The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power

by Daniel Yergin

In the years following, there would be much argument about the real significance of the American-British operation. Did it cost less than one hundred thousand dollars, or was it priced in the millions? Did the two Western powers create the countercoup, or did they only lubricate it? Mossadegh’s time was certainly running out; his base of support had greatly narrowed, and he would fall either to the left or to the right. What the CIA and MI6 did was to play the facilitating role, providing the financial and logistical aid, emboldening the opposition and making the critical connections, during uncertain and fluid times. Operation Ajax succeeded because it accorded with increasing popular support for the Shah and the existing regime and growing disillusionment with Mossadegh, who was trying to change the regime into one in which he, rather than the Shah, held final power, and which might, ultimately, come under Soviet control. In the words of one of the operation’s planners, Operation Ajax created “a situation and an atmosphere in Tehran that forced the people to choose between an established institution, the monarchy, and the unknown future offered by Mossadeq.” Even so, success had been by no means certain. On his return to Washington, Kermit Roosevelt reported directly to Eisenhower, who, with admiration, noted in his diary that Operation Ajax “seemed more like a dime novel than an historical fact.”16