is he remembering wrong?

-We will have to check cause I can not remember that happening -yeah,right.

I do not think we ever filmed him

and you had not seen any rushes in there either.

No, but believe in hope of finding something.

-You never know. -You never know.

-Thank you so much. -Thank you.

Hi, is that Humphery?

Hi, this is Taghi Amirani

you have been speaking to my colleague Evelyn about our documentary

Yes, Alison came in and we spoke to her

and then she also managed to get him on the phone

and his memory of Darbyshire was hazy.

but I figured the one person whose memory will not be hazy

because he is a camera man looking through the view finder.

is Humphery.

Do you remember the location?

Out of all the interviewees

that you have filmed.Darbyshire

he is the most outspoken and open and blunt about everything.

He does not hold back.

-Can you do a little old school hand clap for me? -okay.

Excellent !Right.

Did you know that your Sam Falle interview was the very first interview he did?

One take one

Probably, right because I can remember it.

It was the first time that I met Alison who was the researcher.

So, that is you are right.

So, what do you remember of Darbyshire on that day?

Because clearly from what you said and from his transcript

He was very open.

He was very blunt.

He was memorable.

I got the impression that he was somebody who felt

that there were things to be said that had not being said.

I got the feeling that he was somebody who

had had time to reflect

and felt that

there was not any reason to hide these things

it probably was important in the public interest.

I am sure Mossadegh's grandson Matine Daftari

has told me on more than one occasion that

there was a screening of End of Empire in Golden Square in London

and there was an MI6 man in the audience

who did not like himself being in it and he asked the producer to take him out

Now, is this tape

the program as it was transmitted?

Which version of the End of Empire is this?

This was the last version.

The final version which went on the screen.

But long before that there was a preview

of the film

before it went on air.

and they invited people for corrections

People who were invited also were us to

make any corrections if necessary and all that. -right.

And Darbyshire

asked to be taken out of the

whole thing you know.

Both Mark and Alison told me about it.

told me about it

You think Darbyshire asked to be taken out because

Because the British government had not allowed him to do it.

I have been Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

I was in charge of MI6.

I know the difficulties of the task of the governments of today.

all the time when you ask me questions

there is a little thing back in my head saying be careful

do not cross the line.

You can criticize, but do not make their life harder

It is hard enough any how being foreign secretary

and prime minister in this country.

Our star witness.

our star find in our research in Norman Darbyshire.

What would possess an MI6 agent

to reveal things which are still kept secret to this day?

-Darbyshire? -Yeah.

I do not know. I have not consciously met him

but I may have done in the past.

But I can imagine that he believes

like I believe that

the best thing to deal with this constant suspicion of Britain

is to be more open.

Reading Darbyshire's interview

you get a sense that he is tying to restore credit where credit is due.

He is a bit pissed off that the Americans walked away with the credit for the coup.

But that may be your explanation.

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher,all is vanity.

We all like recognition for what we have done.

And maybe that was the reason he blew their gasket.

He was fed up with being told that this was the Americans.

He walked into a good old British few and he wanted them to get some credit for it.

That maybe it. I do not know.

That is to say I do not think I know the man.

He will be another nail in the coffin of a

view of the Official Secrets Acts

that you can just use it to save you from embarrassment.

There is absolutely no reason whatever

under the sun why that should not be published.

Norman Darbyshire take one.

What you are about to see here as the team sets up at the Savoy

is the result of us not being able to find

the Darbyshire can of film.

We hit a brick wall. We hit a wall of silence and denial about Norman Darbyshire.

so, we have resulted to bringing his words to life.

Ah there it is. Okay.

Ralph Fiennes is about to speak Darbyshire's words recorded back in 1983.

Telling us thing the British did not want anyone to hear.

And these are the bits that the people who made the original documentary loved

Which is also what we love.

Sorry, I am getting drawn into the

Just imagine how I felt when I came across it.

It was one late nigh in the office.

-Good morning! -Good morning!

-Walter correct? -Fantastic yes.

This is Humphery.

-HI! -I am today's cameraman.

Good! That is alright.

I can take it easy

As you know filming these windows is

-is a big challenge for the cameraman. - We had a policy for that whole series.

-Yeah. -Cause I did about half the End of Empire.

As far as we could, we would shoot the windows in order to

set authenticity about the background

Have you seen the footage of the script supervisor?

No, she was the researcher so that

did the producer and they suddenly get weird and

they do not remember him and they all go vague.

Well, I was surprised that they did not

it is incendiary what he is saying and even then you would have

Well, I was surprised because I have a memory

of being a little bit astonished at what he was saying.

He was straight up and down saying the stuff and it was quite

quite amazing.

-Everybody good? -Yep.

Everyone back in your positions, please.

that looks

-Looks good. -Yeah.

We are making good..making good time.

That is very good.

Yes, you are right. Yes, great.

Right, okay

so, Mr.Darbyshire is about to tell us the story of the coup

like it has never been told before.

Right Everyone good? Okay.

When did you first go out to Iran?

I went out in 43-47 period. First of all, as an army officer in SOE

and I was there from the end of 43 to the middle of 47

from late 49 to 52 when Mossadegh threw us out and

broke off relations.

You got this incredible first-hand witness

-Alright -Not just any witness he is a..

How did it come to this?

Exactly, it's like

how do we get to having to kill the chief of police of Tehran

in order to get the coup going?

