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6 Degrees Entertainment

'The Queen And The Coup'
(DVD / PG / 2020 / PBS)

Overview: Feb 1953 - the first anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's reign. Little does she know she is about to be deployed in a secret plot to topple Iran's democratic leader in favor of an all-powerful Shah.

Planned by MI6 and executed by the C.I.A., the coup that follows destroys relations between Iran and the West. Using newly declassified documents this film unravels this secret for the first time here in PBS's 'The Queen And The Coup.'

DVD Verdict: As aforementioned, planned by Britain's MI6 and then executed by America's C.I.A., the Coup D'Etat which followed would destroy Iran's last democracy, and relations between Iran and the West until the present day.

Most shocking of all, the truth about Her Majesty's role will be hidden from the Queen herself, and even the all-powerful Shah who will be used by Britain and American to replace Iran's last democratic Prime Minister.

The coup would indeed lead to political upheaval all over the Middle East for decades to come, eventually resulting in the Islamic Revolution of 1979 which will end the reign of the Shah, and British and American influence in Iran, inspiring countless other Islamist revolutions around the world.

Directed by Paul Elston, previously nominated for TV Bafta for the documentary Pompeii: Life and Death in a Roman Town, and featuring the research of Professors Rory Cormac and Richard Aldrich, it's revealed that two professors who discovered a paper trail in national archives which showed how the Queen was unwittingly involved in the 1953 coup d’etat which overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.

Indeed, he had moved to nationalize British oil assets in Iran after his attempt to limit the control of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now part of BP) over the nation’s reserves had met with fierce opposition.

In response, the UK instigated a global boycott of Iran’s oil, while using Iranian agents to try and undermine Mosaddegh’s government.

Amid escalating tensions and fears of a Communist takeover in Iran, the Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his counterpart Dwight D Eisenhower’s administration in the US decided to engineer a military coup.

Documents declassified in 2017 revealed how the British first approach their allies over potential action in November 1952, with a view to replacing the prime minister with the shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

According to 'The Queen and the Coup,' the name of the monarch, then 26 years old and just a year into her reign, was used by the US to dissuade the shah from fleeing Iran as he became nervous ahead of the coup.

However, this only came about because of a bizarre, amateurish error – the misreading of a telegram which referred to the ocean liner which the foreign secretary Anthony Eden was traveling on at the time: the HMS Queen Elizabeth.

According to The Times, the US sent a telegram to their ambassador in Tehran on 27 February 1953 which read: “Foreign Office this afternoon informed us of receipt message from Eden from Queen Elizabeth expressing concern at latest developments re Shah and strong hope we can find some means of dissuading him from leaving country.”

This message was seemingly taken by the ambassador, Loy Henderson, to mean that the Queen was passing on her desire for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to stay put.

He then relayed to the shah’s minister by describing a message from a “very important personage for whom Shah had most friendly feelings,” which the academics believe would have led him to assume that it came from Elizabeth II.

The Times reports Professor Aldrich, of Warwick University, saying: “This is critical because you can’t have a coup putting the shah into power if the shah has done a runner. In our view, if the shah had done a runner this coup probably would not have happened.”

It seemed the Americans quickly realized the error, privately expressing their “deep regret” at possibly dragging the young Queen into the skullduggery of international politics.

However, they decided not to confess the mistake to their British allies – meaning the Queen remained none the wiser of the potential role she played in an episode which has had a lasting effect on Iran’s relationship with the West.

Watch, listen and learn here in this incredible 'The Queen And The Coup,' out now via PBS. This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.78:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs.

www.PBS.org





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