Mosaddegh - The 1953 Iranian Coup

[Mohammed Mosaddegh, deposed Iranian Prime Minister breaks down in court, Tehran, December 1953]

It's the anniversary today of the 1953 coup in Iran, when the democratically-elected government of Mohammed Mosaddegh was overthrown by a coup d'etat organized by the intelligence agencies of the United Kingdom and the United States (an extraordinary important historical occasion with ramifications that are still being felt, right up to the present day).

Allen was, of course, supremely aware of all this. Arash Norouzi of The Mossadegh Project has put together a page, a digest of some of his observations. Salutary information.

[update August 19 2014 - these last two links, it appears, are now no longer working (sic) - so we'll just quote briefly the pertinent stanza from Allen's "Capitol Air" - 

Col. Roosevelt and his U.S. dollars overthrew Mossadeq/They wanted his oil now they got Ayatollah's dreck/They put in the Shah and they trained his police the Savak/All Iran was our hostage quarter-century/That's right Jack 
- Allen Ginsberg, October 3, 1981

That quotation  and more were included on the original Mossadegh Project page. 

Here's a video (from PBS) addressing CIA involvement in the 1953 coup] 

see also here