Restoration of individual freedom and freedom of assembly.
He declared that he would rule until the Majlis
(Parliament) had resumed its legislative functions.
The troops and police that took part in the overthrow were
led by huge mobs shouting for the return of the Shah. They attacked key
Government establishments in the city, burned the office of the
pro-Government newspaper, Bakhtar-e-Emruz and of two Communist
newspapers, of several pro-Government party offices and shouted for the
death of Dr. Mossadegh. They also besieged the Foreign Ministry, Police
Headquarters and Army General Staff Headquarters.
Virtually all armed forces in the city, except a few units
defending Government buildings and Dr. Mossadegh's own household
guards, joined the mobs in the attacks.
The first rush of Royalist troops and civilians was beaten
off by heavy small-arms fire from the windows of the Police
Headquarters. Casualties among the attackers, who arrived in six Army
trucks, were reported to have been heavy there. Similar scenes were
repeated at the other vital Government centers.
Eight truckloads of soldiers and five tanks rumbling into
the city, presumably under command of officers loyal to the Government,
gave their equipment to the first mob they encountered. The tanks came
from the Abbas Abad garrison north of the city, a few miles from where
General Zahedi may have been hiding in the foothills of the Elburz
Mountains.
In the streets, the soldiers centered their attacks on
civilians wearing white shirts, considered a trademark of Tudeh
(Communist) party members.
Two thousand yelling partisans of the Shah demonstrated
before the Soviet Embassy in Churchill Avenue. They were accompanied by
a tank, but departed without attacking the Russians, who had slammed
shut the heavy iron gates. The Embassy occupies an eight-square-block
compound surrounded by a twelve-foot-high wall.
The street revolution began last night when police and
soldiers shouting "Long live the Shah" and "Death to Mossadegh" smashed
into pro-Government rioters. The rioters were Tudeh partisans and
Pan-Iranists, who had often fought each other though both at this time
were supporting Dr. Mossadegh. The troops beat the rioters
unmercifully, forcing them to repeat their slogans at bayonet point.
Troops' Action Was the Spark
After the last night's fighting, the soldiers
and police returned to their barracks only to join the pro-Shah crowds
this morning. Apparently the boldness of the troops in shouting for the
Shah last night had given courage to the populace. Except for one small
pro-Shah demonstration yesterday morning no voice previously had been
raised in his behalf.
Anti-Shah mobs on Monday battered, sawed and threw down
all the statues in the city of the Shah and of his late father, Riza
Shah.
A declaration signed by General Zahedi had been circulated
among army cadres ordering the troops not to obey the illegal Mossadegh
Government on pain of severe punishment. The declaration reproduced the
general's signed commands in his own hand.
Gen. Mohammed Daftari, who is a nephew of Dr. Mossadegh,
was reported at 1:30 P. M. to have taken over as chief of police in
Teheran and military governor of the area by appointment of General
Zahedi.
Immediately after capturing the telegraph office at 1:30
P. M. the rebels sent messages throughout Iran reporting the government
overturn. They then captured the offices of the Press and Propaganda
Department and marched on Radio Teheran which had been playing only
recorded music in place of its customary news broadcasts. It was taken
at 2:20 P. M.
Mossadegh's Furniture Sold
After Dr. Mossadegh's home finally had been
stormed, the victorious mob hauled his furniture into the street and
auctioned it to passers-by at low prices. A new electric refrigerator
was offered for 300 tomans (about $36).
Dr. Mossadegh's home had been fortified with machine-gun
nests on the roof and a high defensive wall outside his bedroom window.
Dr. Mossadegh's Cabinet was meeting at his home before the
attack and at least some of them escaped with him.
In the assault on the Mossadegh home, the attackers
captured Col. Ezatollah Mumtaz, who had betrayed the Royalists to Dr.
Mossadegh Saturday night. They literally tore him to pieces.
General Zahedi moved swiftly to nail down the victory
against counterblows. A curfew was imposed, beginning at 8 P. M., to
last until 5 A. M. All stores except grocery, butcher and bakery shops
were ordered to remain closed until further notice and assembly in the
streets was forbidden.
General Zahedi also released all political prisoners,
including at least thirty-one arrested by Dr. Mossadegh since the
attempt to remove him Saturday, and about twenty arrested in connection
with the kidnap murder in April of the national police chief, Mahmoud
Afshartous. Dr. Mossadegh had attempted to use the Afshartous affair to
discredit all opposition.
