Kermit Roosevelt Jr.

For other people named Kermit Roosevelt, see Kermit Roosevelt (disambiguation).
Kermit Roosevelt Jr.

Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt Jr.,
grandson of "TR" Roosevelt,
member of the OSS, CIA
Born (1916-02-16)February 16, 1916
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Died June 8, 2000(2000-06-08) (aged 84)
Cockeysville, Maryland
Cause of death undisclosed natural causes
Alma mater Harvard University
Occupation career intelligence officer, author
Known for directing Operation Ajax to restore Shah Mohammad
Reza Pahlavi to power in Iran
Spouse(s) Mary Lowe Gaddis
Children Kermit Roosevelt
Mark Roosevelt
Jonathan Roosevelt
Anne Roosevelt Mason
Parent(s) Belle Wyatt Roosevelt (née Willard),
Kermit Roosevelt Sr.

Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt Jr. (February 16, 1916 – June 8, 2000), a grandson of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, was a Harvard-educated career intelligence officer who served in the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), during and following the second world war, went on to found Arabist organizations such as the American Friends of the Middle East, and then to play a critical role in the CIA's operation to return Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the former Shah of Iran, to power in August 1953.

Early life and training

President Theodore Roosevelt with his grandsons Richard Derby (right) and Kermit Roosevelt Jr. (on his lap).

Kermit Roosevelt Jr.—called "Kim" as was standard for the alternating generations of Kermits in the Roosevelt family[1]—was born to Kermit Roosevelt Sr. and Belle Wyatt Roosevelt (née Willard) in Buenos Aires in 1916, where Roosevelt Sr. was an official for a shipping line,[1] and then a manager of the Buenos Aires branch of the National City Bank. The Roosevelt family returned to the U.S., and Kim, his two brothers, Joseph Willard and Dirck, and his sister, Belle Wyatt, grew up in Oyster Bay, N.Y., a homestead near to Sagamore Hill, the Long Island home of the Theodore Roosevelt clan.[1]

Kim attended Groton School as a young man. He graduated from Harvard University in 1937, a year ahead of his class,[1] and married Mary Lowe Gaddis shortly thereafter.[1]

Career

Early career

At the time of Roosevelt Jr.'s death, Mrs. Roosevelt recounted in a NYT interview that after graduating from Harvard, her husband had "tried to teach history to the techy boys at Cal Tech."[1] With the outbreak of the second world war, Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt Jr. then joined the military, serving with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the principal agency that was a forerunner to the CIA. He did not discuss his wartime service with his wife; his son, in the same interview, suggested that Kim had been "involved in planning the invasion of Italy."[1] In June 4, 1943, when Kim was 27, his father, Kermit Sr., a man who drank heavily, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head at Fort Richardson in Alaska where the senior Roosevelt was posted.[2]:232 Roosevelt Jr. remained with the OSS after the war, writing and editing its history to date.[1]

After the war, Roosevelt went on to serve on the advisory board of the largely Arab organization, The Institute of Arab American Affairs (IAAA, 1944-1950),[3] a New York City-based organization—alongside Dean emeritus of Barnard College, Virginia Gildersleeve,[4] Prof. Walter T. Stace of Princeton, Rev. John H. Lathrop, Prof. Albert H. Lyber of Illinois, Benjamin H. Freedman, and others[5]—publishing in 1948, first in essay form in The Middle East Journal, later as an IAAA pamphlet reprint, his views on American Zionism and his arguments regarding the partition of Palestine.[6] In February 1948 Roosevelt joined other like-minded individuals—more than 100 individuals—to form a "Christian group" to aid the fight of the largely rabbinical American Council for Judaism to reverse the ongoing partition of Palestine into exclusive, separate Jewish and Arab states; the Committee for Justice and Peace in the Holy Land (CJP) was founded on March 2, 1948, with Dean emeritus Gildersleeve serving as CJP chair, former Union Theological Seminary president Henry Sloane Coffin as vice-chair, and Roosevelt as executive director.[4]

