TREKS Across the Veldt

New York: Viking Press. Very Good-. 1944. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Drawings; 213 pages; Contents clean and secure in original gray cloth binding, cloth foxed and faded, small hole at bottom of front gutter. Gift inscription on ffep "Kermit Roosevelt Jr / from Ed Whitney" -- this would be Kermit Roosevelt III (father of Kermit Roosevelt IV, later referred to as "III" since his granfather's death in 2000). PROVENANCE: Kermit "Kim" Roosevelt, Jr. (1916 - 2000) was the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt. He was a career intelligence officer who served in the Office of Strategic Services and was the mastermind of the Central Intelligence Agency's Operation Ajax, which orchestrated the coup against Iran's democratically-elected Mohammed Mossadegh administration, and returned Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, to Iran's Peacock Throne in August 1953 for the purpose of returning Western control of Middle Eastern oil supplies. In Egypt under Allen Dulles, Kim Roosevelt supervised the CIA's operation to undermine the popular General Neguib and encourage the rise to power of Gamul Abdul Nasser. Even before his decisive victory, Nasser was communicating through Roosevelt to make a settlement with Great Britain. These back channel negotiations eventually produced the treaty signed in October 1954. Nasser ascended and for the next decade Egypt's relations with the West moved along a sometimes rocky road. By 1965 relations had significantly deteriorated and Nasser was quite worried the CIA was plotting to assassinate him. After the Odell-Amin case broke, the CIA began to look for "more West friendly" Egyptian elements. Their attention landed on the Muslim Brotherhood, which according to Talcott Seelye, "We thought of Islam as a counterweight to communism. We saw it as a moderate force, and a positive one." In fact the CIA was spending millions of dollars on anti-Nasser operations, including an extensive propaganda campaign. .