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Review Essay of Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men
By: Masoud Kazemzadeh, Ph.D.
Source: MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. XI,
NO. 4, WINTER 2004
REVIEW ESSAY
All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup
and the Roots of Middle East Terror, by Stephen Kinzer. John
Wiley and Sons, 2003. 258 pages, with notes, bibliography and index.
$24.95, hardcover; $14.95, paperback.
Masoud Kazemzadeh
Assistant professor, Department of Political Science, Utah Valley State
College
To say that Iran has posed challenging foreign-policy problems for the
United States since the Carter administration is an understatement.
From the intense anti-Americanism and the hostage crisis during the
Carter presidency to the Iran-contra scandal of the Reagan years to
regime change and the Axis of Evil of President Bush, Iran-U.S.
relations seem both bizarre and inexplicable. One book that provides an
explanation of the roots of the problem is Stephen Kinzer’s All the Shah’s Men.
Although this book has been reviewed in numerous publications,
including Middle East Policy
(Vol. X, No. 4, 2003), virtually all of the reviews have been written
for the general public. In this article, I will discuss several issues
of significance for scholars and policy makers that have not been
addressed in any of the above-mentioned reviews. There is little doubt
of the high quality of Kinzer’s contributions. For example, The Economist selected this book as
one of its ten “Books of the Year in 2003” in history; one of the
principal textbooks in political science has quoted it as a main source
on the 1953 coup; and many graduate and undergraduate courses in the
United States and abroad have made it required reading. Kinzer’s book
was quickly translated into Farsi in Iran without the permission of the
author. The translation was poorly done with self-censorship or state
censorship of many passages.1
Stephen Kinzer, a senior correspondent for The New York Times, has covered
more than 50 countries and has published books on Guatemala, Nicaragua
and Turkey. All the Shah’s Men
reads more like a Tom Clancy novel than a scholarly work; at first
glance, one might even take it for a screenplay. But this should not
detract from the serious contributions Kinzer makes. The book is not a
journalistic recounting of events with superficial explanations.
Kinzer’s book presents
essential information and raises important questions for
international-relations scholars interested in U.S. policy towards Iran.
Kinzer makes seven salient points. The first is that the 1953 coup was
an American plot, not a spontaneous uprising by the Iranian people to
overthrow the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed
Mossadegh, though both the American government and the former monarchy
have propagated this myth. Virtually all politically active Iranians
knew about the role of the United States and Britain in the 1953 coup,
but the U.S. government and the Iranian regime under the
monarchy tried to conceal that information, and Islamic fundamentalists
have tried to suppress scholarship on their role. It is therefore not
surprising that criticism of Kinzer’s book has come from these quarters.
The U.S. government succeeded for a long time in covering up its role.
It was not until March 2000 that for the first time an American
official acknowledged the U.S. role: Secretary of State Madeline
Albright conceded it with a faint expression of regret to an audience
advocating establishment of friendly relations with the current regime
in Iran. A month later, in April 2000, the CIA’s own secret history
(written by one of its main organizers, Donald Wilber) was leaked to The New
York Times. Access to
government files on the coup has been difficult in the United States,
Iran and even in the USSR/Russia.2
The U.S. government, of course, did not want to provide evidence of its
role in the overthrow of Iran’s only democratically elected government
since 1925 and the installation of Nazi collaborator Gen. Fazlollah
Zahedi. Kinzer writes:
The shah’s regime, installed by the CIA coup, would severely punish
anyone who tried to gain access to such evidence in Iran; research from
1953 to 1979 was virtually impossible. After the revolution, Khomeini
and his supporters also tried to conceal the role of high-ranking Shia
clerics and close Khomeini allies in the coup organized by the “Great
Satan.”3 One of Kinzer’s major contribution’s is the careful
reconstruction of the events surrounding the coup and the primary role
played by the CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Services, MI6,
which he based on scholarly publications, memoirs and the recently
released CIA secret history. This narrative explains in plain language
not only the role of the CIA and the monarchists but also the role Shia
clerics played in the coup. Among the latter were Fadaian Islam and
Ayatollah AbolQassem Kashani, whose allies and supporters have played
central roles in the leadership of the regime ruling Iran since 1979.
