Talk:1953 Iranian coup d'état/Archive 4

Eight reverts in 48 hours are excessive and neither nuanced nor neutral
Beginning at 20:06, June 19, 2009 through 23:42, June 21, 2009 User:SnowFire has reverted the 1953 Iranian coup page eight times despite detailed objections to the reverts recorded on this talk page. Snowfire has introduced factual and other errors to the article in violation of site policy. Links to Snowfire's eight reverts in this brief time period follow.
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat&oldid=297419002
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat&oldid=297479805
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat&oldid=297497004
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat&oldid=297505543
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat&oldid=297658605
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat&oldid=297792859
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat&oldid=297808760
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat&oldid=297815345

Snowfire is not trying to win people over with persuasion. Snowfire is using a club with the guise of ''neutrality.'

Showing up for the first time Friday night, Snowfire arbitrarily reverted to June 6 without offering factual reasons or offering references and has continued in that mode all weekend, discouraging editors who have a long history making small changes to this article. Snowfire insists the writing Snowfire offers is "better." In the last comment, Snowfire seems to be inviting an edit war.Skywriter (talk)


 * It takes two to tango, Skywriter. Edit wars are what is discouraged, which you have participated in as much as I.  And most of those are not "reverts."  As in, the goal of 3RR is to discourage mindless reverting back and forth.  Many of those are new forms of the intro, which I attempted to make with your input.  3RR is not meant to prevent an article from moving forward, only from lapsing into the same back-and-forth state.


 * That said you are correct that no one wants an edit war. How about you accept the fact that you & Kurdo don't make a consensus alone? SnowFire (talk) 00:49, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Just in case anybody was tempted to use the word "consensus" again as part of their arguments, I have to say that I see no consensus here. The consensus is still being built: it is not pre-existing. What we have is text in flux. What we have is long-standing text which did not meet the needs of new editors; long-standing text which was faulty at root. The fact that an article has existed in one particular version for a period of time is no defense against new editors bring breathing new life into it. Being wrong for a long time means... you were wrong for a long time. Binksternet (talk) 02:15, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * What we have is text in flux which did not meet the needs of old editors either. It is not accurate, (let alone NPOV). It does not follow wikipedia format. The only reason it does not have multiple tags is because the tags have been deleted by an other editor and I didn't want to start a revert war. --BoogaLouie (talk) 18:20, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Page fully protected. Contact me when the dispute is resolved and I'll gladly unprotect the article. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 12:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

link to JF Dulles

 * There should be a link to John Foster Dulles Tlroche (talk) 16:14, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

disambiguate spellings

 * Alternative spellings are used in the article (e.g. Mossaddeq, Mosaddegh, and Mossadegh) as well as in the literature. Something should be said for clarification. Tlroche (talk) 16:14, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Communism in lede
US fears of Iran falling under Soviet-backed communist influence should be mentioned in the lede.
 * History.com - CIA-assisted coup overthrows government of Iran
 * Allies: Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases, definition of "Abadan Crisis"
 * The most important country: the true story of the Suez crisis and the events leading to it, page 68
 * Iran Between Two Revolutions, page 321, (Tudeh (communist) party leadership divided over support for Mossadeq.)
 * American orientalism, page 216, "Iran could be effectively lost to the free world."
 * Mandate for change, 1953-1956, page 3; "Iran seemed to be almost ready to fall into Communist hands." —Dwight D. Eisenhower

Lots of material there. Binksternet (talk) 17:06, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

No consensus
What do we do when after months of arguing there is no consensus, when very significant issues (cold war fears, domestic dissatisfation with the regime) are censored from the article, and when readers are not even warned of the dispute because POV tags are deleted? Should we go to mediation? --BoogaLouie (talk) 17:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe, but I don't think we have exhausted all options here on the talk page. Let's keep plugging away here for a week, trying out various versions of the lede, then take it to the next step if nothing seems to work. Binksternet (talk) 18:18, 23 June 2009 (UTC)


 * "Not yet" is fine here, as well, still awaiting Kurdo777's reply above and hoping to find some compromise amenable to all of us... but a week is way too long.  The timing on this could not be more unfortunate; if a massive edit war broke out on Barack Obama's article prior to the election, for example, the article would be fully locked and rolled back to an earlier state before the edit war.  Instead, this article has been locked while Iran is in the news.  Waiting amounts to endorsement of whoever's version was lucky enough to be locked at the time an admin locked it.  (In this case, Skywriter/Kurdo's, but the problem would equally have been there if my version was locked and I then proceeded to stall for time before the article was unlocked.)


 * To Kurdo's credit he's been around to reply, so so long as there appears to be *some* possibility of moving forward, let's do so here on the talk page. But if we're still stuck at "I'm right and you're wrong," then we're going to need impartial administrators with clue-bats to settle a content dispute.  It's messy and can take way too long but ultimately there is in fact a "right" answer here.  (While obviously admins deciding content disputes is discouraged, it sometimes needs to be done, especially for major POV-pushing and pseudoscience.)  SnowFire (talk) 19:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Administrators can not use their tools in a content dispute, or find a "right" answer in content dispute, the Arbitration Committee has been crystal clear on this. If you're thinking of canvassing an administrator, for that purpose, I would discourage you from doing so. Such move will definitely result in an Arbitration Committee case about this dispute, which would neither solve the content dispute, nor produce anything beside sanctions and consequences for all the editors who have edit-warred on this page, in particular those with 8 reverts in 48 hours. So it's in everyone's interest to achieve a consensus through discussions and compromise. --Kurdo777 (talk) 01:14, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Rebuilding the lede
Here's a version of the lead, based on the current, locked one, but with Communism and Dulles mentioned. I chose to use Oxford spelling, a British English version with -ize endings:

--

"The 1953 Iranian coup d’état deposed the democratically-elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq.

Several years earlier, Mossaddeq, backed by his nationalist supporters in the Iranian parliament, had angered Britain with his argument that Iran should begin profiting from its vast oil reserves instead of allowing profits to continue to flow to Britain through its control of Iran's oil industry. In 1951, Mossaddeq nationalized Iran's oil industry which had been controlled exclusively by the British government-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the UK's largest single investment overseas. The ejection of Western oil companies from their Iranian refineries triggered the Abadan Crisis and nearly caused a war. Britain accused Mosaddeq of violating the legal rights of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and mobilized a worldwide boycott of Iran's oil, plunging Iran into financial crisis. The British government tried to enlist the United States in planning a coup, but President Harry S. Truman refused. However, his successor Dwight D. Eisenhower, advised by Director of Central Intelligence Allen Welsh Dulles that Iran was in danger of falling under Communist influence, allowed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to embark on its first covert operation against a foreign government. The British and U.S. spy agencies, in Operation Ajax, aided and abetted anti-Mosaddeq royalists and mutinous Iranian army officers led by retired General Fazlollah Zahedi and Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri in overthrowing the prime minister. They replaced Mosaddeq with an all-powerful monarch, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi who ruled for the next 26 years until he was overthrown in 1979.

The economic and political crisis in Iran that began in early 1952 with the British-organized world-wide boycott of Iranian oil, ended with the signing of the Consortium Agreement of 1954. Pahlevi signed the agreement with the result that, for the first time, United States oil companies shared in the profits of Iranian oil, with the U.S. and UK evenly splitting 80% and the remainder divided between French and Dutch interests. From Iran's perspective, the Consortium Agreement of 1954 was much more unfavorable than conditions set forth several months earlier in the joint 'Winston Churchill-Dwight D. Eisenhower' proposal to Mosaddeq. The Consortium Agreement of 1954 ended the crisis that led to the coup, and stayed in effect until it was modified in 1973 and then ended in 1979 when the Iranian Revolution deposed the monarch. For the 25 years it was in effect, the 1954 Consortium Agreement had determined which oil companies controlled Iranian oil and profited from it.

U.S. support and funding continued after the coup, with the CIA training the Shah's feared and hated secret police, SAVAK. Originally, the Eisenhower Administration considered Operation Ajax a successful secret war, but, given its blowback, it is now considered a failure, because of its 'haunting and terrible legacy'. The anti-democratic coup d’état was a 'a critical event in post-war world history' that replaced Iran’s post-monarchic, native, and secular parliamentary democracy with a dictatorship. The coup is widely believed to have significantly contributed to the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which deposed the Shah and replaced the pro-Western monarchy with the anti-Western Islamic Republic of Iran."


 * References

--

Please discuss. Binksternet (talk) 18:32, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
What did exactly add and delete from the current version? Please list the additions/deletions one by one. The changes should be examined on case-by-case basis. --Kurdo777 (talk) 20:32, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Why? There's no consensus agreement on the lead at it is. --BoogaLouie (talk) 20:57, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I listed Dulles and Communism; there's also two Iranian military leaders listed. Binksternet (talk) 21:11, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I think Operation Ajax should be mentioned earlier in the lead. It's named in the last paragraph of the lead with no previous or parenthetical explanation as to what exactly Operation Ajax is. Yes, it's obvious to people familiar with the subject but not to lay readers. Instead of just saying that in that last paragraph that the president thought Operation Ajax was a success, there should be something that specifies that Operation Ajax was the name given to the overthrow mission.--RossF18 (talk) 20:36, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Problems
Thank you Binksternet for your version but I still see a number of problems


 * Still longer than the ideal WP:LEAD and still larded with background.


 * Still nothing about the actual coup. What day(s) did happen on? What did "retired General Fazlollah Zahedi and Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri" do during the coup?


 * The ejection of Western oil companies from their Iranian refineries. What other oil companies were these? Unless I'm mistaken, the AIOC was the only western oil company in Iran until the consoritum was developed.


 * They replaced Mosaddeq with an all-powerful monarch, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi It sound like they flew in Mohammed Reza Pahlevi and crowned him king after the coup. He was king before the coup, and there was another PM after the coup - Zahedi.