In 1951, Roosevelt, Virginia Gildersleeve, Dorothy Thompson, and a further group of 24 American educators, theologians, and writers (including Harry Emerson Fosdick) founded the American Friends of the Middle East (AFME), a pro-Arabist organization often critical of U.S. support for Israel.[7][8] The CJP that Roosevelt had helped form in 1948 was subsumed into AFME in 1951,[9] and Roosevelt served as AFME executive secretary for this group of intellectuals and spokespersons, for a time.[7][9] Historians Robert Moats Miller, Hugh Wilford, and others have stated that from its early years, AFME was a part of an Arabist propaganda effort within the U.S. "secretly funded and to some extent managed" by the CIA,[7][8] with further funding from the oil consortium, ARAMCO.[8]

Career in intelligence

Intelligence duties before Operation Ajax

By the early 1950s, Kermit Roosevelt Jr. was a senior officer in the CIA's Middle Eastern division.

As described by Roosevelt

Twenty-six years after the Mossadeq coup, Kermit Roosevelt took the unusual step of writing a book about how he and the CIA carried out the operation. He called his book Countercoup to press home the idea that the CIA coup was staged only to prevent a takeover of power by the Iranian Communist Party (Tudeh) closely backed by the Soviet Union, and to imply that the exile of the Shah constituted the initial coup, and that he was merely restoring the rightful leader to power. According to Roosevelt, he slipped across the border under his CIA cover as "James Lockridge" on June 19, 1953, was put up in Tehran in a place rented by British intelligence, and as Mr. Lockridge, became a regular at the Turkish Embassy where he played tennis and golf, allegedly scoring a hole in one during a game with the Turkish Ambassador; no one suspected that Mr. Lockridge was the grandson of the 26th US President, though at times he came close to blowing his cover.[10]

Historian Hugh Wilford attempts to describe Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt Jr.'s motivations and views underpinning his intelligence efforts, stating that:

"[Roosevelt Jr.] had this notion of America forming an alliance with the Arab countries as they emerged from under the sway of Britain and France. He was very concerned with backing Arab nationalists in the region. He saw that as the best way of keeping it within the American orbit, as the Cold War was gathering momentum …".[7]

Critique of historical presentations

Roosevelt submitted his Countercoup manuscript to the CIA for pre-publication approval, the agency proposed various alterations, and in the perspective of a CIA reviewer: "Roosevelt has reflected quite faithfully the changes that we suggested to him. This has become, therefore, essentially a work of fiction," a conclusion that allowed release of the book; a catalog of the actual changes made during the review is available.[11]

Former senior adviser to the Obama administration and Council on Foreign Relations Iran expert, Ray Takeyh,[12] writing in 2014, states that "Contrary to Roosevelt's account [in Countercoup], the documentary record reveals that the Eisenhower administration was hardly in control and was in fact surprised by the way events played out."[13] Darioush Bayandor, a former United Nations official and Iranian diplomat (under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi), has presented U.S. Department of State archival material and the CIA internal account of the coup events, noting that they contradict Roosevelt's narrative.[14] Author William Blum criticized Roosevelt for providing no evidence when he "argu[ed] that Mossadegh had to be removed to prevent a communist takeover" of Iran.[15] Per Blum, Roosevelt posed Mossadegh was a danger due to his seizure of the oil industry, other Socialist reforms, and his cooperation with the Tudeh Party; Blum argued, on the other hand, that Mossadegh's role was much more nuanced.[15] Blum states that this view was shared by many in the intelligence community, that the head of CIA station in Iran resigned rather than participate in the coup, and that intelligence outsiders, including some in the Truman administration, felt that Mossadegh should have been kept in power to prevent a Communist takeover.[15] Abbas Milani, Stanford's director of Iranian Studies and co-director of the Hoover Institution's Iran Democracy Project, writing in The New Republic, expressed his opinion that "Roosevelt's memoir inflated his own and, in turn, America's centrality to the coup. He tells the story with the relish of a John le Carré knock-off. … Eisenhower, for one, [Milani asserts] considered reports like this to be the stuff of 'dime novels.'"[16]

