Chalmers M. Roberts PO- 1 / 2-9 /7 2.--' Helms, the Shah and the CIA

THERE IS A CERTAIN Irony In the fact that Richard Helms will go to as the American ambassador 20 years after the agency he now heads organ- ized and directed the overthrow of the regime then in power in Teheran. The tale -is worth recounting If only be- cause of the changes in two decades which have affected the Central Intel- ligence Agency as well as American foreign policy. Helms first went to work at the CIA in 1947 and he came up to his present ment business from his bed, national. post as director through what is gener- ized the British-owned Anglo-lranian ally called the "department of dirty Oil Co. and seized the Abadan refin- tricks." However, there is nothing on ery. The West boycotted Iranian oil the public record to show that he per- and the country was thrown into crisis. sonally had a hand in the overthrow of Mossadegh "connived," as Wise and the Communist backed and/or ori- Ross put it, with Tudeb, Iran's Com- ented regime of Premier Mohammed munist party, to bolster his hand. The Mossadegh in 1953, an action that re- British and Americans decided he had turned the Shah to his throne. One can to go and picked Gen. Fazollah Zahedi only guess at the wry smile that must to replace him. The man who stage- have come to the Shah's face when he managed the job on the spot was Ker- first heard that President Nixon was mit "Kim" Roosevelt (who also had a proposing to send the CIA's top man hand in some fancy goings-on in to be the American envoy. Egypt), grandson of T.R. and seventh The Iranian affair, and a similar cousin of F.D.R., and now a Washing- CIA action in the following tonian in private business. year, are looked upon by old hands at Roosevelt managed to get to Teheran ilellillanill.11111.11111111111111111•11111110 and set up underground headquarters. A chief aide was Brig. Gen. IL Norman Schwarzkopf, who, as head of the New Jersey state police, had become famous during the Lindbergh baby kidnaping case. Schwarzkopf had reorganized the Shah's police force and he and Roose- velt joined In the 1953 operation. The Shah dismissed Mossadegh and named Zaheldi as Premier but Mossadegh ar- rested the officer who brought the bad news. The Teheran streets filled with rioters and a scared Shah fled first to Baghdad and then to Rome. Dulles flew to Rome to confer with him. Roo- sevelt ordered the Shah's backers into the streets, the leftists were arrested by the army and the Shah returned in triumph. Mossadegh went to jail. In time a new international oil consor- tium took over Anglo-Iranian which 1953: Tehran rioting that over- operates to this day,though the Shah threw the government left the Unit- ed States Point Four office with gaping holes for windows and doors. the agency as high points of a sort in the Cold War years. and Thomas B. Ross have told the Iranian story in their book, "The Invisible Gov- ernment," and the CIA boss at the time, Allen Dulles, conceded in public after he left the government that the United States had had a hand in what occurred. IRAN IS NEXT DOOR to the Soviet Union. In 1951 Mossadegh, who con- fused Westerners with his habits of weeping in public and running govern- very different and must ne taken into has squeezed more and more revenue account in any judgment. Moscow from the Westerners. then was fishing in a great many In his 1963 book, "The Craft of Intel- troubled waters and among them was ligence," published after he left CIA, Iran. It was probably true, as Allen Dulles wrote that, when in both Iran Dulles said on that 1965 TV show, that and Guatemala it "became clear" that "at no time has the CIA engaged in a Communist state was in the making, any political activity or any intelli- "support from outside was given to gence that was not approved at the loyal anti-Communist elements." In a highest level." It was all part of a 1965 NBC television documentary on deadly "game of nations." Richard Bis- "The Science of Spying" Dulles said: sell, who ran the U-2 program and the "The government of Mossadegh, if you Bay of Pigs, was asked on that TV recall history, was overthrown by the show about the morality of CIA activi- action of the Shah. Now, that we en- ties. "I think," he replied, that "the couraged the Shah to take that action morality of . . . shall we call it for I will not deny." Miles Copeland, an short, cold war .. . is so infinitely eas- ex-CIA operative in the Middle East, ier than the morality of almost any wrote in his book, "The Game of kind of hot war that I never encoun- Nations," that the Iranian derring-do tered this as a serious problem," was called "Operation Ajax." He cred- ited Roosevelt with "almost single- PERHAPS the philosophy of the handedly" calling the "pro-Shah forces Cold War years and the CIA role were on to the streets of Teheran" and su- best put by Dulles in a letter that he pervising "their riots so as to oust" wrote me in 1961. Excerpts from his Mossadegh. then forthcoming book bad appeared in Harper's and I bad suggested to him TODAY Hit, IRAN to which Helms some further revelations he might in- will go after he leaves the CIA is a sta- clude in the book. He wrote about ad- ble, well armed and well oil-financed ditions he was making: This includes regime under the Shah's command more on Iran and Guatemala and the which has mended its fences with Mos- problems of policy in action when cow without hurting its close relation- there begins to be evidence that a ship with Washington. The Shah has country is slipping and Communist taken full advantage of the changes in take-over is threatened. We can't wait East-West relations from the Cold War for an engraved invitation to come and to today's milder climate. give aid." While Iran and Guatemala were the There is a story, too, that Winston high points of covert CIA Cold War ac- Churchill was so pleased by the opera- tivity, there were plenty of other suc- tion in Iran that he proferred the cessful enterprises that fell short of George Cross to Kim Roosevelt. But changing government regimes. Today the CIA wouldn't let him accept the the CIA, humiliated by the 1981 Bay of decoration. So Churchill commented to Pigs fiasco it planned and ran, has Roosevelt: "I would be proud to have withdrawn from such large scale af- served under you" in such an opera- fairs as Iran, save for its continuing tion. That remark, Roosevelt Is said to major role in the no longer "secret have replied, was better than the deco- war in ." The climate of today ration. would not permit the United States to Helms doubtless would be the last to repeat the Iranian operation, or so one say so out loud but I can imagine his assumes with the reservation that reflecting that, if it hadn't been for President Nixon (who was Vice Presi- what Dulles, Kim Roosevelt and the dent at the time of Iran) loves sur- others did in 1953, he would not have prises. the chance to present his credentials The climate of 1953, however, was to a Shah still on the peacock throne In 1973.