CIA documents acknowledge its role in Iran's 1953 coup

[Surya Gayatri]

Last edited Tue Aug 20, 2013, 05:00 AM - Edit history (2)

Source: BBC News

"The CIA has released documents which for the first time formally acknowledge its key role in the 1953 coup which ousted Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadeq.
.../

But until now the intelligence agencies have issued "blanket denials" of their role, says the editor of the trove of documents, Malcolm Byrne.
.../

The documents show how the CIA prepared for the coup by placing anti-Mossadeq stories in both the Iranian and US media.
.../

The US and UK intelligence agencies bolstered pro-Shah forces and helped organise anti-Mossadeq protests."

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23762970

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File this in the "No shit, Sherlock" folder.

Still, very interesting to have the whole sorry business laid out in full view.

Sixty years on and the world is still paying the price for that ill-judged and untimely intervention.

Here's a direct link to the publishing entity and the docs in question.

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/

[ConcernedCanuk]

1. Comforting to know the USA never did anything like that since then . . .

.
.
.

CC

[Surya Gayatri]

5. Yeah, we can all sleep soundly knowing that the

CIA has never since broken and will never again break its own internal rules.

Congressional oversight has worked so well...

[Demeter]

2. Is this "timely" new release a pre-emptive move

now that the Snowden affair is going to spill the beans for all the nastiness since God knows when?

[Surya Gayatri]

3. Don't know, but the publishing entity is supposedly "independent"...

and has published these docs to mark the 60th anniversary of the coup.

"The documents were published on the independent National Security Archive on the 60th anniversary of the coup. .../

The documents were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research institution based at George Washington University."

http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB435/

ETA: link

[Demeter]

4. Oh, so it's a "Happy Anniversay" kind of thing

[Surya Gayatri]

6. Happy, happy, joy, joy!

[Scootaloo]

7. Except we already knew

I mean really, there was literally no one who did not already know the CIA's involvement in the overthrow of Mossadegh. We know all the names involved (Part of why Iran is pissed over it is that we had a guy named Kermit do it!) we have the timelines, we even know what MI6 was up to. The CIA might as well be revealing what their acronym stands for.

[Demeter]

8. It's always nice to have an official admission of guilt

It makes life so much easier for the prosecution.

[Scootaloo]

13. Prosecution?

Did you forget a sarcasm tag or something? 'Cause nobody is ever going to face prosecution over this. There will be no consequences, at least no for the agencies responsible (AFAIK, all the men responsible are long dead)

[Demeter]

14. Historians are the Ultimate Judge and Jury

[JohnyCanuck]

11. Here's one example of the Iran coup exposé, from long before the CIA's mea culpa.

A 'great venture': overthrowing the government of Iran
by Mark Curtis

This is a slightly abridged version of part of chapter four of Mark Curtis's book The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy since 1945 (Zed Press, 1995).
* * *

In August 1953 a coup overthrew Iran's nationalist government of Mohammed Musaddiq and installed the Shah in power. The Shah subsequently used widespread repression and torture in a dictatorship that lasted until the 1979 Islamic revolution. The 1953 coup is conventionally regarded primarily as a CIA operation, yet the planning record reveals not only that Britain was the prime mover in the initial project to overthrow the government but also that British resources contributed significantly to the eventual success of the operation. Two first-hand accounts of the Anglo-American sponsorship of the coup - by the MI6 and CIA officers primarily responsible for it - are useful in reconstructing events. (1) Many of the secret planning documents that reveal the British role have been removed from public access and some of them remain closed until the next century - for reasons of 'national security'. Nevertheless, a fairly clear picture still emerges. Churchill later told the CIA officer responsible for the operation that he 'would have loved nothing better than to have served under your command in this great venture'. (2)

In the 1950s the Anglo Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) - later renamed British Petroleum - which was managed from London and owned by the British government and British private citizens, controlled Iran's main source of income: oil. According to one British official, the AIOC 'has become in effect an imperium in imperio in Persia'. Iranian nationalists objected to the fact that the AIOC not only made revenues from Iranian oil 'greatly in excess of the revenues of the Persian government but [it] dominates the whole economic life of Persia, and therefore impairs her independence'. (3) The AIOC was recognised as 'a great foreign organisation controlling Persia's economic life and destiny'. The British oil business fared well from this state of affairs; the AIOC made £170 million in profits in 1950 alone. (4)

Iranians could also point to AIOC's effectively autonomous rule in the parts of the country where the oilfields lay, its low wage rates and the fact that the Iranian government was being paid royalties of 10% or 12% of the company's net proceeds, whilst the British government received as much as 30% of these in taxes alone. (5) Shown the overcrowded housing afforded to some of the AIOC workers, a British official commented: 'Well, this is just the way all Iranians live'. (6)

http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/articles/l30iran.htm

[olddad56]

21. agreed. Coming clean before they ar exposed anyway.

[tomp]

9. nice that is formally acknowledged....

....but don't imagine it's the "whole" story.

[burnodo]

10. Not the first and not the last

But a particularly insidious and tragic example of how US interests may clash with our so-called principles.

[newfie11]

12. Gotta wonder what Pakistan would be like today

IF our usual meddling (government overthrow) hadn't happened.
All the deaths, poverty, and misery America has caused world wide.
Yes we all knew the CIA did this but it is still happening.

[kentauros]

15. I've wondered too, as it would have affected the entire area.

I would assume to Pakistan as you mention that, but also across the top of Africa and the rest of the southern Mediterranean.

I guess because they were all so insanely afraid of anything even smelling like communism/socialism that they "had" to quell it, even if Iran was using democratic elections. Dictators are easier for the oil companies to control.

[newfie11]

17. The same can also be said about South America

and Central America.

[Kelvin Mace]

16. And yet, some around here insist

we should simply trust the government when it tells us that Snowden and Greenwald are traitrors who are harming national security and we must trust them that they are not breaking the law, no matter what the traitors reveal.

After all, look how well Iran turned out.

[newfie11]

18. +1

[niyad]

19. I wonder how many people are actually surprized about this?

[yurbud]

20. k & r:

[Iggo]

22. 60 years, eh?

Well, at least they're faster than the catholic church.