Review: Iran's 1953 Coup: Revisiting Mosaddeq

Reviewed Work(s): Behind the 1953 Coup in Iran: Thugs, Turncoats, Soldiers, and Spooks
by Ali Rahnema
Review by: Fariborz Mokhtari
Source: Bustan: The Middle East Book Review , Vol. 7, No. 2 (2016), pp. 113-129
Published by: Penn State University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/bustan.7.2.0113

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 Iran’s 1953 Coup: Revisiting Mosaddeq
Fariborz Mokhtari
University of Vermont | fariborz.mokhtari@gmail.com

Ali Rahnema
Behind the 1953 Coup in Iran: Thugs, Turncoats, Soldiers, and Spooks
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 320 pp.
isbn: 978-1-1074-2975-8

ABSTRACT : A coup d’état ended Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq’s ­government

in Iran on August 19, 1953. The United States and Great Britain were undeniably
involved, but the country’s internal dynamics may have been even more crucial.
The notion that foreign agents subverted Iran and its elected government entirely
through their paid operators is not an accurate assessment. This brief account of
postwar Iranian politics serves as an important context for events that took place
during Mosaddeq’s premiership, and perhaps makes the search for those culpable for
the coup less important than coming to terms with the continued tension between
nationalist-modernism and religious-traditionalism in Iran.

KEYWORDS: Iran – Mosaddeq – Mohammad Reza Shah – nationalization – oil – Ayatollah

Kashani – Tudeh – National Front

Professor Rahnema’s book is detailed and passionately written. He is correct

in concluding that a social, political, and psychological malaise has derailed
Iran’s development ever since 1953 (294). Indeed one may add that the 1979
Islamic Revolution was a consequence of the derailment. But the events that
traumatized the nation in 1953 had begun decades earlier. Nationalization of
Iran’s oil industry was of course a major development immensely popular in
Iran, although appallingly shocking to the British government. Iranians had
detested Britain’s exploitive policies for more than a century, yet the British
viewed Iran’s hydrocarbon resources as their property, even though they
came from under Iranian soil. The enterprise—Anglo-Iranian Oil Company,

Bustan: The Middle East Book Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2016

Copyright © 2016 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

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114 bustan: the middle east book review

AIOC (originally Anglo-Persian)—was obscenely profitable for Britain. The

Abadan refinery alone was Britain’s largest overseas asset. Winston Churchill
boasted,

The aggregate profits . . . are such that we may not unreasonably expect
that one day we shall be entitled also to claim that the mighty fleet laid
down in 1912, 1913, and 1914, the greatest ever built by any power in an
equal period, were added to the British Navy without costing a single
penny to the taxpayer.1

Britain, uninterested in sharing the profits, could not easily afford to let
Iranians wrest control of their country’s petroleum resources, and Iranians
were determined to end the humiliation. Obstinacy led to nationaliza-
tion of the oil industry, yet the crisis that led to the fall of Prime Minister
Mohammad Mosaddeq’s government was only the tip of an iceberg. Hidden
beneath the surface were developments that cast doubt on the argument
that foreign conspirators employing domestic thugs and turncoat soldiers
overthrew a burgeoning democracy in Iran. To elucidate the consequential
events that led to Mosaddeq’s fall, a brief summary of the decade prior to
1951 is essential.
The Allied invasion of Iran, despite the country’s declared neutrality and
dismantling of Reza Shah’s government in 1941, reintroduced foreign med-
dling and clerical influence, which had subsided in the previous two decades.
As the occupying forces departed in 1946, these influences exploded on to
the scene once again. By then, Ayatollah Abol-Qasem Kashani (1885–1961) had
emerged as the chief activist cleric, and numerous other political parties had
entered the sociopolitical scene with their own foot soldiers. The ideologies
purveyed ranged from communism to fascism, while some parties were little
more than a political movement based around a single personality. Power shar-
ing, cooperation, and compromise—the lifeblood of ­democratic ­governance—
did not seem to interest political leaders of the time. The country had had
seventeen different governments from 1941 to Mosaddeq’s premiership in
1951, with an average life span of seven months each. Parliamentary lead-
ers were more likely to obstruct than to assist a prime minister. Governance
was reactive and crises laden with the annual budget appropriation often
legislated for a month at a time.2 There were numerous newspapers in

1. Winston S. Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 1 (New York: Scribner’s, 1923), 140.
2. The country’s economic uncertainty was magnified by passing the budget in
­one-twelfth increments, usually just in time to pay government employees’ salaries.

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 Fariborz Mokhtari: Iran’s 1953 Coup 115

circulation, recurrent rallies, and frequent speeches around the country, but
freedom of expression was tempered by blatant violence and assassination.
Ahmad Kasravi’s murder was but one example. Fadaʾiyan-e Islam (Devotees of
Islam) guided and protected by Kashani, killed Kasravi (a noted lawyer and
journalist critical of clerics and lawyers) and his assistant on March 11, 1946,
ironically in a court of law at the Ministry of Justice in Tehran.3
Kashani seized an opportunity to oppose Prime Minister Ibrahim Hakimi’s
government and his Minister of Education, Dr. Abdol Majid Zangeneh, over a
bill introduced to ban journals denigrating the principles of Islam, insulting
the institution of monarchy, or causing public unrest. Kashani placed himself
at the forefront of the national opposition and called for public demonstra-
tions to oppose the government. The government finally collapsed on June 6,
1946. Kashani then opposed the next government, headed by Ahmad Qavam,
over convening the upper house of Parliament, the Senate, as prescribed by
the Constitution. After a bloody confrontation allegedly instigated by Kashani,
he was exiled to Qazvin, west of Tehran; however, elected to the lower house
of Parliament, he returned in triumph. Kashani organized a demonstration
at Baharestan Plaza facing the Parliament Gate on June 13, 1948, to oppose
Abdol Hossein Hazhir, who had been nominated by parliamentarians (66 of
120 present) for prime minister.4 When Speaker of Parliament Sardar-Fakher
Hekmat suggested, “the Ayatollah ought to convince the Majles Deputies
rather than cause commotion,” Kashani denounced not only Hazhir but
the parliamentarians who had nominated him (June 15). Two days later,
Fadaʾiyan-e Islam leader Navab Safavi led a violent demonstration in sup-
port of Kashani’s position at Baharestan Plaza in which numerous security
guards and demonstrators sustained injuries. Hazhir persisted, requested a
vote of confidence on June 29, 1948, and received it (from 88 of the 96 Majles
representatives present). But the opposition’s campaign continued. Hazhir
repeated his request to Majles (August 23) and secured another vote of con-
fidence with a greater margin (93 deputies voted for him).5 Yet, faced with
daily demonstrations and civil unrest, he resigned on November 6, 1948.