A member of the British government is saying in black and white

that he was involved in the assassination of the chief of police

and he is running the coup so, he is not just anybody.

So, this is amazing!

The actual running of the coup from our side was my responsibility.

Uhh let me

hmm let me take you back a little because it may be of interest to talk about

nationalization.

The Persians were bitterly resentful of the way they were being treated by the British.

Because the oil company was run by ex-patriots

who called anyone east of Calais a wog.

And to them the Iranians were wogs.

Did you get the impression that members of the Anglo-Iranian

British members looked down on their Persian counterparts

and indeed on Persians generally?

I think the Iranian answer to that where I an Iranian

would be that the trouble was that they did not even bother to look down on us.

The impression was rather one of just taking them very much for granted.

uhm but not really regarding them as subjects of

even sufficient interest to be treated as wogs.

At Abadan, you had a classic colonial enclave

All the British workers were well-dressed,

had nice homes with the classic little lawns, and the rose bushes.

There were swimming pools, and movie theaters;

pooling alleys, and athletic fields.

And side by side with the giant refinery

schools and colleges

hospitals and clumps and clinics

all the amenities of a city of today for work

and living

and leisure.

So, of course the Persians

had the feeling that they were being screwed and rightly so because uhm well

from 1920 onwards I would say yes.

When oil was discovered in Iran,

Churchill described it as

"A prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams."

Thanks to Winston Churchill the first lord of the admiralty

he changed the British fleet from coal-burning to petroleum-based

and this was a life changing moment for uh for the world.

Because it made petroleum as important as it is today.

Under the original agreement

only about 16% of the oil revenue was supposed to be given to Iran

but that 16% was gonna be calculated by the British.

And no Iranian would be allowed to look at the books.

We now know also that

the amount was calculated after the oil company paid its taxes.

Now the oil company was owned by the British government

so, when it was paying taxes, it was essentially paying taxes to itself.

We were not handing over files.

We were not handing over accounts which they asked us for.

I said I had no authority to hand them.

British company is accountless, I was told from London

So, it was a lot of creative accounting

but in the end it was clear that almost all of the money

from this tremendous resource was going into Britain

and almost none was coming back to Iran.

Well, it became very obvious that something was going to happen in Abadan

and it was nationalization.

Long-smoldering Iranian nationalists

made clear their intention to seize the oil industry

and expropriate the British company.

Focal point of Iranian unrest, however, is the government

headed by seventy-year-old premier Mohamed Mossadegh

whose single purpose is oil nationalization.

He was a marvelous politician

and at that time he had all the people with him.

He had clobbered the imperialist. He had nationalized the oil company.

Iran was a country again. It was great stuff. It was very moving.

When the flag of the oil company goes down and the Iranian flag goes up

this was seen both in England and Iran as declaration of independence.

Every single heart in Iran throbbed

uhh a few beats faster

at the pleasure of seeing this

what they saw as a smack in the face to the British.

and I said that if we do not do anything about this

within five years we shall lose the Suez Canal on the same principle.

which in fact proved to be exactly right almost to the day.

The sixteenth independent parachute brigade

stands by to proceed to a foreign destination.

In occupation of the first battalion parachute regiment

strengthen rumors that the airborne sharp shooters might be sent to Persia

to protect British nationals employed there by the Anglo-Iranian oil company.

We had a date to see Winston that night at about half past eleven.

uhhh he said Drake

I think he had had a good dinner

and he said "Have you got a pistol ,Drake?"

I said no, Sir.

we are under martial law in Abadan.

"Pity", he said "You can finish a man with a pistol."

And HMS Mauritius standing by in the Shatt al-Arab river.

Such pictures tell the story of the oil crisis pretty clearly.

We had the cruiser out there and she had her guns open range across the refinery.

And the problem arose were we or were we not going to take Abadan.

Two members of the delegation going up to Persia for talks on the oil crisis

Mr. Jackson and Mr. Elkington are seen about to leave London airport.

Were the negotiations face saving for the British?

Yes, they had to go through the motions.

They wanted to oust Mossadegh regardless of whether he signed a favorable agreement.

Our policy was to get rid off Mossadegh as soon as possible.

We did not think he would do any good to Iran.

We thought when Mossadegh came in that it would be relatively easy to

to get rid off him.

Back to report the failure of his efforts to solve the oil crisis

comes Mr. Richard Stokes.

And just as soon as this obstacle in the way of providing adequate conditions

The talks collapsed

and the British evacuated Abadan

expecting the refinery to shut down.

Abadan, where the last group of British oil experts

pass through the customs on route for Iraq and home.

Right after the last moment Mossadegh did not want the British employees to leave.

They would receive the same treatment if not better

as far as salaries of a concern.

And he kept on saying to the British let us keep your employees as our employees.

They said no.

Many leaving a lifetime of service behind them

as they see the liquidation of fifty years magnificent achievement

in the reputable soil of Persia

The return of the refinery's general manager Mr. Russ made headline news.

In the two years following the evacuation of Abadan

the British tried everything they could to destabilize the Mossadegh government.

The refinery itself was sabotaged

to prevent Iranian engineers from operating the machinery.

There was no question of violent resistance

but it is extraordinary how pieces of the plant would go wrong

just when they were supposed to be doing something else, you know?

The British took their case to the United Nations

The Iranian oil dispute comes to New York.

