American Coup (2010) - full transcript

[music]

In August of 1953 Iran had
a democratic government.

Its parliament and
prime minister,

the popular Mohammad Mosaddegh,

had nationalized
the oil industry

to control the
country's chief asset.

Then, the CIA intervened.

[music]

[music]

[music]

[music]



I am honored to be in the
timeless city of Cairo.

[Applause and Cheering]

We meet at a time
of great tension

between the United States and
Muslims around the world.

Tension rooted in
historical forces

that go beyond any
current policy debate.

For many years Iran has
defined itself in part

by its opposition to my
country and there is,

in fact, a tumultuous
history between us.

Since the Islamic
revolution Iran has played

a role in acts of hostage
taking and violence

against US troops and civilians.

In the middle of the Cold
War the United States

played a role in the overthrow



of a democratically elected
Iranian government.

This history is well known.

I have never heard
anything about the CIA,

especially in 1953.

I don't know anything about it.

I'm sorry, I don't know
anything about that.

I have no knowledge
of that whatsoever.

Something I've never heard of,
never known anything about.

I have no clue.

Uh...

Uh...

Uh... can you repeat that?

Well I wasn't born in 1953 so
I've never heard of the coup.

That was a little
bit before my time.

After the Eisenhower
administration made its decision

to overthrow Mosaddegh, Allen
Dulles selected Kermit Roosevelt

to carry out the coup. At the
beginning of august 1953

Kermit Roosevelt
arrived in Tehran

and began this covert operation.

It's really a fascinating
operation to study

because it answers
this odd question.

How do you overthrow
a government?

[music]

Former Premier Mosaddegh’s
ruined house is a mute testimony

to three days of bloody rioting
culminating in a military coup.

Suppose you get sent to a
country and you're told

"overthrow the government" so
what do you do on the first day?

What do you do on
the second day?

In the quick shift
of power, Mosaddegh

was finally apprehended and
awaits trial for treason.

The Shah, who had fled
to Rome, comes home

backed by General Zedekiah,
military strongman,

who engineered his
return to power.

The general will now
have a strong voice

in the newly formed
government whose cabinet

is seen here with Shah Pahlavi.

How do you overthrow
a government?

[music]

Many countries in the Middle
East are what you might call

fake countries or
invented countries.

They're countries that were
created by outside powers,

usually in the wake of
World War I and I think

there's a temptation for
people that aren't familiar

with the region to see
Iran in that category

but that's not true. Actually
the opposite is true.

Iran, formerly known as Persia,

is one of the world's
oldest civilizations.

At a time when Europeans
are still living in caves

and wearing animal
skins people in Persia

were conducting
experiments in astronomy

and learning about mathematics

and writing beautiful poetry.

So this is a civilization that
has a great deal of sense

of its history, a sense of self
confidence, a sense of identity

and a sense of being rooted

in the long course
of world history.

This is not a country that
just arrived and it is trying

to figure out who or what it is.

In 1908 the British
discovered oil in Iran.

Geologists soon learned that
Iran sits on an ocean of oil.

The British decided that they
needed oil to run their cars,

to power their Navy and
to fuel their economy.

But Britain has no oil.

When oil was discovered
there the British decided

that they would like to
control that entire resource.

Soon after the discovery this
Anglo Iranian Oil Company

was formed and it purchased
the majority stake

and then the oil company
arranged a concession with Iran.

The entire stock of Iranian
oil was the property

of this British company and
all the rights to exploit oil

in Iran belonged
to this company.

Oil, of course, became
very profitable

from the 1920s onwards

and the way the division
was, was abysmal.

For instance, Iran was
getting sometimes

16 percent of the profits

and the profits were
defined in such a way

that it actually
short changed Iran.

Books were not open
to the public,

even to the Iranian government.

In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh was
chosen Prime Minister of Iran.

Mosaddegh was a tireless
social reformer,

fiercely nationalistic
and incorruptible.

No account of the 20th century

is complete without
a chapter on him.

Mohammad Mosaddegh was an
outstanding politician,

political figure in Iran
for a long, long time.

He had relatives who were
part of the previous dynasty,

The Qajar dynasty and he
was a prominent figure

for a number of decades in Iran.

Before he became Prime
Minister in 1951 he was

a vocal opponent of British
control over Iran's oil industry

and generally Britain's control
over Iran as a country.

We have to remember
this is at a time

when there's a wave of
nationalism going through Iran.

There's been long struggle
against the British

since the late 1800s and there
was a feeling in the country

that it was time for Iran
to really be independent.

As Iran's vast petroleum
reserves aroused nationalists

following seizure by
the Iranian government

of the British
operated refineries

and distribution facility.

Demonstrations at the huge
oil port of Ibadan culminate

in the tearing down of
signs over company offices

and the raising of the Iranian
flag over the installations.

- And here comes Gossamer, a
very well respected person,

a lawyer, who managed
to get himself

in this very powerful
position in the country.

Mosaddegh was a
fascinating figure.

He must be one of the
towering figures

in the 20th century history
of the developing world.

Bear in mind that when he
emerged there had never been

a figure from a poor country
who had risen up in such

a visible way to challenge
the masters of the universe.

Nobody from a poor country
had ever stood up and said

"we own this resource,
it belongs to us,

it doesn't matter what
companies you've imposed on us

or what agreements
you've imposed on us;

all of that was unjust.

We have this resource and
we are miserably poor.

We need the money
from this resource

and we insist on having it."

Mosaddegh is very
much interested

in national sovereignty but
there's something more

than that. He's not
just a national leader.

He was very sincerely committed

to the notion of
liberal democracy.

Time Magazine made
Mohammad Gossamer

its man of the year for 1951.

They chose him over Douglas
MacArthur, Harry Truman,

Winston Churchill and
a number of other

towering world figures
and they were right.

He was the most important person
in the world at that time.

And he did what a lot of
Iranians strongly agreed with,

which was to make sure
that Iran would keep

the revenues of its own oil,
at least a big portion of it,

whereas in the past it
didn't keep any of it.

So people in Iran
began challenging

Anglo Iranian Oil
Company and saying

"you've got to change
your contract with us

and give us 50 percent,
you keep 50 percent",

not keep 90 percent or
more, whatever it was,

no one ever knew since
Iranians were never allowed

to audit the books.

The Anglo Iranian Oil
Company refused.

They would not concede an inch.
They were quite pigheaded.

I think they were
still maybe caught

in the colonial mentality of
the past and thought that

the idea that some
poor country could try

to pressure them or dictate
terms to them was unthinkable.

The important thing is who
actually controls oil production

because if you control oil
production then you can decide

whether you're going to
increase it or lower it

and that then determines,
of course, price.

What Mosaddegh was doing
was threatening that

because by nationalizing he was
saying MANIOC is not going

to be in charge of production,
Iran will be in charge.

We can decide how
much to produce,

who to sell it to and that
could influence the market.

So that's where it
became the threat.

The ability of a foreign
company to control oil

in the Middle East was
also important, not just

for the British but also
in the American's eyes.

They didn't want other
countries in the Middle East

to begin thinking that all you
have to do is make trouble

and foreign companies
are going to have to

make concessions to you.

The pretense was that they
were willing to compromise

but the Brits from
right at the beginning

they didn't want to
give up control.

They started spending
some money on, you know,

parks, swimming pools and stuff.

So by '51 they were saying
"the Iranians should be

grateful to us because
we've built you

swimming pools and stuff."

Well of course a
swimming pool might cost

the oil company 2,000 pounds.

What's that when you
know profits are like

50 million pounds a year
or something like that.

They were treating them
kind of like the way

we treated black Americans
in per civil war south,

or even post civil war
south when we put them in

economic slavery instead of
real slavery and persisted,

even more adamantly, in
their desire to rape,

pillage and plunder Iran.

