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    "ocrText": "5/15/54: Reel 2, Track 2, Page 1\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nWe also--I also found that the intelligence which our embassy had was\ncompletely different from the British intelligence-the embassy intelli-\ngence. Our people were taken very seriously, and I thought their reports\nwere accurate, whereas the British information was to the effect that\nMossadegh wouldn't last and the thing to do was to be firm. Well, that\nwas the general atmosphere under which these negotiations started.\nMR. NITZE (?)\nAnother matter which might be interesting; I remember the words a British\nMiddle East-Iranian expert used to participate in the discussion we had\ntheir\nright after Razmara was shot. He said that/tware considered judgment\nof oil\nwas that this whole movement toward nationalization/was \"a brush fire,\"\nwhich would burn off.\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nThat was the general atmosphere; that if they were firm, it would blow over.\nNITZE:\nMR. McGHEE:\nI think this is an important point. As I think about this now, it really\nseems to me, that this really was a real revolution that took place in\nVATIONAL\nLIBRARY\nIran during the period after Razmara's death and after Mossadegh came in.\nHARRY\nARL\nAnd that this did have all the emotional drive that a revolution does\nU.S.\nhave; it had this \"pie-in-the sky\" illusion as the objective. They were\ngoing to get rid of British influence; they were going to get all these\nvast resources which came with oil; it was going to be a new life, and\nfor everybody in Iran\nMR. ACHESON:\nYes, I think you're quite right.\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nAnd that included the vested interests-the people with the vested\ninterests the people I saw-I couldn't find very many people who didn't\nhave that feeling that this was it, AND and that they were going to get\nrid of the British regardless.\nMR. McGHEE:\nI remember when I was in Teheran, which was about a week or ten days after\nRazmara was shot (I was in India when he was shot), Alá. , who was one\nof the best friends we had there very Western and\nand Prime Minister. We went to see him, and he said, \"For goodness' sake,\n5/15/54: Reel 2, Track 2, Page 2\ndon't ask me to oppose this nationalization.\" We went to see the Shah,\nwho was the basic core of our position there. He said, \"Don't ask me\nto oppose nationalization.\" They were both just scared to death.\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nThe curious thing about the British government under the Labour government\nwas that Cripps was very rigid and very strange. His attitude towards\nIndia was quite different, but he was very rigid. The Iranian income\ntheir\nwas a very important tickng to/balancedpayments; they were getting about\nthree hundred million dollars a year. No British Minister had ever\nbeen to Iran since the beginning of time, except when Churchill and Eden\nwent there at the time of the Teheran conference because they had nothing--\ndidn't have to do with Iranian affairs. And the British Labour government\nwas taking a completely 19th century colonial attitude towards Iran.\nShephard was an completely unimaginative fellow who had been a Consul-General\nHARRY U.S. TRUMAN -VATIONAL ARCHIVES& COMBINMENT RECORDS LIBR ARY\n(seldom)\nsomeplace and never) saw the mathematics of things. We started negotia-\ntions; of course I used to see the Shah frequently and Ala frequently, and\nI conducted mostly with Mossadegh; had a number of talks with him. I've\ngot a lot of notes on that-I had Stokes (?) and Walters (?) with me.\nHe talked French fluently and got very intimate with M ssadegh. Then\nthey appointed a committee of four to negotiate with me--the Oil Commission--\nand (indistinct) and the Senate and both houses. The details of that are\nin this thing here. And it finally worked around to a point where, at a\nmeeting of the four who were negotiating with me, they were prepared to MK\nhave a talk about the kinds of things which perhaps could be a basis for\nnegotiation and they finally came forward with some proposals, and we\nput them in writing then and there. I didn't-I was quite determined that\nI wouldn't put anything in writing, because I had seen that every time\nthe British put something in writing it was knocked down. Out. I should say,\nof course, that I think the British all the way through this were about a\nyear late or nine months late in everything they did. Mossadegh had made\n5/15/54: Reel 2, Track 2, Page 3\na speech in January, making certain demands which were not at all extreme\nand not at all-had indicated he was not in favor of nationalization,\nso this all came within a few months after and up to the assassination of\nRazmara. I was rather interested to have some talks with some of the\npeople I met there; they were-they defended the idea of assassination\nas being quite a legitimate means of political expression. But in any\nevent we got this agreement, which is on the record, and suggestion of a\nof\nbasis/on which, had the British accepted it, discussions could start.