The Syria Obsession

“As you know, Archie, we’re much concerned about what’s going on in Syria – especially the way the Communists and the nationalists appear to be ganging up for some kind of action there...I’d like you to fly out to Damascus right away, talk to our ambassador, and see…what can be done about it.”

-        Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to Archie Roosevelt

It has been sixty years; not much has changed.

America's Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East, by Hugh Wilford.

With this charge, Archie, accompanied by the CIA’s “Mr. Middle East,” Kim Roosevelt, arrived in Beirut.  The cousins were to begin a three-week tour of the region to size up the possibility of covert action in Syria and to mobilize Arab opposition to Nasser (perhaps the first “next Hitler” in the long list of the many since).  Nasser was seen as the root of the new Arab nationalism problem, his nationalization of the Suez Canal being perhaps the biggest concern.

As was – and will always be – the case, supporters in opposition to the standing government could often be found.  What was proposed by the opposition was a coup.  Archie was unfazed, a strange reaction given that Archie was a strong Arabist, previously supportive of Arab nationalism and even a supporter of Nasser in Egypt. 

Wilford focusses on the issues of the Cold War in turning Archie and other Arabists against their previously-held views – but this seems unsupportable; even in later years when writing his memoirs, Archie recognized that the goals of Arab nationalists and communists were diametrically opposed.  Yet, this is ultimately the reason that Wilford identifies as the cause of Archie’s switch.

Things didn’t go as well in Syria for the Americans as it had in Iran a few years earlier.  The reasons are familiar: Arab resistance, British duplicity, and the inherent contradictions in America’s policy.  A critical factor sixty years ago was the position of the Saudis – not in support of the American plan.

The Saudis were threatened: America is prepared to meet its energy needs with nuclear power, and also to provide nuclear energy to all of Europe; your oil will no longer be needed (a familiar play today regarding America’s promises of natural gas to Europe in the face of Russia).  The Saudi king replied with a handwritten note the next day: I don’t believe you.  He knew that it was a bluff, and the Americans were caught bluffing.

In the midst of all of this, the British, French and Israelis went after Egypt and the Suez, with Eisenhower forcing them to stand down.  Several reasons are offered, perhaps most convincing is that the Americans were left out of the planning and execution – this all occurred in a manner hidden from the Americans.

This American rebuke brought down Anthony Eden as Prime Minister and raised, once again, the profile of America in the Arab world.  The feeling did not last long.  Eisenhower quickly swallowed his anger with the British, and once again the Americans and the British were working together for empire.

As a play against Nasser, Jordan and Lebanon would have to be co-opted in addition to the hoped-for action against Syria.  The story takes an interesting detour – and one that will sound familiar to more recent events.  A coup in Jordan, taken by elements opposed to the young King Hussein – at least that is the official story.

The story remains controversial, yet it appears that the “coup” attempt was, in fact, staged by Hussein himself, perhaps with American help.  The king played the hero against the supposed plotters; the supposed ring leader was offered rather lenient treatment; Hussein went from being a “playboy” to being a serious Arab leader in the eyes of the west – now receiving tens of millions of dollars in aid.

Western-friendly political candidates in Lebanon were funded with briefcases full of cash, in an effort to secure election victory.  With western-favored politicians in place in Lebanon, and Hussein’s position secured in Jordan, Americans could once again focus on Syria.

It was apparent to the Americans that there was no indigenous opposition in Syria – the Americans would have to manufacture the opposition.  For this, they had to reach down to junior army officers; unfortunately for the Americans, the one they found turned out to be a Syrian government informer.

The Syrians spoiled the American plans: they surrounded the American embassy with thirty police officers, ordered the expulsion of Americans directly behind the plot.  Worse, friendly Arab elements throughout the region were turning cold regarding American designs on the country, with one exception: Turkey.

But bringing Turkey into the Syrian situation could very well provoke a Soviet response.  Dulles was willing to take the chance.  Eventually, cooler heads prevailed – something lacking in today’s replay of these events, it seems.

