(Excerpted from Chapter 1: David Rockefeller & the Shah of Iran:\u00a0Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf<\/a>\u2026)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n In 1872 British Baron Julius du Reuter was granted an exclusive 50-year mining and communications concession in Persia by that country\u2019s Peacock Throne monarchy.\u00a0 By 1921 the British government had installed Shah Mohammed Reza Khan in a palace\u00a0coup<\/i>. [1]<\/p>\n With their puppet in place, du Reuter\u2019s firm, one of the British Empire\u2019s most important tentacles, busied itself exploiting the rich oil reserves in what is now known as Iran. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company grew swiftly, first changing its name to Anglo-Iranian Oil, and later becoming British Petroleum (BP).<\/p>\n Prior to WWII du Reuter\u2019s BP dominated the Persian oil patch.\u00a0 Following the war Britain dumped its puppet Shah in favor of his yet more pliable son Shah Reza Pahlevi, whose Nazi sympathies were less overt.\u00a0 By 1943 the US had established a military command in Iran and signed the Tehran Agreement, cutting the US half of the Four Horsemen a generous slice of the Iranian oil pie. [2]<\/p>\n Iran was coveted for its expansive reserves of crude and remains the most geopolitically strategic Middle Eastern nation, bordering both the unprecedented Persian Gulf oilfields to the south and the vast, largely untapped Caspian Sea crude reserves to the north.<\/p>\n After World War II the Iranian people became increasingly hostile towards Big Oil and their puppet Shah.\u00a0 Anger was especially prevalent among oilfield workers of the Khuzistan region who formed the main constituency of the Tudeh (Masses) Party.<\/p>\n In 1951 Tudeh formed a coalition with the National Front Party and elected Mohammed Mossadegh Prime Minister of Iran.\u00a0 Mossadegh, who first campaigned against Soviet occupation of northern Iran, became a vocal critic of Four Horsemen control over Iranian oil.\u00a0 He soon announced plans to nationalize BP interests in Iran. [3]<\/p>\n BP responded by organizing an international boycott of Iranian crude and called on two long-time associates for more drastic measures.<\/p>\n US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles, both worked for the Washington law firm Sullivan & Cromwell before joining the State Department.\u00a0 The firm represented BP in the US. [4]<\/p>\n After failed negotiation attempts in Tehran with the populist Mossadegh led by Averell Harriman and Vernon Walters, the Dulles Brothers took charge of a joint CIA\/MI6 smear campaign painting the Iranian leader in the most brilliant colors of Red.\u00a0 When this anticommunist rhetoric failed to convince the Iranian people to turn on their popular leader, a military expedition was organized.<\/p>\n Financing for the CIA\u00a0coup<\/i>, code named Operation Ajax, came from Deak & Company, founded by OSS operative Nicholas Deak.\u00a0 The company was the largest currency and gold bullion trader in the US after WWII and financed CIA adventures in Vietnam and the Belgian Congo through their Hong Kong gold monopoly.<\/p>\n Operation Ajax was led by H. Norman Schwartzkopf, father of the Gulf War General of same name, and Kermit Roosevelt, grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt.\u00a0 A palace\u00a0coup<\/i>\u00a0led by Shah loyalist General Fazlollah Zahedi was organized in 1954.\u00a0 Mossadegh was deposed and the Shah flew into Tehran from exile in Rome seated next to Allen Dulles. [5]<\/p>\n The Four Horsemen had their puppet back in the National Palace.\u00a0 Kermit Roosevelt stayed in Tehran, his CIA Deputy Director of Plans income soon augmented by a new job as salesman of military aircraft for Northrop Corporation.<\/p>\n In 1952 the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published a report detailing collusion and price-fixing on the part of the Four Horsemen.\u00a0 Titled\u00a0The International Petroleum Cartel<\/i>, the report detailed secret production quotas, joint ventures, marketing agreements and other evidence of collusion.<\/p>\n The Justice Department responded to the 1952 FTC report by bringing an anti-trust case against the US faction of Big Oil.