Introducing... The Rest Is Classified

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0:29Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnon. And me, William Terimple. Listen, today we're here because we are going to tell you about a really very exciting new podcast from Goalhanger and it is called The Rest is Classified. It's going to tell you some of the most brilliant, it's kind of a strange thing to say, but brilliant stories from some of the most murky corners of international diplomacy. Delving into the world of espionage, it is hosted by former CIA analyst turned spy novelist David McCloskey and a friend of mine, the national security journalist Gordon Carrera, who I always, I'll tell you, in the other parish, you know, the one that you like to mock so much that I work in.

1:14What's that? What parish was that? Yes, I know. Yes, I know. It's a small broadcasting outfit. But any time Gordon walked into the studio, you knew that he was going to untangle a really completely knotted issue in a very simple way. And I never came away from talking to Gordon without learning something. So Gordon, I mean... Hang on, before you drop that, we have to say also about Gordon's other great claim to fame. Feathers. Feathers. Pigeons. Gordon is a fellow pigeon fancier. That we have in common, Willie, because I wrote a book about pigeons. I'm fascinated by their role, partly their role as spies of when they got used for kind of special operations in World War II.

1:56Nothing is beyond a pigeon. Exactly. Nothing is beyond a pigeon. They are the superheroes of history, as I tell you. Underrated by many, including my co-host, Anita. Can I just say, when you said nothing is beyond pigeons, I was going to add, and I will now, apart from cats, because wasn't your entire pigeon population wiped out by a he-line? It's cruel, Anita, to point to that. Yes, I now have an empty pigeon coop. Oh, no, I'm really very sorry. The Delhi pigeon season is upon us, and I will be heading to Old Delhi, to the Jama Masjid, to buy some new Shirazis, my favourite. Shall we talk about what Gordon's going to be doing?

2:27I mean, as lovely as this is. They seem to be focusing on Gordon quite as we should have been. Or indeed, the rest is classified. And the rest is classified is not just going to be about pigeons, I promise. We might get to them eventually. Oh, I was hoping. But that's not the main focus of it. We're going to be looking at stories from the world of spies and secrets through the ages, really. the kind of people at the heart of it, the slightly crazy characters, and also the historical consequences, why it matters. We've got lined up episodes of everything from the CIA going into Afghanistan after 9-11, Cold War espionage in Moscow, North Korean cyber heist, Edward Snowden, something more recent.

3:02So a bit of something for everyone who's fascinated by those spy stories. But we're starting with a subject which I know you both know about, which is the coup in Iran in 1953 that was orchestrated by the CIA and MI6, because it's just such a great story. So, I mean, the central character in this, and you're quite right, we talked about this, but I'm desperate to know more. With Ali Ansari, yeah. The man Mossadegh, who is such a divisive figure, even now, was he falling foul of a very intricate plot by foreign services? Because, you know, William, we talked about this, didn't we? We did. Ali Ansari.

3:35Do the CIA perhaps take more credit, ironically, than they deserve for toppling a government? Yeah, because there's this argument, isn't there, whether the CIA, which claimed to have destroyed this man in his career, there is a whole school of Iranian thought that the Iranians were well shot of him and wanted rid of him. And they're not just easily led by a CIA carrot. Well, and then the sort of modern interpretations rob them entirely of agency, as if, you know, they're just children. Yeah. And I think it's a really interesting question. And one of the things we get to do is really drill down in that story about the coup and really look at what the CIA and MI6 were really up to.

4:11And it's full of kind of crazy characters like Monty Woodhouse from MI6 and Kermit Roosevelt from the CIA, both of whom actually academics turned spies, which was something quite common at this time. And it involves kind of bundles of cash, secret meetings in disguise to see the Shah, acrobats, wrestlers, even a small cameo from the BBC, I should admit. Oh, what have we done now? Well, you find out. It's just a brief appearance, but they do play a role actually. But it's a coup that's fascinating because it nearly fails and then it succeeds. And you're right, there is this question, was it a brilliant piece of plotting by MI6 and the CIA or was it something which was indigenous, which came out of Iranian society?

