I do not want to speak for Colman, but he may be referring to the CIA overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh. Covered in All the Shah's Men & Robert Fisk has a chapter on it in the Great War for Civilization. Fisk enters the story of Mossadegh by starting after the American Embassy has been taken over. The title of the chapter is "the Carpet Weavers". After the embassy was taken over, a group of Iranian students began taping together shredded documents. This was an effort to learn as much as they could about the US' involvement in Iran during the reign of the Shah after the overthrow of Mossadegh.

In reviewing "All the Shahs' Men" the Economist took a similar perspective about the taking over of the US Embassy to what Colman is saying. The Economist stated that the US embassy was taken over to make sure that the US could not meddle in Iranian history again, as it had w/ Mossadegh.

Fisk, describes how in the early days of the Iranian revolution there was not the blood bath/ reign of terror quality to it, that was soon to come. However, as the religious leaders became more seated in power, then it quickly turned into a killing spree with widespread public hangings.

There is a recording of a talk given by the author of "All the Shah's Men", Stephen Kinzer,  on Alternative Radio. Along with asking the question would we(the US) be in the mess it is today had it not overthrown a democratically elected Prime Minister (I think Mossadegh was a PM) Kinzer draws parallels between the intelligence back then and the intelligence leading up to the current Iraq war. Kinzer -or another journalist spoke with several of the foreign service officers who were in Tehran during the rise of Mossadegh. These foreign service officers were sending back information that Mossadegh was associated with Communist and that Communism was growing in Iran. Kinzer states that all other historical evidence does not show this to be the case. When he (or this other journalist) asked these foreign services officers about this discrepancy they replied that they were aware that their reports were overblown, but Washington wanted to hear that Mossadegh was a Communist and that there was a growing Communist threat in Iran.