Michael Hayden Dodges 1953 Coup Question

CIA Director ‘Can’t Handle the Truth’ (AUDIO)


Arash Norouzi

The Mossadegh Project | December 4, 2007                    


Michael Hayden, CIA Director CIA Chief Michael V. Hayden didn’t seem too thrilled when a journalist asked him about the wisdom—or lack thereof—in the CIA’s overthrow of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953. At the close of his talk at a Council on Foreign Relations seminar in New York city, the first questioner asked if there were any lessons to be learned from the intervention.

Ducking the question, the former Air Force General cited an apparently well-worn phrase used by government officials in such circumstances, punctuated by a bit of sheepish chuckling.

Hayden followed with a canned answer about the CIA being an extension of the U.S. democratic system, which operates “within a framework of law”. Ah, but the CIA’s coup in Iran, as well as other foreign coups, assassinations, and meddling around the world, are and were completely illegal under international law. No wonder Michael Hayden can’t handle this simple question.





• Michael Hayden, CIA Director: Sept. 7, 2007



Q: I’m Lucy Komisar, I am a journalist. I wonder whether looking back a little bit in history, you think there are any lessons to learn from the fact that the CIA, having overthrown Mossadegh in Iraq, set the stage for the problems that we are facing now... — I’m sorry — in Iran, but of course it extends to Iraq.

MICHAEL HAYDEN: The refuge of all intelligence officers: ‘That sounds like a policy question’ (laughs). All I can tell you, all right, is that the Central Intelligence Agency, within a framework of law, carries out the foreign policy of the United States that is constructed by the people that we elect in both the executive and legislative branch.


ORIGINAL SIN: The 1953 Coup in Iran Clarified | by Arash Norouzi
ORIGINAL SIN: The 1953 Coup in Iran Clarified | by Arash Norouzi

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Related links:

CIA Director John Brennan’s Hacked Emails Admit 1953 Iran Coup

CIA’s Paul Pillar Warns An Attack on Iran Will Haunt U.S. For Generations

The CIA Scheme to Have the Shah ‘Dismiss’ Mossadegh — August 16, 1953



MOSSADEGH t-shirts — “If I sit silently, I have sinned”

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