Memorandum, State Department Summary of Telegrams

MLT(Naval Aide / 254 OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE DECLASSIFIED WASHINGTON E.O. 12065, Sec. 3.402 State Dept. Guidelines, March 6, 1982 October 9, 1951 By DEB NLT, Daie 9-5-85 E E T SUMMARY OF TELEGRAMS IRAN Assistant Secretary McGhee visited Iran's Prime Minister Mosadeq for over an hour yesterday. Mosadeq indicated that he would prefer to avoid Security Council action through negotiations beforehand and would prefer topost- pone SC action in the hope that the parties could reach agreement pri- vately. Mr. McGhee made an effort to determine whether Mosadeq really had in mind a new basis of negotiations, and pointed out that Mr. Harriman had clearly stated to Mosadeq that he felt there must be a more realistic attitude on the part of the Iranians if a satisfactory agreement was to be concluded. McGhee asked, for example, whether Mosadeq's position had changed on the creation of a suitable executive with sufficient authority to run the oil industry subject to the policy con- trol of the National Iranian Oil Company. Mr. McGhee said that from our long experience we knew that a business operation of the size re- quired to run the Iranian oil industry could not be satisfactorily oper - ated by a board of directors, but that there must be under the board a single executive with executive powers over subsidiary departments and technicians. Moreover, he added, the operation would need continuous access to modern technology. Mosadeq indicated that he would be pre- - pared to accept an executive with proper authority, but he maintained that this had been embodied in the proposals made to the British last month. (In these proposals the Iranians had merely said that this posi- tion would entail "technical liaison" between the NIOC and the various branches of the oil operation.) During a meeting with the French and British later in the day at which Ambassador Gross reported on McGhee's visit to Mosadeq, Mr. Jebb (UK) said he was not sure whether his Govern- ment would instruct him to table the resolution if consultations showed there were not seven votes. He noted our continued preference for outside negotiations, but he did not know whether the UK would agree to talk with Mosadeq or would insist first on hearing his speech.