\u00a0 Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Texaco and Gulf hired Sullivan & Cromwell, but the hotshot lawyers were never needed.<\/p>\n Ten days before the\u00a0coup<\/i>\u00a0against Mossadegh\u2019s democratically-elected government, President Eisenhower dismissed the FTC case on national security grounds.\u00a0 Ike granted the Horsemen immunity from prosecution, while his envoy former President Herbert Hoover traveled to Tehran to help Big Oil and their puppet Shah establish the Iranian Consortium, which consisted of the Four Horsemen and French oil giant\u00a0Compaignie Francaise de Petroles<\/i>\u00a0(now Total Fina).\u00a0 BP held a 40% share. [6]<\/p>\n SAVAK Terrorism and US Multinationals<\/b><\/p>\n Wherever the Four Horsemen gallop the CIA is close behind.\u00a0 Iran was no exception.\u00a0 By 1957 the Company, as intelligence insiders know the CIA, created one of its first Frankensteins \u2013 the Shah\u2019s brutal secret police known as SAVAK.<\/p>\n Kermit Roosevelt, the Mossadegh\u00a0coup<\/i>-master turned Northrop salesman, admitted in his memoirs that SAVAK was 100% created by the CIA and Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency that acts as appendage of the CIA.\u00a0 For the next 20 years the CIA and SAVAK were joined at the hip when it came to matters of Persian Gulf security.<\/p>\n Three hundred fifty SAVAK agents were shuttled each year to CIA training facilities in McLean, Virginia, where they learned the finer arts of interrogation and torture. [7]\u00a0 Top SAVAK brass were trained through the US Agency for International Development\u2019s (USAID) Public Safety Program, until it was shut down in 1973 due to its reputation for turning out some of the world\u2019s finest terrorists.<\/p>\n In 1963 when JFK was assassinated SAVAK Chief Hassan Pakravan joined the Shah in Tehran to celebrate Kennedy\u2019s death. [8]\u00a0 CIA, MI6 and Mossad supported 30 paramilitary groups in Iran and provided support to Shah-loyalist groups.<\/p>\n Popular anger towards Big Oil, the Shah and his new police state resulted in mass protests.\u00a0 The Shah dealt with the peaceful demonstrations with sheer brutality and got a wink and nod from Langley.\u00a0 From 1957-79 Iran housed 125,000 political prisoners.\u00a0 SAVAK \u201cdisappeared\u201d dissenters, a strategy replicated by CIA surrogate dictators in Argentina and Chile.<\/p>\n SAVAK\u2019s campaign of terror reached its nadir on June 15th, 1963.\u00a0 That day over 1,000 people were butchered by SAVAK forces, in what became known as the 15th of Khordad Massacre.\u00a0 In 1974 the director of Amnesty International declared that no country had a worse human rights record than Iran.\u00a0 The CIA responded by increasing its support for SAVAK. [9]<\/p>\n A small group of elite families close to the Shah assumed total control of the Iranian economy.\u00a0 The Aalam, Sadri, Bakhtiyari and Eqbal families were part of this tiny but powerful aristocracy, as were the Rafsanjanis, who owned thousands of hectares of pistachio groves and whose son Hashemi would later become Iran\u2019s President.<\/p>\n Under the Shah\u2019s reign, the Rafsanjanis made millions in real estate transactions, selling much of their land to the throngs of multinational corporations who flocked to Tehran, where they were awarded tax holidays, exemptions of duties on imported machinery and low-interest US-taxpayer-guaranteed Export-Import Bank loans. [10]<\/p>\n In 1971 the Shah held an extravagant coronation to celebrate the 2,500-year anniversary of the Peacock Throne. Guests included Chase Manhattan insider John McCloy and George Ball, the long-time State Department hack who was now a senior partner at Lehman Brothers.\u00a0 Chase Manhattan, the Bank of America and Morgan Guaranty had been doing business in Iran for a very long time.\u00a0 Now they were joined by a horde of other banking giants.<\/p>\n In 1968 Citibank bought a 35% stake in Bank Iranian. Manufacturer\u2019s Hanover Trust (now part of JP Morgan Chase), led by Minos Zombanakis, became intimately involved in Iranian affairs.\u00a0 Chase Chairman David Rockefeller presented the Shah with a hunting rifle and bought up Iranian art.