OTHER COUNTRIES

Iran

Additional materials dealing with Iran are found in several subject specific files:

CIA/1950s/Iran/1953 (Operation Ajax)

General Postwar/1970s/Iran/1979 (Hostage Crisis)

CIA/1980s/Iran/Exfiltration

General Postwar/1980s/Hostage Rescue Mission

General Postwar/1980s/October Surprise; and

Covert Action/Middle East/Iran ("The Gingrich Plan")

 

Included here:

1. Historical

2. Iran Under the Shah

3. Iran Since the Shah

4. Nuclear Aspirations (2007 NIE)

1. Historical

Rubin, Michael. "The Telegraph, Espionage, and Cryptology in Nineteenth Century Iran." Cryptologia 25, no. 1 (Jan. 2001): 18-36.

"The telegraph transformed intelligence gathering in Iran. It was a potent tool in the hands of any party. Both the Shah and British strategists benefited from access to information, but at the same time vulnerability of messages transmitted across the wires increased."

 

2. Iran Under the Shah

Abrahamson, Everand. Iran Between Two Revolutions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982.

Dareini, Ali Akbar, ed.. The Rise and Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty: Memoirs of Former General Hussein Fardust. New Delhi: Motilal Babarsisass, 1999.

Peake, Studies 50.3 (Sep. 2006) and Intelligencer 15.2 (Fall/Winter 2006-2007), identifies Fardust as "a childhood friend" of the Shah and "one of the few non-family members Reza trusted throughout his life." He later headed "the Special Information Bureau, an organization akin to Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee.... At one point he was also deputy chief of the SAVAK ... and was responsible for its reorganization.... There are several chapters on Iran’s intelligence services in which their organization and operations are described in greater detail than in any other English-language source."

Hoopes, John M. [LCDR/USN (Sel.)] "Iranian Intelligence Under the Shah." Naval Intelligence Professionals Quarterly 14, no. 1 (Jan. 1998): 7-9.

This is a brief review of SAVAK's role prior to the 1978 revolution. The point is made that the organization's resources and efforts were predominantly directed toward internal security matters.

Clark comment: A brief complaint as a professor: I wish we could get young writers not to use the overly cutesy formulation "the most famous or infamous...," but simply say "the best known."

Ledeen, Michael, and William Lewis. Debacle: The American Failure in Iran. New York: Knopf, 1981.

Samii, Abbas William. "The Shah's Lebanon Policy: The Role of SAVAK." Middle Eastern Studies 33, no. 1 (Jan. 1997): 66-91.

 

3. Iran Since the Shah

Barber, Ben. "Iran Increases Funds for Terrorist Activities." Washington Times, 18 Aug. 1999.

"Iran has stepped up funding for Islamic terrorists in Lebanon, Syria and Israel to sabotage the revived Middle East peace process and distract Iranians from problems at home, Israeli and U.S. officials say. A weekend report said $5 million was sent to Hamas bank accounts in Syria last month."

Coughlin, Con. "Iran Sends More Spies to Europe." Electronic Telegraph, 4 May 1997. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk]

"Iran is intensifying efforts to consolidate its network of terrorist cells and intelligence agents throughout Europe. As relations between Teheran and the European Union degenerated ... last week, Iranian intelligence chiefs" ordered that reinforcements "be sent to embassies throughout Europe, including Britain."

Miller, Greg. "CIA Believes It Can See into Tehran from L.A.: Agency Seeking Help from Many Iranians in Area." Los Angeles Times, 16 Jan. 2002. [http://www.latimes.com]

"Dissatisfied with its intelligence-gathering on Iran, the CIA disbanded a station in Germany in the mid-1990s that had been a key spying portal into the Islamic republic. Instead, it reassigned several officers to a post much farther from Tehran but potentially richer in contacts: Los Angeles."

