Operation Ajax: The 1953 Iran Coup, Explained From the Files

1 — Why people are asking, and what "Operation Ajax" means

On October 16, 2026, Tucker Carlson posted on X: "We spent weeks combing through declassified government documents to piece together the true story of our relationship with Iran. It begins with a CIA coup. Watch ‘Operation Ajax,’ a TCN Original Documentary." At 5:43 PM CDT on October 21, 2026, the post showed 5,268,320 impressions. MasteryLoopHQ has not watched the documentary, and this article does not describe or evaluate it. It goes to the documents instead. The CIA's code name for the operation was TPAJAX, and the State Department's 2017 volume refers to "the implementation of the operation, codenamed TPAJAX." "Operation Ajax" is the popular form. The British side is catalogued as "Operation Boot": King's College London's archive lists Woodhouse papers "relating to the SIS/CIA plot to overthrow Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mussadeq (Operation Boot and Operation Ajax) in 1953." Woodhouse, a British intelligence (SIS) officer, is named by the National Security Archive, with Sam Falle, as a British intelligence representative in Washington in late 1952; the Archive describes Falle as "ostensibly a Foreign Office official." The main declassified records on the coup are of two kinds: CIA internal histories released through FOIA and posted by the National Security Archive, and the State Department's 2017 Foreign Relations of the United States volume.

2 — Before the coup: oil, nationalization and Mosaddegh

The State Department's 2017 volume refers to Iran's "decision to nationalize the assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) in March 1951." Tulane University professor Mark Gasiorowski's entry in the Encyclopaedia Iranica dates Mosaddegh's appointment as prime minister to "29 April 1951" and "the nationalization two days later." Taken together, these two sources give a March 1951 decision, an April 29 appointment, and nationalization two days after that. The same State Department volume's list of persons describes Mosaddegh as "Leader of the Iranian National Front" and gives his terms as "Prime Minister of Iran, April 1951–July 5, 1952, July 11–July 16, 1952; Prime Minister of Iran and Iranian Minister of Defense, July 22, 1952–August 15, 1953." A U.S. Embassy despatch of July 1, 1953 reports: "To the common people, Mosadeq was looked upon almost as a demigod." The same despatch reports that support declined as he "found it ever more necessary to adopt arbitrary means to silence it." Christopher de Bellaigue, in a 2014 Foreign Affairs response, calls the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company "the precursor to British Petroleum (now BP)."

3 — From Truman to Eisenhower: who decided

According to the National Security Archive, State Department memos declassified in 2017 show that "The British Foreign Office approached the Truman administration on more than one occasion in late 1952 to propose a coup." The first written approach was "October 8, 1952." The Archive's editors write: "The Truman administration never agreed to the idea of Mosaddeq's overthrow." Under Eisenhower the position changed. Donald Wilber's March 1954 CIA history says the CIA was informed "by the Secretary of State in March 1953" that it was "not in American interests for the Mossadeq government to remain in power." An estimate on 16 April 1953 found the overthrow "possible through covert operations," and the CIA then planned it "jointly with the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)." On approvals: a communication Kermit Roosevelt received on July 1, 1953 said the British Prime Minister "has approved the plan." A CIA chronology says State and the Foreign Office "granted authorization for the implementation of TPAJAX operation" on July 11, and a handwritten note adds that the "DCI also obtained approval of President" on July 11. The State Department's editors add: "No written authorization from the President has been found."

4 — The plan, in the CIA's own words

Wilber's CIA Clandestine Service History states the aim as "to cause the fall of the Mossadeq government; to reestablish the prestige and power of the Shah; and to replace the Mossadeq government with one which would govern Iran according to constructive policies." The CIA's reasons included its estimate that Iran was "in real danger of falling behind the Iron Curtain." That is the CIA's stated rationale, not an established fact. On the successor, the history says "General Fazlollah Zahedi, former member of Mossadeq's cabinet, was chosen as the most suitable successor." On the Shah: "From the outset, the cooperation of the Shah was considered to be an essential part of the plan." Pressure was to come from Princess Ashraf and General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, then from the principal indigenous British agent, who was to assure the Shah that this was a joint US-UK action; failing those, Kermit Roosevelt was the fallback. On propaganda, CIA and SIS assets were to run a campaign "through the Press, handbills, and the Tehran clergy," and "CIA had several articles planted in major American newspapers and magazines." The National Security Archive also posts undated CIA propaganda texts, such as "Our National Character." On public pressure from Washington, the July 9, 1953 publication of "President Eisenhower's 29 June 1953 letter" made clear "increased aid would not be forthcoming." A caution on the source: the National Security Archive says Wilber's history "must be read with care, taking into account the author's personal perspective, purpose in writing it, and audience," and a New York Times note on the posted summary says the summary and the main body "are inconsistent on a few dates and facts."

5 — August 15–16: the first attempt fails

Wilber's history says "the Shah finally signed the required firmans on 15 August 1953. Action was set for 16 August." Because of "a security leak," the officer sent to seize Mossadeq was, in the history's words, "overwhelmed by superior armed forces still loyal to Mossadeq." "Upon hearing that the plan had misfired, the Shah flew to Baghdad." CIA analysts wrote on August 17: "The unsuccessful attempt to remove Mossadeq from power this weekend, culminating in the flight of the Shah to Iraq…" On August 18, CIA headquarters cabled the Tehran station that the State Department's tentative view was "operation has been tried and failed." The cable added: "in absence strong contrary recommendations from you and Ambassador Henderson, operations against Mossadegh should be discontinued." The station had reported on August 17: "Project is not yet quite dead."