\u00a0 Soon Chase had a 35% share of the Industrial Credit Bank of Iran.\u00a0 Bankers flocked to the Hilton and Intercontinental Hotels in Tehran to put together loan deals, which led to huge contracts for the multinational corporations which these same banks controlled.<\/p>\n B.F. Goodrich, Allied Chemical and Amoco established huge petrochemical joint ventures in Khuzistan.\u00a0 Chase Investment, Diamond Agatel, Mitsui and Hawaiian Agronomic built an agro-industrial complex.\u00a0 The world\u2019s first aluminum smelter popped up at Arak in a joint venture between Reynolds, Kaiser, British Metal and General Cable. [11]\u00a0 Dow Chemical, FMC and John Deere set up agribusiness operations, while Cargill, Continental and other international grain giants flooded the Iranian market with US taxpayer-subsidized wheat, corn and feed grains.<\/p>\n Iran had been self-sufficient in foodstuffs. Now the country embarked upon an export-led development strategy that benefited a handful of Tehran elite and their multinational partners.\u00a0 Cotton, sugar cane and sugar beet cultivation for export replaced traditional subsistence crops like maize and rice with help from USAID.<\/p>\n In 1961, before this \u201cWhite Revolution\u201d, 79% of Iranian agriculture was for domestic consumption.\u00a0 Ten years later only 50% of production stayed in country while the other half was exported.\u00a0 Most multinationals operating in Iran went through either Chase Manhattan or Bank Omran, which became known at the USDA as \u201cthe Shah\u2019s bank\u201d.<\/p>\n Food deficits weren\u2019t far behind. Soon Iran found itself importing basic foods like wheat and corn to feed its increasingly urbanized population.\u00a0 Destitute farmers, plowed under by foreign agribusiness, flooded into Tehran and other large cities.\u00a0 In 1963 there had been over 40,000 villages in Iran.\u00a0 When the Shah was deposed in 1979 there were less than 10,000.\u00a0 The population of Tehran doubled during the 1970\u2019s, with many of the newcomers living in the growing shantytowns.\u00a0 Ironically, many built their shanties out of US military crates, which were now arriving daily. [12]<\/p>\n War is Business<\/b><\/p>\n No corporations profited more than US defense contractors.\u00a0 From 1950-63 the Middle East received 3% of US military aid to the world.\u00a0 From 1971-75 it received 60.2%. [13]\u00a0 The bulk of it went to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran.<\/p>\n Iran and Saudi Arabia were the \u201cTwin Pillars\u201d in President Nixon\u2019s 1972 Guam Doctrine.\u00a0 Nixon and his cronies saw these two nations as critical to ensuring a steady cheap supply of crude oil to the US.\u00a0 Saudi reserves are estimated at 261 billion barrels, while Iran sits atop nearly 100 billion barrels.<\/p>\n In return for cranking out cheap oil for the Four Horsemen these nations, both ruled by dictatorial monarchs, were armed to the teeth by US defense contractors and served as surrogates in financing and implementing US covert actions in the Middle East region aimed at nationalist and pan-Arab governments that threatened Big Oil interests.<\/p>\n In addition, oil revenues received by both the Shah and his House of Saud counterparts were recycled back into US money-center banks JP Morgan, Chase Manhattan and Citibank.\u00a0 These banks own huge blocks of stock in the Four Horsemen and in the defense contractors which now jostled for position in both Tehran and Riyadh.\u00a0 Chase Manhattan owned Iran\u2019s Central Bank \u2013 Bank Markazi.\u00a0 The international bankers were the main beneficiaries of this new oil for arms\u00a0quid pro quo<\/i>.<\/p>\n In Iran the Shah was given\u00a0carte blanche<\/i>\u00a0on US arms purchases. Iran came to account for 25% of US military sales. Westinghouse and Hughes Aircraft worked with Iran Electronics Industry to build a missile assembly and repair plant.\u00a0 Bell Helicopter constructed a helicopter assembly plant at Isfahan.\u00a0 Grumman, Rockwell, Lockheed, Fairchild, TRW, GTE, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas all profited from deals with Tehran.<\/p>\n Bribery of Iranian officials was the norm in procuring defense contracts.