Operation Ajax: CIA Coup in Iran 1953

In August 1953, the CIA and British intelligence orchestrated the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. The operation—code-named Ajax—was the first successful U.S.-engineered coup of the Cold War, executed to protect Western oil interests and prevent perceived Soviet expansion. The result would shape the geopolitics of the Middle East for decades, replacing democracy with monarchy and sowing the seeds of revolution. This book traces Operation Ajax from planning rooms in Washington and London to the streets of Tehran, drawing on declassified intelligence reports, memoirs of operatives, and Iranian eyewitness testimony. It exposes the network of bribes, propaganda, and provocations that toppled Mossadegh's government and restored Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to absolute power. More than a story of spies and oil, this is a history of the moment when covert action became a cornerstone of American foreign policy. The coup that seemed a triumph of Cold War strategy ultimately became a cautionary tale—one whose reverberations continue to define U.S.–Iran relations to this day.