Brothers in Islam

(See front cover)

Toothsome young lambs were slaughtered by the hundreds in Ankara last week and their fresh meat sizzled on a thousand skewers as banquet followed boisterous banquet. Champagne-loving Turkish Dictator Mustafa Kemal Pasha, high-strung and quick as a panther, was doing his best to honor the majestic Persian Dictator who styles himself the King of Kings and whose age of some 60 years is concealed by his upright military bearing, betrayed by a certain slowness of speech and gesture.

Once a Cossack trooper, His Majesty Riza Shah Pahlevi, King of Kings, showed in converse with the Turkish Dictator his customary habit of arriving swiftly at obstinate conclusions. Several times Dictator seemed vexed by Dictator, but only in political converse. When the talk shifted to soldiering both were in their element. With a strutting pageant of Turkish soldiery and Air Force maneuvers, Host Kemal so diverted Guest Pahlevi that the King of Kings prolonged his official visit.

When His Majesty relaxed in mellow mood, with Dictator Kemal half seas over, opportunities to negotiate were nimbly seized by the Talleyrand of Turkey, her perpetual Foreign Minister, Dr. Tewfik Rushdi Bey, who began his career as an obstetrician. Knowing that there is no Persian with whom one can effectively negotiate except the King of Kings, ingratiating Dr. Rushdi sounded His Majesty on the great project of a Middle Eastern Alliance, a bloc to be constructed in spite of Britain and France by Moslems of Turkey, Persia, Irak, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Transjordania and Egypt. Such at least is Dr. Rushdi's dream. And last week the King of Kings had left Persia for the first time since he seized the Peacock Throne in 1925 to discuss both Moslem dreams and realities with his Turkish neighbors.

That His Majesty should have been able to proceed in seemly state over the whole length of his snakelike route of 2,000 miles from Teheran to Ankara (see map) was itself a gigantic achievement of the two Dictators. Before they ousted the do-nothing hereditary royal dynasties of Turkey and Persia such a journey could only be made by meandering caravan and in utmost peril of attack by bandits. Most savage of all were the Kurdish cutthroats who for generations had defied both Persian and Turkish soldiers, raiding (first into one country, then into the other along their common frontier. Perhaps the wisest and most enlightened act of the King of Kings was to conclude two years ago with emissaries of Dictator Kemal a pact, by which Persia yielded to Turkey certain bits of her northwest frontier which made it possible for the two states so to deploy their border patrols that the Kurdish tribesmen could be nabbed at-their raiding and the scourge of banditry wiped out. Last week Turkish and Persian statesmen hailed this achievement in toast after brimming toast. They then talked behind their ever-itching palms about British oil, by all odds the juiciest thing in Persia.

Anglo-Persian. Spunky young Persians under their gruff and aging King of Kings have finally broken, denounced and torn up all important concessions previously held by the Great Powers except that of Anglo-Persian Oil Co. Ltd., of which concern the British Government is majority stockholder.

"Persia must learn to do without foreigners!" is a favorite dictum of Shah Riza, himself a masterly adept at playing foreigners off against each other. Issuing banknotes used to be the profitable prerogative of the Imperial Bank of Persia, a prerogative well paid for by the bank's British backers. When they had been well squeezed, the Government founded the National Bank, with Germans in charge, and let them issue banknotes for a consideration. Belgians were next in favor and only this spring did the King of Kings give his Belgian Treasurer-General (in charge of customs) notice and bounce the leading German banker in Persia, pompous Herr Doktor Horschitz-Horst. The National Bank then became 100% Persian under a Director who. besides being His Majesty's personal favorite, has thoroughly studied banking methods abroad. His Excellency Riza Ghuli Khan Amir Chosrowi.

Before this fiscal favorite returned the King of Kings was asked whether it was altogether wise to send such highly placed Persians abroad for training from which they might return less Persian. "I hope,'' growled the King of Kings, ''that the men we send abroad will realize that civilization is different for every country. The Persian has a mighty tradition behind him, the Empire of Darius! I want to make out of my countrymen the best possible Persians! Ah, there is so much to do! I am always dissatisfied. I cannot do it quickly enough!"

With thundering quickness the King of Kings denounced two years ago the concession of Anglo-Persian, claiming these British oilmen must be cheating his Treasury since they no longer paid in as big royalties as before (TIME, Dec. 12, 1932). Seething with hate of "the British dogs," Persia's Press, which always exactly mirrors His Majesty's views, called for the auctioning off forthwith of "the Persian heritage of oil" to the highest foreign bidder.

"Fundamentally Sound," The sequel to this patriotic Persian attempt to shake the foreigners down was a hasty visit to Teheran by Anglo-Persian's suave Board Chairman and "Petrol Diplomat." Sir John Cadman carried through the ensuing negotiations of high public policy on the private basis that "the Shah is my personal friend." The result was a new concession for Anglo-Persian running until 1993, but His Majesty squeezed down the area under lease to Anglo-Persian by more than half and while leaving Anglo-Persian in possession of its pipe lines deprived the British of exclusive Persian oil pipe-line rights (TIME, May 15, 1933). Observed a cynical Soviet diplomat well posted on Sir John Cadman's negotiations: "Persia is fundamentally sound. They will sell you the country six times over, but that makes no difference. They are always on the lookout to sell it again. Da, da [yes, yes], Persia is fundamentally sound!" It was this fundamental of Persian policy which made oil such a pleasing subject of converse last week at Ankara. The stronger the two nations become, the more firmly they knit bonds of Moslem unity across the Near and Middle East, the stronger will be Shah Riza's hand the next time he feels like tearing up an oil contract. Dictator Kemal for his part was anxious to talk Persian oil for the Turkish fleet. He was said in Ankara to have turned down British firms and ordered ten new Turkish cruisers built in--of all places --Japan. "The peoples of Islam are intensely admiring of the Japanese," said an Ankara official. "The Japanese have made themselves strong without rejecting their ancient faith or paltering with Christianity."

