All the Shah’s Men (22 page)

He found his instrument that afternoon, when Ambassador Loy Henderson unexpectedly turned up. After attending the meeting in Washington at which the coup was given final approval, Henderson had thought it wise not to return to his post until Mossadegh was overthrown. He traveled to a resort in the Austrian Alps and waited for news. On August 14, unable to sit still so far away from the action, he flew to Beirut. When he heard radio reports that the coup had failed, he commandeered a Navy plane from the local American embassy and flew to Tehran. Upon arriving at the embassy, he went straight to Roosevelt, who briefed him on the state of affairs.

Roosevelt confessed with considerable understatement that he had “run into some small complications.” Henderson asked if there was anything he could do to help. After a moment of reflection, Roosevelt came up with an outlandish idea. He would make Henderson his tool in an attempt to unnerve Mossadegh.

Roosevelt knew that Mossadegh was a deeply compassionate man who could be moved to tears by the plight of a single widow or orphan. Not a conspirator by nature, Mossadegh had an almost childlike faith in the sincerity of most other people. He was also a very decent, even chivalrous man who appreciated form, ceremony, and diplomacy. Despite the troubles of recent months, he had a soft spot for Americans. If Roosevelt could find a way to exploit these traits in his adversary’s character, he might throw “the old bugger” off balance or force him to make a false move. It was a classic challenge of psychological warfare, and it would produce the most surreal encounter of Operation Ajax.

“What in heaven’s name do I do?” Henderson asked when Roosevelt proposed sending him to Mossadegh.

“My suggestion,” Roosevelt replied, “would be to complain about the way Americans here are being harassed. Anonymous telephone calls saying, ‘Yankee go home!’ or calling them obscene names. Even if a child picks up the phone, the caller just shouts dirty words at him.”

Henderson agreed to do as Roosevelt wished. He added that if Mossadegh asked him about American support for subversion in Iran, he would “make it quite plain that we have no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of a friendly country.” Roosevelt considered this a noble sentiment but said nothing.

Monday evening was “a most active and trying time for the station,” according to the CIA’s postmortem. Roosevelt spent four hours in an intensive planning session with his key operatives, among them the Rashidian brothers, General Zahedi and his son Ardeshir, and General Hedayatollah Guilanshah, a former air force commander who had committed himself to the plot. All were smuggled into and out of the embassy compound under blankets or in car trunks.

Roosevelt was now acting entirely on his own. There had been no backup plan in case the first coup failed, so he simply improvised as he went along. He was in constant motion and had neither the time nor the desire to clear his decisions with superiors. Even if he had wanted to do so, communications technology was cumbersome and unreliable. So during those crucial days, no one in Washington or London had any idea what he was doing.

From the beginning, Roosevelt had realized that the fate of Mossadegh’s government would ultimately be decided on the streets. His Iranian agents were able to produce crowds almost instantly. He devised a plan to use both pro- and antigovernment riots, but in the end the nature of the mob’s demands was almost irrelevant. A mob crying for Mossadegh’s ouster was, of course, ideal, but one that supported him was also helpful because it would help polarize opinion and perhaps even provoke royalist soldiers into repressive reaction. All that really mattered was that Tehran be in turmoil.

The riots that shook Tehran on Monday intensified on Tuesday. Thousands of demonstrators, unwittingly under CIA control, surged through the streets, looting shops, destroying pictures of the Shah, and ransacking the offices of royalist groups. Exuberant nationalists and communists joined in the mayhem. The police were still under orders from Mossadegh not to interfere. That allowed rioters to do their job, which was to give the impression that Iran was sliding toward anarchy. Roosevelt caught glimpses of them during his furtive trips around the city and said that they “scared the hell out of me.”

The crucial event of that day, however, took place not on the streets but behind closed doors. At midafternoon Ambassador Henderson came to call on Mossadegh. The old man was at a distinct disadvantage. He had no idea that clandestine agents based at the American embassy were working day and night to overthrow his government. And since he did not imagine that there existed such a person as Kermit Roosevelt, he could not guess that Roosevelt was using Ambassador Henderson to lay a trap for him. Still, he knew that outside powers had been involved in Saturday’s failed coup. He should have been on guard.

