Overview
Operation Ajax — known in Britain as Operation Boot — was a covert operation jointly executed by the CIA and MI6 in August 1953. Its objective: remove Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh from power and reinstall Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as absolute monarch.
Background
The operation was triggered by Mosaddegh’s nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) in 1951, threatening British petroleum interests. When the UK imposed an oil embargo and blocked Iranian oil sales globally, Mosaddegh turned to the US for support. Instead, the Eisenhower administration — convinced by British warnings of Communist infiltration — authorized the CIA to act.
The Operation
CIA field officer Kermit Roosevelt Jr. (grandson of Theodore Roosevelt) directed the operation from Tehran. Methods included:
- Bribing Iranian military officers, politicians, and newspaper editors
- Hiring mobs to stage pro-Shah demonstrations and violent anti-Mosaddegh riots
- Paying operatives to pose as Mosaddegh supporters committing attacks — creating false-flag incidents to discredit him
- Coordinating a military coup with sympathetic Iranian generals
On August 19, 1953, the coup succeeded. Mosaddegh was arrested, tried for treason, and spent the remainder of his life under house arrest. The Shah returned and ruled with increasing brutality, backed by the CIA-trained SAVAK secret police, until the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Legacy
The 1979 Iranian Revolution was fueled directly by decades of Iranian rage at American interference in 1953. The hostage crisis, the Iran-Iraq War, and modern US-Iranian hostility trace a direct line to Operation Ajax.
Status
Fully confirmed. In 2013, the CIA officially acknowledged its role for the first time when the NSA released the full declassified internal history. The British government has never formally acknowledged MI6’s participation.