AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

developments took place during the instability of the Mosaddeq era. 29 It was against this
backdrop, in December 1952, that the AFME’s Department of Student affairs sponsored a
conference in Chicago at which Iranian students decided to hold a convention in Denver,
Colorado from 1 September – 4 September 1953. 30
Barely two weeks after the overthrow of
Mosaddeq, 85 students formed the ISAUS at the convention in Denver. The group discussed
non-political issues such as education, agriculture, industry, society, and Irano-American
understanding. 31
The final years of the Eisenhower administration brought a change in both American
foreign policy towards Iran and the official political position of the ISAUS. Following
Operation Ajax, the Eisenhower administration reluctantly began to offer large amounts of
assistance to Iran. The United States assisted the shah in creating the intelligence service known
by the acronym SAVAK. Between 1953 and 1961, the United States gave Iran approximately
$500 million in military assistance. This allowed the shah to expand his armed forces from
120,000 to 200,000 men, and by 1956, the largest U.S. military aid mission in the world was in
Iran. 32 In the summer of 1958, American Marines landed in Lebanon to protect the regime of its
pro-Western leader Camille Chamoun while British forces intervened to prop up the rule of
young King Hussein of Jordan. In the same year General ‘Abd al-Karim Qasim led a military
coup that overthrew the Hashemite rulers in Iraq, and Syria merged with Egypt to form the
United Arab Republic. Amidst these problems in the Middle East, the years 1957 and 1958 also
29 “The Iranian Intellectual Community: Patterns, Problems and Recommendations for U.S. Policy,” Digital
National Security Archive, Iranian Revolution, 21 December 1963, Confidential, Airgram Tehran, IR00494,
(ProQuest LLC, 2008). Hereafter referred to as DNSA.
30 AFME, “Second Annual Report,” 18.
31 AFME, “Third Annual Report,” 20.
32 Ali M. Ansari, Modern Iran Since 1921, The Pahlavi’s and After (London: Pearson, 2003), 135-6; Kenneth
Pollack, The Persian Puzzle: Conflict between Iran and America (New York: Random House, 2004), 76-7; Barry
Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions (Oxford University Press, 1980), 100.
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