How To Make Friends and Stage Coups | CIA
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This is True Spies. By my count, there were three of them in the library. Best to hit them now. So I stood up and shouted the equivalent of, Okay, you sons of bitches, come on out with your hands up. This is True Spies. Episode 37. How to make friends and stage coups. February 1947. Washington, D.C.,

A hard rain lashed against the clean lines of the Harry S. Truman Building, home to the U.S. State Department. It was a Friday afternoon, and the office was clearing out. One figure, stooped under a dark umbrella, hustled against the tide of the departing weekend crowd. He had an appointment. So at that time, there was only one man at the State Department who made a habit of staying late on a Friday?

Maybe he enjoyed the peace and quiet, I don't know. Anyway, his name was Loy Henderson, and at that time, he was the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and African Affairs. Behind his desk, Henderson waited patiently. His guest, the First Secretary of the British Embassy in Washington, had phoned ahead, asking to deliver a message in person. It was, in his words, rather important.

In fact, the news he delivered that evening would change the face of global geopolitics forever. And what he told Henderson was that essentially the British were getting out of the Mediterranean. You have to remember, they were broke after the war. They needed millions of dollars in aid and hey, they just didn't have the funds to keep bankrolling the anti-communists in Greece, Turkey, etc. Britain's exit from Greece and Turkey had wider ramifications.

These countries were the gateways to the Middle East, an ideal base from which to project overt and covert influence across the region. Now there would be a power vacuum. And with the great colonial powers of Western Europe depleted, the communist USSR was expanding its stable of client governments nationwide.

If they were allowed to establish strong footholds in the Middle East, the West risked losing access to the region's enticing commercial opportunities. Now really, the oil was the thing. We needed to keep the Middle East friendly to American industrial interests in that regard. But for some crusaders back in Washington, the bigger goal was to limit communism. The CIA, or the CIG at that point in time,

was full of idealistic young people who really believed in democracy and allowing democracy to flourish. This week's true spy was not one of them. My name is Miles Copeland, and between 1947 and 1957, I worked for the U.S. government, the CIA, probably most notably in the Middle East. And during that time, we got pretty good at nudging the levers of power. If there's one thing spies do well, it's euphemism.

Miles Copeland died in 1991. He's voiced here by one of the people who knew him best: his son, the musician Stuart Copeland. This was one of Miles' favorite stories from his time in the CIA. In 1947, Miles was assigned to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Damascus, Syria. His objective? To establish a democratic government in the Middle East by any means necessary.

But why Syria? Well, Iraq was a police state. We could have done something there. An unpopular government is, after all, easier to bring down. But the British still had some considerable pull there. And we wanted to consolidate our own influence. We thought about Saudi Arabia, but we didn't think they were quite ready for a democracy. No nicer way to put it.

Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt. We dropped those for other reasons. I won't go into that here. So Syria, by process of elimination, was left. Syria already had a democracy of a sort, but it was relatively new and unstable, ripe for manipulation. The country had officially become independent from France just a year earlier. Now, in 1947, it was holding its first parliamentary elections as a sovereign republic.

Going into the elections, President Shukri al-Kuwatli's national party was in power. In general terms, Kuwatli was for the rich. There was an opposition party and other independent candidates that were going up against him, and they were for the little guy, so to speak. We had our problems with Kuwatli. He was anti-Israel for one thing, and he'd been getting cozy with the leader of the Syrian Communist Party, and that was worrying too.

The CIA saw the Syrian election as a golden opportunity to install a government that would be sympathetic to American interests. In the CIA's opinion, leaders who were fair-minded and free from corruption would automatically align with the US on matters of international diplomacy. Such was the moral might of the USA post-World War II.

The Americans had faith that if the Syrian people were allowed to vote freely, without corrupting influences, they would be well on their way to becoming a liberalized, Western-style democracy. But how could the CIA ensure that the elections were, in fact, free? Let's break down the strategy. Step 1: Clean up the system. Politicians and other powerful groups had already devised creative ways to swing votes in their favor.

