History Should be Messy and Complicated

On Monday of this week, the National Security Archive at George Washington University released a cache of previously classified government documents that acknowledged the role the CIA played in orchestrating the1953 coup that deposed Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. The documents (Click here) offer rich insight into the planning of the coup and the extent which Iranian actors were essential to its execution, and highlight the decades-long effort by British officials to obstruct America's declassification of its coup documents. We talk with Malcolm Byrne, deputy director of the National Security Archive, who edited and oversaw the publication of the documents, about the coup's legacy for Iran and the region, its historical context, and why transparency is crucial to both a nation's accounting of its own history and future policy making. 

What is the key line or more significant passage in what was released this week?

The most significant line is from a CIA internal history from the mid-1970s:  “the military coup that overthrew Mossadeq and his National Front cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of US foreign policy, conceived and approved of at the highest levels of government.” That's the crux of it right there. 

There's also some references in one of the final documents, as part of a general conversation within the Foreign Office in 1978, where people are not entirely in agreement that it would be bad for the British information to come out.  They're dealing with a different environment, there's a revolution occurring, but even in that dire circumstance, there are British officials saying words to effect of: “First of all, Iran will find any excuse it wants, and second, any real disclosure will come from Iranians.” This stands out to me. 

The Roosevelt documents are pretty fascinating for a historian. What I got from those materials is a more three-dimensional look at what was going on at that time, as they were trying to pull  off the coup. There's still a very lively debate going on, amongst reputable scholars and politicians, over who was responsible, the Americans and the British? The Zahedi family? The Shah? Who made this happen? 

What the Roosevelt documents show is that yes, the US clearly had a plan in place working very hard to orchestra things, but: 1.  They couldn't have done without Iranian help. They needed people organizing military networks, Shaban the Brainless (the famous thug) to generate the demonstrations, they needed the Shah, they needed Mossadegh to screw up, they needed (leading political cleric, Ayatollah) Kashani to decide what he wanted to do. The Americas were behind it, but the Iranians were critical to it. It's also just interesting as window onto how fluid the situation was. It was not a clean, well-oiled machine that just smoothly pulled this thing off. I'm not saying Americans put it that way, but when you read the accounts, e.g. the Wilber documents, [they] tend to make themselves look pretty good; but when you read day to day memos and reports, you see how much more how complicated the whole thing was, and how much luck and circumstance it took to allow everything to fall into place. 

What is the real legacy of the coup for Iran, and the region?

One of the lessons is that CIA and MI6 are not as powerful as their reputations, they're not as organized, not as all seeing, and they don't have monopoly on the truth. When you look at records closely, you see that underlying it all was vast ignorance about aspects of Iranian society, about Mossadegh, about the Tudeh Party (communist party), full of assumptions that have turned out in retrospect to have been completely unfounded. 

What's dangerous is the ignorance on which all governments operate –  American, Iranian, British, and others – the point in digging into historical records and getting as much released as we can is that hopefully it will help educate not just the population, but decision makers down the road, giving them a better idea of how to conduct policy better. Not to help them plan coups, but so that they don't even get to that point. 

Another lesson is that when great powers behave this way, it is not always because of animosity towards the country that ends up bearing the brunt of it. When the Americans went into Iran, when George W. Bush went into Iraq, he was thinking at some level of his consciousness that he was doing it for their good. The same in Vietnam, and with the Russians in Afghanistan. In all of these cases, there is this sense of acting in the greater good, and that local populations should be grateful.

I don't include Britain in this, they have a longer history of colonization with a heavier economic component, they never had the same messianic mission that the Americans and Soviets had, that sense that we are doing the right thing for the world. They weren't that smarmy, the British. It doesn’t matter who shoots the bullet that kills you, but it's still worth bearing in mind and trying to get at the actual motivations. We went in and created huge problems, both in Iran and Iraq, but this simplistic image of an evil person with horns on a mission to destroy their country, that's not the way [those who made that policy thought]. If we have a more accurate sense of what different governments were trying to do, we can come up with more sophisticated reactions and better policy. 

Did America's foreign policy change after Eisenhower took over in January 1953?

It did a little, but not as clearly as people thought at the time. There was a big shift from Truman, who was seen as being a bit soft and suffering defeats at the hands of communists and being unwilling to take strong measures. But we forget that Truman was actually quite terrified by the Soviet threat, and did a number of things that were quite aggressive in pushing back against the Soviets. He originated idea the idea of covert operations, he formed the CIA, but the missions he sent into Ukraine, Albania, all got caught and people were killed. So he stopped being willing to risk that kind of thing.  He did a lot that was quite aggressive, even though the Eisenhower presidential campaign ran on this theme that Truman was weak, that he'd lost China and the Korean War began under him. He campaigned on the notion that we needed to get tough on the Communists and roll them back.

