Ike's Spies (33 page)

Ike decided it was time to act. He ordered the
CIA
to go ahead with a plan that had been initiated by the British Secret Service, picked up by Kim Roosevelt, and approved five weeks earlier by his State Department in a high-level meeting in the Secretary of State's office.

That meeting inaugurated the
CIA'S
covert-action program, going beyond simple financial support for America's overseas friends, to active intervention in the affairs of a foreign nation, to the point of overthrowing a government.

THE MEETING BEGAN
when Kim Roosevelt laid before Secretary of State John Foster Dulles a thick paper outlining a plan of clandestine action, code name
AJAX
. Picking it up, the Secretary glanced around the room, smiled, and said, “So this is how we get rid of that madman Mossadegh!” No one laughed; indeed, some of those around the table flinched.
²⁸

Among those present were Bedell Smith, who Ike had moved from the
CIA
to the State Department, where he was now the Under Secretary of State. Bedell was a neighbor and old friend of Roosevelt's. He already knew of and had approved
AJAX
. Smith's replacement as director of the
CIA
, Allen Dulles, was also there. He, too, knew and approved of
AJAX
. A third insider was Loy Henderson, “a gentleman himself,” Roosevelt recorded, “who preferred dealing with his foreign colleagues in a gentlemanly fashion. But Henderson was one of a small band of distinguished foreign-service officers of that era who understood the realities of life in this world we live in.” In other words, Henderson too supported
AJAX
.
²⁹

There were a number of State Department officials present who were not in on the plot, including Robert Murphy, who had been Ike's first spy back in North Africa eleven years earlier. The new Secretary of Defense, Charles Wilson (“Engine Charlie,” former head of General Motors) was there, ruddy-faced, white-haired, gruff, blunt to the point of embarrassment. Wilson had a habit of sitting through meetings with a cigarette in his mouth, letting it smolder right down until it started to burn his lips. He would toss it into the ashtray and light another and let it burn down. He had a
way of getting to the heart of the matter. At one early Eisenhower cabinet meeting, there was a long discussion of America's military posture vis-à-vis Communist China. Finally Wilson stubbed out a cigarette butt, turned to Ike, and said, “Mr. President, I understand from what's been said that we could lick China. What I don't understand is what we would do with China after we got them licked.”
³⁰

A group of hardheaded realists, in short, men of vast experience, able, cynical, accustomed to assessing evidence and making tough decisions, unafraid to take risks. Men Ike trusted to give him sound, practical advice. If Roosevelt could convince them that
AJAX
could work, they would convince Ike.

Roosevelt began by saying that, on Allen Dulles' instructions, he had made two trips to Iran since the election in order to make a judgment on two points. First, that “the Soviet threat is indeed genuine, dangerous, and imminent,” and second, that in a showdown “the Iranian army and the Iranian people will back the Shah.” Roosevelt said he was satisfied on both points. He reported further that the British had approved
AJAX
and agreed to provide whatever support they could, but given anti-British sentiment in Iran would stay as far in the background as possible.

The objective of
AJAX
was to remove Mossadegh from office. The Shah had indicated that he wanted to replace Mossadegh with General Zahedi. That was a bit much for the British to swallow, as they had kept Zahedi in prison throughout World War II and he was almost as anti-British as Mossadegh. But Churchill and his Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, realized that their choices were limited, and between Mossadegh and Zahedi they preferred Zahedi.

The first task, Roosevelt continued, was to organize military support for the Shah. The chief of staff, General Riahi, was a supporter of Mossadegh. He would have to be removed or circumvented. The key to
AJAX
was to be prepared to give the Shah prompt support, both military and public, when he announced the dismissal of Mossadegh and the appointment of Zahedi.

“We are quite satisfied, sir,” Roosevelt concluded, turning to Secretary Dulles, “that this can be done successfully. All we wait upon is your decision.”

Allen Dulles spoke first. “Kim, you had better cover two more points before the Secretary comments: first, on the estimated cost,
and secondly, I think you should give your idea of the ‘flap potential'—what could happen if things go wrong.”

Roosevelt responded that the cost would be minimal, one or two hundred thousand dollars at the most. On the second point, he said again that he saw no danger of failure, but if he had totally misjudged the situation and things did go wrong, the consequences “would be very bad—perhaps terrifyingly so. Iran would fall to the Russians, and the effect on the rest of the Middle East could be disastrous. But I must add this: These are the same consequences we face if we do nothing.”

Foster Dulles asked about General Guilanshah, the commander of the Iranian Air Force. Roosevelt said that although he was loyal to the Shah, he would not be a part of the plot because there was no role for the Air Force in
AJAX
and the conspirators wanted to keep the number of those in the know at the smallest possible figure.

The Secretary of State then polled the men around the table. Most signified consent with the least possible commitment. Roosevelt had no doubts about Bedell Smith—six months earlier, when Smith was still
DCI
, he had called Roosevelt into his office to demand, “When are those blanking British coming to talk to us? And when is our goddam operation going to get underway? Pull up your socks and get going, young man.”
³¹
Now, when asked by Foster Dulles whether to go or not, Smith, surly as always, snarled that of course they should proceed.

