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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
The overthrow of the government of Mosaddeq has received considerable attention, scholarly and otherwise. The scholarly explanations differ in emphasis, but not in the general contours, particularly regarding the significant role of the Anglo-American secret services. There have also long been attempts to portray the overthrow of Mosaddeq as an isolated event taking place on 19 August 1953 and representing a conflation of royalist and traditionalist sentiments among soldiers and civilians. More recently it has been contended that it was not the Anglo-American secret services but the clerical nexus—prompted by Ayatollah Borujerdi, the highest religious authority in the country—which played the crucial role. This paper argues against reducing the overthrow of Mosaddeq's government to the events of 19 August, and views it as a protracted process. It further argues that assertions regarding the crucial and active role of Borujerdi are, on the basis of available evidence, untenable.
1 See, Azimi, Fakhreddin, “Overthrowing Mosaddeq”, in Gasiorowski, Mark and Byrne, Malcolm, eds. The Coup of 1953 (New York, 2004)Google Scholar; See also Azimi, Fakhreddin, Hakemiyat-e melli va doshmanan-e an: pajuheshi dar karnameh-ye mokhalefan-e bumi va biganeh-ye Mosaddeq (Tehran, 2004)Google Scholar.
2 I have explored Lambton's politics and orientalism in a study to be published in Persian.
3 [General] Yekrangian, Mir-Hossein, Seyri dar tarikh-e artesh-e Iran (Tehran, 2005), 482–87Google Scholar.
4 Falle warned Zahedi against “letting anyone know that he had any connection” with the British, adding that “at the moment his anti-British past is a greater asset to him than any promise of British support could be.” Minute by Falle, 7 August 1952, FO248/1513.
5 Markaz-e barrasi-ye asnad-e tarikhi-ye vezarat-e ettela'at, Rashidianha beh revayet-e asnad-e SAVAK (Tehran, 2010), vol. 3, 470–71.
6 Wilber, Donald N., Clandestine Service History: Overthrow of Premier Mossadeq of Iran, November 1952-August 1953 (Central Intelligence Agency, 1954)Google Scholar.
7 See further, Azimi, Fakhreddin, Iran: The Crisis of Democracy, from the Exile of Reza Shah to the Fall of Musaddiq, 2nd edition (London and New York, 2009)Google Scholar, part V.
8 Negahbanan-e sehr-o jadu (n.p., Mordad 1331/August 1952).
9 In the prelude to the coup, tactics aimed particularly at the clerics, highlighting a looming Tudeh takeover of power, were intensified, see Wilber, Clandestine Service History, 37; one journalist- politician involved in sending intimidating pamphlets and letters to the clerics attributing them to the Tudeh Party was Abolqasem Payandeh, who had some clerical training and published the journal Saba; see Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Khaterat (n.p., 2000), 160–161.
10 Woodhouse, C.M., Something Ventured (London, 1982), 117Google Scholar.
11 On Henderson's role from Mosaddeq's perspective, see Mosaddeq, Mohammad, Khaterat va ta'allomat-e Mosaddeq, ed. Afshar, Iraj (Tehran, 1986), 186, 262–66Google Scholar.
12 Hossein Qods-Nakha'i, a senior diplomat during Razmara's premiership, told a British Foreign Office official that the Shah's flight was a “blessing in disguise,” adding that had he remained in the country he might have opposed decisive action. Moreover, he added, the Shah's departure, having provoked “extremist” actions by Mosaddeq and his foreign minister, Dr. Hossein Fatemi, helped unleash violent counter measures by the royalists. FO Minutes, 22 August 1953/104570. What Qods-Nakha'i was referring to was denunciation of the Shah by Fatemi in particular at a public meeting organized on 16 August 1953/25 Mordad. Several officials and officers sympathetic to Mosaddeq believed that Fatemi's pronouncements against the Shah on 16 August, reiterated in Bakhtar-e Emruz the next day, proved counter- productive; Azimi, interview with Mosaddeq ministers Gholam-Hossein Sadiqi and Jahangir Haqshenas, September 1989; see also, “Yaddasht va vasiyat- nameh-ye sargord doktor Elmiyeh,” text in Nejati, Gholamreza, Jonbesh-e melli shodan naft-e Iran (Tehran, 1985), 469–85Google Scholar.
