The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran by David Crist
Authors: David Crist
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a view shared by many CIA analysts. After months of debate and discussions about building an insurgency in Iran, the idea died the death of inaction.
B uilding a spy network in Iran would not be an easy proposition. Iran was, in the parlance of the spy business, a “denied country.” With no American embassy to provide cover for CIA officers or to serve as a base of operations, the agency would have to infiltrate Iran from outside the country. TheCIA established a new office to run its Iranian operations inside one wing of the I.G. Farben building in Frankfurt, the same headquarters housing ISA, the U.S. Army’s V Corps, and the military’s regional clandestine operations. It also quietly served as the main support base for CIA operations in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Langley called its new unit “Tehfran,” an amalgam of Tehran and Frankfurt. Germany provided reliable cover for the operation; after 1979, many Iranian exiles had settled there. Bonn maintained diplomatic relations with Tehran, and Iranians often traveled to Frankfurt. The CIA could easily bring recruits to the city for screening and training, as well as for the occasional rendezvous between handlers and agents. 10
“Tehfran” began the painstaking process of recruiting agents. As Turkey did not require a visa for Iranian citizens, it served as a corridor for those trying to escape the repression under the ayatollah. Ankara and Istanbul swelled with Persian expatriates looking to obtain visas to travel to Europe or the United States.
Turkey quickly took center stage in the spy contest between Washington and Tehran. The CIA used the American consulate in Istanbul as a recruiting center for Tehfran, with an intelligence officer assigned to identify potential Iranians for recruitment. The grounds around the consulate became a favorite recruiting locale for American intelligence officers.
“It was a heavy workload,” recalled Philip Giraldi, who worked in the Istanbul consulate and ran its Iranian operations from 1986 to 1989. Sifting through the stacks of visa applications for those in the military or with political connections, he conducted around twenty interviews each week, with one or two showing promise. “Of these, one every couple of months we would actually go after and pitch. And the pitches were frequently successful.” 11
The CIA found fertile ground among Iranian military officers. Many had attended schools in the United States and had close friends in the U.S. military. The navy and air force were the most pro-American, and Giraldi himself recruited three senior air force officers, including a brigadier general. CIA case officers across Europe were on the watch for important Iranians, people “needing a favor with information we could use,” as one retired CIA employee put it. Operating under diplomatic cover and using fictitious first names, the CIA encouraged their recruits’ sympathies for the United States or their abhorrence of communism. If that failed, the Americans used coercion to obtain cooperation, dangling a coveted visa to the United States for a recruit’sfamily in return for spying for Langley. This proved one of the most effective means employed by the CIA to obtain cooperation. 12
One of those recruited by Giraldi in September 1986 was a prominent air force colonel, Masoud Babaii, who’d flown to Istanbul with his family to request a visa for the United States. Babaii spoke good English, having graduated from pilot training in Texas. He openly cooperated with Giraldi during his interview and volunteered detailed information about the status of the Iranian air force and the war with Iraq. “He was one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet,” Giraldi recalled. The CIA brought in a Farsi speaker to make the pitch to work for the Americans. Babaii agreed to go back to Iran for several years in return for a guaranteed visa for him and his family. 13
O ne of the naval
B uilding a spy network in Iran would not be an easy proposition. Iran was, in the parlance of the spy business, a “denied country.” With no American embassy to provide cover for CIA officers or to serve as a base of operations, the agency would have to infiltrate Iran from outside the country. TheCIA established a new office to run its Iranian operations inside one wing of the I.G. Farben building in Frankfurt, the same headquarters housing ISA, the U.S. Army’s V Corps, and the military’s regional clandestine operations. It also quietly served as the main support base for CIA operations in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Langley called its new unit “Tehfran,” an amalgam of Tehran and Frankfurt. Germany provided reliable cover for the operation; after 1979, many Iranian exiles had settled there. Bonn maintained diplomatic relations with Tehran, and Iranians often traveled to Frankfurt. The CIA could easily bring recruits to the city for screening and training, as well as for the occasional rendezvous between handlers and agents. 10
“Tehfran” began the painstaking process of recruiting agents. As Turkey did not require a visa for Iranian citizens, it served as a corridor for those trying to escape the repression under the ayatollah. Ankara and Istanbul swelled with Persian expatriates looking to obtain visas to travel to Europe or the United States.
Turkey quickly took center stage in the spy contest between Washington and Tehran. The CIA used the American consulate in Istanbul as a recruiting center for Tehfran, with an intelligence officer assigned to identify potential Iranians for recruitment. The grounds around the consulate became a favorite recruiting locale for American intelligence officers.
“It was a heavy workload,” recalled Philip Giraldi, who worked in the Istanbul consulate and ran its Iranian operations from 1986 to 1989. Sifting through the stacks of visa applications for those in the military or with political connections, he conducted around twenty interviews each week, with one or two showing promise. “Of these, one every couple of months we would actually go after and pitch. And the pitches were frequently successful.” 11
The CIA found fertile ground among Iranian military officers. Many had attended schools in the United States and had close friends in the U.S. military. The navy and air force were the most pro-American, and Giraldi himself recruited three senior air force officers, including a brigadier general. CIA case officers across Europe were on the watch for important Iranians, people “needing a favor with information we could use,” as one retired CIA employee put it. Operating under diplomatic cover and using fictitious first names, the CIA encouraged their recruits’ sympathies for the United States or their abhorrence of communism. If that failed, the Americans used coercion to obtain cooperation, dangling a coveted visa to the United States for a recruit’sfamily in return for spying for Langley. This proved one of the most effective means employed by the CIA to obtain cooperation. 12
One of those recruited by Giraldi in September 1986 was a prominent air force colonel, Masoud Babaii, who’d flown to Istanbul with his family to request a visa for the United States. Babaii spoke good English, having graduated from pilot training in Texas. He openly cooperated with Giraldi during his interview and volunteered detailed information about the status of the Iranian air force and the war with Iraq. “He was one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet,” Giraldi recalled. The CIA brought in a Farsi speaker to make the pitch to work for the Americans. Babaii agreed to go back to Iran for several years in return for a guaranteed visa for him and his family. 13
O ne of the naval
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