As Persia's prime minister Dr. Mossadegh

arrives by air to put forward his country's case.

and the international court at the Hague.

The present actions and threats of the Iranian government

may render it impossible to execute a judgment

in favor of the United Kingdom.

Both judgments went in favor of Iran.

He had a great impact on America

Because do not forget that the Americans

most of the Americans like to talk to a man who has charisma.

And Mossadegh had that Charisma.

He had his own convictions

yet in politics, he was an actor.

Truman and Mossadegh had a good personal relationship.

Truman had told the British

that Iran had sovereign rights that deserve to be respected

and that the United states had offered millions and millions of dollars in aid.

Churchill was reelected as a tough warrior

who would sort out Iran the way he had sorted out the Nazis.

Never shall we lose our faith and courage

and never shall we fail in exertion in result.

A global blockade was enforced

to prevent Iran from selling its oil on the world market.

The embargo was always an important part of our uhm

maneuvers to bring Mossadegh to reason and assessable settlement.

The Persians think that by nationalizing oil they are going to get rich.

unfortunately, the reverse will be the case.

and uhm

as the economic situation worsened,

the better it was for us.

The longer our policy of denying him

his success continued

the more the Persian people would be disillusioned

and the more the would disillusion with him

like many governments the more chance there was of his disappearance.

Are you saying that there was no possibility of him selling this oil

across the counter because you had sewn up the outlets?

We put advertisements in most of the newspapers of the world

saying that who bought Persian oil bought a lawsuit.

Not a very democratic thing to do

I think when you are attacked, you defend yourself.

You do not think of democracy and those terms.

To cap it off Time Magazine named Mossadegh man of the year

beating out Churchill and Eisenhower

who were also up for consideration.

It is a double-edged article.

He is described as actually the crazy man in the mountain.

They even call him the British man in Iran and stuff

which is completely false anyway.

Our research has found a reference to the End of Empire TV program

printed in The Observer newspaper in May 1985.

So, I am just going through this page by page to see what we find.

But it is a weird journey down the time tunnel seeing

wooo

Found it.

How MI6 and CIA joined forces to plot Iran coup

Nigel Hawkes reveals the true story of 1953 'Operation Boot.'

Evidence provided by a former MI6 man

has clarified many of the murkier corners of the coup which ousted Mossadegh.

From a series of interviews carried out by Granada Television

for its End of Empire series.

The program will broadcast on channel four tomorrow evening.

-Read this! You will love every word of this article -Unbelievable!

An article not a TV preview. A journalist who has seen the program.

The purpose was to boost the morale of the opposition.

He makes it clear, for example, that it was agents acting for the British

who kidnapped Mossadegh's police chief and then shot him dead.

Nigel Hawkes is he still around?

Yeah,he is alive. we are trying to find him.

-Oh good. -Hello Nigel Hawkes.

Nigel hi good afternoon. It is Taghi Amirani here.

We had an email exchange a couple of weeks ago.

One of the key questions for me is

did you write that article based on seeing a preview of the film?

Well, here is the thing

we got hold of a copy of the film given to us by ITV.

And everything you talk about this man in your article

is not in the film nor is he.

-Well, that is curious, isn't it? -Yep.

-That is very curious. -Yep.

I can't explain that.

I am on my way to see Stephen Dorril

the writer of the book MI6.

A solid thick heavy monster of a book.

So, I did not think that I am going to end up in a sleepy Yorkshire village

with Stephen Dorril the writer of the MI6 book.

No, it is a long way from Iran

and fortunately, was quite away from MI6.

I found the uhm

I found the original

What is this?

This is the one I received from Nigel Hawkes.

-Nigel Hawkes sent you this transcript -Yes.

-This is the exact transcript that we have. -Right.

-Now we found in the basement in Paris of Mossadegh's grandson. -wow!

What is the story of Nigel Hawkes and this transcript and you?

Uh I have got the cover letter somewhere.

I would love to see that.

He was not the kind of a specialist in this area

and he said do what you want with it basically.

And how did Nigel Hawkes get hold of this?

I....He did not tell me but I uhm

I there was

it was from the film makers themselves.

That is the most crazy peculiar thing.

Who leaked the Darbyshire transcript from End of Empire to Nigel Hawkes

knowing that the program they have made does not have Darbyshire in it?

One could speculate. I do not know.

What ...They they obviously knew that, so

they wanted it out.

No journalist

a documentary film maker is just going to throw their prime interview away.

That could only have happened if there was an intervention.

-Yeah. -And that is not so abnormal.

-It happens all the time, still happens till this day. -Wow!

But this interview is I think

very important for number of reasons. One is

MI6 officers do not give these kind of interviews

about such a sensitive subject.

So, as far as the British government is concerned

-the coup never happened. They were not involved. -Yes

And Darbyshire does not exist.

Darbyshire does not exist.

Uhm but obviously he does and he is the key person.

-Wow! -Really.

Uhm he was the person recruiting the people at the highest levels.

On the ground, he knew

key people close the the Shah

and he was probably the main

organizer.

What was your brief?

mmm brief was...

brief was very simple: go out, do not inform the ambassador

use the intelligence services to provide you with any money you might need and

secure the overthrow of Mossadegh by legal or

quasi-legal means.

Members of parliament were bribed with huge amounts of cash.

vast sums of money were being spent

and we were doing it our way bis..

uhhh biscuit tins With damn great notes.