4:51And I think the answer is really interesting because it is a little bit more complex because it wouldn't have happened, I think, without some role for MI6 and the CIA, particularly the CIA. But it would be completely wrong to see it as something simply imposed from the outside. And when you look at the accounts of it and the histories of it, they're often colored by people who are trying to make a claim, people who are trying to politically assert who was responsible and whether it was Iranian society. And then looking back from 1979 or from today to try and kind of extrapolate back to what happened.

5:27But I think what's so interesting about it is that even in the CIA, there's this kind of question, did they exaggerate their own role? Because in the CIA, they go around saying, hey, we can do this, we can do coups. And actually, the person who does it on the ground, Kermit Roosevelt, who is the guy on the ground literally orchestrating it, comes away from it going, it's not as easy as you think and actually we had to kind of work with the grain of local forces and he says the CIA made the mistake of coming away thinking well we can do it anywhere and he says you can draw a direct line of that to you know Bay of Pigs in Cuba and other things precisely because they kind of learned the wrong lessons in the CIA from it.

6:06Just I mean we talked in detail about the Shah and we gave sort of pen portraits of what he was like what Mossadegh was like but kermit roosevelt i think we dealt with very lightly and so just i mean give us an idea of you said he was an academic but where did he come from you know what was he like and how was he regarded in the state department and other places you know he came from this kind of academic background but also the kind of roosevelt name you know because he's kind of theodore roosevelt you know grandfather of being president there's a funny bit where he's supposedly undercover in tehran and he's going under the name james lockridge and kind of playing tennis with people And whenever he would do a bad shot, he would say, oh, Roosevelt, and kind of anger at himself having it got wrong, which would give away his cover.

6:48And he had to then explain to people that the reason why he'd say, oh, Roosevelt, is because he hated Franklin Roosevelt so much. And that was the reason why he'd say it as a kind of swear word rather than actually having a go at himself. You get a sense from that, a man who was a kind of spy, but not maybe your James Bond character. And also the amount of drinking that goes on from these CIA agents in Tehran. I mean, I just was looking at these accounts and I kind of said to David, my co-host, who did spend some time in the CIA, you know, is that what happens these days? You know, kind of drinking and singing as well.

7:19I mean, it's a kind of bizarre culture at the time. Philby at the same sort of time is completely drunk as a lord in Beirut at the same time. Exactly. Station chief. Yeah, it's exactly that same kind of culture in the 50s and 60s, I think, in the intelligence world. And you get a real insight into it, I think, through this story. What I'm really looking forward to in your entire series, actually, is we on the outside of the tent have this image of CIA operatives who are sort of better than us, cleverer than us, smarter than us. But they are entirely human and fallible. I mean, that sort of shouting Roosevelt, it's like that scene in The Great Escape when someone says, good luck, thank you.

7:54They're human beings. They're entirely – and they do stupid things sometimes. Yeah, and I think that's part of what we want to do is there's so much mythology around spies and intelligence work. And it's so shrouded in fiction and the kind of James Bond representations and John Le Carré. And I think the chance to kind of strip some of that way and actually look at the people and the real stories and the consequences of it, and to kind of do that with a bit of authenticity rather than kind of over-glamorizing it, that's one of the things I think we're hoping to do with this podcast. We will be listening in.

8:29Absolutely. This sounds completely up my street. But don't forget the pigeons.

9:02We won't. MI6, who'd worked a lot in Tehran during the war. Kind of crazy figure who is an American, said, a man with an extraordinary capacity to combine high thought with low living, which is quite a description. It does remind me of the sort of CIA profile for hiring at the time, which was essentially they were looking for PhDs who could win bar fights. That's more or less what they were looking for in the early years of the Cold War. So Zainer is a guy who once is kind of experimenting with opium and then leaves Iran in 1952 to go back to be professor of Eastern religions at Oxford that year.

9:35So there you go. Replacing him is another guy called Monty Woodhouse, another great British name, flaming red beard, Winchester and Oxford classicist who rather than becoming an academic goes into special operations executive during the war in Greece. And he's really the one who comes up with Operation Boot to get Mossadegh out. Now, the problem is the Iranians are kind of onto the Brits and what they're up to in the pressure campaigns. So in October 52, they shut the British embassy and they basically kicked the British out. So at that point, the kind of plans for the Brits to do regime change are effectively over.