Another interesting counter factual to wonder about is what would have happened if Truman had stayed on, how he would have acted toward Iran, There's evidence that he was becoming more and more concerned at the end of his administration about the Soviet threat, to the point that he put into place contingency plans that called for the possibility of sending in American troops, which is more than Eisenhower ever did. The difference is that Truman's plan presumed that the Soviets would go in first and the Americans would have to respond if the Soviets invaded, which would have been starting World War III, an amazing thing. Eisenhower's was a pre-emptive move, similar to Bush in Iraq, let's get them before they get us, which is what the Israelis are arguing today.

It seems that Mossadegh sought to scare the Americans with the prospect of a Russian takeover, in the event his government failed. Did that tactic backfire?

It did backfire a bit. He went after the Soviets a little to send the signal that he was ready to consider alternative sources of support. It wasn't that the Americans were so blindly unsophisticated about things, but that they had genuine fears about Mossadegh's inability to control the situation, so they didn't think he was going to go communist, but they thought he might fall prey to his own tactics, and that the Tudeh Party with the Soviets behind them would be poised to take over and navigate. 

What about the rise of McCarthyism at the time of the coup, how important is this context?

Iran shouldn't feel itself alone, as this is how the US behaved throughout Cold War –  from the Bay of Pigs, to Guatemala, to everything else we did. We had this fixation on how big of a threat the Soviets were, and felt we were doing the Lord's work. The driving principle was fighting the Soviets, and yes, we were going to overthrow a prime minister, but only because he was eventually going to lose control and that would be even worse for Iran (according to Washington back then). The thinking was if we have control we can put the country back on the road to progress. Of course then they realized they couldn't control the Shah the way they thought.

Could the coup have succeeded without the help of religious authorities in Iran?

There's certainly evidence in the American files that points to a number of members of clergy, and also evidence from interviews with former CIA operatives about passing money to mullahs that was supposed to be used to generate crowds and so on. The problem is how do you confirm that this connection existed? How do confirm that they got money or that they knew it was coming from CIA? It's not unlikely on its face, but if you're going to try to be exacting, it's probably impossible to ever know for sure, unless someone admits to it, which isn't likely.

America's role in this coup has now entered popular culture, from Argo to Stephen Kinzer's bestselling book and iPad app, and Madeline Albright's apology to President Obama's mention. When the CIA's involvement is part of the national narrative, why be coy with the documents? Doesn't this just fuel the conspiracy mind-set in Iran? 

That's exactly right. To me this is more about questions of openness and transparency in the US, because while the material released some interesting details for historians the basic story has long been known. It's an argument I make regularly to the CIA and others, you just lose credibility by withholding this kind of information that is so widely know.  But a big part of the concern for the CIA is not to do with the substance of the issue, but sources and methods, which is an expression [relating] to how intelligence agencies do their work. They don't want a single word to be released, and it doesn’t matter whether it's propaganda or about floating hot air balloons to drop leaflets, or poison pens, the agencies just don't want anyone to know. It sounds silly after a certain point, but I know from legal documents that this a big concern for them. Another concern is how these issues will play politically, in either the country involved or in our own country, domestically. The concern here has been more on the British side, rather than the American side, as to how this might have negative fall out for the UK's relations with Iran. 

It's striking the extent to which Britain has been instrumental in blocking the release of documents that the United States, might have, on its own, declassified. Do you see this as British intelligence services showing contempt for the oversight and transparency that are vital to American democracy? Or as a matter of public concern are the British just less exercised about their access to state information?

If it were up to intelligence agencies, they would have absolutely no interest in letting this stuff out. That's why it's not up to them. They have their say, but they shouldn't be the only ones to have final say, just as the US military doesn't have final say about going to war, it is civilians who do, because we know the military is inclined in a certain way. Part of the British attitude reflects that, it's institutional, the nature of the beast. British laws are also more restrictive than America's, and there is even more of a culture of secrecy inside British official structures, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In the US, that culture has come under frequent assault by media, Congress, and members of public, although not nearly enough.  The wounds have a way of scabbing over very rapidly, and [institutions] try to get back to business as usual. But when the pressure persists, results do come about. 

What are the costs for the United States in continuing to submit to British objections? Couldn't this actually be an opportunity for Washington to underscore its transparency, in a way that could help improve its relationship with Iran? 

One can hope that Obama administration will take advantage of any opportunity this might present. But the only thing I've learned about Iran is how unpredictable it is. I don't know how any one event is going to play out, good or bad. When Albright made her comment about the coup in 2000, the general belief was that the Iranians reacted negatively to it. But my reading was that Khamenei reacted much more to her statement about Iran being run by unelected officials, not the admission just shy of an apology. My sense is that to acknowledge all of this would once and for all would take weapon out of hands of those who've used for so long. “Yes, we did it, we're sorry, we had our reasons back then, we wouldn’t' do it today.” You would hope that they would find creative way to put this to everybody's advantage.

Do you see these documents as giving any definitive shape to the academic debate around the coup?

