WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) planned a sustained guerrilla campaign in Iran in case its 1953 plan to ouster the government of Mohammad Mossadegh fell through and communists increased their sway over the country, according to newly declassified US government documents.

 

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The top secret papers, produced in late 1952 and 1953 by the State Department and the National Security Council, provide proof that the widely-known US-British efforts to destabilize the government of prime minister Mossadegh were backed up by broad contingency plans that called for bolstering US military presence in the region and launching an anti-communist guerrilla force in the south of Iran.

The Mossadegh government, which drew the ire of Washington and London because of its persistent attempts to increase control over the country's oil resources, was toppled in an August 19, 1953, coup led by US-backed general Fazlollah Zahedi who allowed pro-American Shah Reza Pahlavi to return from exile.

US officials have grudgingly acknowledged that the coup had become possible due to CIA (news - web sites)-designed Operation "Ajax" that helped plunge Iran into chaos and paved the way for Mossadegh's downfall.

But the administration of then US president Dwight Eisenhower was seriously concerned that the plan could go awry and Iranian communists from the Tudeh Party would capitalize on instability and the unraveling economy to seize power, according to the documents released by the National Security Archive on Tuesday.

To counter that possibility, the CIA made preparations for unleashing a guerrilla campaign targeting Tudeh members and other Iranian politicians, then-undersecretary of state Walter Smith reported to the White House.

In his memorandum dated May 20, 1953, Smith noted that the CIA had reached an agreement with Qashqai tribal leaders in southern Iran to establish a clandestine safe haven from which US-funded guerrillas and intelligence agents could operate.

"To date CIA has trained and equipped a total of approximately 10 indigenous clandestine radio operators to be located throughout Iran and who can be called upon to maintain communications with CIA when desired," Smith wrote. "Others are being trained."

Stockpiles of weapons and ammunition were being secretly assembled at Wheelus Field, an air base in Libya used at that time by the US Air Force.

Smith reported that the base already had enough war materiel to equip a 10,000-strong guerrilla force and allow it to operate independently for at least six months. Other supply bases were being established in Tripoli, the Suez Canal zone and the US state of New Jersey.

"These supplies could, within three to four weeks, be transported by air and sea to certain strong tribal elements in southern Iran," the undersecretary of state assured.

Reception points for this materiel were being set up in the Tehran and Tabriz areas, along with secret caches of gold and currency, while the CIA drew plans for forming eight, three-person teams to run its secret guerrilla army.

The plan also called for deploying several dozen additional US warplanes to southern Turkey and positioning a naval force of an undetermined size in the vicinity of the Iraqi southern city of Basra to create a barrier to "the spread of communist power."

In addition, the US government was determined to seek access to the Saudi military base in Dhahran "as a transit point in connection with contemplated US covert operations," Smith wrote.