 * From Iran's perspective, the Consortium Agreement of 1954 was much more unfavorable than conditions set forth several months earlier in the joint 'Winston Churchill-Dwight D. Eisenhower' proposal to Mosaddeq.    There's several problems with these 3 original citations, take a look at them. The   first is quoted directly from the Iranian oil & gas development company which is copyright violation and original research (should be from a 3rd source). Report The second quotes directly from the consortium agreement. It not surprisingly says nothing about the agreement being "more unfavorable than conditions set forth several months earlier in the joint 'Winston Churchill-Dwight D. Eisenhower' proposal"  and (3) a very brief mention in a book called The Legal Regime of Foreign Private Investment in Sudan and Saudi Arabia, i.e. has next to nothing to do with Iran. --BoogaLouie (talk) 20:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Regarding the lack of information about the operation itself; I plead guilty, however, the article itself is short on such a retelling. Why would the lede spend abundant words on a side of the event that is poorly covered in the main text? Other than that, your complaint about the lack of dates is valid, as is your complaint about the pre-existence of Pahlevi. Sure, make AIOC the only oil company. Can you please rewrite the copyvios? Let's see your version. Binksternet (talk) 21:11, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll give it a try. --BoogaLouie (talk) 21:15, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Re: Problems

 * This is a complicated issue, so the length of the WP:LEAD is appropriate. There are numerous pages with longer leads.
 * Is world war ii less complicated? it has a shorter lead. Yes there are article with longer leads but they are poorly written articles. --BoogaLouie (talk) 23:09, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * It's all about context. Zahedi and Nassiri were minor players in a bigger game. Their role is already covered sufficiently. They were instruments, not the main perpetrators.


 * what is your source for that? --BoogaLouie (talk) 23:24, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This line should be re-worded to "The ejection of British oil interest" or something like that.

--Kurdo777 (talk) 21:20, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * They did replace Mosaddeq with an all-powerful monarch. During Mossadegh's era, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi was a powerless constitutional monarch and a mere figurehead like the Queen of England, who was transformed into an absolute monarch/ruler after the coup.
 * Skywriter should address this. The content is 100% accurate, the sourcing could be better though.


 * I agree with this. I am also opposed to the proposed new lead, modern historians disagree that there was any danger of Iran falling under Communist influence. Dulles's rational should be placed in quotation marks. --Wayiran (talk) 21:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think quotation marks alone are good enough. There should also be a disclaimer that modern scholarship, ie the sources that have been published after the recent declassification of some of the secret documents about the coup, dismiss the "fears of communist takeover" as a baseless pretext to justify the coup. --Kurdo777 (talk) 21:45, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Kurdo777: I'm just repeating myself now, but even if you believe that communism was a pretext, pretexts are important. If somehow we found a secret file from Dulles & Eisenhower saying "Iran is in no danger from the communists, but let's go save Britain's unfair oil deal!," it would still be relevant to mention the Cold War as the official excuse even as your position was vindicated.  This is basic.  I'm really not sure what to say other than virtually every historian ever views stated ideology as at least somewhat important.  Hell, we have an entire Propaganda of the Spanish–American War article describing the (mostly imaginary) atrocities the Spanish were committing, which is what got the US into that war.  The yellow journalism of the era is mentioned prominently in the main Spanish-American War lede, as well.


 * As for modern scholarship, I already quoted this, but let me quote it again. This is from a book review from 2004, which is pretty modern and after the release of the CIA documents.


 * The book [provides] a richly and tightly reasoned setting out of what might be dubbed the emerging scholarly synthesis: the British started it, but the United States took it over; Cold War concerns about 'losing' Iran were a greater factor than was oil nationalization; and Mosaddeq faced growing domestic opposition and made important tactical mistakes in his final days-but he was toppled only because of outside intervention." http://www.syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu/spring-2004-catalog/mosaddeq.html


 * And remember, while the position that oil was more important than communism certainly exists (I'd say that Kinzer probably qualifies as this), the position that oil was the only important thing and that communism was completely irrelevant is quite rare. Which modern historians do you say hold to this?  Skywriter claimed Gasiorowski was on the "communism is totally irrelevant" side before, but this is from a review of a book he co-wrote.  Either Foreign Affairs - not a hack - badly misread Gasiorowski, and the publisher didn't notice when putting up their review on the book's page, or Gasiorowski's position is more nuanced than is being claimed. SnowFire (talk) 22:17, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This top secret National Security Council document from November 1952 was analyzed by authors David Little and Martin Woollacott in both their books, one from 2003 and the other from 2007. Both authors discuss the report's clearly stated fear of Soviet takeover in Iran. Woollacott goes on to characterize the subsequent coup as SIS planned, using British assets and enough CIA materiel to certify U.S. backing. Woollacott's book is so recent that he comments on Kinzer's work, and continues to conclude that fear of Communism was a real factor. All this to say that U.S. fear of communism must be in the lede. Binksternet (talk) 22:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Martin Woollacott is neither a historian, nor an academic. He's just a retried columnist, his views constitute WP:fringe. --Kurdo777 (talk) 23:14, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Is Kinzer an histroian or an academic? What sources do you have? --BoogaLouie (talk) 23:18, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, Kinzer is an academic. He teaches political science at Northwestern University. He is also a history graduate. --Kurdo777 (talk) 23:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Martin Woollacott is a former foreign correspondent, foreign editor and commentator on international affairs for the Guardian. That's certainly notable --BoogaLouie (talk) 23:24, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Woollacott has been foreign correspondent for The Guardian for almost four decades. He's an experienced, critical observer of the global stage. There's nothing fringe-y about him; we can use his book confidently as a source. Binksternet (talk) 23:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Kinzer agrees that fear of Soviet expansion was an issue. Note the cites from his book in this old section on the cold war. --BoogaLouie (talk) 23:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Being "notable", does not qualify him as an expert or an academic source on historical issues. Jennifer Lopez and Paris Hilton are "notable" too, and may even decide to publish a book about this coup as hobby, but that does not mean that we're going to use their books as a source here. --Kurdo777 (talk) 23:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

SnowFire, are you backpedaling on your own proposal now? How are we suppose to build a consensus here, if some of the editors are even backpedaling on their own compromise proposals? Consensus means compromise, and that everyone must sacrifice some of their demands, in order to reach a broad agreement. --Kurdo777 (talk) 23:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * We're not going to ever reach a consensus if you refuse to understand what I'm saying. Am I being unclear here or something?  I don't think this is hard to understand at all.


 * Let's try again. Sigh, repetition.  My position is that according to mainstream history, the US's motives in becoming involved are due to fears of communism.  And further, that at the very least, everyone agrees that one of the US's motives in becoming involved was fear of communism.  (I.e. those who believe that the US was also interested in Anglo-Iranian Oil.)  The lede should express this fact.


 * Now note that motives have nothing to do with the actual situation in Iran. In other words, the thoughts that "the US was worried about communism" and "communism was not actually a threat in Iran" are compatible.  I proposed in that lede noting that the communist threat had perhaps been exaggerated, which is what I hoped that you & Skywriter had been going on about at the time.  This is an issue of legitimate historical debate - the fact that Britain had very unwisely embargoed Iran might well have thrown them into the USSR's orbit, but my understanding of the history is that if Britain had not done that, Iran's communist party would likely have remained weak.  Britain's snub and the embargo strengthened their hand, though how much is disputed.


 * I now see that you and Skywriter really were advocating that Eisenhower / Dulles didn't care about a communist threat, rather than inarticulately saying that the communist threat was nonexistent. The "Eisenhower didn't care about communism just oil" position is completely at odds with mainstream history, while the extent of the true communist threat in Iran is a debatable position in which I disagree with you, but am willing to compromise on - what you see in that diff. SnowFire (talk) 00:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * ... and, as noted above, the author and book you put in the lead agrees that fear of Soviet expansion was an issue in the coup. The link is to an old section on the cold war. four of the citations there are from Kinzer's book. --BoogaLouie (talk) 18:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Rebuilding the lede, MKII
[NOTE: this version is in being updated according to suggestions of other editors (mostly Binksternet so far). Please feedback at the bottom of the page or at least below the version.] --BoogaLouie (talk) 16:57, 30 June 2009 (UTC)]  Does anybody have any feedback to this version? PS after today I will be gone from this discussion until Tuesday. -- BoogaLouie (talk) 18:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

"The 1953 Iranian coup d’état (refered to as Operation Ajax by the CIA) deposed the democratically-elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq. The coup has been called 'a critical event in post-war world history' and is thought to have contributed to the 1979 overthrow of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi and his replacement with the anti-Western Islamic Republic.

Several years earlier, Mosaddeq, backed by his nationalist supporters in the Iranian parliament, nationalized the British government-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), so that Iran could profit from its vast oil reserves previously controlled exclusively by the AIOC,    Britain accused Mosaddeq of violating the legal rights of the (AIOC) and mobilized a worldwide boycott of Iran's oil, plunging Iran into financial crisis. The British government successfully enlisted the support of the United States in planning and executing the coup, the American Eisenhower administration fearing that Iran was in danger of falling under the influence of the expansionist Soviet Communist 'empire'. The coup was the first covert operation by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) against a foreign government. In Operation Ajax the British and U.S. spy agencies persuaded Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi to order Mosaddeq's dismissal, while paying and organizing anti-Mosaddeq royalists and Iranian army officers. The coup first appeared to fail when on the night of August 15-16 Imperial Guard Colonel Nematollah Nassiri was arrested while attempted to arrest Mosaddeq, and the Shah fled the country. Three days later, however, a royalist mob marched on Mosaddeq's residence, which was also attacked by a tank column led by retired General Fazlollah Zahedi. The prime minister fled when his defenders were overwhelmed.

In the wake of the coup Zahedi became prime minister and the Shah returned to Iran where he ruled as an autocrat for the next 26 years until being overthrown in 1979. the Iranian-controled national oil company was replaced by a consortium of international oil companies which shared profits 50-50 with Iran but did not to open their 'books to Iranian auditors or to allow Iranians onto its board of directors.'

In America, the coup was originally considered a triumph of covert action but now is considered by many to have left 'a haunting and terrible legacy.' In 2000, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, called it a 'setback for democratic government' in Iran."


 * References

--

PS: Here are some sections (long since deleted from earlier articles) that give some detail on the actual coup.