Conclusion

This post is my final post in review of Wilford’s book.  I very much appreciated the many details of events, but I cannot help but consider a few gaping holes in his analysis – left unsaid or barely mentioned:

First, Eisenhower: We all know of his warning regarding the military-industrial complex.  In reading this history, one cannot help but conclude that Eisenhower was a hypocrite.  I recognize that comments after the fact can be self-serving, but I offer the following:

The Eisenhower administration’s “adventurist policy” was “intolerable…You can’t go around overthrowing any gov[ernmen]t.”  Allen Dulles “sympathized,” Kim [Roosevelt] recalled, “but said there was nothing he could do about it.”

The CIA went from an intelligence gathering organization to one directly involved in covert operations; this is Eisenhower’s legacy.

Second, Saudi Arabia: a more drastic change cannot be suggested in regarding the Saudi view toward their Arab brothers in this Great Game.  Whereas sixty years ago the Saudis were strongly concerned about their standing with Arabs in the Middle East, no such concern is evident today.

Third, Israel: Barely addressed by Wilford is the dramatic shift in American policy in the region – from sympathy for the Arabs to reverence for the state of Israel.

Fourth: Nothing has changed – change a few dates and names and this is the same story that has been witnessed and repeated even in the last ten years.

The Coup

America's Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East, by Hugh Wilford.

For a century and a half before [Archie Roosevelt’s] arrival there, Iran had been a playing field in the Great Game.  Its location, adjoining Afghanistan (the classic arena of Anglo-Russian rivalry), British India, and Russia itself, ensured this.

During World War II, a truce in the Great Game was declared between the British and Soviet Allies; in order to secure Iran for its oil fields and as a supply route for Lend-Lease supplies, the Allies deposed the shah, Reza Shah Pahlavi (later to be replaced by his son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi).

Post-war, the Great Game returned, with concerns that Stalin would not easily leave the Persian land; Azerbaijan established a new communist government, the Kurds were also after their own independent nation-state. 

After the war, when the date for Allied troops to depart Iran came and went, the Soviets remained (they withdrew a few weeks later).  This was at the same time as Churchill’s famous “Iron Curtain” speech; the Cold War was in full swing.

August 1953

Kim Roosevelt led a coup, deposing Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and securing the throne once again for the young shah.  This, on top of being a plaything of the west for almost two centuries, ultimately led to the overthrow of the shah and the taking of the US embassy in 1979.  But, I am getting ahead of the story.

Despite western views to the contrary, Mosaddeq was no fan of the communist Soviets; at the same time he was no fan of Anglo control of Iranian oil.  In other words, Mosaddeq merely wanted to expel all great power control over Iran. 

Unlike in Saudi Arabia, where the oil revenues were split 50-50 between the British and the Saudis, in Iran no oil revenue was shared.  Shortly after the shah appointed Mosaddeq as prime minister, he seized the British-controlled oil fields.  From this, the idea of a coup was born in London; the US didn’t take much convincing.

Project TP-AJAX (TP, code for Iran; AJAX…apparently the household cleanser) was born.  Churchill signed off on July 1; Eisenhower on July 11.  On July 19, with CIA and MI6 agents fomenting agitation in Tehran, Kim Roosevelt was able to slip into the country from Iraq.

The plan was to force a constitutional crisis, pitting the shah against the prime minister.  Pressure was applied to the shah, to get him to sign an order replacing Mosaddeq.  He would not do so initially.  Pressure was then put on the shah’s strong willed sister – eventually even by General H. Norman Schwartzkopf (yes, his father).

The shah signed the order on August 13, and then retreated to a royal resort on the Caspian Sea; the coup was planned for the 15^th.

Things didn’t go as planned.  Mosaddeq arrested the officers who were to arrest him.  Washington ordered the evacuation of all AJAX operatives.  These orders were slow to reach Kim; it seems the British didn’t pass the orders along in a timely manner.

Kim pushed on, threatening to have his Iranian collaborators killed if they didn’t continue with their anti-Mosaddeq activities.  By August 19 the tide turned, with crowds in Tehran chanting and carrying signs of the shah.  The shah, by now having retreated to Rome, returned on August 22 – at the same time that Mosaddeq was arrested.

