Bill, James A. The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian
Relations. New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1988. 520 pages.
Iran has oil and it borders the former Soviet Union. These were two
excellent reasons for the interest that Britain and the U.S. had in Iranian
affairs since World War II. After the CIA-sponsored coup in 1953 that
installed the shah, American elites held his caviar and champagne in high
regard, not to mention their profits from arms sales. It was the job of
SAVAK, the secret police founded by the CIA and trained by Mossad, to keep
the rabble quiet. As late as September 28, 1978, several months before
one of the major revolutions of the twentieth century, the U.S. Defense
Intelligence Agency reported that the shah "is expected to remain actively
in power over the next ten years." (page 258)
Even after the revolution, private policymakers such as Kissinger and
Rockefeller apparently managed one last scam. The author explains how Chase
Manhattan Bank, which feared that the new Iranian government might withdraw
their funds and repudiate the shah's loans, had nothing to lose by lobbying
Washington for the admission of the shah into the U.S. This resulted in the
takeover of our embassy, the freezing of Iranian assets, and a declaration
of default by Chase that allowed them to seize those assets to offset the
loans. "In the end, the resolution of the crisis clearly benefitted the
American banking community." (page 344)
ISBN 0-300-04097-0
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