US let the Queen sail into Iranian coup
Papers kept secret until now have revealed how a diplomatic blunder by the Americans led to the Queen playing an unwitting role in the coup that overthrew the government of Iran in 1953.
Her name was used to persuade the shah not to flee the country as Britain and America plotted to depose Mohammad Mossadeq, the prime minister, and replace him with the shah. But the Queen had nothing to do with the plot, which has soured British relations with Iran ever since.
A Channel 4 documentary has found that her name was used only because the Americans did not know the difference between Queen Elizabeth, the 26-year-old monarch who had been on the throne for only a year, and the RMS Queen Elizabeth, the ocean liner operated by Cunard Line that Anthony Eden, the foreign secretary, was travelling on at the time.
Within hours of persuading the shah to stay put, American diplomats realised their error. They failed to tell the British, however.
Richard Aldrich, one of the two historians who discovered the key documents, said that it was only now that the British government – and Buckingham Palace – had learnt how the Queen’s name was misused. Professor Aldrich, who found the damning telegram in the national archives in Washington, said: ‘‘In 40 years as a historian this is the most astonishing collection of documents I have ever seen.’’
In 1953 Britain and America were scheming to depose Mossadeq and install
Mohammad Reza, who had been shah since his father was forced out in 1941. The shah, however, was getting jittery. Britain, keen to preserve its oil interests, and America were desperate to convince him to stay.
Eden, who was travelling on the Queen Elizabeth, sent a telegram to the Americans in February 1953, urging them to put pressure on the shah.
A US telegram on February 27 to their ambassador in Tehran, Loy Henderson, who was also representing British interests, said: ‘‘Foreign Office this afternoon informed us of receipt message from Eden from Queen Elizabeth expressing concern at latest developments re Shah and strong hope we can find some means of dissuading him from leaving country.’’
Henderson rushed off for a meeting with the shah’s entourage, while the leader was preparing to flee. He described in a telegram how he told the shah’s senior minister that ‘‘in the interest of the country’’ he should remain.
‘‘I also asked him to tell Shah that I had just received message indicating that [a] very important personage for whom Shah had most friendly feelings had also expressed sincere hope that Shah could be dissuaded from leaving country,’’ he said.
Professor Aldrich, professor of international security at Warwick University, who worked on the programme with Rory Cormac, professor of international relations at Nottingham University, said there was no doubt that the shah would have taken that to refer to the Queen. He had met her as Princess Elizabeth when he stayed at Buckingham Palace in 1948.
‘‘This is critical because you can’t have a coup putting the shah into power if the shah has done a runner,’’ Professor Aldrich said. ‘‘In our view, if the shah had done a runner this coup probably would not have happened.’’
The next day the Americans realised that they had bungled. A US State Department telegram said: ‘‘Queen Elizabeth refers, of course to vessel and not (rpt not) monarch.’’
Another telegram was sent to John Foster Dulles, secretary of state under President Dwight Eisenhower, saying that they ‘‘deeply regret’’ the lack of clarity in the message to Henderson and the possibility that the Queen could be ‘‘injuriously identified’’.
It said: ‘‘In view of Henderson’s guarded references to person involved, embassy does not propose [to] inform British of incident unless Department [of State] or embassy [in] Tehran deems it desirable.’’
Mossadeq was overthrown in August 1953 and sentenced to three years in solitary confinement.
He remained under house arrest and died in 1967. –
‘‘This is critical because you can’t have a coup putting the shah into power if the shah has done a runner .... In our view, if the shah had done a runner this coup probably would not have happened.’’