The CIA and Engagement

Abstract

Overall, the State Department’s assessment of the prospects for engagement was not particularly optimistic by the start of July 1979.¹ The provisional government of Iran (PGOI) was seen as having ‘little flexibility in its rough attitude’ towards the US. Against a backdrop of strong anti-Americanism led by Khomeini and the Left, foreign minister Yazdi and others were widely accused of being CIA agents. Ironically, the CIA station in Iran was not functioning in any effective sense. The entire CIA detachment had flown out following the first embassy takeover on 14 February. It was not just personnel that were evacuated; many embassy safes and files had been flown to storage in Frankfurt. They would be returned to Tehran in July, in itself a fateful decision given the events that would transpire following the embassy’s seizure in November. From March 1979, the Tehran station consisted of several case officers and communicators rotating in and out of Iran on a ‘temporary duty’ basis.² The Directorate of Operations Near East Division, however, quickly began looking ahead to the time when the station could again be staffed with permanently assigned personnel and functioning as a station should — recruiting agents and collecting intelligence.³ By May, Thomas Ahern had been assigned in Tehran as permanent station chief.