The Persians had every
reason to dislike the way

that MANIOC was treating them.

The British didn't really know

how to deal with a
situation like this.

It was a new era for
them but they were

still thinking in an older era.

One of their first impulses
was"well we're going to send

an army and we'll
just invade Iran."

Harry Truman, in Washington, got
wind of this and he went crazy.

You got this situation where
Harry Truman, I think,

says"I'm not having any of
this, this is imperialism,

this is colonialism.
We've fought a damn war.

Winston Churchill when
you come back to the

government you can go to hell."

President Truman was
increasingly concerned about

the intensity of this argument
between Iran and Britain.

At one point he sent a leading
figure in the United States,

Aver ell Harridan, who had been
famous as governor of New York

and had held a number of
international positions,

to Iran with instructions
to negotiate with Mosaddegh

and see if he could
get Mosaddegh to make

some kind of a compromise
with the British.

I want to express to
you my appreciation

for your willingness to
undertake this trip to Iran.

It's a very important job
that you have undertaken

and one which I think
you can handle

with satisfaction and success.

Mr Harridan undertakes a
series of conferences

with Prime Minister Mosaddegh.

Out of these conferences
hope emerges,

that the crisis that threatens
world peace may now be averted.

Poor Averell Harriman was
shuttling back and forth

between British and
Iranian representatives,

trying to make a
deal, and realised

that neither side
was willing to.

The British policy was to
actually undermine Mosaddegh

initially by putting
economic pressure.

So one way of economic pressure
was to try to close down

the oil industry, thinking
that the Iranians

wouldn't be able to
run the oil industry.

Actually Iranians
were able to run it.

They kept turning up
the pressure, hoping

that as one official of the
old British company said

"when they need money
they will come

crawling to us on
their bellies."

So the next step was to
have a blockade so Iran

couldn't sell its oil and so
whenever tankers from Italy

or somewhere came to
buy oil the British

would actually impound them.

This way the main source
of revenue of course

for Iran dried up because
Iran's main source

of foreign exchange and
revenue was in fact oil.

The British then decided
they would take Mosaddegh

to international tribunals.

The first thing Britain did
was to submit a resolution

to the United Nations
Security Council

in which the Security
Council would order Iran

to give back the oil company.

When Mosaddegh heard about this
he decided to do something

that no leader of any poor
country had ever done.

He would fly himself to New
York, which wasn't so easy

in those days, and personally
present Iran's case

to the Security Council.

He made quite a splash
in New York City.

He went to visit the Liberty
Bell, went to Washington DC.

He was a very colorful figure,
something like your beloved

but perhaps slightly
eccentric favourite uncle.

His speech at the Security
Council was very potent.

It was the first time that
most people at the UN

and most people in the world
had ever heard the leader

of a poor country explain
a clash like this

from the perspective
of the poor country.

We'd always been hearing it
from the other perspective.

[music]

The United Nations, once again,
confronts a grave problem

as Premier Mohammad
Mosaddegh of Iran arrives

with Secretary [Trig Hurley]
at the Security Council

to present his side of the
explosive Iranian oil case.

The ailing statesman electrifies
the Council as he denies

the right of the United
Nations to intervene

in what he calls a
purely internal matter.

He accuses Britain of
intimidation by a display

of armed might after
the nationalization

of the oil industry.
Sir Goldwyn Ebb,

Britain's representative,
is an attentive listener

to his arguments, as is
America's Warren Austin.

The issue could be peace or war.

After that debate the Security
Council did something

that it had never done in the
brief history of the UN,

which was to refuse to pass
a resolution that had been

sponsored by one of
the leading members

of the Security
Council, Britain.

So the UN refused
to order Mosaddegh

to give back the oil company.

Then the British decided
"we're gonna take Mosaddegh

to the world court in the Hague"

and Mosaddegh himself
flew to The Hague.

Hearings before the
International Court

at The Hague failed to
solve the difference

as Premier Mosaddegh, with
his parliament behind him,

firmly pursued his
nationalist course.

The same thing happened.

He had a great impact, not
just on public opinion

but on the judges there
and those judges

also refused to order him to
give back the oil company.

So the British were
running out of options.

From their point of view
Iran had stolen something

that belonged to Britain.

It seemed like an
open and shut case.

"We had a contract with them.

They gave us the right
to own their oil.

Now they want it back.
But this is a contract,

it cannot be violated,
they signed it."

The United Nations did not
accept this argument;

the World Court did not
accept this argument.

This was quite a shock
for the British.

The British tried
to oust Mosaddegh

by bribing members
of Parliament.

But Mosaddegh got
wind of the plot,

he promptly kicked the
Brits out of the country.

After the British Embassy
in Tehran was closed

the British were more
or less out of options.

They had tried everything
from blockading ports

to appeals to international
bodies, threats,

embargoes, everything. Now they
didn't even have anyone in Iran.

So they turned to the Americans.
Churchill asked

President Truman,"can
you do us this favour?

Can you overthrow this madman

who has taken away
our oil company?"

Harry Truman, I think,
was violently opposed

on principle to supporting
the coup and Britain

worked hard to get Harry
Truman to support the coup.

And Truman said "no". The
CIA had never overthrown

a government up to
that time and it was

Truman's firm belief
that it never should.

That seemed like the end
of the line for Britain.

Then, in November of 1952,
a surge of excitement

charged through the
British foreign service.

In Washington, a new President

had been elected - Dwight Di.
Eisenhower.

IKE for President.
IKE for President.

You like IKE. I like IKE.

Everybody likes IKE
for President.

Hang out the banner
and beat the drum.

We'll take IKE to Washington.

We've got to get
where we are going,

travel day and night
for President.

Let Ladling go the other way.
We'll all go with Ike.

You like IKE. I like IKE.

Everybody likes IKE
for President.

Hang up the banner
and beat the drum.

We'll take IKE to Washington.

We'll take IKE to Washington.
We'll take IKE to Washington.

We'll take IKE to Washington.

Now is the time for
all good Americans

to come to the aid
of their country.

There was a fundamental
disagreement

between Truman and Eisenhower
on the question of

whether Mosaddegh was the
problem or the solution.

Truman and his Secretary
of State, Dean Acheson,

had for some time been working
fairly closely with Mosaddegh.

They had a fundamental
sympathy towards Iran

and its efforts
to get itself out

from under the influence
of Great Britain.

They became convinced
that negotiations

with Mosaddegh were
the way to go.

Eisenhower and his group,
on the other hand,

although they didn't reach
this conclusion right away,

were much more disposed towards
finding some other solution.

The British approached
the incoming

Republican Administration
about overthrowing

Mosaddegh.

John Foster Dulles, the
new Secretary of State,

had long railed against
the dangers of

communism.

For much of his career, he
had served as a top lawyer

for large mulch-national
corporations.

His brother Allen became the
new director of the CIA.

It was the first
and only time that

siblings controlled both
the overt and covert sides

of American foreign policy.

It wasn't hard for the
British to talk the brothers

into overthrowing Mosaddegh.

The Dulles brothers then
sold the new president

on the idea of a
coup by playing the

communist card.

There's only one person in the
whole Eisenhower administration

whoever raises this question
of Mosaddegh’s true beliefs

and that person was President
Eisenhower himself.

There was a meeting of the
National Security Council

at which Eisenhower
said something like

"I'm glad we're overthrowing
this communist Mosaddegh

but I actually wasn't
aware that he really was

a communist" and Dulles
had a great answer.

Dulles said"well it's
true that Mosaddegh

is not a communist,
however Mosaddegh

is an elderly man, he could
die, he could be overthrown.

That would produce
instability in Iran.

There is a communist
party in Iran.

