Adventures in the Middle East: Excursions and Incursions

by Donald Newton Wilber

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Donald Newton Wilber (1907 - 1997), American writer and spy.

Wilber was a principal architect of the CIA project "Operation Ajax", a successful plot to overthrow the government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq. The plot replaced Iran's first democratically elected Prime Minister with General Fazlollah Zahedi; the government fell back into the hands of its disempowered Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who had supported the coup. He later ordered the deaths of thousands of Iranians through SAVAK, the Shah's tightly controlled secret police, in his following regime.

Wilber served as a United States intelligence officer with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and was an active participant in the power struggles of nations, especially during the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union in Iran after World War II.

In addition to orchestrating the coup in Iran to benefit oil barons in Britain and the United States, in his spare time, Wilber wrote histories, travelogues and commentaries on Iran, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. He was considered an authority on ancient Persia.