All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

Throngs of admirers jammed the Tehran airport to cheer Mossadegh as he set out on his historic trip to New York. When he landed in Rome, his first stop, his plane was surrounded by news photographers while police officers struggled to control the crush of exuberant Iranian expatriates and other supporters who had waited half the day for a glimpse of him. The same frenzied scene was repeated at his next stop in Amsterdam.

New York, long accustomed to receiving world-famous figures, awaited Mossadegh with much curiosity. He was not just the “symbol of Iran's surging nationalism, ” as the New York Times called him, but a world leader with a great story to tell and a famously theatrical way of telling it. Everyone, with the possible exception of Britain's delegate to the United Nations, was eagerly awaiting his performance. “Whether Mossy is a phony or a genuine tear-jerker, ” warned the Daily News, “he better put everything he's got into his show if he goes on television here.”

Mossadegh stepped gingerly from his plane on the afternoon of October 8, 1951. His son and personal physician, Gholam-Hussein, helped him down the steps. He did not speak, but issued a written

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