Iran is on the border
with the Soviet Union,

therefore circumstances
could unfold in a way

that might leave Iran
open to communism."

And then the straw that
breaks the camel's back

is"the Soviets are coming."

Where have we heard this before?

"The Soviets are coming,
the Soviets are coming."

When Eisenhower
heard that he said

"okay, you've convinced me."

And Eisenhower approves
it and it goes ahead

and there's one other
thing operating here.

Eisenhower has this
incredible aversion for war,

not so counter intuitive if you
think about it for a moment.

He doesn't want to see a
nuclear war in particular

and so he develops this penchant

for clandestine operations

because compared to
war they're cheap.

After the Eisenhower
administration made its decision

to overthrow Mosaddegh,
Allen Dulles

selected Kermit Roosevelt
to carry out the coup.

Kermit Roosevelt was the
grandson of Theodore Roosevelt.

He's very well educated,
my god he's a Roosevelt.

He is full of energy,
the energy of youth,

the dynamism of youth
and good education

and he wants to serve his
country but he wants to do it

in a secretive way,
he wants to do it

in an adventurous way, he wants
to do it overseas and so forth.

- As the chief of the Middle
East section of the CIA

he was the logical choice.

So he's the perfect person
for this kind of operation.

At the beginning of August,
1953 Kermit Roosevelt

arrived in Tehran and began
this covert operation.

It's really a fascinating
operation to study

because it answers
this odd question;

how do you overthrow
a government?

Suppose you get sent to a
country and you're told

"overthrow the government" so
what do you do on the first day?

What do you do on
the second day?

Kermit Roosevelt, who
really was something

like a true life James Bond,

carried out a very
effective policy.

Roosevelt bribed tribal
leaders and newspaper editors

who now claimed that Mosaddegh
was a dictator and had to go.

Every day they were
printing articles about

how evil Mosaddegh was,
that he was a Jew,

he was a homosexual,
he was a criminal,

he was an agent of the British;

anything they could think
of to undermine him.

Leaving nothing to chance,

Roosevelt bribed military
officers, religious leaders,

and members of Parliament.

One of the most
interesting things

that Kermit Roosevelt
did, besides bribing

members of parliament
and military officers

and everyone else,
was his decision

to throw Tehran into chaos.

He had this idea that
if there were riots

and outbreaks of violence
every day around Tehran

people would begin to think
that Prime Minister Mosaddegh

had completely lost
control of the country.

So as the coup day
drew closer he bribed

the chief leader of the
protection rackets in Tehran,

a guy named Shaman the
Brainless, to turn out his mob.

It was Kermit Roosevelt's idea
that this gang, this mob,

should charge through
the streets of Tehran,

beat up pedestrians,
break shop windows,

fire guns into mosques
and then yell

"up with communism,
we love Mosaddegh"

and that wasn't even enough.

Kermit Roosevelt had
an even better idea.

He hired another mob
to attack that mob.

That created a huge outbreak
of street violence.

The first idea that
Kermit Roosevelt had

was to bring the
Shah into the plot.

The British had occupied Iran

during the second world war,
at which time they placed

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
on the throne

as Shah or"King".

Prior to doing so, they
forced the Shah's father

- a ruthless strongman -
to abdicate the throne

due to suspected
pro-Nazi sympathies.

In placing the son
on the throne,

the Brits hoped the younger,
weaker Shah would be

easier to control.

The Shah was a great coward
and a great pipsqueak

and real afraid cat,
very much different

from the image that we had
of him 20 years later.

He was terrified of becoming
involved in this operation

because he feared,
perhaps quite rightly,

that if it went wrong
he'd be finished,

he'd be chased all
out of the country.

This was really dicey
up to the last minute.

The Shah even didn't think
this was gonna work.

They had to fly his
sister in, for example,

who was hated and
didn't even wanna go,

to try and convince
him to do it.

It took a great deal of
persuasion and a lot of pressure

by Kermit Roosevelt and
a number of people

that he brought in to persuade
the Shah to join the plot.

[music]

Now what did Kermit Roosevelt
want the Shah to do?

It was his idea that the
Shah should sign two orders,

"firmands" they're
called in Farsi.

The first order dismisses
Mosaddegh as Prime Minister

and the second order names

General Zahedi as his successor.

So late one night, around
midnight, one of the generals

or a colonel at that
time, loyal to the Shah,

arrived with a few soldiers
at Mosaddegh’s house,

bangs on the door and
when the door is opened

says, "I have two
orders from the Shah."

Now everyone, including the
Shah and Kermit Roosevelt

understood what
Mosaddegh’s reaction

to these orders would be.

He would say"these are illegal,
I reject these orders.

You have no right to name
a new Prime Minister

or to fire a Prime Minister
without parliament's approval,"

and when he did that they would
arrest him, that was the plan.

That simple plan failed
because Mosaddegh

actually got wind of the plan
so when the Shah's troops

came to Mosaddegh’s
home to arrest him

Mosaddegh had actually more
troops there waiting for them.

So they arrested
the Shah's kernel.

The next morning Radio
Tehran broadcast the news

that a British plot,

that's what the Iranians,
naively thought it was,

had been crushed.

When the Shah heard this he
fled the country immediately

and went to Baghdad
and then on to Rome.

The CIA cabled Roosevelt that
the situation had become

too dangerous and to
leave Tehran at once.

Kermit Roosevelt, however,
thought to himself

"wait, I can still do
this; I have many assets

I haven't used yet.

I can still get this done" and
showing the resourcefulness,

for which he became famous, he
decided to stay on in Tehran

and try, four days later,
to stage another coup.

For the next several days,

Roosevelt played the
roll of puppeteer.

Throwing Tehran deeper
into chaos, he had one

gang take to the streets,
followed by another.

After Mullahs marched
to denounce Mosaddegh,

he had the military
storm the streets.

They never had any idea that
there was such a person

as Kermit Roosevelt,
that he was operating

in the basement of
the US Embassy.

When two Iranian agents working
for the CIA got cold feet,

Roosevelt made them an offer
they couldn't refuse.

Kermit Roosevelt
produced a valise

with 50,000 dollars in cash.

He told them: "if you agree
to continue helping me

I'll give you this 50,000
dollars, and by the way,

if you don't I'm
gonna kill you."

Considering that option
they changed their mind

and decided to help.

Roosevelt knew that the other
officers under his control

hadn't been touched yet.
He had Loyd Henderson,

the US Ambassador deliver
a message to Mosaddegh:

establish law and order
and clear the streets

of demonstrators or
the US would cease

to recognize him
as prime minister.

Henderson falsely claimed that
American lives were at risk.

Mosaddegh fell for the trap and
effectively disarmed himself.

He ordered his supporters off
the streets, and established

martial law which allowed
the coup plotters

to gain access to needed
fuel and weapons.

The military officers in on the
plot then rolled their tanks

into Tehran - not to clear the
streets of demonstrators,

but to arrest Mosaddegh.

At Mosaddegh's residence there
was a final fire fight.

Mosaddegh’s men with their
3 tanks were no match

for the 36 tanks that
besieged the residence,

which was soon destroyed.

Finally, late at night,
the firing stopped.

The people inside fled.

Mosaddegh jumped over a
back wall and disappeared.

The house was looted.
They brought out whatever

they could find and some of
Mosaddegh’s personal furnishings

were actually for sale on the
street. His refrigerator

was sold to somebody
for about 35 dollars.

It was time to deliver
the coup DE grace,

that was the naming of Zahedi.

To head up the coup,
the CIA had chosen

Fazlollah Zahedi who had a
reputation for ruthlessness.

General Zahedi had spent WWII
in a British internment camp

due to his connections
to Nazi agents.

Now General Zahedi was in
the custody, essentially,

of Kermit Roosevelt. Roosevelt
had stashed him at a safe house

near the American Embassy.

