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OCR Page 1 of 175/15/548 Reel 4, Track 2, Page 1
in the view
MR. NITZE:
You raised earlier the difference/batween the British and ourselves; I think
you could define it in this way basically: that it is obvious that the
course of action which the British decided to pursue in Iran of letting the
situation deteriorate until the Iranians were willing to yell
?
and ask Anglo-Iranian to come back. That created certain risks; the British
were aware of this, as we were. The British had so much at stake here,
both in terms of prestige and balance of payments, earnings in the oil
company, that they were willing to take greater risks than we. And of course
we, having spent billions of dollars through the Marshall Plan and Greek-
Turkish aid program, in order to protect ourselves against similar risks,
having the rich man's psychology of really being much more cautious and aware
of danger and wanting to guard ourselves against it than the British, who
&
have less to protect, were not willing to take that risk. It has turned out
could
that Iran did not fall, but we, who were responsible, have failed
US. GOVERT
to take some action in light of the risks that we ran? If Iran had fallen,
we would have spent the rest of our lives explaining why we hadn't done
anything, and the Russians would have been at the north end of the Persian
the Gulf at
Gulf looking across/ixm the oil fields of Saudi Arabia at Kuwait. We weren't
willing to risk as much as the British were.
MR. HARRIMAN:
They had pride to protect, which they thought would affect them in other
areas and in the Middle East generally. There is one thing of interest,
though, when you talk about comparing the Turks. The Turks take great pride
in the fact that they have always fought and kept the invader out; the
-and this to some extent explains Mossadegh--the Iranians
Iranians/take pride in the fact that thay have always survived--they have
always lost but they have always survived every invasion. And they don't
fight; they just let people come into the country and take them over.
And that attitude is one which partially explains Mossadegh; it's an Iranian
trait. They don't get up and fight. It was perfectly extraordinary-the
incidents in history in which we would have said they were yellow dogs they
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