Seventy years ago, the fate of Iran hung in the balance, when a US-UK coup to oust the elected prime minister appeared to have failed. The CIA was ready to pull the plug on the operation, but a 28-year-old British intelligence officer, monitoring events from a clandestine base in Cyprus, insisted on persevering.
The coup – which took place this week 70 years ago – ultimately succeeded, Mohammad Mosadegh, the leader who was popular in Iran for nationalising a British-run oil-field, was detained, and the Shah flew back to Tehran, strengthened.
Most intelligence work is collecting information. It is rare for a spy to change the course of history in the way this MI6 officer, Norman Darbyshire, did in 1953. British interests were restored in the short term but the shah went on to become a reviled dictator, paving the way for the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the state of enmity between Iran and the west that has endured ever since….
The joint CIA – MI-6 instigated coup in Iran that changed the Middle East, and the cover-up
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After the truth-shower 