Transcript of key sections of COUP 53 with End of Empire team’s requested corrections Dated: 15th September 2020
NECESSARY CUTS ARE MARKED IN RED. SUGGESTED REPLACEMENTS IN BLUE
NO 1. Starting at 8 mins, 3 secs
08:03 books + Savoy filming set up in Savoy
COMM: For those among you who know anything about the coup, Kermit Roosevelt’s name has become was once synonymous with the events of 1953. His version of the story, the stuff of books and TV documentaries, has been was the received wisdom for decades. until the 1980s when a British television series revealed that MI6 had a huge hand in the coup.
But what we’re about to discover in the making of this film will reveal more about the British – the suppressed history of what really happened and who was responsible.
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No 2 starting at 16: 18
[Shot of piles of papers: Label: “Interview transcripts ” and “Pre-interviews” Taghi leafing through them ]
16.18: T: These words, these people have not been heard or seen for over 34 years.
16:40: T: These look like actual working copies of transcripts, research interview transcripts. Very old school, the cut and paste school of structuring a film. They’ve cut the bits they liked to edit into the film.
ADD: But it was back in 1983 that Granada made their film about Iran. They first talked to key British officials off the record and put together a draft script to decide who to film. But not everyone agreed to be interviewed on film.
[Taghi views document “Darbyshire tapes”]
17:00 Cutaway scene with Taghi and Byrne in USA – sound with echo
Taghi to Byrne: And you’ve come across the name of Norman Darbyshire.?
Byrne: Sure he’s named in The Wilbur history and he’s the one who works with Wilbur in Nicosia to put the plan together.
T: So he’s high level MI6.
Byrne: Right and someone with Iran expertise.
17.24 [Taghi leafing through cut up transcript]
This is amazing. They’ve used They liked quite a bit of what he said him cos there’s so many chunks that have been cut out. But I don’t recall watching End of Empire and seeing a Darbyshire in it.
17:47 [Taghi reads MA’s notes written on Darbyshire transcript]
“Excellent. If we want the coup in detail and even if not.”
17.53 Taghi at desk in sync
Taghi synch: Why did they select bits of interview from him, his words, cut it out, paste it into an early script, probably edit it into the film but he didn’t make the final cut. He’s not in the finished film. Did he refuse to be filmed?
18.12 Taghi leaves desk + Shot of cans of film
COMM In a remarkable stroke of luck we’ve discovered that the British Film Institute archive holds all the unused footage of the End of Empire Iran episode.
[Caption: “TWO YEARS LATER”]
COMM After years of intense negotiation we break through the red tape and financial barriers and finally get access. 36 cans of film. 520 mins of interview, among which we hope to find Norman Darbyshire.
18:35
[T with Murch
… and it’s recording. Great.
18.45 – 18.57 [Taghi and Walter Murch play the reels of footage showing Falle, Avery, Drake, Meade ]
19:01 [speeded upshots of cans of film]
We’ve digitised the entire collection of End of Empire given to us by the BFI. We did not find Norman Darbyshire.
[clapper board + shot of Falle IF + short clip of Meade ]
19:20 [T back in his study with paperwork. Looks at cast list in Alison’s handwriting]
T: This is E of E’s cast list. And number one is Darbyshire. It gets a tick and an asterisk.
19.32 [T reads from Alison’s typed research notes ]
T: ‘Darbyshire features here’, ‘Plan conceived by Darbyshire and Woodhouse.’
‘Darbyshire was the undercover man.’
ADD: “ This must be an early plan for the film. They certainly talked about him to other interviewees
19.35 [Clapper Board + Sam Falle MS Feb 83]
‘ Sam Falle who worked under with Darbyshire.’
19.41[ Sam Falle : E of E clip
“….Norman Darbyshire”
19:43: [Taghi shows archive photos + death certificate]
T : British embassy staff photograph Tehran class of 1952.
And this is Norman Darbyshire. Looking very much the cool undercover spy.
Darbyshire would have been 29 when this photograph was taken. He was born on the 1st of October 1924. And he died on the 17th of June 1993.
