The coup has been both condoned and condemned. Critics argue that it was wrong for the United States to overthrow a government of perceived legitimacy for seemingly narrow interests, and insist that the oppressive policies of the shah afterward, particularly with respect to human rights issues and the dictatorship he maintained, prove their point. They claim that the return of the shah ended any possibility that Iran might have evolved into a more democratic form of government with institutions respectful of the civil rights and liberties of its citizens. Indeed, on 17 March 2000 President Bill Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, came very close to apologizing for the coup when she acknowledged the role the United States played in it and declared that the coup was “clearly a setback for Iran’s political development.”2 The critics also assert that Mossadegh was not a Communist and insist that there was little or no possibility that Communists would have gained control of the Iranian government under his rule. In sum, the coup was an unnecessary (if not illegal or immoral) act of governmental power that was fomented on insupportable grounds.
In rebuttal, there is first the obvious point that the future of Iran with Mossadegh in charge—or Iran without the coup, for that matter, whether Mossadegh or someone else was in power—was and is unknowable. Claims that Iran would have developed into a Western-style democracy or some other acceptable form of government, and that this other government would have been more respectful of human rights and liberties, are speculations, if not wishful thinking. Never in the millennia of its existence had Iran experienced any sustained period of democratic self-government, nor had it demonstrated an adherence to principles that today would be recognized as endorsing human rights and civil liberties. It exceeds mere optimism to postulate that Mossadegh’s Iran would have achieved these desirable conditions had the coup not cut short his regime.
Those who see the coup as a necessary act dictated by national and international security concerns deny neither the mistakes of the shah nor the cruelty of his government. Their position is essentially that the benefits to the free world of a pro-West regime in Iran far outweighed the more odious aspects of the shah’s rule.3 Those who support, or at least accept, the necessity of replacing the Mossadegh government point out that there was no assurance that Iran would or could have remained free from Soviet influence had the coup not occurred, and, conversely, that the consequences of the loss of Iran were too adverse to risk. One observer argues that even if the 1953 coup had not occurred, the “intervention would have happened in any case, touched off by some other specific action that Washington took as confirmation of its worst fears.”4 What is known, the coup supporters maintain, is that with the shah in power Iran was for a quarter-century a politically stable, pro-West ally in a critical region rent by turmoil and coveted by the Soviets.5
One highly important facet often overlooked and inevitably underestimated is the value of the Tacksman sites. It may never be known for certain just how vital to the interests of Western security, or indeed to the security of the world, the Tacksman intelligence was. The full extent of the role it played in enabling policymakers to counter the Soviet threat and bring about arms reduction agreements may likewise remain in the shadows. But it does not require much faith on the part of anyone familiar with intelligence and arms control policy to believe that the world was far safer for two decades because of the Tacksman sites. And these sites would not have existed without the shah in power.
It is not just that the sites collected critical intelligence against the Soviet strategic missile program. A collateral project, code-named Melody, at one Tacksman site provided crucial intelligence on at least two other security concerns: were the Soviets developing an antiballistic missile defense system in violation of a treaty then being negotiated between the United States and the USSR, and if so, was it founded on a modification of the SA-5 antiaircraft missile? There was doubt in some national security quarters that the Soviets actually could upgrade their SA-5 antiaircraft missile to antimissile capability, but it was essential to know for sure. The White House requested a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to inform the issue. The Melody equipment was slightly modified to acquire the SA-5 target-tracking radar signals and then used to monitor an SA-5 launch. The system captured signals emitted from the SA-5 that proved indisputably that its target-tracking radar was of the nature demanded by an ABM. When Henry Kissinger, the primary American negotiator, next met with the Soviets in Geneva he was able, he later recalled, to stare “his Soviet counterpart in the eye and read him the dates and time they had cheated on the treaty. The cheating immediately ceased and the Soviets began a mole-hunt for the spy” who was reporting to American intelligence. Melody continued to provide vital intelligence on Soviet missile-tracking radars that were being tested at a key Soviet test range almost one thousand miles distant.6
Ultimately, then, judging the appropriateness of the coup distills down to balancing the very tangible suffering of the Iranian people (which could very well have been worse under a ruler other than the shah) against the intangible role Iran under the shah played in ensuring that the Cold War remained that way. Regardless of the security advantages it provided for U.S. foreign policy in the 1950s and 1960s, however, the 1953 coup had far-reaching consequences. Certainly it colored the Iranians’ view of U.S. actions and promises during the 1979–81 hostage crisis in Tehran.7
The United States made its first sales of military equipment to Iran in June 1947 in consonance with the implementation of the Truman Doctrine and the subsequent Military Defense Assistance Program. As part of that program the shah was asked to submit what was anticipated to be a modest shopping list. What came back to Washington must have confounded U.S. officials: the shah asked for no less than $175 million in advanced weaponry, including heavy tanks and jet aircraft, and supplies enough for 200,000 troops, even though the Iranian army mustered only 120,000 at the time. The supplies eventually provided were valued at just $10.7 million.8 As the Cold War intensified, however, America’s resolve to limit the shah to items that were in his nation’s best economic and security interests diminished. From 1946 to 1952 the shah received $42.3 million in economic assistance and $16.6 million in military aid.9
The 1950s witnessed the shah consolidating his power and authority and successfully linking his own policy preferences with those of NATO. The U.S. government began to view the shah in a more positive light, and the U.S. ambassador in Tehran decided that the shah was the only Iranian political personage strong enough to forestall a communist takeover. Secretary of State Dean Acheson lauded the shah as the best hope of providing firmness and leadership, even though the monarch was already demonstrating indecisiveness, depression, and a bent for conspiracy.10 The State Department increasingly backed his pleas for military assistance despite Defense Department objections that the Iranian army had limited technical capabilities and was rife with internal corruption.11
As 1951 turned into 1952, Truman became increasingly worried about the support Mossadegh (a wealthy and popular, if eccentric, career civil servant and uncompromising nationalist) was receiving from the Tudeh party. The president was further nettled by the failure of the Iranians and the British to resolve their differences over the British-dominated Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and oil profits. Both sides refused to compromise, which deepened the crisis and eventually led to