Now, under the watchful eye of Uncle Sam, these individuals were quietly encouraged to allow the elections to carry on unimpeded. Scribes promised that they wouldn't steal the votes of illiterate people. Taxi drivers were paid to take voters to polling stations free of charge to ensure a high turnout, on the condition that they weren't selective in their choice of passengers. Step two: get out the vote. American oil companies in league with the CIA funded a widespread poster campaign

They ask the Syrian people to celebrate their newfound independence by voting freely, without selling their vote or succumbing to intimidation. Step 3: Make it tamper-proof.

the Americans provided top-of-the-line voting machines to negate the unpredictable human element involved in vote counting. And our outfit in Damascus was tremendously pleased with all this. I remember the embassy's political officer telling Washington that the 1947 election was going to be as American as apple pie. That was, um, naive. To say that the elections did not reach these expectations would be an understatement, frankly.

In theory, the stage was set for a glorious new age in Syrian politics, with the USA as its benevolent, if secretive, founding father. In practice, not so much. I think an important thing to remember here is that the Syrians of this generation had been brought up in the belief that government was an inconvenience imposed by foreigners, the French, the Turks, whoever. It wasn't their government. It was the other way around.

The idealism of America's newest intelligence agency was on course to collide with reality, and it bruised easily. The average voter saw an opportunity to get a good price for his vote or to put some relative or other into a position of power. The taxi drivers formed a kind of union. They banded together as a block to, uh,

to negotiate their services to the highest bidders. And the scribes? Well, the scribes just broke their promise. They wrote in whoever they liked. Too good an opportunity to pass up. Even those high-tech voting machines didn't come out unscathed. In fact, most of them simply didn't work. A mismatch in the electric current made sure of that. Of those that actually functioned, all but two were sabotaged. And those remaining machines?

Well, they worked as designed and delivered the result that the Americans desired. But the losers simply refused to accept defeat, claiming that it had come at the hands of imperialist technology. And on top of all that, we hadn't provided direct financial support to any candidates. We were just trying to keep things above board, remember? And that was a mistake. We were about the only government that didn't bring out our checkbook. No, the Americans weren't the only game in town.

The Russians, along with the British and the French, all had their own candidates in play. We were new to the game. The others, the old powers, they'd been playing for centuries, even if they weren't what they once were. But we caught up pretty quickly. In the end, President Kuatli's National Party remained in power. In the presidential elections the following year, he won a slim but decisive majority. All the while, his relationship with the USA was deteriorating.

The whole exercise had proven to be a painful lesson in real politic. But other opportunities for America to exert its influence would reveal themselves soon enough. All the CIA had to do was wait for their moment. So in Syria, I was the crypto diplomat at the embassy. And for the uninitiated, that means I had State Department cover for my CIA work there. My official title was Assistant Cultural Attaché.

I'm something of a musician, jazz mostly, so it was a good fit." Miles had been sent to Damascus with clear instructions. He was to make unofficial contact with the Syrian president, along with other key members of the government. From there, his task was to probe for any means of persuading them to liberalize the country's political system. After all, if you can't change the government, you might as well try and nudge them towards your way of thinking.

But if the events of the 1947 election had proved one thing, it was that there was little to no desire to liberalize anything. However, Miles had been successful in his first objective. Within six months, he developed a friendly personal relationship with President Kowatli.

That coziness raised suspicions within the Syrian intelligence community. Fakhri Baroudi ran President Kouatli's personal intelligence outfit, and he was most interested in finding out why so many army officers seemed to attend these cultural cocktail soirees that I held every week or so. Man to man, we got on pretty well. But he knew that something was kind of amiss as far as my involvement was concerned.

Fakhri Baroudi took particular offense to the fact that Miles had been allowed to accompany one of the president's top regimental commanders to the front lines of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which Syria entered in May of 1948. Baroudi was incensed. Why would a so-called cultural attaché, an assistant cultural attaché no less, be so keen to make powerful friends in the military? More to the point, why would these military men be so keen to speak with him?

He had to know what the Americans were up to. Fortunately, he knew just the man to ask. The embassy's telephone operator, Joseph, was also one of Baroudi's spies. So he was asked to keep tabs on me, rifling through my desk drawers and so on, tapping my calls, etc. And naturally, Joseph relayed those instructions to me.