Frederic P. Hitz, the Weinberg Goldman Sachs Professor of International Relations at Princeton University, has noted that Countercoup reveals "how covert actions were authorized in those days, without oversight. It was just a group of people sitting around in an office …".[1] Historian Hugh Wilford describes three key players involved in middle east matters at the time of the founding of the CIA in 1947: "The cousins … Kermit and Archie Roosevelt, both grandsons of Theodore Roosevelt … [and] the third member of this … triangle … Miles Copeland … from Alabama—a very smart, dynamic young man. [The Roosevelts] … took him under their wing, and between them they led the American intelligence efforts in the Middle East."[7] He goes on to elaborate the views of these three that underpinned their intelligence efforts, stating that:

"[I]t was definitely about keeping the Middle East out of Soviet hands [and] about Western access to oil. I think there was also an element of idealism. These were very young guys in their 20s and 30s, and they had almost a romantic view of the good that America could do in the region."[7]

The views of the CIA Arabists were not in isolation; Wilford notes that the "Eisenhower administration [including Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, was] initially quite sympathetic towards … Roosevelt's Arabist agenda" and willing to oppose Middle Eastern regimes seen "as backing the Soviet Union rather than the U.S."; ultimately, the emergence of American public support for Israel and the administration's evolving framework to respond to its principle Cold War adversary, the Soviet Union, would lead to failure of the Arabist agenda of Roosevelt and his colleagues.[7] In discussing Roosevelt's role, Wilford describes him as being among "the most important intelligence officers of their generation in the Middle East."[7]

Intelligence duties after Ajax

Frederic P. Hitz of Princeton University has stated that the success of Operation Ajax led Roosevelt's superiors to offer him the further opportunity to initiate a similar operation aimed at "the government of Guatemala," but that Roosevelt "turned it down."[1] This observation was also made by NYT reporter Steven Kinzer, in interview regarding All the Shah's Men (see above), where Kinzer states "Kermit Roosevelt demurred but someone else was found."[17]

General legacy

John Waller, an intelligence colleague of Roosevelt Jr. at the CIA, made special note of Churchill's approval of Roosevelt's effort in Operation Ajax, and described Roosevelt thus: "Kim was in that Churchillian mode of a 19th-century warrior… [and] was a man of the times and a good man to have around during the cold war."[1]

Personal life

Kim Roosevelt married Mary Lowe "Polly" Gaddis shortly after his early graduation from Harvard, in 1937, and they had three sons, the eldest Kermit (Kermit Roosevelt III, born April 7, 1938), the second Jonathan (1940-2013), and the third Mark (born 1955), and a daughter, Anne (born 1952).[1] Roosevelt Jr.'s last days were spent at a retirement community in Cockeysville, Maryland.[1] He was survived by his wife, his children (his daughter now Anne Mason), a brother, Joseph Willard Roosevelt, and seven grandchildren, including Kermit Roosevelt, a law professor.[1][18]

Roosevelt Jr.'s published works

Presented by date, all single author unless otherwise noted:

Further reading

On Roosevelt Jr. in general

On Arabist questions, from Roosevelt's organizations

On Roosevelt Jr.'s role in Operation Ajax

The following are some articles and book chapters relevant to the role of Roosevelt Jr. in Operation Ajax, in order of date of publication:

