tape 1 I was there from the end of '43 to the middle of and from late 1 9 to '52 when Mossadegh threw us out and broke off relations and I was there again from '63 to '57 During Moassadegh's time in power they passed a statute which banned anyone with previous experience in Iran who spoke persian from being posted back again to the you'd have thought that having put the Shah back again on his throne it would have been the eas' thing in the world to have said just cancel it but it was the Swiss ambassador in Tehran who in his excessive seal pointed out to the foreign offic that this law was still on the statute book and that several members of Dennis wright's party who were going back as the initial reestablishment of the embassy had served in Iran and did speak PersianI John Fernley was allowed to go back beca ye he didn't speak Persian Margan Hillier-Fry and I were going back with the first batch and they had to allow someone back and so Dennis went in cold without a Persian speaker on his team but that was the foreign office being wishyh washy beyond belief It should have been a simple matter from the foreign secretary to the foreign minister for Iran In fact I was booked on the plane and this thing came through about 6 hours before I went out in -h3-h7 period first of all as an army officer in SUE Colonel Maclean and I were the first to have gone into AsMaijan after the Russians had withdrawn Colonel NLD he had been up in Tashkar before the Chinese overran it and he was on his way back home precisely what he was doing there except stripping goLd off his gold belt and marrying one of the local Kashkar's every week or so I don't know but he finally got out and came to Hong Ehng and then via India and he knew Whyborn quite well and he stayed with one of waverill's adc's called Charles Rankin and he persuaded the DMI in India to finance his return by road India Afghanistan Persia Turkey and that way it had to he at a certain time which was winter He had various exciting episodes 6n the way - breaking down in Afghanistan Charles Rankin was then being recalled back by a certain date and I met up with them in Mashed in Eastern Iran where I had gone off for the weekend to take a diplomatic bagbecause there was no reliable postal service - and he said well why don't you join me - I said I would have to find out if the ambassador would let me go he said fine I ll come down to Tehran His car kept breaking down eventually we got it all repaired and finally set off I was give h weeks in which to do this and off we set and we went to the Caspian and chuntered all the way up to the coast and Russian border and we got that damn car to within about 200 yards of the pass and we couidn't move because of the snow So we had to turn around and com all the way back - this was 10 days after we had left and it went on like that We had been assured by the Turkish military attache in Tehran that if we couldkto Tabrise and then go over the Turkish border that even if we got stuck we could put the car on the train and go to Anihrra We finally got to Tabrise and struggled to the border in terrible snow conditions and on the border which is a no man's land the Persian post is on one side and then there is a mile of no man's land wwhich you cross before you come to the Turkish post we left Iran and that he'd take the feelings of the Mangelas -2- tape 1 our passports were stamped accordingly and we got 9 the Turkish post with 5 feetLon the road which would qyer be moved AC efjwf until the spring So then back we had to go but then the Persians wouldn't let us in again because we didn't have an entry visa We were arrested and taken down to the governor - and the governor wrote in my passport that he personally authorised us to enter Iran even though we did not have a visa and this is because of snow on the need we came back to Tabrise We drove to Mahabad and decided to try and go down the Ronduse gorge which links that part of Persian kurdistan with northern Iraq and then get up into Turkey that way well the Persians were always very suspicious people particularly the military -we were staying in Mahahad with the commanding officer of the Persian troops he asked what we were proposing to do and we that is surprising he said I don't suppose that by any chance you realize we and the Iraqui's are going to have for the first time a joint offensive one from the Iraqui side and one from the Persian side to squeeze Mustafan and Basani out He told us that the gorge was controlled by the Basanis He said that he did have aliaison offiver in touch with the Basanis I would let him take you down the gorge but only about 20 kilometers and when we got down the gorge we ran slap into the main Ba sani us what we were doing and they said they would take us down and sure enough 10 kilometres on 6 feet of snow again so we had to come back all the way to Tambrise and all the way back to Kasween Has the purpose of the journey to get to England for you No but Maclean was Afthat stage was not officially in intelligence At this point is explained the focus of the programme and the dates and events h realise that When Rasman was assashinated he was attending a memorial service uof'another cabinet colleague of his who had also been assasinated and at the time he had in his pocket the first 50 50 agreement and he was waiting