\u00a0 Grumman coughed up $24 million in bribes to sell its F-14 fighters. Textron paid $2.9 million in\u00a0baksheesh<\/i>. Kermit Roosevelt\u2019s new employer, Northrop, paid $2.1 million in bribes to sell the Iranian Air Force its F-5 aircraft.\u00a0 When Roosevelt\u2019s memoirs\u00a0Countercoup<\/i>\u00a0came out in 1979, many defense contractors were caught with their pants down as a now disillusioned Roosevelt named names.\u00a0 BP pressured publisher McGraw-Hill to pull the book from circulation due to Roosevelt\u2019s contention that BP had hatched Operation Ajax to overthrow Mossadegh. [14]<\/p>\n US government officials passed through the revolving door to private industry to get a piece of the US-taxpayer-funded action in Iran.\u00a0 Admiral Thomas Moorer, only months after retiring as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined Stanwich International Corporation as that ship repair company\u2019s sales representative in Iran.\u00a0 Retired 4-star General Hamilton Howe signed on with Textron\u2019s Bell Helicopter division in Tehran.<\/p>\n The Shah gave bribes to the US media, which portrayed his government in a favorable light.\u00a0 CBS anchor Walter Kronkite received cigars and caviar, as did NBC anchor John Chancellor.\u00a0 David Brinkley, Mike Wallace, Rowland Evans, Robert Novak and\u00a0Washington Post<\/i>\u00a0publisher Catherine Graham were \u201cgifted\u201d as well.\u00a0 The Shah made a $750,000 donation to the secretive Aspen Institute, which distributed pro-Shah booklets around the US.\u00a0 Politicians were also beneficiaries of the Shah\u2019s\u00a0largesse<\/i>.\u00a0 Marion Javits, wife of Sen. Jacob Javits (R-NY), an important member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, received a $67,500 public relations contract from the Shah.<\/p>\n The US sold $20 billion worth of weaponry to the Shah, though only $8.7 billion worth was actually delivered. [15] Some of what did arrive was totally useless.\u00a0 One shipment of Tang class submarines purchased by the Iranians was never deployed because they weren\u2019t designed to operate in the shallow waters off the Iranian coast.<\/p>\n Iranians were trained in the US to operate the systems that did work.\u00a0 From 1964-72, nearly 5,000 Iranians received training at US Air Force Schools. [16]\u00a0 The US was careful not to train the Iranians on militarily sensitive weapons.\u00a0 By 1977 there were 4,500 US technicians in Iran operating these more advanced systems.<\/p>\n For his efforts as loyal servant in supplying cheap oil to the Four Horsemen, the Shah would become one of the richest men in the world.<\/p>\n When Israel invaded Egypt\u2019s Sinai Peninsula in 1967 Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, a strident nationalist and foe of Big Oil, responded by closing the Suez Canal to tanker traffic, then called on OPEC to launch an oil embargo.\u00a0 Even the Saudis concurred.\u00a0 But the Shah ordered Iran to step up oil production.<\/p>\n The huge refinery at Abadan was upgraded, providing Big Oil with enough crude to break the embargo.\u00a0 The Suez closure ended up hurting independent oil companies most, since the majors had already developed supertankers, which were too large to pass through the canal anyway.\u00a0 Still the Shah\u2019s decision radicalized many moderate members of OPEC.<\/p>\n Led by Algeria and Iraq, the nationalists began to exert their influence.\u00a0 In 1969 Colonel Mohamar Qaddafi took power in Libya following a bloodless palace\u00a0coup<\/i>\u00a0which toppled that country\u2019s monarchy.\u00a0 Palestinian guerrillas targeted TAPLINE, a pipeline owned by ARAMCO \u2013 the Four Horsemen-controlled Saudi consortium and largest oil company in the world.\u00a0 TAPLINE crosses Syria on its way to the Mediterranean port of Sidon in Lebanon.\u00a0 After one such attack, Syria guaranteed Libya that it would keep the pipeline down for 270 days to drive up oil prices.\u00a0 But again the Shah opened the spigots and prices remained stable. [17] Part of the reason the Israelis came to occupy parts of southern Lebanon was so they could guard the strategic port of Sidon for Big Oil.