So he arrived there to tell
him, "everything's worked out,

it's all set, you're gonna
be the Prime Minister."

The guy was just sitting
there in his underwear

waiting for news. Zahedi was
brought out onto the streets

and rode aboard a tank through
the streets of Tehran

to the radio station where
he was to make his statement

announcing that Mosaddegh
was overthrown

and, "I'm now your
new Prime Minister."

It was quite a festive event
although there was one hitch.

As he was about to
make his radio speech

the radio announcers decided
we need some marshal music

to show that Iranian patriotism
has finally triumphed.

So he went running off,
according to this account,

to the Embassy library,
pulled the first, you know,

record album that he
could find off the shelf

and immediately put this
record on the turntable

and the very first
song that came out

was The Star-Spangled Banner.

So this was another
kind of wink of history

maybe since it actually
was the Americans

who were coming to power.
That was quickly changed.

Iranian music was put on.
Zahedi made his speech,

announced that the evil
Mosaddegh was gone

and, "I will now take over and
restore Iran's greatness."

The Shah was sitting at
lunch in a hotel in Rome,

probably thinking to himself
what he was gonna do now.

He had already told people he
would have to look for work

because he wasn't gonna be
able to go back to Iran.

Suddenly some news reporters
burst in and handed him

the news and they
said, "you're back.

The coup... there was another
coup... it succeeded.

You're back on, you're
gonna be the king."

He was in complete shock
and, for some time,

couldn't speak at all.
Finally, his first words were

"I knew it, they love me."

Back at the US Embassy,
the champagne flowed

as jubilation reigned.

The message the Dulles
brothers took away

was that they had a whole new
way to shape world events.

After the coup several hundred
military officers were arrested,

about 60 were executed.

There was a purge of all
officers who were deemed loyal

to the democratic government

and not loyal to
Zahedi or the Shah.

It was a way of cleansing the
army and doing something

that Mosaddegh had refused
to do, which is build

an army loyal to the people
in power at that moment.

For his part in the
coup, Zahedi was paid

5 million dollars by the CIA.

The oil industry was
denationalized.

An international
consortium was formed with

40 percent of the shares now
going to American companies.

Profits were split with
Iran on a 50/50 basis.

But the British effectively
retained overall control,

and its oil company renamed
itself British Petroleum.

Three months after the
coup, Mosaddegh was tried

in a military court on
trumped-up chargers of treason.

His fiery defense
electrified the courtroom

and is still remembered today.

[applause]

Well the McCarthy era was a
dark time in the United States.

This was from about 1950 to
'54 thereabouts when McCarthy

was on the scene and
he both was created by

and came to symbolize this
period of absolute fear

of communism, excessive fear,
hysteria, as it's often called.

I intend to go into those States
and give the American people

the cold documented picture
of the sell-out in Korea,

the extent to which communism
has been directing

our foreign policy, our suicidal
foreign policy if you please.

It was a time that created
pressures against different

American administrations,
presidential administrations,

to move their policies to the
right. John Foster Dulles

was one of the big proponents
of rollback of communism

under the Eisenhower
administration. He had been,

for a long time, an outspoken
critic of Truman's policies,

about the fears of the United
States being soft on communism

and he is known for being a
vocal advocate of pushing back

hard against the communists.
He later admitted that

he tended to
exaggerate the threat,

purely because it served
certain interests.

I think the conclusion that
the Soviets didn't have

any real implementable,
executable designs on Iran

in '52, '53, '54, I think it's
a pretty sound conclusion

but on the other side of that
coin an even sounder conclusion

I think is that, at this time,
the so-called communists,

the Tutor, in Iran
was indisposed

to be a lackey of
the Soviet Union.

Basically they were
an indigenous group,

not a common turn group, not
a group that was recruited

and funded and marshaled in
Moscow and sent to Iran.

The ideas of communism were
certainly very much opposed

to Mosaddegh’s idea.

You could speculate on
whether circumstances might

have changed over time
and communist influence

might have grown there.

The question of communism
threat is often used

as a rhetorical
when it's useful.

So in the early part, when the
oil crisis starts, the Americans

keep pressuring the British to
actually deal with Mosaddegh

and the Americans say to the
British"if you don't deal,

Mosaddegh will be overthrown
and the communists move in"

and the British
pooh-poohs this and say

"there's absolutely
no danger of that.

We can pressure Mosaddegh
as much as we want,

there's no communist threat."
Later on you find the British

then say: "we have to get
rid of Mosaddegh to stop

the communist guy" and then
people like Acheson are then

repeating the earlier British
pooh-poohing that really

there's no real danger of a
communist takeover. At the time,

of course, you can say the
discourse in the West

was the communist danger. So
if you want to get anything

done you say that. Nowadays
you can say the discourse

is international terrorism and
you can justify anything.

But even the Dulles brothers'
view that this country

was very susceptible
to communist takeover

is something that they
developed themselves

and is quite dubious from
historical perspective.

The distortion we usually get
in the conventional view

of the coup is that it's
part of the Cold War;

it's the US/USSR rivalry that
leaves the CIA to carry out

the coup. I would argue that
the coup's really rooted

in the oil crisis, when Iran
nationalized the oil company.

This wasn't just a threat to
the British; it was as much

a threat actually to all the
Western companies including

the American companies
because the same thing

could happen to American
companies in the Middle East

or South America.

The summer of 1953 was a
turbulent time and of course

very threatening and
dangerous for Mosaddegh.

Mosaddegh’s house should
have been sacrosanct.

It was not and the
mob went after it.

I was horrified by the
bloodletting in the streets.

There were tanks attacking
the house, there was a lot

of killing then. 300 people
died in that couple of hours.

I interviewed the Shah amongst
a group of reporters there;

me and people from United
Press and he just was kind

of bubbling over with glee
at having been saved.

I met Kermit Roosevelt for the
first time after the coup.

I had several discussions
with him later about

"do you really think now
that was a good idea?"

and he said, "oh yes, it
gave us another 20 years

or something like that." It
was the most reactionary,

he was obeying
orders Kermit was.

I think he truly
believed in his mission.

- The '53 coup is like
a guillotine in Iran,

it inaugurated a
massive repression

and it changed the landscape
so the political situation,

besides being more repressive,
secular organizations

like the National
Front, the Etude Party,

were in fact disassembled,
they've dismantled.

They couldn't
function after '53.

The '53 coup was clearly a
big success for the CIA

as they saw it at the time and
it fit perfectly with the ideas

of President Eisenhower, the
Dulles brothers and others

who thought that
covert operations

was a very powerful tool
in US foreign policy

and it clearly served as
a model or, you know,

provided lessons for
future operations,

including the following year,
in 1954, in Guatemala.

At the time this coup
seemed like a great success

but let's look back at it from
the perspective of history,

from the perspective of today.

The Shah ruled for 25 years,
with increasing repression

His repression produced the
explosion of the late 1970's,

what we call the
Islamic revolution.

That revolution brought
to power a clerk

of fanatically
anti-American Mulls,

who had spent the
next quarter century,

vigorously and sometimes
very violently,

trying to undermine western
power all over the world.

So from the perspective
of history, this

coup doesn't quite so
successful at all.

A lot of history came out
of three weeks in Tehran,

in the summer of 1953.

These people remember this,

even if it's not something that
necessarily happened yesterday,

you have to remember, Iran is a
country with very long history.

It is a culture that is very
much dependent on people,

understanding and
knowing it's history.

So something that happened
50 or 60 years ago,

is not that very far
back for a country

who's history
stretches 3000 years.

What's interesting about 53,

that is the episode,
that is the time

in which America in
the Iranian mindsets,

becomes a violator,
becomes an aggressor.