Some of the deleted material in the Farsi translation of Kinzer’s book
deals with Ayatollah Kashani. One of the top members of the current
ruling elite is Mahmood Kashani, the son of the late Ayatollah
AbolQassem Kashani. The Council of Guardians (dominated by the hardline
faction), which vets candidates for various offices, has allowed
Mahmood Kashani to run for the presidency twice. Kashani denies there
was a coup and says Mossadegh himself was following British plans and
carrying out their dictates. In his words: “In my opinion, Mossadegh
was the director of the British plans and implemented them.”4
Kashani goes on to say, “Without a doubt Mossadegh had the primary and
essential role” in the August 1953 coup. Kashani says Mossadegh, the
British and the United States were working together against Ayatollah
Kashani to undermine the role of Shia clerics. All evidence, including
the CIA’s secret history, shows that Ayatollah Kashani and Fadaian
Islam (the first violent Islamic fundamentalist organization in Iran,
many of whose leaders rose to power in the Islamic Republic after
1979), along with monarchist military officers, were mobilized by the
CIA and MI6 in the August 1953 coup against Mossadegh. In fact, the
second person who spoke on Radio Tehran announcing and celebrating the
overthrow of Mossadegh was Ayatollah Kashani’s son, who was hand-picked
by Kermit Roosevelt.5
A more sophisticated argument on behalf of Ayatollah Kashani is
presented by Abdollah Shahbazi.6 For Shahbazi, Kinzer’s book
is a fairy tale for Americans. Shahbazi’s main argument is that Kinzer
is part of the U.S. Democratic party, and he has written this book to
undermine President Bush’s reelection and help the Democratic
challenger. Shahbazi’s main criticism of Kinzer is that he portrays
Mossadegh as good and Kashani as bad, and Truman as good and Eisenhower
as bad. Shahbazi argues that Truman was the main architect of American
imperialism, that the plan to overthrow Mossadegh began under Truman’s
administration, and that no difference in policy existed between Truman
and Eisenhower. Shahbazi tries to show that the Bush family is closely
connected to Truman through the DuPont Company and the “secret and
semi-Masonic sect ‘Skull and Bones.’” Shahbazi then proceeds to make
personal attacks on Kinzer. Shahbazi writes: “In Kinzer’s book, one
sees veins of Zionist attachments or influences. For example, when he
mentions the suspicious bombing of the Jewish Community Center in
Buenos Aires (1994) and other such bombings, where footprints of Mossad
and other mysterious Western conspirators are evident, Kinzer blames
the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
The second salient point in Kinzer’s book is a sympathetic portrayal of
Mossadegh. For Kinzer, Mossadegh was a patriot like George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Iranian democrats have always
compared Mossadegh to Washington and Gandhi. Such a portrayal coming
from an American journalist associated with the most prestigious U.S.
daily is new and significant.7 Kinzer shows Mossadegh to
have been a genuine democrat and civil libertarian – at a time
when McCarthyism was at its zenith in the United States and Stalin’s
nightmarish dictatorship reigned in the USSR. Despite tremendous
pressure, Mossadegh respected the civil liberties not only of Communist
Tudeh party members but also of right-wing monarchists and Islamists,
all of whom were engaged in outright slander and violence against his
own pro-democracy followers. For example, as part of their
psychological operations against Mossadegh, CIA agents were planting
rumors in the Iranian press about Mossadegh being of Jewish parentage,
being a Communist or Communist fellow traveler, having secret
sympathies for the British, and having designs on the throne (p. 6).8
Mossadegh neither harassed nor suppressed any paper that published
these false charges. Kinzer shows that throughout his life, Mossadegh
was impeccably honest and incorruptible. This contrasts sharply with
the avaricious Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son Mohammad Reza, who looted
the treasury, confiscated private property, and lived a life of
conspicuous consumption in a land of terribly poor people.9
Corruption has only worsened in the post-revolutionary period.10
The third salient point is Kinzer’s portrayal of the British colonial
subjugation of Iran. Kinzer brings to life the British contempt for the
“natives.” This section explains in part why Iranian patriots hated
their British colonizers and passionately supported Mossadegh in the
struggle to expel them and restore Iranian independence and dignity.
