All the Shah’s Men (28 page)

“In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran’s popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh,” she said. “The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran’s political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs.”

A handful of American historians have devoted themselves to studying the 1953 coup and its effects. They agree, to different degrees and with different emphases, that the coup defined all of subsequent Iranian history and reshaped the world in ways that are only now becoming clear. Here are some of their observations:

James A. Bill:
American policy in Iran during the early 1950s succeeded in ensuring that there would be no Communist takeover in the country at the time, and that Iranian oil reserves would be available to the Western world at advantageous terms for two decades afterwards. It also deeply alienated Iranian patriots of all social classes and weakened the moderate, liberal nationalists represented by organizations like the National Front. This paved the way for the incubation of extremism, both of the left and of the right. This extremism became unalterably anti-American…. The fall of Mossadegh marked the end of a century of friendship between the two countries, and began a new era of U. S. intervention and growing hostility against the United States among the weakened forces of Iranian nationalism.

Richard W. Cottam:
The decision to overturn Mossadegh was a truly historic one. Iran was at the point of change at which the percentage of the population entering the political process, or disposed to do so, was increasing in geometric progression. These awakening individuals would look to leaders whom they recognized and trusted for the norms, values and institutions they could support. Had Mossadegh, the National Front and the religious leaders who interpreted the Koran more liberally remained in control of the Iranian government, they could have served as the socializing agents for this awakening mass. Instead, they were replaced by a royal dictatorship that stood aloof from the people…. U. S. policy did change Iran’s history in fundamental ways. It helped oust a nationalist elite which had looked to the United States as its ideological ally and its one reliable external supporter. In helping eliminate a government that symbolized Iran’s search for national integrity and dignity, it helped deny the successor regime nationalist legitimacy.

Mark J. Gasiorowski:
In retrospect, the United States–sponsored coup d’etat in Iran of August 19, 1953, has emerged as a critical event in postwar world history…. Had the coup not occurred, Iran’s future would undoubtedly have been vastly different. Similarly, the U. S. role in the coup and in the subsequent consolidation of the Shah’s dictatorship were decisive for the future of U. S. relations with Iran. U. S. complicity in these events figured prominently in the terrorist attacks on American citizens and installations that occurred in Iran in the early 1970s, in the anti-American character of the 1978–79 revolution, and in the many anti-American incidents that emanated from Iran after the revolution, including, most notably, the embassy hostage crisis. Latter-day supporters of the coup frequently argue that it purchased twenty-five years of stability in Iran under a pro-American regime. As the dire consequences of the revolution for U. S. interests continue to unfold, one can wonder whether this has been worth the long-term cost.

James F. Goode:
Mossadegh was no saint, as even his advisors recognized. He could be stubborn and narrow-minded. Yet he was the most popular leader in modern times, at least prior to the [Islamic] revolution…. If Mossadegh was a prisoner of the past—opposed to dictatorial rule, supportive of constitutional government, hating foreign influence—the Americans were no less prisoners of the Cold War mindset that would not tolerate neutralism in the struggle against godless Communism.

Mary Ann Heiss:
In the long term it may well be true that the inability of the British and the United States to deal with Mossadegh, whose policies seem moderate in hindsight, cleared the path not so much for the Shah and his agents over the next several decades but for the far more radical, dangerous and anti-Western regimes that would follow after 1979…. U. S. involvement in the [1953] coup and the 1954 consortium agreement convinced the Iranian people that the United States cared little for their interests, that it was more concerned with propping up British imperialism than with assisting their national self-determination and independence. These convictions led Iranian nationalists to dub the United States the Great Satan and to blame it for all their nation’s ills during the next twenty-five years…. By subverting Iranian nationalism, the oil dispute of the 1950s laid the seeds for the Islamic Revolution that would come twenty-five years later and that would usher in even more anti-Western regimes in Tehran than Mossadegh’s. As a result, its consequences continue even now to cast a shadow over the Persian Gulf and beyond.

Nikki R. Keddie:
The 1953 coup, which culminated a year later in an oil agreement leaving effective control of oil production and marketing and fifty percent of the profits in the hands of the world oil cartel companies, had an understandably traumatic effect on Iranian public opinion, which has continued down to the present…. Feelings against the United States government became far stronger when it became known that the United States was heavily involved in the 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh. American support over twenty-five years for the Shah’s dictatorship and nearly all its ways added to this anti-American feeling. Hence, in both the British and American cases, however exaggerated and paranoid some charges by Iranians may be, suspiciousness and hostility have their roots in real and important occurrences; chiefly, participation in the overthrow of popular revolutionary movements and support of unpopular governments.