Comments about MKII

 * Comments from Binksternet
 * The Shah would need a wikilink in the first paragraph. Or "1979 overthrow of the Shah" should be pipe linked to Iranian Revolution.
 * Select only one spelling of Mosaddeq.
 * Instead of pipelinking to Dwight D. Eisenhower, consider linking Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower to "Eisenhower administration".
 * Once AIOC is given its abbreviation, the full name does not need to be used again.
 * Format the references for uniformity
 * "...arrested attempted to arrest..." This should be reworded or at least corrected to "arrested while attempting to arrest."
 * These terms should be wikilinked: U.S. Secretary of State, Shah, Communist, autocrat, consortium, Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright.
 * ...or take Clinton out, as Albright's comment can stand alone.
 * Kinzer references should say whether it refers to 2003 (the first edition) or 2008 (2nd ed) and should all give a page number. For instance: Kinzer, 2003, pp. 195–196. Binksternet (talk) 00:43, 26 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Will endeavor to make the changes you suggest tuesday. --BoogaLouie (talk) 16:23, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

This lead is completely unacceptable to me. I don't even know where to begin, it's too short, it's POVish, it omits crucial facts, while putting undue emphasis on details about the instruments of the coup, as oppose to the perpetrators. I could accept Binksternet's original proposed lead, with some modifications, plus the addition of SnowFire's proposed disclaimer, but not this one. --Kurdo777 (talk) 01:39, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Comments from Kurdo

Comments from Skywriter on BoogaLouie's submission and others' comments
Why is this obscure 20-year-old resource referred to below as Mohammed Amjad. (( http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/AFD%252f.aspx "Iran: From Royal Dictatorship to Theocracy‎"]. Greenwood Press, 1989. )) being used as the main source for this proposed lead when onethe title and subject matter of the book is 1979 and not the 1953 coup and twoSeveral excellent and widely reviewed books have been published much more recently on the 1953 coup in Iran, and threethe governments of the US and UK have released information that sheds light on the coup and tends to discount this proposed lead?
 * Why does this obscure reference dominate this proposal?

This appears to be agenda-pushing at its worst. This kind of agenda pushing is what is keeping this article blocked for lack of consensus.

Skywriter (talk) 19:02, 10 July 2009 (UTC)


 * My feedback is in extensive notes elsewhere on this page. My feedback to the tweaks to this version according to suggestions of other editors (mostly Binksternet so far) is that this version speaks to the Binksternet/SnowFire choir that places the Cold War at the center of the action in the proposed new lede for 1953 Iranian coup d'état, ignoring the largest and standard body of research that shows that the Cold War was a secondary issue in this coup, and that the central issue was Britain's loss of control of Iranian oil and what Britain did to regain control of this part of its former empire.
 * The reason your complaints are not integrated into mkII is for the same reason that this talk page has been full of dialog for the last week or two. We have a profound disagreement. The person who wrote mkII (me) is in profound disagreement with almost everything you have written in the past week or two on these pages. --BoogaLouie (talk) 00:52, 1 July 2009 (UTC)


 * It is objectionable that a book published by Greenwood Press is the very first source given. 1) Greenwood books are obscenely expensive and therefore not as accessible as the standard works used in classrooms to address this topic;
 * Is that a reason it should not be in wikipedia??? Can't people get that book at a library???--BoogaLouie (talk) 00:52, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

2) and very much more to the point, the first book cited (Greenwood Press) pushes the secondary reason for the coup, and that is, that the Cold War rather than the specifics of the West carrying out its grand plan to control most of the oilfields in Iran; 3) use of the Greenwood book gives undue WP:Weight to the secondary Cold War reason for the coup, and in that respect, ignores and misrepresents the history.
 * My points, made elsewhere & in much more detail on this page, is that the article should focus on the chronology of what was happening in Iran, the two-year blockade of Iranian seaports by the Brits, the West's boycott of Iranian oil during the brief period of nationalization, and then what transpired on the ground in Iran, using, among other solid references, e.g. which is both graphic and the single best explainer of what occurred in the days leading up to the1953 Iranian coup d'état. Granted these are admissions from a Western perspective; still they describe rather precisely the successful plan that was carried out by two Western governments. What else do I think about this version according to suggestions of other editors (mostly Binksternet so far)? I think it ignores the points raised by Kurdo and myself and will, therefore, not result in consensus. This version leaves the article in much the same place we were at the end of Mad Revert Weekend. Bear in mind that I have conceded (and Kurdo has stated he is willing to accept a version of this) a major point of previous disagreement--post WWII superpower rivalries as a secondary i.e. background issue. The question now before us is how much [[WP:Weight] does the secondary issue receive, and how much attention will be paid to the primary cause of the title of this article, 1953 Iranian coup d'état
 * I do appreciate that your questions and comments are thoughtful, BoogaLouie, and that you are negotiating in good faith. Skywriter (talk) 20:48, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

...and is thought to have contributed to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah and his replacement with the anti-Western Islamic Republic.[7] tagged on to the end of the first sentence skips numerous beats making the full sentence a non sequitur. If you want to make that connection, show the connection. The references are a mess and what is listed in the BoogaLouie sample does not apply to what is presented. Use of book reviews to make leading points is ridiculous. Two highly credible books have been published on this subject, the first from former NYT reporter Stephen Kinzer and the second, by Gasiorowski and Byrne, based on documents obtained by the highly credible and award-winning National Security Archive, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ Along with Kinzer's volume, the Archive's section on Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran is a model that fairly and accurately summarizes the most trustworthy research on this topic. That summary also accurately summarizes the book by the same name, Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran edited by Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne. That is no big surprise. Both editors are affiliated with the Archive. Snowfire wrote Either Foreign Affairs - not a hack - badly misread Gasiorowski, and the publisher didn't notice when putting up their review on the book's page, or Gasiorowski's position is more nuanced than is being claimed. Reply--Foreign Affairs is published by the Council on Foreign Affairs, an influential Washington think tank close to the heart of the State Department, CIA and NSA. Relying on a single line POV in a short book review by a Washington establishment person for a book summary is unnecessary when the editors' own summary is available and accurately reflects the book's content. Snowfire suggests this lede==Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, were alarmed by the potential of the communist Tudeh Party taking over Mossadegh's administration and feared Iran falling under the influence of the Soviet Union. Modern scholarship has disputed the actual risk of communist infiltration...''and then suggests that someone find references to back up that claim. My reply is No. This is POV-pushing and, as such, is a thorough distortion of history, I will not spend time ripping it apart except to say it is original research crying out for sources. snowfire's references several times the following, with the underlying claim that these explain the coup-- In summary, yes, the US excuses for overthrowing a democratic government and installing a brutal dictator are abundant in the claims of fear of Soviet influence (the boogyman parlance in 1953 for terrorism or WMD). But the reality is different from the claimed motive, and for that reason, any summary that does not reflect the material interests that benefited the United States & Britain as a result of the coup is unacceptable. And, oh yes, Iranians were distinctly pissed at the US and the Brits for overthrowing their elected government, and, for the next quarter century, they associated the coup and the brutality ordered by the Shah and carried out by his secret police SAVAK against the population with the UK/US action in 1953. So, BoogaLouie, your lede sentence points to the factors linking 1953 with 1979 but skips the inconvenient details that connect what happened between those two years. I grant that the US/UK excuse for the 1953 coup in Iran was competition with the Soviet Union. There is no question that two --and only two-- super powers emerged from WW II. They were the US and USSR, and it is also true that in every battle of the Cold War that sometimes heated up, that competition between the two was always a factor. But, it is also true that there were material reasons for each struggle, and particularly in the case of Iran, where the world's second largest oilfield reserves lay, oil was the primary factor, and, at that time, during that battle, the Soviet Union was nowhere to be seen and also that the Tudah Party played a negligible role in Iranian politics, and was, in 1953 thoroughly infiltrated by the CIA as documented in the books by Kinzer and Gasiorowski/Byrne. To claim that the US feared the Tudah Party without discussing CIA infiltration of the Tudah Party at the highest levels misleads our readers about the facts. Given the two-year world-wide boycott organized by the Brits in which the US cooperated, and given that the Soviet Union had left Iran in the late 1940s (after occupation during the Nazi era by the UK and Soviet Union) and given the well-documented history that Mohammed Mosaddeq was a nationalist and not a socialist, the boogie man excuse for the coup is weak. While it is part of the story, it is not the whole story. Who would control Iranian oil is more to the point.Skywriter (talk) 03:23, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The contemporary CIA staff historian who makes the best case he can for justifying the 1953 coup. Yes, this account is included in this article. No, it ought not be the lede. It is a book review, a POV, the CIA perspective. This was a CIA job. Remember? Of course, the CIA wants to put lipstick on it.
 * The NYT summary of CIA coup planner Donald Wilber, again a CIA perspective that should be reflected in the article but not be the lede.
 * While the US/UK and their spook agencies POV should be fairly represented because it explains what those two countries claim as their motive, Wikipedia needs to be independent of both, and to select the research from scholars independent of both governments to explain the coup in a manner that fairly represents each side, particularly the motives of the democratic government that was overthrown in nationalizing Iranian oil. The suggested ledes for this article have not explained Iran's motive for nationalizing its own oil and that distorts the history of the coup. It also does not explain the crisis conditions that resulted in Iran caused by the British blockade of Iranian seaports for two years prior to the coup. We may have erred in strangling your emerging democracy but we were afraid of the boogyman does not explain what happened to the Iranian people and the government they elected when westerners meddled in their affairs.
 * The UK blockade of Iranian seaports (and its effect) leading up to the US/UK coup is the context for the 1953 Iranian coup d'état. Fear of the commie boogyman is the excuse foreign governments used to carry out the coup.
 * Thank you, snowfire, for the right wing POV of British royalty David Pryce-Jones, senior editor at National Review defending what he calls "A Very Elegant Coup." Let's not pretend this is an even-handed review, and let's not for one minute think we can quote this review that super imposes Pryce-Jones POV on his dismissal of Stephen Kinzer's book. This is not an article that can be sourced for facts for this Wikipedia article. It is pure opinion, and can be used as a criticism in the context of the article about All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror but not for facts about the coup, which are sorely lacking in the opinionated review by National Review.
 * With regard to BoogaLouie's account, I say "Follow the money." This suggested new lede does not begin to explain the reasons for the 1951-53 crisis. There is nothing in this account explaining that the Brits led a world-wide boycott of Iranian oil, blocking Iran's ports in the Persian Gulf, causing real economic crises in Iran, with widespread unemployment and unrest between 1951 and 1953, or that the reason for the boycott was specifically over British anger (greed) over the nationalization of Iranian oil which Britain had controlled since 1913. This account does not mention that, after the coup, and, for the first time in half a century, Britain shared Iranian oil with the United States as a reward for overthrowing the Iranian government. Britain shared the profits of Iranian oil, 40 percent for US oil companies, 40 percent for British oil companies and 20 percent divided among French and other oil companies. These inconvenient facts were deleted in last week's orgy of reverts by snowfire, et al. and that's why any account leaving out the role oil played in this coup is unacceptable.
 * Binksternet distorts the intent of books by Little and Woollacot.
 * I have no objection to Woollacot's credentials as a journalist and longtime international correspondent. The subject of After Suez: Adrift in the American Century by Martin Woollacott is not the 1953 coup in Iran. Its focus is the US/UK bringing down the government of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1956. After Suez has little  to do with  the 1953 coup in Iran, and, as such, is not particularly useful in the lede of this article. Using a short excerpt (one or two lines) fromAfter Suez to force a point that is not reflective of the book's focus-- and which directly distorts the author's position on western interference in the Middle East-- is unworthy. Read the professional (book industry) reviews of this book at the Google books link previously referenced by another Wikipedia editor, and go back one page, to p. 105, beginning with the subtitle, "Co-conspirators in Iran" to see that the person who wanted to use Woollacot is cherry-picking a line to distort the author's intent.
 * review of Little's book demonstrates that Little's book is not as claimed in the discussion above. I am a big fan of not distorting people's research and hope you are too.
 * NSA document written by James S. Lay, Jr., Executive Secretary, National Security Council whom J. Edgar Hoover cc:'d on a list of which Americans et al. he wanted to jail without benefit of habeas corpus. A charter member of the foreign policy establishment. James Lay Jr. put forward the official apology/explanation for overthrowing the government of Iran. He represents a POV that is the same as or very similar to Wilber and Rohde.
 * The POV of the US CIA/NSA/Foreign Affairs establishment is no different from the US claim that it invaded and occupied Iraq to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

