The CIA has admitted orchestrating the August 1953 coup that toppled Iran's prime minister after he tried to nationalize his country's oil wealth from Britain, according to declassified documents.
The Central Intelligence Agency's role in the overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh has long been known, with the coup haunting relations between the United States and Iran six decades later.
But George Washington University's National Security Archive -- which obtained the documents under the Freedom of Information Act, a law that promotes government transparency -- said that a secret internal history marked the most explicit CIA admission.
"The military coup that overthrew Mosadeq and his National Front cabinet was carried out under CIA direction as an act of US foreign policy," the document said, using an alternative spelling of Mossadegh.
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