Kermit Roosevelt in Iran

Kermit Roosevelt (1916-2000)

Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of Pres. Teddy Roosevelt and a distant cousin to Pres. FDR, was the mastermind of CIA Operation Ajax, which orchestrated a coup against Mohammed Mossadegh and returned Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Iran's Peacock Throne. By th early 1950s, Kermit was a successful senior officer in the CIA's Middle Eastern division. In 1951 the Iranian parliament under the leadership of Mossadegh, voted unanimously to nationalize the oil industry. Slipped across the border under (June 19, 1953) under CIA cover of "James Lockridge" The coup initially failed and the Shah feld to Iran. The head of the CIA station in Iran preferred to resign rather than participate in the coup. Note that the Dulles Brothers had worked for Sullivan and Cromwell, a prominent law firm that represented Standard Oil of NJ. Standard had wanted to gain interests in Iran for many years but AIOC had a monopoly on the region.

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