Ask the Scholar

{
    "localId": "75852016",
    "label": "Transcript of Princeton Seminar Discussion, Reel 3, Track 2",
    "core": "doc",
    "dtoType": "document",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75852016"
}

{
    "id": "75852016",
    "sourceUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75852016",
    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Transcript of Princeton Seminar Discussion, Reel 3, Track 2",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75852016",
    "collections": [
        "Dean Acheson Papers",
        "Princeton Seminars Files"
    ],
    "iiifBase": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/653115/1722169-06-01.jpg",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/653115/1722169-06-01.jpg",
    "largeImageUrl": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/653115/1722169-06-01.jpg",
    "imageCount": 14,
    "hasImages": true,
    "source": "import",
    "hasTranscription": false
}

{
    "url": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75852016",
    "naId": 75852016,
    "levelOfDescription": "item",
    "productionDates": [
        {
            "day": 15,
            "logicalDate": "1954-05-15",
            "month": 5,
            "year": 1954
        }
    ],
    "recordType": "description",
    "ocrSource": "nara-archive"
}

{
    "seq": 14,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "document",
    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/653115/1722169-06.pdf",
    "mediaId": "640e26788c742d30",
    "ocrText": "5/15/54:\nReel 3, Track 2, Page 1\nMR. McGHEE (?) As I remember this discussion about price, on this very first day, when\nyou first met him, he said, \"Will you make a deal if I sell the oil at\nthree pounds per barrel--per ton?\" Remember this?\nMR. ACHESON:\nYes, I remember that.\nMR. McGHEE: (?)\nWe thought about this and finally came to the conclusion that this we could\nnot quite do.\nMR. NITZE: (?)\nWhat did that amount to per barrel, do you recall?\nMR. McGHEE: (?) Dollar twenty. See, he went down twenty per cent from a dollar seventy-five\nin the discussions with us, which evidently was as much as he was permitted\nto go down; and we talked with him in terms of a dollar five, which\nif he had borne the cost of production would correspond to the amount that\ngovernments in the Persian Gulf area were receiving.\nMR. ACHESON:\nBut in all these discussions, the thing that Averell thank spoke about earlier\nand\nalways caem up. After you'd talked an hour and a half/ you were almost\nsomewhere, you discovered you were right back where you started from and\nthe last hours' discussion washed out.\nMR. McGHEE: (?)\nHe reneged on only one point in his discussions with you that he had told\nus previously-a very important one. He told us he'd be willing to have a\ncertain number of Englishmen, and he even mentioned the percentage of\nEnglishmen he would have-two or three hundred, for example, in the refinery.\nWith you, without saying why, he said he'd changed his mind; he couldn't have\nany Englishmen at all.\nHARRY\nNATIONAL\nARCHIVES &\nRECORDS\nLIBRARY\nMR. NITZE: (?)\nOf course, that was an important point with the British.\n(ADMINT\nU.S.\nGOVERNMENT\nMR. ACHESON:\nWell, these discussions were-gave us same hope. They also brought out a\nvery interesting thing which I think Averell's account has also brought out,\nwhich was his complete and absolute distrust of his own people. He was\nfar more ready to be frank and free with us than he was with any on his\nown side. And during all the discussions which I had with him, and I think\nit is true of you two, he never had any Iranian with him at all. Not one,\nnot anybody. He wouldn't even have an interpreter; the interpreter was our\n5/15/54: Reel 3, Track 2, Page 2\nman, not an Iranian.\nMR. NITZE: (?) He had Iranians at first but not at the last meeting we had with him, where\nwe asked for the opportunity to present our case to his people. He said,\n\"there's no use; you can't convince them,\" but he did have them all in and\nwe had one session with the whole group.\nMR. ACHESON:\nI mention this on account of the next episode here, which was the next day\nafter these discussions. The President gave him a lunch, and after-he\nasked that he could have a talk with the President. So after the lunch was\nover and the guests had gone away-various Senators, Congressmen and various\npeople who came to these luncheons-we had asked the Iranian Ambassador,\nHARRY, U.S. TRUMAN ARCHIVES& INATIONAL RECORDS GOVERNMENT ADMIN- LIBRARY\nMossadegh, the President and myself. The four of us were there, and there\nwas quite a little bit of confusion. And finally the doors were shut, and\nthe people who remained in the sitting room were Mossadegh, the President\nand myself. And I asked whether we hadn't made a mistake; didn't he want\nthe Ambassador there. He made it quite clear that he hadn't made a mistake\nat all; he di dn't want anybody present. He just didn't trust a soul in\nIran.