The GlobaL Story: Operation Ajax: The CIA’s Iran coup

The 1953 CIA-led coup in Iran, known as Operation Ajax, wasn't just a Cold War maneuver—it was a turning point that reshaped U.S.-Iran relations for decades. What began as a British effort to reclaim control over Iran’s oil after Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company was handed to the U.S. when Truman refused to intervene. Under Eisenhower and anti-communist Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, the CIA orchestrated a dramatic overthrow of Mossadegh, using a last-minute plan involving a rent-a-mob to stage chaos and discredit his supporters. The coup succeeded, but the Shah fled, only to return as a U.S.-backed autocrat—though the Americans remained wary of him. The real legacy? Iran’s deep-seated anti-Americanism, fueled by the belief that the U.S. replaced Britain as the 'Great Satan.' This historical trauma still echoes in modern diplomacy, as seen in the Iran nuclear deal negotiations and the regime’s use of the 1953 coup as a rallying cry against Western interference. The episode also reveals how one man—Kermit Roosevelt, a CIA operative with a taste for gin and Broadway show tunes—may have altered global history with a desperate, improvised gambit that became the CIA’s new playbook for regime change. The ripple effects were immediate and far-reaching: the 1954 Guatemala coup, the Bay of Pigs invasion, and a decade of covert interventions that alienated entire regions.