Interviews

Scroll over each image for a quote from a student-conducted interview.

Stephen Kinzer
Journalist, academic, and foreign correspondent.
Author of The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War.

"At its deepest roots, the Iranian coup is another manifestation…of our views that we have combined virtue with power in a unique way in human history. Therefore, imposing our power on other countries seems virtuous."

[NIA Council]

Fariba Amini
Journalist and human rights activist.
Daughter of Nosratollah Amini, personal lawyer of Mohammed Mossadeq and former mayor of Tehran.

"Americans were influenced into thinking that Mossadeq was pro-communist, when he abolished treaties between Iran and the Soviet Union, because he did not want any influence from anybody in Iranian affairs."

[Iranian]

Mark J. Gasiorowski
Chair of Dept. of Political Science at Tulane University.
Co-author of Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran.

"It was the first time the US government overthrew a foreign government and it was very influential within the CIA."

[Tulane University]

Malcolm Byrne
Deputy Director and Director of Research for National Security Archive. Co-author of Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran.

"Seen as an unalloyed success, it [the Coup] persuaded future presidents of the viability of these kinds of covert operations... Despite the spectacular failure of the Bay of Pigs in 1961...there doesn’t seem to have been much dimming of enthusiasm for going under the radar whenever it seems feasible."

[National Security Archive]

Ervand Abrahamian
Historian of Middle East at Baruch College, Iran Specialist.
Author of The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations.

Simin Frazer
Iranian aristocrat, alive during the coup.

"The American Embassy and the American State Department exaggerated the fear of, the danger of, and the strength of the Communists."

[Baruch College]

"It was a time of extreme stress for the entire country, and you can still feel the effects [of the coup] to this day."

[LinkedIn]

Dr. Moyara de Moraes Ruehsen
Middle East expert, associate Professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

"The British were very influential in bringing the United States into the coup... they had a variety of reasons for wanting our help in removing Mossadeq."

[Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey]

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