Mossadegh received the ambassador in formal attire, signaling the importance of their meeting. He was distinctly cool, with what Henderson called “smoldering resentment” palpable behind his courtesy. The United States had taken the official position that the Shah was still Iran’s leader, and Mossadegh protested this American support for “a man who is now no more than a rebel.” Henderson replied that although the Shah had indeed fled, the Prophet Mohammad had also fled from Mecca in his time, and from that moment his influence had only grown. This comment surprised Mossadegh, and he paused to consider it. Henderson decided that it was time to deliver the speech Roosevelt had devised for him. He spoke sternly, his voice rising to a crescendo of staged indignation.

“I must tell you that my fellow citizens are being harassed most unpleasantly,” he began. “Not only do they get threatening phone calls, often answered by their children, who are then subjected to rude words children should not even hear; not only are they insulted in the streets when going peacefully about their business. In addition to all the verbal aggression they are exposed to, their automobiles are damaged whenever they are left exposed. Parts are stolen, headlights are smashed, tires are deflated, and if the cars are left unlocked, their upholstery is cut to pieces. Unless this kind of harassment is stopped, Your Excellency, I am going to ask my government to recall all dependents and also all men whose presence here is not required in our own national interest.”

Mossadegh might well have laughed at this mendacious monologue. Americans had organized the upheaval in Iran, but Henderson was portraying them as its victims. As proof, he offered highly exaggerated accounts of supposed outrages. But amazingly, Mossadegh seemed genuinely pained by these fanciful stories and alarmed at the prospect of Americans leaving Iran. Henderson reported that he was “visibly shaken” and quickly “became confused, almost apologetic.”

Roosevelt had perfectly analyzed his adversary’s psyche. Mossadegh, steeped in a culture of courtliness and hospitality, found it shocking that guests in Iran were being mistreated. That shock overwhelmed his good judgment, and with Henderson still in the room, he picked up a telephone and called his police chief. Trouble in the streets had become intolerable, he said, and it was time for the police to put an end to it.

With this order, Mossadegh sent the police out to attack a mob that included many of his own most fervent supporters. Then, to assure that his partisans would not return to the streets the next day, he issued a decree banning all public demonstrations. He even telephoned leaders of pro-government parties and ordered them to keep their people at home. He disarmed himself. It was his “fatal mistake,” according to an account published in
Time
magazine a week later.

Over the next couple of hours, Mossadegh made several other missteps. Determined to show how serious he was about cracking down on street protests, he mobilized soldiers commanded by General Mohammad Daftary, an officer known for his zeal in repressing civil strife. But Daftary, who had been Tehran’s police chief under the assassinated Prime Minister Razmara several years before, was also an outspoken royalist and close to Zahedi. There was every reason to suspect that if ordered into action, he would lead his men directly to the side of the conspirators. That is precisely what he did. The next day they fought not to defend but to depose the government.

Soon after Mossadegh issued his fateful order, the crackdown began. “Policemen and soldiers swung into action last night against rioting Tudeh (Communist) partisans and Nationalist extremists,” Kennett Love reported in the
New York Times.
“The troops appeared to be in a frenzy as they smashed into rioters with clubs, rifles and night sticks, and hurled tear gas bombs.”

Among those who had no idea of the turning tide in Tehran was His Imperial Majesty, Mohammad Reza Shah. After arriving in Baghdad, he had insisted that he was not involved in an attempted coup but had dismissed Mossadegh for “gross violations of the constitution.” Like almost everyone else involved in the plot, he assumed that Saturday’s failure meant the end of Operation Ajax. On Tuesday morning he and Empress Soraya boarded a British Overseas Airways Corporation jet and flew to Rome. “Both looked worn, gloomy and anxious as they left the aircraft,” the
London Times
reported.

The Shah seemed resigned to a long absence from Iran. When an American reporter asked him if he expected ever to return, he replied, “Probably, but not in the immediate future.” A British correspondent predicted that he would “probably join the small colony of exiled monarchs already in Rome.”