Well over a million and a half pounds.

My research has brought me to Berlin

to meet a retired naval commander

who has spent 30 years interviewing Iranian exiles involved in the coup.

I am here hoping he will let me see his footage.

And here they are.

-1.5 Terabytes. -Wow!

WD Elements

Dr Ahmadi's private collection.

Incredible archive of interviews of people long dead.

Never seen before.

These are the real lefty intellectuals of 1950s Iran.

Writers, actors, poets,

journalists, medical students,

activists, Tudeh members

Tudeh, the communist party was the first and only real political party

in Iran in the sense that it had members and it had a coherent ideology.

It had a small group of people who were educated and committed.

They had some following and small numbers in the military as well.

But it did not have a mass base.

And Mossadegh tolerated it because in his view of democracy

Iranian had a right to organize themselves in any kind of political party

but the fact that a communist party existed

was already seen in some eyes

as a symbol that Mossadegh must secretly sympathized with it.

Which was actually nonsense because Mossadegh

was an elderly feudal landlord

who despised all communist, Marxist, and socialist ideas.

In July 1952,

a power struggle between the Shah and Mossadegh reached a crisis point

over who should control the military.

Giving the British the opportunity to install a puppet prime minister.

When Qavam was called in as prime minister,

we naturally had high hopes that

what we had all wanted to see happen had come about.

This was opposed not only by Mossadegh supporters

but by Tudeh the communist party in Iran.

Tudeh members joined forces with Mossadegh supporters

and nationwide protests broke out.

Troops loyal to the Shah fired on the crowd

and 67 people were killed.

Five days later

Mossadegh returned to power as prime minister.

Telegram from the department of State to the embassy in the United Kingdom.

Washington July 26, 1952, 6:07 PM.

As a result of the events of the last week

it appears to us that Mossadegh is clearly in a stronger position vis-à-vis the Shah

, the Majlis and the public now

than at any time since the nationalization of Iranian oil

in April 1951.

The head court decision coinciding with Mossadegh return to power

will further strengthen his public position.

It was a setback. I think one should probably have known that it would not work.

But obviously it sets us back.

All that flew off the handle.

Uhm did not work at all.

It was never a starter. Julian Amery failed miserably.

We underestimated the Mossadegh position and so had the Shah.

It appears that our worst fears as to the weakness of the Shah had been confirmed.

In the light of this analysis

we believe it would be a great mistake to reject Mossadegh's overture.

Acheson

Rejecting the advice of the Truman administration

Britain decided it was time for a military coup.

there come to the conclusion that we cannot get rid off him politically.

And therefore, we need to resort to a military coup

necessarily predicated on the use of armed force

led by general Fazlollah Zahedi.

It had to be somebody loyal to the Shah

who commanded a certain respect amongst his fellow officers.

And they look around and Zahedi becomes the obvious one.

Zahedi was a cashiered officer.

He had had a long history.

He had actually been imprisoned by the allies

as a Nazi sympathizer during the second world war

but he was known as anti-Mossadegh.

And he was also known to have many contacts in the officer core.

Okay, interview with Ardeshir Zahedi general Zahedi's son.

Still very much in the royalist camp,

Ardeshir Zahedi's loyalty to the Shah

was rewarded by the highest officers of the State

including the post of ambassador to the US.

-I think we put that one down -Which one?

You want to go half? there is both on that they can be

He fled Iran after the revolution

and has been living in exile for forty years in Switzerland.

-You see, That’s too light too dark for me -No, I...

Ardeshir is one of the last remaining coup plotters.

Can I now talk about general Zahedi?

He was described by your own ambassador

as being very implausible and completely untrustworthy.

One of the worst speculators in the country

who had an illustrated register of prostitute and was a known German agent.

Why was he considered a suitable candidate for replacing Mossadegh?

Probably, just for the qualities of being described by two of my colleagues.

I do not know.

But Mossadegh figured out what was happening

and he did the only thing he could have done.

He closed the British embassy.

He expelled all British diplomats.

Among those diplomats were all the secret agents

that were handing out the money and were organizing the coup.

When Mossadegh broke off relations and we all left and

drove across Iraq, I took over running the Persian station in exile from Cyprus.

This is when the British really began to panic

because they had no assets left in Iran.

uhh there it is. Okay.

Could the British not have launched that coup by themselves?

Unfortunately, the head of MI6 at the time

General Sinclair knew about as much of the middle east as a

as a 10-year-old

and was far more interested in cricket anyway.

How did you communicate with general Zahedi from that long?

Uhh I was in basically through his son.

We had a first meeting with the Americans inviting their cooperation

but after much discussion that was turned down.

The Truman people said we are not interested.

We are going to continue the way we are.

They disagreed with the idea in the first place.

Well, we do not know how you get rid of prime ministers

President Truman would not have done what

those nations

including our own perhaps have attempted to do

which is to remove heads of state by

so called dirty tricks.

throughout the early 1950s,

the United States had been fighting a disastrously hot war in Korea

seriously considering the use of the atomic bomb.

In this overheated atmosphere

general Dwight Eisenhower campaigned for the presidency

on the basis that he and he alone

could solve the ongoing crises in Korea and Iran.

But the 1950s was a dark period

in the United States and in the world generally.

we had gotten through the war and that was great

but even before the war ended

there was a series level of concern

among western strategists and policy makers about

the next crisis that might develop and the next

Nazi Germany that might rise up

Well, the only candidate for that was the Soviet Union.