Miller, Greg. "CIA Has Recruited Iranians to Defect." Los Angeles Times, 9 Dec. 2007. [http://www.latimes.com]

According to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, "[t]he CIA launched a secret program in 2005 designed to degrade Iran's nuclear weapons program by persuading key officials to defect.... The program has had limited success. Officials said that fewer than six well-placed Iranians have defected, and that none has been in a position to provide comprehensive information on Tehran's nuclear program."

Newsweek. "New Evidence Ties Iran to Terrorism." 15 Nov. 1999. [http://newsweek. com]

"[N]ew evidence [has] emerged tying Iranian officials to the truck bomb that killed 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut 16 years ago, as well as to the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia.... [A] National Security Agency phone tap recorded a Sept. 24, 1983, call from the Iranian ambassador in Syria to his foreign minister, in which the ambassador relayed orders he'd given to Abu Haidar, leader of the Husaini Suicide Forces Movement. The ambassador told Haidar to get weapons from Yasir Arafat's Fatah group to 'undertake an extraordinary operation against the Marines' in Beirut."

Omestad, Thomas. "A Stunning Admission: Iran's Secret Agency Confesses to Murder." U.S. News & World Report, 18 Jan. 1999, 36,

Iran's Intelligence Ministry has "acknowledged that some of its agents -- 'irresponsible, misguided and unruly personnel' -- were among the killers" of critics of hard-line Islamic clergy.

In a further development, the Associated Press reported on 10 February 1999 that Ali Yunesi, 43, has been nominated by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami as the new intelligence minister. "Yunesi led the investigation into the killings of writers and dissidents that began in November [1998]. The probe resulted in the Intelligence Ministry's disclosure ... that some of its agents had been arrested in connection with the five deaths." On 17 February 1999, Khatami forwarded his nomination of Yunesi as intelligence minister to the Iranian parliament. (AP, 17 Feb. 1999.) On 24 February 1999, the Iranian Majlis "gave an overwhelming vote of confidence" to Yunesi. (AP, 24 Feb. 1999.)

Sherwell, Philip. "Teheran 'Executed CIA's Spy Network 10 Years Ago.'" Electronic Telegraph, 13 Feb. 2005. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk]

According to former CIA officials, "America's spy network in Iran was exposed more than 10 years ago and about 50 of its local agents were executed or jailed in a devastating setback for United States intelligence operations in the Islamic state. The Iranian agents, who included senior military officers, had been relaying information to their handlers at the CIA's office in Frankfurt, using messages written in invisible ink on the back of letters posted from Iran."

Wege, Carl Anthony. "Iranian Intelligence Organizations." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 10, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 287-298.

The author finds that the Iranian government has become "an interwoven network of clerical factions and security organs." A reorganization of Iran's security architecture took place in the 1990s as a result of "a serious relationship with the Russians," specifically the Russian SVR. The regime's "clandestine operational abilities are significant in terms of covert weapons acquisition programs and state sponsored terrorism. Iranian agencies are at least adequate at internal security."

4. Nuclear Aspirations (2007 NIE)

Mazzetti, Mark. "New Data and New Methods Lead to Revised View on Iran." New York Times, 5 Dec. 2007. [http://www.nytimes.com]

A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released on 3 December 2007 "concludes with 'high confidence' that Iran halted work on its nuclear weapons program in 2003." An NIE in 2005 had found that "Iran’s leaders were working tirelessly to acquire a nuclear weapon." Current and former intelligence officials "said that the 2007 estimate was an attempt by spy agencies to examine the Iran problem in a new light, and that in the process they recast many of their principal judgments about Iran’s weapons programs that might have relied on outdated information."

Warrick, Joby, and Walter Pincus. "Lessons of Iraq Aided Intelligence on Iran: Officials Cite New Caution and a Surge in Spying." Washington Post, 5 Dec. 2007, A1. [http://www.washingtonpost.com]

"The starkly different view of Iran's nuclear program that emerged" from a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released on 3 December 2007 "was the product of a surge in clandestine intelligence-gathering in Iran as well as radical changes in the way the intelligence community analyzes information.... Former and current intelligence officials say the new NIE reflects new analytical methods ordered by [DNI Mike] McConnell."

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