CIA Operation Ajax Overthrows Democratic Iranian Government, Installs Shah Dictatorship

On August 19, 1953, the CIA executed Operation Ajax (known to the British as Operation Boot), a covert action that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and restored authoritarian power to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The coup marked the first time the CIA overthrew a foreign government and established a template for Cold War interventions that prioritized corporate interests and authoritarian stability over democratic governance.

The operation originated with British oil interests. In 1951, Mosaddegh had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later BP), which had exploited Iranian oil for decades while paying minimal royalties. Britain, humiliated and economically threatened, developed a coup plan but lacked operational capacity. The Truman administration initially refused to participate, but the incoming Eisenhower administration proved receptive. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Dulles—both with extensive ties to corporate interests—approved the operation, framing Mosaddegh as a communist threat despite his nationalist, anti-Soviet stance.

CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt Jr. (grandson of Theodore Roosevelt) led the operation from Tehran, spending approximately $1 million to bribe military officers, politicians, and journalists while organizing street mobs. An initial coup attempt on August 15 failed, forcing the Shah to flee temporarily, but a second attempt succeeded four days later. The reinstalled Shah ruled with increasingly authoritarian methods, supported by SAVAK—a brutal secret police force trained by the CIA—until the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The CIA officially acknowledged its role in the coup only in 2013, releasing declassified documents in 2017. The operation’s success encouraged subsequent interventions, including Guatemala in 1954, and generated lasting anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East. The Shah’s repressive rule and American support for it directly contributed to the 1979 revolution and the ongoing hostility between the United States and Iran, demonstrating how intelligence agency overreach in service of corporate interests can generate decades of strategic consequences.