Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio 4,05 Dec 2023,28 mins

Mohammad Mossadegh, PM of Iran ousted in a coup

Great Lives

Available for over a year

Walter Murch picks Mohammad Mossadegh, prime minister following the nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian oil company in 1951. Mossadegh was ousted in a coup in 1953. Murch became fascinated in Mossadegh's life while working on a Sam Mendes film about the first Iraq War. Walter Murch is an editor best known for Apocalypse Now, The Godfather and The Constant Gardener. He also worked on a documentary called Coup 53. This is the first in a new series of Great Lives and includes archive of Kermit Roosevelt, a CIA operative. The British were also heavily involved in the coup. The expert is Professor Ali Ansari of St Andrews University, presenter on Radio 4 of Through Persian Eyes. The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde Future programme subjects include singer Eartha Kitt, author JG Ballard, and pioneering British aviator Diana Barnato-Walker who delivered Spitfires in World War Two.

Programme Website
More episodes