Memorandum, State Department Summary of Telegrams

NIT(Noval Aide)378 DECASSIFIED 12356, Sec.3.4 OFFICE OF 88-17 - (StAte 1/4/89 THE SECRETARY OF STATE AL y By co NLT Date WASHINGTON UNCLASSIFIED July 29, 1952 TOP SECRET SECURITY INFORMA TION AND SUMMARY OF TELEGRAMS IRAN After receiving various hints during the past two days that Mosadeq was ready to receive a call, Ambassador Henderson visited Mosadeq on Sunday evening. Henderson describes the conversation, which lasted two and a half hours, as "both exhausting and depressing". Henderson says: "As I listened to him I could not but be discouraged at the thought that a person so lacking in stability and so clearly dominated by emotions and prejudices should represent the only bulwark left between Iran and Communism I had the feeling at times that I was talking with someone who was not quite sane and that he should therefore be humored rather than reasoned with". The high- lights of the conversation were the following: Henderson began by outlining our dealings with the short-lived government of Qavam in order to show that we had brought no pressure to bear on Qavam. He also told Mosadeq about Qavam's request for short-term financial aid prior to the oil settlement which Qavam envisaged bringing about in the very near future, and acknowledged that he had personally recommended it to the Department. Mosadeq replied by say- ing that he drew three conclusions from what Henderson had just told him: 1) the US had brought pressure on Qavam to bow to British demands and to per- - mit the return of British rule to Iran; 2) the US was willing to lend money to Qavam which it had refused on several occasions to lend to Mosadeq; and 3) the US had encouraged Qavam by showing friendliness to him. Henderson denied all these allegations in detail, but Mosadeq launched into a bitter attack on US foreign policy. He said the US had no diplomacy. In the Middle East the US was merely an agent of the British. Anti-American manifestations of the past several days had shown how great had been the failure of the so-called US diplomacy in Iran. The US had given a billion dollars of aid to Turkey and yet when Iran was bankrupt and on the verge of Communism the US had refused to help it, first because it feared that a settlement might damage US oil interests in Saudi Arabia and second because it feared British displeasure. Henderson pointed out that American interests in international oil were really of secondary nature and did not govern our policies in Iran; we had felt that it would not be in the interest of the free world for us to give Iran financial aid in circumstances which might cause the British and American public to believe that the US was subsidizing Iran's position in the oil dispute. At this point Mosadeq began to chant that Iran would prefer to go Communist rather than for the US and the UK to have differences of opinion with regard to it. Eventually, Henderson was TOP SECRET SECURITY INF ORMATION