ASK JACK ANDERSON

In response to my report on Iran-backed terrorism, a Huntsville Ala. subscriber writes: “It is now admitted that the prime minister of Iran was assassinated by our own CIA and the shah put on the throne. Do you suppose that we can sow the wind and not reap the whirlwind?”

The reader is referring to Mohammed Mossadegh, who ruled Iran in the early 1950s — an eccentric Iranian nationalist, frail, hairless, wrinkled, given to weeping in public, who appeared preposterous to Occidentals but struck a deep chord in the Iranian psyche. A CIA-backed coup ousted but did not assassinate him — and brought Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to power in 1953.

I am one of the few who investigated Mossadegh’s overthrow. While this political coup 33 years ago helps explain Iran’s hatred of America, it is no justification for the worldwide terrorism of Ayatollah Khomeini.