William Roger Louis:
Nations, like individuals, cannot be manipulated without a sense on the part of the aggrieved that old scores must eventually be settled…. In the short term, the intervention of 1953 appeared to be effective. Over the longer term, the older advice not to interfere would seem to be the better part of political wisdom.

These views come close to a consensus. They eerily vindicate those who opposed the use of force against Mossadegh. President Truman predicted that mishandling the Iran crisis would produce “a disaster to the free world.” Henry Grady, his ambassador in Tehran, warned that a coup would be “utter folly” and would push Iran into “a status of disintegration with all that implies.” Anyone reading those words in the quarter-century after 1953 would have thought them wildly mistaken. Later history, however, redeems them and the men who spoke them. The results of Operation Ajax were just as dire as they predicted, although the backlash—or “blowback,” as intelligence agents call it—took longer to materialize than anyone expected.

A fair case can be made that Iran was not ready for democracy in 1953. It might well have fallen into disarray if the United States had not intervened, although if American and British intelligence officers had not meddled so shamelessly in its domestic politics, it might also have returned to relative calm. It is difficult to imagine, however, an outcome that would have produced as much pain and horror over the next half-century as that produced by Operation Ajax. Only a Soviet takeover followed by war between the superpowers would have been worse.

The coup bought the United States and the West a reliable Iran for twenty-five years. That was an undoubted triumph. But in view of what came later, and of the culture of covert action that seized hold of the American body politic in the coup’s wake, the triumph seems much tarnished. From the seething streets of Tehran and other Islamic capitals to the scenes of terror attacks around the world, Operation Ajax has left a haunting and terrible legacy.

Epilogue

My Iranian tour guide looked tired but happy when we met in the faded lobby of the Laleh Hotel in Tehran. A conspiratorial grin spread across his face. “I have worked a miracle for you,” he told me triumphantly. “We are going to Ahmad Abad!”

I had come to Iran looking for traces of Mohammad Mossadegh. The trip had not been easy to arrange. When I met with an Iranian diplomat in New York to apply for a visa, he told me that my project sounded intriguing, but that it would have to be fully reviewed by the Islamic authorities in Tehran. Over the next few months I called him almost every day, but there was never any hint of progress. Finally I concluded that this path was leading nowhere. I wanted to be in Iran for the forty-ninth anniversary of the 1953 coup, and he admitted that there seemed little prospect of that.

“Maybe I should apply for a tourist visa,” I suggested.

“You could try,” he replied.

His tone sounded less than encouraging, but I took him at his word. I found a travel agent who specializes in sending people to exotic countries. Two weeks later, with her help, I had a visa in hand.

On the long Turkish Airlines flight across the Atlantic and then on to Tehran, I wondered what awaited me. My first hint that I was not entirely welcome came when I checked into the Laleh, which is one of the city’s largest hotels. Less than a year had passed since the 9/11 terror attacks in New York, and the desk clerk gave me the key to Room 911. To my protests, he could only shrug and reply that this was the room to which I had been assigned.

A few hours later the telephone rang. I had asked an Iranian friend to try to find people who might have known Mossadegh or been loyal to the National Front, and she now insisted that I come to see her immediately. When I arrived, she told me that a government official had called her with a stern warning. She was not to telephone anyone on my behalf and should also tell me that if I met with anyone at all, I would be summarily deported. What, then, about our plans to travel to Ahmad Abad on the anniversary of the August 19 coup?

“I can’t go with you,” she said. “They don’t want me to do any work for you at all.”

The anniversary was still a few days away. Tehran offers little in the way of diversion, and on my visa application I had expressed a desire to return to Isfahan, which I had visited on an earlier trip. I spent several days there and found the spectacular tiled palaces and mosques as dazzling as I had the first time. On my flight back to Tehran I sat next to a middle-aged businessman who, like everyone I met in Iran, detested the Islamic regime and thought well of Americans. Naturally I asked him about my favorite subject.

“You’re too young to remember Mossadegh,” I ventured, “but you must have heard about him. What did you hear? What did you learn?”

He paused for a moment to reflect. To speak of Mossadegh is not forbidden in Iran, nor would Iranians obey any such prohibition. But for five decades, excepting only a brief couple of years after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, he has been cast as a dubious figure at best, more likely a traitor.

“I don’t know that much about him,” my new acquaintance told me. “I know he nationalized our oil industry. But the main thing about Mossadegh is that he represents freedom. In his time there was free speech, there were free elections, people could do what they wanted. He reminds us that there was a time in Iran when we had democracy. That’s why our government is afraid of him.”

