While Britain eagerly sought U.S. support for overt military action against the Iranians, preferably as a co-partner, Truman walked a fine line between deterring intervention in Iran and maintaining a positive relationship with America’s closest ally. The last thing Truman wanted was any use of force. Military action might push the Soviet Union either to invade and occupy Iran itself or to invoke a 1921 treaty with Iran that permitted intervention in case of foreign invasion, and thus create a casus belli between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although no one doubted that Iran was of vital strategic interest to America, the U.S. military had pressed hard to prevent a policy that might require American military intervention in that country, or anywhere else in the Middle East, for any reason. With U.S. military forces still weakened by the rapid reduction in manpower that followed World War II, and with most of the remaining fighting forces committed to combat in Korea and to the defense of Asia, the Pentagon had no confidence that the United States could fight and win the global war with the USSR that would certainly follow military intervention in Iran in support of British interests.
The vision of an increasingly unstable Iran was nevertheless unsettling to the Truman administration, which feared that the Soviets would exploit the internal unrest and either gain covert control of the Iranian government or, in a worst-case scenario, actually invade and occupy Iran—an understandable worry when the tenor of the times is considered.13 Thus, in the summer of 1952, with these concerns in mind and in fear that British policies would fail, the Truman White House began drafting options for some type of U.S. intervention in Iran.14 U.S. military forces were being steadily built up in response to the Korean War and as a by-product of the seminal Cold War document NSC-68 to a point that would enable the United States to match Soviet military power anywhere in the world—and would perforce establish a potential capability to intervene in the Persian Gulf region in addition to meeting other global commitments.15 The Truman administration was thus poised to pursue a more active stance in resolving the standoff between the British and the Iranians.
Mohammed Mossadegh’s rule as prime minister was a brief one. He acceded to the post on 29 April 1951 (a political act essentially forced on the shah) and was ousted less than two years later by dint of a political action operation that was equal parts “romantic intrigue, timing, and luck,” to co-opt Evan Thomas’s description.16 Of course, the repercussions of a British oil boycott on the Iranian economy and continuing violence in the streets of Tehran should not be discounted when evaluating the factors that ultimately brought success to the coup plotters. John Stempel argues that the British boycott (which the Eisenhower administration adhered to) was more instrumental in bringing down Mossadegh than the CIA, claiming that the CIA official behind the coup only “encouraged forces who were already restive and prepared to participate.”17 The CIA’s official history of the coup details the progression of the coup, and missteps therein, to the point at which CIA officials in Washington and Tehran all thought the operation was a failure. When the coup actually succeeded, thanks mostly to initiatives taken by Iranian army officers and Iranian agents of the CIA, U.S. government officials were as surprised as anyone.18 The CIA officer who supervised the operation later averred that the coup succeeded because the intended results were desired by a majority of the Iranian people and not because of any CIA derring-do.19
The last straw for the Americans was a visit to Washington by an intransigent Mossadegh in the fall of 1952. Immediately on returning to Iran from Washington, Mossadegh broke off diplomatic relations with Great Britain and ordered the official British presence to be out of Iran by 1 November. With this rupture the British opted to pursue a scheme that had been gestating in the London headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) for some time: the overthrow of Mossadegh. But lacking an official presence in Iran with which to mount a covert program, and with limited financial resources, the British turned to their American cousins for assistance. The original SIS plan, Operation Boot, was a complicated scheme involving tribal uprisings in the provinces coordinated with political moves in Tehran. At the most senior level, the politically appointed CIA officials were generally favorable to the overall goal of the British, if not necessarily the means.
The British raised the idea again in February 1953, by which time the Eisenhower administration had concluded that removing Mossadegh offered the best solution for ensuring that Iran did not turn to the Soviets or otherwise become a communist regime. The White House told the CIA that it should proceed jointly with the SIS to achieve this objective. Although the senior officials at State and CIA (political appointees all) looked favorably on the idea, most officers two or three echelons below the top—in other words, the career civil servants whose day-to-day responsibilities centered on Iranian affairs, including the chief of station in Tehran—held little brief for this intrusion into Iranian politics. Agency and State analysts did not believe that Mossadegh was a Communist or a stooge of the Communists. Nor did they place much credence in the argument that the Tudeh party was poised to take control of Iran.20 (It wouldn’t be the last time that CIA officers who were country or regional experts were directed by political appointees to undertake a covert action that they deemed unwise or foolish.) The American ambassador in Tehran, Loy Henderson (a long-time Soviet expert), was convinced that Mossadegh was simply naive about communism, even as he grew increasingly more reliant on the Tudeh party.21
Late in 1952, outgoing secretary of state Dean Acheson briefed the new Eisenhower administration on Iran, highlighting three salient points: negotiations with Mossadegh had failed, with blame falling equally on the Iranians and the British; U.S. policy now included options for unilateral intervention (presumably to replace the Mossadegh regime); and the problems festering in Iran would probably confront Eisenhower sooner rather than later.22 Sure enough, in early January 1953, even before Ike’s inauguration, Mossadegh sent a three-page letter to the president-elect asking for assistance for his country. Eisenhower had been hearing derogatory reports about Mossadegh not only from Truman’s people but also from British prime minister Winston Churchill, and so was not an uninformed bystander in the matter. His reply to Mossadegh was noncommittal, expressing hope that “our future relations will be completely free from suspicion.”23 In late January and February 1953 the new U.S. administration watched as the turmoil in Iran increased. A failed attempt in the Majlis (Iran’s legislature) to replace Mossadegh through constitutional processes was followed by Mossadegh’s move against the leaders of a half-baked plot hatched by retired military officers to establish a separate “Free South in Iran.” Finally there came rioting in the streets.24 The cowed Majlis extended Mossadegh’s near dictatorial powers, and soon thereafter, on 28 February, the shah announced that he would abdicate the throne. Rioting broke out anew almost immediately, and the shah retracted his abdication within hours.
The British SIS met with Eisenhower’s people and the CIA in February, just two weeks after Ike’s inauguration. Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt, chief of the Near East Division of the CIA’s Clandestine Service (known at the time as the Directorate of Plans), was named program manager for the coup operation. Operation Boot then became TPAjax. Preparations began in earnest in March, with DCI Allen Dulles authorizing a $1 million budget for the coup (this figure was subsequently augmented by $11,000 for the purpose of bribing members of the Majlis).25
Any initial misgivings on the part of the United States eroded through the spring of 1953 as the political and security situation in Iran worsened and Mossadegh became increasingly dependent on the Tudeh party (although he was also popular with many of the middle class, including bazaaris [the merchant class], junior military officers, and clerics).26 Street demonstrations for and against Mossadegh, which had become common in the opening months of 1953, escalated in violence, with some of the disturbances instigated by the Tudeh party. The Majlis was as chaotic as the country in general and eventually was dissolved by Mossadegh. The Eisenhower team deemed the burgeoning instability in Iran unacceptable, and Ike commented at one point to Republican senator Robert Taft of Ohio that Iran “must