In support of my comments above precluding the use of opinion pieces, such as that in the National Review to establish fact, observe this is also Wikipedia policy stated exactly at in these words -- ''News reporting is distinct from opinion pieces. Opinion pieces are only reliable for statements as to the opinion of their authors, not for statements of fact, and should be attributed in-text. In articles about living persons, only material from high-quality news organizations should be used.'' Skywriter (talk) 18:17, 27 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I wonder about you bringing up the David Pryce-Jones piece in National Review. Why? The article you speak of does not appear in MKII, so you defending against it is unreasonable. You also defend against the use of any opinion piece except to represent opinions, but you use an opinion piece to defend against what you see as my distortion of Little's book. You can't have it both ways... I read the Wikipedia guideline as saying that a generic opinion piece can only be used for its opinion, which is valid up to a point. If the opinion writer is an acknowledged expert in the field, and is backing his or her contentions with referenced facts, we now have an opinion piece which is a reliable source for the establishment of facts. Binksternet (talk) 00:18, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I challenged Binksternet's use of Little's book to support that line and Binksternet quibbled ''but you use an opinion piece to defend against what you see as my distortion of Little's book. You can't have it both ways... I read the Wikipedia guideline as saying that a generic opinion piece can only be used for its opinion, which is valid up to a point. If the opinion writer is an acknowledged expert in the field, and is backing his or her contentions with referenced facts, we now have an opinion piece which is a reliable source for the establishment of facts. Binksternet (talk) 00:18, 28 June 2009 (UTC)''

Binksternet is objecting to this, which I wrote above in my analysis of new suggested lede for this article on the 1953 Iranian coup d'état. In reply to your supporting material under the heading Communism in lede that US fears of Iran falling under Soviet-backed communist influence should be mentioned in the lede. and with specific reference to '*American orientalism, page 216, "Iran could be effectively lost to the free world." My central point is that abstracting this one sentence out of context distorts Doug Little's research. The historian who wrote the h-net review you don't like is Kail C. Ellis, dean of the college of liberal arts, Villanova University Are your arguing that Ellis is a not good enough source? Or that your summary accurately reflects p. 216 of Little's book? Skywriter (talk) 15:14, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Skywriter Reply to Binksternet on the objection to distorting research by Douglas Little
 * review of Little's book demonstrates that Little's book is not as claimed in the discussion above. I am a big fan of not distorting people's research and hope you are too.

On ( 24 June 2009) Binksternet suggested new lede, using fn 18 to support the following line, which refers to Page 216 of the book American Orientalism by Douglas Little.
 * What Doug Little wrote on p. 216 in American Orientalism

The Binksternet line is in dispute because the phrase "in danger of falling under Communist influence," does not begin to cover what transpired or what is covered in the source (Doug Little) that Binksternet cites as follows-- However, his successor Dwight D. Eisenhower, advised by Director of Central Intelligence Allen Welsh Dulles that Iran was in danger of falling under Communist influence,[18]

The above is a simplistic summary that does not reflect the facts presented on Page 216 in American Orientalism by Douglas Little, which follow verbatim, except for the Wiki'ed spelling of Mossadeq's name. While the Truman administration stumbled toward undeclared war with the real China in the snows of Korea, in late 1950, the shah's opponents flocked to the national front, a broad coalition calling for social reform to be financed by oil revenues generated by expropriating AIOC. Early in the new year anti Western radicals gunned down Prime Minister Ali Razmara, who had opposed nationalization of the giant British oil firm. "Frustration and hopelessness among the mass of people," White House Iran watchers concluded on 14 March 1951, "is now seriously threatening the internal stability of the country." Unless Washington could find ways to "foster social reform and an expanding economy," the Pahlavi regime might be swept away by revolutionaries with ties to Moscow. Footnote 107

US officials had grave doubts about Mohammed Mossadeq, the mercurial leader of the National Front whom the shah reluctantly named prime minister in April 1951. '''Despite belonging to one of the wealthiest landholding families in Iran, the 69-year-old Mossadeq was a long time member of the Majlis ((which is Iran's Congress)) well known for supporting agrarian reform and for opposing foreign oil interests. After AI0C refused to revise its concession, Mossadeq drafted a nationalization decree that the Majlis passed unanimously on 15 March 1951.''' Ignoring the shah's objections, Mossadeq moved swiftly to expropriate AIOC, prompting Whitehall to organize an international embargo on Iranian oil.

A White House study completed at the end of the year confirmed that the nationalization of AIOC "has heightened popular desire for promised economic and social betterment and has increased social unrest." By "wresting the political initiative from the shah, the landlords and other traditional holders of power, and reaching out to the left leaning Tudeh party, Mossadeq had unleashed revolutionary forces so potent that "Iran could be effectively lost to the free world. "footnote 108.

By the time Dwight Eisenhower turned his attention to Iran '''in early 1953, most US policymakers felt that drastic action was required to save the shah's throne. "''' A communist takeover is becoming more and more likely," US intelligence warned Ike as the Iranian oil crisis went into its third year. "If Iran succumbed to the Communists," CIA Director Allen Dulles reminded Eisenhower on 4 March 1953, "there was little doubt that in short order, the other areas of the Middle East, with some 60% of the world's oil reserves, would fall into Communist control."footnote 109 The crisis deepened in early June when Mossadeq, his treasury nearly empty thanks to the effects of the Western oil embargo, signed a trade agreement with the Soviet Union. ... (end of selection)

... the chapter is called "Modernizing the Middle East" from the book, American Orientalism by Douglas Little (University of North Carolina Press (October 23, 2002) ISBN-13: 978-0807827376 ) Douglas Little is professor of history and dean of the college at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

This example underscores the need for the lede to reflect that nationalism and not communism was the direct threat to US/UK interests in Iran 1951-3, and that it was the western-organized boycott of Iranian oil that brought about the economic crisis in Iran that prompted Mossadeq to sign a trade agreement with the Soviet Union.Skywriter (talk) 15:19, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

It was a reply to snowfire claim implying that facts (rather than POV supported snowfire position gleaned from the National Review article. snowfire wrote-- It was completely effortless to find those quotations supporting my point ...Heck, just from the External links to the article... Britain and the U.S. understood that the likeliest outcome of Mossadegh's cunning introduction of disorder was the downfall of the shah, and the creation of a void in which the Communists would assume power. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_17_55/ai_107223571/ 
 * Skywriter Reply to Binksternet on use of opinion in National Review

Spellling: For consistency, we should use the spelling of the Iranian prime minister that links to the Wikipedia article. Detailed Reply: The findarticles link is to National Review senior editor Pryce-Jones's' opinion piece. What exactly was Mohammed Mosaddeq's cunning 'introduction of disorder? What is the National Review referring to? Mohammed Mosaddeq and the Iranian congress (the Majlis) nationalizing Iranian oil? Perhaps he refers to Britain's act of aggression in blockading Iranian seaports? While nationalizing Iranian oil certainly displeased the Churchill government in Britain, it created no disorder except in the flow of profits/receipts to Britain from the sale of Iranian oil. Iran had determined that the deal Britain (and the young Rear Admiral Winston Churchill) had cut in the early 20th century was unfair to Iran in that it laid claim to all Iranian oil. In retaliation for Iran nationalizing its oil at mid-century, Britain created disorder with its blockade of Iranian seaports. That blockade prevented Iran from selling its oil anywhere. The disorder caused by British aggression caused severe hardship in Iran including widespread unemployment. The economic disorder that Britain created and, which the US supported, lasted two years before ending with the US/UK allying with Iranian monarchists-- and a few clergy disgruntled over Mohammed Mosaddeq secularism-- to overthrow Iran's elected prime minister. The US/UK threw Mohammed Mosaddeq out of office, greatly strengthened the monarchy, which ruled with a brutal hand for the next 25 years, and most importantly to Britain and the US, resulted in a new contract that kept the flow of profits from Iranian oil flowing to British and, for the first time, to US companies until 1979 when the Shah and his agreements with the west for Iranian oil ended. Pryce Jones twists the facts to suit his viewpoint. There are  no facts in the National Review article, only opinion based on slanting the truth. Pryce-Jones has  no special knowledge, and is not an acknowledged expert in the field, and does not back his contention with referenced facts or footnotes. His POV is British imperial interest in keeping Iranian oil under British dominion. I don't care if his POV is included. However, it should be made clear whose interests he is representing. As the article on Winston Churchill makes clear,
 * Second term as Prime Minister
 * Main articles: Mau Mau Uprising, Malayan Emergency, and 1953 Iranian coup d'état
 * Return to Government and the Decline of the British Empire
 * After the General Election of 1951, Churchill again became Prime Minister. His third government—after the wartime national government and the brief caretaker government of 1945—lasted until his resignation in 1955. His domestic priorities in his last government were overshadowed by a series of foreign policy crises, which were partly the result of the continued decline of British military and imperial prestige and power. Being a strong proponent of Britain as an international power, Churchill would often meet such moments with direct action. One example was his dispatch of British troops to Kenya to deal with the Mau Mau rebellion.[177] Trying to retain what he could of the Empire, he once stated that, "I will not preside over a dismemberment."[177]