to choose the moment to present it That would have changed our whole dealings in the Middle East At that stage I was our in the emhassy in Tehran I was vice consul in Mashed 5 when Radhn was assassinated -the Shah could have nominated anyone according to the constitution but ingzead let it be known and that brought Mossadegh about I would have thought that he would have almost certainly have chosen someone else 2 Why'did we no longer have an influence over the Shah's choice Don't forget that it was not only ourselves it was the Russians as well and immediately after the Americans were very new to the game and certainly we would have hoped to have had more influence The Shah was a very young man when he was n-Immirl w - -- '3 -3- tape 1 put on the throne and he was knocked around from pillar to post between Britian and Russia and he was always listening to the last person in and that was often the advice he took Were you seeing him in that period of early 1950 51 YES but more on a social basis because I was were in touch with bind and I particularly was in touch with the Persians who were influential with him - Ernst Perron people like that terrible Could the Shah no longer ignore opinion in theMajlis He didn't know what 0 do He thought he'd take the easy way out and ask them to give him an expression of their will about because they couldn't agree on anybody else It then became clear that Mossadegh was an ardent nationalist and zenophobic to boot - one of the things that he did u course was to close all the consulates in Eastern and Northern Iran the only ones that remained open were the consulate general inAchwaz Khoramshah from hadan He also nationalised the Soviet-Persian fisheries Were you under Zaehner's orders I was responsible to Monty When Mossadegh broke off relations and we all left and drove across to Iraq and then eventually to Beirut and Monty took on another post in London and I took over from him running the Persian station in exile from Cyprus Your presumably had a lot of contacts and friends in Persia and amongst them were the Rashidian quickly did Zaehner start tape 1 Shepherd tried and failed to get the Shah to sign the document Meanwhile as we move toward the break in relations then they started thinking in terms of a possible coup In terms of 1951 the Shah wouldn't sack Mossadegh but it wasn't until '52 that there was an attempt with Also remember Mossadegh had in his government member of the 'Indeh party and the Russians were hoping tom eep Mossadegh in lis was a potential problem and' had to keep an on The Tudeh party had been prescribed after the attempt on the Shah's life in 1949 and it was still prescribed that Mossadegh should introduce a meme-her of the 'I udeh commiit party into his cabinegfl'd have have to look his name ups What was the name of the civil servant that you used there was a man who used to attend cabinet meetings because his minister had resigned or was not there in about '52 153 He doesn't remember It is agreed that they will draw up a list of points for him tb think about Division of labour What was your Specific job in '51 '52 Telling Sam what to say to the Rashidian and keeping informed in general terms on the political situation not only on the Rashidian but dozens of others And working with Zaehner on what needed to be done tape 1 and so we went on to Cyprus we had issued the Rashidians with radio sets of them were arrested at one stage the third one jumped over the back wall and he was the one who stayed at large right to eh end His first name was Ceyphullahouse over here but in fact they maintaimythe family suite at Grosvenor House practically until they died They were an extraordinary bunch of brothers because none of th gireally spoke English except Ceyfella_did a bit towards the end but after allthis was over in that if they had dealings with the West he did speak some English and therefore was the relations man his older brother who was a merchant and a commercailly minded chap- he owned and ran cinemas and bought films- his name was Qudratullah and the third was Asa dullah he was the political end of the trio it was he who knew anddealt with the Shah They werglate 30s or early #03 They were fascinated by the idea of politics altogether and intrigued by being in contact tith the British and delighted to take our money for something which they believed in themselves They felt Mossadegh was very much a threat and their father had heen eoriier on in the century had been a well known respected figure and took refuge in the embassy They had always been brought up by the old man believing the British were very good they also believed in English education all of their children went 6 school in England the girls in the Isle of Wight-- tape ends tape 2 this is one of the other sons No this the sister's son He eventually became a qualified pilot and a shior captain in Iran air but he did all his training here The Rashidian brothers saw in Mossadegh a direct threat to Iran they wanted Iran totally independent of Russia and they said give him two years and you will have a Tudeh government in Iran I really do believe it because Mossadegh was a fairly weep character after all he had no real understanding of internatipal politics and once you get highly trained members of the comunist party in it doesn't take long tape 2 because