So, the narrative was that the world was divided between two hostile camps.

One led by the Soviet Union, one led by the United States.

There was a tide sweeping the world

and the communists were taking one country after another

until they got to our borders

and then the all possibility of life would be over.

You had the Red Scare, you had spy scandals

The Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss.

, the Cambridge five. those all kinds of thing going on

that made the atmosphere right

for someone like Joseph McCarthy to step in

and make incredible political hay out of all of this.

even if there only one communist in the State Department

that would still be one communist too many.

Days after the election in November 1952

Eisenhower appointed the Dulles brothers

as secretary of State

and head of the CIA.

John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles

were two of the most important corporate lawyers in the United States.

They work for this legendary firm called Sullivan & Cromwell

which is the most powerful law firm in Wall Street.

And really Wall Street firms of that nature

are not simply financial institutions

they are political institutions because what they are doing as representing

these powerful economic and financial interests in America abroad.

Allen Dulles brought the Shah to New York

to address the council and foreign relations.

It was a way of showing the American foreign policy elite

this is our friend in Iran.

Before coming here, I had seen and learned

of the friendship of the United Stated for Iran.

This friendship, the government

and people of Iran

reciprocate with a deep feeling and emotion.

So, right away there is conflicts there between the Dulles brothers and this new

force, this democratic force in Iran represented by Mossadegh.

In fact, they were so determined

to overthrow Mossadegh and essentially to reverse the policy of Truman

that they did not even wait for Eisenhower to be inaugurated

before they had their first meeting

with British officers and started to plan the coup.

In New York, Mr. Churchill meets John Foster Dulles

soon to be America's secretary of State

in the home of Bernard Baruch.

But neither Mr. Churchill nor Mr. Eisenhower

will make any statements on the discussions.

It was my feeling then. It remains my feeling

that the British understood the extent of

of paranoia in this country concerning communism

and that the British consciously played on that fear.

They reframed the terms of this dispute.

Yeah, in cold war terms just as today

these terms are often reframed as a war on terror against terrorism

and that of course becomes the magic term that allows anything.

Any type of intervention.

Were you involved in talks between MI6 and CIA?

Yes. Washington, Cyprus, Rome, London.

We went there to persuade the Americans

that we were not going to get anywhere with Mossadegh.

And that his remaining in power was very dangerous to both our interests.

And also to tell them a little bit about the means we had at our disposal

for changing the government.

In January 1953,

Mossadegh appointed a new chief of police

more loyal to him than the previous.

This new chief was Afshartous.

Police chief Afshartous claimed to have a list of

Iranian officials who were conspiring with the Americans to

unseat Mossadegh.

At the beginning of April 1953

CIA director Allen Dulles approved one million dollars

for operation in Tehran aimed at bringing about the fall of Mossadegh.

In the early months of 53

we thought we had enough military units to mount something.

Police chief Afshartous was kidnapped and murdered in the spring of 53.

And this was uhh something that was later tied to

Fazlollah Zahedi

Were you involved in Afshartous assassination?

Were you involved in Afshartous assassination?

Yes.

But it was never the intention that Afshartous should be killed.

Something went wrong.

The claim is that he started

swearing at the Shah and one of the young officers lost his temper

and pulled out his gun and shot him.

Feelings ran very high

Afshartus made derogatory comments about the Shah and

the young officer pulled out a gun and shot him.

But his body was very badly tortured, so

it does not look like a spur of the moment when your body is left

with marks of torture.

Many issues of Bakhtar Emrooz.

Bakhtar Emrooz was uhh

the main newspaper of supporting the national front and the government.

This is Afshartous by the way.

Oh my god!

ukh ukh ooof

This was also I think part of the CIA, MI6 way of destabilizing the government.

Because not only they

tortured and murdered him but dumped his body quite visibly,

so it would be publicly known that

the government could not even protect its tough chief of police.

It was a big event. It was a kind of a crisis at the time.

It was certainly a bad sign for Mossadegh.

Is Darbyshire's admission to involve him in the assassination of the chief of police

Is that the biggest thing in that transcript?

Besides the fact that he has

he has openly admitted the British involved in the coup

uh Yes.

-Pretty horrific picture to put on the front page. -this as well.

So, they tied him up,

-strangled him, and shot him -Yeah.

This was a very important element in the coup

because Mossadegh never managed to replace him properly.

He replaced him with people who were

linked to the coup plotters.

Zahedi avoided arrest and I was involved in protecting him

as he moved from house to house.

The plan for the final stages of the coup

written by Norman Darbyshire and Donald Wilber

was approved by Eisenhower and Churchill

on July 11th, 1953.

It was code named operation AJAX

after the popular household Cleanser.

225

The first step was for agent Stephen Meade and Norman Darbyshire

to track down the Shah's sister Ashraf

exiled in Paris.

Apparently, the British ambassador and the American ambassador had

gone to see the Shah on several occasions to convince him

to give the okay to this overthrow of Mossadegh.

Now, whether he did not want to do it

or did not want to upset the apple cart. I do not know.

But in any event he had refused up to that point.

Well, the Shah was very young when he was put on the throne

and he was knocked from pillar to post.

He always listened to the advice

from the last person in and that was often the advice he took.

someone either British or American I am not sure

had the idea to get his twin sister Ashraf

with whom he was closer than anyone else on the world

to convince him to do this

in order to save his life and his country.