 * I will reply to your other questions shortly, Binksternet. Skywriter (talk) 12:23, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * We are not going to use opinion pieces, on a topic like this. Given the nature of the subject, the incredible amount of Cold-War era propaganda "justifying the coup" that have been thoroughly discredited by contemporary scholarship, but are still prevalent in some circles, we should stick to contemporary expert sources by relevant historians and scholars. --Kurdo777 (talk) 08:29, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't have any particular opinion pieces in mind, but your categorical denial of using one in this article is misplaced. I can imagine a subject-matter expert writing a well-documented opinion article that has great weight and perfect sources. Never say never. Binksternet (talk) 10:21, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

An interesting find.
Well, since Kurdo and Skywriter have gone on and on about modern scholarship supporting them... I will grant that it was certainly possible that the Internet was completely wrong, and modern scholarship had in fact changed. So I went down to the library today. Will take a look at Kinzer's book to see who exactly is misquoting him, Skywriter/Kurdo or the Internet, but I did finish one journal article. Mind you this was picked entirely based off it being a recent journal account based on new evidence, not "I read three journal articles and picked the one that came closest to my thoughts." Anyway, here are some choice quotes from "International Communication in Low Intensity Conflict: The Case Study of Iranian Nationalisation of Oil Industry During 1951-1953" by Ali Mohammadi, a 2002 journal article reprinted in the collection "The Roots of the Islamic Revolution in Iran." The journal is based off a study of British cabinet papers from the 1950s that were declassified in 2000 or so.
 * The United Press had reported from New York during the spring of 1952, that the American oil companies were extremely pleased at the prospect of Iranian oil nationalisation, and were eager to cooperate with Iran and to offer 60-70 percent profit to the national company. In particular, Aramco suggested that if Iran expressed interest in setting up a pipeline to the Mediterranean, the company was ready to pay 72 percent profit to Iran.


 * The Americans continued to refuse to support the British. Within Iran, the US declared its neutrality and frequently criticized reactions to Iranian demands.  The Americans were proud of their 50 percent profit-sharing scheme in Saudi Arabia, and maintained that the 'low bow to nationalisation' in Iran was needed if the British government was concerned about stability there.  (SnowFire: This passage is of course describing the situation in 1952, not 53.)


 * Anthony Eden might be regarded as the mastermind of the change in US policy. In order to find a strategy to twist and turn US good intentions towards a rather fair deal, he summarised American policy regarding the oil dispute as follows:


 * 1) If the oil dispute were not settled soon Iran would go communist.
 * 2) (Paraphrase: Iran would upend the British government's balance of payments via fiddling with the price of oil.)  ...  Having in practice shared the Persian sphere of influence with the Russians, and having grass-roots connections with the political organisations and parties, the British did not fear the danger of a communist takeover.  However, they understood the extent of the paranoia in the United States concerning communism that was the 'hey-day of McCarthyism... and British played on that fear in order to help pressure the U.S. to involve in a coup.' (quote footnoted to the secret British cabinet papers mentioned above; also that last ellipsis is the paper's, not mine.)
 * As a result of delay tactics and shrewd diplomacy by the British Government, it was possible to change western public opinion against Mossadegh.


 * ...the strong degree of initial sympathy of the US for Mossadegh and the movement for nationalisation, and the extremely strong lobbying and politicking by the British to change that point of view....  While fear of communism seems to have been and remained the driving motivation behind US foreign policy regarding Iran, the economic interests of the oil companies needs also to be considered.  I also suggest that the strength of the appeal of Anglo-American unity and the wily politicking of the British were important contributory factors in involving in the United States in a politically dirty episode, in which her hands were publicly dirtied in order to resolve a situation that had been first and foremost a British problem.

The general thrust of the paper is that the British deserve a lot of discredit for the incident, as that last quote from the conclusion indicates. Other than that, this dovetails exactly with what BoogaLouie and myself have been saying - the British government's main interest was oil, but the US was not buying that line. Eden's intransigence and preferring no deal to a "bad deal" for Britain, perversely enough, strengthened the communists, which is what brought in the US eventually - anticommunist fervor. In other words, Britain, by purposefully making the problem worse, forced America's hand out of fear of the communists. Again, he's not denying that oil was important, but communism was "and remained the driving motivation behind US foreign policy regarding Iran."

For hoots, and looking at the problem another way... I browsed through a few books on the Cold War as well. All of them mentioned Iran in the index, and one devoted a fair clip of space to it. As well they should.

I'll give Kinzer's book a read next, but my suspicion is that unless the reviews - which Skywriter originally linked to for support before turning around and decrying them as useless - were totally off base, even Kinzer doesn't take the kind of hardline communism-is-irrelevant position that Skywriter and Kurdo are, and we can close the book on this. SnowFire (talk) 03:41, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Good work; thanks for the clarity. Binksternet (talk) 04:26, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Who is Ali Mohammadi? I'd say he is probably a Monarchist. Anyways, you'll see what you want to see, looking for fringe sources that take an apologist stand, whitewashing the overthrow of a sovereign nation's elected government. That does not change the fact that consensus of modern historians and scholars is against such outdated and apologist propaganda. I haven't said communism was irrelevant, what I have said all along, which is supported by most sources, is the fact that "communist takeover" was merely a pretext, an excuse to topple a non-communist government for oil, hegemony etc. --Kurdo777 (talk) 08:15, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * You keep hammering on the same unsupportable point: that "modern historians" have reached a consensus regarding whether fear of communism was a factor in the U.S. decision-making process. Quite a lot of good sources demonstrating the error of that assumption have been shown here on this page in the last few days. The "modern historians" are still talking about fear of communism. You have to give way on this point. Binksternet (talk) 10:18, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * "you'll see what you want to see"


 * This is an absolutely infuriating accusation of bad faith. I bother to go down to the library to read up on the topic, and get accused of cherry-picking?  Like I said, I looked for recent scholarship and that's it.  If the journal article had supported your side of the story, I'd have posted so on this talk page, too.  It just so happens that the first source I looked at disagrees with your point... as has practically everything on the Internet.


 * I'm trying to research in good faith here, but apparently absolutely everyone who disagrees with you is too "POV." Newsflash: Everyone who disagrees with you is not a monarchist.  And if throwing around "ist" is enough to disqualify someone anyway, then I can easily be saying that anyone who disagrees with the mainstream consensus is a rabid socialist.  Hell, we cite Noam Chomsky in the current lede, and no one will argue that he isn't a very very far lefitst POV.  It doesn't make everything he says invalid, though.  And the fact that you think you can intuit a person's politics from an assertion of fact they made is very troubling.  Why should only monarchists think that is true?  Why is everyone on the Internet apparently a monarchist?  (For reference, I don't know Mr. Mohammadi's political persuasions either, but at least I don't pretend to make them up.  It'd be a great insult to a historian to claim that matters like this would be overly swayed by politics, though - this isn't "was the Shah a good ruler" but "why did America support the coup."  This page has some other works by him, so he's published, at least.)


 * Actually, there's a definitely a term for this when you and a small number of others are right and everyone else is POV: you are on the WP:FRINGE. Which is not an insult, plenty of things later proven right were fringe at one time...  but it is not how Wikipedia reports. SnowFire (talk) 16:42, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Snowfire calls editors Snowfire disagrees with WP:Fringe and a lot of other nasty names. I wish Snowfire would stop the name-calling. Snowfire-- whose nine aggressive reverts got this article shut down-- is now announcing a trip to the library. Glad you're getting around to it. All those reverts read as though they were ill-informed and now we see they were. Skywriter (talk) 19:28, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * That's exactly the problem here. We have an editor, with no history of contributing to to this article, who stumbled upon this page and somehow took offense at the notion that his country could have done something wrong to another country 56 years ago, and even though he had no prior knowledge of the topic and admits to have not read anything about the topic, he took it upon himself to revert this article repeatedly it with a WP:IDONTLIKEIT attitude. He later dragged in another editor with a similar POV. And now that the page is locked, he has only begun to actually read something about this topic, which I applaud, never mind that the martial he has been reading so far, namely a paper by an unknown Iranian author who is not historian, or an opinion piece by a controversial British commentator who is not a historian either, just happen to support his pre-conceived notions about the subject. I do, nonetheless, sincerely hope that he does read Kinzer's book in its entirety, and not just look for bits and pieces that support his argument. --Kurdo777 (talk) 23:45, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * You assume too much by guessing at my motives. If you really want to call me a biased editor, one "with a similar POV", do so at a higher forum than this one. Without that, I shrug it off as a petty violation of WP:Etiquette, and as an example of the kind of defensive stance made by an insecure editor who will not accept strong evidence from reliable, expert sources because such sources defeat his favorite new theory. Binksternet (talk) 00:06, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I will ignore your personal insults, and refer you toWP:NPA, but I will say that in this case, "expert sources" means reputable scholars and historians of Near East, and none of the people you have cited, qualify as an expert source. --Kurdo777 (talk) 01:09, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Skywriter and Kurdo: Skywriter, you especially, were "name-calling" me at high-degree almost immediately. I don't think I need to offer diffs, just look up.  I tried to keep the discussion based on content, but you refused, and made it about me and BoogaLouie and everyone who disagrees you being a "POV-pusher."  So let's be clear about who's being uncivil here.  The one thing I have been firm about is your accusations of bad faith, and for that I will criticize you two as editors.  Feel free to call me wrong, but don't say I'm lying or that I'm cherry-picking.  I came into this topic as a non-expert, yes, which is precisely why I found your claims so striking - non-experts tend to only be familiar with the mainstream version of history, which this wasn't.  Obviously, some topics there is a vast gap between what historians think and what the public thinks, but my research has indicated that this isn't the case.


 * One last comment, re "taking offense that my country could do something wrong." I've been trying to avoid the issue because the political beliefs of an editor are, ideally, irrelevant.  People of any and all political persuasions agree that "most historians think X about a topic," after all.  However, just to be abundantly clear.  WHERE HAVE I EVER DEFENDED THIS COUP.  Kurdo, I think this coup was one of the great disasters of US foreign policy, both pragmatically and morally.  So if you think I'm doing this out of apologism, you're dead wrong.