Robert Murphy, the only man present with some experience in overthrowing governments, nodded his assent. Charles Wilson was enthusiastic. Loy Henderson spoke gravely: “Mr. Secretary, I don't like this kind of business at all. You know that. But we are confronted by a desperate, a dangerous situation and a madman who would ally himself with the Russians. We have no choice but to proceed with this undertaking. May God grant us success.”

“That's that, then,” the Secretary of State declared. “Let's get going!”

Later, Roosevelt recorded his conviction that “I was morally certain that almost half of those present, if they had felt free or had the courage to speak, would have opposed the undertaking.”
³²

The next step was to get the approval of the heads of government. As noted, Ike gave his orders to go ahead after Mossadegh opened negotiations with the Soviets. On the British side, there was
no problem—Churchill and Eden had been in on
AJAX
from the start; they had been the men who had initiated the operation.

HAVING CONVINCED HIS SUPERIORS THAT AJAX
could work, and having obtained the President's go-ahead, Kim Roosevelt's next task was to persuade the Shah to act. This proved to be more difficult than convincing the Dulles brothers and Eisenhower. The Shah sensed that in trying to rid himself of Mossadegh, he could lose everything. In a showdown, the army and the people might very well support the Prime Minister rather than H.I.M.

When Roosevelt entered Iran in mid-July 1953 he knew that he had fudged a bit before the Dulles brothers in outlining
AJAX
when he guaranteed that the Shah was prepared for decisive action. In fact, the Shah was hesitant, confused, fearful. Two Iranian secret agents, who had once worked for the British, then joined with Roosevelt, had explained this quite carefully to him during one of his earlier visits.

H.I.M., the agents told Roosevelt, “is concerned over the apparent fact that he has no foreign support. Obviously the Russians … are his enemies. He knows they support Mossadegh. What about the West? As you know, as we know, they
are
with him. But how can he tell? Look at the terrific reception Mossadegh was given in Washington [by the Truman administration]. How can the Shah be sure, after that, that the U.S. will give him their backing? And the British, who are—whatever they may think—just about to be thrown out of Iran, why should he believe that they will come to his assistance? We hope you can find some way of convincing him, preferably not just of U.S. support but of British as well. We don't know just how we are going to arrange all this, but we tell you: It must be done!”
³³

Ambassador Henderson, at Roosevelt's urging, had tried to reassure the Shah of Western support. “I did have many frank private talks with the Shah during which I tried to encourage him,” Henderson later recalled. “I can remember, for instance, that at one time, almost despairing at the position in which Mossadegh had pushed him, the Shah had decided to go abroad. I pled with him not to do so, pointing out that his departure might well lead to the loss of Iran's independence. I was greatly relieved when he decided that it was his duty to remain in the country regardless of the humiliations that Mossadegh was heaping on him.”
³⁴

The simplest, most direct way to buck up the wavering Shah would have been for Roosevelt himself to go directly to the palace, but the Dulles brothers were determined to keep
AJAX
a clandestine operation. When they agreed to allow Roosevelt to serve as the agent in charge of
AJAX
, it was with the explicit understanding that he would remain completely out of sight. “He has a very prominent family name,” Foster Dulles had declared, chuckling. “He will have to keep away from anyone who might know him.” The Secretary did not want the American role revealed, under any circumstances.
³⁵

Roosevelt had therefore set up his command post in the basement of a “safe house” in Teheran, but there could be no coup if the Shah was afraid to act, and in early August the Shah was wavering more than ever. At this juncture, General Schwarzkopf appeared in Iran, “armed with a diplomatic passport and a couple of large bags” containing “millions of dollars.”
^*

Schwarzkopf requested and was granted an audience with the Shah. But H.I.M., fearing spies in his own palace, was cautious, and Schwarzkopf's reassurances of Western support were not convincing. Meanwhile the Tudeh Party newspapers had learned of Schwarzkopf's presence. In special editions, they loudly denounced H.I.M. for his contacts with “brainless agents of international reaction.” Mossadegh was furious. He threatened to hold another referendum, this time to depose the Shah. The crisis was at hand.

Obviously Schwarzkopf had to get out of the country, fast. Before leaving, he met with Roosevelt. “Kim,” he said, “you simply are not going to be able to deal with the Shahanshah through
any
intermediary. I'm convinced that you will have to meet with H.I.M. personally.” Nothing short of a direct meeting between the two men would convince the Shah to act.
³⁷

Roosevelt agreed emphatically. Using a communications network set up by the British on Cyprus, he got Ike to add a phrase to a speech he was making in San Francisco, and Churchill to alter
the BBC time announcement. That night he made the first in his series of clandestine visits to the palace, where he managed to convince the Shah that with Eisenhower, Churchill, and a Roosevelt standing behind him, H.I.M. could afford to act.

FOR KIM
ROOSEVELT
, hiding in his safe house, the big news was not the delay of prohibition, but rather the distressing word that the Shah had fled his capital. After agreeing to sign a royal decree dismissing Mossadegh and replacing him with General Zahedi, H.I.M. had lost his nerve. Together with his queen, he had
flown off to his summer palace on the Caspian Sea—without signing the decree.