\nI see by these notes that I suddenly flew to London. I was quite convinced\nthat the reports of Shephard were so completely different from the views\nof all the Americans, including myself, that there would be no chance\nTRUMAN -VATIONAL ADMINE ARY\nof the British accepting it. And I went; I reluctantly invited Shephard\nto go with me, recognizing that it had to be done. If there was any chance\nof the British accepting it, it required my being there. I was not a\nvery welcome guest-visitor to London, but after some talks there the\nBritish did accept it. I want to say that Walter Gifford was extraordina-\nrily helpful; he handled his end of the talks before I arrived and while\nI was there in a very effective way. The--I had hoped that I could get\nthe British to send the Chancellor-who was it then?\nMR. ACHESON:\nCripps?\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nNo, no--Cripps had died by then.\nMR. ACHESON:\nGaitskell?\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nHugh Gaitskell, because I knew him and had worked with him and felt that *\nif I could get him on the ground that he would see the errors or the flaws\nin the inaccurate through reports that had consistently been going from their\nEmbassy/tx the Anglo-Iranian Company to London. But he was very busy\nabout his own affairs and actually had taken even a more arbitrary position\nthan Morrison and Atlee. And then they proposed Stokes, who\nhad had some business-he's a businessman-who had (indistinct); and they\nsome\nproposed him because he had had some experience thereein building, dams\n5/15/54: Reel 2, Track 2, Page 4\nor something in connection with his business before he went into govern-\nment. He was a very genial fellow, and I had known him--met him, but\nhad never known him. He was a very unfortunate choice, and the whole\nmission was not particularly helpful because they had preconceived ideas.\nI had told Stokes that under no circumstances should he put anything in\nwriting. Well, the first thing that he did was to put something in\nwriting, which was immediately rejected. And then Stokes was very much in\na mood to go as far as he possibly could, because he felt it would be 2\npersonal failure to himself if he didn't come home with something. And\nhe began to make suggestions which I thought quite unreasonable. I tried\nto get him to stick to certain fundamental principles of which I don't\nthink we need to go into details here. I had gotten some ideas as to what\nwe could accept and what we couldn't accept--what was acceptable, rather,\nHARRI U.S. RUMAN ARCHIONAL RECORDS GOVERNMENT LIBRARY\nand what wasn't. And he got this idea that if they appointed a British\nmanager to the Iranian Oil Co., that would work, but it was never a\npractical situation. I had suggested and stuck to the proposal that there\nbe a contract made by the Anglo-Iranian--not the Anglo, the Irainian Oil\nCo.-which would be similar to any contract and they could control that\ncontractor; but Stokes made some-what I thought were some foolish--sugges-\ntions and beyond what you could really see through. And in any event he\ngot a bit rattled, and I made up my mind there was no chance at all for\nany negotiations to be successful and that we had better break on a point\nthat we could justify breaking on rather than getting into the money end\nof it. And we broke, I think, on the question, as I remember it, of the\nidea that there would be no foreign--a technical setup with enough foreigners\nin it to make it possible, because Mossadegh's ideas of money were very\nmuch exaggerated. The British had proposed as (indistinct) for negotiations,\nwhich I think were, as you say, running a hundred million dollars a year\nmore than they had been getting. They had only been getting thirty or\n5/15/54: Reel 2, Track 2, Page 5\nthirty-five million dollars a year, if I remember the figures correctly.\nVOICE:\nIt would have been ninety.\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nYes, but Mossadegh had said they were going to get a hundred million pounds\naccurate(?)\nout of it or something crazy. That may not be the/exact figure, but he had\nsaid it publicly, and he wouldn't change. I began to get the feeling that\nMossadegh's stock in trade was fighting with the British, and that any\nsettlement of the dispute would end his political power. As long as he was\nhaving agitation, he was controlling the situation and as Paul says, there\nwas a revolutionary spirit in the air. Mossadegh didn't care at all how\nmany Iranians suffered; the important thing was to get rid of the British;\nand no appeal--he was a feudalist himself, and it never occurred to him\nthat many other people were entitled to a better life. Now there are all\nkinds of details in connection with this which perhaps some day I can write\nHARRY U.S. TRUMAN ARKHIVAL COVERNMENT LIBRARY\nup, but Mossadegh was--I got very fond of him, oddly enough. He received\nme in his bed in his thin pajamas and crawled over his bed when he was\ngitalking and then he would come up and have dinner with me at the house\nthere; and he and Marie got to be quite friends. I took Marie along because\nI thought with all this idea of a revolution it would show that I thought\nthe situation was quite quiet, and it had a very good psychological effect.