\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nYou know, when I saw him, when I was in Iran, he only talked with me alone\nwith Walters as interpreter; there was never-of course, when he came to\nmeals there were Iranians around, but he never talked business except alone.\nMR. NITZE: (?)\nInteresting how he trusted us but not his own people.\nMR. ACHESON:\nHe wouldn't have one of them around. He had a curious way of...\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nI don't think it was a uestion of trusting us, but he knew we couldn't\ndo him any damage.\nMR. McGHEE: (?)\nHe wouldn't even have his son around.\nMR. ACHESON:\nHe had a funny way of sitting in a chair; I don't remember whether he had\none leg under him and the other one he pulled up over that; but there were\nno legs on the floor. He looked like a fellow who had had his legs ampu-\ntated; there wasn't anything down. Funny how it looked, and it gave him\nthis strange, lob-like quality. It was a strange sight. The President\n5/15/54: Reel 3, Track 2, Page 3\nwas sitting on the sofa at Blair House against the wall; Mossadegh had\na chair at the President's right, and I had a chair at his left. And\nMossadegh got into this chair sort of like a child; his feet were up under\nhim, and then he started this maneuver. And from being gay and moving\naround he suddenly became terribly pathetic and he leaned over toward\nthe President and said, \"Mr. President, I am speaking for a very poor\ncountry--a country that is all desert, just sand, a few camels, a few\nburst into a\nsheep...\" Well, I said, \"Rather like Texas?\" He laugh;\nand the whole thing stopped. That was just finished. It was a gambit\nHARRY U.S. TRUMAN -NATIONAL ARCHIVES& OOVERNMENT REGURDS LIBRA ARY\nwhich he thought he'd try which hadn't worked out at all, and he wasn't\noing to try to overcome that. Good effort, but it hadn't worked. So\nthen he went to work on the President; and what he wanted was a lot of\nfinancial assistance from us, support against the British, whom he regarded\nunreasonable,\nas oppressive arbitrary, imperialistic-all of that. And the result of\nthis was that he got nowhere. The President said that until he really made\na serious effort to work out his oil difficulties we weren't going to\nfinance him while he conducted a battle with the British, that he had to\nmake a real effort, and that I had told him that I thought there was a\npossiblity of working this thing out and he hoped that Mossadegh would go\nalong with that. So that that interview was all right; the President backed\nus up in just exactly the right way. I then went over to Paris for the UN\nEdan\nmeeting in the early part of November. The British elections had just\ntaken place and Eden was Foreign Minister; and he arrived in Paris and we\narranged a meeting in the British Embassy in Paris to talk about this problem\nAnd I think Harold Linder was with me and Luke Battle; Bob Pearson, who is\nnow the British representative in the UN was with Anthony; the British\nAmbassador; a man from the Ministry of Power and Fuel, whose name I think\nwas a Scotch name-MacDonald\nMR. NITZE (?):\nNot MacDonald-MecDougal1?\n5/15/54: Reel 3, Track 2, Page 4\nMR. ACHESON:\nMacDougall I guess it was; and somebody who may have been from the oil\ncompanies...We presented this-I told him about our discussions with\nMossadegh and assured him we had not undertaken to negotiate for the British.\nfollow up\nWe tried to/mangoon the general line of talks carried on by Averell and\nby Stokes when he got out there; we had tried to pick it up, and laid out\nfor him what we had accomplished. And the British attitude was absolutely\nadamant no--no discussion; there was no give; there was no debate. Leslie\nReduck Rowan took the view which I described earlier that this was an attack\nstates\non British foreign investments; it had to fail; it had to be crushed; it\nHANDY\nhad to be punished; there was no give about it at all. The people from\nU.S\nthe Ministry of Fuel attacked every idea that we had; they thought they were\nand wrong;\nvisionary, there was no possibility in them; they insisted that we had to\nhave a judiciary determination of just compensation. They went all over the\npoints we talked about earlier this afternoon. I tried to point out, as\nAverell and dihers had earlier, that whatever the mechanics were, whatever\nyou did about this, the only element of payment, the only thing of value\nthat there was here was the Iranian oil industry. And if you didn't get\nthat working, then nobody had anything; it was a complete loss on all sides.