US mistakenly told Iran’s shah Queen Elizabeth backed 1953 coup, cables show

Documentary reveals the US envoy to Iran mistakenly told the shah that Queen Elizabeth backed a plan to overthrow the country’s elected leader

US officials misunderstood a message from British foreign minister because they could not differentiate between the monarch and a ship bearing her name

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Iranians commemorate the 1979 Islamic revolution in Tehran in 2014. Photo: AP

Published: 12:42am, 13 Jun 2020Updated: 2:07am, 13 Jun 2020

The US ambassador to Iran mistakenly told the shah in 1953 that Britain’s newly enthroned Queen Elizabeth backed a plan to overthrow the country’s elected prime minister and America maintained the fiction even after realising the error, historians now say.

The revelation, based on US diplomatic cables cited by the historians, shows how America has struggled even to this day to offer a full, unvarnished account of its actions in the coup that cemented Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s power and lit the fuse for Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

“There’s an acceptance that you’re never going to have the whole story,” said Richard Aldrich, a professor at the University of Warwick whose research on the cables will be featured in a Channel 4 documentary in Britain on Sunday. “You’re on a journey to try and achieve a better history but you’re never going to have the complete story.”

The 1953 coup ended up successfully empowering the shah, even after he fled to Baghdad and onto Italy when it looked as though it would fail. He would rule until 1979, when he fled the country before the Islamic Revolution, secretly and fatally ill with cancer.

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Why can't Iran and the US get along?

The coup had roots in the nationalisation of Iran’s oil industry, which at that time was majority owned by Britain. Mohammad Mosaddegh, who supported nationalisation, then became Iran’s prime minister. Britain launched a blockade on the country and ultimately saw its Tehran embassy ordered closed.