The
1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in
Iran as the
28 Mordad coup, was the
overthrow of the
democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953, orchestrated by the
United Kingdom (under the name '
Operation Boot') and the
United States (under the name
TPAJAX Project).
Mossadegh had sought to audit the books of the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now
BP) and to change the terms of the company's access to Iranian oil reserves. Upon alleged refusal of the AIOC to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parliament (Majlis) voted to nationalize the assets of the company and expel their representatives from the country.
[7][8][9] Following the coup in 1953, a military government under General
Fazlollah Zahedi was formed which allowed
Mohammad-Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, the
Shah of Iran (
Persian for an Iranian king),
[9] to effectively rule the country as an
absolute monarch. He relied heavily on United States support to hold on to power until
his own overthrow in February 1979.
[7][8][9][10] In August 2013, 60 years after, the American
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) admitted that it was involved in both the planning and the execution of the coup, including the bribing of Iranian politicians, security and army high-ranking officials, as well as pro-coup propaganda.
[11][12] The CIA is quoted acknowledging the coup was carried out "under CIA direction" and "as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'état