\nBut that got absolutely nowhere at all. We reported this to the department;\nHarold came to see me. I think I had one other talk with Eden, and the\nanswer was a complete no. There was no disposition of any sort to explore\nwhat we tried to do or to be helpful about it or to get forward with it at\nall. So it seemed to me that we had come to the end of the thing; we had\nbetter give it up. And in Washington George told Mossadegh that this was\nall over; that we weren't able to do anything. Just how we got out of this\nthing-I remember that one of our great problems was to get out of this\nthing without really making the British the bad boys that they K really\nwere, and how you did that, George, I don't know.\nMR. McGHEE:\nWe issued a statement where we said that we had explored with both sides\nand we found that they were both still so far apart that we didn't have\n5/15/54: Reel 3, Track 2, Page 5\nexactly\nany hopes of bringing them together, without/saying who was responsible\nfor their being so far apart.\nMR. NITZE:\nWhat we did with Mossie was to go back to Mossie and say that-the price-\nwe had never gotten clear on price with Mossie, and we put the whole inusken\nTRUMAN\nHARRY\nLIBRARY\nemphasis on the business of price and asked kkm to meet with his whole oil\nBoard that\ndelegation. This meeting with the Oil Commission/he had with him was after\nU.S.\nwe had gotten the turn-down from the British.\nMR. McGHEE:\nThat's right; but we didn't tell him. We thought we'd just continue his\neducation as long as we could.\nMR. NITZE:\nBut Mossie knew exactly what we were doing and why we were doing it; ** he\nknew perfectly clearly\nwe had made a proposition to the British and had\ngotten turned down and that we were covering our tracks.\nMR. McGHEE:\nHe knew with great dignity; he knew he'd lost and why, al though he didn't\nquestion kim us too much when we tried to put it off on price. Of course\nwe never told him that the British weren't interested in discussing it\nwith ** him and told us to send him home, which is basically what they did.\nBut he understood when he was beaten and took it with great dignity.\nThe-it's very interesting, though, his reactions net to the thing was--Paul\nand I would go over and over these technical considerations and show him\nthat he had absolutely no hope of getting any more for his oil than the\nprices we mentioned--certainly not what he wanted-and how dependent he\nwas on foreign oil-the international oil companies for his market. And\nhe said, \"No, you don't understand; this is a political issue.\" He'd never\nadmit that this was an economic problem; the failed to understand that it\nwas a political problem. At the end, I don't think we had any assurance,\neven if the British had been willing, that we could have negotiated a\nsatisfactory deal. Of course we were disappointed because we would have\nliked to have been able to try, and we were never in a position to press\nhim, because we never knew where we stood with the British. If we had\n5/15/54: Reel 3, Track 2, Page 6\nknown where we stood with the British, then we could have gone back to\nhim and pressed him on some of his points. But until we knew where we\nstood with the British we were never able to, in a sense, bargain with\nhim on the points at issue, press as hard as you like on price.\nMR. NITZE:\nHell, I don't know; we pressed him as hard as we could. I think the deal\nthat we were talking about was the right deal and it was not acceptable\neither to the British or to Mossadegh by a very small marging on both sides.\nMR. McGHEE:\nThe margin on price was very thin, because he was down to a $1.35 a barrle\nand our oil companies assured us that they wouldn't have been embarrassed\nby a dollar five a barrel.\nVOICE:\nBy a what?\nMR. McGHEE:\nThey wouldn't have been embarrassed by a $1.05 a barrel. That's with the\nIranians paying the production cost.\nHARRYS\n\"NATIONAL\nARCHIVES&\nLIBRARY\nRECORDS\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nThat's thirtypercent-twenty-five per cent off.\nADMIN-\nU.S.\nGOVERNMENT\nMR. McGHEE:\nThat's not far off, considering the enormity of the difference originally.\nMR. ACHESON:\nThis whole attempt to negotiate, following Averell's attempt, blew up in\nthe middle of or late November. And then--I think the reason we talked\nso much about Iran is that it is a perfect example of the way these problems\ndevelop. You have a period when youre dealing with something which makes\nsome intellectual sense and appears to be approaching a deal of some sort.\nThat fails-it failed in this case and failed with Aberell-and then you\nhave a period in which all the tensions and all the political problems\nincrease at a very rapid tempo, so that the next time you try it you try\nit under difficulties very much greater than the ones under which you attempted\nit the last time. And after this effort of ours failed in late November or\nearly December, the tensions increased in Iran, both within the country--\nthere was more political agitation and excitement; they increased between\nIran and the U. K., and they began to increase between Iran and ourselves.