Operation Ajax by Allen Dulles
As US State Department Consultant Professor Richard Immerman stated, “The publication of documents on the organization of the CIA coup in Iran in 1953 could trigger an increase in anti-American sentiment and reduce the prospects for concluding agreements on nuclear program negotiations.”Not for the first year or even the first decade around the American archival documents related to Operation Ajax - the organization of a coup by CIA agents in Iran in the summer of 1953 - “strange” events constantly occur.
The secret report of the CIA agent Donald Wilber, entitled "The overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mossadegh" was written in March 1954, and declassified in October 1969-th. There were almost no details in it, key episodes of the CIA and their agents' activities — for obvious reasons, the “cold war” was in full swing - they were described in a dull and unintelligible way. However, the Wilber report contained references to a number of important documents revealing the background of the events, which were kept in the intelligence archives of the United States and Great Britain.
In 1993, then CIA director James Woolsey promised to declassify the documents that Wilber referred to in his report. In full accordance with the saying that “they have been waiting for the promised three years,” journalists and historians did not disturb Woolsey with uncomfortable questions until the end of 1996. From the beginning of 1997, however, they began to wonder when, say, the archives would open: the cold war was over, and the winds of democracy were blowing President Bill Clinton’s saxophone, into Boris Yeltsin’s back ...
Tired of the obsession of historians, truth-seekers and impish journalists, the director of the CIA held a press conference at which he squeezed: he, he says, very much wanted to declassify the documents of his department on organizing the coup. Honestly, I would read them myself. Well, the trouble is that, due to the errors of the CIA archivists, most of the records and documents on Ajax were destroyed in the early sixties. According to him, the same fate befell a large number of documents relating to operations in other countries of the Middle East, including the “Iraqi” and “Libyan” dossiers. Therefore, Woolsey stated sadly, no matter how personally he would like, but there is nothing special to declassify, only a few pieces of paper remain, and even those are sheer nonsense, nothing interesting.
In 2000, it turned out that the director of the CIA, how to put it more softly, mislead everyone. The New York Times has published part of the documents on Operation Ajax.
And, although in many respects it was a retelling of 1969 materials of the year, plus some information that became known from the archives of the Shahs SAVAK after the victory of the Islamic revolution, new names and details surfaced. Those that completely demolished version of the destruction of archives.
In July, the 2013 of the year on the archives of the National Security Services of the United States published another part of the documents about Operation Ajax. And in September of this year, the US State Department decided to put an end and, as a sign of “sincere desire to remove controversial issues in stories Iranian-American Relations, ”announced that it intends to declassify all materials related to the organization of a coup in Iran in 1953 year.
However, a couple of months later, after a draft of a two-volume documentary compendium had already been prepared, the work was again voluntarily decided.
Such a long story about the vicissitudes of the declassification of documents on Operation Ajax is absolutely necessary in order to say with certainty: Washington will never reveal the truth about the forms and methods of conducting secret CIA operations in Iran. Since Operation Ajax became the forerunner of all American methods of organizing the "Orange Revolutions" and overthrowing unwanted US regimes.
And most of the “creative discoveries” of American intelligence, made in Iran half a century ago, have not lost their relevance at all today.
“Ajax” became a vivid example of what the struggle for access to oil and control over the resources of a sovereign state all the rant about democracy, sovereignty and the “will of the people” if they are contrary to the interests of Washington, the West and transnational corporations.
A bit of history. By the beginning of the twentieth century, southern Persia was under the actual occupation of Britain, and the riches of the country with shameless dashingness were cashed out and “Victorian gentlemen” gentlemen were placed in their pockets. The robbery of Persia under the British Union Jack took on such proportions that George Curzon, an imperial to the core, at the beginning of the 20th century commented on one of Baron Julius de Reiter’s transactions in Iran: “This is the most complete and extreme surrender of all industry and resources of Persia in foreign hands. This is a prize that we did not even dare to dream. ”
The Second World War is over - but the situation has not changed. Persian oil, shamelessly “priklytizirovannoy” “Anglo-Iranian oil company”, enriched the British Empire, which was at the end of its power, the British government, the shareholders, in a word, anyone, but not the Iranians. In the late forties, Iran fell into terrible poverty caused by the collapse of the economy. Actually, there was no collapse, since the budget was formed from the fact that “from the bounty” for the pumped-out oil “was released from poverty” London. If the total profit of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company from 1945 to 1950 amounted to 250 million dollars, then the rent for the use of the subsoil belonging to Iran amounted to 90 million for the same years.
