Special Reports
Document shows rejected Mosaddeq�s outreach to United States and America�s collusion with Britain
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Oct 2, 2009, 00:18

(WMR) -- With the United States and United Kingdom stating they are committed to diplomacy with Iran over its nuclear power program, but also refusing to rule out military action even as Israel pushed for such action, WMR has obtained a formerly Top Secret Supplement to a CIA Current Intelligence Digest that shows past US-UK collusion to overthrow Iran�s government.

The document�s contents reveal that Washington and London have conspired for several decades to undermine Iranian governments not held in favor by either country. The comments suggesting the �surprise� of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband over Iran�s communiqu� to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it was building a second uranium enrichment facility indicate that Washington and London continue to conspire against Tehran.

The May 1, 1952, document states that Iran�s nationalistic and democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq reached out to the United States to sell it oil after he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) in March 1951. However, the CIA, acting in concert with the British, launched Operation Ajax to overthrow Mosaddeq and placed Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, in charge of the clandestine mission.

On August 19, 1953, military forces loyal to Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, attacked the prime minister�s residence and arrested Mosaddeq. The Iranian prime minister was placed in solitary confinement for three years and remained under house arrest until his death in 1967. Under the tyrannical Shah, Iran became a vassal state of American and British intelligence and oil companies.

The formerly Top Secret CIA document states that Mosaddeq urged President Dwight Eisenhower to buy Iranian oil but he apparently did not realize that Washington was actively trying to overthrow him in a coup. The document states: �Prime Minister Mosaddeq sent an urgent message to Ambassador Henderson on 27 April asking him to buy oil stored at Abadan. HIs emissary suggested that the purchases might induce Britain to change its attitude on the oil settlement. He inquired if an intensive Iranian propaganda attack on the United States would convince America of the serious consequences of its refusal to give Iran financial aid.�

Ambassador Loy Henderson�s ploy, concocted with CIA director Allen Dulles, was to refuse Mosaddeq assistance and push him toward the Soviet Union, giving the United States and Britain a reason to launch their coup d��tat. Henderson was a noted anti-Soviet diplomat but also opposed the establishment of the State of Israel and was a noted anti-Zionist.

The CIA document continues, �Ambassador Henderson suggests that when Mosaddeq becomes absolutely convinced that there is no chance of getting financial aid from the United States and when he finds his government tottering he might well �in his anger and despair,� make gestures toward the USSR.� The final sentence is redacted.

However, Mosaddeq, although a nationalist, was a monarchist and he opposed the influence of the Iranian Communist (Tudeh) Party, the ancestors of the modern-day Mojaheddin-e-Khalq, the favorite Iranian exile group of American neoconservatives like Michael Ledeen and Richard Perle.

Among the CIA officers present in Tehran intermittently from 1951 to 1953 to assist in the coup were Richard Helms, a later director of the CIA; H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the father of the Desert Storm commander with the same name; Vernon Walters, later the deputy director of the CIA; Averell Harriman, former New York Democratic Governor and Prescott Bush�s partner at Brown Brothers Harriman & Company, a financier of Nazi German businesses during World War II; Walter Levy, CIA oil expert; CIA coup engineer Howard �Rocky� Stone; Roy Palmer; George Barbis; John Waller; Joseph Goodwin -- who worked alongside New York Times reporter and CIA non-official cover agent Kenneth Love in distributing anti-Mosaddeq leaflets in Tehran. 

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

Copyright � 2009 WayneMadenReport.com

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).

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