Word: roosevelt
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Some members of the armed services did offer their services unasked when they heard of the projected coup. General Gilchenshah, head of the air force, did so on August 10. Roosevelt was cheered. Meanwhile CIA experts had examined the Iranian constitution and decided on the shape of the coup--Mossadeq was to be dismissed by Imperial decree and replaced by Zahedi while a force recruited for the CIA by General Schwarzkopf demonstrated in favor of the Shah's return...
...decree to the prime minister he was arrested. The army remained loyal to Mossadeq and significantly the mobs hired by the CIA were unable to stir up popular enthusiasm for the Shah, who fled to Rome. The CIA was not invincible. The successful coup only came about because Roosevelt was able to learn lessons from his mistakes and because dissatisfaction grew among Mossadeq's supporters...
...ROOSEVELT obtained the Imperial Decree and using the skills of an innocent Armenian photographer unable to read Persian he made 300 copies and rushed them to foreign embassies and public places. Then he hired the mobs of a former champion athlete, Sha'abar Bi Mokh, who ran a gymnasium in Tehran. Bi Mokh's name means "Brainless" but his lucrative employment with the CIA shows he was inappropriately christened. Roosevelt's other macabre preparations for the coup included the assasination of some of Mossadeq's supporters. Their bodies, throats slit, were buried in the Elburz mountains...
...morning of the coup itself, August 19, the outcome was unclear. Roosevelt had made careful plans with Zahedi, General Arfa and other officers loyal to the Shah but the reaction of the rest of the army and of the inhabitants of Tehran was as yet a mystery...
...army was not yet won over although its loyalty to Mossadeq was feebler than Roosevelt and the generals had dared to hope. For when Zahedi arrived in a tank at Parliament Square a few tense moments passed and then the troops defending Foreign Minister Fatemi threw their caps in the air and declared for the Shah. By mid-afternoon Tehran was under the control of General Zahedi...