The CIA's own files said the Shah took no orders | HE WAS NEVER THEIR PUPPET — Part 1

History Onion · Part 1 · 2:58

In September 1965 the American ambassador in Tehran cabled Washington that the Shah was deliberately shifting Iran's policy to shed his image as an "American stooge." Six months later the CIA concluded he had "broken his exclusive reliance on the United States." The project at the centre of it: a steel mill the West had refused for years — and Moscow agreed to build. Part 1 opens the case. The charge that Mohammad Reza Shah ruled Iran on Washington's orders drew its force from 1953. But the alliance that followed was not obedience — and the record that shows it is America's own. Sources (all quotations verbatim from the US government's own published record): • "American stooge" — Telegram from the Embassy in Iran (Ambassador Armin Meyer) to the Department of State, Tehran, 13 September 1965. Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1964–1968, vol. XXII, Iran, doc. 100: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v22/d100 • "bluntly and categorically put its foot down" — Meyer to the Department of State, 24 September 1965. FRUS 1964–1968, vol. XXII, doc. 102: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v22/d102 • "broken his exclusive reliance on the US" / "dragged its feet for many years" — Memorandum prepared in the Central Intelligence Agency, 30 March 1966. FRUS 1964–1968, vol. XXII, doc. 127: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v22/d127