didn't realize even then the importance that oil was going to pla the major role in the Middle East during the 50s 60s and 7 s Let me take you back a little because it may be of Tinterest to talk about nationalisationg hs early as 19h I and Basil Bumley moved a great deal in Persian circles in a way that other members of embassy didn't what is said politely in English at a cocktail party to an ambassador is very different from what lemerges with a group of young people It was clear that there was considerable feeling against the AIOC-- we mounted what you might call a clandestine gallup poll we wrote it we framed the questions it showed us that the Persians thought they had a raw deal they ere bitterfy resentful of the way they were being treated by the A100 because as you probably know the AIDS were to many ex patriots who called anyone west of Calais a wog and to them EIranians were wogs Th- fact that they had just as qualified engineers chemists as the A100 was irrelevant the Persians were not allowed to be members of the 'Club' which of course was the British c1ub you didn't mixiBrits and Persians kept separate and they were treated as inferior citizens and of course they had the feeling that they were being screwed the whole time and quite too and from about 1920 onwards We showed this to London and the ambassador John LeRougeteile and he took one look and said 'Oil oil dear boy that's for the comercial department and he refused to read any further and so that is roughly the reception it got when it was in London what are you muttering about oil Df course they were totally wrong as it proved a years later This is the sort of thing that you won't find in any book I don't think would admit that now Peter Alery wasn't aware of that gallup poll but he felt it was coming was the oil company aware of what you and Zaehner were doing No Immediately after the war although there were intelligence th ht is army officers in Iran they made it clear through the embassy in Tehran that they regarded themselves as the experts on the oil producing areas and they were perfectly able to look after their own security etcxxand therefore SIS were never allowed to operate on the oil compan areas until it became very obvious that so ing was going to happen in Abadan and it was nationalisation and the problem arose were we or were we not going to take Ahadan It was when Mossadegh said he was going to nationalise Persian and the A166 turned desperately to us and asked for intelligence and what the intentions of the Persians re And again it was virtually dhopeless task but it was Iiwas sent the Khoramshah trying to build up in 5 7 weeks what we had been trying to build up and been denied for 7 years This was a str gg forward intellignence operation i my Purpose was to find out what the Persians intended to do 2111 5i and what strength they were on the ground I had an introduction 1 941' to the then commandercin-chief of the Persian forces on the but - ground in Abadan and I called on him officially as the new Tfhh vice consul I put it to him that I really didn't want to see a bloodbath in Abadan it wuuld be better to know what we i5 should avoid etc in terms of the forces at his disposal and i i how he dispersed them etc and he fell for it and oddly Lem-7L g he was a distant relative of Dr Mossadegh's he told me exactly where his troops were and what their communications were and by that time we had the cruiser and warships out there I-ra zugn-nib 9 rig VlaQJf I 1 i tape 2 and of course she had her guns open range across the refinery The tanks were there in the day but they were never there at night between dusk and dawn they parked in a straight line hub to was on board the Urius every day and every ing that he was telling me was checking out from our cracking of the Persan code and why we didn't go in to me will always remain a mystery That was the 5 weeks that I had because it was then or nver The commander wanted to avoid shedding Persian blood just as we wanted to avoid shedding British boon That cost HMG the princely sum of 21bs of Lipton tea because he couldn't get it in Persia and I got it for him and that is precisely what I paid him Eric Drake who was then general manager in Abadan he is on record as saying to the cabinet virtually what you said you can walk in there and why don't you Must have been a political decision Of course Zaehner had left by then I think he left in September He left because it hadn't worked and the negotiations had broken down the Americans had got out Harriman had left the refinery had closed ddown What was the next stage Did you stay down in Emoranshah It can't have been September it must have been June No September '51 I was due to come on leave that summer After the Khroamshah episode I came on leave but even then I was very uneasy about the situation and I took the precaution of getting a return visa before I left I was in the South of France and a week before returning to Tehran call from London The foreign office had invited a group of Persian journalists to visit England officially and a great program drawn up by Central Office of Information for touring mining industry new towns usual razzle dazzle But they had forgotten that not a single one spoke English and they had nobody available I spent a month with them The idea was theat they should