The intense emotional opposition of Iranians to Britain and the United
States is due to Britain’s harsh colonial subjugation and the CIA’s
imposition of the Pahlavi monarch, who regarded himself, and was
regarded by the population, as the puppet of colonial powers. According
to a top-secret communication sent by the State Department to the
British Foreign Office:
For international-relations scholars and policy makers alike, it is
essential to understand the emotional aspect of Third World nationalism
and demands for independence from colonial subjugation. Where scholarly
theories lack the tools to explore these raw emotions, Kinzer’s
narrative succeeds brilliantly in conveying the British mechanisms of
humiliation and the emotional outrage of Iranians to those indignities.
Massive American assistance to and close relations with the Pahlavi
monarch were the main cause of the intense anger of the Iranians
towards the United States. For Iranians, Mossadegh represented
political democracy and Iranian independence from colonial subjugation;
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi represented subjugation to Western
colonialism and political despotism. The main slogans of the 1979
revolution were esteghlal (independence)
and azadi (liberty). The
demand for an Islamic republic came late and only after Khomeini and
his followers succeeded in gaining the leadership of the anti-shah
movement from the secular liberal democrats. Americans, who never
considered themselves a colonial power in Iran, continue to be
perplexed by the Iranian outrage directed at them. Kinzer helps U.S.
policy makers and the general public alike to understand the cause of
Iranian anger at the United States.
The fourth salient point of Kinzer’s book is his masterful explanation
of the internal debates between American and British policy makers.
Through the use of many sources – published memoirs, unpublished
private papers and interviews – Kinzer creates lively personal profiles
of various protagonists: President Truman, Dean Acheson (Truman’s
secretary of state), Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of Theodore), who
organized the coup in Tehran, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr. (father
of the commander of U.S. forces in Desert Storm), President Eisenhower,
John Foster Dulles (Eisenhower’s secretary of state) and his brother
Allen (director of the CIA). Kinzer does the same with various British
actors from prime ministers to foreign secretaries to the head of the
British oil company in Iran (the Anglo Iranian Oil Company, later
British Petroleum).
The fifth salient point is the role of individuals and luck in history.
Kinzer is quite explicit here without ignoring the role of great-power
interests and ideologies (pp. 210-11). Here Kinzer presents alternative
scenarios, had several of the key players acted differently.
Mossadegh’s charismatic personality made democracy possible.
Churchill’s steadfast colonialism was a factor. Also, Churchill’s
decision to conjure up the Communist threat helped convince Eisenhower
to support the British. Most significant of all for the success of the
coup was Kermit Roosevelt’s persistence, imagination and intelligence.
The first attempt failed on Saturday, August 15; CIA headquarters twice
ordered him to leave Tehran, but Roosevelt remained and organized a
second coup on Wednesday, August 19. Roosevelt was able to use the U.S.
ambassador in Tehran, Loy Henderson, to deceive Mossadegh into ordering
the people to stay home and calling in the armed forces to bring calm
to the streets. Having secretly organized paid mobs, and having already
secured the support of high-ranking Shia clerics (Ayatollah Kashani,
Ayatollah Behbahani, Hojatolislam Falsafi) and the radical group
Fadaian Islam, who brought their followers into the streets, Roosevelt
then had one group of military officers attack Mossadegh’s home and
another take over the Tehran radio station. Roosevelt’s leadership was
the single most significant factor in the success of the August 19
coup; without him, there would have been no second coup.
The sixth salient point of the book is the role of perception and
misperception in international relations. Kinzer shows that the
perceptions of the world held by the Americans, the British and the
Iranian democrats were very different. For the British, the basic fight
was over their continued control of Iranian oil. The American mindset
was that of the Cold War. The Iranian nationalists’ mindset was that of
a Third World nation demanding independence. Truman understood to some
extent the Iranian desire for freedom and the British desire for the
colonial subjugation of Iran, but his main concern was containment of
the USSR. Mossadegh failed to understand the paranoia gripping
Washington, while Churchill shrewdly manipulated those fears. Churchill
failed to understand that colonialism was waning, and he badly
miscalculated the consequences of the brutal suppression of legitimate
demands of Third World nationalists such as Mossadegh. Truman tried, to
his credit, to broker a compromise between Mossadegh and the British,
realizing that Western colonialism was fast becoming outmoded. But he
needed British support in NATO and in the Korean War (1950-53) in the
global struggle against the Soviets. Despite Truman’s and Acheson’s
best efforts, the British were not willing to give up their hugely
profitable control of Iranian oil, and Mossadegh was not willing to
sacrifice Iranian independence.
