A "Den of Spies"? The Archives of the United States Embassy in Tehran as an Introduction to the Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations since 1953

- During the takeover of the American embassy in Tehran, on November 4, 1979, the archival records of the embassy were destroyed, then their pieces were put back together by the Iranians. The story of these archives can serve as an introduction to the tragedy of American-Iranian relations. Though partial and biased, this corpus provides us with a representative sample of the documents that foreign policy historians generally deal with. By reading them, we can also measure the extent to which the American embassy could be considered a "den of spies," as denounced by the Islamic Republic of Iran to foment the politics of confrontation that have legitimized its existence ever since.