return to Tehrankand write up Britain in their tin-pot newSpapers On the final day of their tour we had a farewell lunch and at 5 o'clock that day Mossadegh broke off relations with Great Britain This was '52 brief discussion about Khavan incident Eden's trust in Julian Ameri y work When did you first start wnoing General Zahedi tape 2 Acoup is necessarily predicated on the use of armed force It had to be somebody who was loyal to the Shah who comanded a certain reapect amongst his fellow army was a bit of joke and all they had done was virtually tribal skirmishes but they had never fought a battle Zahedi was suitable as a candidate because he had good standing in the army we knew the Shah trusted Unfortunately the head of SIS at the Itime Genral Sinclair knew about as much of the middle east as a 10 year old far more interested in cricket anyway Henderson only knew that we wanted to get rid of but he didn't knew hwat means we were going to use what people etc Hossadegh's breaking off of relations -susPect conspiracy Arrested Rashidians and would have arrested He avoided arrest and I was involved in protecting him as he moved from bone to house in ehran story then about American cars and Rashidians then in jail when telegram arrived for their car and was sent'back saying they were in jail but would pick it up in 2% months -9- tape 2 be sufficient support for it wh her from London or the States He lost interest He left in the summer after the Khavan incident Once he left that was it he was an academic not a man of action tape ends continuing discussion of Roosevelt tape 3 Mossadegh rejected the last and final offer for mediation by the Americans The whole of his book is s1anted as thought the operation was totally carried out by the Americans and that the Shah recognised this I wasn't allowed to go back immediately when we picked up relations again because Americans were trying to cashlin very quickly and trying to establish a special relationship with the Shah The Shah as you know is avery complex character he clearly looked to America as the main supplier of arms of modern weapons aircraft but he had a sneaking regard for what you might call British intelligence rather more than for the American CIA who were always bungling thigh the 50s when he was reorganising the infamous t rned to us rather than the Americans it was then that the special relationship began and developed to such a stage that I was seeing him regualrly once a fortnight in the 60s -10- tape 3 11113 was lath Jujly and everyone Was away from Paris all our friends and the meeting wasn't until about 16th I had dozens of friends but they were all away fro the weekend aid I rang and rang and so did f Steve but there was nobody and so we found ourselves Aihi r n L5 wandering around Paris We were having a drink on the knittxw-r LSLvaf Champs Elysee and suddenly we were offered some postcards please note tape is very bad and rather muffled __story about selling postcards for times what they paid hulk 1 1 By '53 despite Eden's cold feet the basic decision was we will go ahead with it as soon as we get the Americans inv What happened in the talks between MI6 and the CIA were you actually involved Yes washington dyprus Home andon Immediately after I had been told to reestablish contact and this must have been in about March Then the Americans came in with i John waller and Donaldhdaxwho had a certain background knowledge of Iran not because he was a member of the CIA i 3 You weren't of the impreession that there were people within the CIA that did have doubts 11- tape 3 In order to try and get the Rashidians involved to try and save the day would you say they did save the day Yes Ardeshir The role of Zahedi and Farzanegan who went over to the different units They were to go to A Kermansha and Isfahan to get them to advance on the capitol George Carol CIA rebel rouser That's the word His line was 'I'd just hang the bastards' he was all for doing wild and peculiar things very wild indeed He toe the CIA's paramilitary expert commando type and he didn't speak Persian How important were the journalists tape 3 'teome over oil it is quite true that the 'Emerieans wanted a special position over Iranian oil it was clear the AIDC could never get back in what they had as more or less exclusive Uil was disenssed but not so much political terms tape stops comes back 1 think he was bought by us I never got to the bottom of that but one didn't enquirenhen it had been But he didn t play a role much in this It is diffiruli to explain the Persian attitude to religion as you ve seen with Khomeni the Shah grossly underestimated the religious influenee in Iran but equally so did Mossadegh he was not by any means a religious man there is a thing in Iran whieh in Persian li urally means the house of strength where the do all sorts of extraordinaly athletic exercises will Chains tilt in the nhnniing of the Koran by highly trained drummer These are the tough boys and Hashani controlled could use them as street mob with the blessing of a Kashani then the more the merrier Were we considering Kashani as a replaremeni for Hossadegh As I said I think he was bought hum how far it would take him The letters from Middleton to Eden and foreign oilire sereral of them say we need to launch a coup d'etai quite soon particularly after the Human TOM