The elections in Britain in 1951 replaced the Labour party with the
militantly colonialist Conservative Churchill. The U.S. elections in
1952 replaced Democrats with Republicans. The Dulles brothers were more
concerned with securing the profits of Western companies and with
countering the USSR than with promoting self-determination, democracy
and human rights in the Third World. They quickly convinced Eisenhower
to authorize the overthrow of Iranian democracy and replace it with the
dictatorial regime of the shah, who was regarded to be reliably
subservient to Western interests. Mossadegh and his liberal democratic
supporters in the Iran National Front had no illusions about the
British colonial mindset. However, they misperceived the Americans. The
U.S. image in Iran was extremely positive due to the lack of American
colonial enterprises and to Woodrow Wilson’s support for the rights of
colonized nations. The few Americans who had come to Iran were either
educators or supporters of democratic forces. One of Mossadegh’s close
friends was Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. The CIA coup, of
course, dramatically changed all that.
The seventh salient point, and the most contentious, is Kinzer’s
argument on the relationship between the 1953 coup and the rise of
Islamic fundamentalism. Kinzer argues that the CIA coup smashed Iranian
democracy and brought to power a despotic monarchy. The shah’s ruthless
regime succeeded in suppressing the secular liberal democrats
(Mossadegh and the National Front) and the left (the pro-Moscow
Communist Tudeh party). However, by so disarticulating the democratic
and modernist political forces, the shah left the field open to
right-wing Islamic fundamentalists, who, in 1979, succeeded in
overthrowing the shah and establishing the first contemporary Islamist
government. Khomeini’s regime brought hitherto marginalized forces to
the center of politics in much of the Muslim world. Khomeini’s success
illustrated that Islamic fundamentalists could overthrow an incumbent
regime and create their own. Moreover, the Iranian revolutionaries
provided assistance to myriad Islamist groups such as Lebanese
Hezbollah and Hamas. Thus, the Shia success in Iran provided a model
for Sunni fundamentalists around the Islamic world, including Osama bin
Laden.
Kinzer argues that, had the United States not overthrown Mossadegh,
Iran would have consolidated its infant democracy, which would have
precluded the success of Khomeini and Islamic fundamentalism. Kinzer
writes:
Islamic fundamentalists in Iran would disagree with Kinzer’s analysis,
cognizant that many of their own had supported the CIA coup and had
strongly opposed the secular liberal nationalism of Mossadegh. In fact,
Khomeini and others broke with the shah in 1961-64 period.12
Shahbazi strongly disagrees with Kinzer and argues that other factors
and events are far more responsible for anti-Americanism among Islamic
peoples than the CIA coup. Shahbazi asserts that the following four
American actions were more responsible for anti-Americanism in the
Middle East and the events of 9/11 than the 1953 coup: (1) the joint
CIA and MI6 coup in July 1952 in Egypt that brought Gen. Mohammad
Naguib to power; (2) President Kennedy’s reforms imposed on the shah;
(3) the tremendous support that all U.S. administrations have given to
Israel, including Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s support for
Israel in the Six-day War of 1967; and (4) the huge investment by the
CIA in the Taliban and Bin Laden during their war in Afghanistan
against the occupying Soviet forces.13 In Shahbazi’s words:
Kinzer has written a superb book, reconstructing the story of a coup
that changed history. He resurrects the figure of Mossadegh for
English-language readers at a time when his ideals have been embraced
by masses of Iranians, particularly university students, who carry
Mossadegh’s picture in their protest rallies and sit-ins. As the wave
of democracy reaches the shores of the Middle East, it is not an
accident that Iranians have found Mossadegh again. As events unfold in
the region and
American policy makers are confronted with dilemmas, Kinzer’s book
might help them avoid the mistakes of the past. Scholarly analysis
might be enriched through a consideration of the many points Kinzer has
raised. His book will play a major role in the debate for years to come.