3. Kasravi, who had a command of both Arabic and Persian, was also a scholar and
historian with a clerical background and theological education. He engaged the clerics
in debate, criticized them in essays and countered their theological rhetoric with well-
founded interpretations.
4. Mohammad Saʿed Maraghei and Baqer Aqeli, eds., Khaterat-e Siasi [Political recollec-
tions] (Tehran: Namak Publishing, 1994), 240.
5. Dr. Baqer Aqeli, Roozshomaar-e Tarikh-e Iran az Mashrooteh ta Enqelaab-e Eslaami 1906–1979
[Chronology of Iran: 1906–1979], vols. 1–2, 1st ed. (Tehran: Goftar Publishing, 1990),
297–98. Roozshomar [Daily account] is a compilation of daily reports by the media.

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116 bustan: the middle east book review

Iran’s 1906 Constitution called for four important steps to form a new
government: (1) parliamentary nomination of a candidate with expression
of support by a simple majority in the lower house of Parliament; (2) royal
appointment of the nominee as the prime minister; (3) introduction of the
Cabinet by the prime minister and presentation of the new government’s
policy plans to the House and the Senate; and (4) votes of confidence by the
two houses of Parliament to confirm the installation of the new government.
Despite a hotly contested electoral campaign in 1949, Kashani’s parlia-
mentary supporters were not elected. The National Front (a Mosaddeq-led
coalition), the Tudeh Communist Party, and the Fadaʿiyan-e Islam joined
forces with Kashani’s supporters to press the young king, Mohammad Reza
Shah Pahlavi, who had succeeded his father, Reza Shah, in 1941, to dismiss
the election results. On February 4, 1949, an attempt to assassinate the shah
left him with minor injuries, but the assailant, Nasser Mirfakhraii—allegedly
a Tudeh Party member and a photojournalist for Parcham-e Islam (Banner of
Islam), associated with the Fadaʿiyan-e Islam—was killed by a security guard’s
return fire. His face bandaged and in hospital, the shah called for a constitu-
tional convention to amend the Constitution, ostensibly to avoid gridlocks
in governance. The Tudeh Party and the Fadaʿiyan-e Islam organization
were banned in reaction to the assassination attempt, and Kashani, who had
denounced the Fadaʿiyan’s suppression, was arrested and exiled to Lebanon.
On November 4, 1949, another Fadaʿiyan assassin, Hossein Emami, shot and
killed the former prime minister Hazhir, as new elections in lieu of the one
dismissed were being held. While refusing to return the twenty tons of gold
bullion reserve it had removed from Iran’s Central Bank in the early days of
the Allied occupation in 1941, Moscow bombarded Iran with relentless pro-
paganda over the radio.6
The elections ushered all National Front (Mosaddeq’s coalition) candidates,
as well as Kashani, into Parliament. Kashani returned from exile to claim his seat
amid welcoming crowds of clerics and National Front supporters on June 10,
1950. Only eight days later, on June 18, Mosaddeq, demonstrating his new polit-
ical alliance, read a statement in Parliament dictated by Kashani that declared:
(1) Iran’s oil belongs to Iranians; (2) those who had exiled him [Kashani] had
to be punished; (3) the death of Mirfakhraii (the shah’s assailant) had pre-
vented the identification of a traitorous conspiracy; (4) Iranians will not accept

6. Tudeh Party member Hassan Ja’fari gunned down Ahman Dehghan, actor and Majles
deputy, on May 27, 1950. The Soviet Union finally returned 11 tons of the gold on
June 1, 1955, and on August 1, 1955, agreeing to incrementally deliver an additional
$8.75 ­million worth of goods to settle the debt. See Aqeli, Chronology, 347–48.

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 Fariborz Mokhtari: Iran’s 1953 Coup 117