 * Will post my findings shortly, probably on a subpage so as not to take up too much space. Preview: none of the books I read agreed with your point of view, and this was from a fairly broad spectrum of readings. SnowFire (talk) 00:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * SnowFire, lets get some straight answers here. Do you believe that (A) "the fears communist takeover" should be stated as a statement of fact, or (B) simply presented as the rational given by Eisenhower's administration? If the answer is (A), then that's like saying Bush invaded Iraq to get rid of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction as statement of fact on Wikipedia. If the answer is (B), then we can work out something that would mention Eisenhower's rational, as well as an academic refutation. --Kurdo777 (talk) 01:25, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * First, it's not a matter of what I believe, but what the historians believe. And what the historians believe, from my research, is somewhat inconclusive.  It seems that Tudeh had some power but probably not enough.  (But also that the US was worried that they might continue to strengthen, or that the USSR might outright invade.)  According to Kinzer's All The Shah's Men, p.205-206:


 * Another open question is the strength of the pro-Soviet Tudeh party during the early 1950s. The Dulles brothers claimed that Tudeh had assembled a vast network that was ready to seize power as soon as Mossadegh fell or was pushed from office.  Scholars who have studied Tudeh and its allied organizations doubt this. (...) Long after the coup, a scholar interviewed the American diplomat who specialized in monitoring Tudeh during the early 1950s, along with two CIA agents who were posted with him at the United States embassy in Tehran.  They admitted "that Tudeh was not very powerful, and that higher-level US officials routinely exagerrated its strength and Mossadegh's reliance on it."  The crucial question of whether the American coup was necessary to prevent the Soviets from staging a coup of their own cannot be conclusively answered.


 * On the other hand, Rubin seems to hype the Tudeh threat more forcefully; see here. He says:


 * By the autumn of 1953 Iran was at the end of its tether; the Communists were growing in strength and the National Front was disintegrating. Continuation of the status quo did not seem like an option.


 * Anyway, the WMD argument is in fact mentioned in the Iraq War article as one of the main reasons to go to war, and as noted before I'm fine with a proviso in the lede that says that the true extent of Tudeh's power is unclear to history, but most historians lean on it not really being a big threat. SnowFire (talk) 02:17, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * SnowFire, you did not give me a clear answer. I know what the historians say, and Kinzer's quote, pretty much sums up what I have been saying all along, and what the academic consensus is, that there was no real threat of a communist takeover. What I am interested to know, is which direction you're personally leaning to, something close to (A) or (B)? --Kurdo777 (talk) 03:35, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I am fine with "B" except that it's not really an academic "refutation." Kinzer leans in the direction that Tudeh was not overly powerful, but admits that the answer "cannot be conclusively determined."  Would this modification to BoogaLouie's lede be satisfactory?


 * The British government successfully enlisted the support of the United States in planning and executing the coup. While the British were mainly concerned about oil rights, they succesfully portrayed Iran as on the brink of Communist takeover to President Eisenhower and his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, despite internal documents showing confidence that Iran would remain pro-Western and anti-communist. SnowFire (talk) 05:12, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Snowfire, I tried reading this section and was unable to separate your opinions from what Ali Mohammadi wrote. It would be more useful if you quoted precisely the most relevant parts of his account that you think can be used in this article. I would appreciate if you would hold in check the personal attacks, such as the following. ''even Kinzer doesn't take the kind of hardline communism-is-irrelevant position that Skywriter and Kurdo are, and we can close the book on this. SnowFire (talk) 03:41, 28 June 2009 (UTC)''
 * Reply from Skywriter re An interesting find.

First, Kurdo and I have taken different positions and to lump our positions together is untrue and unfair to us both. While we have agreed in some areas, we disagree in others. Please accept--and respect-- the complexity of diverse opinions.

My position is that the National Security Archive documents the hard line anti-communist campaign run by diplomats, and a fuller description of that is further down on this page under the heading Proposal to negotiate consensus I believe it is useful to discuss what we do know, or rather what scholars do know, and what can not be known because documents were destroyed. Some of that is covered in '' U.S. Propaganda in the Middle East - The Early Cold War Version, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 78, Edited by Joyce Battle, December 13, 2002''. Though I have not read the journal article by Ali Mohammadi to which you refer, I notice that he and Battle published on a related subject in the same year. We can not know whether Mohammadi saw the original State Department documents obtained by the National Security Archive when he made general remarks that you apparently paraphrase. Bearing directly on your apparent paraphrase of Mohammadi's remarks are the following: All four bullet points derive from Joyce Battle's summaries. over at the National Security Archive And they appear to have more specific and directly sourced information than generalizations by Mohammadi. Again, the difficulty with all this is that scholars can never know the exact mix of motives by the US in overthrowing the elected government of Iran as most documents on this subject were destroyed. When the US Embassy in Tehran was seized by students in 1979, and although embassy staff tried to destroy its data, Battle writes that over 70 volumes were put together reflecting whatever evidence once existed there. Those archives are in the possession of the Iranians and, it seems as though it will be awhile before that information is made public. In the meantime, please review the documents in the bullets above as they are contrary evidence to your claim that the US was pure as the driven snow in its fierce pursuit of anti-communist propaganda. Those documents also show the US leaned on the Shah et al. for an oil settlement. In affairs of this type, one must always ask Cui bono? In the case in point, whether the US concerned itself solely with anti-communist propaganda or whether it also tended to the pragmatic matter of which US oil companies would profit from the overthrow of the Iranian government seems obvious. Material removed from the lede in the last couple of weeks, I think it occurred on Mad Revert Weekend, gave the exact numbers of the Iranian oil settlement of 1954 following the coup. If you read the bullet items mentioned above, it is noteworthy that the US pressed Mossadeq's successor for a settlement of the oil dispute. We know from Iranian sources (removed on Mad Revert Weekend) that the terms of that settlement split 80 percent of Iranian oil between the US and UK. This is noteworthy because it acknowledges what one of the authors said explicitly in one of the books being discussed on this page, and that is, that Iran 1953 signaled a key marker in the demise of the British empire and the beginning of the relationship with the US whereby if the UK wanted to overthrow somebody else's government, it relied on the US to do it over the next half century.Skywriter (talk) 00:26, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
 * In November 1953, Ambassador Henderson requested an approach to "one of the three American publications having most influence in Iran; namely, New York Times, Time Magazine and Newsweek" requesting that it carry an article written by the embassy pointing out that "Wily Dr. Mosadeq" had an "attempted policy of open blackmail against the free world . . . . When the Iranian people finally realized the situation, under the leadership of those loyal to the Shah and to Iranian institutions, the forces opposed to alliance with or domination by the communists arose in wrath . . . " The U.S. also wanted Iranians to understand that it was necessary for the British-Iranian oil dispute to be settled on terms acceptable to the West: the article noted that "There seems to be a failure on the part of many of them to realize how necessary it is for them to stand behind their Government in a determined attempt to solve the most important problems of the country before the emergency aid which the United States has extended to Iran is exhausted." [(Doc. 114) http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB78/propaganda%20114.pdf ]
 * In the same vein, the State Department supported "A somewhat peripheral but extremely important propaganda mechanism . . . the International Educational Exchange Service in the Department of State which handles Iranians visiting the United States under Government auspices and sends certain American scholars to Iran." (Doc. 112) In addition, Ambassador Henderson pointed to the need for a propaganda campaign focusing specifically on the oil issue, "to relate the present American emergency financial aid to the need for a prompt settlement of the oil dispute with Great Britain . . . ." [(Doc. 114) http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB78/propaganda%20114.pdf ]
 * In the summer of 1952, the IIA told U.S. media how it wanted the British-Iranian oil dispute to be covered: show minimal interest, and minimize Iranian statements regarding legal aspects of the oil issue: "Avoid statements that would indicate U.S. concern over fate of Iran or will bail Iran out in a showdown. Support with factual coverage and moderate, selected comment Iran GOVT efforts to quell disorder and GOVT exposÃ©s of Tudeh COMMIE machinations." (Doc. 69)
 * In the spring of 1951, Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq, in order to increase Iran's share of the revenue from sale of its oil, nationalized the oil industry. The British government, however, was determined to retain its control of Iranian oil resources, and sought support from its American ally. Ambassador Loy Henderson felt that the Iranian government was insufficiently aware of the disapproval that the U.S. press was expressing regarding its policies, and suggested that the VOA transmit critical U.S. editorials (while also conveying the rather contradictory impression that the U.S. was "generally sympathetic with Iranian aspirations for full econ and polit independence.") He also wanted to have the VOA transmit programs to Iranians making "friendly ref to Shah as their progressive leader." (Doc. 41)
 * Cui bono is a Latin phrase that means "Who profits?" or "Who benefits?"


 * Skywriter: Anything in parentheses with "Paraphrase" or "SnowFire" is my comment. The Paraphrase sections are condensenings of longer passages that go into irrelevant detail.


 * I realize that you and Kurdo are not an entirely unified front, just as the same is true of BoogaLouie and myself, but you both seem to believe that the oil issue should be covered at the expense of everything else in the lede? If this is not true, then great, but I disagree with this stance.


 * Interesting sources but they don't seem to support the contention that oil is the only thing being discussed. Like I've said many a time before, I don't question that the oil nationalization is what set off the crisis, and certainly the main driving factor of Britain.  Henderson wasn't a fan of Mossadegh, no, and it's even possible that his main motives were oil...  but he was not the person who gave the "go" signal.  That was Eisenhower, and he was pushed by Dulles, the most ardent advocate of it.  From my research, the closest thing that squares with the "it was all oil" theory is that AIOC handed K. Roosevelt coup plans in November 1952.  He pointed out that he had no authority, but did pass the plans on to Dulles.  So AIOC obviously helped get things moving, but it was Dulles, backed by Roosevelt and his brother, who really made things happen.


 * The question of if "cui bono" can resolve the motives for the coup is one for historians to decide, not us. And it's an exceedingly dangerous motive to use even for historians - people have acted against their own interests all the time, out of idealism / morality / stupidity / loyalty to others / etc.  A condensation of history to entirely "cui bono" would be a very sad history indeed, and one that would be unable to explain things such as the abolition of slavery or philanthropy.  But that's just me; feel free to ignore me on that, but let's not ignore what historians say are the motives, not a personal interpretation of primary sources (aka WP:Original research).