In February, 1949, a Muslim fanatic who pretended to be a photographer, tried to kill the shah when he arrived at Tehran University. This attempt was a turning point in relation to the "lord of Iran" both to himself and to the future of the country. Using this attempt as a pretext, the Shah declared martial law and began a vigorous campaign to assert personal power. Naturally, the main condition for successful leadership was the question of increasing the rent for oil fields. In the summer of 1949, the Anglo-Iranian Company was forced to begin negotiations with the Shah on amendments to the terms of the 1933 concession of the year.
However, the concessions made by the owners of the company were so insignificant that the Shah's government, fearing public outrage, simply hid the course of negotiations and the essence of the agreements reached. When the text of the upcoming agreement became known, the public frankly "fell into the sediment" from the arrogance of the British.
And the parliamentary oil committee, headed by Mohamed Mossadegh, demanded the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, because its leadership did not, in principle, recognize that Iran has any other interests than to give its white resources to the white masters.
Coincidentally, the demands for nationalization sounded almost simultaneously with the start of the Korean War, under which Iranian oil gained new significance for the West. Not only did it constitute 40 percent of all the oil produced in the Middle East, the company's refinery in Abadan was also the main source of aviation fuel for the air forces of the United Kingdom and the United States in the eastern hemisphere.
The outrage in Iran of the predatory actions of the British government caused concern in the United States. The then Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, spoke openly about the "extraordinary and stupid obstinacy of the company and the British government in the Iranian issue." But London did not want to change anything, and in Tehran they firmly decided to get rid of colonial dependence and predatory treaties.
28 April 1951 was elected by the Majlis to Mohamed Mossadegh, the number one enemy of the Anglo-Iranian Company, as Prime Minister. With a special mandate to enforce the law on nationalization. Shah signed the relevant law, which entered into force on the first of May. The days of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in Iran seemed to be numbered. Mossadek sent the governor of the province of Khuzestan to the company's headquarters in Khorramshahr. Upon arrival, he sacrificed a ram at the entrance to the company's office, after which he announced that the British oil concession had been annulled and that the company's property in Iran and the oil it produces now belong to the Iranian nation.
London was shocked. “If Persia gets away with it, then Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries will decide that they, too, should try,” said British Defense Secretary Emmanuel Shinwell. And Britain began preparations for a military operation against Iran.
The US government categorically opposed armed intervention, fearing that such actions by Britain would provoke a response from the USSR. And this will end with the fact that Iran will be behind the “iron curtain”. But Washington understood that the control over Iranian oil should be established at any cost. And when the British offered the Americans to prepare a coup in Iran, this proposal was supported by both Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his legendary brother Allen, who had become the director of the CIA by that time. They gave the command to start the operation "Ajax" ...
Today, it can be said with complete confidence that the main reason for its success was that it was the first to apply the technology of organizing non-violent coups, which later became known as the “color revolutions”, for the first time.
Kermit Roosevelt, who was in charge of the operation from the American side, said that at the peak of Ajax, on the eve of the coup, more than 80 percent of the capital’s newspapers and magazines were in charge of the CIA.
Every morning, Tehran’s press shook public opinion with shrill interviews of deputies dissatisfied with the policies of Mohamed Mossadeq, scandalous revelations of the ugly life of a “corrupt prime minister and his associates.” Practically all these stories were pure misinformation created by Langley specialists. In the same place, at the headquarters of the CIA, "topical" caricatures and caricatures were created, delivered by diplomatic mail to the embassies of the United States and Britain, from which they were transported by the editors of the "lured" newspapers and magazines.
Corruption in the Ajax operation was also assigned an important role, so the money to Kermit Roosevelt for this purpose was allocated for those times more than solid - a million dollars in cash, generously distributed to them by officials, journalists and then “civil activists”.
Turned out. The protesters were strolling through the streets of Tehran, allegedly from the Tudeh Party (Iranian Communist Party), who voted: “Long live Mohamed Mossadegh! Long live the Soviet Union! Communism will win, Iran will become Soviet! ”
One by one, there were explosions in mosques, on the ruins of which there were immediately carefully left evidence leading directly to the “communist lair” and to the administration of Mossadegh. The infuriated clergy betrayed the anathema of the Prime Minister, who turned a blind eye to the atrocities of atheist militants who did not shy away from raising their hands on the holy of holies.
The best craftsmen of London and New York made fake Iranian banknotes, which were thrown into the domestic market, stimulating unprecedented inflation, which achieved an economy no worse than the sanctions introduced at the same time in combination with the “sea blockade” by British forces fleet.