6 — August 19: Mosaddegh falls

Wilber's history: "On 19 August 1953, a pro-Shah demonstration, originating in the bazaar area, took on overwhelming proportions. The demonstration appeared to start partially spontaneously… Station political action assets also contributed to the beginnings of the pro-Shah demonstrations. The Army very soon joined." It continues: "At the station's signal, Zahedi came out of hiding." "By the end of 19 August, the country was in the hands of the new Premier, Zahedi." In his debrief on August 28, 1953, Kermit Roosevelt said that after the first attempt "we then decided that the main thing to concentrate on was to prove to the Army and the people that this was not an attempted coup, that this was a legitimate change of government which Mossadeq had foiled by a coup." Wilber writes: "CIA covertly made available $5,000,000 within two days of Zahedi's assumption of power." A later CIA internal history, The Battle for Iran, believed to date from the mid-1970s, declassified by the CIA in 2011 and posted by the National Security Archive in 2013, says "the military coup that overthrew Mosadeq and his National Front cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of U.S. foreign policy, conceived and approved at the highest levels of government." The Archive calls this "what is believed to be the CIA's first formal acknowledgement."

7 — Who really decided the outcome? Where historians disagree

The National Security Archive frames it this way: "Even fundamental questions — who hatched the plot, who ultimately carried it out, who supported it inside Iran, and how did it succeed — are in dispute." One view comes from Ray Takeyh in Foreign Affairs in 2014: "the CIA's impact on the events of 1953 was ultimately insignificant," and "the clergy itself played a major role in toppling Mosaddeq." In his reply he writes that "the second coup was very much an Iranian initiative." The other view comes from Christopher de Bellaigue's Foreign Affairs response that year: "Roosevelt and his fellow plotters were as integral to the second coup attempt as they had been to the first; indeed, the two attempts were separate phases of the same operation." Tulane University professor Mark Gasiorowski's Encyclopaedia Iranica entry quotes the line that the coup was "conceived by MI6 [the British Intelligence Service] and delivered by CIA." The record also names religious and political figures. The National Security Archive's summaries of memos by Kermit Roosevelt after the coup report "two recent payments from Zahedi to Ayatollah Behbehani" (document 18) and say "the government has been giving financial support to Ayatollah Behbehani" (document 15); document 19 notes a meeting between Zahedi and Ayatollah Kashani. The Archive warns: "The source for these provocative reports is unknown." Gasiorowski also writes that Kashani, Baqai and Makki "became disenchanted with Moṣaddeq" after July 1952. These are what each source reports, not a verdict. On the limits of the record, Takeyh notes that the planning and execution sections of The Battle for Iran "are still classified," and the National Security Archive says the remaining CIA files leave "wide gaps," including "how to apportion responsibility" among Iranian and outside actors.

8 — How we know, and the long shadow

The National Security Archive reports that CIA officials said most coup records were "lost or destroyed in the early 1960s," and that former CIA Director James Woolsey called the destruction "a terrible breach of faith with the American people and their ability to understand their own history." The State Department's 1989 volume "did not provide any documentation on the role of the Central Intelligence Agency," and the Preface says the reaction in 1991 "prompted the introduction and passage of congressional legislation." The retrospective volume was published in 2017, and the Archive calls it a "1,007-page compilation." On official statements, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said on March 17, 2000: "In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh." She added that the Eisenhower Administration "believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons" but that "the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development." President Obama said in Cairo on June 4, 2009: "In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government." Whether 1953 led to the 1979 revolution is an interpretation, and the named writers differ. De Bellaigue writes that the coup's effects "contributed to the Iranian Revolution a quarter of a century later." In a 2020 TIME feature reposted on Stanford's history department site, Priya Satia writes: "This was the colonial regime the revolution in 1979 overthrew." Takeyh, writing about the film Argo, criticizes the idea that the 1979 revolution was "a belated response to an injustice perpetrated by the United States a quarter century earlier." The 1979 revolution overthrew the Shah, a separate event from 1953. As of October 22, 2026, the National Security Archive's Mosaddeq-overthrow page lists nothing newer than April 14, 2022.

The big picture

Operation Ajax, the CIA's TPAJAX, was the U.S.–British covert operation that helped remove Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in August 1953, after Iran nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951. The CIA's own records describe the plan, the Shah's role, propaganda, a first attempt that failed on August 15–16, and a headquarters cable on August 18 saying operations "should be discontinued." On August 19, Mosaddegh fell. A later CIA history says the coup "was carried out under CIA direction." Historians still disagree about how decisive the CIA was compared with Iranian royalists, military officers and clergy, partly because many records were destroyed or remain classified.

In your own words: (1) What did Iran do in 1951 that started the crisis? (2) What did CIA headquarters tell its Tehran station on August 18, 1953, and why does that matter for the debate about August 19? (3) Name one piece of evidence each side of the historians' debate relies on.

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