Long ago, Joseph the phone operator had realized that there was no sense in turning down a payday, no matter where it came from. In fact, as far as we could tell, most of the native employees who were recruited to spy on us were actually working for the CIA too. Sure, the Syrians could threaten them, but we had the edge when it came to cash, not to mention the retirement benefits. Last I heard of Joseph, he was growing oranges in California.

Miles wasn't overly concerned about Baroudi's interest in his activities. After all, if he got too close, Joseph would let the CIA know for a price. For now, he had bigger fish to fry. Syria had been defeated in the war against Israel in 1948. In the aftermath of this humiliation, there was a growing appetite for a change of government. And there was one man who was willing to lead it. The same commander that Miles had accompanied to the front in 1948.

His name was Hosni Zayim. Zayim was transferred back to Damascus in 49 shortly after the business with Israel was over. His regiment had taken a licking, but he'd still been promoted to chief of staff, head of all the Syrian armed forces. So this is a powerful man, and he was one of our closest friends in government.

During a friendly conversation with Miles and a CIA colleague, General Zayim made his ambitions clear. It was getting late into the evening and me, Zayim, and Stephen Meade, the military attaché, also CIA in reality, were enjoying some Arak, the local spirit. And as we were drinking, Zayim started loosening up. So he told us, "You know, if I had a bit of backing, I could clean up this place, take it over,

I could give you that peace arrangement that you want us to have with Israel. Hmm, we thought. Very interesting. In fact, Zayim confessed that he'd already attempted to act on that ambition, barely a month previously. He plotted a coup with two other members of the government, but it had been a losing battle from the start. The issue, it seemed, had been trust.

And so Zayim goes on. He said, but at the end of the day, you know, the trouble is you cannot trust anybody but yourself. It seems Zayim's coup had been conceived during another boozy conversation. But in the cold light of day, his strong sense of self-preservation had won out against his desire for power. So Zayim had gone straight to President Kuatli and told him that these two government colleagues of his were plotting against him.

He can't have had much faith in their abilities. He wanted to protect himself for when it would all inevitably head south. At this point in the retelling, the CIA men had questions. They knew for a fact that Zayim's would-be co-conspirators were still around, still in positions of influence. If what he was saying was true, then it seemed bizarre that they were even alive, let alone employed. So we asked Zayim, is it President Khawatli's habit to forgive traitors? Yes.

Zayim's eyes lit up. It was a good question. It had an even better answer. "Ah, but you don't understand what traitors?" He went on. "Each of those bastards had already gone to the president to inform on me and on each other." It seemed that each of the plotters had decided that they simply had too much to lose. As a result, President Kuatli was satisfied that his top commanders were all deeply honorable men, committed to rooting out rogue elements within the government.

So then, the CIA's fair play electioneering had failed. An internal coup had never made it beyond the earliest stages of planning. Perhaps the solution lay in a combination of these two approaches: a military coup, aided and abetted by the experts at the CIA. Miles' friend and colleague, Stephen Meade, spoke up. And so Steve says to Zayim, "Listen, you can't have a coup all by yourself. You've got to trust someone."

And you've got to trust someone who can share your successes, not compete for them. Someone without so much skin in the game. Someone like the CIA, perhaps? Zayim nodded along. Just like that, the seeds of a coup had been sown. Sometimes, all it takes to bring down a government is a spy, a soldier, and a bottle of the strong stuff. But if you're planning a coup, you need to have a pretty clear idea of how you're going to pull it off.

Sure, you could storm the government, park tanks in public squares, execute dissenters. But if you take that route, become a brutal dictator, you've got to be comfortable with going it alone. It's lonely at the top, especially if you've shot everyone else. And if you happen to be in the middle of a region that holds political and commercial significance for the world's biggest superpower, well, you might find yourself on the other end of a barrel a few months down the road.

No, this coup would need to have the full approval of the American government. And that meant it had to be bloodless. And this is where we came in. So, how do you solve a problem like the CIA? Here's Miles with a step-by-step guide. A coup 101, if you like.

So first, with a little assistance from yours truly, there would be a series of incidents, real or staged, that would exaggerate the unrest that was already brewing over there. And once there was a perceived threat to citizens and foreign diplomats, well, then we could pretty easily justify increased security measures that would never be otherwise tolerated.