20.15 [Cans of film marked Stephen Meade]
His CIA counterpart A CIA colleague was Stephen Meade. We found his can of film even though he did not make it into too was cut out of the finished film. (20.26)
20:30 [T reads MA’s notes on pre interview transcript]
T: ‘Stephen Meade on Iran’.
T: This is what E of E production team thought of Stephen Meade,
20.32: [Meade CU]
“A young 69, hatchet faced, like a bit part player in a b movie thriller and above all, good.”
[Taghi reading through Meade film interview transcript + sync]
T: This is brilliant! Wow.
20.41
[Shot of Meade IV transcript with Darbyshire’s name blanked out]
T reading: “Your British counterpart was in fact BLANK. Could you tell me something about the man BLANK.”
20:55 [E of E clip Meade] Caption: “ALISON ROOPER’S VOICE, 1983”
Your British counterpart was in fact Norman Darbyshire. Could you tell us
something about the man Norman Darbyshire?
Meade: Well I didn’t know him at all before I met him.
21:00 [T: reading from E of E transcript]
“What kind of a man was BLANK?”
[E of E clip + photo + ALISON ROOPER’S VOICE]:
What kind of a man was Norman Darbyshire?
21.08 [Darbyshire still + Taghi WS with documents]
T: Darbyshire has been wiped out, cleaned out, everywhere.
ADD: They certainly didn’t want Darbyshire’s name on any of the transcripts. He had to be kept top secret.
21.23: [Taghi with two transcripts ]
COMM: But amazingly, I’ve now found an identical Darbyshire interview uncut.
T actuality: One normal Darbyshire original interview cut up. And then a Darbyshire interview intact. So this Darbyshire interview, which is exactly the same – Darbyshire, Darbyshire
–
21. 46 [Taghi comparing cut up Darbyshire transcript with whole transcript]
T: Here Darbyshire has been blanked out…
T: This hasn’t been cut. Which means all the bits that they selected for the film, wanted him to say in the film and cut out of this one… …are in this one.
[Spooky music] Taghi puts together the interview pieces, close ups of the interview transcript. + CU sentence: Were you involved in Afshartus’ assassination? Yes]
ADD: But this document is from an audio tape – single spaced like all the pre interviews. So did they actually ever film Norman Darbyshire?
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No 3 – Starting at 23.47
23:47 [Shot of AR’s name on Eof E credits production office, appointment being written on the calendar ‘Alison Rooper’.
[Caption:“June 2018”] Alison arrives and meets Taghi and Walter]
T: Thank you so much for coming in Alison.
A: Pleasure.
W: Absolutely, I also just wanted to compliment you on the depth of your research,
A: Thank you
W: that was a great service to us and now because we’ve gotten all that material from the BFI, meshing very nicely with our interviews with the Iranian side of the equation.
24:17
T: So this will give you an idea of the style of our film like how we are approaching the story.
[Alison and Taghi watch playback of previous scene discovering transcripts]
[zoom on Alison’s face as she watches.]
[Taghi talks in clip from Coup 53: ]
Look at this. A bag full of stuff from a basement in Paris.
What you see here are the transcripts and research notes made by the research team for End of Empire.
These look like actual working copies of transcripts, research transcripts.
The cut and paste school of structuring a film. They’ve cut the bits that they liked to edit into the film. Darbyshire tapes… Darbyshire tape one”
Alison: Oh yes, he was the man.
T on screen:
but I don’t recall seeing a Darbyshire in it. He’s not in the finished film.
25:25 Taghi and Alison chat
T: So a big mystery as now evident there is that Darbyshire is missing. What’s the story with Darbyshire?
A: Ok, so just remind me did I interview him sound only in a pre-interview? Or did I not… was it down the phone? How did we… Because we did a pre-interview
T: You interviewed Darbyshire?
A: Not filmed.
T: Not filmed?
A: That’s the whole point. He never agreed to be filmed.
T: Ah
A: [ holding document ] I don’t remember whether this was our interview or someone else did it. But Mark may remember.
