Assadollah Rashidian ( fa, اسدالله رشیدیان) was an Iranian businessman and anglophile who, along with his brothers, played a critical role in the 1953 overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. He was a principal covert agent of the British

Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

(SIS) and through him the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was able to convince the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, to endorse the operation (codenamed Operation Ajax). Rashidian's main contributions to the operation were his encouragement of the Shah's sister, Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, to obtain her brother's approval of the plan, and acting as a liaison between the SIS/CIA team and the Shah once the operation was underway. On 13 October 1952 the government issued arrest warrants for Assadollah Rashidian, his brother,

Abdol Hossein Hejazi Abdol Hossein Hejazi (1904–1969) was an Iranian military officer who served as the commander of the Imperial Iranian Army's Ground Forces between 1958 and 1960. Biography Hejazi was born in 1904. He graduated from École Spéciale Militaire de ...

, and others. They were soon released.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rashidian, Assadollah MI6 operatives in Iran National Will Party politicians Members of the 20th Iranian Majlis Deputies of Tehran for National Consultative Assembly 1919 births 1980 deaths Year of death uncertain Iranian emigrants to the United Kingdom Iranian business executives