Donald Newton Wilber (November 14, 1907,

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

United States Department of State, ''Biographic Register'' (U.S. Govt. Print. Off., 1951), p. 135. – February 2, 1997,

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

Donald Newton Wilber '29 *49
," ''Princeton Alumni Weekly'', Mar. 19, 1997.),

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

writer and

spy Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

. Wilber was a principal architect of the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

project "

Operation Ajax Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Man ...

", a successful plot to overthrow the government of Iranian Prime Minister

Mohammad Mossadeq Mohammad Mosaddegh ( fa, محمد مصدق, ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, after appointment by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of ...

. The plot replaced Iran's first democratically elected Prime Minister with General Fazlollah Zahedi; the government fell back into the hands of its disempowered

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi Mohammad Reza Pahlavi ( fa, محمدرضا پهلوی, ; 26 October 1919 – 27 July 1980), also known as Mohammad Reza Shah (), was the last ''Shah'' (King) of the Imperial State of Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow in the Irani ...

, who had supported the coup. Wilber served as a United States intelligence officer with the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

(OSS), and was an active participant in the power struggles of nations, especially during the rivalry between the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

in Iran after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. In addition to orchestrating the coup in Iran, in his spare time, Wilber wrote histories, travelogues and commentaries on

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. He was considered an authority on ancient Persia.

Background

Wilber studied the ancient and modern Middle East. He received his A.B. (1929), M.F.A., and Ph.D. (1949) from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, where he was the first student to receive a doctorate in architectural history. In 1939 Wilber married Margaret Patterson Surre; they had two daughters, Sara Wilber Cohen and Margaret Newton Wilber, who later changed her name to Valentine Margaret Wilber. His book, ''Iran, Past and Present'', was published in nine editions. Wilber collected oriental rugs and was president of the Princeton Rug Society for many years. He spent forty years in the Middle East. His memoir, which partially recounts his role in the coup, is ''Adventures in the Middle East: Excursions and Incursions''.

Publications

Wilber is the author of articles and books, including: * ''The Islamic Architecture of Iran and Turan: The Timurid Period'' (with Lisa Golombek, Princeton University Press, 2 vols.) * ''Iran, Past and Present'' (Princeton University Press) * ''The Architecture of Islamic Iran: The Il Khanid Period'' (Princeton University Press) * ''Persian Gardens and Garden Pavilions'' (Dumbarton Oaks) * ''Pakistan Yesterday and Today'' (Holt, Rinehart and Winston) * ''Persepolis: The Archaeology of Parsa, Seat of the Persian Kings'' (The Darwin Press, Inc.) * ''The Land and People of Ceylon'' (

J. B. Lippincott Company J. B. Lippincott & Co. was an American publishing house founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1836 by Joshua Ballinger Lippincott. It was incorporated in 1885 as J. B. Lippincott Company. History 1836–1977 Joshua Ballinger Lippincott (Marc ...

) * ''Contemporary Iran'' (Frederick A. Praeger) * ''Adventures in the Middle East: Excursions and Incursions'' (The Darwin Press, Inc.) * ''Afghanistan: Its people, its society, its culture'' (HRAF PRESS)

References

* Zinn, Howard & Buhle, Paul. A People's History of American Empire. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008. p. 235

External links

Notes on Donald Newton Wilber

Notes by Don Wilber on the overthrow of Premier Mossadegh of Iran
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilber, Donald American spies 1907 births 1997 deaths Princeton University School of Architecture alumni 20th-century American writers 20th-century American male writers CIA operatives in Iran