Kim Roosevelt was triumphant.

Conclusion

With the CIA’s assistance, the shah established an authoritarian regime.  Lacking any democratic outlets, those opposed to the shah acted in 1979:

The Iranian Revolution) refers to events involving the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was supported by the United States…

Holding 52 American diplomats hostage for 444 days played a role in helping to pass the constitution, suppressing moderates, and otherwise radicalising the revolution.

America and Zion

America's Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East, by Hugh Wilford.

Americans had ventured into the Arab world for many decades prior to the end of World War Two.  Much of this time, the interaction was driven by private means: missionaries, universities, archeologists, charitable organizations.  For those Americans exposed to this world, the overwhelming description that could be applied would be to label these as Arabists: understanding and appreciating both the Arab people and the Arab culture.

This was even true in the early years of official US government intervention in the region.  In many ways, it couldn’t be otherwise: the early “official” Americans – for example, the cousins Kim and Archie Roosevelt – were introduced into this Arab world by the Americans who were already there, those already sympathetic to the Arab people: the missionaries, university presidents archeologists, and leaders of charitable organizations.

So what changed?  This is to be explored next by Wilford.

The excuse began with communism.  President Truman formally announced the beginning of the Cold War in March 1947, announcing that the United States would provide aid to those countries threatened by communism.  With this came the Marshall plan, the establishment of a permanent civilian intelligence agency, and the National Security Act.  But the story begins earlier.

What about Palestine, Arabs, Jews and Zionists?  Historically the US stayed out of this issue, leaving it to Britain and their 1922 League of Nations mandate.  During this mandatory period: Jewish immigration, Arab revolts, Jewish terrorist acts…the tension was ever-increasing and the British appetite for continuing on – not to mention their financial wherewithal – was waning.

In the meantime, Zionists in America – supported by a faction of Christians who saw the creation of the state of Israel as bringing the world one step closer to their desired Armageddon – were making headway.  Newspaper advertisements, Jewish survivors from Europe, lobbying congress: a focused effort to gain support from the US government to the Zionist cause.

The Roosevelt administration was reluctant to support the Zionist cause.  This reluctance was based on the view of the Middle East experts in the State Department – they were primarily Arabists at the time; the entirety of American experience in the Middle East until this time was in support of and sympathetic to the Arabs.  Support for a Jewish state would turn the Arabs away from America, toward the communists. 

Further, many of the Jews that were lobbying for a Jewish state were socialists themselves – imagine…the US government supporting Zionist socialists in order to turn the Arabs into socialists in league with the Soviets! 

To say nothing of the oil: as one State Department analyst described the Saudi oil fields, “the greatest single prize in all of history.”  Lend-Lease dollars were flowing into Saudi Arabia after FDR declared the country of vital strategic importance in 1943.  And the king of this vitally strategic country had a strong opinion on the topic at hand:

…Ibn Saud was implacably opposed to Zionism and deeply suspicious of American intentions in Palestine.

The Saudis were secretly approached with development money to support the Jewish cause; he rejected the proposal “angrily, as an attempted bribe.”  (My, how times have changed.)

America in the Middle East

America's Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East, by Hugh Wilford

Wilford continues the story with the Americans moving into Cairo; there was a need to coordinate Lend-Lease activities in the region.  It turns out that Lend-Lease was useful for purposes other than sending Jeeps to Europe.  From the time of his transfer from the State Department to the OSS in April 1944…

…Kim [Roosevelt] was a key player in Project SOPHIA, a secret program for spreading OSS officers throughout the region under cover of [Lend-Lease.]

Bill Donovan had been looking into setting up a Cairo office for the OSS as early as 1942; the office was established in May 1943.  With this now in place, the office would be charged with collecting intelligence, spreading propaganda, and conduct a massive campaign of political warfare.

The Americans were blessed with a unique asset – the tremendous goodwill developed and earned by American Missionaries and educators in the decades prior.  While the British and French were looked at with suspicion and even despised for their colonial attitudes in the region, the Americans were seen, rightly until this point, as benevolent.  This goodwill was the currency that the Americans would exploit to gain their advantage. 

