The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War—A Tragedy in Three Acts

by Scott Anderson

Relations between Mossadegh and Tudeh, the Iranian communist party, had never been good, with Tudeh having once accused Mossadegh of being “an agent of American imperialism.” That was before they had thrown their support to him during the oil nationalization showdown. Since the American government regarded Tudeh as little more than a Soviet fifth column, the British reasoned that perhaps a more effective strategy for getting Washington on board the anti-Mossadegh train was to suggest the Iranian leader was falling under Tudeh’s sway. If that seemed a bit farfetched—Mossadegh had long since gone on record as an anti-communist—the British put forward the notion that Tudeh would take the country into the Soviet bloc once Iran’s economy ran aground and Mossadegh lost power. While these arguments had induced little more than yawns from the Truman administration, they worked wonders on its replacement.