Word: shahs
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Brainless's mob began chanting slogans in support of the Shah early on August 19, slipping banknotes under windscreen wipers and giving others to all who would join them. It was a cynical tribute to the CIA's tactics soon all the streets around Parliament Square were squeezed tight with pro-Shah demonstrators. Orators miraculously sprang from the crowd and called for the downfall of Mossadeq. The Shah's portrait was hung on a banner across the railroad station...
...although its loyalty to Mossadeq was feebler than Roosevelt and the generals had dared to hope. For when Zahedi arrived in a tank at Parliament Square a few tense moments passed and then the troops defending Foreign Minister Fatemi threw their caps in the air and declared for the Shah. By mid-afternoon Tehran was under the control of General Zahedi...
...Rome the Shah was despondent. A gynecologist provided by the CIA was giving a course of injections to his wife, Soroya, in a vain attempt to reverse her childlessness. He badgered her so often to make love with her husband that she finally lost her temper. "Doctor," she snapped, "all I'm asking you to do is find something to break my eggs. I'll see the Shah goes on making omelettes." The news of the successful coup cheered the Shah over this contretemps, however, and he returned triumphantly to Iran...
CRITICS of the Shah, American imperialism and the CIA present the 1953 coup as the result of the agency's effort alone. The Shah saw it as a spontaneous movement on the part of the people. The truth lies between the two. Roosevelt certainly played an invaluable coordinating role (and the Shah rewarded him for it by taking him on a skiing holiday, all expenses paid, every year since the coup). The CIA provided money to buy the loyalty of the crowd and beyond this furnished the most important element of all for those loyal to the Shah--confidence that...
...fact the agency's effort in Iran was modest, especially by later standards. It cost no more than $20 million to restore the Shah to the throne and ensure (if only in the short term) American influence in the area. Dulles cleverly hid the importance of luck in the successful coup and revelled in the image of invincibility acquired by the CIA. The CIA mythe was born in Iran and the 1953 coup bears much responsibility for the subsequent expansion of covert activities so that they came to dominate the agency...