25:59
[Alison Rooper on phone to Mark]:
How are you Mark? Long time. I’m sitting in a film cutting room with Taghi Amirani and he has managed to persuade the BFI to let him use all the rushes from the End of Empire programme and there’s one question I can’t answer at all which concerns Mr Darbyshire.
26:20
M: hello?
A: I just put you on speakerphone so Taghi can hear that.
Mark Anderson: (voice only): yeah he had that type of spy thing of you know, deniability. He never came up with anything concrete. We were always after you know, he said, I said. I think I felt he wasn’t ever going to say anything anyway, you know. I really.
I can’t picture it. I don’t think he was ever in the programme.
26:46
Alison: But Taghi’s found one thing which is about the assassination police chief in Tehran.
Taghi: He was asked point blank ‘were you involved in the assassination of the chief of police of Tehran?’ and he says point blank ‘yes.’
Mark: did he? Hmm.
T: That’s the one thing that jumps out in the transcript.
M: Ok, did he? Yeah ok I don’t remember that, but if he said he was he probably was.
[they lose the reception and say goodbye.]
No sorry. We’re losing you. Reception. She’ll text you. We’ll say goodbye. Thank you very much
Taghi: Thank you Alison
27:26
Taghi: Was there ever a version of the film with Darbyshire in it?
Alison: I can’t remember that.
T: Is he remembering wrong?
A: We have to check because
I can’t remember that happening. I don’t think we ever filmed him. And you haven’t seen any rushes in there either.
T: No. But we live in hope of finding something
A: [standing up to leave] You never know. (laughs)
T: Thank you so much .
A: Thank you
So the transcript we found in the Paris basement was a research interview
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No 4. Humphry Trevelyan and Heda Matin-Daftary sequences
27:46 [Taghi making a phone call in his study]
Phone rings.
H: Hello
T: Hello Is that Humphrey?
H: It is. Yes.
T: Hi this is Taghi Amirani. You’ve been speaking to my colleague Evelyn about our documentary.
H: Yes. [CUT] Is Mark Anderson still around?
T: Yes. Alison came in and we spoke to her and then she also managed to get him on the phone. And his memory of Darbyshire was hazy. But I figured the one person whose memory would not be hazy because he’s the cameraman looking through the viewfinder is Humphrey.
28:19
H: We did a lot of interviews overlooking the Thames
[Shot of empty chair from E of E rushes]
T: Do you remember the location?
H: Savoy
T: Out of all the interviewees that you filmed, Darbyshire, he’s the most outspoken and open and blunt about everything. He doesn’t hold back.
H: Yeah. And I think that this one reason why I remember him.
T: Ah! Because he had a big impact when we did the interview.
Humphrey with Taghi in production office
T: Can you do an old school hand clap for me. Excellent
H: mumbles [clapping]
T: Did you know that your Sam Falle interview was the very first interview you did?
28:50 [Clapperboard in Sam Falle IV] – says Feb 83
[Voice in archive:]
One take one.
H: I’m probably right because I remember it. It was the first time that I met Alison who was the researcher. So that’s, that is… You’re right.
T:{WS) So what do you remember of Darbyshire on that day because clearly from what you said and from his transcript , he was very open, he was very blunt. He was memorable.
H: I got the impression that he was somebody who felt that there were things to be said that hadn’t been said.
29:22
I got the feeling that he was somebody who um had had time to reflect and felt that there wasn’t any reason to hide these things. that is was probably import….in the public interest.
22:40 [writing on whiteboard]
T: COMM: I’m sure that Mossadegh’s grandson Matin-Daftary has told me on more than one occasion that there was a screening of End of Empire in Golden Sq in London and there was an MI6 man in the audience who didn’t like himself being in it and he asked the producer to take him out.
29:57: [Taghi with Heda Matin-Daftari in basement]
T to HMD: Now is this programme the programme as it was transmitted? which version of E of E is this?
HMD: This is the last version. The final version which went on the screen.
T: But long before that there was a preview of the film before it went on air and they’d invited people for corrections and /
HMD: People who were invited also were asked to make any corrections if necessary and all that. And Darbyshire asked to be taken out of the whole thing you know. Both Mark and Alison told me about it (T: Ah!) Told me about it.