When I arrived back at the Laleh, I was assigned once again to Room 911. My guide—American tourists in Iran must travel with a guide—was not happy to learn that I wished to visit Mossadegh’s home at Ahmad Abad. I had planned simply to hire a taxi and go there, but the guide told me that was quite impossible. This struck me as odd, since Ahmad Abad is a farm village far from any military base or secret installation. Still, it is inextricably linked with the man who for eleven years was its sole prisoner and most famous citizen.

It was August 18, the night before the anniversary of the coup, when my guide appeared with good news about the miracle he had worked. I asked him why arranging such a seemingly innocuous trip should be so difficult. By his expression he seemed to tell me that if I understood Iran better, I would not have asked such a foolish question.

“For three reasons it is difficult,” he explained. “First of all, this is not a routine site. It’s not on the tourist program. The ministry of culture has a list of places that tourists can visit, and you’re supposed to stick to those places. No tourist ever goes to Ahmad Abad! Second, you did not list Ahmad Abad as a place you wanted to visit when you requested your tourist visa. We made a program for you based on your requests, and that program has been approved by the ministry. You’re supposed to stick to the program. And third, you don’t have the right visa to visit a place like that. If you had a journalist’s visa, you could travel anywhere, but not on a tourist visa. It was all very difficult and very complicated. A whole machinery had to be set in motion.”

The guide must have noticed my scowl, because after this litany he hastened to add, “You don’t have to feel specially obligated to me. I would have done it for any of my tourists.”

Ahmad Abad lies an hour’s drive west of Tehran. A highway runs most of the distance, and after leaving it, visitors wind their way past small factories and through barley and sugar beet fields. No sign points the way, nor does any mark the entrance to the village. There is only a small kiosk where sweets are sold. On the day I arrived, two small boys were sitting in the shade in front of it.

“Ask them who Mossadegh was,” I said to my guide. He did, and the boys broke into smiles, shaking their heads as if we must be dunces.

“He nationalized the oil industry!” one of them replied. The other one laughed. I was impressed.

The road into Ahmad Abad stops at the gate of a compound surrounded by a high brick wall. There is no name on the gate, but a quick look around made clear that there is no place in town nearly as imposing as this. It had to be Mossadegh’s home. I rang the bell and waited.

After a minute or two, a young woman opened the gate. Before us stretched a footpath about eighty yards long, lined on both sides by tall elm trees. Through the trees we could see a handsome two-story brick home with green frames around the doors and the windows.

For more than a decade Mossadegh never left this compound. He could have, because his sentence confined him only to the village, not strictly to the compound. Police agents, however, were under orders to follow and observe him if he stepped beyond the gates. He preferred solitude to their company.

The compound is quite a pleasant place, with paths through gardens and arbors, and the manor house is comfortable though hardly luxurious. Mossadegh was not idle here during his long imprisonment. He supervised the work of about two hundred peasants who worked in nearby fields, training them in the use of modern farm equipment and even winning an agricultural prize for a scheme that increased sugar beet production. His family had traditionally produced lawyers and doctors, and since he had already learned most of what there was to know about law, he devoted himself to studying medicine. He read medical texts and boiled local roots to make antimalaria medicine. When villagers became sick, he treated them. For those who fell seriously ill, he wrote notes that gained them admission to the Najmieh Hospital in Tehran, which his mother had founded. Many brought him their small problems and found him unfailingly attentive and generous.

During his long hours of solitude, Mossadegh spent much time in his upstairs library. He immersed himself in old interests, reading Islamic philosophy and the works of political theorists like Montesquieu and Rousseau, and developed new ones like cooking. He eliminated fried foods from his diet and ate only those that had been steamed or boiled. One of his favorite books, which is still in his study, was the
Larousse Gastronomique
.

Still, for one who lived within the walls of this compound for so long, it must have taken on something of the air of a prison. During his years there, Mossadegh was often unwell, suffering from periodic bouts of bleeding ulcers and other ailments. Relatives who visited him say that he was depressed, discouraged, and demoralized. He mourned not for the loss of his own power but for the collapse of his dreams for Iran. Nothing he did in Ahmad Abad was able to raise his spirits.

“I am effectively in jail,” he wrote in his memoir. “I am imprisoned in this village, deprived of all personal freedoms, and wishful that my time would be up soon and I would be relieved of this existence.”

The caretaker who escorted my guide and me into Mossadegh’s compound said that visitors appear there regularly, especially on weekends. On this day, however, the forty-ninth anniversary of the coup that brought down his government on August 19, 1953, we were the only ones. I had come halfway around the world to be here.

