328. Editorial Note
In his diary entry for October 8, 1953, President Eisenhower referred to the United States role in the overthrow of the Mosadeq government, and noted his admiration for the efforts of Kermit Roosevelt [Page 781] in helping to bring that about. His diary entry reads, in part, as follows: “Another recent development that we helped bring about was the restoration of the Shah to power in Iran and the elimination of Mossadegh. The things we did were ‘covert.’ If knowledge of them became public, we would not only be embarrassed in that region, but our chances to do anything of like nature in the future would almost totally disappear. Nevertheless our agent there, a member of the CIA, worked intelligently, courageously and tirelessly. I listened to his detailed report and it seemed more like a dime novel than an historical fact. When we realize that in the first hours of the attempted coup, all element of surprise disappeared through betrayal, the Shah fled to Baghdad, and Mossadegh seemed to be more firmly entrenched in power than ever before, then we can understand exactly how courageous our agent was in staying right on the job and continuing to work until he reversed the entire situation.” (Eisenhower Library, Whitman File, DDE Diary Series, Box 1)