T: Aha. You think Darbyshire asked to be taken out because?
HMD: Because the British Govt had not allowed him to do it.
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No 5: starting at 32.37
32:33 [Clapperboard : Reconstruction of “ND interview shoot” At Savoy]
T: Norman Darbyshire. Take One
32:37 Taghi sync and VO at the Savoy
COMM: What you’re about to see here as the team sets up at the Savoy is the result of us not being able to find any filmed interview of the Norman Darbyshire can of film. We hit a brick wall. We hit a wall of silence and denial about Norman Darbyshire.
ADD: All the End of Empire team could do was to use his words to inform their interviews with other British officials.
So we’ve resorted to bringing his words to life ADD: in the same place as some of the other interviews were filmed.
There it is. Ok
33:05 [Taghi confers with Fiennes showing him script]
Ralph Fiennes is about to speak the words of Norman Darbyshire’s words recorded back in 1983 telling us things the British didn’t want anyone to hear.
T: And these are the bits words that the people who made the original documentary back in 1985 loved – which is also what we love.
RF: Sorry I’m getting drawn into the….
T: Just imagine how I felt coming across it. It was one late night in the office.
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No 6: Humphry Trevelyan at the Savoy from 32.27
32:27 [Humphry arrives at the shoot at the Savoy. Meet and greet ]
T: This is Humphry.
Chris Morphet: I’m today’s cameraman.
Humphrey: Good, that’s alright. I can take it easy.
CM: And as you know, filming against windows is… a big challenge
H: Well we had a policy for that whole series, because I did about half the End of Empire. As far as we could we would shoot the windows in order to sort of authenticity about the background.
33:55 preparations / Fiennes talking to Humphry Trevelyan
Ralph Fiennes: Have you seen the footage of the script supervisor, was she?
H: No. She was the researcher.
RF: No. The producer. And they suddenly went weird and they don’t remember him and they all go vague
H: Well I was surprised that they didn’t…
RF: It’s so incendiary what he’s saying, even then you would have thought…
H: Well I was surprised. Because I have a memory of being a little bit astonished at what he was saying. He was straight up and down saying this stuff and it was quite, quite amazing.
34.21 [shot of Fiennes raising his eyebrows and shaking his head]
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No 7. Remove “unseen outtakes ” from Eric Drake clip @ 38.55
38.55
[Eric Drake from E of E. + Credit: Unseen outtakes, End of Empire ]
We weren’t handing over files, we weren’t handing over accounts which I said I had no authority to hand them a British Company’s accounts unless I was told from London
NB This sync bite was said in answer to a question about Sabotage
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NO 8: Nigel Hawkes and Stephen Dorril sections – starting @ 49.40
48:50 [scrolling through newspapers]
COMM: Our research has found a reference to the End of empire TV programme printed in The Observer newspaper in May 1985.
49:00 [shot of Taghi reading papers]
T: So I’m just going through this page by page to see what we find. It’s a weird journey down the time tunnel seeing – Woah! I found it.
[shot of The Observer article. Then Taghi walks to Murch’s office carrying article
Taghi reads: “How MI6 and CIA joined forces to plot Iran coup. Nigel Hawkes reveals the true story of 1953 operation Boot. Evidence provided by a former MI6 man has clarified many of the murkier corners of this coup which ousted Mossadegh. From a series of interviews carried out by Granada television for its End of Empire series. The programme will be broadcast on Channel 4 tomorrow evening. ADD: But the MI6 man will not be seen; he declined to be filmed to protect his anonymity.”
49:40 [Taghi hand article to person B / close ups of article print out ]
Taghi: “Read this, you will love every word of this article.”
Person B: “Unbelievable.”
T: “An article, not a TV preview, a journalist who has seen the programme.”
WM : “the purpose was to boost morale of the opposition.”
T: “He makes it clear, for example, that it was agents acting for the British who kidnapped Mossadegh’s police chief and then shot him dead.”
49:59
PB: “Nigel Hawkes, is he still around?”
