---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
tags:
  - Person
  - IranContra
  - CIA
  - Israel
  - Military
summary: "Retired CIA officer who helped restore the Shah in 1953 and later gathered anti-Carter CIA veterans during the Iranian hostage crisis."
born: 1916-07-16
died: 1991-01-14
location: "Birmingham, Alabama"
relations:
  - type: participant_in
    with: "[[Suez Crisis]]"
    role: "attendee, State Department meeting on Suez"
    start: 1956-07-29
    end: 1956-07-29
    fn: 3
updated: 2026-10-14
---

[[Miles Copeland]] was a well-known retired [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] officer. In December 1979, he gathered a group of CIA-connected officers and associates who were unhappy with the [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]] administration and the CIA leadership.[^1]

Copeland had previously helped [[Kermit Roosevelt]] and the [[Iran|Iranian]] military restore the [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi|Shah]] of Iran to power in 1953 after he had been overthrown by [[Mohammed Mossadegh]]. He was a friend of the late [[Gamal Abdel Nasser|Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser]] and was known for his anti-[[Israel|Israel]] stance. Israeli intelligence believed him responsible for [[United States|U.S.]] pressure on Israel, [[Britain]], and [[France]] to withdraw from the [[Suez Canal]] area in 1956, and for pushing Israelis to withdraw from the [[Sinai Desert|Sinai]].[^1]

Copeland's group, along with the Israeli government, sought to prevent the Iranians from being defeated in [[Khuzistan]] if [[Iraq]] attacked, and to avoid a repeat of President Carter's blunders. A meeting between Copeland and Israeli intelligence officers, including [[David Kimche]], was held in [[Washington, D.C.]].[^1]

### Nasser and the Suez record

In the Foreign Relations record Copeland appears in connection with Nasser at three points. An editorial note in the volume for September 1955 cites his later account, at pages 160 to 165 of *The Game of Nations*, of the circumstances in which a message of September 28, 1955 was sent to the State Department.[^2] On July 29, 1956, at the height of the Suez question, he was among the participants in a meeting with [[Allen Dulles]] and other officials.[^3] On May 21, 1967, the American embassy in the United Arab Republic reported that an Egyptian official named Aziz had told Copeland that UAR forces had been ordered to "hit Israelis with everything they have" if fighting broke out along the border.[^4]

Copeland wrote in *The Game of Nations* that he told Nasser's associate [[Hassan Touhami]] that $3,000,000 in American funds was available, that Touhami answered "We can always find some use for $3,000,000. Let's see what it looks like," and that Nasser received $2,999,990 and used it to build the [[Cairo Tower]] on Gezira island.[^5] Egyptian government documents published by Maj. Gen. Adel Shaheen state that the American government gave Nasser between $1 million and $3 million as a "personal gift," which Nasser put into the state treasury and spent on the tower.[^6] In *The Game Player* Copeland wrote that Kermit Roosevelt and Nasser held a series of meetings in March 1952, four months before the coup against King Farouk, which Copeland did not attend and wrote up from Roosevelt's oral account.[^7]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015).
[^2]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955-1957, vol. XIV, Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1955, Document 318, editorial note on the message of September 28, 1955. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v14/d318
[^3]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955-1957, vol. XVI, Suez Crisis, Document 23, July 29, 1956, listing the participants. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d23
[^4]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967, Document 28, telegram from the Embassy in the United Arab Republic, May 21, 1967, including the editorial note on Aziz and Copeland. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d28
[^5]: Copeland, Miles. *The Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics.* London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969, pp. 148-150.
[^6]: Shariff, Omar. "Cairo Tower: Symbol of Egyptian pride, and Cold War politics." Gulf News, updated October 27, 2021. https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/cairo-tower-symbol-of-egyptian-pride--and-cold-war-politics-1.83250980
[^7]: Copeland, Miles. *The Game Player: Confessions of the CIA's Original Political Operative.* London: Aurum Press, 1989, pp. 153-155.