Stephen Penrose, Jr. was the first American assigned to the Cairo office.  He was the son of the president of Whitman College, a small college in Washington founded by New England missionaries.  He would spend time teaching at the American University of Beirut (AUB), where he would later return as president.

This background brought him connections in the Arab world; he brought in several former colleagues from AUB to staff the Cairo office – including David Dodge, the great-grandson of AUB founder Daniel Bliss.  Penrose leveraged his contacts on several missionary boards, obtaining street maps and other detailed information of the various cities and locales in the region. 

Kim Roosevelt would travel to Allied-occupied Iran, under cover of the Lend-Lease program.  He would meet with Joseph Upton, a Harvard-educated expert on Persian antiquities, apparently in Tehran overseeing the archeological work by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.  He was, in reality, an OSS field agent.

Another agent in Tehran was specialist in Persian language and history at Princeton University; a third majored in art and archeology at Princeton before pursuing a scholarly career.

By this time, Kim’s cousin Archie had returned to the Middle East, and they met upon Kim’s return to Cairo.  Tours of Palestine and Lebanon would follow, including meetings with Jewish leaders in Jerusalem.  But still, this was a time for Arabists, not Zionists, in the United States government.

When Kim departed and with the war over, he wrote in his final report that the entire US effort in the Middle East was a waste of time and money.  Archie remained in the region, now in Iraq.  Despite being married, Archie found the happiest moments of his life when assigned to the Middle East. 

The end of the war brought on the Cold War and the continuation of the Great Game – with Britain hanging on but with visible signs of the transition to America in taking the lead Anglo role.  Communists were to be found in every corner; the Soviets were assumed to be behind every antagonistic action aimed at the colonialist British.

Archie was in an interesting spot – several years earlier he had learned that communists were involved in running the American Youth Congress (AYC), a national youth group prominently supported by his cousin, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.  He would publicly criticize her for this role.

Conclusion

At the end of the war, Archie returned home for a short time; to his wife’s disappointment, he quickly took an assignment to Iran.

Iran – long a plaything in the Great Game between Great Britain and Russia; soon to be the plaything of the United States and the Soviet Union.  And soon to be home for the first – and perhaps most well-known – major CIA intervention in the region.

America’s Great Game

I meant to make a new nation…

-        T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922)

I had formed a beautiful and gracious image and I saw it melting before my eyes….I did not think I could bear to see the evaporation of the dream which had guided me.

-        Gertrude Bell to King Faisal of Iraq (1922)

It was in this world made of failed British utopians such as Lawrence and Bell, those who were doing the work of the imperialists, into which America entered.

America's Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East, by Hugh Wilford

This is a story of the early American Arabists, those who made the first moves into the region that was dominated by British and French colonialists, beginning, for the most part, during World War Two.  (Yes, they were initially “Arabists,” not Zionists.)

We are introduced to several characters: Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt Jr., Chief of CIA covert operations in the Middle East and grandson of Teddy; Archibald B. Roosevelt, Jr., CIA officer and also grandson of Teddy and Kim’s cousin; Miles Copeland, a friend of the cousins; a long list of American anti-Zionists; numerous Arab, Jewish, and British leaders.

When Wilford began the research for this book, he was surprised by two things: first, such a book – a comprehensive look at America’s covert actions in the Middle East – had not previously been written; second, the first Americans on the scene were favorably disposed to the Arabs and Muslims. 

We will see how comprehensive a work Wilford has achieved in the coming weeks; as to the second point, I will note a curious similarity to the British position – not in London but for those on the ground, and certainly true in Palestine: overall, the British on the ground were favorably disposed, relatively, to the Arabs.

Wilford notes the domestic Arabist, anti-Zionist citizen network covertly funded by Kim Roosevelt; the large body of published memoirs of CIA Arabists.  The stories behind these will be interesting.

