This view was further bolstered by an intelligence assessment of 20 December 1946 that was issued less than two weeks after Iranian troops ousted the Tudeh-supported Azerbaijani provincial government, an action in which the USSR tacitly but reluctantly acquiesced in order to protect an oil agreement signed with Tehran earlier in the year. Calling the denouement in Azerbaijan a “debacle” for the Soviets and noting that it weakened the Tudeh party in Iran, analysts suggested that “the Soviets may now be expected to abandon direct action in favor of intensified infiltration and clandestine activity.” This was, of course, precisely what the Soviets were attempting to do in Greece and Turkey and what they would attempt to do the next year in Italy and France. Intelligence assessments of this nature coupled with continuing evidence of Soviet efforts to subvert governments and government institutions (such as the Four Powers Control Commission in occupied Berlin) almost certainly caused worry in the Truman White House when Iranian prime minister Mossadegh’s flirtation with the Tudeh party became apparent.
There was more: a 4 June 1947 intelligence analysis entitled “Developments in the Azerbaijan Situation” asserted that while the “collapse” of the pro-Soviet government in Iranian Azerbaijan had eased tensions in the region, continued political turmoil and “persistent Soviet activities and ambitions” would keep the pot boiling. The analysis remarked the geographical value of Azerbaijan, highlighting its 202-mile border with Turkey, 70-mile border with Iraq, and 480-mile border with the USSR. Furthermore, it was a mere 125 miles from the border to the capital of Soviet oil production, Baku. By dint of being located near two diverging mountain ranges, Azerbaijan was a gateway opening Iran to easy conquest. Intertribal strife and the absence of anything approaching a viable governmental structure virtually invited Soviet subversion, and operatives could be easily infiltrated via indigenous groups whose tribal lands straddled the border with the USSR.
Despite the USSR’s political setback in the Azerbaijan region, the analysis predicted that the Soviet Union would not “abandon its ultimate objective of controlling Azerbaijan, and eventually all of Iran.” After outlining the economic pressures the Soviets could bring to bear on Iran, the analysis opined that continued disorder in the border province could create “a pretext for subsequent unilateral Soviet intervention” on the presumption “that Soviet security was in jeopardy.” Control of Azerbaijan by forces unfriendly to the USSR would doubtless be seen as a serious threat to the Soviet oil fields (which produced three-quarters of the USSR’s petroleum supplies) and hence a grave threat to Soviet security.15
By the spring of 1949 the U.S. ambassador to Iran was convinced that a Soviet invasion of Iran was imminent. The CIA’s Daily Intelligence Summary for 17 March 1949 cited a report from the ambassador to the State Department expressing the opinion that “the only uncertainty about Soviet intentions in Iran is the timing of a Soviet move to return” to Iran. Noting recent “setbacks” (probably including the West’s defeat of the Berlin blockade and electoral losses for the Soviets’ surrogate parties in Italy and France) and “particularly the imminent conclusion of the Atlantic Pact,” the ambassador thought it “possible that the USSR may enter Iran in the near future.” Expressing its own view, the CIA disagreed that a Soviet incursion was in the offing. An invasion might do more harm to the USSR than good because it would probably “decisively facilitate the rapid and effective implementation of the Atlantic Pact.”16 But the disagreement between State and CIA settled no minds.
A telling document disseminated by the CIA on 27 July 1950 titled “Special Evaluation No. 39, Possibility of Soviet Aggression against Iran” again predicted that the Soviets would resort to clandestine subversion of the Iranian government instead of an open attack.17 Agency analysts suggested that the Soviet Union would “intensify its efforts to build up subversive forces within Iran and to weaken the country by means of propaganda, border activities, and diplomatic pressure.” The assessment went on to review the advantages that would accrue to the USSR should it gain control of Iran. First, the “extension of [the] Soviet frontier to Iraq and Pakistan would facilitate Soviet penetration of the Near East and the Indian sub-continent.” Second, the USSR “would be in a more favorable position for extending its control over those areas in the event of global war” and “would gain access to Iran’s great oil resources.” And, third, the United States “would be denied an important potential base of operations against the USSR [and, conversely] the USSR would obtain buffer territory between its vital Baku oil fields and the bases from which Baku might be attacked.” The evaluation examined several scenarios in which the Soviets could generate pretexts for overt intervention in Iran cloaked with some semblance of legality and finished by declaring that if the Iranian government were to lose faith in the United States, it might “feel compelled to seek an accord with the USSR or at least to attempt a course of neutrality.” The consequences of either would leave the Soviets in a “greatly improved position for taking over the country without the use of force.”
By June 1951 the Truman administration had concluded that a communist takeover in Iran was a clear and present danger. Thus, President Truman signed NSC-107/2, which determined that “the loss of Iran to the free world is a distinct possibility through an internal communist uprising, possibly growing out of the present indigenous fanaticism or through communist capture of the nationalist movement.”18 A year later, in the waning months of his administration, Truman had come to view Iran as worth defending against Soviet aggression even if it led to global war. NSC-136 and NSC-136/1, signed by the president in late 1952, officially and frankly held that a Soviet invasion of Iran would be cause for war.19 The two directives authorized overt diplomatic and aid programs for Iran as well as covert operations with the specific purpose of countering Soviet influence (but did not authorize any covert action operations aimed at or against the Iranian government). To counter unforeseen moves by the Soviets, the president’s signature also gave contingent authorization for the use of U.S. military forces if warranted by Soviet actions.
From the end of World War II to the final year of the Truman administration, then, a nearly constant series of Soviet provocations directly or indirectly threatening Iran was countered by escalations in American counterpolicies. These policy determinations were shared by Democrats and Republicans, and thus cannot be attributed simply to conservatives attempting to exploit an increasing fear of Communists lurking in the shadows. Senior policymakers of both political parties had no doubt about the seriousness of the situation in Iran. Even now, with the benefit of four decades of history to reconsider, it is difficult to accept an argument that America overreacted to the potential loss of Iran to Soviet control.
On 19 August 1953 the government of Iran, led by Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, was overthrown as the result of Operation TP Ajax, a covert action program instigated by the British and engineered by the CIA (TP being the digraph that denoted Iranian operations and Ajax the operation code name). It was an act that had enormous political and psychological significance in modern Iranian history and was influential in the 1979 capture of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. One trenchant irony, given the emphasis Iranians placed on the coup during the 1978 revolution, is that it was not of much interest to Iranians at the time.
In fact, in 1953 and for years afterward the reversal of Mossadegh’s government was greeted with approbation by a majority of those Iranians who actually cared about or had a stake in their country’s