Prior to that,

the view of Americans
and the view of America

amongst Iranian public, was
an extremely positive one

and well deserving so because
America was correctly viewed

as an anti colonial power,
who opposed colonization,

who itself had fought a war
of independence against who,

Great Britain.

[music]

You know we in the United
States have short memories,

people in the Middle
East never forget and I

think there is a political truth
to that and the Iranian people

I believe know all about it but

the average American doesn't
have the vaguest idea

that we interfered with
an elected government.

What bothers me so much, is that
the American people believe that

we can do no harm,

that we are willing to
go to war, start a war

to promote democracy with
force, at the same time,

sometimes when there's a leader
in a country that's been elected

even in recent years.

elected leaders in
the middle east,

we don't like them, we
don't support them.

What CIA for many years has
warned about blow back

I know that when I brought that
term up in the presidential

debate, it wasn't my term and I
referenced it to it haven't been

established by the CIA, because
they knew and understood this

that they can come back on us,
it was an unintended consequence

We should know what
went on in 1953,

what happened with
the coup there

but I think that

the goal of all individuals
ot to be to know the truth

The truth about our history
and not to hide from us

and when history is
distorted, I think we

just continue to make mistakes.

So history is helpful if
we're honest with ourselves.

I think that's the
most important thing

for any country or any people,
is to be honest with ourselves

because when your own government
does harm and you ignore it,

or pretended it never
existed or defend it

for the wrong reasons,
it's very detrimental.

If the United States

had not overthrown the
Mosaddegh government

it's at least conceivable
that democracy

would've continued to thrive and
consolidate itself in Iran.

We might have had a
stable democracy

in the heart of the Muslim
middle east, all these 50 years.

I can hardly wrap my mind
around how different

the middle east might look
today, had that been the case.

[music]

The idea that

it is necessary nefarious,
it's always engaged in

overthrowing governments,
that's false.

Asides from the birds.

The government of
Mosaddegh if you recall

His was over thrown by
the accident, the Shah.

As far a I know,
we don't engage in

assassinations and kidnappings
and things of that kind.

As far as I know, we never have.

I hope I have a reasonable
moral standard.

Well the Iranians were
organizing themselves

and really all they needed was
support and to some extent

professional guidance.

It was my feeling then,
that remains my feeling

that the British
understood the extent

of paranoia in this country
concerning communism

this was the day
of Joel McCarthy

and the British consciously
played on that fear in order to

help persuade us, to involve
ourselves in the coup.

What we did from Washington, was
to write some of the articles

that would appear on
the Persian press

and these articles would appear
thanks to the Dravidian’s

who had contacts I believe

with probably 4/5 of
the Iranian press

and they were designed
to show most of that

as a communist collaborator
and as a fanatic, as a person

who didn't understand
that you could be

both nationalistic and positive.

These two agents

saw the opportunity, and
sent the people we had

under our control,
into the streets

and acted as if they were today.

They were provocateurs.
We had more than just

provocateurs we had a
lot of shot troops

who actually acted as if
they were two dead people

throwing rocks at
mosques, at priests.

That mob that came into north
Tehran and was decisive in the

overthrow was a mercenary
mob, had no ideology

and that mob was paid
for by American dollars

and the amount of
money that was used

it has to have been very large.

The CIA prepared a report on how
the coup had be carried out.

It would serve as a guide for
conducting coups in the future

bu the report left
out key details.

But even if we saw
the full report,

there were certain things

the author Donald Wilbert
wouldn't have put in there

because it wouldn't have been
caution to put those in.

Things such as the CIA
working very closely

with the Iranian Nazi party.

That wouldn't have gone very
well down in Washington.

He also doesn't
deal with actually

questions of assassination

which I suspect the MI6 and
the CIA were involved.

So that sort of sanitized
out of the report.

I think that in the 53 coup,
the CIA was much more involved

in the actual
mechanics in of coup

that in other places
like Guatemala

or Indonesia and places

So there's much more very
incriminating information

and that's why the CIA has
been very reluctant to

release the stuff.

Well I remember the start of the
CIA from when I was in college

it had just been recently
started, 1947 after the war.

The main purpose of
course was so there

would never be
another pearl harbor

When there were little
snippets of information around

and nobody to, these days we
would say connect the dots.

There was no one
central place where

all this information together

and so Harry Truman was
hell-bent and determined that

would never happen again, there
would be one central place which

would be possessed of
all the information

available on a given
country or situation.

He was equally determined

to have it one place
where he could go

and say look, Mr.Director I
want to know what you and those

two universities worth of

specialists out
there in the woods

in Virginia. I want to know
what you really think.

I don't care what the State
department is saying

or the pentagon. The pentagon
is telling me that the Russians

are 10ft tall. I know
they're not 10 ft tall.

They may not be 5'9ft
like you're saying,

but I want to know
what you think okay

No, speak to me in truth.
And man,

it was clear that that's
what Truman Intended

What we got instead, was an
apparatus that seemed revel

in covert operations,
Clandestine operations

spend billions of
tax payer dollars

for those operations
in total secrecy

and expend blood and treasure
in those operations,

often times failing,
in total secrecy.

He wrote a not bad, I
have a copy of it here.

Not bad in the Washington Post

December 22, 1963. As he
watched these things happen

you know, he watched Iran and
he watched Guatemala and he saw

governments toppled and he
said hey man, hey time out

That's not what I intended here.

It says he simply
does not recognize

the entity that he
helped create in 1947

in the CIA and clearly
his angst is about the

covert operations
aspect of the CIA.

and he sees it as a danger to
the integrity and the health

of our democratic republic.

I have a copy of
this, this thing.

What he says is
this, the title is

Limit CIA Role To Intelligence

Well ya, hello. That's what it's
supposed to be all about right?

Okay.

Quote, I never thought that
when I set up the CIA,

it would be injected
into peacetime

cloak and dagger operations.

Now there are some
searching questions

that need to be answered.

I, therefore, would like
to see the CIA restored to

it's original assignment
as the intelligence arm of

the President, and that
whatever else it can properly

perform in that special field

and that its
operational duties be

terminated or properly
used elsewhere

Well, you were right about
a lot of things Harry.

you're dead right about that.

Truman ended his stinging
rebuke of the CIA,

by writing that "The agency

is casting a shadow
over our historic

position and I feel that
we need to correct it."

Of course the Brits came over,
as for our help, Allen Dulles

and yes that would be great
covert action authorized by

the President and so they went
in and they overthrew Mosaddegh,

They threw him out okay, now
that's where history begins,

recent history for Iranians
and Americans don't have

any idea that there is this
very legitimate grievance.

and what came in? The Shah.

What he did was bring in the
most brutal secret police,

bunch of torturers, second to
none, even the German Gestapo.

They were called Saks.

With the help of American
aid and training,

Savak was created in 1957, it's
name alone would come to strike

fear in the hearts and
minds of Iran’s citizens.

Well the Savak becomes
essentially the secret police

for the Shah and

their training and education
and their mode to

stop Iranians so forth are
more or less given to them

by the CIA person personnel who
are, as far as I can tell,

are also some military involved
in this. The CIA and the

military often work
together, a very

insidious relationship
in my view.

The 53 coup deprived the regime
that ruled in Iran of legitimacy

and the overwhelming majority
of the people, even many of the

people of were working
for the regime.

They previewed the regime as
dependent on the United States,

as fundamentally born
of a sinful act.

What Savak becomes for the
Shah, is secret police do and

many of these more autocratic
societies, particularly when

they're becoming more and more
autocratic as the Shah was,

is it takes care of all of it's
oppositions, either arrest them

and spirits them away to sites
unknown, for purposes unknown,

never to be contacted again,
buries them in the desert,

or whatever but it becomes the

Shah's way of dealing with
residence and dealing with it

in a very draconian harsh way
and of course this just breeds

more and more discontent amongst
the populous in Iran and makes

him look more and more
the tyrant rather than

the beloved leader that he
always wanted to be seen as.

