IRAN: Cliff Hanger

Fraught with real peril to the Western world though it was, the news from Iran sounded like a chapter from The Perils of Pauline. Britain was hanging on to a sheer cliff and the spectators were watching breathlessly to see whether she would fall.

From London came four company negotiators to open talks with the Iranian government. Forthwith they got a truculent ultimatum from Iran’s finance minister: within three days the British must hand over 75% of their oil profits since March 20. Alternative: Iran would break off the talks. The British, who know that Iran needs money, and intend to play that card for all it is worth, replied that they were ready to make a “goodwill payment,” but for the moment no more.

Menacing background noises suggested that the Iranians were in no mood to wait. They ran up the Iranian flag over the oilfield installations in token seizure, threatened to take them over in fact and throw the British out. Iranian politicians continued to make fiery statements blaming all of Iran’s poverty on the British. The company’s general manager made plans for the evacuation of British nationals from the Abadan area.

Then, in true thriller fashion, U.S. Ambassador Henry Grady rode to the rescue—or temporary rescue. He sent a go-between to the bedside of frail, faint-prone Premier Mohammed Mossadeq, who was so weak that the doctors gave him a transfusion (seeing that it was American plasma, Mossadeq cracked:”Do you think it will make me more reasonable?”). On Grady’s plea, Mossadeq gave London two more days to answer the Iranian ultimatum. For the time being, at least, the British were still hanging on.