After the population was psychologically prepared for a restriction of their freedoms, they'd be treated to a symbolic spectacle. For example, you know, maybe an important building being burned down or an attempted assassination or even a riot. Anything that could prepare the ground psychologically for the people to accept the need for martial law.

Then the conspirators would move military or police units into their positions, as close to their respective targets as possible. The leaders of those units would be given sealed orders, which were not to be opened until everything was in place. They wouldn't know exactly what they were carrying out until it was almost over, but they were known to be loyal to Zayin. That just leaves the end game.

A number of tightly coordinated moves by Zayim's men on the ground. One unit would take the radio station, another the central power station, and another the president's office. You know, the vital organs of the state. And at that time, they'd be locking up any key military leaders, policemen, or politicians who might stand a chance of resisting the coup. It all needed to be coordinated and quick.

No loose ends. Two days of sober planning followed that initial conversation. Zayin was convinced by the CIA's clarity of mind, impressed even, but he still didn't trust them. Not exactly. The details of the coup's definitive moments were kept from Miles and Stephen. As for what happened on the night, as far as Zayin was concerned, that was a need-to-know situation, and we respected that.

In the meantime, we got to work starting these incidents, preparing the public for martial law. As it turned out, spooking the Syrian public was more difficult than Miles had anticipated. First, a violent student protest had been organized, demanding immediate action against Israel. This plan was thwarted by a canny professor, who told the protesters that a recruitment desk had been set up on university grounds and that they were free to sign up to fight if they so wished.

The crowd of students dispersed quickly after that, but eventually they landed upon a winning strategy. We arranged for a series of threatening letters and phone calls to be sent to some senior officials, influential types. This poison pen campaign created an atmosphere of paranoia at the very top of Syrian society. Now they would welcome a stronger military presence on the streets and in government. Saim had played his part too.

He put together a fabricated hit list of other prominent persons, which he leaked to some faithful newsmen in Damascus. He claimed that the list had come from some communist insurgents who presented an immediate threat to public safety in the country. When this hit the front pages, the average Syrian began to worry for his own safety too. Fear gripped the country, from the kitchen table to the coffee house. Miles Copeland, jazz musician, 30-something father of two,

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Now the actual business of the coup could begin. Syria was ready for a stable hand on the tiller. Ready for change. Like I said, we wouldn't be involved on the night. But Steve and I went out scouting with Zayim, identifying likely targets. The presidential palace for one, and the radio station. All the homes of the army officers and politicians who might try and resist. Zayim dropped us back at my place, and he thanked us for our advice.

He actually said, "I may follow it." Heavy emphasis on the "may." At the time, Miles and Stephen didn't pick up on the ambiguity in Zayin's parting words. In time, they wished they had. Privately, the commander was unwilling to be anyone's puppet. More on that later. Miles had more immediate concerns. Remember Fakhri Baroudi, the Syrian president's intelligence chief?

While Miles, Steve and Zayim had been driving around Damascus plotting their next move, he'd been working on a plan of his own. Necessarily, Baroudi was in the dark about the coup, but he was no fool. He knew that Miles was up to something, and this recent spate of unrest in Damascus had left him on the back foot. He needed a win, something that he could show President Khawatli.

No decadent, jazz-loving Americans were going to get the better of him. And naturally, Joseph let us know all about Baroudi's frustrations. And General Zayim rather cleverly spotted an opportunity. If Baroudi was caught spying on a foreign diplomat, well, that would hurt the credibility of Kuatli's government even more. So we set a trap.

Baroudi's spy in the American embassy, Joseph, a man with fluid loyalties, was asked to pass on some information to his Syrian paymaster. He let Baroudi know that I was the kind of indiscreet, careless official who took his work home with him every night and that it might be worth paying my house a visit. Almost immediately, Baroudi decided to raid Miles' address in search of any evidence that he was not, in fact, the assistant cultural attaché.

Joseph passed this back to Miles and the CIA. When Baroudi's men came knocking, they wouldn't find an empty house. We were going to make some noise. People were going to know what he tried to do. On a cold day in March 1949, Miles bundled his family into the car and sent them off to stay with friends in Beirut, Lebanon. For all Fakhri Baroudi knew, he had gone with them. Me, Steve and a few other fellas, mostly US military, took up positions in the house.

