FILE HF-0017
Iran 1953
Tehran, Iran · August 1953
In August 1953, the CIA, working with British intelligence, organized and financed the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, who had nationalized the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The coup consolidated the rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for the following 26 years. The CIA publicly acknowledged its role for the first time in 2013, through declassified documents.