1 Many sentences have been completely deleted and many
mistranslated. The following phrase under the picture of Ayatollah
Kashani has been deleted: “Kermit Roosevelt sent him [Ayatollah
Kashani] $10,000 the day before the coup.” The endnotes and
bibliography have been deleted, as was the subtitle. As an introduction
to the translation, the review of Kinzer’s book by Warren Bass in The New York Times, August 10,
2003, has been modified and presented without acknowledging the author
of the review and instead attributing it to Abdolreza Mahdavi. See Azadi,
No. 31-32, Summer-Fall 1382, 2003, pp. 271-272. This journal is
published by the National Democratic Front of Iran, headed by Hedayat
Matin-Daftari, Mossadegh’s grandson.
2 In the words of Ervand Abrahamian, “It is easier for a
camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a historian to gain
access to the CIA archives on the 1953 coup in Iran.” See Abrahamian,
“The 1953 Coup in Iran,” Science and
Society, Vol. 65, No. 2, Summer 2001, p. 182.
3 The best work on the role of high-ranking Shia clerics and
Islamic fundamentalists in opposing Mossadegh, supporting the shah, and
helping the coup is Homa Katouzian, Musaddiq
and the Struggle for Power in Iran (I.B. Tauris, 1990), pp.
156-76.
4 ISNA (Iranian Students News Agency) November 2003 interview
in Farsi with Mahmood Kashani. I have translated the passage. The
most important achievement that Mahmood Kashani mentioned during his
first campaign for the presidency was that he had “slapped the American
judge in the face” during the proceedings of the tribunal at the Hague
created as part of the Algiers agreement to resolve the U.S. claims
against Iran.
5 The New York Times
redacted many of the names of the CIA’s Iranian collaborators. Cryptome
was able to recover only some of them. One was one of “Ayatollah
Kashani’s sons.” See Cryptome
page 71; Cryptome was unable to recover the redactions in the section
that deals with the religious leaders. The following is page 20 of the
secret history that can be found at The New York Times:
(4) Religious Leaders.
It is our belief that nearly all the important religious leaders with
large followings are firmly opposed to Mossadeq. Both the U.S. field
station and the British group have firm contacts with such leaders. The
pro-Zahedi capabilities in this field are very great. These leaders
include such assorted and sometimes inimical elements as the
non-political leaders [......] and [......], as well as [....] and
[...] and his terrorist gang, [....]. During the period of intensive
anti-Mossadeq publicity before the coup day, the leaders and their
henchmen will:
(a) Spread word of their disapproval of Mossadeq.
(b) Give open support to the symbol of the throne and give moral
backing to the shah through direct contact with him at the shrine.
(c) As required, stage small pro-religious anti-Mossadeq demonstrations
in widely scattered sections of Tehran.
(d) Threaten that they are ready to take direct action against
pro-Mossadeq deputiesand members of Mossadeq’s entourage and government.
(e) Ensure full participation of themselves and followers in Situation
A.
(f) After the change of government, give the strongest assurance over
Radio Tehran and in the mosques that the new government is faithful to
religious principles.
The “terrorist group” that Kermit Roosevelt and Donald Wilber mobilized
was the “Fadaian Islam.” The redacted names of high-ranking Shia
clerics include Grand Ayatollah Brujerdi, Ayatollah Behbani, and
Ayatollah Kashani. See Katouzian, op. cit., and Masoud Kazemzadeh, “The
Day Democracy Died: The 50th Anniversary of the CIA Coup in Iran,” Khaneh: Iranian Community Newspaper,
Vol. 3, No. 34, October 2003,
6
Abdollah Shahbazi, “A Survey of Stephen Kinzer’s Book: ‘Good Truman’
and ‘Bad Eisenhower,’ An American Tale,” posted at Shahbazi’s website. All the quotes are
from the above-mentioned review (my translation). Shahbazi has written
the memoirs of several political prisoners based on the tapes of their
interviews with interrogators of VEVAK (the fundamentalist regime’s
feared intelligence agency) during their incarceration. These memoirs
include those of Nouraldin Kianouri (secretary general of the Tudeh
party) and Gen. Hussein Fardoost (the shah’s head of Court Intelligence
and childhood friend and one of his closest friends and advisors, who
had apparently betrayed him and worked with the fundamentalist regime).