The others only knew that some men were going to break in and that we had to catch them, preferably without killing anyone. No need to let them in on the bigger picture here. The CIA men set about preparing themselves for the home invasion. Drawers were rigged with tear gas, and bright blinding lights designed to disorientate were rigged in the library, where Miles kept his documents locked in a safe. And that was the gentle stuff.

One of the defenders had brought along a small armory's worth of .45 caliber pistols in anticipation of a Wild West style shootout. He called them cannons, which wasn't too much of an exaggeration. These were big guns. And I thought that was a little heavy-handed for what we were expecting. You see, we knew that Zayim had called Fakhri Baroudi ahead of the raid and demanded that the men who searched my house be unarmed. And this is what he told us anyway.

Baroudi must have been shocked by this. He would have had no idea as to how Zayim knew anything about the raid. But he was outranked, and he only had a small window of time in which to act. And so, according to Zayim, the Syrian intelligence chief had acquiesced. So, based on what Zayim told us, we were expecting four men, all without weapons. Now the waiting game began. The first night went by without incident.

Once the booby traps were set and the pistols had been polished, the men entertained themselves with books, conversation, and the modest alcoholic contents of Miles' pantry. As the second night drew in, the men grew quiet, ears strained for any sign that the invaders had arrived. At eight o'clock we heard a jeep speeding up to the front of the house. Then we heard feet coming up the front steps. Somebody was toying with the lock.

Anyway, he must have gotten bored of that because the next thing we heard was the glass in the front door smashing. Then they were inside. From their respective positions in the house, my old Steven and their colleagues held their breath. They heard footsteps moving across the hall and into the library where the tear gas had been rigged to explode. By my count, there were three of them in the library. We waited for the gas to go off, and then Steve had second thoughts. If we waited for the gas, it might just put us out of action too.

Best to hit them now. Steven hit the switch beside him. Powerful lamps turned the darkness of the library into blinding daylight. This was the moment to strike. Put yourself in the library. You know where your men are. You think you know where the Syrians are too. Those blinding lights have startled them. You've got the element of surprise. Your move. Do you open fire? Remember, they're unarmed.

You don't want to make this any more of a diplomatic incident than it has to be to serve its purpose. Or would you give them a fair warning? Declare them surrounded. March them out with their hands up. Have somebody call the police and hand them over. Maximum visibility. Minimal potential for bloodshed. Miles opted for the latter. Luckily, he'd been practicing his Arabic. So I stood up and shouted the equivalent of, Okay, you sons of bitches, come on out with your hands up.

It's the kind of thing you can wait a lifetime to say, especially if you're able to say it while holding a very big gun. However, Miles' command didn't have the impact he'd hoped for. There was a lull, maybe for a second or two. Then we saw another hand pushing through the doorway into the library. It was holding a pistol too. The disembodied hand twitched its trigger finger. A deafening bang shook the room. The fourth Syrian was shooting at the lights.

So, okay, we thought, I guess they're armed. Stephen Meade was good in a crisis. With the automatic prowess that only hours on the shooting range can bestow, he took aim and fired back at the hand. Its pistol spun away and clattered to the floor. It was joined shortly thereafter by half a finger. And I don't know if you know how much noise a .45 handgun can make. It's loud enough on the range.

In a big roomy house with marble floors, it's deafening. The exchange of fire set off a chain reaction. Soon the air was thick with bullets. Too many bullets, in fact. It sure as hell didn't sound like four men shooting. And then we had that confirmed when one of our guys came running in from his position on the perimeter, screaming that we were surrounded. A few calculations later, Mars determined that there were at least seven men on the property, and they were all armed to the teeth.

Beneath the percussive din of gunfire, a new sound wheedled into Miles' consciousness. The telephone was ringing. And for some reason, I answered it. A friend had heard reports of gunfire at the Copeland house. Naturally, he decided to check in. So I crawled over to the hall telephone and picked up. Hello? Copeland residence? Sorry, but I'm a little busy right now.

