Operation Ajax: The 1953 Coup in Iran
On August 19, 1953, Iran's prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq, was overthrown in a coup that the CIA and British intelligence helped plan. The CIA code-named its part TPAJAX. The basic U.S. and British role has long been public, and declassified CIA records released in 2013 include what the National Security Archive calls the agency's first formal acknowledgement of it.
Verdict: Confirmed. This one really happened. The core events are documented in the official records and reporting cited below. How we rate stories
The Story
In March 1951, Iran decided to nationalize the assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, setting off a bitter dispute with Britain. On August 19, 1953, Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq was overthrown.
The day itself, as reconstructed in materials posted by the National Security Archive, was chaotic. Early that morning, bands of "ruffians," paid by coup organizers to demonstrate, gathered in the bazaar and southern Tehran and moved north through the capital. Pro-Shah police, military units and undercover agents joined in from mid-morning. Pro-Shah forces took control of some 24 tanks during the day. By late afternoon, forces converged on Mosaddeq's house, and he escaped over a garden wall before the house was destroyed. By then, Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi had already addressed the nation from the radio station.
CIA officials said most of the coup records were lost or destroyed in the early 1960s, allegedly because the record-holders' "safes were too full." (as reported by the National Security Archive)
Behind it, according to the Archive's account of declassified records, was a joint U.S.-British operation the CIA called TPAJAX. Donald Wilber, a CIA planner, served as lead U.S. planner alongside British intelligence officer Norman Darbyshire, and Kermit Roosevelt was the senior CIA officer on the ground in Iran.
Then came the long wait for the paperwork. When the State Department published its official documentary volume on Iran for those years in 1989, it "did not provide any documentation on the role of the Central Intelligence Agency." The department itself says this "prompted a sharply critical reaction from concerned academics, the media, and other interested members of the public," and that in 1991 the reaction led Congress to update the law requiring the series to be "a thorough, accurate, and reliable documentary record." British documents posted by the Archive show the Foreign Office worried in 1978 that "very embarrassing things about the British" were likely to appear in the planned U.S. history.
The CIA, meanwhile, said little. According to the Archive, agency officials stated that most of the coup records were lost or destroyed in the early 1960s, allegedly because the record-holders' "safes were too full." When the Archive sued in 1999 for Wilber's 200-page internal history, the agency agreed to release a single sentence. The full history had already leaked to The New York Times, which posted it in 2000.
In 2013, on the coup's 60th anniversary, the Archive posted newly declassified CIA records, including what it describes as the agency's first formal acknowledgement that it helped plan and carry out the coup. The State Department later published its retrospective volume on the covert operations. Big questions remain, including how much credit or blame belongs to Iranians and how much to foreigners. Washington's role, though, is no longer a rumor. It is in the government's own history.
Origins
The dispute began when Iran decided to nationalize the assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in March 1951. The State Department's official documentary history of the period, published in 1989, left out the CIA's role entirely. The resulting criticism led Congress to update the law governing that history in 1991, and the State Department later published a retrospective volume on the covert operations.
The Claims
- The CIA and Britain engineered the overthrow of Iran's elected government.
- Washington spent decades hiding its role.
Key Evidence
- The National Security Archive (2013) says a mid-1970s internal CIA history, The Battle for Iran, contains what is believed to be the CIA's first formal acknowledgement that it 'helped to plan and execute the coup.' The code name TPAJAX had been blacked out of a 1981 release.
- According to the Archive, Donald Wilber served as lead U.S. planner of TPAJAX along with British SIS officer Norman Darbyshire, and Kermit Roosevelt was 'the senior CIA officer on the ground in Iran during the coup.'
- The State Department says its 1989 volume 'did not provide any documentation on the role of the Central Intelligence Agency' in the covert action that led to Mosaddeq's overthrow, which 'prompted a sharply critical reaction from concerned academics, the media, and other interested members of the public.'
The Evidence Against
- The U.S. and British role is documented and not in dispute. What remains debated, according to the National Security Archive, is how to divide responsibility among the Iranian and foreign actors involved. Even 'who hatched the plot, who ultimately carried it out, who supported it inside Iran, and how did it succeed' are still argued over.
- Many records are gone or still secret. The Archive says CIA officials have stated that most coup records were lost or destroyed in the early 1960s, allegedly because the record-holders' 'safes were too full.'
Documents & Sources
- AcademicDeclassified DocumentCIA Confirms Role in 1953 Iran Coup — National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 435 (Aug. 19, 2013) nsarchive2.gwu.edu ↗
- Gov DocumentDeclassified DocumentForeign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Iran, 1951–1954 (Retrospective volume) — Preface history.state.gov ↗
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