Fatemi Reported Killed
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 19--Broadcasts from Teheran indicated
today that the dead in the Iranian revolution included Foreign Minister
Hossein Fatemi, who was "torn to pieces" in the office of his newspaper
Bakhtar-e-Emruz.
It appeared from the broadcasts that the Shah's supporters
had established full control of the northern province of Azerbaijan, on
the borders of the Soviet Union. At 6 P. M., Baghdad time, a station
believed to be that of Azerbaijan, was picked up here, announcing in
Persian, Azerbaijani and Turkish.
"On this, the twenty-eighth day (of the current Persian
month) the heroic people of Teheran have been able to overthrow the
traitor Government of Mossadegh and uphold the Shah's rights--the Shah
who is the real protector of the country against any violation of
popular rights. We request all the people of Azerbaijan, Tabriz and
other centers, to support the movement."
Baghdad radio monitors said Radio Teheran went off the air
at 4:45 P. M. amid sounds of shots and a siren. The station was heard
again at 7:15 P. M., with supporters of General Zahedi in control.
Wage Rises Promised
General Zahedi himself was reported to have
broadcast from Teheran a promise to raise wages and living standards.
Late this afternoon only Radio Isfahan in South Central Iran still was
broadcasting statements of loyalty to Dr. Mossadegh.
Dr. Mossadegh was reported to have escaped, but there was
no indication here of his whereabouts. There was a possibility that he
might have left the capital for Isfahan and that he might take a plane
from there to a place of refuge outside Iran.
The Azerbaijan radio broadcast that the garrison there had
declared its loyalty to the Shah and had set up a committee to take
over administration of the province.
New Iran Premier Lifelong
Royalist
Maj. Gen. Fazollah Zahedi, leader in
yesterday's uprising in Iran against the Government of Premier Mohammed
Mossadegh, will have reached the peak of an impressive military and
political career if the pro-Shah forces consolidate their victory.
His ascendancy will probably be met with mixed feelings by
the Western world. The British would have little reason to greet with
jubilation his entrenchment in his office. He has a long record of
Anglophobia which, during World War II, contributed largely to his
arrest and internment by British forces.
While he was not directly responsible for the
nationalization of British oil interests in Iran, he was Minister of
the Interior in the Cabinet under which the nationalization took place.
Washington's attitude toward General Zahedi is not known.
He is a strong nationalist. As such he might not be particularly warm
toward any foreign interests and that would apply to the Americans, as
well as to the British and the Russians. Washington sources said
yesterday they had no record of any friendship on the part of the new
Premier with the Communists.
Always a Loyal Royalist
Through the general's entire career there is a
strong thread of loyalty to the monarchy, beginning with Mohammed Riza
Shah and continuing with that ruler's successor and son, the present
Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlevi.
General Zahedi was born in 1897. At the age of 23, as a
company commander, he led his command successfully against
Bolshevik-supported forces in the northern provinces. Two years later,
in 1922, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General.
In that year he was captured by Kudish outlaws, apparently
escaped and received a high award from the Shah. In the same year he
directed a military campaign against Sheikh Kazal.
In 1926 he was named by Riza Shah to be military governor
of Khuzistan, the province in which Abadan, hub of the nation's present
oil industry, is located. In 1932, he was appointed chief of police of
Teheran, one of the nation's top internal posts. He left this position
in 1941 to become commanding general of the Isfahan Division.
He was arrested in 1942 by British forces and placed in
internment in Palestine. The formal charge was that he dealt with the
Nazis. He returned home after the war and in 1946 appeared back in his
military role as divisional commander of Fars Province in Southern
Iran. He was retired from the Army in May, 1949, but in November he was
again named chief of police of Teheran.
He was appointed by the Shah as a Senator in February,
1950, a post he resigned in 1951 when he was made Minister of the
Interior.
While he is fervently nationalistic, little is known of
his political temper other than that of a moderate leaning toward
conservatism.
Known as a Ladies' Man
General Zahedi's home community is Resht, in
the northern part of the country, where he occupied himself as landlord
of his extensive properties.
General Zahedi has been married twice, but it is not known
here whether his second wife is living. By his first wife he had two
sons, one of whom, an air force officer, was killed in a crash. The
other had been employed until some months ago by the United States
Point Four Administration in Iran.
In his home country, these sources said, his reputation is
that of a boulevardier with a penchant for gambling and for beautiful
women, one of whom committed suicide just after the news of his exile
became public during the last war.
