Mohammad Mosaddeq

Mohammad Mosaddeq (1880-1967), Iranian statesman, whose leadership was often marked by highly emotional behavior, such as spells of fainting and weeping. He was born in Tehrān (Teheran), and educated at the École des Sciences Politiques in Paris. He entered public life in 1906 as an agent of the ministry of finance but left this position to study law in Switzerland. He returned to Tehrān in 1914 and subsequently held various posts in the government. In 1923 and again in 1925 he was elected to the Majlis, the lower chamber of the Iranian legislative body. In 1927, having incurred the disfavor of Reza Shah Pahlavi, he withdrew from politics. Mosaddeq resumed political activity in 1943, when he won a seat in the Majlis, and he soon emerged as the leader of a parliamentary coalition of nationalist groups, successfully opposing an oil concession for the USSR in northern Iran. Assuming the premiership on April 29, 1951, he maintained an uncompromising stand in the ensuing dispute with Britain over the expropriation of the assets of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Royalist opposition to his government mounted during the first half of 1953, and on August 15 Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi dismissed him. Defying the shah, Mosaddeq retained his post, while the shah fled the country. On August 19, however, royalist forces, with the covert aid of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, gained the upper hand and arrested him. He was tried by a military court and sentenced to three years of solitary confinement for treason. He took no further part in public life.