References and notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Irvin Molotsky, 2000, "Obituary: Kermit Roosevelt, Leader of CIA Coup in Iran, Dies at 84," The New York Times, June 10, 2000, see , accessed 17 June 2015.
  2. ↑ Edward Renehan, 1998, The Lion's Pride: Theodore Roosevelt and His Family in Peace and War, Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195127195 and 0195127196, see accessed 16 June 2015.
  3. ↑ Hani J. Bawardi, 2014, "The Institute of Arab American Affairs: Arab Americans and the New World Order," in The Making of Arab Americans: From Syrian Nationalism to U.S. Citizenship, pp. 239-295, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, ISBN 0292757484, see , accessed 18 June 2015.
  4. 1 2 Thomas A. Kolsky, 1992, Jews Against Zionism:The American Council for Judaism, 1942-1948, Philadelphia, PA:Temple University Press, pp. 181–2, see , accessed 18 June 2015.
  5. ↑ See back materials of the pamphlet, Kermit Roosevelt [Jr.], 1948, Partition of Palestine: A Lesson in Pressure Politics, op. cit.
  6. ↑ Kermit Roosevelt [Jr.], 1948, The Partition of Palestine, The Middle East Journal, 2 (January 1948), pp. 1-16. Reprinted with same author, 1948, Partition of Palestine: A Lesson in Pressure Politics, New York, N.Y.:Institute of Arab American Affairs, Pamphlet No. 7, February 1948, 14 pp. plus front and back material, see , accessed 18 June 2015.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Kira Zalan, 2014, "How the CIA Shaped the Modern Middle East [Hugh Wilford interview]," U.S. News & World Report (online), January 16, 2014, see , accessed 17 June 2015. [Subtitle: "History Professor Hugh Wilford chronicles the agency's involvement in the region."]
  8. 1 2 3 Robert Moats Miller, 1985, Harry Emerson Fosdick: Preacher, Pastor, Prophet, p. 192, Oxford, U.K.:Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195035127 and ISBN 0195365232, see , accessed 17 June 2015.
  9. 1 2 Paul Charles Merkley, 2001, Christian Attitudes Towards the State of Israel, Vol. 16 of McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Religion, Montreal, pp. 6-8, Canada:McGill-Queen's University Press, ISBN 0773521887, see , accessed 17 June 2015.
  10. ↑ By his own description in Countercoup, when making mistakes playing tennis he would instinctively reference himself, crying out, "Oh Roosevelt!" He therefore concocted an explanation to allay suspicions of his friends: that as a loyal member of the Republican Party in the U.S., every Republican scorned and hated Franklin D. Roosevelt, so much so that he took to using FDR's name as a curse. See Kermit Roosevelt Jr., 1979, Countercoup: The Struggle for Control of Iran, New York, N.Y.:McGraw Hill, p. TBD, see , accessed 17 June 2015.
  11. ↑ Malcolm Byrne, Ed., 2014, Iran 1953: The Strange Odyssey of Kermit Roosevelt's Countercoup [National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 468, edited with introductory comment by M. Byrne], The National Security Archive (online), May 12, 2014, see , accessed 17 June 2015. These are declassified CIA documents that relate to the agency's proposed edits to Roosevelt's Countercoup: The Struggle for Control of Iran (New York, N.Y.:McGraw-Hill, 1979).
  12. ↑ Mark Ländler, 2009, "U.S. Is Seeking a Range of Sanctions Against Iran," The New York Times (online), September 27, 2009, see , accessed 17 June 2015.
  13. ↑ Ray Takeyh, 2014, "Comment: What Really Happened in Iran: The CIA, the Ouster of Mosaddeq, and the Restoration of the Shah," Foreign Affairs, July/August 2014 (June 16, 2014), see , accessed 18 June 2015.
  14. ↑ Darioush Bayandor, 2010, Iran and the CIA: The Fall of Mosaddeq Revisited, p. TBD, Basingstoke, U.K.:Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-230-57927-9 and ISBN 0-230-57927-2, see , accessed 17 June 2015.
  15. 1 2 3 William Blum, 2003, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, 2nd edn., p. 66, London, U.K.:Zed Books Radical International Publishing, ISBN 1-84277-369-0, see , accessed 17 June 2015.
  16. ↑ Milani, Abbas (December 8, 2009). "The Great Satan Myth". The New Republic. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
  17. ↑ How to Overthrow A Government Pt. 1: The 1953 U.S. Coup in Iran, Democracynow.org, March 5, 2004
  18. ↑ Mark Ribbing & Jacques Kelly, 2000, "Obituary: Kermit Roosevelt, 84, TR's grandson." The Baltimore Sun, June 10, 2000, Local, pg. 4B, see , accessed 17 June 2015.
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