\nI talked consistently with the Shah and before I left I told him that I\nthought we would never make a settlement with Mossadegh and that he would\nhave to use his constitutional authority at some stage of the game. Ala\nseemed to agree; he was very anti-British in his feelings, quite--\nMR. ACHESON:\nWho was that-Ala?\na\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nAla; he had been the Prime Minister and was then the Minister at Court. The\nShah was a very nice fellow but a very weak fellow and could never make up\nhis mind. He was influenced by his family, who wanted him to reestablish\nthe dictatorial government of his father which he was determined not to do.\nHe was highly motivated, I thought, but too weak; and he had been educated\n5/15/54: Reel 2, Track 2, Page\nin Switzerland and he felt his responsibility was to establish a consti-\ntutional monarchy and didn't want to go beyond it. Physically he wasn't\nafraid; he 'was very fatalistic. He'd been shot, you remember, and he never\npersonal\nfeared going through the streets. And he took/risks way beyond what his\nentourage wanted him to do. But he couldn't steel himself; sometimes I\nthought he might, but he wouldn't face the situation, but vacillated back\nand forth. I'll tell one story which shows the kind of fellow Stokes was\nafter--this is an extreme story; it showed how little help he was. He--Ala\nto say goodbye\ncame to call/the night before Stokes left and I went up to his house which\nwas quite near mine. They were talking, and Ala and Stokes had had a few\ndrinks-weren't intoxicated at all-and he said--He spoke very bitterly to\nAla and said that Ala had to understand that the Iranians were all corrupt\npeople and never could run any business and couldn't run their own govern-\nment, let alone any business of this kind. I said I couldn't associate\nmyself with that remark-with that comment-and Ala left. And I calle d on\nAla the next morning. I saw Stokes the next morning and I said he had to\nthen\ngo apologize, which he did. And/I saw Ala, but it left the negotiations\nwith hardly a good taste. In any event, we left. And all through it for\none reason or another both groups seemed to be reasonably friendly to us,\nthe Americans. I should say that we-Stokes and I went down to Abadan with\nwho's now there--\nthis fellow, what's his name/-Maxifx(xp2) Makki?\nVOICE:\nMakki.\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nMakix Makki, head of the Oil Commission. And he took us around, and I was\nrather shocked at the way that Anglo-Iranian had housed their people. They\nhad very nice houses for the staff; there was no segregation in the higher\nin\nechelons. The Iranians but mostly British had lived there, and/the lower\nechelons there were more Iranians than English, and they lived together.\nBut when you got-they built a few workmen's houses, but during the war\nthere was this enormous expansion. And they had done nothing to improve\n5/15/54: Reel 2, Track 2, Page 7\nconditions, and they were really in the most-they were living in the\nmask poorest kind of conditions. Makki showed me all through this area,\nStokes, too. I was shocked; Stokes said\"well, this is just the way all\nIranians live.' Which was unfortunately true, but at the same time they\nwere making three hundred million dollars a year; and they could have spent\na few million dollars to make this a showplace, because the--what was con-\nsidered fine quarters, Makki showed me as really fine places, I thought were\nquite inadequate, so that they weren't demanding any exorbitant treatment.\nMR. NITZE (?)\nDid the British have clubs that they excluded the Iranians from?\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nI don't think so; I can't remember, but as I recall it there were two areas,\nwith\none/fax the senior people, and the Iranians and the British lived together;\nit was the same for\nand/the lesser officials, where there were more Iranians; they also lived\ntogether. The job had been beautifully done, engineeringly, and they were\nHARRYS U.S. TRUMAN NATIONAL ARCHIVES GOVERNMENT LIBRARY\nthen putting up a further refinery, and they had been going right along\nduring this difficult period investing very substantial sums of money. Well,\nI would like at some time to amplify this trip, but I don't want to bore you\nwith it. There are some interesting things about it, but I think you'll\nremember I was talking about there being little chance of making any arrange-\nment with the Iranian government as long as Mossadegh was in control. I\nwant to say that he was really a strong nationalist; I had remembered that\nin 1946 (I think it was '46) when the Russians were demanding oil concessions\nin the North, he had been one of those in the Majlis who had stood up very\nstrongly against it, and that was a time when the Iranian government was\ndoing a bit of appeasing; and he was one of the factors (?) that held the\nline. Well, when we got home the first step was a telegram on my part--\nI've forgotten how that started--did Mossadegh send a message to me?