<\/p>\n Qaddafi responded to the Shah\u2019s moves by initiating the Tripoli I and II plans, which placed non-negotiable demands on Big Oil.\u00a0 Both plans gained quick support among OPEC nations, but again the Shah countered, this time with the Tehran Agreement, which guaranteed the oil companies unlimited supplies of crude.\u00a0 With this guarantee in place, the Four Horsemen were actually able to stockpile petroleum during the ensuing Arab oil embargo of 1973.\u00a0 Though the Saudis cut production by a full 25%, world output actually increased 8% due to the flood of oil coming out of Iran.<\/p>\n While US consumers saw gasoline prices quadruple at the pump, Big Oil reaped a huge windfall from the embargo.\u00a0 Had the whole event had been staged as a pretext to permanently raise gasoline prices in the US?<\/p>\n Indeed, prices have never returned to pre-1973 levels.\u00a0 In 1972, the year before the embargo, the Four Horsemen showed a collective profit of $5.4 billion.\u00a0 The year the embargo ended their combined profits jumped to $8.4 billion \u2013 a 56% increase.<\/p>\n Exxon\u2019s profit during 1973, the year the embargo began, was $2.5 billion, which was at that time the best yearly profit ever in the company\u2019s long history. [18]\u00a0 The embargo also ran many independent oil companies out of business, wiping out Four Horsemen competition.\u00a0 It was not the first time the Horsemen would profit from a crisis.\u00a0 Nor would it be the last.<\/p>\n [1] \u201cIran and the West: A Century of Subjugation\u201d. Eqbal Ahmad.\u00a0Christianity in Crisis<\/i>. 3-3-80. p.30<\/p>\n [2]\u00a0Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary Record: 1914-1956.<\/i>\u00a0J.C. Hurewitz. D. Van Nostrand Company Inc. Princeton, NJ. 1956. p.160<\/p>\n [3] Ibid. p.25<\/p>\n [4]\u00a0Tell the American People: Perspectives on the Iranian Revolution<\/i>. David Albert. Movement for a Free Society. Philadelphia. 1980. p.24<\/p>\n [5] Ibid. p.31<\/p>\n [6]\u00a0Who Owns the Earth<\/i>. James Ridgeway. MacMillan Publishing. New York. 1980. p.77<\/p>\n [7] Albert<\/p>\n [8]\u00a0Plausible Denial: Was the\u00a0<\/i>CIA<\/i>\u00a0Involved in the Assassination of JFK?<\/i>\u00a0Mark Lane. Thunder\u2019s Mouth Press. New York. 1991<\/p>\n [9] Albert<\/p>\n [10] Ibid<\/p>\n [11]\u00a0Multinational Corporations and Third World Development.<\/i>\u00a0Pradip K. Ghosh. Greenwood Press. Westport, CT. 1984. p.261<\/p>\n [12] Albert. p.5<\/p>\n [13]\u00a0Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader<\/i>. Phyllis Bennis and Michel Monshabeck. Olive Branch Press. Brooklyn, NY. 1991. p.38<\/p>\n [14]\u00a0Endless Enemies: The Making of an Unfriendly World<\/i>. Jonathan Kwitney. Penguin Books. New York. 1986. p.183<\/p>\n [15] \u201cArms and the Shah\u201d. Michael Klare.\u00a0Progressive<\/i>. August, 1979.<\/p>\n [16]\u00a0The Gulf: Scramble for Security<\/i>. Raj Choudry. Sreedhar. New Dehli. 1983. p.19<\/p>\n [17]\u00a0OPEC: The Falling Giant<\/i>. Mohammed E. Ahrari. University of Kentucky Press. Lexington, KY. 1986. p.29<\/p>\n [18]\u00a0Webs of Power: International Cartels and the World Economy<\/i>. Kurt Rodolf Mirow and Henry Mauer. Houghton-Mifflin Company Boston. 1982. p.87<\/p>\n Dean Henderson<\/strong>\u00a0is the author of five books:\u00a0Big Oil & Their Bankers in the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families & Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics & Terror Network<\/a>,\u00a0The Grateful Unrich: Revolution in 50 Countries<\/a>,Das Kartell der Federal Reserve,\u00a0Stickin\u2019 it to the Matrix<\/a>\u00a0&\u00a0The Federal Reserve Cartel<\/a>.\u00a0 You can subscribe free to his weekly\u00a0Left Hook<\/b>\u00a0column @www.hendersonlefthook.wordpress.com<\/a><\/p>\n![\"???????\"](\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20140927212150\/https:\/\/hendersonlefthook.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/08\/south-america-2008-135.jpg\")
<\/a>Oil-rich Iran has been in the crosshairs of the\u00a0Illuminati\u00a0<\/i>banksters and their\u00a0<\/i>Four Horsemen oil cartel (Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, BP Amoco and Royal Dutch\/Shell) for well over a century.<\/p>\n