Iran
Iran is in the news every day, either on its own or through its proxy warriors of the Party of God, Hizballah. America’s frame of reference seems focused on the takeover of the American Embassy by radical students in 1979 and the yearlong hostage crisis that probably caused Jimmy Carter to leave the White House after only one term. But few Americans know that during World War II Iran was invaded and occupied by Britain and the Soviet Union – with blood spilled by both Iranian soldiers and civilians – and that subsequently America sent thirty-thousand troops to Iran for the duration of the war to ensure the supply of Lend Lease supplies through Iran to the Soviet Union.
Few know much about Fazlollah Zahedi, the man the British Secret Intelligence Service and the CIA picked to replace Muhammad Mossadeq after engineering a coup in 1953 to remove the popular prime minister from his post. Zahedi was seen as being far more supportive of the Shah of Iran and was not pushing for the nationalization of Western oil interests as Mossadeq had done. The irony is that in 1943 the British occupying forces in Iran had arrested Zahedi, even though he was the Iranian military governor of Ishfahan, after discovering evidence Zahedi had been helping German espionage agents avoid detection and arrest. Ten years later, Zahedi - the former supporter of fascism - became the face of the Western democracies in Iran.
These will be the subjects of my upcoming book, A Strange Murder in the Persian Corridor, but will be side stories to the central plot that will focus on another little know fact: the large number of African-American troops working in engineering and logistical support units of the Persian Gulf Command.
Don’t get me wrong, this will NOT be an anti-American book. I may point out a few blemishes on the portrait, but I still believe we were – and are – the good guys of the world. Nor will it abandon the tale of the OSS, even though the OSS was not supposed to be working in Iran during the war. Tom O’Brien is still the story, knocking heads with both the Germans and the Soviets, and getting his hand slapped again as his reward.
Few know much about Fazlollah Zahedi, the man the British Secret Intelligence Service and the CIA picked to replace Muhammad Mossadeq after engineering a coup in 1953 to remove the popular prime minister from his post. Zahedi was seen as being far more supportive of the Shah of Iran and was not pushing for the nationalization of Western oil interests as Mossadeq had done. The irony is that in 1943 the British occupying forces in Iran had arrested Zahedi, even though he was the Iranian military governor of Ishfahan, after discovering evidence Zahedi had been helping German espionage agents avoid detection and arrest. Ten years later, Zahedi - the former supporter of fascism - became the face of the Western democracies in Iran.
These will be the subjects of my upcoming book, A Strange Murder in the Persian Corridor, but will be side stories to the central plot that will focus on another little know fact: the large number of African-American troops working in engineering and logistical support units of the Persian Gulf Command.
Don’t get me wrong, this will NOT be an anti-American book. I may point out a few blemishes on the portrait, but I still believe we were – and are – the good guys of the world. Nor will it abandon the tale of the OSS, even though the OSS was not supposed to be working in Iran during the war. Tom O’Brien is still the story, knocking heads with both the Germans and the Soviets, and getting his hand slapped again as his reward.
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