---
category: "Intelligence & Government"
tags:
  - Person
  - CIA
  - Israel
  - Military
summary: "CIA officer who orchestrated the 1953 coup that restored the Shah of Iran to power after the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh."
born: 1916-02-16
died: 2000-06-08
location: "Buenos Aires, Argentina"
relations:
  - type: participant_in
    with: "[[Suez Crisis]]"
    role: "attendee, Suez meeting"
    start: 1956-08-13
    end: 1956-08-13
    fn: 5
updated: 2026-10-14
---

[[Kermit Roosevelt]] was a [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] officer who, along with [[Miles Copeland]], helped the [[Iran|Iranian]] military restore the [[Mohammad Reza Pahlavi|Shah]] of Iran to power in 1953. This occurred after the Shah had been overthrown by [[Mohammed Mossadegh]] during the turmoil that followed the nationalization of Iranian oil.[^1]

### Egypt and the Suez crisis

Miles Copeland wrote in *The Game Player* that in late March 1952, four months before the coup against King Farouk, Roosevelt and Gamal Abdel Nasser began a series of meetings, the first with a committee of officers far from the center of the movement and the second attended by Nasser himself, and that Copeland wrote up the agreement they reached from Roosevelt's oral account. Copeland wrote that [[Mohamed Hassanein Heikal]] denied the meetings and that the second "was documented and photographed."[^2]

At a September 27, 1954 meeting of State, Defense, Foreign Operations Administration and CIA representatives on military assistance to Egypt, "Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Bissell described briefly the situation in Egypt."[^3] Copeland wrote in *The Game of Nations* that Roosevelt took the lead in Washington in arguing for the $3,000,000 offer to Nasser, and that Nasser's aides called the Cairo Tower built with the money, in Copeland's transliteration "el wa'ef rusjel," "Roosevelt's erection"; Copeland wrote that State Department officials who knew of the offer blamed Roosevelt because they thought he had tried to make a fool of Nasser.[^4]

On August 13, 1956, Roosevelt attended a meeting on the Suez situation with [[Allen Dulles]], [[Gordon Gray]], [[Arthur Flemming]], [[George Humphrey]] and others, according to the Secretary's Appointment Book cited in the Foreign Relations volume.[^5] On June 7, 1967, during the Six-Day War crisis, [[Walt Rostow]] sent [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] a memorandum proposing quiet beginnings of discussions with moderate Arabs and stating that "men like Eugene Black, Robert Anderson, Raymond Hare, Kermit Roosevelt might be helpful" in connection with them.[^6]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network*. Sheridan Square Press, 1992 (TrineDay reprint, 2015).
[^2]: Copeland, Miles. *The Game Player: Confessions of the CIA's Original Political Operative.* London: Aurum Press, 1989, pp. 153-155.
[^3]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-1954, vol. IX, Part 2, Document 1364, memorandum by Staats to the Operations Coordinating Board, September 28, 1954. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1952-54v09p2/d1364
[^4]: Copeland, Miles. *The Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics.* London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969, pp. 148-150.
[^5]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955-1957, vol. XVI, Suez Crisis, Document 57, editorial note on the August 13, 1956 meeting, citing the Secretary's Appointment Book. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1955-57v16/d57
[^6]: Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Arab-Israeli Crisis and War, 1967, Document 189, memorandum from the President's Special Assistant (Rostow) to President Johnson, June 7, 1967. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d189