According to Shahbazi himself, he would provide questions that were put
to Kianouri thus creating Kianouri’s “memoir.”
7
Kinzer’s book has been embraced by pro-democracy Iranians inside and
outside Iran. Kinzer has done several readings to Iranian audiences,
who have given him prolonged standing ovations.
8
According to the CIA secret history of black operations against
Mossadegh (pp. 16-17):
At headquarters
and at the field station U.S. personnel will draft and put into Persian
the texts for articles,
broadsheets and pamphlets, some pro-shah and some anti-Mossadeq. The
materials
designed to discredit Mossadeq will hammer the following themes:
(a) Mossadeq
favors the Tudeh party and the USSR. (This will be supported by black documents).
(b) Mossadeq is
an enemy of Islam since he associates with the Tudeh and advances their
aims.
(c) Mossadeq is
deliberately destroying the morale of the army and its ability to
maintain order.
(d) Mossadeq is
deliberately fostering the growth of regional separatist elements
through his removal of army control over tribal areas. One of the aims
of the removal of control by the army is to make it easier for the
Soviets to take over the Northern Provinces.
(e) Mossadeq is
deliberately leading the country into economic collapse.
(f) Mossadeq
has been corrupted by power to such an extent that no trace is left of
the fine
man of earlier years, and he now has all the repressive instincts of
the dictator.
9 On
Reza Shah’s corruption, see Mohammad Gholi Majd, Great Britain and Reza Shah: The Plunder
of Iran, 1921-1941 (University Press of Florida, 2001). On
Mohammad Reza Shah’s corruption, see Nikki R. Keddie, Roots of Revolution: An Interpretive
History of Modern Iran (Yale University Press, 1981), esp. pp.
149, 172, 178 and 180.
10
On corruption among high-ranking officials of the current regime, see
Paul Klebnikov, “Millionaire Mullahs,” Forbes, July 21, 2003.
11
The quote is from a British document discussing a report sent to them
by the U.S. State Department on the shah and the situation in Iran. The
date is about three months before the coup. Henderson is the name of
the U.S. ambassador to Iran. The following is the verbatim text:
Sir R. Makins – No: 1085, May 21, 1953
PRIORITY – TOP
SECRET
Persia.
The State
Department informed us today on a number of occasions associates of the
shah have
told Henderson that His Majesty is uncertain about the British attitude
towards himself. He is reported to be
harping on the theme that the British had thrown out the Qajar Dynasty,
had brought in his father and had thrown his father out. Now they could
keep him in power or remove him in turn as they saw fit. If they
desired that he should stay and that the Crown should retain the powers
given to it by the Constitution, he should be informed. If on the other
hand they wished him to go, he should be told immediately so that he
could leave quietly. Did the British wish to substitute another shah
for himself or to abolish the monarchy? Were they behind the present
efforts to deprive him of his power and prestige? On May 17 the Shah
sent an emissary to Henderson to say that it would do much to clarify
the situation if the ambassador could ascertain secretly and
unequivocally the British attitude towards him.
12
For extensive explanation and analysis on the conflict between Khomeini
(and other conservative Shia clerics) and the shah, see Willem Floor,
“The Revolutionary Character of the Iranian Ulama: Wishful Thinking or
Reality?” International Journal of
Middle East Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1, December 1980; and Masoud
Kazemzadeh, Islamic Fundamentalism,
Feminism, and Gender Inequality in Iran Under Khomeini
(University Press of America, 2002).
13
The above are a close rendition of Shahbazi’s words.
14
Shahbazi, ibid., my translation. Words in brackets are mine. By the
Kennedy reforms, Shahbazi is referring to reforms that the Kennedy
administration forced the shah to implement, including land reform,
female enfranchisement, and the replacement of taking an oath to the
Quran with taking an oath to a holy book as the criterion of holding
government office (which would have undermined the Shia hold on high
positions and allowed Zoroastrian, Christian, Bahai and Jewish Iranians
to serve as well).