The Details are [ ]: Connections Between TPAjax and PBSuccess

The CIA participated in many coups during the Cold War, and many studies both within and without the agency have looked into the execution and reasoning for those operations. In the 1950s the focus of the agency was turned not only to American and American allies interests abroad but the threat of spreading communism.  In Iran issues with British oil interests as well as slight evidence of Soviet involvement prompted the CIA to change the government of Iran to one more agreeable to them.  Similarly in Guatemala a rise of communism in the country gained the agency’s attention.  Behind the scenes the leaders of the two operations were interconnected through their combined involvement in Iran, the senior then retiring before the operation in Guatemala leaving his former second in command to lead that operation.  The leadership connections and differences between TPAjax in Iran and PBSuccess in Guatemala not only shaped the tactics of those operations but the CIA during the Cold War as a whole. The goal of this research is to investigate the leadership in two particular operations and how the different leaders effected both the operations tactics and the tactics of the CIA as a whole.  Using original documents from the operations as well as other historians research into the individual operations to support the conclusions that are found on the leadership between both operations and their effects not only on the future of the agency but its depiction in media as well.