Andre Le Gallo a former CIA spy in Iran warned Harold H. (Hal) Saunders – then Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs in March 1979 before 2nd takeover of Iranian Embassy in November 1979 that embassy needed more protection – officials failed to heed his warning. Resulting in the second takeover and the Iranian hostage crisis lasting some 444 days.
What follows is a conversation I had recently with Andre Le Gallo, former CIA operative who served in Iran in 1970′s and provided insight on events leading up to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 – an event that would forever change the world.
Background:
The Iranian Revolution (also known as the National Revolution of Iran or the 1979 Revolution; Persian: , Enqelābe Eslāmi or Enqelāb 22 Bahman) refers to events involving the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty under Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was supported by the United States, and its eventualreplacement with an Islamic republic under the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution, supported by various leftist and Islamic organizations and Iranian student movements. While the Soviet Union immediately recognized the new Islamic Republic, it did not actively support the revolution, initially making efforts to salvage the Shah’s government.
Demonstrations against the Shah commenced in October 1977, developing into a campaign of civil resistance that was religious based (with secular elements) and intensified in January 1978. Between August and December 1978 strikes and demonstrations paralyzed the country. The Shah left Iran for exile on January 16, 1979 as the last Persian monarch, leaving his duties to a regency council and an opposition based prime minister. The Ayatollah Khomeini was invited back to Iran by the government,and returned to Tehran to a greeting by several million Iranians. The royal reign collapsed shortly after on February 11 when guerrillas and rebel troops overwhelmed troops loyal to the Shah in armed street fighting, and bringing Khomeini to official power. Iran voted by national referendum to become an Islamic Republic on April 1, 1979, and to approve a new theocratic-republican constitution whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country, in December 1979.
OK – so who is Andre Le Gallo exactly?
For those who don’t know Andre Le Gallo is a legend in the spy world.
Le Gallo is a veteran of several coups, a war and a revolution.
During a distinguished thirty-year career with the CIA, he served in the Middle East, South East Asia, North and West Africa, and Eastern and Western Europe. He was Chief of Station in four countries, managing counterintelligence, covert action and special operations.
He was also the National Intelligence Officer for Counterterrorism.
Following his intelligence career, Le Gallo joined a Fortune 10 company as the VP for Corporate Security. He initiated global programs to protect corporate assets, introduced competitive intelligence methods, and established crisis management policies.
After 911, Le Gallo was asked to participate as aboard member for a think tank under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, spoke on national security issues at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Microsoft and Oracle, and multiple universities including Harvard Law School, Rice, UC Berkeley, and Stanford.
Le Gallo has been published in the “Intelligence and Counterintelligence Journal”, “The Intelligencer”, “The Forensic Examiner”, in “Studies in Intelligence” and by “United PressInternational”. His first novel, “The Caliphate”, was published in 2010 and his second, “Satan’s Spy”, in 2012.
According to a CIA source – he was a Senior Operations Officer from 1961-1994 and is highly regarded even today by everyone at the agency. I guess you could say his reputation speaks for itself.
Now in an unprecedented interview he reveals certain facts previously unknown regarding the Iranian revolution:
Hello Robert,
One of your questions on Iran asked whether I was sorry for anything I did there. Theanswer is no. I am sorry, however, that I was not able to convince the American ambassador to take advantage of an opportunity.
Although not totally committed to a government takeover, the generals, according to one of my agents, were convinced that a strong show of force would intimidate the mullahs back into their mosques.
One of my other agents had a similar but less potentially bloody recommendation: a peaceful demonstration of public support for the Shah to blunt the opposition. There were thousands of people in the city, he said, who supported the Shah, but they needed encouragement to prove they were not alone.
The Ambassador gave short shrift to this option. Similarly, the CIA said little, preferring to defer to the Department of State and not wanting to be accused of trying to repeat the 1953 coup which had brought the Shah back to power.
What if large demonstrations in support of the Shah had taken place in the fall of 1978? Would they have stopped the opposition’s momentum? Would they have created more time for the Shah’s administration to “stabilize” the situation? Would I have received a hysterical phone call from an Air Force pilot who I had also recruited telling me that all military were being ordered back to their barracks, thus leaving the field to the opposition’s militias? Or was it already too late?
It probably would have delayed the Shah’s departure and also delayed the Ayatollah’s arrival. It probably would have also either delayed or prevented entirely the first takeover of the American Embassy in February. And, if that first invasion of the American compound had not taken place, there would not have been a precedent of invading American territory without consequences.
As I told the Department of State’s Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs in early March 1979, that first takeover could only encourage revolutionary groups to do it again unless the Embassy was better protected.
The Embassy was taken for the second time in November 1979 and its personnel held hostage for 444 days.
When the Ayatollah Khomeini founded the Islamic Republic of Iran, he removed his country from the international system of nations founded in the 17th century by the Peace of Westphalia, which included, among other things, the concept of binding treaties between sovereign states. Since then, Iran has been under the rule of Velayateh Faghih in which divine law from the Koran preempts any man-made laws, treaties, or agreements. Washington should not be deluded into believing that the Rohani election changed Iran’s DNA.
Andre Le Gallo is a former CIA officer and the author of “The Caliphate,” “Satan’s Spy,” and “The Red Cell.”
End Statement