T: “Yeah, he’s alive, we’re trying to find him.”
PB: “oh good.”
50.00 [Taghi sits on phone call to NH]
Nigel Hawkes (on phone): “Hello, Nigel Hawkes”
Taghi: “Nigel hi, it’s Taghi Amirani here, we had an email exchange a couple of weeks ago.”
NH: “oh yeah, about something I wrote about Iran donkeys years ago.”
T: “One of the key questions for me is: did you write that article based on seeing a preview of the film?
50:20
NH: “ I honestly can’t remember whether I saw the film or just a transcript, or both.”
T: “ Well here’s the thing, we got hold of a copy of the film, given to us by ITV, and everything you talk about, this man, in your article, isn’t in the film. Nor is he.”
50:38
NH: “well that’s curious isn’t it.”
T: “yep.”
NH: “That is very curious.”
T: “yep.”
NH: “ I can’t explain that. Somebody may have said to him: “ My god you didn’t say all that, did you? We better stop them using it.” But never got round to telling me.
[WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS ERRONEOUS SPECULATION]
51:00 [In car travelling through Yorkshire Village]
Taghi: I’m on my way to see Stephen Dorril, the writer of the book “MI6” – a solid, thick, heavy monster of a book.
So I didn’t think that I”m gonna end up in a sleepy Yorkshire village with Stephen Dorril, the writer of the MI6 book.
51:17 [in SD home/ Office]
Stephen Dorril: “No It’s a long way from Iran, and fortunately quite a long way from MI6.
[SD looks through papers]
SD: “I’ve found the, the er original… “
T: “What’s this?”
Dorril shows ND transcript
SD: “This is the one I received from Nigel hawkes.”
T: “Nigel Hawkes sent you this transcript?”
SD: “Yes.”
T: “ This is the exact transcript that we have.”
SD: “Right.”
51:42
T: “Now we found it in the basement in Paris of Mossadegh’s grandson. What’s the story of Nigel Hawkes and this transcript and you? “
SD: “I’ve got the cover letter somewhere.”
T: “I’d love to see that.”
52:00 [pulls out cover letter from piles of paper]
[shots of cover letter from Nigel Hawkes. Its dated 7th Sept 1985. It says he doesn’t know the name of the MI6 officer]
SD: “He wasn’t a kind of specialist in this area and he said: Do what you want with it, basically.”
T: “And how did Nigel Hawkes get hold of this?”
52:06
SD: “Uh he didn’t tell me, but I.. I think there was, it was from the filmmakers themselves.”
T: “That is the most crazy peculiar thing. Who leaked the Derbyshire transcript from End of Empire to Nigel Hawkes knowing that the programme they’ve made doesn’t have Derbyshire in it?”
52:24
SD: “One can speculate, I don’t know. Well they obviously knew that, so they wanted it out. No journalist, a documentary filmmaker is just going to throw their prime interview away. That could only have happened If there was intervention.”
T: Yeah.
SD: “and that’s not abnormal, it happens all the time. It happens still happens to this day. (T: wow) But this interview is, I think, very important for a number of reasons. One is MI6 officers don’t give these kinds of interviews about such a sensitive subject.
52.58
TA: So as far as the British govt is concerned the coup never happened. They were not involved. (YES) Darbyshire doesn’t exist.
SD: Darbyshire doesn’t exist. But obviously he does and he’s the key person, really.
He was the person recruiting people at the highest levels on the ground. He knew key people close to the Shah and he was probably the main organiser.
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No 9 Final Captions starting at 1.57.02
1. 57.02
Caption: Norman Derbyshire’s report on the Iran coup of 1953 is still classified under the British Official Secrets Act
The film makers still do not know who leaked the Darbyshire transcript to the Observer newspaper…… or why
The location or existence of the film of the original Darbyshire interview is also unknown at this time.
NB this wording is conditional on the above corrections also being made
The End of Empire film-makers could not persuade him to be filmed for their programme in 1985. But did they leak his off-the-record testimony to the Observer newspaper? We do not know.
But we have brought his words to life for the first time.
Credits:
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