Mohammed Mossaddiq

Iranian statesman and president (1951-3), born in Tehran, Iran. He studied at Lausanne University, and became a lawyer. He held various ministerial positions in Iran in the 1920s, retired to private life in 1925, then returned to politics in 1944. A strong advocate of nationalism, he directed his attack on the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co, which by his Oil Nationalization Act of 1951 he claimed to have expropriated. His government was overthrown by a royalist uprising in 1953, and he was imprisoned. Released in 1956, he remained under house arrest for the rest of his life