Princess Ashraf very astute person, clever, very intelligent.

People say much more brave and much intelligent than her twin brother.

The Americans say she wore the pants.

In late June or July, I was called to locate princess Ashraf

and convince her

to involve herself in the then upcoming coup.

I went to London and met with my British counterpart.

Your British counterpart was in fact Norman Darbyshire

-Yes. -Could you tell us something about the man Norman Darbyshire?

Norman Darbyshire was a very competent individual

He was a had a lot of experience.

He spoke Farsi fluently, French,

and whatever the languages I do not know.

Well, you know the old wartime habit of using the BBC.

Well, we persuaded them and gave her the message that

that if you do this, you will notice a slight variation on the presentation

and that once the Shah heard that

he himself would know that it was official.

we wanted to hammer it home that it was

and therefore we used the BBC.

We made it clear that we would pay expenses

and the moment I produced a great wad of notes,

her eyes alighted.

At one point in the negotiations

she said "In the event that this does not go as plan,

who is going to take care of my brother?"

In the matter to what she has become accustomed

This brought dead silence into our little group

because as you can imagine

neither Norman nor I had been briefed on such a question

either in Washington or London.

So, I thought if this is what it takes

to get her to implicate herself in this thing, then

so be it so, I said yes,

we are prepared to do that.

She had not been out the room long that day

when Norman turned to me and said,

"now look, old buddy."

says, "You have not committed her majesty's government to this."

And I said no, I am I realize that.

And he said, "Do you really have the authority to do this?"

and I said I have no idea.

And he said, "Well if I did that, I would probably be sacked."

and I said well, Norman I just might be.

Well, she was quite a flighty woman

and Steve, who fancied anything,

fancied her.

eventually we said

here is your first-class ticket and you are booked for the day after tomorrow

and this time I did let her get her hands on the money.

Ashraf flew to Tehran from Paris and delivered the letter

which was a request for the Shah's signature authorizing the coup

and appointing Zahedi as the new prime minister.

Six days ahead of Ashraf

Kermit Roosevelt the CIA's Middle East chief

was on his way to Tehran.

Kermit Roosevelt was Harvard educated,

came out of the American elite

interestingly enough his grandfather had been Theodor Roosevelt

which is in some ways a wonderful historical quirk

since it was Theodor Roosevelt who led the United States

into the regime change era.

Roosevelt of course knew nothing about Iran, did not know Persian.

He was more like uhh

adventurist who was sent to work on the ground.

A lot of this was done by MI6. The coup

they did not actually carry it out on the ground in the end

but the actual ideas, planning,

the recruitment of agents, etc., was largely the work of MI6.

The actual running of the coup from our side was my responsibility.

Perhaps, one of the reasons why Darbyshire actually

did this interview revealed it was because they were

not happy with the Americans taking credit for everything cause Roosevelt

did rewrite a note history afterwards where he takes credit for a lot of this.

Roosevelt crossed the border from Iraq as James Lockridge

using a forged passport and carrying suitcases full of cash.

It is actually an interesting project because you ask yourself

how do you do this?! So, suppose you are assigned

overthrow the government of the country you just arrived in.

What do you do on Monday morning 9 o’clock first day? How do you start?

Well, Kermit Roosevelt started by

buying off newspaper editors and columnists and journalists.

And he had remarkable success.

They were running articles against Mossadegh day after day.

Mossadegh was a Jew, a communist,

homosexual, he was a British agent,

anything bad you could say about him. In fact,

they needed so much anti-Mossadegh copy, they could not even produce it themselves.

And the CIA back in Washington

assigned some of its own officers to write anti-Mossadegh propaganda.

And any article that I would write. It gave you something of a sense of power.

would appear almost instantly the next day in Iranian press

and they were designed to show Mossadegh as a communist collaborator

and as a fanatic.

The timing of the operation itself

what were you waiting for?

uhm very simple. Signature of the Shah.

Timing was solely affected by the signature of the Shah.

The original coup plan was based on

the fact that the Shah had the ability to dismiss a government.

And therefore, what was going to take place was that

an officer in the army would take a

Firman, a notice to Mossadegh

and inform him that he had been replaced

and that general Zahedi would become prime minister.

It was understood that Mossadegh would resist.

He would say I do not accept being fired

by some soldiers coming to me in the middle of the night.

He would then be arrested

and the next day it would be announced that he had

resisted royal orders

and now there was a new regime in power.

This is Mossa Mehran.

On the day of the coup he was Mossadegh's head of security.

For most of my Iranian witnesses

the event of 1953 are as fresh as if they happened yesterday.

Timing is always of the essence and secrecy.

hmm Persians are not very good at either.

With every passing day word got around and eventually word got to Mossadegh.

He heard it because they had a

junior officer was a Tudeh member

in the Imperial Guard.

We started talking to the Rashidians about

mounting the coup probably immediately after we had departed.

They were an extraordinary bunch of brothers because none of them

really spoke English.

They have been brought up believing the British were very good.

They were late 30s, early 40s fascinated by the idea of

politics altogether and intrigued by being in contact with the British

and delighted to take our money for something they believed in themselves.

we had issued the Rashidians with

radio sets to maintain contact by wireless.

They had a very wide range of contacts

particularly in the Bazaar.