Mohammed Mossadegh
Of a wealthy family, Dr. Mossadegh is reputed
to be one of Iran's largest landowners, but he has consistently backed
liberal reforms. Although he served as a financial agent of the Crown
in Iranian provinces in his early years, he has been a consistent
critic of Iranian Governments of recent years.
Dr. Mossadegh is known as a deeply religious man. Despite
his wealth, he led a simple, almost ascetic life. He was highly
emotional. In Parliament and other public places he frequently broke
into tears and more than once punctuated political orations with
fainting spells.
He was educated in France, Belgium and Switzerland and is
the holder of a Doctor of Laws Degree from the University of Neuchatel,
in Switzerland. Dr. Mossadegh was married to Princess Zia Saltaneh in
1903 and they had five children.
Dr. Mossadegh's age is his own secret. In 1951 it was
given officially as 69 years, but people who knew him said then that he
was at least 74, possibly 76 years old.
Moscow Says U. S. Aided Shah's Coup
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
MOSCOW, Thursday, Aug. 20--Premier Mohammed Mossadegh's
overthrow came at a moment when Soviet policy was strongly oriented
toward rapprochement with Teheran and coincided with Soviet charges
that United States intrigues and finances had lain behind the earlier
stages of the Shah's coup.
There was little doubt, in view of Pravda's open charges
that the United States was implicated in the first stages of the coup,
that it would be linked by the Russians with the later stages.
Yesterday Pravda, in a lengthy commentary on Iran,
asserted that orders for the Shah's coup were brought to Iran by Brig.
Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, former New Jersey police official and
one-time trainer of the Iranian Gendarmerie.
The charges against the United States have had wide
dissemination in connection with a series of private and public
diplomatic moves designed to demonstrate the Soviet's desire to make
relations between Moscow and Teheran the model of "good
neighborliness."
A Soviet-Iranian mixed commission, which was set up in
Teheran to negotiate the settlement of outstanding territorial and
financial questions as well as other matters affecting relations
between the two nations, already has met twice in the Iranian capital.
Talks Widely Publicized
The Soviet press and radio have publicized
meetings of the mixed commission, which is termed the model of correct
relations between states. Simultaneously, through all propaganda media,
the United States has been pictured as actively intervening in Iranian
affairs and as the inspirer of the attempted coup by the Shah.
Pravda, in a special editorial today, signed "Observer,"
which was given the dominant position on the foreign news page, charged
that the plot was financed out of funds that Congress had appropriated
for what was called subversive work in other countries.
"This time the weapon of subversive activity was directed
against Iran, which did not wish to become the submissive slave of
American monopolies, said Pravda.
Pravda charged also that the United States had applied
economic pressure to Iran and cited President Eisenhower's letter of
June 29 refusing economic aid unless, according to the newspaper, Iran
"agreed to accept proposals of foreign monopolies on the oil question."
[In his letter to Premier Mossadegh, President Eisenhower
said: "The failure of Iran and the United Kingdom to reach an agreement
with regard to compensation has handicapped the Government of the
United States in its efforts to help Iran."]
When Iran refused, said Pravda, "American agents who
operated within Iran hatched new diversionary plans directed toward the
overthrow of the Government."
Foreign diplomats in Moscow, evaluating the current
evolution of Soviet-Iranian relations, believe Moscow's moves have not
been without result. They noted that the Soviet effort appeared to be
timed at the moment when Iranian relations with the United States
definitely were on the down grade and when the Iranians themselves were
making charges of the United States' connections with the Shah's plot.
Visit Stirred Interest in U. S.
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON, Aug. 19--There has been
considerable speculation here over General Schwarzkopf's recent visit
to Iran. He returned to the United States last week after a trip to
Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan and Iran.
State Department officials said the department had
arranged for General Schwarzkopf's visits to Lebanon, Syria and
Pakistan, but that he had made the Iranian visit on his own initiative
"to meet old friends" there.
Schwarzkopf Declines Comment
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
TRENTON, Aug. 19--General Schwarzkopf, reached by
telephone at his home in Maplewood, N. J., tonight, declined to comment
on Moscow reports linking him with the present turmoil in Iran.
His visit to Iran was purely a personal one, he explained,
adding:
"I went there to call on some friends whom I had struck up
an acquaintance with during the years I was in Iran reorganizing the
National Gendarmerie. I was not there this time in an official capacity
and I conducted no business there."
Asked to comment on the present Iranian political
situation, he explained that he preferred not to since he had been out
of touch "for too long a period." He reorganized the Gendarmerie
between 1942 and 1948 at the direction of the United States War
Department.