I see it as giving fresh life to the academic debate, fanning the flames, as the documents contain information that all sides will use to support their arguments. I love the documents that show the CIA planning to give commendations to those who took part, the little things that show how the US was involved and believed that it played a key role. But then you have the Roosevelt documents talking about Zahedi having his own plan to do x, y, and z, and the Zadehi people will say, “Aha, he had his own plan!” It might muck things up even more, but that's what history should be, it should be messy and complicated, rather than simple and focused on one cause. 

What are the key documents that still remain classified? Do we even know what they contain that we don't know about it?

We do have some sense from the litigation papers that got filed when we were putting forward our lawsuit in 1999-2000, and other material we've had over the years. It's mainly operational files I would guess, along the lines of additional materials like Kermit Roosevelt's files, with day to day reporting: here's what happening in Iran, trying to make arrangement with so and so, these kinds of things make up a part of it. There may be some further analyses of what was going on in Iran, or what the likely effects of the coup would be or after the fact assessments. Maybe be materials like that. I know the State Department also has more materials they have not yet released. 

What looking forward to next year is new volume of document by the State Department as part of its Foreign Relations of the United States series (FRUS), which is a historical series going back to Abraham Lincoln, that is the official record of US foreign policy, a compilation of documents in many volumes that covers the entire world and is meant to be the [official] record. 

The volume on Iran produced in 1989 generated huge controversy, because it failed to mention any US or British role in the coup. As as result, the chairman of an advisory panel to the State Department, an independent historian, resigned in protest, and a new law was passed, Congress itself stepped in, promulgating a new law that required this series to be a thorough and accurate account. That was in 1990, and 23 years later we still don’t have a new volume on Iran. It has been planning for a number of years, but we haven't seen it yet. Part of why I posted those British documents is because while there is still this tug of war that involves the CIA, it also involves the British. We know from interviews that at least that's what the Americans believe is holding things up. 

What do you make of the continued secrecy in the UK, as regards to Britain’s' role? What are they so worried about? The hardliners in Iran despise them anyway, they've sacked their embassy, taken their navy personnel hostage.  It seems very unpersuasive to argue that they fear hardliners will somehow be reinvigorated. 

I feel the same way, based on a number of visits to Iran and talking to people. It's clear that certain assumptions have been made many decades ago about who did what. The Donald Wilber document, which is Document 1 in our posting, was leaked 13 years ago to the New York Times. We tried to get that released through the Freedom of Information Act, we filed lawsuit but did not succeed. They agreed to release only one sentence out of 200 pages. After the Times published the leaked copy, I went to Tehran later that summer, June of 2000, and took part in a conference in Tehran on Mossadegh and the 1953 coup. I expected to be inundated with questions about that role, but those present couldn't have cared less. They were interested in how Mossadegh supporters viewed things, about Kashani and what role he played, about Behehbani; they wanted to know about the Iranian side. 

Another small example of whether there's anything to the British argument that their situation will be harmed if anything comes out: as I understand it, the Wilber documents and the Roosevelt book have both long been translated into Persian. People have long since had access to that material, and what's happened? Not a whole lot. I see that as indication that there is probably less to be worried about than people fear. 

I understand that as a general principle or theory they (intelligence agencies) didn't want to do anything that might create a problem. But with people who're already dead set against them, those people don’t need a pretext, they will come up with own pretexts to mess with things. So you have to consider, what is the cost of maintaining those secrets? It doesn't cost a whole lot for the CIA to acknowledge its role, because I know it happened. But what it says about agency behaviour and attitudes toward openness, accountability, and transparency, that's very important to me. So I see this new acknowledgement as potentially a small victory within the intelligence community for the side of openness. Because the agency is not one voice, it is made up of thousands of people, and going all the way back to coup there have been dissenting views in the CIA and the State Department as to whether it was  a good idea. We know the CIA station chief Roger Goiran was not in favour and he ended up being pulled out before it took place. There were also others not excited about, in interviews some former officials talk about it either not being a good idea or that the ramifications were not considered. 

The way I see it, this has been an ongoing debate with the operations people, the people who recruit agents and plant propaganda, and do the nasty stuff, they're the main ones who don't want to part with secrets. But perhaps over time that constituency starts to see too high a cost in maintaining secrecy,  and has begun to shift the side in the other direction. 

While much remains to be declassified, does today's release make you hopeful? Will the state of the State Department's history be a litmus test? 

I'm a hopeless optimist, but you have to keep in mind that most of the covert operations section in that CIA document is still classified.  Three pages were released, but the rest is still withheld, 30 pages or more. Clearly the war has not been won. But we can hope that this is a sign of a more rational attitude in the future.After decades of denials, why do you think the CIA finally agreed to release a document that explicitly acknowledges its role in the 1953 coup?  

This was actually released in 2011, but I went back and asked for more, because one of the documents, “Zendebad Shah,” was so heavily excised. I went back to them explaining that it was not sufficient and asked them to please re-review. But it takes a long time for these things to happen. I made the original request in 2000, it took eleven years for it to come through, and unfortunately that's not unique, it happens sometimes. After two more years of waiting, I decided this was enough already, and that I should just put this material up instead of letting it sit. That's why I put it up now.