\nMR. NITZE?:\nHe wanted you to deliver an ultimatum to the British.\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nOh yes, he asked me to deliver an ultimatum to the British, and I de\n5/15/54: Reel 2, rack 2, Page a\ndrafted a (confused) and got the Department's approval and drafted a very\nstrong telegram, as you remember, which was not thrown out and opened the\ndoor a crack. It was not an acceptable proposal in any form or manner but\nindicated a willingness to start the negotiations again. By the way, I\nshould say that when Stokes and I left the negotiations were technically\nsuspended, not broken off, and this gave an opportunity to open the negotia-\ntions again. And there had been some thought that the Iranians might be\nready to send negotiators to London, but on the basis of the telegram which\nhad been just a routine message from the Embassy recording that Mossadegh\nwas losing ground the British Cabinet made a very snap decision to slam the\nif\ndoor closed. Stokes told me that he hadn't seen the telegram and/he had\nfound out the kind of message that it was he would have urged that it be kept\nopen. In any event-and then also a rather extraordinary statement on\nStokes' part--he told me that if he had fully understood the manner in which\nHARRY U.S. TRUMAN ARCHIVES & RECORDS GOVERNMENT LIBRARY\nthe Anglo*Iranian Oil Co. had been cheating the ranian people, he would\nhave taken quite a different attitude. How he came to be involved in this\nnegotiation ithout having fully studied the past, I don't know, but that\nclosed the incident as far as I was concerned and then the rest of you took\nit over. I saw Mossadegh when he came-called on him, just a friendly call\nwhen he was staying at the Shoreham Hotel, and I-by very quick maneuvering\nI escaped having him kiss me. I don't know whether you want to go into\nfurther detail, Dean, but it would take too long to go over all the discus-\nsions. But it might have been different had we had someone else, such as\nHugh Gaitskell or Hec MacNeill (sp?)-afterwards I was sorry we hadn't got\nHector there-hadn't had Hector there-but I urged Morrison to recall\nStokes, which they did later on. But the whole setup was against any pos-\nsibility. I think the fact that they made this-came to some standing to\nstart negotiations with the British would indicate that there was some chance\nat that time to come to a settlement, so I don't think George's advice was\nentirely wrong, to send me over.\n5/15/54: Reel 2, Track 2, Page\nMR. McGHEE:\nI always felt that it was a well justified move, even though it didn't\nsucceed and I think came within an absolute ace of succeeding. It was\nvery, very close to success, and I think Averell\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nI think that if Cripps had been alive; I am sure that if Cripps and I had\ngone there, knowing the way Cripps dealt with things, that he had the power\nto do it, and perhaps if Hugh Gaitskell had gone; but in any event certainly\nit did create a more friendly relations between our two governments and\nperhaps that stood in good stead through the period, I don't know. But I\nmention that Mossadegh's embrace as an indication of the-well, in spite\nof these very extraordinary talks. You would think, Dean, that when you\nhad something completely settled with him and you would go through it,\nstep by step by step, and he would agree and agree, and at the end of\nU.S. OONTRNMENT\nthe conversation you would be right back to the first point again. After\nthe Stokes incident which confirmed to him that the British were intransigent\nthey could not trust them,\nand/rowldxmakxkexkrustedyxT felt that there was no hope of doing anything,\nuntil Mossadegh was eliminated.\non\nMR. ACHESON:\nWell, that's very helpful. I have a few notes here, the US and British\nviews, their attitudes, which go very much along the line that Averell\nhas just been explaining and Paul.\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nMay I say this--I don't wk know whether you want to put it in here-I didn't\nfeel that Grady really was at grips with the situation and I think some of\nthe things he's writing now--I felt at the time our relations were perfectly\ncordial, but I didn't really feel that he had a grasp of the situation\nand he wouldn't have been as happy a choice as your next choice, which was\nLoy Henderson.\nMR. ACHESON:\nWell, I think that's right; that's very much my feeling about it.