They also had contacts with the Ayatollahs

and a little bit of rent-a-crowd

sort of provided

a strong popular demonstration against Mossadegh and in favor of the Shah.

These are the tough boys and Ayatollah Kashani controlled some of them.

You could use them as a street mob with the blessing of a Kashani and then

the more the merrier.

When it first went wrong, I heard about it from Roosevelt

and from the radio from the RAshidians.

First thing I heard about the coup was on the radio there at ford pinning.

There had been an attempted coup in Iran

and it had failed miserably.

And so, I gulped once and I looked at my wife and I said

how would you like to have the Shah as a permanent house guest?

She had no idea what I was talking about, you know.

Here it is. There you go.

It is from the 16th of August 1953

is the first news of the attempted coup by Nasiri

Attention is focused once again on the Middle East

where events in Iran have taken a dramatic double twist.

Forced to flee his palace in Tehran,

the Shah and his queen arrive in Rome

after an alleged attempt by the Imperial guard to arrest Dr Mossadegh

and the refusal by the Shah to dissolve parliament at Mossadegh's request.

There was I think great contempt

for the Shah within CIA circles

that he they thought he was a coward.

Of course, he fled his own country with his wife queen Soraya.

They flee to Rome,

they take shelter at a very luxurious hotel there

courtesy of the CIA

The hotel Excelsior which was known as the sort of La Dolce Vita hotel at the time

where Hollywood celebrities stayed there in the hotel

and so, they were not exactly suffering in exile.

So, there is great intrigue going on at Rome

as events in Iran are quickly spinning out of control.

Once it became clear that the project had failed

and Mossadegh was triumphed,

the CIA actually came to a conclusion in a meeting

Mossadegh has won and we are just going to have to find a way to live with him.

Basically, they decided this is a done deal

we need to pull our forces out of there.

And so, they instruct Kermit Roosevelt

to wrap it all up and get out of there.

We must regret that we cannot consider going on fighting.

Operations against Mossadegh should be discontinued.

The Americans were very new to the game

and certainly we would have hoped to have had more influence.

I think that I am right in saying that we had a

a little more experience in Iran than they had.

But at very precise moments

particularly what the call black Sunday

when Roosevelt who was the key person for the CIA.

He kind of lost his nerve.

It was the MI6 officers in Cyprus particularly Darbyshire

who kind of said let's go ahead.

And they did so without

the say so of the foreign office.

I said all along that we should have back up in case something did leak

or go wrong and which it did.

And this is when it was decided to bring the boys out onto the streets.

It was the Rashidians who provided people to infiltrate the demonstrations.

I was personally giving orders and directing.

They were provocatories

but we had more than just provocatories. We had a lot of Shah troops

who actually acted as if they were Tudeh people throwing rocks at mosques

and knock over the statues of the previous regime.

We were anxious to show the world that

that this was a spontaneous coup against Mossadegh

and that Mossadegh had then used the initial coup

to use it as a coup against the Shah.

-You actually had held a conference at the hills of Vanak? -Yes, I did.

What is the message that you were giving to the press?

The shah has just landed in Rome.

What was the situation?

was he coming back? wasn't he coming back? Nobody knew.

But all these discussions were going on

until the 19th of August.

And there was not an instance of imminent danger.

Not until it was too late.

In the morning of the 19th of August

the editorial team were on their way to the Bakhtar Emrooz offices

to prepare the issue for that day.

They arrive there and it was a smoldering ruin.

Once you start burning newspaper offices which are known to be pro-Mossadegh,

the mob starts coming out and attacks the demonstrators and then

it snowballs which is what we intended to do.

It was the correct

It was the correct psychological reading of the Persian mob character.

That mob that came into north Tehran and was decisive in the overthrow

was a mercenary mob. They had no ideology.

And that mob was paid for by American dollars.

As they got nearer, it was rather frightening.

I was 16 years old

I went a little bit to the right till the walls of the British embassy

and uhm there

someone had obviously been killed.

We saw tanks coming from

the north end of the road.

They came in and pulled up outside my uncle's house.

At that time, the gate was shut

and the guards were

were holding back the people and

telling them to move away.

It worked.

With 45 million dollars in American aid

the Shah quickly set about neutralizing the opposition of Mossadegh supporters

and putting Mossadegh himself on trial.

In the military court at Tehran on trial for treason

the Persian ex-premier Dr Mossadegh

demonstrates that he knows how to make an entrance.

With the coat over the pajamas Mossadegh seem calm

The 17 charges include high treason and trying to overthrow the Shah's regime.

A strange man up against as it last.

My uncle was very fraid.

Very fraid and very dejected.

He was sure they gonna kill him.

The Shah wanted to kill him.

Was not there an army officer captured with membership list of the Tudeh party?

Yes, that was when the great executions took place.

And from there on the Shah and the CIA

they introduce in the country

one of the worst elements SAVAK.

SAVAK was held up as one of the most brutal secret services in the world.

It was clear to the coup project leaders

and to Allen Dulles that a harsh secret service was required

and the Americans began the process of establishing SAVAK.

I was not allowed to go back immediately when we picked up relations again

because the Americans were trying to cash in very quickly

and establish a special relationship with the Shah.

227

could you tell us what the president's mission entailed?

The mission that uh for which I was selected theoretically by the president

was to go to Iran and assist the Shah

after he had regained power to stay in power.

Can you explain what that actually would entail?