dictatorship; and (5) the decisions of the recently convened ­constitutional

­convention were invalid. The newly forged coalition included activist clerics
and their followers, bazaar merchants and shopkeepers, trade associations,
middle-class professionals, several political parties, and the communists. The
alliance’s centrifugal binding force was the determination to wrest control of
the oil industry from the British by any means possible.
Major General Hai-Ali Razmara was appointed prime minister on June 26,
1950. He had had a distinguished military record, having commanded the
forces that entered Tabriz on December 15, 1946, which ended the Soviet-
backed attempt to detach the Azerbaijan Province from Iran. He presented
his cabinet to the Majles on June 27, but faced relentless heckling in the
legislative chamber led by Mohammad Mosaddeq, Mozaffar Baqaii, Hossein
Makki, Abolqader Azad, Allahyar Saleh, Mahmoud Nariman, and Ali Shaygan.
Mosaddeq passed out during the commotion and had to be carried outside
and revived. Razmara receive his vote of confidence (93 out of 107 present)
on July 4, but the opposition illustrated its disapproval by screaming and
smashing their desks in the legislative chamber. The Senate’s vote of con-
fidence followed (35 of the 49 present) on July 10, despite senators Ahmad
Matin-Daftari, Mohammad Taddayon, Hossein Dadgar, Mahmoud Hesabi, and
Abdol-Hossein Nikpour’s objections.
The Parliamentary Petroleum Commission formed to study the oil indus-
try and AIOC remittances composed of Mosaddeq, Baqaii, Makki, Azad, Saleh,
Nariman, Shaygan, Abol-Hassan Haʿerizadeh, Mirsayyed-Ali Behbahani, Abbas
Eslami, and Kazem Shaibani presented its report to Majles on December 17,
1950, and recommended nationalization. Ayatollah Kashani issued a fatwa
and called for a public gathering on December 22 to support immediate
nationalization. Razmara, in a closed session of Parliament two days later,
pleaded that Iran did not have the industrial capacity to extract the oil on
its own, nor did it have access to international markets to sell it. The imme-
diate nationalization of the oil industry in such circumstances, he warned,
would be “the greatest treason.”7 The reaction was swift. Kashani called for
a demonstration at Baharestan Plaza on December 29, at which speakers
addressing thousands relentlessly attacked Prime Minister Razmara and his
government. Similar demonstrations took place throughout the country in
the following weeks, but two gatherings at Tehran’s King’s Mosque stood out
for the vitriolic attacks directed at Razmara—one at Kashani’s invitation on
January 26, 1951, and another on March 3 sponsored by the Fadaʿiyan-e Islam.

7. Ibid., 317.

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118 bustan: the middle east book review

Then on March 7, 1951, Khalil Tahmasebi, a Fadaʿiyan assassin, shot and

killed Prime Minister Razmara. The following day Kashani called the assassin
at a press conference a “national hero [monji-e mellat],” and the murder a
“religious requirement [vajeb].” That afternoon at another Baharestan demon-
stration, parliamentarians Hossein Makki and Mozaffar Baqaii congratu-
lated the nation for the prime minister’s death. A week later, on March 15,
1951, the nationalization bill was unanimously passed at an open session of
Parliament.8 A foreign correspondent reported,

If a secret ballot had been possible, the vote probably would have gone
against immediate nationalization. But the members had to stand up
and be counted—with the eyes of Fadaiyan Islam upon them. A specta-
tor in the gallery shouted, “Eight grains of gunpowder has brought this
about.”9

The Fadaʾiyan struck again as nationalization was being celebrated, killing

Dr. Majid Zangeneh, dean of Tehran University’s College of Law, and former
minister of education in Prime Minister Ibrahim Hakimi’s Cabinet. Sadeq
Hedayat, a noted literary figure and Razmara’s brother-in-law, wrote to Peter
Avery—a scholar of Iranian history and literature—that the “vileness and
political obscenity of Tehran had become intolerable. There was no hope any
longer that political freedom or decency might prevail, and he was leaving
[Iran] never to return.” He committed suicide in Paris a few months later.10
Hossein Ala, a seasoned political figure, became prime minister on March 20,
1951. Ala had valiantly defended Iran at the UN Security Council against the
Soviet Union’s refusal to withdraw its forces from Iran after World War II.
Yet, pressed for immediate nationalization of the oil industry, he resigned
within a week, on March 27.11 The following day Jamaal Emami suggested in
Parliament that Mosaddeq replace Ala. Mosaddeq welcomed the nomination
immediately, and 79 of the 100 deputies present expressed their support for
his nomination. Mosaddeq had been offered the office seven years earlier on

8. Ibid., 320.
9. Yousof Mazandi and Edwin Muller, “Government by Assassination: The Story Behind
the Headlines about Iran,” Reader’s Digest, September 1951, 30. Peter Avery’s observa-
tion is the same. “The Majles approved the nationalization proposal of Dr. Musaddiq’s
Oil Commission without any appreciable show of opposition, for who was going to risk
being shot?” See Avery, Modern Iran (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), 418.
10. Aqeli, Chronology, 320; Avery, Modern Iran, p. 449.
11. The British government owned 80 percent of AIOC, later renamed British Petroleum.
Aqeli, Chronology, 320–22. The date of Ala’s nomination is given as March 11.

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 Fariborz Mokhtari: Iran’s 1953 Coup 119

November 12, 1944 (Persian calendar, Aban 21, 1322) and was invited to the
Royal Palace for investiture on November 14. He had declined the appoint-
ment because his demand, assurance of return to his parliamentary seat
after his premiership, could not be met.12 This time Mosaddeq welcomed
the Royal appointment on April 30, 1951. Two weeks later, he announced the
formation of a Committee of Expropriation (khalʾ-e yad) to wrest the control
of Iran’s oil industry from Britain. The committee included Mohammad-Ali
Varasteh, Mehdi Bazargan (who became the Islamic Republic’s first premier),
Abdol-Hossein Aliabady, Mohammad Bayat, and Kazem Hasibi. Mosaddeq,
during the same parliamentary meeting, stated that the Fadaʿiyan had
conspired to kill him, and fearing for his own safety he would not leave
the Majles premises. The Fadaʿiyan leaders had reportedly requested
“power-sharing,” while visiting Kashani following the passage of the nation-
alization bill, and left disappointed.
Kashani, in order to convince Mosaddeq that he had not been a party to the
alleged Fadaʿiyan conspiracy, openly broke with the movement. In response, the
Fadaʿiyan threatened both Kashani and Mosaddeq “with the same treatment
given Razmara.” When the Fadaʿiyan leader Navab Safavi was arrested on June 4,
1951, he carried a list in his pocket that named his targets for assassination.
Kashani, Mosaddeq, the shah’s twin sister Princess Ashraf, and Dr. Manuchehr
Eqbal a former interior minister, headed the list.13 Two days after Safavi’s arrest,
an ominous announcement by the Fadaʿiyan warned, “If a single hair is shed
from Navab Safavi’s head [in captivity], we will kill a lot of people.”14
On May 15, 1951, Mosaddeq dissolved the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in an
executive order to all government agencies.15 On June 5 Kashani threatened a