In his will Mossadegh expressed a desire to be buried at the Ebne Babooyeh cemetery in Tehran, alongside the graves of those killed defending his government during the clashes of July 1952. Mohammad Reza Shah, fearing that Mossadegh’s grave might become a focus of opposition, would not permit that. Relatives then decided to bury his remains without ceremony in Ahmad Abad. He had instructed them to construct no memorial, not even a gravestone, to mark the place. Those wishes were carried out. He now lies beneath the floor of what was once his dining room.

The carpeted room is small but pleasant, with windows that admit streams of sunlight. Over the years it has taken on the air of a shrine. A low wooden table covered with woven cloth stands over the spot where Mossadegh’s body is buried. On it there are two candles and a Koran. Most Iranian visitors follow tradition by laying a hand lightly on the cloth and reciting a verse that acknowledges God’s mercy and compassion.

Walls of this room are covered with images of Mossadegh. Some are painted in oil, others sketched in pen or pencil. One is an embroidery that shows him against the background of an Iranian flag. A silk-screen print carries a quote from one of his speeches: “As I am an Iranian and a Muslim, I oppose anything that is against Iran or Islam.” There is a photo of him vigorously defending himself at his trial and another, more plaintive one of him sitting alone and lost in thought during his house arrest. The one I liked best shows him at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, laying his finger on the famous crack.

This was the room where Mossadegh ate his daily meals and often received visitors. I spent a long time there, allowing my imagination to take me back to those days. Finally I thanked the caretaker and asked if I could walk around the grounds. She had no objection. I wandered among the shade trees and peered into a garage where a pale green 1948 Pontiac that belonged to Mossadegh’s wife sits unused.

After a few minutes, another, more intriguing object caught my attention. Leaning against the back wall were the tall double doors of a sturdy iron gate. It was the only object salvaged from the house in Tehran where Mossadegh lived most of his life, including his tumultuous years as prime minister.

What history this gate has seen! Through it, the American and British ambassadors to Iran, along with special emissaries like Averell Harriman, passed countless times as they sought to persuade Mossadegh to give up or modify his plan to nationalize his country’s oil industry. Crowds of thugs banged on it as they shouted “Death to Mossadegh!” during the aborted 1952 uprising. During that same uprising, a jeep carrying Shaban the Brainless crashed through the gate as Mossadegh scurried to safety over a back wall. There is still a large dent near the bottom that is probably a result of that crash.

The house before which this gate once stood was wrecked and burned on the night of August 19, 1953, and later the debris was bulldozed to make way for an apartment building. All that remains is the gate. This gives it great historical importance and, for those who knew Mossadegh or have tried to learn about him in the years since his death, an almost spiritual aura. I placed my hand on it and held it there for a long time.

Only a few people in Ahmad Abad could remember Mossadegh. I found one of them, Abolfathi Takrousta, working on his car in the dusty street outside his home. He is a truck driver and a farmer who worked as a cook in the Mossadegh complex when he was a teenager. When I told him why I had come, he brightened instantly and invited me onto his patio for tea and pistachio nuts. Birds sang as we sat under a grape arbor and talked about bygone days.

Although many accounts describe Mossadegh as having suffered from various ailments, especially in his later years, and although his three years in solitary confinement cannot have been healthy for a man his age, Mr. Takrousta remembered him as strong and vigorous. Once Mr. Takrousta began talking, stories flowed out. Mossadegh had opened a pharmacy where medicine was distributed free to villagers, loaned money to those in need, built an insulated shed to keep ice in summertime, and distributed free bags of grain to each of his laborers at Ramadan and on New Year’s Day. “Mossadegh was not like a normal landlord,” Mr. Takrousta told me. “He ran his estate like a charity. Most of what he grew, he gave back to the workers. Everyone here loved him. Any kind of a problem that you had, you would go to him and he would take care of it. From the highest official to the poorest worker, he treated everyone the same.”

One day, my new friend told me, a peasant came to Mossadegh to complain that he had been detained by some of the local Savak agents, taken to their headquarters, and beaten while they shouted questions about Mossadegh’s habits and conversations.

“It was the only time I ever saw him get angry. He called the police chief and shouted at him to come to the house immediately. When he got to the house, Mossadegh pushed him against a wall, held his cane against the guy’s throat and shouted: ‘You are here to watch me, and you have no right to abuse anyone else. If you have a problem, you come to me and only me! Don’t ever, ever lay a finger on one of my people again!’ This was a Savak officer and not a nice man at all, but when this happened he started apologizing and begging forgiveness. After that, the police never went near us. The jailer was afraid of the prisoner!”