AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

ealize that the results they desired could only be achieved through revolution, and also “drove
the masses even closer to the open arms of the revolutionary struggle.” 311
While the shah consistently voiced his belief that the U.S. government assisted antiregime
students in the United States, the radical magazine Ramparts published an article entitled,
“How the CIA turns Foreign Students into Traitors.” 312 It broke the story that the AMFE was a
front organization for the CIA. While it was not initially established as a front organization, it
became one by 1960. The transformation happened when Edward W. Overton, a little-known
federal bureaucrat, became vice president of the organization. 313 After Overton’s arrival, the
CIA provided the organization with more than 90 percent of its income. Most of this money
went to the AFME’s department of student affairs. One of the main goals of the organization
was to create pro-American and pro-shah sentiment among Iranian students. 314
The editors of Ramparts showed that the AFME continued to fund the Afghanistan
Students Association (ASA) because some of its members agreed to act as informants for the
CIA. However , in the case of the ISAUS, funding was discontinued after the transformation of
the group in Ypsilanti in 1960. AFME members still monitored the annual conferences of the
ISAUS. In 1963 the group’s former president, Hasan Lebaschi, approached chairman of the
AFME Earl Bunting. He asked Bunting if he would be willing to fund projects that were nonpolitical,
such as publishing a directory of Iranian students who were studying in the United
311 CISNU, Iranian Peoples’ Movement, 1953-1973, Iran Report, no. 2, June 1974, 15-16.
312 Editors, “How the CIA Turns Foreign Students into Traitors,” Ramparts, 22-24. For other accounts of CIA
interaction with foreign students see Sol Stern, “A Short Account of International Student Politics and the Cold War
with Particular Reference to the NSA, CIA, etc.” Ramparts, Vol. 5, No. 9 (March 1967), 29-38; and Editors, “How
I got in, and why I came out of the Cold.” Ramparts, Vol. 5, No. 10 (April 1967), 17-21.
313 Kermit Roosevelt, the CIA officer in charge of Operation Ajax, was also part of the AFME.
314 Editors, “How the CIA Turns Foreign Students into Traitors,” Ramparts, 22-24.
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