 * Also, and this is not an inconsiderable bit: Do you still think I have "no loyalty to facts?" Because if so, there's not much point in me talking with you, since it could all be evil lies.  This isn't an attempt to stir the pot again - I'm fine with letting bygones be bygones - but again, Wikipedia absolutely does not work if both sides do not assume good faith.  Are you willing to do that? SnowFire (talk) 00:48, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to negotiate consensus
Middle East analyst Joyce Battle has written an informative essay with links to the primary cables that document US propaganda efforts in Iran 1950-53.

I believe this is a useful and credible stockpile of information for both sides of the argument concerning this Wikipedia article and I urge you to read the essay, click on the documents to see for yourself US efforts to use propaganda against the Soviet Union to influence Iranian policies in the very early 1950s. While the whole essay focuses on United States propaganda activities in the Middle East, many of the document summaries and the documents themselves focus on US relations with Iran 1951-53. The documents upon which these sumamries are based were obtained through use of the Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the National Security Archive. For example, here's a copy of a May 26, 1953 US State Department cable discussing an Anti-Communist, "brain washing" program.

A tight summary of events, which the Wikipedia article could well base itself on follows--Documents obtained by the National Security Archive support this summary-- ''In 1951, Iran's elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British-controlled consortium. Having no intention of ceding its domination of Iran's oil resources, Britain organized a Western boycott of Iran, and succeeded in decimating the country's economy. The shah, who did not support his prime minister's attempts to assert Iranian nationalism, fled the country in August 1953. Britain and the U.S. engineered a coup against Mossadeq, the shah returned from exile, and resumed his Western-supported rule of Iran, lasting until the Islamic revolution of 1979.'' The following is drawn from aspects pertaining to US/Iran relations 1950-53 summarized by Joyce Battle based on documents obtained by the National Security Archive.I have changed brackets in the original to parentheticals to make it easier to read on this talk page. Propaganda Objectives During the 1950s, U.S. propaganda, as an instrument of the Cold War, was intended "to expose the fallacies of communism" and to warn of its dangers. (Doc. 20) (Doc. 96) Other goals for the Middle East included strengthening "Western-oriented elements," increasing awareness of the Soviet threat, and building "greater willingness to cooperate both regionally and with the West." (Doc. 126)... In Iran, propaganda promoted the view that close relations with the West would "provide the "most profitable course." (Doc. 71)

[http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB78/propaganda%20016.pdf The US plan to produce propaganda in Iran 1951 and have Iran distribute it in the name of Iran though the materials were owned by and subject to recall by the US. ]

The Iran country plan for US propaganda in February 1952 is outlined here.

Posters and Brochures n Iran, the U.S. funded the display of posters at schools, shops, and other public buildings "sponsored by the Iranian Government and . . . planned and executed by the Iranian Government in cooperation with the Embassy." (Doc. 16) Brochures related parables, such as the illustrated story of "two young Iranian boys who are faced with the choice between communism . . . and patient study and industry . . . . The one who chooses communism suffers early and violent death in a street demonstration. The other boy leads a productive life beneficial to his country." (Doc. 96)

Newspapers, Magazines, Newsreels U.S. news manipulation was intended to change the ways reality was perceived. Thus, Secretary of State Dean Acheson said in 1950 that U.S. propaganda should seek to refocus Arab attention on internal social and political problems and divert it from the Palestine conflict, an issue that immeasurably complicated U.S. policy objectives in the region. Labeling opposition to the U.S. "fanaticism", Acheson called for placing "corrective" articles to respond to critical news stories. (Doc. 3) At a working group meeting on ways to exert influence in the Arab world, measures to "buy in the newspaper more and be in a position to control the headlines as well as some of the editorials" were recommended. (Doc. 58) Propaganda guidelines called for "stimulation of the local press" to report on U.S. economic aid, and promotion of Western-supported collective security pacts "by stimulating the writing of indigenous articles on the subject and then cross-reporting them to other countries throughout the area."

Anti-Soviet articles were placed in an Iranian magazine [http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB78/propaganda%20096.pdf Doc. 96], and the American embassy reported plans for a nominally independent journalist to seek U.S. help for the publication of a "purely cultural" magazine. The United States Information and Educational Exchange Program (USIE) was to pay his salary and control editorial content, seeking first to "establish credence," and then to gradually "develop and use more direct hard-hitting anti-Sov(iet) material."

Plans were developed for an "intimate working relationship" between the Voice of American and Radio Tehran, and much of the material for "special programs on Radio Baghdad" was supplied by the USIS. (Doc. 7) (Doc. 118) In Iran, the U.S. provided anti-Soviet newsreels for screening at local movie theaters. (Doc. 4)

Cultural Influences U.S.-controlled cultural influences, literary, educational, popular, and person-to-person, were intended to shape the attitudes of Middle Eastern targets and to inculcate Western values. U.S. goals included "an all-out prosecution of the Nixon and doctrinal programs, the first to pour large numbers of pro-Western, anti-Communist books into the area, the second to influence the intelligentsia." (Doc. 127) To this end, the American embassy in Iran planned to disseminate books on contemporary history, political philosophy, and fiction, in "deluxe", medium price, and low price editions. "These publications would bear a publisher's name and have no obvious connection to the Embassy." (Doc. 16)

"Psychological" plans included providing history and social science textbooks to schools to "influence their curricula in directions favorable to the United States, in order to counteract the Communist trend in many education institutions in the area." New reading rooms were to be opened at local universities "under color of sponsorship by American universities." (Doc. 127) Iran's Ministry of Education cooperated with the American embassy in planning "activities in the educational field" for Iranian students. (Doc. 71)

During the 1950s, U.S. officials, concerned about insufficient anticommunist fervor among Middle Easterners, and increasingly aware of Arab disillusionment with the West, identified a solution: "we have to make more movies out there." (Doc. 58) Points of view to be presented in such films were to be controlled, if possible: the State Department was advised to approach an American film distributor to ensure that "pro-Russian" movies (like "Red Star", a World War II-era film about Nazi occupation of a Russian village) were not shown in "critical areas," such as Iran. (Doc. 12)

One leaflet distributed by the embassy in Iran, entitled "Tale of the Beautiful Red Flower," contained an "allegory in which a red flower resembling the Venus Fly Trap symbolizes Soviet communism," showing how "lazy and frivolous bees are lured to destruction." The embassy was pleased with its impact, noting, "The text of this brochure has been picked up as an editorial by Iranian newspapers." (Doc. 96)

United States - Iran The U.S. sought cooperation from Iran both for propaganda directed at Iranians and for propaganda broadcast outside the country. In 1950, for example, the U.S. ambassador noted that the Iranian government was "extraordinarily cooperative" in providing radio facilities for American broadcasts reaching "Soviet people in sensitive Caucasian and Central Asian areas." (Doc. 8) For domestic propaganda, the embassy recommended that "There should be the minimum of open USIE activity and the maximum use, if necessary without attribution to USIE, of indigenous, Iranian channels." (Doc. 6) By October 1950, the American ambassador could speak of the "close coordination which (is) now effective between (the) embassy and (the) Iranian Propaganda Department." (Doc. 10)

But in November, Iranian Propaganda Director Bahram Shahrokh stopped Voice of America (VOA) as well as BBC relays on Radio Tehran, saying that his predecessor had been too friendly to foreign powers.(10) In December, Iran's prime minister told the American embassy that he expected Shahrokh to retain his position for some time. The embassy was not pleased, however, and suggested to the State Department that it "may wish to discuss this matter." (Doc. 11) In January, the propaganda chief was dismissed, and his predecessor restored to de facto control. (Doc. 14) The latter assured the embassy that he would "turn (the) Propaganda Department line closely toward that of (the) U.S.," that reports from the Soviet news agency Tass would no longer be distributed, and that he was searching for a way to resume VOA broadcasts. The American ambassador said that the "Situation will bear close watching and any changes must be gradual and inconspicuous." (Doc. 15)

The embassy's public affairs officer recommended developing a propaganda program purportedly controlled by Iran, with the U.S. supplying all material, equipment, personnel, and plans, noting that "even though the program would be designed to appear as an Iranian Government program, the news gets abroad that it is subsidized and more or less controlled by Americans. This fact has been demonstrated by the films program now in operation." To "have the program appear to be an Iranian venture" meant that "the major portion of the program would have to be in the educational field, developing knowledge of better agricultural and public health methods. The Iranian Government would reap the public credit for our program while our benefit would be realized through helping to raise the standard of living and thereby a certain measure of political and economic stability would be the result. In addition, the successful penetration of the country on this level would ultimately provide a sound foundation for the dissemination of information about the USA and its policies." (Doc. 16)

In the spring of 1951, Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq, in order to increase Iran's share of the revenue from sale of its oil, nationalized the oil industry. The British government, however, was determined to retain its control of Iranian oil resources, and sought support from its American ally. Ambassador Loy Henderson felt that the Iranian government was insufficiently aware of the disapproval that the U.S. press was expressing regarding its policies, and suggested that the VOA transmit critical U.S. editorials (while also conveying the rather contradictory impression that the U.S. was "generally sympathetic with Iranian aspirations for full econ and polit independence.") He also wanted to have the VOA transmit programs to Iranians making "friendly ref to Shah as their progressive leader." (Doc. 41)

During this crisis, the State Department was acutely aware of the potential for negative reaction to American propaganda. It commented, "The discretion exercised in the embassy's relations with local distributors and exhibitor (of propaganda newsreels) is appreciated; and under the circumstances, the Department agrees that all caution is desirable." (Doc. 45) These circumstances were made clear in an Iranian newspaper account in early 1952 reporting that "the Department of Press and Propaganda has been run by the American Embassy . . . . It is believed that the American Embassy has been paying sums of money to the Press and Propaganda Department with a view to using that Department as a means of propaganda for the United States." The head of the department was on the U.S. payroll, the paper said. (Following this report, the aforementioned agency head requested that a messenger deliver future USIE scripts to him, without cover notes.) (Doc. 47)

Soon thereafter, the Iranian Interior Ministry ordered the closing of all information and cultural centers outside of Tehran, including those belonging to the USIE. Ambassador Henderson said that if Prime Minister Mossadeq were determined to carry out this policy it would "be preferable for us quietly to suspend operations with hope that after elections have been concluded and present state natl hysteria somewhat subsided we may be able quietly and unostentatiously to resume operations . . . it is our intention in case we do suspend activities . . . to transfer as much as possible of info activities to friendly Iran Govt institutions." (Doc. 49) An Iranian official expressed regret to the American embassy about the closings but said that "Some fo(reig)n cultural institutions in prov(ince)s had . . . engaged in activities contrary to (the) interests (of) Iran." (Doc. 51)

