Review: All the Shah's Men

Title: All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
Author: Stephen Kinzer
Publisher: Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2003
ISBN: 0-471-26517-9

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000:

In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs." (212).

Albright's statement didn't seem to make big news at the time. Indeed, most of the information in Stephen Kinzer's All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror is as unknown as it at first glance seems unlikely. But many of the events are public. The others Kinzer documents from biographies, journals, memoirs, newspapers, and official CIA service history. It all seems truthful enough. But other things than Americans overthrowing democratically elected Iranian leaders seem to make the news, such as Iranians holding Americans hostage almost 25 years later.

Kinzer's story in a nutshell: Many Persian rulers have exploited the Persian people. At one point, to fund their lavish lifestyle, rulers sold oil rights or concessions to foreigners for next to nothing. By the early twentieth century, Britain owned the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which provided paltry payment to Iran, yet kept its Iranian workers in miserable conditions. Britain consistently failed to negotiate with Iran for a more fair arrangement. Elected as a popular nationalist, in response to the Shah's courting of foreigners, Mohammad Mossadegh became prime minister of Iran and immediately nationalized the oil company, claiming that, like its mountains and its rivers, Iran's oil was a natural feature over which it held sovereignty.

Britain still refused to negotiate, and instead hinted at military action and tried to set the stage for a coup. Mossadegh expelled British diplomats, so the British convinced the Americans, who feared communist influence on the Iranians from the Soviets, to stage the coup in their place. The CIA was successful, through secret meetings and payments, to succefully stage a coup that ousted Mossadegh as prime minister and brought back Mohammed Reza Shah as monarch. The Shah was supported by America but treated his subject badly, leading to an Islamic revolution in 1979 along with hostage-taking at the American embassy.

Kinzer's story is readable—in fact, at times it feels less than academic because its writing style is so simplistic. (Mr. Kinzer writes for the New York Times, and the style is reminiscent of that intended for a newspaper audience.) Because of the low writing level, the reading may be less than enjoyable—even if the material is nonetheless complete. Kinzer seems to claim that the CIA's actions in 1953 were the impetus for all later Middle Eastern terrorism, but this premise seems hard to justify. His contention that self-serving unilateral American action, in disregard for international law or territorial sovereignty, doesn't help American popularity one whit, is spot on, though. The story of the CIA in 1953 organizing a coup to overthrow a democratically elected leader in the Middle East, along with its negative effects on the region for decades, is a story that should be told many times. All the Shah's Men probably makes a good first telling of the tale. I'd like to see the publication of a more academic, annotated version, though.

Notes

A "flamboyant American soldier, General H. Norman Schwarzkpf" arrived in Iran in 1942 as a head of a military mission. Leading the Imperial Iranian Gendarmerie, he trained a secret security squad that at one point prevented the succession of Azerbaijan, then occupied by Soviet troops, from Iran. "In a remarkable quirk of history, his son, also General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, returned to the region as commander of operation Dester Storm in 1990-1991…" (64-66).
President Truman approved the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1947, with a mandate to carry out "functions and duties related to intelligence affecting the national security." This mandate was expanded a year later to include "sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures … subversion [and] assistance to underground resistence movements, guerillas and refugee liberation movements, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world." (84).
Truman named Dean Acheson secretary of state in 1948. Acheson in turn named a Texan, George McGhee, as assistant secretary for Near Eastern, South Asian and American affairs. McGhee had studied geology at the University of Oklahoma and had won a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford. Around the end of 1949, "McGhee repeatedly warned directors of Anglo-Iranian that if they hoped to save Prime Minister Razmara and persuade the Majlis to approve their Supplemental Agreement, they must make concessions." (86-87).
Mossadegh "dashed Britain's hopes of organizing a coup" by breaking diplomatic relations with Britain on 16 October 1952, expelling all British diplomats (and thereby all British intelligence agents). "If there was to be [a coup], the Americans would have to stage it." (147).
"[T]he United States gave its go-ahead for Operation Ajax, or Operation Boot as the British continued to call it. The governments in London and Washington were finally united in their enthusiasm. One [Britain] looked forward to recovering its oil concession. The other [The United States] saw a chance to deliver a devastating blow against communism." (164).
Fazlollah Zahedi was the prime minister to replace Mossadegh when the latter was overthrown. Kermit Roosevelt, a CIA agent who directed the overthrow of Mossadegh, told Zahedi of the news directly before Zahedi was driven in a tank to Radio Tehran for the announcement. One of Roosevelt's aids had brought from the American embassy a record of martial music to be played before Zehedi spoke to the nation over the radio. Embarrasingly, the record that was played turned out to be "The Star-Spangled Banner." A "more anonymous tune" was quickly chosen, and Zahedi declared himself "the lawful prime minister by the Shah's order…." (183-184).
After the coup, an international consortium was organized to run the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which had named the National Iranian Oil Company by Mossadegh. Anglo-Iranian held 40% of the shares. The consortium agreed to share profits with Iran on a fifty-fifty basis, but still refused "to open its books to Iranian auditors or to allow Iranians onto its board of directors." (196).
A "direct result" of the 1953 coup "was to give Mohammed Reza Shah the chance to become dictator. He received enormous amounts of aid from the United States—more than $1 billion in the decade following the coup—but his oppressive rule turned Iranians against him." In 1979 a revolution led by Islamic fundamentalists overthrew the Shah, and President Jimmy Carter allowed him to enter the United States. "The hostange-takers [in 1979] remembered that when the Shah fled into exile in 1953, CIA agents working at the American embassy hadreturned him to his throne. Iranians feared that history was about to repeat itself." (202).
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: "In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. The Eisenhower administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons. But the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs." (212).