FOREIGN RELATIONS: Three Shifts

In a long-expected move, the U.S. changed three diplomatic faces last week: ¶ Dr. Henry Grady, 69, U.S. Ambassador to Iran since June 1950, to retire. Grady went to Iran with the understanding that the State Department would give him $250 million to spend on economic aid—a technique of diplomacy Grady had mastered as Ambassador to Greece from 1948 to 1950. The promises finally dwindled to a proffered $25 million loan from the

Export-Import Bank. As the situation ran toward disaster, Grady lumbered persistently between the stiff-necked British and the sagging iron cot of Iran’s Premier Mossadeq. “He loves me,” said Grady. To all who would listen, he complained that Washington had let him down. The Harriman mission was the final affront which Harriman compounded by refusing to let him see cables from Washington on the ground that they were “too secret.” ¶ Loy Henderson, 59, Ambassador to India since 1948, to replace Grady in Iran. One of State’s ablest career diplomats, Henderson was the best the U.S. could find for the all-but-impossible job in Iran, where the Communists are reaching for the spoils of disaster. As director of the Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs, Henderson watched Iran, with U.N. and U.S. help, weather the crisis in 1946, when the Red Army finally got out of the northern part of the country. ¶ To replace Henderson in India, President Harry Truman nominated Chester Bowles, ex-partner in the advertising firm of Benton & Bowles, wartime OPA administrator, ex-Governor of Connecticut. Left-wing Democrats have long argued that U.S.-Indian relations suffer because the U.S. does not show India its liberal face. If there is any merit in this argument, Liberal Bowles should be able to improve matters. The chief obstacle to U.S.-Indian friendship is Prime Minister Nehru’s attitude of publicly distrusting the motives of all governments except his own. Neither Bowles nor any other U.S. ambassador could be expected to fix that.