Bryan Gibson, "Rethinking the CIA’s role in the 1963 Ba’thist Coup"

This presentation seeks to deconstruct the historiographical debate about the 1963 coup in Iraq that saw the Ba’th Party overthrow the pro-Soviet Qasim regime. It examines how two writers—a scholar and a journalist—repeated second hand information about the CIA’s alleged involvement, which journalists uncritically sensationalized and subsequently disseminated widely in the contentious environment following the 1990-1991 Gulf War. This, in turn, thrust this theory into the mainstream. Using primary documents, oral histories, and interviews with knowledgeable officials, this article questions the veracity of this theory, showing instead that the documentary record indicates that while the CIA was exploring the possibility of removing the Qasim regime, it had not yet operationalized its plans when the Ba’th Party moved in February 1963.

Bryan R. Gibson is a Lecturer in Global Security Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Sold Out? US Foreign Policy, Iraq, the Kurds and the Cold War (2015) and Covert Relationship: US Foreign Policy, Intelligence, and the Iran-Iraq War (2010); and co-edited The Iran-Iraq War: New International Perspectives (2012).

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