America's Great Game

More Advance Praise for

America’s Great Game

“
America’s Great Game
is an epic story of how the American search for adventure and idealism contributed to coups and counter-revolutions in the Middle East. Drawing on extensive research, Wilford explains the rise of the CIA, the tortured American relationship with Arabs and Jews, and Washington’s Cold War complicity with British imperial interests. What makes this book most enthralling is that the author builds the story around the grandsons of Theodore Roosevelt. This is a valuable history and a fascinating read—a true page-turner.”

—Jeremi Suri, Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs, University of Texas at Austin, and author of
Liberty’s Surest Guardian: American Nation-Building from the Founders to Obama

“This is a great book: well written with compelling details, good stories, and impressive use of primary evidence. It is tied together by a first-rate thesis that will make people think again about the Middle East.”

—Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, author of
In Spies We Trust: The Story of Western Intelligence

Copyright © 2013 by Hugh Wilford
Published by Basic Books,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10107.

Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail
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.

Designed by Pauline Brown
Typeset in 11 point Stempel Garamond LT Std by the Perseus Books Group
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wilford, Hugh, 1965–
America’s Greatest Game: the CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East / Hugh Wilford.

pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-465-06982-8 (ebook)
1.
Middle East—Relations—United States—History.
2.
United States—Relations—Middle East—History.
3.
Arab countries—Relations—United States—History.
4.
United States—Relations—Arab countries—History.
5.
United States. Central Intelligence Agency I.
Title.

DS63.2.U5W49 2013

327.73056—dc23

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For
JONATHAN

I meant to make a new nation, to restore a lost influence, to give twenty millions of Semites the foundations on which to build an inspired dream-palace of their national thoughts
.

—T. E. Lawrence,
Seven Pillars of Wisdom
(1922)
I had formed a beautiful and gracious image and I saw it melting before my eyes. Before every noble outline had been obliterated, I preferred to go; in spite of my love for the Arab nation and my sense of responsibility for its future, I did not think I could bear to see the evaporation of the dream which had guided me
.

—Gertrude Bell to King Faisal of Iraq (1922)

Contents

Abbreviations

Dramatis Personae

The Arab World in 1947

Preface

Part One
Pre-Game, 1916–1947

ONE
Learning the Game

TWO
Beginning the Quest

THREE
OSS/Cairo

FOUR
Great Game Redux

FIVE
Zion

SIX
The Guest No One Invites Again

Part Two
Warm-Up, 1947–1949

SEVEN
Game Plan

EIGHT
The Right Kind of Leader? Syria, 1949

Part Three
Winning, 1949–1956

NINE
American Friends of the Middle East

TEN
In Search of a Hero: Egypt, 1952

ELEVEN
Mad Men on the Nile

TWELVE
Authoring a Coup: Iran, 1953

THIRTEEN
From ALPHA . . .

FOURTEEN
Crypto-Diplomacy

FIFTEEN
Peacemakers

Part Four
Losing, 1956–1958

SIXTEEN
. . . to OMEGA

SEVENTEEN
Increasingly a Vehicle for Your Purposes

EIGHTEEN
Archie’s Turn: Syria, 1956

NINETEEN
Game On: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, 1957

TWENTY
Game Over

TWENTY-ONE
Epilogue

Notes

Index

Abbreviations