\n5/15/54: Reel 3, Track 2, Page 7\nBefore that, we had not had any direct difficulty, but from this time\non we began to have a great deal. The Iranians closed the British\nConsulates in January; that raised the temperature. From then on for\nquite a few months we had a period where we had to fool around denying\nthings which we couldn't do and trying to do things which seemed possible.\nAnd there there were four main points about which we talked; the Iran ians\n1)\nwanted a large loan which would finance them during their struggle with\nthe British. That we declined to give, and that caused difficulty with\n2)\nthem. We felt that we could go forward with Point Four help, and we were\nquite willing to stretch the idea of Point Four so that it wouldn't-\ndidn't conform to its original ideas; but we used it for the purpose of\nfinancing various imports. And we negotiated about that for quite a while.\n3)\nThen there was the matter of military aid. We thought it important fax\nto support as far as we could the Shah and the maintenance of some sort\nof order; we thought that this gave us some sort of a whole standing in\na country where we wanted to remain as long as we could. And in the\n4)\nfourth place we had to struggle with the British legal embargo. The British\nhad put out a notice that anyone who bought any oil from Iran would be sub-\nject to suit. We had a lot of people who I think more for the purpose of\ncausing agitation than for any business purpose would come to us and ask\nWARM THE III) LIBRARY\nus where we stood on this-what would we do. Our attitude publicly was one\nof not trying to take a position, but privately we advised our your people\nthat it was unwise to get into this business because they would probably\nget into trouble and we couldn't help them, and we didn't think it was very\nhelpful of them to get into this thing. That went on, largely through 1952,\nuntil the fall of 1952. Then a whole lot of things began to happen all at\nthe same time. One of them was that this legal question came to a head.\nWe were being pressed more and more to say what our position was; the British\n5/15/54: Reel 3, Track 2, Page 8\nurging us to say that we were supporting them in this; our desire not to\ntake a position; more and more people leaking to the press that we were\nsaying one thing in private and another in public; so we finally, at great\ndifficulty with the British, we decided we were going to make a public\nin\nstatement, So far as we were concerned, the government. Any American was\nfree to do whatever he wanted to, but he had to take his own chances in a\nlaw suit. We put that out; the British disliked that quite a lot. In\nthe meantime, before that happened, the Khavam episode occurred. I don't\nknow whether anybody knows anymore than I do about this, and I am sure that\nsome people somewhere must know a lot more than I know. I strongly suspect\nthat this was a counter-revolutionary effort, carried out with support from\nsome quarters, but it was a very ineffective and sad one. The Shah X\ndismissed Mossadegh and appointed Khavam. Khavam...\nTRUMAN\nHadn't Mossadegh resigned in one of his piques?\nMARRY\n-VATIONAL ARCHIVES&\nLIBRARY\nMR. NITZE (?):\nRECORDS\nMR. ACHESON:\nI think he had resigned...\nas\nGENERNMENT\nMR. NITZE:\nSort of a ready-made situation...\nMR. ACHESON:\nYes, I guess he gave them the opportunity. At any rate, they got him out and\nput Khavam in. Khavam undertook a rather vigorous and courageous program of\ntaking strong action against people in the Majlis and other places who were\ninciting riot and insurrection. And the Shah walked out from under him.\nAnd after a few days of rioting, Khavam was a fugitive and Mossadegh was\nleading the mob. And Khavam was-sought refuge somewhere-I think everybody\nknew where he was but decided not to press it..\nMR. McGHEE:\nThe story was that Khavan asked for these powers to deal with this mob and\nthe Shah called Mossadegh in and said these are the powers that Khavam is\nasking for.\nMR. ACHESON:\nWhat?\nMR. McGHEE:\nHe called Mossadegh in-the political opponent he'd wanted to get rid of all\n5/15/54: Reel 3, Track 2, Page 9\nthis time and now he had the only man in Iran in power who could deal with\nMossadegh; and to get credit with Mossadegh the Shah called him in and said,\n\"These are the powers Ghavam is asking for and I'm not going to give them\nto him.\"\nMR. ACHESON:\nSo the whole thing blew up, with very bad repercussions.®\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nThe British were negotiating that whole thing, weren't they?\nMR. ACHESON:\nI don't know who was behind it. I'm sure somebody was, but I don't know\nanything about it, and I don't know whether anybody else here does. I\nhave never asked...\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nAny of you know?\nMR. NITZE:\nI don't think we--I don't think the U. S. Government had a damn thing to\ndo with it; I really don't.