Under the Shah was unimaginable,

that anybody would say anything

critical within the political
word, against anybody,

absolutely not.

So it was a combination of not
that Savak was all pervasive

or powerful

but the physiological
perimeter’s of the Savak

and the political order

had created a situation
that we were all

conscious and fearful of Savak.

So the aura was created that
the Savak is everywhere

and it contributed to

the terrorization and
internalization of

that terror in the
society and the arch.

and I made so many trips
to Savak’s office

answering questions

and just, sometimes
they take you in

and you sit there for 5
hours and nobody comes out

and there are a number of other
people sitting in the room

you're too fearful to
say a word because

you don't know who they are.

So I did experience,

it was the very beginning,
it became far more viscous

as time went on because it was
the beginning of its formation

when I was still in Iran.

Several of our students you
know, got refuge on the roofs

the fifth floor, the sixth
floor, they threw them away

just threw them like
garbage, down and many

people got killed that way, many
people had broken legs or arms.

Being in the center of this
torture chambers hearing all

of these cries and screams
coming everywhere.

I mean, I couldn't sleep for
a minute, yet 24 hours.

because of this you
are in solitary

and this guy is screaming kill
me! Don't do that, just kill me!

I mean screams all over, you
feel like you are there

and they handcuffed me this way

there was this hook
and they could

raise it so I could be kind
of hanged from my hands

and the pain

[inaudible dialogue]

and death would be, I
mean just a relief.

This is difficult for
you to talk about

it's a horrible experience.

You don't have to if
you don’t want to.

I have a duty to
say these things

for American people to know

what it was like under the Shah.

The main reason that the Savak
and the Shah was sent packing

was because ever other
family in Iran knew somebody

or had one of the members
of their family tortured

That's what torture
brings you okay.

[music]

After 25 years of increasingly
despotic by the Shah

millions of Iranians
took to the streets

in what would become known
as The Islamic Revolution.

The Shah fled the country
in January of 1979.

Later that year,
Iranian students

overran the US embassy in Tehran

when the Shah was allowed
to enter the United States.

[crowd chanting]

The man who called me was
a man by the name of

Frank Re dice who as on
the desk that Sunday

and he told me that

a number of

student demonstrators
had broken into

the US embassy and
apparently had

taken some American
diplomats hostage

and he wanted me to come
in the state department

I was then the senior diplomatic
correspondent for ABC

to do a piece on it for
that evenings news

and it was Sunday and I
didn't want to come in

and I told him I didn't
think this thing would last

more than an hour or two

as I said like this
things going to die.

I mean it's not going to last.

But regrettably every
single day in Iran

was a noninvasive day.

Ultimately the hostages
were held for 440 days.

They appointed me as
ambassador to the UN

in order to facilitate
this agreement.

The group of us were throwing
out names for this new program

and Dick Wald said

you know in racing,
horse raising

there is something
called The Morning Line

since this program is
going at 11:30 at night

why don’t we call
it the Night Line.

and I said that the
dumbest I've ever heard

I think that's a really
stupid title for a program

I left Tehran

with the hope that I'm
coming to the United

States going to the
security council

doing everything we could

to expedite the
release of hostages.

I met Jimmy Carter
at the White house

and he joked that the two people

who had benefited most
from the hostage take

and were first the guy
Ayatollah Khomeini

and second, me.

I didn't want to be the
ambassador of a country

that had taken hostages.

I accepted the position in order
to resolve the hostage crisis

and when I came to
realize that the hostage

crisis is not going
to be resolved

there was absolutely no
reason for me to stay there

it would have been absurd

because I thought the
act was criminal and

illegal and inhuman in
every sense of the word.

Certainly in the initial
months of America Held Hostage

I think the title
was hysterical.

Later turned out to be

more accurate than it
was at the outset.

Nightlife and many other
television programs

and journalists,
they were shocked.

but the immorality and the
illegality of the act

which was understandable
and yet after 25 years

of supporting an illegitimate
government, overthrowing

democratic elected the
prime minister in 1953

it was the responsibility
of the press

to gain an understanding
of why it happened

but at the same time
"" The Nightlife

and other television
programs did not do that

I forget whether we did that

if we didn't it would have been
a huge oversight, we should've.

because that clearly was

that was and is to this day

you know I mean,
50 whatever it is

56 years later.

That continues to be
a very sole point

with the Iranian people.

When they had guests,
or the newspapers

interviewed various people
in an article you could read

a sentence or a
phrase about the coup

but the reader of the article
is not going to end up thinking

about the connection between
what happened in 1953

and what happened in 1979.

And if you show just a
little of imagination

and think how we would
feel if some power

greater than the United
States had overthrown

one of our presidents,

had assisted one of our enemies
in assaulting the homeland of

the United States, had
supported someone that

we felt was a pretender
to the White House,

and giving him all
kinds of weapons

and overlooked human
rights abusers

that he and his secret
police inflicted

on the people of
the United States

I think we'd feel pretty upset
about that and we would

probably harbor that grudge
a generation or five.

The hostage crisis in one
sense was a very simple thing

I mean you had a
group of students

who wanted to demonstrate
against the US

who were unhappy with the
way things were going.

The role of the Shah was
an important element

in the evolution of
the events in Tehran

after the revolution.

What was going to happen to him?

should we anticipate
that he would

again be restored to the thrown?

would we engage ourselves in the
kind of coup we did in 1953

to restore him to the thrown?

that was the concern among the
part of the revolutionary

elements in the city of
Tehran at that time, in 1979.

The Shah had been admitted
back into the United States

and this was considered
to be the first

step to returning
him to the thrown

that was not true but that's the
way people remembering 1953

they thought this was the first
step in bringing him back.

to admit him into the United
States in the context

of the revolutionary afferment
that was abroad in that country

at that time, in 1979.

There was something else

so I said no, let's
not admit him.

Jimmy Carter was extremely
reluctant to do this

in fact he was the very last
one of all of his advisers to

finally agree to do this and in
that final meeting that he had

where he looked
around the room and

everybody in the
room was telling him

yes you you've got
to let him in,

he's dying, you can't reject his

you can't tell him he can't have
medical treatment and so forth

and he looked around the
room and I said well okay

he said I hear what
all of you are

saying but he said I wonder what

you're all going to
say to me when they

take our people
hostage in Tehran.

It was clear that this was
a dangerous thing to do.

He was admitted

and we paid for it.

[crowd chanting]

The actions of Iran

have shocked the civilized world

for a government to applaud
mob violence and terrorism

for a government
actually to support

and in effect participate

in the taking and
holding of hostages

is unprecedented
in human history.

They do about sit ins

and they were going to
come in, make their point

they had done it
once before, it had

been done once before
at the embassy

in February and ended
within 48 hours

they very much had
the same idea that

this would be a
short lived thing

and they were as surprised
as anybody else

when Khomeini threw his
support to the students

they didn't come prepared
to stay for 444 days

and suddenly they
found themselves not

having a sit in, but
running a prison.

Lousy.

Treatment during
captivity was lousy.

Not in the sense where
they beat me everyday

but it was

in-violation of something very

profound in the
Iranian zone culture

one of the leaders of
the student militants

who were then holding
the three of us

in solitary confinement

each of us in separate cells.

He came in to see me
one day, in my cell

and I proceeded, I took the
opportunity to say look

why are you doing this?

It is totally contrary to
all Iranian traditions

of freedom

human rights

treating us this way

physically abused as hostages

it is totally absolutely wrong

why are you doing this?

He responded by saying you
have nothing to complain about

your country took my
country hostage in 1953

totally and abrogated the
opportunities that we had then

we're a free
participatory democracy.

