The establishment of the Iranian secret police, known as SAVAK, in the late 1950s, with assistance from the CIA, represents a particularly significant and indeed troubling chapter in U.S. foreign policy, bearing profound consequences that echoed for decades. This period saw the direct involvement of a senior CIA official in instructing SAVAK personnel, including on methods of torture.
To truly grasp the gravity of this development, it’s essential to understand the context of the early 1950s. In 1953, during President Eisenhower’s first year in office, the CIA executed its initial major political coup in Iran, codenamed “Operation Ajax”. This operation was designed to overthrow Iran’s then-Premier Mohammad Mosaddeq, who had nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, challenging British control over Iran’s oil production. The U.S. perceived Mosaddeq as moving into the Soviet sphere, and Eisenhower approved the covert action. CIA operatives successfully orchestrated a coup, restoring Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to power and securing Iranian oil reserves, much to the initial delight of U.S. officials who viewed it as a “quick, cheap, and easy solution”.
However, the long-term implications proved far from simple. For many Iranians, this American-sponsored coup was seen as a grave affront to their sovereignty. They harbored deep resentment towards the Shah, whom they increasingly regarded as an American puppet. It was in this environment, following his restoration to power with U.S. backing, that the Shah proceeded to set up SAVAK, the Iranian secret police, with direct help from the CIA. This brutal force was designed to squelch dissent and maintain the Shah’s autocratic rule.
Crucially, the CIA’s involvement extended beyond mere organizational setup. A former chief analyst on Iran for the CIA explicitly revealed in early 1979 that he and his colleagues were aware of the tortures inflicted upon Iranian dissenters by SAVAK. More disturbingly, this analyst informed a New York Times reporter that a senior CIA official was directly involved in instructing SAVAK officials on torture techniques. This explicit detail underscores the depth of American complicity in the repressive measures employed by the Shah’s regime.
The relationship, where the U.S. essentially supported the Shah in establishing a “western industrial culture” in Iran “with the help of the CIA”, inadvertently cultivated a potent anti-American sentiment among the Iranian populace. The oppression wielded by the American-trained and supported SAVAK festered for years, contributing to the deep-seated anger that would eventually erupt into revolution.
This simmering resentment boiled over dramatically in 1979, when the Shah was overthrown in a popular and massive revolution. The American-backed monarchy was replaced by a radical Shiite theocracy, whose initial and defining characteristic was its profound hatred of the United States, whom it famously branded “the Great Satan”. The magnitude of this anti-American feeling reached a peak on November 4, 1979, when student militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, holding fifty-two employees hostage for over a year, demanding the Shah’s return for punishment. This event clearly demonstrated how the very “events of the early 1950s created an enemy, not a friend” for the United States.
The historical record reveals that the CIA’s covert actions, including those in Iran, eventually came under significant scrutiny in the United States. Following the Watergate era and revelations of unsavory and sometimes illegal secret CIA operations, including clandestine actions and domestic surveillance, congressional committees in both the House and Senate launched investigations into the FBI and CIA in 1975. These widely publicized hearings, spearheaded by figures like Senator Frank Church, exposed “assassination plots, rogue covert operations in Latin America, and other shocking secrets”. By 1979, formal executive orders banned assassinations, and new laws and procedures were enacted to ensure presidential and congressional control over CIA covert actions. While these reforms aimed to address governmental abuses and public outrage, the specific, direct consequences of the CIA’s role in establishing and training SAVAK remain a stark illustration of how covert foreign policy, even when achieving immediate strategic aims, can foster profound long-term animosity and unintended geopolitical shifts.