12. Ibid., 263.

13. Eqbal served as the Tabriz University chancellor in 1950, Tehran University’s chan-
cellor in 1954, later became prime minister (1957–60), and subsequently the director
of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). He had served as Minister of Interior,
Transportation, Culture, and Health in the cabinets of Mohammad Saʿed, Rajab-Ali
Mansur, Hazhir, and Qavam. He was also a member of the French Académie Nationale
de Medicine.
14. Mohammad Hassan Faghfoory, “The Role of the Ulama in Twentieth-Century Iran,
with Particular Reference to Ayatollah Haj Sayyed Abol-Qasim Kashani,” PhD diss.,
University of Wisconsin, 1978, 183, 188, 192, 194, 198.
15. Kashani had already issued a declaration that Mosaddeq was the only legitimate can-
didate, and the Fadaʿiyan had pulled out all the stops to gather support for him on
the streets. Some have alleged that Emami nominated Mosaddeq thinking that he
would decline again, thus taking the wind out of the ongoing political agitation. Aqeli,
Chronology, 324.

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120 bustan: the middle east book review

jihad against the British if AIOC assets were not voluntarily turned over to the
Iranian government at once.16 But the Tudeh Party created an unexpected
predicament for Mosaddeq by stirring up oil workers to strike. The rift  thus
caused between the administration on the one hand, and the Fad’iyan and the
Tudeh Party on the other, showed the fragility of the coalition that had brought
Mosaddeq to power in the first place. To muzzle opposition to Mosaddeq,
Kashani declared September 31 a public holiday and exhorted the nation to
“demonstrate ­support for the prime minister and disgust for his parliamentary
opponents.”17
Mosaddeq flew to New York on October 7 to address the UN Security Council
on October 11. Media coverage was highly emotive and radio particularly
effective. Of the 370 newspapers and journals in circulation in Iran, 300 had
been favorable to the prime minister.18 Britain had secured an injunction from
the International Court of Justice against Iran repossessing the oil industry.
Iran argued that the 1933 agreement had been between the Iranian govern-
ment and a private company (AIOC), granting Iranian courts exclusive juris-
diction in the matter. (The International Court of Justice eventually upheld
Iran’s position in July 1952.)19 Britain’s appeal to the Security Council did not
succeed and Mosaddeq left New York for Washington to meet with President
Harry S. Truman. Despite US efforts, British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden
rejected a compromise formulated by Assistant Secretary of State George
McGee and supported by Secretary of State Dean Acheson. The failure moved
Acheson to state, “Never had so few lost so much so stupidly and so fast.”20
Unable to market Iran’s oil and deprived of the revenue, Mosaddeq faced
a financial crisis at home. To finance the government’s mounting ­deficit,

16. Ibid., 326.

17. Ibid., 328 (emphasis in the original).
18. Fakhreddin Azimi, “Unseating Mosaddeq: The Configuration and Role of Domestic
Forces,” in Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, ed. Mark Gasiorowski and
Malcolm Byrne (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2004), 98.
19. The oil concession was originally granted to a Briton, William Knox D’Arcy. The British
government became a major shareholder when the “Anglo-Persian Oil Company” was
renamed “Anglo-Iranian Oil Company” in 1909. A refinery was built in Abadan in 1913,
but Iran canceled the concession in 1932. The 1933 agreement limited the area of con-
cession and guaranteed both a minimum royalty and a defined tax to be paid to the
Iranian government through 1993.
20. Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years at the State Department (New York:
W. W. Norton, 1969), 510. McGee’s proposal, which Acheson considered “ingenious,”
called for compensation based on current market prices, recognition of Iran’s sover-
eignty over its resources, and nationalization. The Abadan refinery would be operated
by a neutral company, and AIOC would receive oil for export on a 50/50 basis. Aqeli,
Chronology, 324, 326, 328, 329.

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 Fariborz Mokhtari: Iran’s 1953 Coup 121

national bonds were issued and Iranians displayed their patriotism by buying
them. The shah purchased 2 million rials of the notes; Mosaddeq, one of the
richest landowners in the country, bought 250,000 rials.21
The election results announced on January 24, 1952, showed low turnout
as many had sat out the elections, but Makki and Kashani were re-elected
from Tehran, garnering the two highest numbers of votes, respectively.22
Three weeks later, on February 15, the Fadaʿiyan carried out yet another
attack, seriously injuring Dr. Hossein Fatemi, a newspaper publisher newly
elected to Parliament.23 When the shah inaugurated the 17th Majles on
April 27 with the customary Royal Address, Prime Minister Mosaddeq was
conspicuously absent, which was seen as a gesture of disrespect for the
Crown. Although the new Parliament gave Mosaddeq a weak vote of confi-
dence (52 of the 65 ­representatives present), the Senate postponed its vote
to await the Government’s Plan—a parliamentary tradition. Mosaddeq’s
reaction was to accuse the Senate of obstructionism and threatened to
resign in defiance of the upper house on July 7. Senators countered on
July 9 when 22 of the 36 present withdrew their support for the govern-
ment. Kashani condemned the senators menacingly enough the follow-
ing day to secure their vote of confidence without them having received the
Government Plan.24
On July 13, heartened by the victory over the senators, Mosaddeq requested
extraordinary powers from the Majles to enforce government bills prior to
their passage into law. He escalated the political standoff three days later,
demanding control over the armed forces, which were under the control of
the commander-in chief, the shah. Mosaddeq resigned in protest once again
on July 17, when the shah refused to surrender control over the military. The
issue was not that the shah had opposed the prime minister’s “constitutional
right to appoint the Minister of War of his choice (17) as Rahnema argues, but
rather that Mosaddeq’s demand would compromise the monarch’s constitu-
tional authority as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Following Mosaddeq’s resignation, Parliament, in a closed session, voted
(40 out of the 42 present) for Ahmad Qavam to form a government. Qavam