In the summer of 1952, the IIA told U.S. media how it wanted the British-Iranian oil dispute to be covered: show minimal interest, and minimize Iranian statements regarding legal aspects of the oil issue: "Avoid statements that would indicate U.S. concern over fate of Iran or will bail Iran out in a showdown. Support with factual coverage and moderate, selected comment Iran GOVT efforts to quell disorder and GOVT exposÃ©s of Tudeh COMMIE machinations." (Doc. 69)

In May 1953, Ambassador Henderson was at pains to assure the State Department that his embassy was conducting an effective propaganda campaign: it compiled "a list of 260 articles, features, editorials and commentaries which ha(d) been placed in the local Tehran papers, as well as provincial papers, on anti-communist subjects." In addition, "Individual Iranian governmental offices are . . . induced to sponsor" various film titles, "as apart from direct USIS presentation. As an example: 'Azerbaijan Day' (on the Russian occupation of a part of Iran following World War II) has been shown publicly both by the Ministry of Education and the imperial Iranian Gendarmerie while the Department of Propaganda has refused to take part in the sponsorship of the film." (Doc. 96)

U.S. news media could be useful tools for both direct and indirect manipulation of opinion in Iran. The State Department suggested that it could seek "to inspire editorials or articles in U.S. publications which can be useful in case Embassy should desire certain points of view brought out for benefit American public . . . . Additionally, VOA might pick up such editorials or articles and play them on Persian program without any indication U.S. official inspiration." (Doc. 97)

(In July 1953, "Clandestine Radio Azerbaijan at Baku", which had been broadcasting reports about preparation for a coup for several months, described "the intrigues of the American and British imperialists and the subversive actions of the Shah," as "part of a wide plan that is being carried out all over the country." Activities included uprisings, distribution by the army of arms to tribal groups, meetings with tribal leaders, staged demonstrations, and tribal conferences organized by the U.S. embassy.) (Doc. 100)

In August, Britain and the U.S. succeeded in engineering the overthrow of the elected Mossadeq government.

Subsequently, propaganda opportunities vastly improved. In September, the embassy noted that "USIS Tehran reports that with the recent change in government the attitude of the motion picture Censorship Commission toward anticommunist film material has apparently changed so that it may be possible for USIS in the future to obtain official permission to show some anticommunist films . . . . It will be necessary at the outset to adhere to those films which are factual presentations of communist aggression. Later, it may be possible to use films of an even stronger propaganda line." (Doc. 106) The U.S. would seek to inculcate the view "that Iran leaders and public have chosen to align themselves with free world and to indicate it in interest Iranian security and prosperity cooperate closely with Western democracies." (Doc. 108)

USIS indicated that its activities were to be largely overt except for "backstopping" material: "speeches and comments by influential private and government personages; commentary played back over VOA." It observed, "The government is recognized throughout the country as being one brought in and supported by the U.S . . . . it is of the greatest importance that no stone be left unturned to make this regime successful." In this, it would be able to "count on complete cooperation working with the present director" of Iran's division of propaganda, "who recognizes that our aims within Iran are parallel and who has shown every inclination to willingly accept suggestions and materials for working together." These plans included the dispatch of USIS employees to various Iranian cities, with the title of vice consul, to "develop personal contacts . . . supply as much servicing as possible to newspapers and magazines in the area, schedule film showings, develop and place material for radio programming, and develop and direct English language classes," using persons who were "likeable, friendly types who mix easily." (Doc. 110)

In the same vein, the State Department supported "A somewhat peripheral but extremely important propaganda mechanism . . . the International Educational Exchange Service in the Department of State which handles Iranians visiting the United States under Government auspices and sends certain American scholars to Iran." (Doc. 112) In addition, Ambassador Henderson pointed to the need for a propaganda campaign focusing specifically on the oil issue, "to relate the present American emergency financial aid to the need for a prompt settlement of the oil dispute with Great Britain . . . ." [(Doc. 114) http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB78/propaganda%20114.pdf ]

U.S. Government - U.S. Media Americans as well as Iranians were the tools and targets of Iranian coup-related media manipulation. The U.S. embassy and USIS developed propaganda accentuating "popular support" for the shah "as demonstrated by (the) events of August 19" (the coup) and "continued ovations and praise in meetings with small groups as well as broader public appearances," and they planned to "develop material along same policy lines for immediate distribution Iran and media and for use by Department and USIA (United States information Agency) in (the) U.S." (Doc. 108) The USIA asked to be provided with all "press materials supporting agreed themes for possible further exploitation U.S. press and USIA media. Iran situation receiving little press attention and materials needed help create reaction favorable new regime, U.S. aid efforts." (Doc. 111)

The infrastructure available to exploit new propaganda opportunities in Iran included a "P area of the Department of State" that used "the Department's News Division in dealing with local correspondents, a Historical Division, and offices which deal in the placement of magazine articles and arrangements for official speaking engagements." There was also "a confidential American agency (the CIA was only a few years old when this document was created) which is sometimes in a position to provide assistance in the propaganda field. I have arranged an informal relationship here which can be used if propaganda experts desire to have something said or played in Iran which should not be directly related to the U.S. Government." In addition, an "ad hoc 'Iran Propaganda Committee' to serve as a forum for ideas and a center of attraction for all persons involved in propaganda activities related to Iran" was established. (Doc. 112)

In November 1953, Ambassador Henderson requested an approach to "one of the three American publications having most influence in Iran; namely, New York Times, Time Magazine and Newsweek" requesting that it carry an article written by the embassy pointing out that "Wily Dr. Mosadeq" had an "attempted policy of open blackmail against the free world . . . . When the Iranian people finally realized the situation, under the leadership of those loyal to the Shah and to Iranian institutions, the forces opposed to alliance with or domination by the communists arose in wrath . . . " The U.S. also wanted Iranians to understand that it was necessary for the British-Iranian oil dispute to be settled on terms acceptable to the West: the article noted that "There seems to be a failure on the part of many of them to realize how necessary it is for them to stand behind their Government in a determined attempt to solve the most important problems of the country before the emergency aid which the United States has extended to Iran is exhausted." [(Doc. 114) http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB78/propaganda%20114.pdf ]

(The collaboration of American media, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time, and Newsweek, with "the intelligence community" was discussed, post-Watergate scandal, in a report prepared by the congressional Church Committee and in more detail in a Rolling Stone article by Carl Bernstein.) (11)

The research and analysis described above is laid out in detail with links to the original documents.

I hope you take the time to look at the documents as it is the arsenal for proving that the US believed itself to be competing directly with the Societ Union for Iranian oil, and mounted a significant propaganda campaign to achieve its goal of strengthening the shan in order for US oil companies to gain a share in Iranian oil.

If the National Security Archive is not an acceptable source based on your claim of WP:FRINGE, please explain your reasons, keeping in mind that Malcolm Byrne and Mark Gasiorowski base their book on documents obtained and analyzed by the National Security Archive. Both sides of the argument over this Wikipedia article have praised their book. The Archive is described, and Joyce Battle and other prominent researcher/authors at the archive (such as Byrne) are pictured with this article Skywriter (talk) 21:05, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Gasiorowski co-author Malcolm Byrne edits the NSArchive's Iran documents. This one, dated is directly relevant] to this Wikipedia article. This is Byrne's comments about the linked state department report to Eisenhower, which you have to click to read as Byrne does not summarize it.
 * ''Memorandum for the President (discussing behavior of the Shah, Gen. Zahedi and Winston Churchill immediately after the coup), Memorandum from the Department of State, top secret, circa August 1953


 * Prior to the 1979 hostage-taking episode, the most contentious issue in U.S.-Iran relations was the 1953 coup against Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq, which the CIA and British intelligence helped to instigate. Numerous questions remain about the coup itself, its impact, and the circumstances which brought it about. To what extent was Mossadeq leading his country down the path toward communist subversion? Could the coup have succeeded without substantial Iranian public dissatisfaction with Mossadeq’s policies? Did key Iranian political and religious figures, wittingly or not, receive CIA payments in return for stirring up the population? What effects did the coup have on the future development of internal Iranian politics, including possibly radicalizing anti-Shah and anti-American opposition elements with consequences that would not be foreseen until the revolution itself?


 * The search for answers will have to wait at least until more of the documentary record is available in both Iran and the United States. Unfortunately, a portion of the record on the American side will never be recovered because CIA operatives, according to former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey, destroyed them in the 1960s. The surviving files remain locked away from public view on the grounds that their declassification, even 46 years later, would damage the national security. Because of the obvious public interest value and historical significance of these materials, the National Security Archive in May 1999 filed suit against the CIA to demand their release. The suit is still pending.'' Skywriter (talk) 22:41, 28 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Skywriter: All very interesting, and most of it sounds fine to me. I'm confused, however, as to how this promotes your basic point that "it was all really about oil."  Undoubtedly the US did spread propaganda in Iran, and tried to defend its actions at home.  What's that have to do with the motivations behind it?  And this doesn't say that the Tudeh was *not* a threat, or more precisely, that it was not *perceived* as a threat.


 * And as for Gasiorowski, I agree he's a fine source, which is why I was quoting his publisher's website for this quote, which I will use again:


 * The book [provides] a richly and tightly reasoned setting out of what might be dubbed the emerging scholarly synthesis: the British started it, but the United States took it over; Cold War concerns about 'losing' Iran were a greater factor than was oil nationalization; and Mosaddeq faced growing domestic opposition and made important tactical mistakes in his final days-but he was toppled only because of outside intervention." http://www.syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu/spring-2004-catalog/mosaddeq.html


 * You noted that this was just a review before. True, but Foreign Affairs is an excellent source, and the publisher saw fit to promote this on their website.  I would have read the Gasiorowski book as well, but alas, it is currently checked out.  And - see the sources subpage I've just created - at least in 1995 or so, Gasiorowski was saying the same thing - Talk:1953 Iranian coup_d'état/Communism sources.  "Consequently, US security interests associated with the Cold War and changing views in Washington about how Mussadiq's regime affected those interests were responsible for the fateful US decision to undertake the August 1953 coup."


 * I'll try and give the webpages you linked to a look over, but again, I don't see how any of the above indicates that the lede proposed by BoogaLouie, Binksternet, or myself is wrong or at variance with the historical consensus. SnowFire (talk) 01:24, 29 June 2009 (UTC)