\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nAll that I know about it was that right after Ghavam fell and just before,\nwhen the Shah was gone to Italy, it so happened that (Selden-Boice?) (some\nLIBRARY HARRY STATE\nof the boys?) came down and had lunch with me at the office; and he said\n3\nthey tried to put this over but it didn't work. But I didn't question him\nfurther...\nMR. NITZE:\nThe British that did have something to do with it...\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nAnd he said, \"I guess we've missed the bus.\" And the next morning we read\nin the paper about the counter-revolutions that he'd been getting in...\nMR. ACHESON:\nThat's the second one; that isn't this one-the one you're talking about...\nMR. HARRIMAN:\noh, the second one, yes...\nMR. ACHESON:\nThis is the one in 153.\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nNo, but I mean--I recognize that, but I'm ahead of your story, but the only\nreason why this has any pertinence on what you're talking about was his\nstatement that we tried to...\nMR. ACHESON:\nTried to do it in 153 and they thought they failed and they succeeded.\nMR. NITZE:\nI thought it was Kashani who came in to see the Shah during the Ghavam\nepisode.\n5/15/54: Reel 3, Track 2, Page 10\nMR. McGHEE:\nI've got this only by hearsay, but it is my understanding that the Shah\nshowed it to Mossadegh--told Mossadegh about the powers for which Ghavam\nhad asked him in an attempt to get Mossadegh--to win his favor-and told\nhim he wash going to grant them. The Shah was always acting, of course;\nwe always felt that had he backed Razmara, Razmara never would have got\ninto difficulty. The moment Razmara got into power, then the Shah got\nscared of him and withdrew his support.\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nWhen I was there, I was talking to the Shah about the desirability of his\ntaking his constitutional perogatives and dismissing the Prime Minister,\nwhich he has the right to under the Constitution; and he didn't trust\nTRUMAN\nLIBRARY\nseemed\nGhavam very much. And as if he was almost to the point once\nHARRY\nD\nhe said\nmembay of doing it but the next day/he wouldn't. But that was back, of\nU.S.\ncourse, in 1951.\nMR. McGHEE:\nThen he didn't trust him; maybe for a very good reason. Maybe Ghavam did\nplan to eliminate the Shah at some time.\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nWhen I was there the Army was entirely back of him and he had control of it;\nal though there was Communist infiltration in the ranks, it seemed to be the\ngeneral opinion that they would back the Shah at that time.\nMR. ACHESON:\nWell, you see this same course of events happening in 1952; I pointed out,\nwe had the failure in '51, great tensions increasing through '52, until\nin July you have the counter-revolution and the failure of that. Then in\nAugust, the end of August, '52, we worked out another series of proposals.\nproposals\nAnd they-what were called the Truman-Churchill/were made on August 28th;\nI don't think it's terribly important to know the content of those. The\nfact was that the British had approached very much closer to our point of\nview; we had approached closer to the British point of view, and we put\nthese things out after the thing had gotten very much worse and we had to\ndo something. So we put them out. These were rejected, and then counter-\nproposals were made by Mossadegh. Then we had one of these curious things\n5/15/54: Reel 3, Track 2, Page 11\nthat occurs all the time. We argued with the British about what we should\ndo on this thing. We took a position which they weren't ready to agree to.\nAt one stage in the performance, they said they were ready to agree with us,\nand we would now make a joint statement of gain. A lot of our people began\nto say that we can't accpet this; we mustn't be associated again with the\nBritish in this because we had one failure; and I remember taking the position\nto say you won't\nthat it was awfully with a man who wants to agree with you.\nIt seemed to me unsound reasoning to run away from him because he'd given\nTRUMAN\nLIBRARY\nup his position and wanted to take ours. We did finally put forward an\nHARTY AMOUNT U.S.\nanswer. Eden made a reply on the 6th of October that got nowhere, and rela-\ntions were broken--diplomatic relations between Britain and Iran-on the\n17th of October. So again we had one of these\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nOn the part of Iran..\nMR. ACHESON:\nYes, Iran broke. But again we had a bad time; then we'd negotiate for a\nwhile and then they'd be broken off; and then everything gets worse again.