BACKGROUND THE SITUATION IN IRAN STATUS OF COMMUNIST PENETRATION OF IRANIAN MILITARY ESTABLISHMENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01443R000200080010-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 3, 1998
• Sequence Number: 10
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2000/08/ P80R01443 OQO 6080010
TH$ SITUATION IN IRAN
Status of Communist penetration of Iranian military establishments
1. In April 1953 a commission of high-ranking Iranian officers
estimated 1,600 Tudeh members in armgd forces, 900 in the Army, 300
in the Air Force and 200 each in the Military College and Military
High School.
II. Iranian army intelligence has long shown awareness of Tudeh
activity in army and is familiar with Tudeh army officers organiza-
tion and has identified various individuals involved.
III. Iranian G-2, Colonel Pakravan, has been in charge of ferreting
out Tudeh in the Army. Several hundred army officers, non-corns and
soldiers have been arrested. In G-2's office four officers out of a
total of sixty, and 20 non-corns out of a total of 25 to 30 have been
removed for suspected Tudeh sympathies. Of those arrested around
250 non-commissioned officers have reportedly been summarily dismissed
from the service after their arrest, others have been exiled. At
least sixty officers who were under arrest, presented a problem
because the documentary proof of their complicity in the Tudeh party
was "mysteriously missing" from G-2 files.
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`IV. Attention was drawn padticularly to Tudeh infiltration of the
Air Force on 22 September when Communist sympathizers succeeded in
temporatily sabotaging 13 planes.
25X1X6
V. The Iranian Chief of Staff, in October, asked
25X1X6
for a list of Communists known to by
25X1X6 - to be in the Iranian army. He said that he cod not locate
his own list.
VI. In early November 1953 Iranian G-2 remarked that only a small
proportion of Party members or sympathizers in the army hate been
known or apprehended. In later statements he has been more optimistic,
although there is no convincing evidence that the situation has
changed markedly.
VII. It probably is true that current Iranian army efforts to remove
Communist sympathizers are more widespread and more suceessful than
during tkn Mossadeq's regime. However, the army has neither the
the experience
knowledge,nor the organization to do an effective job.
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