I was reminded of 1984

particularly if you remember
the incident in there

of the two minutes hate

that everyday at Winston
Smiths ministry

they would all stop work and
they would get together

and they would have
two minutes of hate

and they would scream, shout
slogans and scream and yell

and get all excited and then
they would have hate week

that seemed very much the
situation we were in

I couldn't identify
today, where it was or is

but it was a prison,
a dark cold prison

where my colleagues
had been held

in and out of prisons
during those months

and I could do nothing to
help them, that was my hurt

that was my mental
hurt if you will.

but beyond what happened
to me personally

the event still

resonates, it resonates
in this country

it resonates around the world

and for better or worse
and mostly for worse

it shapes the way
people look at Iran

The student captures
also controlled

all of the library of
the embassy compound

and so we all got access
to books, eventually

not the books you wanted

one of my colleagues is
much quoted as having said

first book they gave me was
a god damn geometry book

I never liked geometry but I
read everything in that book.

You ignore history and you
ignore Iranians view of history

and you ignore the
history of the

United States and
Iran at your peril.

to give you the simplest example

in October of 1979,
when the White House

decided to admit the
Shah to the country

it said alright we will do this

but we will tell the Iranians

that we're doing this only
for humanitarian reasons

because the Shah is sick
and so he's coming to the

United States only for
medical treatment

and there is no
political agenda.

Well, that may have been true

but given the history
of US Iranian relations

I doubt that any Iranian
over the age of 3

would have believed
such an explanation

and perhaps that was
why the events of 1953

and the Americans
coming eventually

siding with the British

working to overthrow

Dr.Mosaddegh's
nationalist government

came as such a profound shock

I mean had it been
the British they

probably would've been expected,
had it been the Russians

would've been expected

but from someone who you
thought was your friend

it was seen as a

very deep betrayal

Freedom

as one comes to appreciate,
eventually and certainly

as a hostage in
solitary confinement

is a beautiful thing.

They were 20 years
old at the time

we were all 20 years
old at the time.

when we're at that
age you're emotional

you don't think
through what you do.

I don't blame them so
much for what they did

I blame those who rode the wave

who did not take up
their responsibilities.

I understood their zeal

you have to understand that even
though you think they are wrong

you give them credit
for being zealous

and they sure as hell were

determined to hold as
long as they could

I have no particular
malice towards each

and every one of them except

my hope my them,
my I wish for them

is they never get a visa
to come to my country.

I can get emotional
in that subject.

You make gestures,
you lower the tone

of the rhetoric, you
stop the sermonizing

you put your
preconceptions aside

I have said since the day I left

since the moment I
entered the Algerian

aircraft to return me to freedom

I said it to the
principle hostage

taker at the top of the ramp

I look forward to the day your
when your country and mine

can again have a normal
diplomatic relationship

I have advocated
that ever since,

I have preached
the need to talk.

We should be talking.

Now, will that bring

an immediate change?

will that bring

immediate positive results?

probably not, suspicions
still run deep

you don't overcome 30
years of hostility

with one speech or one gesture

but you keep at it.

[music]

Khatami made a speech
in January of 88'

in which he basically
went as far as any

Iranian leader is
ever likely to go

and saying that clearly we
would never do that again

and those were different
times and so forth

he can't come out and say

oh we were completely
wrong, he can't say that

I mean Khomeini was behind it,
he supported it all the way

and he's the father
of their country

it's like saying
George Washington

made a foolish mistake

you don't just say
things like that.

The problem with
US Iran relations

is not so much foreign policy

it's domestic policy.

In the United States,
Iran is a dirty word

and has been since the
time of the hostage crisis

it's very hard to
get politicians

to say anything
constructive about Iran

and our relations with Iran

it's easier to dismiss
them, to criticize them

or to suggest harder sanctions
on them or punishment

In Iran it's the same thing.

The revolution was as much
an anti-American revolution

as it was an
anti-Shah revolution

we're going to have
to give up something

but Iran is going to have
to give up something

and that's what
negotiations are all about.

[music]

In January of 2002, George
Bush gave his second state

of the union address

he singled out Iran
for special attention

and thereby damaged chances
for a better relationship

Here we've got after all

an administration that finds
in Afghanistan in 2000

late 2001, 2002 that the
Iranians are very cooperative

that the Iranians
are helping you

that the Iranians are helping
you with everything from

rounding up the Taliban,
finding Al-Qaeda

who might have flown into Iran

working for The Bonn
conference, in stalling Karzai

that they are
helping you as much

as anybody else in the region

and you pay them
back by giving a

state of union address
which calls them

a member of the access of evil

which is imponderable to them

they don't even know
what that means

but they know it's bad

Iran aggressively prosue these
weapons and exports terror

states like these and
their terrorist allies

constitute and access of evil

arming to threaten the
peace of the world

and so their payback for having
cooperated in Afganistan

is to be called a member
of the access of evil

imagine their befuddlement
and imagine their anger

I'm Iranian and that's funny
cause people I tell them

my American friends,
I go ya I'm Iranian

they go oh so you're Arab and
I'm like no we're actually

different we're not Arab but I
mean you know we're similar

you know we're all getting shot
at, you know that's one thing

but you Iranians are actually
ethnically, we're actually Arian

we're white, we're white,
so stop shooting you know

a lot of the times I would get
in an argument with people

around the time of the Iraq war,
cause I was against the war

and a lot of the times people
would say we got to do this

got to do that and I'd always
say do you know the history

let's go back a little bit
and see how we got here in

the first place and
I would always

bring the 53 coup
into the argument

The Iranians don't
even say their Iranian

Iranians say they're Persian.

In Iran we say we are Persian

you know it sounds
nicer and friendlier

we even smile, when we say
we're Persian we smile

"I am Persian!"

"I am Persian!"

"I am not dangerous,
I am Persian!"

"I am Persian like the cat"

"I am the cat!"

"I am Persian like
the rug, hello

rug colorful, hand woven."

I have a friend
who's conservative

and we have these
debates and I go

go back and look that
Iran had a democracy

and that US with England, they
came in overthrew that democracy

to implement a
monarchy for the oil.

So you know you got to have a
historical perspective before

before you get into
these debates.

People think that just because
I'm from the Middle East

I'm an expert on the Middle East

So like I got a friend, every
time the gas prices go up

he'll always ask my
opinion about it

he'll always corner me,
"hey Mass, hey Mass

in your opinion what's going
on with this gas thing

what's going to happen,
what's going on

50 words or less,
breakdown would you

you're my middle
eastern friend."

like dude I don't work
at Opek, I don't know

I pay the same price as you
you know, like I don't have a

discount pump at the gas station

I don't want in like

"Hassan Hussein discount
pump, okay my friend."

[laughter and applause]

Fuck America

[laughter]

I joke about that, I said
you know it was funny cause

the hijackers were Saudis
and Egyptians and somehow

Iran ended up in
the access of evil

I remember watching
that and he was like

there's an access of evil,
I was like yes there is

and he goes it's North
Korea, I'm like ya

he goes it's Iraq, I go right on

he goes it's Iran, I'm like
what the hell, what do we do

you know okay we might
have a nuclear program

but we're not admitting to it,
maybe we have a nuclear program

maybe we don't, define nuclear.

I think that goes
back to that whole

cause Iran also calls
America the great Satan

It's kind of like
five year old’s

on a playground
just name calling.

So it was unfortunate,
it's undiplomatic

let's put it that way.

[music]

The Bush administration came
into office thinking there was

a quick and easy solution to
the proliferation problem

fortunately there is
now a wide spread

at least expert consensus
that this strategy of forced

regime change didn't work, that
the solution is to leave the

regime change up to the people
of the country themselves

the only ones who can
really change the regime

and to seek other combinations
of pressures and incentives

to convince those countries,
convince those people to abandon

nuclear programs.