21. Aqeli, Chronology, 331.

22. Tehran’s population according to official records had been 1,010,000 in 1949. Yet the
votes cast, despite the politicized atmosphere, numbered a mere 143,163. Ibid., 331.
23. Fatemi attacked opponents venomously in his newspaper, Bakhtar-e Emrouz, and
had accused opponents of oil nationalization of treason. He later joined Mosaddeq’s
Cabinet as foreign minister. Ibid., 331–32; Fakhreddin Azimi, “Unseating Mosaddeq,” in
Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, ed. Gasiorowski and Byrne, 66.
24. Aqeli, Chronology, 336.

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122 bustan: the middle east book review

was named prime minister on July 18, 1952, but the country’s major cities
­witnessed unrest the following morning. The National Front raised the stakes,
calling for nationwide strikes on July 21 (Iranian calendar, 30th of Tir), and
twenty-eight Majles deputies declared that only Mosaddeq was an accept-
able prime minister. Qavam asked the shah for emergency executive powers
and the dissolution of the Parliament, but the shah refused both requests.25
The National Front’s day of strike turned violent claiming seventy-nine lives,
and Qavam was dismissed the next day (July 22) to reinstate Mosaddeq to
the premiership. The Tudeh Party’s coordinated involvement in the protests
suggested that the anti-Qavam demonstrations had not been spontaneous.26
A number of odd events in quick succession heightened the nation’s
already elevated anxiety. Mosaddeq ordered the shah’s sisters and broth-
ers out of the country on July 23, 1952, yet sent a message to the shah on
the same day, with a handwritten note on the inside cover of a copy of the
Qurʾan that stated, “I shall be the enemy of the Qurʾan if I act contrary to the
Constitution and accept the presidency, if the Constitution is compromised
and the ­country’s regime altered.” Four days later Deputy Prime Minister
Baqer Kazemi, rather than the premier, introduced Mosaddeq’s Cabinet to
the Majles and announced that the prime minister himself had assumed the
duties of the minister of national defense. Mosaddeq received the extraordi-
nary powers he had requested with a vote of confidence the next day. A bill
introduced to Majles the following week called for confiscation of all Ahmad
Qavam’s property, charged him with “corruption on earth,” responsibility
for “the massacre of 30th of Tir [result of the strike called by the National
Front],” and “armed rebellion against the nation.”27 Kashani introduced a bill
the week after, on July 7, 1952, “with triple urgency” to free Prime Minister
Razmara’s assassin and absolve him of all charges since “Haj-Ali Razmara’s
treason and support for foreigners is certain, Khalil Tahmasebi, even if
alleged to have been Razmara’s murderer, is in the eyes of the nation innocent

25. It is widely speculated that Qavam had asked for the use of the armed forces. The shah
refused.
26. Aqeli, Chronology, 336, 337; William Roger Louis, Ends of British Imperialism (London:
I. B. Tauris, 2006), 748, 749, 750. The shah may have refused Qavam’s request because
he did not want him to have the dictatorial powers that Mosaddeq had demanded, did
not trust Qavam, did not wish to get involved and thus endanger the Crown, or simply
wished to remain true to the Constitution he had sworn to uphold.
27. Aqeli, Chronology, 337, 338, 340. The charge corruptor on earth reappeared after the
1979 Islamic Revolution and was used repeatedly to execute opponents, former prime
­minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda among them.

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 Fariborz Mokhtari: Iran’s 1953 Coup 123

and not guilty.”28 The Senate voted to grant Mosaddeq extraordinary ­powers
on July  13, but on October 17 rejected the bills to pardon Tahmasebi and
confiscate Qavam’s property. In retaliation, on October 23 the lower house
of Parliament voted to reduce the senatorial term of office from four to
two years, effectively dismissing the Senate in session. The senators attempt-
ing to meet on October 26 found the Senate doors locked! On November 15
Khalil Tahmasebi was freed and after a brief prayer at the Abdolazim shrine
rushed to Ayatollah Kashani’s home to pay respect.
On January 8, 1953, Mosaddeq requested that the Majlis renew his
extraordinary powers for an additional year. On January 10 he faced vocif-
erous objections to this request from even his own steadfast supporters, for
example, Makki, Haʿerizadeh, Baqaii, and Kashani (who called the request
unconstitutional). Mosaddeq got his way on January 13, 1953, but his coalition
had permanently split.29 His supporters have claimed that he had only sought
­delegated not dictatorial powers for a brief duration and for necessary reforms.
Mosaddeq eventually dissolved the 17th Parliament in order to hold a direct
public referendum on his powers, against the recommendations of two of his
closest associates, Minister of Education Karim Sanjabi and Minister of the
Interior Dr. Gholam-Hossein Sadiqi. They advised the prime minister that the
Majles had supported the government, and the shah—as head of state—had
appointed prime ministers since the 1906 Constitutional Revolution, subject
to parliamentary approval. They argued that dissolving the Majles would
grant the shah constitutional authority to oust him and appoint another
prime minister. Mosaddeq’s reply, “Shah jor’at-e in kar ra nadarad [The shah
does not have the guts to do that],” for a prime minister dedicated to consti-
tutional monarchy and loyal to the Crown, remains dreadful.30
Major General Fazlollah Zahedi, a former ally and interior minister in
Mosaddeq’s Cabinet, had been arrested on February 25, 1953; along with a
number of other prominent personalities, Zahedi was suspected of disloyalty
to the administration. Dismissal and retirement of numerous other military

28. Ibid., 340.

29. Ibid., 342, 344, 345; Fakhreddin Azimi, “Unseating Mosaddeq: The Configuration
and Role of Domestic Forces,” in Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, ed.
Gasiorowski and Byrne, 57; Faghfoory, “Role of the Ulama,” 199, 200. Makki was the
first to speak, likening Mosaddeq to Hitler, and stating he would resign. He changed
his mind on January 18 when Kashani also toned down his opposition. Baqaii resigned
from the National Front in protest, and the coalition began to come unglued.
30. Sanjabi and Sadiqi recollections as well as Kashani’s son Sayyed Mahmoud Kashani,
quoted in Memoirs of Ardeshir Zahedi, vol. 1, ed. Ahmad Ahrar (Bethesda, MD: Ibex
Publishers, 2006), 282–83.