As the Shah was checking into the Excelsior Hotel in Rome, however, Roosevelt was working hard to bring him home. The next day would be the climactic one. If everything went as planned, by midday the streets would be full of boisterous pro-Shah demonstrators. Citizens would see them as decent people fed up with the chaos of recent days, and a sympathetic constabulary would not interfere.

With the help of his invaluable Iranian agents, Roosevelt had organized a most extraordinary mob. Along with street thugs and other unsavories, it included many members of Tehran’s traditional athletic societies. These athletes prided themselves not just on their strength but on acquired skills like juggling and acrobatics. On festive occasions they would join parades or give shows. These were not wealthy men. Some earned their livings with enterprises like protection rackets at the vegetable market. They expected the leaders of their societies to help sustain them. When the CIA came looking for rioters, they were ready and eager.

“In Iran you can get a crowd that’s fearsome,” John Waller, the head of the CIA’s Iran desk, mused afterward. “Or you can get a friendly crowd. Or you can get something in between. Or one can turn into the other.”

Roosevelt had already assured himself of support from the police force, which had fallen largely under General Daftary’s sway, and from several military units. Now he also had the makings of a fine mob. The indispensable Assadollah Rashidian, however, was worried that the mob would not be big enough. He urged Roosevelt to strengthen his hand by making a last-minute deal with Muslim religious leaders, many of whom had large followings and could produce crowds on short notice. The most important of them, Ayatollah Kashani, had already turned against Mossadegh and would certainly be sympathetic. To encourage him, Rashidian suggested a quick application of cash. Roosevelt agreed. Early Wednesday morning he sent $10,000 to Ahmad Aramash, a confidant of Kashani’s, with instructions that it be passed along to the holy man.

Wednesday was August 19, the 28th of Mordad by the Iranian calendar. On this day Roosevelt hoped to change the course of a nation’s history. After he packed up the $10,000 for Kashani and sent his couriers on their way, though, he found himself with little to do. The time had come for others to act. Roosevelt could only wait and watch.

The news that his agents brought during the morning hours was all encouraging. People by the thousands were gathering at mosques and public squares. In their vanguard, giving the whole event a carnival air, were the outlandish athletes. Some waved barbells over their heads. Others juggled heavy pins. Many bared their barrel chests and wore little more than extravagant mustaches and loincloths. More than a few carried knives or homemade clubs. It was as exotic a tribe as ever marched to overthrow a government:

They started with the Zurkaneh giants, weight lifters who developed their physiques through an ancient set of Iranian exercises which included lifting progressively heavier weights. The Zurkanehs had built up tremendous shoulders and huge biceps. Shuffling down the street together, they were a frightening spectacle. Two hundred or so of these weightlifters began the day by marching through the bazaar, shouting “Long Live the Shah!” and dancing and twirling like dervishes. Along the edges of the crowd, men were passing out ten-rial notes…. The mob swelled; the chant “Long Live the Shah!” was deafening. As the throng passed the offices of a pro-Mossadegh newspaper, men smashed the windows and sacked the place.

No one tried to stop the insurgents as they marched toward the city center. Police officers at first encouraged them and then, as the afternoon wore on, began leading them. There was no counterdemonstration. Mossadegh’s supporters, respecting his wish and the message of the previous night’s beatings, had stayed home.

The only other group that could have mobilized to defend the government was Tudeh, but its leaders spent the day in meetings, unable to decide whether to act. Mossadegh did not trust them anyway and did not want their help. One Tudeh leader had called him the day before and volunteered Tudeh shock troops if Mossadegh would arm them. “If ever I agree to arm a political party,” he swore in reply, “may God sever my right arm!”

Mossadegh’s hostility was not, however, the real reason Tudeh leaders did not call out their street fighters on that crucial day. Like most of the world’s communist parties, Tudeh was controlled by the Soviet Union, and in times of crisis it followed orders from Moscow. On this day, however, no orders came. Stalin had died a few months earlier and the Kremlin was in turmoil. Soviet intelligence officers who would normally be concentrating on Iran were preoccupied with the more urgent challenge of staying alive. Whether any of them even considered trying to defend Mossadegh is among the remaining mysteries of Operation Ajax. Scholars have sought access to records in Moscow that might resolve it, but their requests have been denied.