The Iranian program is a threat
in many ways, but the answer

isn't to force the regime
to give up the program

no country has ever been forced
to give up a nuclear program

but lots of countries have
be convinced to do so.

The NIE also correctly
understood that the drivers

behind Iran’s program
were not some crazy idea

of a global genocide or
annihilation of Israel

they were the same motives that
have motivated most countries

who have pursued
nuclear weapons,

a desire for security to
protect them from attack

a desire for enhanced prestige.

Think India getting the bomb,

there is no real
military option here

history is very clear on this
score, an attack on a country

causes the people of
that country to rally

around the leadership,
not flee from it

it often will lead
to an acceleration

of military programs

containment works,
deterrence is alive and well

the worst case,
scenario is not good

but it's a lot better than
starting a nuclear war

in the neighborhood.

No US President has ever spoken
that way to the Muslim people

and when he referenced the 1953
coup against the democratic

leadership of Iran, he was
doing so not as an apology

but just stating a truth

everybody knows what the
US has done in that region

and when he coupled that
with an explicit reference

to colonialism, for many
Muslims this was unbelievable

that you heard a western
leader acknowledging this

just as a fact that
we have to deal with

and then let's move on, let's
have a new relationship

new structures, based on
our needs now, fully aware

of the sins and omissions hat
both sides have committed

in the years passed.

Iran's a country, it's a
very youthful country

vast majority of the country
are less than 30 years old

born after the
revolution actually

and very well educated, it's
a majority Shia country

over 90% Shia

but it's also pretty
ethnically diverse

and there are lots of
minorities, there's Arabs

there's Kurd, there's
Turks, there's Christians,

Jews, Muslims, Sunnis
as well as Shia

so it's pretty ethnically
diverse, at the same time

it is overwhelmingly Shia.

Ya every Iranian you can
talk about in the 1953

CIA backed coup against the

democratically elected
government of

Prime minister Mosaddegh and
the reason every Iranian knows

knows that history is
cause they're taught it

every school kid knows about
it, the same way we know

that George Washington
fought the British,

the same we way know
who Benjamin Franklin

was and Iranians will know

that there was a democratically
elected government

that was overthrown by the CIA.

President Khatami expressed
regret rather than an apology

or feeling shameful about it,
certainly not proud of it

I don't think hardly
anybody is proud of it

including the students who
took over the embassy

Out beyond the ideas of
wrongdoing and right-doing

there's a field,
I'll meet you there

and the reason I put that in
the introduction was because

I think it speaks very well
to the idea of why I wrote

the book in the first place,

which is complete
misunderstanding

between Iran and the United
States and it's accusations

fly back and forth, you
did this, you did this

you are doing this,
you are doing that

you're wrong here,
you're right here

I'm right here,
you're wrong there

none of that ever gets us
anywhere, that's all rhetoric

and it's always
accusations, like a fight

any fight and we’re
in this conflict

but there's place where you go,
go beyond those accusations

beyond those fights,
beyond those issues

that we have between us,
there's a place where

we could meet and
discuss things.

On June 12th 2009

Iranians went to the
polls in large numbers.

when the Presidential election
appeared stolen, they took

to the streets in protests,

situations seem to harpen back
to what happened to Iran’s

nascent democracy of the 1950's.

[music]

The protests have subsided but
it's obvious that peoples

sense of anger and
injustice hasn't subsided

and millions of people which
represented diverse swathe

of Iranian society,

not only in Tehran but
throughout the Country

are risking their lives,
almost on a daily basis

for greater political voice, for
more economic opportunities

for more social freedoms

and I think Iranians have really

inspired people
throughout the world.

Mousavi has earned a
tremendous respect from people

for not backing down
to the hardliners,

for continuing the fight

and in a way the relationship
between Mousavi and the crowd

is somewhat symbiotic

in the sense that I think that
the crowds are inspired by

Mousavi unwillingness
to back down

and Mousavi is frankly
is odd I think by

the courage of the crowd
and that allows him the

political capital
to remain defiant.

What's interesting about
Mousavi is that he is not

an opposition candidate who
has actually been an opponent

of the regime, he's someone with

impeccable revolutionary
credentials,

he was prime minister for
8 years, he was someone

who was close to the
father of the revolution,

Ayatollah Khomeini

and he's not for a wholesale
revolution, what he's saying is

that the revolution, the
ideals of the 1979 revolution

have veered off onto
a dangerous path

and we need to take
it back onto the

[Persian word]

as they say in Persian,
'the right path'.

In the last 1970's, the iconic
images which emerged from

the revolution were bearded,
middle aged, traditional men.

The iconic images from
this movement have been

young, educated,
modern female like

Neda Agha-Soltan

who was killed

and women's role in these
protests I think have been

quite frankly awesome.

women have continued to go to
the streets despite the regimes

indiscriminate use of words

I think any change which
takes place in Iran

will and will have played an
incredibly important role in

bringing about that change

and it's remarkable that days
and weeks and months and

I'm sure years after
Neda’s death,

people from around the world
are never going to forget that

image and are never going to
forget her tremendous bravery

and are never going to
forget the conditions

under which she died.

Right now theres an
incredible whirlwind

of emotions that
Iranians are feeling

there's tremendous hope
and tremendous fear

all at the same time.

there is this hope that
finally after 30 years

there is light at the
end of the tunnel

there's hope for a more modern,
progressive, tolerant Iran.

You have a unique situation
in the sense that,

right now about two thirds
of Iranians are under 33

so they don’t remember
the 1979 revolution

they have no inherent enmity
towards the United States

they have no inherent loyalty
towards the Islamic republic.

2009 is a much different
world than 1979

1979, there wasn't internet,

there wasn't satellite
television, people couldn’t see

what was taking place
beyond their borders

this has been a movement
which has transcended

age, it's transcended gender,

it's transcended
geographic location,

it's transcended religiosity,

it's transcended
socioeconomic class

and again when millions of
people have taken to the streets

despite the risk of wars

despite the risks
to the security

you can only imagine that
there's millions of people

who feel solidarity
with them at home.

So we should not underestimate
the magnitude of

this moment.

The problems are not
that intractable

we have huge common
interest here

and we have resolved problems
much greater than this.

In my life, I've
seen miracles happen

I've seen Germany unite,
the Soviet Union collapse,

the war in Vietnam

now embraces American tourism.

I've seen Catholics and
Protestants in Northern Ireland

who swore never, never, never,

and denounced each other
as terrorists, shake hands

and form a united government.

I've seen a man walk out of a
prison cell that held him for

28 years to become the majority
leader of South Africa.

Don't tell me that
miracles can't happen

don't tell me that any of
these challenges are too big

or too intractable
that we have to

use military force
to resolve them

I think that the US and Iran are

destined to become
partners once again.

We have the power to
make the world we seek

but only if we have the courage
to make a new beginning

keeping in mind what
has been written

the Holy Qur’an tells us

Oh man kind, we have created
you male and a female

and we have made you
into nations and tribes

so that you make
know one another

The Talmud tells us:

"The whole of the Tūrān is for
the purpose of promoting peace."

The Holy Bible tells us:

"Blessed are the peacemakers

for they shall be
called sons of God."

[applause]

The people of the world can
live together in peace

we know that is Gods vision

now that must be our
work here on earth.

Thank you and may Gods
peace be upon you.

[applause]

I do believe that when democracy

finally returns in it's
full form to Iran,

Mohammad Mosaddegh will
be revered as a hero,

you will see his
picture once again

on every banner in every office

on every street corner

and he will be
understood officially

as he is now understood
privately: as the great hero

of 20th century Iran.

"If I sit silently,
I have sinned."

[music]