13 Dorril, Stephen, MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations (London, 2000), 591Google Scholar.
14 Henderson to State Dept. (18 August 1953), Foreign Relations of the United States, vol. X (Washington DC, 1989), 749; also made available to the British Foreign Office: minute by Bowker, 19 August 1953, FO 371/104570.
15 Ruehsen, Moyara de Moraes, “Operation ‘Ajax’ Revisited: Iran, 1953,” Middle Eastern Studies, 29, no. 3 (July 1993),: 479–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; this claim is based on Henderson Papers, DACOR House, Washington, DC. The author mentions that in the meeting of 18 August and in Henderson's presence Mosaddeq telephoned Chief of Police [Brigadier] Mohammad Daftari. Daftari had not, however, as yet been appointed police chief and would be assigned this task at around 11 am the next day.
16 Abrahamian, Ervand, “The 1953 Coup in Iran,” Science and Society, 65, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 182–215CrossRefGoogle Scholar; this is an elaboration of the view proffered by Ruehsen, who speaks of the police and not the army, and the claim made in the TIME Magazine article of 31 August 1953.
17 Abrahamian, “The 1953 Coup in Iran,” 210; Nosratollah Khazeni, a key member of Mosaddeq's secretariat at work in the prime minister's house throughout the crisis of 16–19 August, strongly denied any phone call from, or messenger dispatched by the Tudeh Party leader Nur al-Din Kianuri (or his wife, Maryam Firuz) to Mosaddeq's residence; Azimi, interview with Khazeni, August 2000; see also Mahmud Torbati-Sanjabi, Kudeta-sazan (Tehran, 1997), 72–73.
18 Mosaddeq, Khaterat, 186, 262–66.
19 Minute by Bowker, 4 March 1953, FO 371/ 104563.
20 It had long become routine for right-wing opponents of the government, including deputies, to speak of an open coalition between the Mosaddeq government and the “lackeys of the Kremlin, i.e. the Communist Tudeh Party.” See, for instance, Mehdi Mirashrafi, speech in the Majles, Mozakerat-e Majles, 28 May 1353.
21 Ruehsen, “Operation ‘Ajax’ Revisited.”
22 It must also be remembered that this order was presumably issued to Brigadier Nasrollah Modabber, who was the police chief until the morning of 19 August, and not to Brigadier Mohammad Daftari; Modabber, who was suspected of complicity with the coup operatives, was arrested upon the appointment of Daftari, who himself is strongly believed to have been a Zahedi collaborator.
23 “Iran: The People Take over,” TIME Magazine, 31 August 1953.
24 Abrahamian, “The 1953 Coup in Iran,” 209.
25 Abrahamian, “The 1953 Coup in Iran,” 208.
26 Henderson to State Dept. (18 August 1953), Foreign Relations of the United States, vol. X, 749–52.
27 Babak Amir-Khosravi, “Baz ham sokhani chand dar bareh-ye faje'eh-ye 28 mordad,” http://www.iran-emrooz.net/index.php?/politic/more/13456.
28 Amir-Khosravi, “Baz ham sokhani”; see also interview with [Captain] Musa Mehran (Fesharaki), text in Shahrvand-e Emruz, 4, no. 87, 3 September 2011, 65Google Scholar. Mehran was a member of the team protecting Mosaddeq's residence.
29 On the role of the Islamist forces and their attitude to Mosaddeq and his supporters see: Rahnema, Ali, Niruha-ye mazhabi bar bastar-e harakat-e nahzat-e melli (Tehran, 2005)Google Scholar.
30 Islamist forces invariably invoked the Tudeh threat to justify their support for the Shah; see for instance, Falsafi, Mohammad-Taqi, Khaterat (Tehran, 1997), 112–17Google Scholar; the Fadai'yan-e Islam leader, Mojtaba Mirlouhi (Navvab-Safavi) expressed his satisfaction at the overthrow of Mosaddeq, regarding his “greatest crime” to be the bolstering of the Tudeh Party; statement in Keyhan, 25 August 1953
31 A vivid eyewitness account of the events of 19 August can be found in Ebrahim Golestan, “Bist-o hasht-e panj-e siyo do,” Kelk, no. 41 (August 1993), 46–51
32 “Khaterat-e Sartip [Ezzatollah] Momtaz, farmandeh-ye mohafezin-e khaneh-ye doktor Mosaddeq,” Parkhash, 19 August 1979.
