The CIA’s analysts predicted that after Khomeini’s rise in power, and after the war with Iraq erupted in 1980, the Iranian regime will resort to using religion, and particularly sectarianism ...

Within a few months of Khomeini’s return, revolutionary tribunals had passed death sentences on 83 former SAVAK officers. By the end of 1979, Khomeini’s operatives had assassinated the shah ...

Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini (1979) | 60 Minutes Archive 15:52. In early 1979, the Shah left Iran and went into exile, and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini assumed control of the country.

Khomeini and his aides also reached out to the administration of then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1963, according to a CIA analysis written in 1980 that was partially released to the public ...

It is the Iranian leadership's almost pathological hatred for Israel, rather than the possession of nuclear weapons per se, ...

Even the CIA, in a 1983 analysis on him, acknowledged that Iran’s revolution could not have happened without him. ... Khomeini’s family did not stay out of politics for long, ...

The U.S.-orchestrated coup in 1953 ousted Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Its legacy remains contentious and complicated for Iranian authorities and its people.

The CIA acknowledged its role previously, even including it in the timeline on its public website last year: “19 August 1953 CIA-assisted coup overthrows Iranian Premier Mohammed Mossadegh.” ...

Sullivan even advised Carter to demand the Shah leave Iran immediately and to align with Khomeini [Carter, ibid, p. 443]. Meanwhile, ... Later, the CIA Director confirmed the Shah’s concerns ...

When Khomeini orchestrated the hostage crisis, ... The CIA failed to predict the 1979 upheaval or the disastrous rise of the mullahs in Iran, ...