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124 bustan: the middle east book review

officers in August 1952 (22), added to the simmering doubt about the prime
minister’s intentions. Zahedi, once released, was ordered rearrested on
March  2 for alleged conspiracy in the murder of the national police chief,
Brigadier General Mohammad Afshartoos. To avoid arrest, Kashani as the
Majles Speaker granted Zahedi sanctuary in the lower house. Discontent,
which was already palpable, became visible at the open session of Parliament
on May 8, as a debate between supporters and opponents of government
turned into a fistfight. On May 11 the prime minister ordered all Crown prop-
erties turned over to the government in return for an annual payment of
60 million rials to the Imperial Organization for Social Services. Mosaddeq
reportedly asked the shah to restrict the Crown to an annual budget deter-
mined by the government; not to access revenues from the Imam Reza
Endowment of which the shah was the trustee; transfer the command of the
armed forces to the prime minister; and refuse audiences to government’s
opponents. “The Shah seemed amenable; also offered to take a vacation
abroad, which Mosaddeq initially rejected but later approved.”31
Mosaddeq’s coalition came apart on July 1, 1953 when Dr. Abdollah
Moʿazami won the speakership of the Majles from Kashani (41 votes versus
Kashani’s 31), while 40 percent of the representatives had supported neither
candidate. Two weeks later Mosaddeq instructed the weakened National
Front parliamentary faction of fifty-two Representatives to resign to make a
legislative quorum impossible. On July 20, with Moʿazami’s mediation, Zahedi
agreed to leave his parliamentary sanctuary, but by then, sequestered since
March, he had gained national recognition. The following day the scale of
observances to commemorate Qavam’s ouster shocked the nation. The Tudeh
Party had choreographed a national spectacle with numbers far exceeding
National Front loyalists, displaying the communists’ might in Mosaddeq’s
political camp.32
The Tudeh “show of strength” unsettled the populace, and the appre-
hension was not without foundation (27, 98, 128, 278). Iran had lived with
the threat from Russia since 1722: The Red Army invaded and occupied
Iran during World War II and was reluctant to withdraw after the war; the
Red Army’s formation of “people’s republics” and its occupation of the

31. Fakhreddin Azimi, “Unseating Mosaddeq: Configuration and Role of Domestic Forces,”
in Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, ed. Gasiorowski and Byrne, 79.
32. Aqeli, Chronology, 349; Donald N. Wilber, Clandestine Service History: Overthrow of
Premier Mosaddeq of Iran, November 1952–August 1953, The Secret CIA History of
the Iran Coup, 1953, National Security Archives Electronic Briefing Book 28, p. 26. See
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB.NSAEBB28/index.html.

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 Fariborz Mokhtari: Iran’s 1953 Coup 125

northern provinces of Iran; the looting of the Iranian Central Bank’s gold
reserve; the daily radio propaganda from the Soviet Union; and the com-
munist Tudeh Party’s ongoing agitation, all of which profoundly affected
the national psyche of Iranians.33 If the arrival in Tehran of the new Soviet
ambassador Anatol Lavrentiev, noted for having staged the communist take-
over in Czechoslovakia in 1968, had left any ambivalence, the Tudeh Party’s
August 18 “communiqué” on the “necessity of changing the monarchical regime
and establishing a democratic republic,” erased all doubt (147).34
In Rahnema’s telling, Mosaddeq’s opponents are referred to as thugs, ­ruffians,
ready-to-hire unemployed day laborers, underclass, errand boys, racketeers,
hoodlums, roughnecks, knife wielders, and mob, no less than 147 times in
pages 44–257, but Mosaddeq’s supporters are characterized as Tudeh partisans,
and demonstrators. Eyewitness accounts and photographs of the August  19
(28 Mordad) morning hours cast doubt on the much-repeated assertion that
the uprising was directed by mobsters and manned by unemployed riffraff.35
The alleged “roughnecks” were more likely to have been amateur athletes
associated with local traditional athletic clubs (zoorkhaneh), where a chivalric
code of conduct as well as physical training were commonly emphasized. Some