So, what changed?  What happened to turn this pro-Arab, pro-Muslim view into precisely the opposite?  It is a question Wilford recognizes that he must address.  For now, he summarizes: fears of Arab nationalistic leaders and communism; western access to Middle East oil; growing support in the US for Israel (for which he mentions the “so-called Israel lobby”).

Wilford begins the story with Kim Roosevelt, who, eventually, entered Iran in July 1953 under a false name to carry out the very well-known coup that toppled Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq.  But the story doesn’t begin here; it begins with Kim’s childhood: born in Buenos Aires in 1916; the exotic adventures of his grandfather Teddy; his youthful stories of his wholly imagined childhood in India; his own trips with his father, Kermit, Sr.; his friendship with Lawrence of Arabia.

Kim’s education at the Groton School for Boys and then Harvard – and it is interesting to find how important these institutions (along with Princeton) were to providing the individuals necessary to the mission of covert operations. 

Groton’s motto – “Cui servire est regnare,” or “For whom to serve is to rule” – should give some idea of the culture and ideas driven into its students daily.  From its first 1000 graduates came nine ambassadors, three senators, two governors, two secretaries of state, and one president (FDR).

After Groton and Harvard, Kim spent time on the faculty of the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena.  He was getting the itch, however, and was interested in going to work for Colonel William “Wild Bill” Donovan, who was in the process of creating a unified strategic intelligence service.  In August 1941 – four months before Pearl Harbor – Kim joined Donovan.

Cousin Archibald also had youthful exotic experiences; he also attended Groton and Harvard; he was then offered a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, but turned this down as he intended to marry – all scholarship recipients must remain single.  He also entered the world of the colonialists, more directly, in 1942, when he found himself on a ship to capture a beachhead near Casablanca under General George S. Patton.

This “beachhead” was a part of Operation TORCH, a joint British – US invasion of North Africa.  The Soviets had been pressuring the Allies to establish a second front against the Germans.  The US military leadership was against the idea, but FDR directed them to proceed.  D-Day was set for November 8, 1942.

After he landed and a cease-fire was called, one Moroccan in particular sought Archie out: Mehdi Ben Barka.  Archie learned much of French colonialism during their time together; he didn’t like what he learned. 

Ben Barka was an interesting character: the first Moroccan Muslim to earn a degree in mathematics from an official French school; against colonialism; a revolutionary in the spirit of various revolutionary movements throughout the third world.  In 1962 he was accused of plotting to kill Moroccan King Hassan II; for this he was exiled in 1963.

Ben Barka was then “disappeared” in Paris in 1965.  The details behind this remain guarded.  For example:

Owing to requests made through the Freedom of Information Act, the United States government acknowledged in 1976 that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) possessed 1,800 documents involving Ben Barka; however, the documents were not released.

Wilford offers many examples of the treatment of the Muslims at the hands of the French – each one only increasing Archie’s disillusionment regarding America’s policy of collaborating with the French.  On the occasion of a riot in which French soldiers at best stood by (and, at worst, contributed), Archie witnessed twenty Arabs massacred.  Upon delivering a scathing report to his superiors regarding the French inactions (or actions), Archie was recalled to the United States.

The Arab world that Kim and Archie were entering was favorably disposed to Americans.  Perhaps primarily this was because they despised the French and weren’t terribly fond of the British; also because the experience with Americans prior to the covert activities of what was to become the CIA, most American involvement in the region was deemed to be beneficial: universities, hospitals, missionaries, Wilson’s Fourteen Points.

Archie saw the opportunity in North Africa for America to establish itself “as the great unselfish friend of the Moslems.”  Well, we know today that things didn’t turn out this way.

Conclusion

The earliest Americans on the scene grew up with fascinating tales and experiences of the exotic.  This was certainly true for the Roosevelt cousins, and it was true for many of the earliest agents and friendlies: the children of early twentieth century missionaries and university administrators, archeologists, businessmen – all who were born and raised in the region. 

Men such as these were to become instrumental in helping to develop contacts and otherwise gather intelligence while using the cover of their “official” positions.

In any case, this is to come.  And in this, the cousins would be instrumental.