The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations

Bill, director of the Center for International Studies at the College of William and Mary, has written the most comprehensive, clarifying and revealing study to date of a foreign-policy failure he calls a ""catastrophe of tremendous proportion.'' Analyzing the gradual turnabout in a relationship once very close but now bitterly estranged, he identifies the U.S.-engineered downfall of Muhammad Musaddiq in 1953 as the point when many Iranians began to perceive America no longer as a friend and protector but as ``an imperialistic, oppressive external force.'' Much of the text concerns American ignorance in action. Readers will also find an in-depth analysis of methods by which private citizensled by the Rockefeller familypromoted their own interests in Iran. Bill draws 12 major foreign-policy lessons at the end, including this one: ``Any unquestioned, dominant policy premise in Washington should be treated with skepticism and subjected to careful and continual questioning.'' Illustrations. History Book Club alternate. (May)