33. John F. Badeley, The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus (1908; New York: Russell and Russell,
1969), 23, 230, 251, 313; Mureil Atkin, Russia and Iran: 1780–1828 (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1980), 20–21, 33, 39–40, 93–99, 120–24, 139–43; Mohammad-Taqi
Lessanolmolk Sepehr, Tarikh-e Qajarieh, Nassekh-o Tavarikh (Tehran: Mir Baqer Tehrani
Workshop, 1850?); Jamil Qozanlu, Jang-e Dahsaleh, ya Jang-e Avval-e Iran ba Rus (Tehran:
Bank Markazi Press, 1937), and Jang-e Iran-Rus 1827–1828 (Tehran: Tolu’ Press, 1938);
Hassan-e Fasai, Farsnamaye Nasseri: History of Persia Under Qajar Rule, translated from the
Persian by Heribert Busse (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 66, 94, 108–9;
Ivar Spector, The Soviet Union and the Moslem World, 1917–1956 (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1956), 8–9; Firuz Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia, 1846–1914: A
Study in Imperialism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1969), 3–99, 634; Ivo Lederer,
ed., Russian Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1962), 491, 498–501,
521, 523–29; Lt. A. C. Yate, England and Russia Face to Face in Asia: Travels with the Afghan
Boundary Commission (London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1886), 312; Firuz Kazemzadeh,
The Struggle for Transcaucasia, 1917–1921 (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1951), 7,
103–9, 229–30, 262–68, 288; Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Soviet Policy Towards Turkey, Iran, and
Afghanistan: The Dynamics of Influence (New York: Praeger, 1982), 59; David Marshall, A
Modern History of Soviet Georgia (New York: Grove Press, 1962), 204–44.
34. As it turned out, the fear was not entirely unfounded as evidenced by a packing case of
postage stamps overprinted in the Soviet Union with the words “Republic of Iran.” Had
Stalin not died in March 1953, Iranian nationalists’ worst fears may have been realized.
35. See photographs and memoirs by Stephen Langlie at the Eisenhower Presidential
Library. Langlie, a young US serviceman in Tehran, was an eyewitness to the events of
August 1953.

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126 bustan: the middle east book review

were labor leaders and had followers in their neighborhoods among fruit and
­vegetable dealers and shopkeepers, but were not necessarily mobsters. A per-
son mentioned more than once (158, 162), Mohsen Adl Tabatabai, for instance,
was from a prominent family and a natural athlete from his high school days.
His father had been a functionary in both Qajar and Pahlavi royal courts, and
his mother was the eldest daughter of Fazlollah Levaolmolk, a Prussian mili-
tary academy graduate, founding commander of Zelle-Soltan’s Jalaali Regiment
(Fowj-e Jalaali), a linguist, Iranian envoy to several European countries, and a
member of “the Constitutionalists Lodge” that drafted the 1906 Constitution.
Mohsen represented Iran with fellow athletes at international competitions
and, after one in Europe, remained in Germany to study hotel management. He
married a fellow student and the couple returned to Iran where they managed
several major hotels successfully through the 1970s. He and his German wife
and two sons were known for their generosity and compassion.
Mohammad Reza Shah did not reign as a constitutional monarch in the
manner of the contemporary British Crown, but neither did Mosaddeq govern
as His Majesty’s First Minister. Indeed this brief record of events illustrates
that neither a coalition committed to govern through collaboration and com-
promise nor a loyal constructive opposition had emerged from 1946 through
1953. It is a common observation that civility, cooperation, compromise, and
power-sharing are essential to democratic governance. Government by cri-
sis, threats, bloviation, insult, assassination, and parliamentary manipula-
tion are anathema to democratic principles. It is startling that Rahnema has
characterized the shah’s fidelity prior to August 19, 1953, as indecisiveness
and cowardice, while the prime minister’s shunning of the shah and manipu-
lative conduct were characterized as legalistic and nonconfrontational.36 The
young monarch’s repeated attempts to meet the prime minister, even to visit
him at his home, and his support for the Parliamentary Committee’s Report
on interpreting the constitutional authorities of the shah and the prime min-
ister (261, 277) indicated the shah’s good will, as did the shah’s confidence in
Mosaddeq’s brother as an advisor throughout.37
When Mosaddeq threatened to resign on February 19, 1953, for an alleged
“unfriendly gesture,” Court Minister Hossein Ala was sent to convey to him

36. For references to the shah’s indecisiveness, the prime minister’s legalism, and state-
ments that appear contradictory, see pp. 22, 24, 25, 26, 30, 31, 35, 48, 73, 76, 77, 98, 106,
159, 199, 247, 254, 255, 257, 260, 261, 262, 264, 277, 279, 280.
37. Abolfath Diba, known by his Qajar title of nobility “Heshmat al-Dowleh,” was
Mosaddeq’s half-brother and the shah’s confidant. Mosaddeq’s last name was a part of
his Qajar title “Mosaddeq al-Saltaneh [verifier/collector of royal dues/taxes].”

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 Fariborz Mokhtari: Iran’s 1953 Coup 127

that the shah not only supported him, but was even prepared to leave the
country for as long as the prime minister wished (35). When the shah and
Queen Soraya planned to leave the country, a parliamentary delegation
urged them not to do so, fearing the consequences of the departure. The
shah finally announced to the crowd already gathered at the palace gate to
urge him not to leave that he would not (36, 37, 39). Mosaddeq’s government
arrested a large number of opponents on August 11, 1953. The royal couple
left Tehran for Ramsar on the Caspian Sea two days later.
The shah had consistently refused to dismiss Mosaddeq without
a ­formal parliamentary recommendation to appoint a replacement.
Mounting internal and external pressures coupled with a disemboweled
Parliament finally forced his hand (284). On August 15 he signed two royal
orders (Farman) dismissing Mosaddeq as prime minister and appointing
Zahedi to replace him. By the time the order of dismissal was delivered
to Mosaddeq on August 16, the prime minister’s chief of staff, General
Taqi Riahi, had found out and informed him. The messenger, Colonel
Nematollah Nasiri, commander of the Imperial Guard, was arrested and
Mossadeq’s government announced to the nation on national radio that
a military coup had been foiled.38 Whether the outcome would have been
different had the farman been delivered by the minister of the Imperial
Court, rather than the commander of the Imperial Guard, remains an
unanswered question (281).
People were anxious and many had felt offended by the treatment of
their king, by the increasing influence of the communists, and by the intim-
idation of the Fadaʿiyan. By August 18 they had also become disenchanted
with Mosaddeq’s obstinacy, his unfulfilled promises, and the irresolution
of the oil crisis (254, 255, 257). The Tudeh leadership on the other hand,
perhaps confident that the shah’s departure on August 17 had sealed their
victory, demobilized communist partisans on August 18. What makes the
assumption is credible is that the principal officials, at the U.S. Embassy in
Tehran, and in Washington, had given up hope of Mosaddeq’s removal at

38. Aqeli, Chronology, 350, 351; Wilber, Clandestine Service History, 38–40, 47; Louis, Ends of
British Imperialism, 783. Mosaddeq had reportedly called a late-night cabinet meeting at
his residence expected to end by 11:30 p.m. Nasiri sought to meet the prime minister
upon arrival but was kept waiting for an hour. He finally asked a guard to deliver the
Farman and return with a receipt. The guard returned with a receipt in Mosaddeq’s
handwriting, but Nasiri was arrested. At his trial, Mosaddeq stated that he had thought
the Farman a forgery. See Memoirs of Ardeshir Zahedi, ed. Ahrar, 163.

