Assadollah Rashidian

Assadollah Rashidian (Persian: اسدالله رشیدیان) was an Iranian businessman and anglophile who, along with his brothers, played a critical role in the 1953 overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh.[2] He was a principal covert agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and through him the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was able to convince the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, to endorse the operation (codenamed Operation Ajax).

Assadollah Rashidian
Member of Parliament of Iran
In office
22 February 1961 – 9 May 1961
ConstituencyTehran
Personal details
Born1919
Tehran, Iran[1]
Died1980 (aged 61)
London, United Kingdom[1]
Political partyNational Will Party (1943–1951)

Rashidian's main contributions to the operation were his encouragement of the Shah's sister, Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, to obtain her brother's approval of the plan, and acting as a liaison between the SIS/CIA team and the Shah once the operation was underway. On 13 October 1952 the government issued arrest warrants for Assadollah Rashidian, his brother, Abdol Hossein Hejazi, and others.[3] They were soon released.[4]

References
  1. Rahnema, Ali (24 November 2014). "Rashidiyan, Rashidian (1922–1980?)". Behind the 1953 Coup in Iran: Thugs, Turncoats, Soldiers, and Spooks. Cambridge University Press. p. 306. ISBN 978-1107076068.
  2. Stephen Kinzer (2003). All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. Wiley. pp. 151. ISBN 9780471265177.
  3. Mark J. Gasiorowski (August 1987). "The 1953 Coup D'etat in Iran". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 19 (3): 266. JSTOR 163655.
  4. D. Bayandor (3 March 2010). Iran and the CIA: The Fall of Mosaddeq Revisited. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 203. ISBN 978-0-230-27730-4.
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