1953 Iranian coup d'état (Operation Ajax)
- Date
- 19 August 1953
- Category
- Politics & governance
- Region
- Middle East (Iran)
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
On 19 August 1953 Iran's democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, was overthrown in a coup organised by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6, under the codename Operation Boot) and the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA, under TP-AJAX).
Mosaddegh had nationalised Iran's oil industry in 1951, ending the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company's monopoly and provoking a British economic blockade. After an initial attempt on 15–16 August failed, CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt Jr. orchestrated paid demonstrations and rallied sympathetic army units; roughly 300 people were killed before Mosaddegh surrendered. The coup restored the power of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah, who ruled increasingly autocratically with Western backing until 1979. A 1954 oil consortium gave American and European companies a major share of Iranian production. In 2013 the CIA formally acknowledged its role. The episode became a defining example of Cold War covert intervention against decolonising nationalism and is widely cited as a long-term source of Iranian distrust of the United States and Britain.
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Empires active in 19 August 1953
- Soviet Union1922 CE – 1991 CE
- French Colonial Empire (Second)1830 CE – 1962 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
Related politics & governance events
- Iranian RevolutionJanuary–February 1979
- Founding of the People's Republic of China1 October 1949
- Establishment of Apartheid in South Africa1948
- Independence and Partition of British India14–15 August 1947
- Construction of the Berlin Wall13 August 1961
- Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika1985–1991 (from 11 March 1985)
Also relevant
Further reading
The wider story
A History of the Modern Middle East
The go-to survey of the region from the late Ottoman era to the present.
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