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The Fall of Mosaddeq, August 1953: Institutional Narratives, Professor Mark Gasiorowski and My Study
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Abstract
Over the decades that followed the overthrow of Mosaddeq in August 1953 a narrative attributing the fall exclusively to foreign conspiracy has taken hold and become institutionalized. In this narrative the internal factors are reduced to the simplest level of abstraction. They do not exist outside foreign conspiracy! This narrative is premised on an Anglo-American coup plot code-named TP-AJAX that was attempted in the late hours of 15 August but failed. The ensuing flight of the Shah generated dynamics which led to the fall of Mosaddeq four days later. The CIA chief operative in Tehran Kermit Roosevelt was quick to take credit claiming that these dynamics were inseminated by his ingenious and spontaneous planning. For abiding internal reasons both the CIA and the MI6 headquarters preferred to claim victory rather than admit failure. Evidence that emerged following the declassification of the State Department papers in 1989 and the leak of a secret CIA internal history in 2000 produced glaring evidence that the fall of Mosaddeq on 19 August 1953 had taken Washington, even its embassy in Tehran, by complete surprise and that post facto claims by Roosevelt were inconsistent both with Washington's explicit policy directives and Roosevelt's own situation reports filed with the CIA Washington during the interval between the two events. Roosevelt later published a phantasmagorical account of the event which, together with reminiscences of a few unnamed former operatives, was given credence by Professor Gasiorowski and associates, who curiously chose to ignore archival evidence.
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- Special Section: 28 Mordad
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- Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2012
References
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