But the peak of subversive activity was the events on Tehran’s main shopping street, Lalezar. First, Kermit Roosevelt’s money hired militants from a local criminal gang who went to scour the street, crashing the windows of all the shops on their way, beating up passersby, shooting at the mosque and happily chanting the intricate phrase: “We love Mossadegh and Communism!”. A couple of hours later, fighters from the rival group, whose services were also paid, moved towards the pogromists. It ended with the fact that in the very center of Tehran there was a long-term massacre with shooting and fires - so that the next morning the metropolitan newspapers could maliciously accuse the government of Mossadegh in the inability to control the situation in the city and ensure the safety of the civilian population.
Against all the power of the CIA and British intelligence, against the flow of money and the efforts of the "fifth column", Mossadegh could not resist. He was overthrown but not broken, having managed to throw accusers in the face on the process organized against him on charges of high treason: “Yes, my sin, my big, even the greatest sin is that I nationalized the Iranian oil industry and threw off the political system and the economic exploitation of my country one of the greatest world empires. With God's blessing and the will of the Iranian people, I fought against this wild and terrible system of colonialism and espionage ”...
“I know well that my destiny must serve as an example to the entire Middle East in the struggle to destroy the chains of slavery and colonial bondage,” he said in his last word at the trial. 21 December 1953 of the year Mossadegh was sentenced to death, but this sentence was replaced by three years of solitary confinement and the subsequent life sentence - until his death in 1967 - with house arrest.
However, the fate of Iran after the overthrow of the Mossadegh is a separate topic, and now it is necessary to sum up some of the results of Operation Ajax. To highlight in it the main thing that will later become the "firm handwriting" of the CIA's activities not only in Tehran and other Middle Eastern capitals, but throughout the world.
First, the creation of a network of agents of influence, the "fifth column". C. Roosevelt managed to outbid the old British agents, the Rashidi brothers, the three sons of an Iranian businessman engaged in banking and real estate.
The brothers put pressure on the members of the Majlis - the country's parliament; they worked among the merchants of the “Tehran Bazaar”, which has always been a barometer of political life. It was they, the leaders of the then “fifth column” in Iran, who bribed American money for deputies of parliament, senior officers of the armed forces and police, editors and publishers.
Secondly, an active outreach war against the government. During the operation “Ajax” 150 thousand dollars were spent for these purposes, cash was passed to editors and publishers in bags and even in tin boxes from under cookies - there were no copiers at that time. The CIA developed brochures and leaflets stating that "Mossadek favors the Tudeh Party and the USSR ... Mossadek is an opponent of Islam ... Mossadek deliberately destroys the moral spirit of our army ... Mossadegh deliberately leads the country to an economic collapse ... Mossadegh is corrupted by power."
Thirdly, the use of religious extremists. A group of religious fanatics called the “Warriors of Islam”, in fact - a brigade of terrorists, threatened with physical violence to political supporters of Mossadegh, organized attacks on revered religious leaders, who were later accused of Communists and Mossadegh himself.
Fourth, the training of gangs, which at the right moment would plunge the country into bloody chaos. By order of Roosevelt, CIA agents were taken to Iran and cached money and weaponwhich was enough to fully equip and secure 10 thousands of fighters for six months.
“Romantic gossip about“ coup d'état ”in Iran spread around Washington with lightning speed,” Ray Cline, one of the CIA analysts, later recalled. “Allen Dulles was basking in the rays of his own glory.”
The success of “Ajax” operation turned out to be a drug for American politicians, gave Washington the illusion of the omnipotence of military dictatorship and covert operations. And the United States cannot withdraw from this drug intoxication until now.
Ajax was revived again - no longer in the form of a covert operation plan, but as Washington’s long-term strategy to overthrow the ruling regime in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The form has slightly changed, but the content has not changed at all. There is an economic war against Tehran in the form of a sophisticated regime of “crippling sanctions”. A “fifth column” is recruited, with the help of which scientists kill and sabotage against industrial facilities are organized. Pseudo-religious terrorists are being financed, like the Jundallah, which has been reviving after the losses suffered by Iranian intelligence, and which has replaced Jaish al-Adl. The ideological centers of Kurdish, Baluch and Azerbaijani separatists closely supervised by the CIA are working. The launch of Ajax, launched by 61 a year ago, had repercussions that the Iranian people and the rest of the world are still experiencing. And the set of schemes used in this operation is so universal that it allows the use of elements of this operation against any country that has declared its unwillingness to submit to American dictate.
Including - and against Russia. It is enough to take a closer look at some of the "nuances" of the political events of recent years ...
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