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128 bustan: the middle east book review

that point, and ordered their agents out of Iran.39 It would not be farfetched
to ­conclude that the public mood had simply boiled over by the following
morning (160).
Indeed, it might be fair to ask which side had staged a coup! For ­example,
Foreign Minister Fatemi attacked the shah with venomous speeches and
editorials on the national radio on August 16, and ordered Iran’s diplomatic
corps abroad not to welcome, visit, or receive the shah, whom he declared
deposed. Further, Mosaddeq’s government tolerated the pulling down of
royal statues and changing street names on August 17 (109), as well as the
removal of the shah’s portraits from government offices, permitted the
order to seal Royal Palaces, and issued the directive to all military units to
drop “all references to the King’s name at daily flag ceremonies.” All of these
events took place on the same day, August 17 (143), and they could not be
swept under the rug. Nor could Mosaddeq’s adjure to Minister of the Interior
Gholam-Hossein Sadiqi for a Regency Council (115) or his refusal to acknowl-
edge the Royal Decree that Nasiri had delivered to him be easily dismissed.
Rahnema’s contention that Mosaddeq was a believer in the constitutional
monarchy and loyal to the young shah (264, 265, 279, 287, 292) is not compel-
ling.40 His suggestions that Mosaddeq’s denial of any knowledge of the far-
man had been to save face for the shah (279), and that military forces behind
the shah had tried to wrench power from the prime minister, are simply not
persuasive (275).
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq
are both long gone and uncritical glorification or vilification of either does
not serve Iran’s interests. There must be no doubt that both men were patri-
ots and could have served their country greatly had they worked together.
The major issue worthy of greater contemplation is the dearth of statesmen
and statesmanship in Iran at the time. If leaders sacrificed the national inter-
est for their particular concerns, if politicians chose division over cohesion,

39. Wilber, Clandestine Service History, 51, 58, 60, 64.

40. Ambassador Henderson met with Mosaddeq and reported to Washington on August 18
that Mosaddeq told him “he had never seen such a decree [Farman], and if he had it
would have made no difference” (279). To confirm, Henderson asked if he was cor-
rect to understand that (1) Mosaddeq had no official knowledge that the shah had
issued a farman removing him as prime minister, and (2) that even if he had, he would
have considered it invalid? Mosaddeq replied, “Precisely.” The Ambassador to Iran
(Henderson) to the Department of State, No. 347, 788.00/8-1853-Telegram, SECRET,
NIACT, Tehran, August 18, 1953, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, vol. 10,
ed. John P. Glennon, Department of State Publication No. 9690 (Washington, DC: US
Government Printing Office, 1989), 748–52.

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 Fariborz Mokhtari: Iran’s 1953 Coup 129

if principals sought political supremacy over power sharing, if the informed

did not educate followers, if opinion leaders preferred ideological con-
verts to thoughtful free thinking citizens, the greater part of the blame for
Iran’s misfortune does not belong to the shah, Mosaddeq, or even foreign
conspirators.
The United States and Britain each had a hand in the 1953 coup, but
their combined effect was not as extensive as portrayed in this book. The
Rashidians, introduced by Rahnema as British agents, refused to accept
British instructions even if the sum they were to receive would “taper off,”
for they were neither collaborationist pawns nor servile underlings. They,
as well as many commissioned and noncommissioned military officers,
­middle-class professionals, and shopkeepers considered Mosaddeq’s policies
“rash & unpatriotic”(29, 68). The CIA had been authorized to spend $1 million
in covert activities, and an additional 1 million rials a month ($1 = 90 rials),
but managed to spend only $100,000.41 To conclude that a few foreign agents
alone orchestrated the August 1953 uprising, by spreading $100,000 around,
is not only inaccurate but an insult to Iranians, who are portrayed as mario-
nettes bought on the cheap.
Iran has endured a political tug of war for two centuries between those
who wish Iran to serve Islam and others who wish Islam to serve Iran. The
1953 contest did not resolve the conflict and neither has the 1979 Islamic
Revolution. Once again revolutionary clerics and intellectual nationalists
found political coexistence distasteful. They all talk of democracy, but they
want it exclusively for themselves and not their fellow citizens, who may
have different convictions. From that perspective, the Revolution of 1979
is a later phase of the 1953 crisis, pitting nationalist-modernism against
­religious-traditionalism. The reconciliation, if it is to be realized, must first
formulate in people’s hearts and minds before it will manifest itself socially.
Only ­ level-headed education and learning will help the process along.
Blaming others will not help, for it convolutes understanding and, worse
yet, postpones the rapprochement that would remedy the malaise that has
derailed Iran’s development for too long.

41. Kermit Roosevelt, Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of Iran (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1979), 166; Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran, ed. Gasiorowski and Byrne,
239; Wilber, Clandestine Service History, 71, appendix B, “London Draft,” p. 1. The New
York Times first published excerpts in April 16 and June 18, 2000, and posted them on
its website at http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/Mmideast/041600iran-cia-
index.html.

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