Well, it was

to help train his counterintelligence agencies in Iran.

What do that involve? could you give some detail?

Not really.

-Okay -uhm yes

Okay. Yep.

What about SAVAK and all that?

Soon after

just a few years later they handed it over to Israel and the Mossad.

And that became the force that shaped

SAVAK over a longer period.

Also, security activity we had security relations with Iran.

We sold them military equipment.

They were interested in common developments.

That developed a great interest between us and Iran

which were a great strategic impact.

After they changed their minds from death sentence

then somebody decided on a 3 years.

of solitary confinement in the military prison.

With Mossadegh behind bars

Anglo-Iranian was renamed British Petroleum (BP)

and now had to share Iranian oil

with a handful of American and European companies.

BP did not come out on top

but they got they came back with a

a major share in the international consortium

which was subsequently set up.

And I suppose from my own point of view I would have probably

sat there for another ten years

in that boiling heat instead of doing some much more interesting jobs

which I was allowed to do later.

Then Dr Mossadegh was moved from the military prison to Ahmadabad

his place in exile for the rest of his life.

Without any order.

without any trial. without any uhm judicial authority

for that move.

It was totally illegal and under the Shah's orders.

What was his state of mind when he was on the house arrest?

he was very dejected. I mean you know this is a great intellect.

uhm in his later life

was nothing. In total solitude.

At the beginning there was not even television at the beginning.

To have a doctor you had to ask the Shah's permission.

Everything. To have a newspaper you had to have the Shahs permission.

For a man like that to sit only

and stare out into this nothingness

not to have any communication with his friends

with his world with his political world.

Suddenly, to be cut off from all had striven for

for 50 years or more.

It was disaster.

He would just everyday he said I just want to die.

After the coup was over, there was a meeting in the white house

at which Kermit Roosevelt presented an account of what he had done

to the president and other very senior US government officials.

I think Eisenhower in particular was astonished and deeply impressed.

President Eisenhower as a general

had had to send kids off to die by the thousands.

Now, he sees you can change an entire regime

and only a couple of hundred people die and none of them are Americans

and it is very cheap.

So, he would have seen covert action as a peace project.

An internal report in the CIA about the coup in Iran

later calls it a day that should never have ended.

Its consequences were so significant on so many levels.

This had a very negative effect on

on Iran's attempts at building a democracy.

It also had an impact on

the thinking of US policy makers and US strategists

and particularly covert operations planners.

Because it was seen as a big success, this opened the world to them.

So, of course they were emboldened to do this yet again

just the following year 1954 in Guatemala

when they overthrew the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz.

And in the spring of 1954, there was also a big conference

in Geneva to decide the future of Vietnam.

When it became clear that the Geneva agreement

was going to give Ho Chi Minh a piece of territory,

Dulles walked out.

As he was flying home, he decided we are not accepting this

and we are gonna fight. we are gonna undermine Ho Chi Minh

Of course, the French could not defeat him they are a decade and old power.

The British are not ambitious enough.

We are going to do it. We can do what they could not do.

All people thought we could not get rid of Mossadegh.

People thought we could not get rid of Arbenz in Guatemala.

We just got rid of those easily like it swat a fly.

You think we cannot get rid of Ho Chi Minh.

Just watch.

Soon there after

I was up in my office

and I got a call immediately to go down.

He had just died.

uhh so...

So, they put the corpse in an ambulance.

Released from the burden of Mossadegh and his dream of democracy for Iran,

the Shah is finally liberated to be what he always wanted

an all-powerful king

free to reign and rule

and stride the globe.

Do you understand sometimes the slight dilemma

that some Western leaders feel about a very close relationship

with your government

when there are some in America and in Britain too

who feel that your regime is undemocratic. How do you respond to that?

Well, I respond to that by saying

that your regime are not more democratic than ours.

Just look how many billionaires you have

and how many poor people you have.

In the old days

you British and others who had influence here

you could change the prime ministers as you wished.

Are you sorry for that time

that you have lost?

Do you want the same thing to manipulate our internal affairs?

We won't let you.

Iran because of the great leadership of the Shah

is an island of stability

in one of the more troubled areas of the world.

The legacy of the 1953 coup in Iran

is shaping politics to this day.

We have a government in Iran and a political system in Iran that probably

never would have emerged.

American Iranian relations might never have deteriorated this way.

Think of it this way.

Had we not overthrown Mossadegh in 1953

and had allowed democracy to grow

we might have had a flourishing democracy

in the heart of the Muslim Middle East

all these 60 years.

And I can hardly wrap my mind around

how different the Middle East might be

if that were the example we had set.

Instead, we set the opposite example.

Here was the message we sent to the rising

generation of leaders throughout the Middle East

the United States does not want democracy

because democracy in a Middle East country

is going to lead to demands for controlling resources.

What we want is a dictatorial leader

who can repress his people as much as he wants

and we will help him do that as long as he gives us free access to oil.

That was the message of the Iran coup

and that was heard all over the Middle East

and it led to the emergence of all the kinds of regimes in the Middle East

that have created the crises that we now live with.

So, this was a decisive historic episode.

when you read a history of the 20th century in many cases,

you would be lucky to find one line on this coup.

It should be a big chapter.

I wrote the whole thing up from beginning to end and that is definitely on file.

I think could persuade them to let me see it.

This is the sort of thing that you won't find in any book.