You hear shooting? Yes, it's right here in the house. It's a little complicated. I'll tell you about it when I next see you. Listen. Damn, now they're shooting at me personally. I better hang up now. Could you keep your cool? Let's hope you never have to find out. The shootout lasted for 22 minutes. We had another man watching from outside who timed it helpfully. By now, there was quite a crowd gathering outside. We were starting to draw some real attention. More than we'd planned, anyway.

Eventually, one of the Syrians inside the house had managed to engineer an escape from the gunfight, leaving somewhat shaken through the library window. Realizing that the simple intelligence gathering mission was beyond saving, his compatriots followed him out. They sped away. The shooting stopped. And then for a moment, everything was quiet. I had a minute to look around and check the damage. The door into the library looked like Swiss cheese and likewise the carpets.

I was not looking forward to explaining all this to my wife. The quiet didn't last. Barely a minute had passed before the roar of engine noise flared again outside. A convoy of jeeps and police vehicles descended on the house.

Hosni Zayim had arrived on the scene. His men helped to manage the chaos. Everyone was fine, but we had questions for Zayim. For a start, we knew he'd given Baruti his marching orders, and why hadn't he made him stick to four unarmed men? The general smiled and replied, well...

If a small incident is good, a big incident is better. What if someone had been killed? Well, no one was, were they? And what the hell do we do now? Wait and see. The dust settled, statements were taken, and journalists were palmed off. There would be enough to explain to Washington as it was, without local newspapers sensationalizing the events of the evening.

So no, it didn't go entirely to plan, but Zayim was right. We had fanned the flames of chaos, as it were, and it was a very bad day for Baroudi and for the President. The stage had finally been set for Zayim's coup, and there was no sense in waiting. It happened on the following Sunday. Everything went exactly to plan. The army took the radio station, the power station, and the palace.

President Qawatli and Fakhri Baroudi were both imprisoned, alongside several other Syrian notables. No blood was spilt. The CIA had their friendly dictator, someone who could hold the fort until free and fair elections could be properly introduced. Or so they thought. So it turns out, Zayim had no intention of holding free elections.

We figured that out pretty quickly. We were working with him to get official recognition from the US government and when that started to look like a sure thing, his attitude changed completely. In the end, I guess he was right. You can't trust anybody and we should have known. The first sign that the honeymoon was over came on a hot afternoon in the summer of '49.

Miles and Steve and Meade, still basking in the glow of their triumph, were waiting for Zayim to attend a meeting. So we were hanging out on Zayim's veranda, I remember. Steve was lying full length on a sofa swing, eating peanuts, and I was slouched over an armchair. And the general walks in, an hour late, and just sort of stands there. Anyway, Steve says, hey, Husni, we've been waiting almost an hour. And he just stood there, totally still. Eventually, he speaks up.

You know, most people stand up when I enter a room. So sure, we stood up. And most people address me as Excellence. So he was Excellence from that point onwards. A lot of good it did him. And as we left that meeting, Steve turned around to me and said, "I think we're going to be starting all over again." His Excellency, President Hosni Zayin, remained in power for less than six months.

Four of his top commanders, men who'd helped him take over, were getting the same high-handed treatment from Zayim that we were getting. And they didn't like it either, understandably. I was woken up at 4 a.m. one morning by gunfire coming from the presidential palace. I ran over there in my pajamas, and by the time I got there, it was over. He was dead. They dragged his body down the stairs, and his head hit every step.

Over the next few years, Syria was rocked by a succession of violent military coups. The CIA's actions had not brought democracy to the country. Far from it. In fact, it would never be the westernized foothold that the USA desired in the Middle East. So we really didn't learn anything that we should have learned from this experience. I mean, that much is obvious. Look at the other coups that we were involved with in the Middle East. I mean, look at Iran, for example, in '53.

Cuba was worse. The Bay of Pigs in '61 was a disaster. But I was out by then. I think eventually we figured out that getting somebody into power is one thing, but what happens next is a crapshoot. I'm Vanessa Kirby. Miles Copeland was voiced by his son, the musician Stuart Copeland, who provided the materials which made this episode possible.

For more information on Miles Copeland's life undercover, download My Dad the Spy, an original podcast series from Stuart and his siblings. Head over to audible.com to listen now. Join us next week for another close shave with true spies. We all have valuable spy skills and our experts are here to help you discover yours.

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