\nTo go over some of these aspects and fill in some things that Averell hasn't\nmentioned, and some that he has, I thought we'd put down the main aspects\nof our two different approaches to this and then pick up the story a little\n5/15/54: Reel 2, Track 2, Page 10\nbit after September, when Averell's effort finally broke down. I was\nstrongly impressed by the influence of the British Treasury on the whole\nattitude here in Iran. It impinged on me, chiefly through Leslie Rowan,\nwho succeeded in making me quite furious. I have never had the difficulty\nof having one person get betweenme and the subject as completely as Leslie\nRowan did. His view was very clear, very crisp, and very absolute. It\nwas that this Iranian action here was an attack on British foreign invest-\nments which and that the whole British position depended upon its foreign\ninvestments which furnished the invisible items in its balance of trade;\nthat if the British permitted any dent to be made in the sanctity and the\nsecurity of their foreign investments, then they were finished. To us\nthis was a minor point; our relations with the world were chiefly in the\nmovement of goods. But to the British this was a vital link in their\nwhole stability and therefore they couldn't stand it. And so their chief\nTRUMAN\nattitude-the Treasury, the British Treasury attitude--toward this effort\n-VATIONAL\nHARRY\nARCHIVES&\nLIBRARY\nat nationalization was that it had to fail and had to fail publicly and\nRECORDS\nU.S.\nONVERNMENT\ndisastrously and it had to be punished. And if you settled, Iran might\ndissolve and end up behind the Iron Curtain-he was in unmoved by that.\nIt was perfectly all right; if that was what happened, well, that was what\nhappened. But they had to be punished, and one way of punishing them might\nbe to put them behind the Iron Curtain. And then they would be sorry that\nthey ever interfered with British foreign investments. And this was ada-\nmant--you couldn't make any impression on it whatever. Now the foreign..\nMR. HARRIMAN:\nYou got a taste from Leslie Rowan, because I saw him, and you got a taste\nof the atmosphere from the telegrams that Shephard (?) was sending.\nMR. ACHESON:\nThe Foreign Office view-that is, Eden's personal view-of things was that\nhe, Anthony Eden, in understood and knew the Persians. He had taken a trip\nafter he resigned in 1935 or 136 over the Ethiopian issue; he had gone to\nPersia as a private citizen and on a visit. And like so many people who\n5/15/54: Reel 2, Track 2, Pag u\nhave been briefly in a part of the world, his whole knowledge was colossal\nas a result of that one visit. He knew the Persians; he had been there,\nand in his view they were rug dealers and that's all they were. You should\nnever give in; they would always come around and make a deal with you if\nyou just stayed firm. As far as there being any danger that the Persian\neconomy would go to pieces, he says-he used to say that it was always\ngoing to pieces; it was always in pieces, and it couldn'b be much worse\nthan it was and it didn't make any difference. It was a matter of unim-\nportance to anybody. The other view was that Mossadegh had to go; he was\ngreat\nimpossible. Nothing could be done with him and therefore a grand deal of\ntime and thought was put on trying to work out an arrangements with various\npromising generals and other people who might, with the Shah's support,\nTRUMAN\ntake the place of Mossadegh. He had very little confidence, however, in\nHARRY U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES& OOVERNMENT RECORDS ADMIN RY\nthe Shah; he thought that he was too weak and flabby. All this time I had\nfrom\nthe conviction/mmi the experience in meetings with them that the Foreign\nOffice was getting its advice from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. and the\nMinistry of Fuel.and Power. And that was from the very people who had\ngotten the trouble started. I remember some months later talking with\nEden about it and pointing out to him that if a bank found itself in diffi-\nculty you didn't call in as an accountant the EMA cashier who had gotten\nthe bank into trouble; you called in somebody else to give you advice.\nHowever, it made no impression on him at all. I think on our side our view\nwas that Mossadegh was not a chance agitator; that there was, as Paul\nsaid a little while ago and as Averell has said, a very deep revolution,\nnationalist in character, which was sweeping not only Iran but the whole\nMiddle East; that this was a profoundly important phenomenon. Mossadegh\nwas riding it; he was also increasing it, and the play between him and the\nnational emotion was a continuing one. We felt very strongly, I believe,\nthat the economic situation in Iran wasn't going to pieces and that very\nshortly-we thought quite shortly, and in this I think we were wrong--\n5/15/54: Reel 2, Track 2, Page 2\nwenhad placed it from six to eight months\n(END OF REEL)\nHARRIA TRUMANT\nNOVERNMENT"
}