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Ann (Nancy) K.S. Lambton, the distinguished British historian of medieval and modern Iran, died on July 19 at the age of 96. Her obituaries tell some of her remarkable story as a pioneering scholar and a formidable personality. They are also interesting for what they omit, regarding her role in the idea of removing Mohammad Mossadegh from power in Iran.<\/p>\n
The Independent<\/em> obit<\/a> says nothing. The Times<\/em> obit<\/a> makes an all-too-brief allusion: \u201cShe was consulted by British officials on developments in Irano-British relations, especially during the crisis in 1951 when Iran\u2019s Prime Minister, Muhammad Mussadiq, caused a furore by nationalising British oil interests in Iran.\u201d Yet we are not told exactly what she proposed in these consultations. The Telegraph<\/em> is more explicit<\/a>: \u201cLambton\u2019s insights into the strengths and weaknesses of Iran\u2019s then prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, proved a valuable aid to Britain\u2019s eventual success, in concert with America, in precipitating an end to Mossadegh\u2019s premiership and in ensuring a continued, though reduced, British share in Iran\u2019s oil production.\u201d Yet we are not told just how she imparted these \u201cinsights,\u201d or why they were \u201cvaluable.\u201d The Guardian<\/em> quotes<\/a> a historian as saying her advice \u201cmarked the beginnings\u201d of the 1953 coup, but does not explain what she advised or how she had such a profound effect. So what is the fuller story behind these allusions?<\/p>\n In 1951, Ann Lambton was a Reader in Persian at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She had many connections in Whitehall, and her standing as an oracle on matters of Persian politics was unassailable. She had completed her doctorate in 1939 after a year of field work in Iran, and then spent the war years as press attach\u00e9 in the British Legation (later Embassy) in Tehran, under the most seasoned of old hands, Sir Reader Bullard. She also came from a prominent landed family with assorted estates (including, yes, a Lambton Castle)\u2014an advantage of pedigree that largely made up for what still was, in those days, a gender deficiency. When Nancy Lambton spoke, people listened\u2014and when it came to Mohammad Mossadegh, she had strong views.<\/p>\n The historian Wm. Roger Louis first went through the British archives on the Mossadegh affair just after they were opened in the early 1980s, and he has told the story three times, in two books and an article (most recently here<\/a>). \u201cHere the historian treads on patchy ground,\u201d warns Louis. \u201cThe British archives have been carefully \u2018weeded\u2019 in order to protect identities and indeed to obscure the truth about British complicity.\u201d But he came across the minutes of conversations between Lambton and a Foreign Office official who described her as someone who knew Iran \u201cbetter than anyone else in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n Lambton, the official reported in June 1951, \u201cwas of the decided opinion that it was impossible to do business\u201d with Mossadegh, and that no concessions should be made to him. She urged \u201ccovert means\u201d to undermine his position, consisting of support for Iranians who would speak out against him, and stirring opposition to him \u201cfrom the bazaars upwards.\u201d The official added: \u201cMiss Lambton feels that without a campaign on the above lines it is not possible to create the sort of climate in Tehran which is necessary to change the regime.\u201d He then relayed her practical recommendation: entrust the mission to Robert (Robin) Zaehner, a quixotic Oxford don and former intelligence agent, fully fluent in Persian, whom Lambton described as \u201cthe ideal man\u201d for the job. On Lambton\u2019s recommendation, the Foreign Office dispatched Zaehner to Tehran, where he put together a network of disaffected opponents of Mossadegh\u2019s regime.<\/p>\n This effort came to naught, partly because the Truman Administration still thought the British should deal with Mossadegh. In November 1951, Lambton complained: \u201cThe Americans do not have the experience or the psychological insight to understand Persia.\u201d But she did not relent: \u201cIf only we keep steady, Dr. Mossadegh will fall. There may be a period of chaos, but ultimately a government with which we can deal will come back.\u201d Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary, added this note: \u201cI agree with Miss Lambton. She has a remarkable first hand knowledge of Persians & their mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet Mossadegh hung on, and a year later he shut down the British diplomatic mission. According to Lambton\u2019s Foreign Office contact, she thought that the British policy of not making \u201cunjustifiable concessions\u201d to Mossadegh \u201cwould have been successful had it not been for American vacillations,\u201d and she insisted that \u201cit is still useless to accept any settlement\u201d with Mossadegh, \u201cbecause he would immediately renege.\u201d<\/p>\n This was the prevailing British view, and persistence ultimately paid off. In November 1952, Dwight Eisenhower was elected U.S. president, and the new team in Washington took a very different (and dimmer) view of Mossadegh. Anthony Eden met with the president-elect to discuss \u201cthe Persia question,\u201d and the CIA\u2019s Kermit Roosevelt and Donald Wilbur set in motion the wheels of the August 1953 coup\u2014an American-led, joint CIA-MI6 production.<\/p>\n \u201cIn that [first] minute [of June 1951],\u201d writes historian Louis, \u201cmay thus be found the origins of the \u2018Zaehner mission\u2019 and the beginnings of the 1953 coup.\u201d Louis asserts that \u201cthe archives, for better or worse, link Professor Lambton with the planning to undermine Musaddiq.\u201d He notes that \u201cLambton herself, as if wary of future historians, rarely committed her thoughts on covert operations to writing. The quotations of her comments by various officials, however, are internally consistent and invariably reveal a hard-line attitude towards Musaddiq.\u201d<\/p>\n In the latest 2006 retelling of the tale by Louis, he has somewhat trimmed his estimate of Lambton\u2019s role. \u201cI have the impression from the minutes,\u201d he writes in a footnote, \u201cthat the officials quoting [Lambton] sometimes wanted to invoke her authority to lend credibility to their own views.\u201d Louis also adds that Lambton\u2019s \u201cviews were entirely in line with those of other British authorities on Iran.\u201d In other words, she was urging them to think or do something they already thought or wanted to do anyway, but for which they needed an authoritative footnote.<\/p>\n But there can be no doubt that her advice bolstered the advocates of toughing it out and bringing Mossadegh down. The obits tend to downplay this story because the 1953 coup has come to be seen as some sort of original sin\u2014as the root cause of the Islamic revolution that unfolded a full quarter-century later. But wherever one puts the 1953 coup in the great chain of causation, Lambton\u2019s assessments at the time should inspire awe. Years of experience in Iran, exact knowledge of Persian, and wide travels within the country, all had led her to conclude that Mossadegh could be pushed out, as against the view that he had to be accommodated. She was right. Given the propensity of Western experts on Iran to get so many things wrong over the years, Lambton\u2019s call is all the more remarkable.<\/p>\n The present incumbents in power in Iran are careful to shut out Western Orientalists, not because they fear the situation in Iran will be misrepresented but because it might be accurately represented, exposing the weaknesses of their regime. The historian Ervand Abrahamian, mentioning Lambton (and Zaehner), writes<\/a> that it should not be surprising that the coup \u201cgave rise to conspiracy theories [among Iranians], including cloak and dagger stories of Orientalist professors moonlighting as spies, forgers, and even assassins. Reality\u2014in this case\u2014was stranger than fiction.\u201d The reality is that it isn\u2019t easy to hide one\u2019s vulnerabilities from an intimate stranger such as Lambton. The fear of Orientalist professors, both there and here, has never been that they might get things wrong, but that they are very likely to get them right.<\/p>\n Originally posted at Middle East Strategy at Harvard. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ann (Nancy) K.S. Lambton, the distinguished British historian of medieval and modern Iran, died on July 19 at the age of 96. Her obituaries tell some of her remarkable story as a pioneering scholar and a formidable personality. 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