August 17, 1953

Shah Flees Iran After Move to Dismiss Mossadegh Fails
By KENNETT LOVE

 TEHERAN, Iran, Aug. 16--Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlevi and his Queen fled to Baghdad, Iraq, today after an attempt to oust Premier Mohammed Mossadegh, either by a coup or by a formal dismissal, according to conflicting versions, had failed. Dr. Mossadegh appeared to be in complete control tonight, with the bulk of the Army apparently supporting him.

The attempt to remove the Premier was made at midnight. By dawn, Government forces had freed three arrested officials, including Foreign Minister Hossein Fatemi, and had in their turn arrested the Acting Court Minister, Abolghassem Amini, Colonel Nasiri, commander of the palace guard, and scores of other persons, including military officers.

The stroke and counterstroke were carried out without bloodshed. A tank column and troops moved into town to enforce Dr. Mossadegh's authority and maintain order. Control of the military has been a bitter issue between the Government and the Court for six months.

Late in the afternoon, as the pro-Government demonstrations converged for a rally scheduled at 5 o'clock in Parliament Square, word came that the Shah had gone. The effect of the departure, the threat of which caused a riotous attack at Dr. Mossadegh's home Feb. 28, will not become clear until the news has spread.

Fatemi said the Government had known of the plot to unseat Dr. Mossadegh for some time and thus had avoided being "surprised." The Tudeh newspapers had been predicting an attempted court coup against the Government since Wednesday.

A communique broadcast repeatedly by the Government radio was drafted at an emergency Cabinet meeting at 6 A.M.

The decision of the Army leaders to stand by the Government rather than the Shah was taken at an earlier meeting at the officers club, it was said. Many of the present Army chiefs, including the Chief of Staff, Taghi Riahi, are young men whom Dr. Mossadegh had promoted to replace recently retired senior officers.

The communique accused the Imperial Guards, a body of 700 picked volunteers, of attempting the coup under the leadership of Colonel Nasiri and with the backing of 3,000 men of the Mountain Brigade of the regular Army. The Mountain Brigade was said to be the only one of the five brigades in the Teheran area won over by the plotters.

Mossadegh the Master

The 72-year-old Premier clearly was master of the situation, at least for the time being, but the details of just what happened are confused. The Government-authorized story is that alert Army officers foiled a palace guard coup after the plotters had been betrayed by a Colonel Muntaz.

Maj. Gen. Fazollah Zahedi declared from a secret hideout today that he was the rightful Premier and that Government broadcasts that a coup had been attempted against the Government were utterly false. He charged that Dr. Mossadegh's Government in effect had pulled its own coup, by dodging service of a dismissal decree by arresting the messenger.

General Zahedi sent the statement asserting his claim to the Premiership by messenger to a hurriedly arranged rendezvous outside the city. The statement was accompanied by what purported to be the Imperial decree appointing him Premier. According to the statement the Shah issued two decrees on Thursday, one dismissing Dr. Mossadegh and the other appointing General Zahedi Premier.

The statement said the Shah had sent the two decrees to the general before departing with Queen Soraya for a week's vacation in Northern Iran, along with a request that he carry out the change in the Government.

The two decrees and a radio address reporting the change were brought to General Zahedi by Colonel Nasiri, the statement said. When Colonel Nasiri arrived with the decrees, General Zahedi told him to take the dismissal notice to Dr. Mossadegh and tell the Premier he could choose his own method of leaving office and seeking safety.

General Claims Legal Leadership

Colonel Nasiri, who arrested the Foreign Minister and two other top officials as a precautionary measure, was himself arrested by Dr. Mossadegh's household guards as he tried to deliver the decree of dismissal.

General Zahedi, who was constantly on the move from one hiding place to another, ended his statement by saying: "Anyway, at the present time I am the legal Prime Minister and any action Dr. Mossadegh takes in the name of the Government is against the law."

General Zahedi, 56, retired from the Army three years ago when he was elected to the now dissolved Senate. He was chief of police when Dr. Mossadegh's Nationalist coalition began its rise to power and he was Minister of the Interior in Dr. Mossadegh's Cabinet in 1951.

According to a completely reliable source, the Shah first became seriously worried about the conduct of the Mossadegh Government after the gigantic Tudeh (Communist) demonstration, held with Government approval in Parliament Square July 21. When the Premier began the plebiscite two weeks ago in which the Tudeh helped to swell the huge pro-Government vote favoring dissolution of the Majlis (Parliament), the Shah considered how to dismiss him.

The Foreign Minister, addressing the demonstrators tonight, addressed the absent Shah in these words:

"A traitor is afraid. The day when you, O traitor, heard by the voice of Teheran that your foreign plot had been defeated you made your way to the nearest country where Britain has an embassy."

Earlier in the day, Dr. Mossadegh decreed the dissolution of the Majlis. Soon after the decree was announced on the radio. The Teheran prosecutor arrested thirteen Opposition deputies who had taken asylum in the Parliament building.

Thus, at day's end, Dr. Mossadegh was alone with the Tudeh party in Iran's political arena. At the moment, however, the two are uneasy allies.

TEHERAN, Aug. 16 (AP)--United States Embassy officials got in touch today with all Americans working in Iran and warned them to stay in their residences. Normally, the Americans here work on Sundays and take off the Moslem Sabbath, Friday.

While anti-foreign sentiment in connection with the developments of the Mossadegh regime has been chiefly and most openly directed at Britain, considerable feeling against the United States has appeared concurrently and Premier Mossadegh has--in the popular view--put himself at odds with President Eisenhower.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 16 (Reuters)--Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlevi of Iran arrived here unexpectedly today in his private plane after Iran's Premier Mossadegh had crushed an attempted military coup by officers of the Shah's Imperial Guard. With the Shah were his Queen, Soraya, an aide and a pilot.

None had any luggage; piles of clothes belonging to the royal couple were strewn inside the twin-engined Beechcraft plane. The Shah had a diplomatic passport with an Iraqi visa dated last February; the others had no passports.

The Shah, 33, and his wife, 21, asked for permission to stay here for a few days before continuing to Europe. After high-level Government consultations, they were escorted to the White House, the Government's guest house.

The Shah's aide emphasized that he has not abdicated and did not intend to abdicate.

The Shah was smiling and seemingly unworried when he introduced himself to the amazed airport commandant.