Operation AJAX

Operation AJAX was the CIA's operational code name for the August 1953 covert action that overthrew the elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and restored Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (the Shah) to full autocratic power. The British MI6 designated the same operation Operation Boot. The coup took place on August 19, 1953, known in the Iranian calendar as 28 Mordad 1332. The CIA officially acknowledged its central role in the operation in August 2013 when it released a declassified internal history.¹

Background: The Oil Nationalization Crisis

The immediate cause of Operation AJAX was the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) crisis. The AIOC, a British company (now BP), had held monopoly rights to Iranian oil since 1913. In 1951, Mosaddegh's National Front government nationalized the AIOC, asserting Iranian sovereign control over its primary natural resource. The British government, which held majority interest in the AIOC, responded with an economic blockade of Iranian oil exports and sought to pressure or remove Mosaddegh.

The Truman administration initially declined British requests for CIA assistance in removing Mosaddegh, viewing the situation as primarily a colonial dispute. When Eisenhower took office in January 1953, the CIA's assessment changed: the Eisenhower administration and CIA Director Allen Dulles accepted British arguments that Mosaddegh's coalition could be exploited by the Tudeh (Iranian communist) Party and that Iran could fall into the Soviet sphere. This provided the Cold War justification for intervention.¹

Operational Planning

The operation was planned primarily by two CIA officers and their British counterparts. Kermit Roosevelt Jr., grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and a Middle East specialist at the CIA's clandestine service, was the operational commander on the ground in Tehran. The British side was led initially by Christopher Montague Woodhouse (MI6 Tehran station chief), who had approached the CIA for assistance after British intelligence officers were expelled from Iran in 1952.

The operational plan involved multiple coordinated elements:

• A black propaganda campaign using CIA-funded Iranian newspapers to portray Mosaddegh as communist-aligned and anti-Islamic
• Bribery of Iranian military officers, parliamentarians, and religious figures
• Hiring of provocateurs and street mobs to create chaos, including paying demonstrators to claim affiliation with the Tudeh Party while carrying out violent acts designed to discredit Mosaddegh
• Coordination with Iranian military officers loyal to the Shah

The first coup attempt on the night of August 15-16, 1953, failed when Mosaddegh was warned. The Shah fled to Rome. Roosevelt remained in Tehran and reorganized for a second attempt.¹

The August 19 Coup

On August 19, 1953, coordinated operations produced the successful coup. CIA-organized street mobs (paid through an Iranian intermediary) attacked pro-Mosaddegh newspapers and political organizations. Iranian military units loyal to the Shah seized key installations in Tehran. Mosaddegh's residence was attacked; he surrendered the following day.

Mosaddegh was arrested, tried for treason by a military court, and sentenced to three years in prison. After his release he was confined to house arrest at his estate in Ahmad Abad, where he lived until his death in 1967. The Shah returned from exile and assumed direct control of the government.¹

General Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. (father of the Gulf War commander) played a supporting role; he had trained the Iranian gendarmerie in the late 1940s and used his contacts with Iranian military officers in the coup preparations.²

Consequences

The immediate consequence of Operation AJAX was the consolidation of the Shah's autocratic rule. The Shah established SAVAK, the Iranian secret police, with CIA and Mossad assistance in 1957. SAVAK became notorious for systematic torture and political repression and was the primary mechanism of regime control until the 1979 revolution.

The oil consortium outcome was a compromise: Iran retained nominal ownership of the nationalized oil industry through the National Iranian Oil Company, but a new international consortium gave 40 percent of production rights to American companies (eight companies) and 40 percent to the British (AIOC, renamed British Petroleum), with the remainder divided among Dutch and French interests. American companies received an equal share to the British - the commercial benefit that aligned U.S. corporate interests with the British political objective.

The long-term consequence was the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the clerical opposition had opposed the Shah since the early 1960s; the 1953 coup's restoration of foreign-backed autocracy became foundational to the revolutionary narrative. When CIA station files were seized during the November 1979 Embassy takeover in Tehran, they documented the CIA-SAVAK relationship and confirmed for the revolutionary government the extent of American intelligence penetration of Iran under the Shah.¹

The 1953 coup established Operation AJAX as the template for CIA-backed regime change operations that followed through the Cold War, including the 1954 overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala (Operation PBSUCCESS), the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, and support for coups in Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, and elsewhere.¹

CIA Acknowledgment

The CIA maintained official silence about its role in Operation AJAX for sixty years. In August 2013, responding to Freedom of Information Act requests, the CIA released a partially declassified internal history of the 1953 coup written in 1954 by agency historian Donald Wilber, confirming CIA operational planning and execution. The State Department's official historical record, Foreign Relations of the United States, included Operation AJAX documentation in its 1989 volume on Iran 1951-1954.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright acknowledged in 2000 that the 1953 coup was a "setback for democratic governance" in Iran without explicitly admitting CIA direction. The 2013 declassification was the first official CIA acknowledgment of operational responsibility.¹