10:12They have no one on the ground to do it. So what do they do? What do they do? And Gordon, we've made it a decent way into this podcast, much to my dismay, without mentioning the American security services. But we're going to get there now, right? Because essentially the British plan, they're going to go to Washington and try to convince the Americans to get involved. Yeah, because they need the Americans at this point. UK has got agents on the ground, it's got a network, but it can't run them anymore. It's also fair to say they need the CIA's people on the ground and they need the CIA's money, frankly, because they think it's going to take some money to do this.

10:44And I think as well, it's kind of an interesting moment to think about the relationship between the two spy services at this point, because MI6 is the established one and CIA are the newcomers. Well, I actually think the arrangement here of British, essentially MI6 networks in Iran, know-how on how to operate in the country, plus sort of the CIA's kind of political heft and the money is a great, you know, microcosm of the relationship at the time. Because the agency, I mean, at this point is, you know, the Directorate of Operations, which was then called the Directorate of Plans, is one year old at this point in time.

11:20The CIA was founded in 1947. I mean, this is a young organization. The Americans don't have a lot of experience, frankly, with on the ground spying in the Middle East. And they've learned all of the tradecraft from the Brits. Yeah. Right? And there's an incredible fusion of the two services during the Second World War. So I think this partnership, it fits together very naturally, doesn't it, to undertake regime change in the Middle East? Well, I think at this point, there's also a little bit of tension because I think the Brits know the Americans are the kind of rising power. And I mean, there's a great big...

11:55A little galling, isn't it? To have to go to Washington. To go to Washington for help. I mean, there's a famous scene. So 53, which is when the coup happens, is also when Ian Fleming writes Casino Royale or when the book comes out. the first James Bond book. And there's a scene in that where Bond is trying to bankrupt his adversary at the Baccarat table and he's run out of money. And so Felix Leiter, or the American spy, basically slides over an envelope with all the money that he needs to do it. And I think that's emblematic of how Britain felt at the time. It's like, well, we know how to do it, but we kind of need the Americans.

12:28They're the cash machine for us to do it. And there is a bit of a feeling here where the Brits are like, we want to get rid of Mossadegh. And we're going to need to get the Americans to help us to do it. And they have to sell that in a particular way, don't they? Which is where Monty comes in. Monty. Monty goes to Washington. And they realize that saying, we just want our oil money is not going to kind of necessarily work with the Americans. It's not the best sell. It's not the best sell. And the best sell is communism. Communism. Communism and the Cold War. Because right now we've got Alan Dulles running the Central Intelligence Agency, don't we?

13:02Yep. He's a Cold Warrior. Yep. But you know, what's funny is this story when we get to these CIA guys, none of these guys would be allowed in the door today. They were drunk all the time. Alan Dulles, I believe he was having an affair with the Queen of Greece around this time and had maybe a hundred mistresses throughout his... Yes, yes. And running the CIA. These guys are not passing polygraphs today, but they're running the entire organization in the fifties. And there's also, I guess, another wonderful character here, which is Kermit Roosevelt. Yeah. Let's deal with the name Kermit. He goes by Kim sometimes, but I think for our purposes, we should call him Kermit.

13:36Yeah, because this is before the Muppets, we should say. So it's not a name associated with Kermit the Frog. It's a real name, I guess. It's one of those American names. And as you said earlier, he's Teddy Roosevelt, the former president's grandson. So a kind of aristocratic figure, in American terms at least, from a big political dynasty. Yeah. Well, he is kind of the Eastern establishment, I think in many ways. Although So anyone listening to this who is picturing Teddy Roosevelt with the large, very virile mustache and sort of adventuring, this guy looks like an insurance salesman, I think.

14:11Now, as we'll see, he's quite bold. He's quite adventurous. He's sort of an imperial adventurer in many ways, I think. And if you want to hear the full episode, listen to The Rest is Classified wherever you get your podcasts.