33 [Colonel] Hossein-Qoli Sarreshteh, Khaterat-e man (Tehran, 1988), 116; Nejati, Gholamreza, Mosaddeq: sal-haye mobarezeh va moqavemat, vol. 2 (Tehran, 1998), 105Google Scholar; Wilber, Clandestine Service History, appendix D, p. 3. which refers to the complete control of the pro-Mosaddeq army chief of staff, General Taqi Riahi, over “at least three out of five of the brigade commanders” in Tehran.
34 See Sadiqi, Gholam-Hossein, “Ruz-e kudeta,” Donya-ye sokhan, 13, no. 75 (August–September 1997), 32–39Google Scholar.
35 In his memoirs, Mehdi Ha'eri-Yazdi maintains that “nothing defeated Mosaddeq as much as his veracity and honesty,” Khaterat-e Mehdi Ha'eri-Yazdi, Harvard Oral History Project, ed. Habib Ladjevardi (Bethesda, MD, 2001), 29.
36 Bayandor, Darioush, Iran and the CIA: The Fall of Mosaddeq Revisited (Houndmills, Basingstoke, 2010), xvii, 247CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
37 I briefly discuss the content of this memo, prepared by Walter Bedell Smith for President Eisenhower on 20 May 1953, in Azimi, Hakemiyat melli va doshmanan-e an, 20–22.
38 Azimi, interview with Ha'eri-Yazdi, September 1985; see also his memoirs, Khaterat-e Mehdi Ha'eri-Yazdi, which Bayandor has not consulted.
39 Azimi, interview with Nosratollah Khazeni, August 2000; see also Hoda Saber's interview with Khazeni in Sahabi, Ezzatollah, ed., Mosaddeq, doulat-e melli va kudeta (Tehran, 2001), 40–74Google Scholar.
40 Wilber, Clandestine Service History, Appendix A, pp. 4–5.
41 The full text as it appeared in Ettela'at reads as follows:
The additional error in the text as recounted by Bayandor is as follows: 
has been substituted by 
.
42 Minute by C. Gandy, 17 September 1953, FO 371/104571.
43 From Reuter's correspondent in Baghdad, FO minute, 1 September 1953, FO371/104571.
44 Azimi, interview with a prominent Kashani supporter who wishes to remain unnamed; see also Sayyed Hadi Khosrowshahi: “Chand khatereh az chand didar ba Ayatollah Kashani,” http://www.khosroshahi.net/main/index.php?Page=definition&UID=2113.
45 Markaz-e barrasi-ye asnad-e tarikhi-ye vezarat-e ettela'at, Ruhani-ye mobarez ayatollah Sayyed Abolqasem Kashani beh revayat-e asnad, vol. 2 (Tehran, 2000), 946–51; The Shah visited Kashani in his house just prior to his death; Markaz-e barrasi-ye asnad-e tarikhi-ye vezarat-e ettela'at, Qeyam-e 15 khordad beh revayat-e asnad-e SAVAK, vol. 1 (Tehran, 1999), 383.
46 See, for instance, Alikhani, Alinaqi, ed., Yaddashtha-ye Alam, vol. 2 (Bethesda, MD, 1993), 129Google Scholar.
47 Abbas Milani, “The Great Satan Myth; Everything You Know About U.S. Involvement in Iran is Wrong,” The New Republic, 8 December 2009, http://www.tnr.com/article/world/the-great-satan-myth; Milani repeats the same ideas in his book The Shah (New York, 2011), chs. 9 and 10; for an extensive critique of this book see Azimi, Fakhreddin, “Shah dar pishgah-e tarikh,” Negah-e Nou, 20, no. 89 (Spring 2011), 72–85Google Scholar; also available on various websites.
48 Ray Takeyh, “Clerics Responsible for Iran's Failed Attempts at Democracy,” Washington Post, 18 August 2010, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-yn/content/article/2010/08/17/AR2010081704944.html/
