Benjamin Radd
speaker
1,820 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2025
last heard 4 Mar
Benjamin Radd’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Mar 2026 with 1.
Appearances
But from there, the Shah selected him to be prime minister.
Mossadegh nationalized the oil company, the Anglo-American oil company, which was owned primarily by the British.
This angered the British, who in turn blockaded Iran's ports and basically shut down its oil industry.
and creating a national crisis.
And Mossadegh was sort of amassing additional powers for himself, basically overstepping the authority that he had, even though he had the support of a good deal of the public, as it became obvious that this was a bad move, especially in the eyes of Iran's international trading partners.
And it was causing Iran to be isolated.
There was pushback towards him, and then he was removed.
The British had wanted—MI6 had wanted to overthrow him, basically get him removed, and they tried to recruit the United States to help.
President Truman refused to engage in this earlier.
Eisenhower comes in, is more receptive under CIA Director Alan Dulles.
to actually engage in this called Operation TP Ajax, led by Kermit Roosevelt, who is the CIA agent officer tasked with this.
And then the Americans and the British basically help foment a crowd that is a part of the movement that removes Mossadegh.
Now, whether it's a common, I think, misconception that the US CIA was behind it.
The British had a bigger role in this.
The Americans were more of the junior partner, but they became sort of the public face of it.
But Mossadegh was not this overwhelmingly popular democratically elected figure either.
The history is more complicated.
And regardless, there were many prime ministers after him.
And so he was known as a nationalist because he believed that Iran's oil should be nationalized and not really beholden to British interests.
And that created a lot of resentment and animosity.
Showing 81–100 of 1,820 · page 5 of 91
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