Memorandum of Conversation with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Ambassador of Great Britain Sir Oliver Franks, and Henry Byroade

1134 SEGRES - SECURITY INFORMATION s/s DEPARTMENT OF STATE Memorandum of Conversation 130 DATE: September 30, 1952 SUBJECT: Iran and Egypt 301 PARTICIPANTS: Sir Oliver Franks - British Ambassador The Secretary Mr. Byroade DECLASSIFIED E.O. 12065, Sec. 3-402 COPIES TO: State Dept. Guideline June 12, 1979 s/s PROSECT NLT- HL NLT NARS, 82-13 Date 11-22-12 EUR - Mr. Bonbright By s/p - Mr. Nitse ARCHIVES 'NATIONAL RECORDS AND GTI SERVICE" NE GOVERN U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 16-61120-1 Sir Oliver Franks called on me at 3:30 today at his request. The following subjects were discussed: Iran. Sir Oliver indicated that he had received an dditional message from the Foreign Office which he wished to give to Byroade and myself on the question of the US-UK response to Mosadeq's reply. The message he handed us contained nothing really new in that it reiterated a strong feeling held in London that the reply to Mosadeq should be a joint one and should bring Mosa- deq back to our original offer. Sir Oliver indicated that he thought any difference of opinion between us on Iran was really art and parcel of a general difference of views on the developments in the Middle East. He thought we were inclined to treat the Iranian problem as one of the symptoms of a general trend of revolution and change in the Middle East. He stated that he believed the United States felt it best to "play along" with such developments in an effort to attempt to guide them in the right direction and the U.K., as he saw it, was adopting a more conservative approach. He stated he thought we should look upon the Iranian problem as a more specialized problem and strongly urged upon us to join in a joint reply to Mosadeq for the reasons stated in the British message. I indicated that I agreed in general with what Sir Oliver had said but that I thought we were looking at the Iranian problem on its own merits. I said that I thought we should all realize that Mosadeq had gotten himself into a position from which apparently he could not retreat. I doubted that Mosadeq could even accept a solution along the lines of his own counter- proposals if Britain would agree thereto. The extreme elements surrounding him made it impossible for him to arrive at any agreement on a governmental level as this would result in his downfall. Under these conditions I indicated that I saw no profit arising from the British line of causing Mosadeq to face up squarely again to our original proposal. I said I had some views SMCRET - SECURITY INFORMATION