don't think it Wl the election of EisenhUer whirh Provided the turning point hut it was sonv'thing in around Definitely Timin of the eraizion itself What V011 xs'aitil w for a Very simple Signature of the Shah Demonstration July 21st - important turning point because rheTndeh demonstration was for larger than the nationalist hnerieans saw the danger more Clearly llnr they had already derided by then Timing was solely affeeiod by the signainre of the Shah -13 tape 3 Had it been even 10 days or a fortnight earlier Kim was there in Tehran trying to persuade him to sign it might have susceeded With every passing day word got around and word got to Moasadegh so he was ready I was only 29 but I had spent more or less 10 years in Iran I think what would have happened is that you would have had Mossadegh with the country going into economic dehline and promising the earth and not being able to deliver gradually weakening on the political pressures on the Tudeh party egged on by the Russians who would have certainly kpressed for total abolition of prescription and then more pressure to have more members more portfolios in the cabinet than to the Tudeh party then eventually a takeover Then Russia would have achieved what she always wanted access to the ports on the gulf The failure wasn't immediately apparent The Russians had burnt their fingers once and they didn't want to do it quite so quickly because it was a definite failure in Azebaijan Stalin had just died leadership was uncertain I wrote up the whole thing from beginning to end_and that is definitely on file that's what you want I can't lay my hands on think I could persuade them to let me see it officials can see their own papers Were the negotiations that took place in '52 essentially face saving for the British Yes They would have wanted to oust Mossadegh regardless of whether he would have signed an agreement favorable to the British eventually they would have been forced to have considered getting rid of him to prevent a Russian takeover I am convinced that was on the cards was the embargo on oil sales that was going on important in rallying the opposition As the economics situation worsened the better it was for it was easier for us because people began to realise that promises were empty If a settlement had meant starting up the oil industry again it would not have necessarily been what you wanted No I think we were better off getting rid of him The fact that these ideas were accepted by the government meant that they weren't really interested in a settlement Eden said so in his memoirs They had to go through the motions but I think they would have given him a fiar chance of making that settlement stick but they would have still reserved judgement on the internal position of Hossadegh even after an agreement for strategic reasons How much were they to do with keeping the Ammricans on our side tape ends tape a nih- tape a we were not getting on very well with Khavan at the time who was then Primi minister Someone dreamt up the idea that it would be algood thing to have a free independent Persian radio broadcasting to Iran Zaehner and I were commissioned to go to Jerusalem and using the facilities of dto run a free station we got this set up and more or less ready to go on the air there was fighting in Jerusalem Eventually Sharkeladar moved from Jerusalem to Cyrpus where they went on being the most popular radio station in the Middle East until Sues That was the end because it had no credibility and Nasser set up his rival station One person who was a senior officer in the Palestine police and eventually became a member of SIS is now retired was John Briance He was in Iran too wasn't there an ammy officer captured with a load of membership lists of the Tudeh party in 1954 Yes That was when the great executions took place Poop had not realised how deeply Tudeh had infitrated the Had we lmown how much they had infiltrated it would ha been all the more reason to mount it as quickly as possible the coup - we knew that if they could infiltrate into the cabinet and into the army then you've go no control Witht the situation of chaos in internal Russia meant that had they wanted to the Russians really couldn't have exploited hhe situatitn They did not want to risk yet another failure following Asebaijan we were licky It had to work then or never The policy makers view was affected once they got American support everyone was in agreement that the sooner the better get it over and done with But it was perhaps a calculated risk was there no opposition to the idea of a coup in Britain that you were aware of Until we lost the oil very few people thought about it politically certainly didn't stike the general public Mossadegh's popularity A certain notioriety not popularity It's like Sadat man of the year' visiting Jerusalem that didn't make him a terribly popular figure Why were we able to do this successfully in Iran and yet it would not have succeeded in Egypt - was it because of the calibre of the man like Nasser compared with Moassadegh What are the factors No we knew there were plots going on against Farouk It is the difference between the Iranian and the Egyptian character The constitutional position which the Shah had was not occupied by anyone else Nasser was ad dictator who ousted Farouk nobody was sorry to see him go