On the 60th anniversary of the August 19, 1953 coup that brought down the government of popular Prime Minister Mohammad Mosadeq and left an indelible mark on modern Iranian history, Foreign Policy reports that a new document regarding this event has been published on the U.S. National Security Archives website, confirming once again that the U.S. was involved in the event.
The document is reportedly an internal report from the mid-1970s. Written by an in-house CIA historian and entitled “The Battle for Iran”, it contains details of the 1950s coup in Iran and reveals that the CIA had a direct leadership role.
While the document was first released in 1981, large portions of it were excised. The new release establishes that “the military coup that overthrew Mosadeq and his National Front cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of U.S. foreign policy.”
TPAJAX was the codename for the CIA operation, which included steps such as “using propaganda to undermine Mosadeq politically, inducing the Shah to cooperate, bribing members of Parliament, organizing the security forces, and ginning up public demonstrations. The initial attempt actually failed, but after a mad scramble the coup forces pulled themselves together and came through on their second try, on August 19,” Foreign Policy writes.
The ouster of Mohammad Mosadeq led to the return to power of the last Iranian Monarch, Mohammadreza Pahlavi, and he in turn was toppled by the 1979 Revolution in Iran, which in turn precipitated the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Iran and the severing of Iran-US relations.
