CIA Acknowledges Role in 1953 Iran Coup

Government officials admitted U.S. culpability years ago

The CIA has released documents which for the first time formally acknowledge its key role in the 1953 coup which ousted Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossadeq.

The documents were published on the independent National Security Archive on the 60th anniversary of the coup.

They come from the CIA's internal history of Iran from the mid-1970s.

"The military coup… was carried out under CIA direction as an act of US foreign policy," says one excerpt.

The US role in the coup was openly referred to by then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in 2000, and by President Barack Obama in a 2009 speech in Cairo.