\nYou break off the whole thing. We then came into December, after the election\nthe last weeks of the Truman administration; and then a series of discussions\ntook place which I'll go into with a little bit of detail because it throws\nsome light on where we had gotten at that time. Because these almost came\noff; I think they came very close again to coming off. What I think is\ninteresting to look at is what the problem was: it had been one thing in\nearly '51, when this started, and it had become a somewhat different problem\nby the end of 152. In the first place, Iran was in very serious financial\ntrouble. It had only money for a few weeks' operation, or so they thought\nand so WO thought; and they needed some money right away, fast. In the\nsecond place, the markets for Iranian oil had gone. Other nations had filled\nup the supply. The refining capacity which had been Iran's unique contri-\nbution to the oil industry when the dispute started had ceased to be a\nunique contribution, and the refining capacity had been made up. In the\n5/15/54: Reel 3, Track 2, Page 12\nmeantime, Abadan had gotten in disrepair, and that would take some time\nto\n.\nget ing again. So not only was the country busted, its markets were\ngone and its capacity to even produce was in bad shape. Now if you were\ngoing to try to repair this situation to make room for Iranian oil in the\noil industry of the world at that time produced the most serious problems.\nIn the first place, it meant a cutback in the production of other supplying\nIN\ncountries, all of whom who had flowed into the vacuum created by the Iranian\nHARRY\nstoppage. So you had other countries in the Middle East, other countries\nin South America, all adversely interested in the solution of the Iranian\nproblem. They didn't want it solved, because to solve it meant that they\nwere in difficulties. In the second place, it produced problems for companie\nbecause each one of these companies had a relation with one of the producing\ncountries, and therefore it was in trouble. And that produced another dif-\nficulty. In the third place, it produced serious problems in the whole\ninternational oil market; questions of distribution--problems of distribution\nhad been solved over eighteen months. All of those had to be upset.\nThat got you involved in sterling oil and dollar oil. The whole matter of\nin\nprices was involved, and the position of various companies, the supply\nand marketing of oil was involved. in this. So it had become about as\ncomplicated a situation as you can well imagine. So in order to work on\nthis it required negotiations with these various parties. In the first\nplace, Mossadegh, who had become more inflamed, more suspicious, and whose\nposition was less stable than it had been before; it involved negotiations\nwith the United Kingdom, whose position was still legalistic, highly legalis-\ntic, particularly on this question of compensation and what factors should\nbe considered. They were very much politically interested in the overthrow\nof Mossadegh and therefore most reluctant to go into any kind of a solution\nwhich seemed to help him. And it involved trouble of course with Anglo-\nIranian, which was very suspicious of United States companies which it\n5/15/54: Reel 3, Track 2, Page 13\nthought were trying to muscle in on its markets. The third parties to\nwere\nthis negotiation/www the United States oil companies. The United States\noil companies had at this time just been indicted by the government of the\nUnited States (or were looking?). Proceedings\nhad been started by a grand jury; they hadn't been indicted for a conspiracy\nunder the Sherman law which involved alleged actions with the very companies\nwhich they were now called upon to rescue. So if you were looking for un-\nlikely colleagues in a negotiation, you couldn't have found more unlikely\nHARRY TRUMAN NATIONAL ARGHIVES LIBRARY\nones than the ones we had to deal with. In order to try to solve these\nU.S. GOVERNMENT\nproblems, we worked out an arrangement which had various parts. The great\nthing to do was to get each part worked out and K make each part inter-\n(on the whole ?)\ndependent on the other, so you got something in a hole which would work.\nAnd I have written this down solely from memory, and, George, I guess you\nwere in Turkey...\nMR. McGHEE:\nThat's right...\nMR. ACHESON:\nBut Paul was there, and he can remember. In order to deal with the first\nand pressing problem of how to get Iran some money right away, a plan was\nworked out by which the United States government, on behalf of the Navy\nstockpiling program, would juge buy I think a hundred million dollars' worth\nof oil, at prices and things which would be worked out at a later point in\nthis program. But you had to had money right away; you couldn't wait until\nyou fixed up the refinery and got the thing working again, because we didn't\nsuppose Iran would last that MXX long. They had to have some money-how to\nget the money? Well, the United States government said we will buy a hundred\ncertain\nmillion dollars' worth of oil, which worked out to a/mumber of tonss of oil,\nand we will pay some money down now, and then we will get deliveries and we\nwill pay in installments which were supposed to be geared to keeping...\n(END OF REEL)"
}