Dictators to earthquake. Neither the King of Kings nor President Kemal lacks personal courage. During the fetes, rejoicings, fireworks, skewered lamb and champagne at Ankara last week news came of severe earthquakes in Western Turkey, the very region through which Host Kemal was about to escort Guest Pahlevi. Neither showed the slightest desire to cancel these plans. The royal Persian junket became an earnest inspection trip through the shaken area down to Smyrna with homeless families watching the Near East's two Strong Men.

As their chief relaxation the two old campaigners stopped at the Battlefield of Sakarya and General Kemal explained with gusto how he beat the Greeks in 1921. So close grew the confab of host and guest at this point that Turkish and Persian journalists reported ecstatically afterward: "They have become real friends, personal friends and brothers!" At Smyrna, to his grave delight, the King of Kings received personal command of some Turkish troops who pitched under his orders into an exciting sham battle with airplanes raining "boom bombs."

On through the Dardanelles, scene of Britain's greatest mistake and Turkey's chief glory during the Great War, steamed the Oriental brothers. The big, splendiferous windup of the King of Kings' junket was at Istanbul where the great Dolma Bagtche Palace of bygone Turkish Sultans was thrown open for a great ball to honor His Majesty. Reclining on a divan the King of Kings ate Turkish delight off a onetime Sultan's silver salver and puffed cigarets made for the occasion by the Turkish Tobacco Monopoly which had stamped on each the Persian Royal Arms. Meanwhile spry Turks in the sleek-tailed, Frenchified dress suits affected by President Kemal one-stepped and black-bottomed in a fashion to make the King of Kings blink. Stoutly, Persian courtiers insisted to their jewel-bedecked Turkish partners, on whose toes they had a tendency to tread, that "His Majesty is of ancient lineage, the noblest in Mazanderan."

King of Kings. Such flattery is unnecessary. Riza Pahlevi is self-made and Persians would be proud of the fact were they not so thoroughly Oriental. The parents of the King of Kings were honest peasants. Their village had to send half a dozen young men each year to serve Persia's dissolute Shah and strong young Riza, born on the shores of the Caspian Sea, was mustered into a Persian regiment of Cossacks. He tasted battle chiefly against bandits and won steady promotion to the rank of Sartip with 3,000 Cossacks under his command. For a fateful coup d'etat it was Sartip Riza who was sought out in 1921 by Persia's wily Saiyid ZiaudDin, a wealthy newspaper publisher and astute political wangler.

Sartip Riza marched with supreme bold ness on Teheran and such was the Army's disgust with do-nothing Ahmed Shah that a few hours of quiet maneuvering turned the trick as whole battalions went over to Publisher Saiyid Zia-ud-Din's revolution. Not long after the publisher found he had made the mistake of his life. The upstart Sartip had got himself appointed Minister of War and the publisher was exiled to Baghdad. Two years passed while brooding Riza Khan intrigued, cajoled and bribed among the military, forcing his deep plans and domineering power to triumph over weaker minds. While still only War Minister he reorganized the Army and made it his own by insuring regular pay for the first time in living Persian memory. To do this he had to detach a section of the Ministry of Finance and incorporate it into the Ministry of War. That feat showed who was really No. 1 man in Persia. In 1923 frightened Ahmed Shah fled to the fleshpots of Paris. Two years later Riza Pahlevi, by that time Premier, was elected by the Majlis to be Shah and King of Kings with "full powers" which make him in fact independent of the Majlis. Always domineering, he now became the utter autocrat and one day even kicked his first-born and beloved son Crown Prince Shapur Mohammed Riza into the palace pond for a trifling offense.

King into Communist? Though his most striking feats have been to make Persia safe from banditry and put the Great Powers in their place, Shah Riza, while tactically respecting Persian traditions and taboos, is now driving ahead with a program of modernization and Persian self-sufficiency which fairly makes his subjects dizzy.

Not long ago he decided that the great square and the side streets in the busiest quarter of Teheran should be repaved as fast as possible and for a month shop-keepers wailed as all traffic was obstructed by the pavers and customers kept at bay. Another order set up the Government Foreign Trade Monopoly, with iron rules that for everything imported Persia must make a corresponding export, or the import cannot be made. This has so strengthened the Treasury that with nearly all Great Powers off the gold standard, the King of Kings was said last week to be considering putting Persia back on.

"The two greatest evils from which a country can suffer are foreign control and Communism," His Majesty has said, only to add darkly: "If Persia had to choose between the two I should be the first to put myself at the head of a Communist army!"

Always at bottom the soldier, Shah Riza spent the closing hours of his visit to Istanbul last week with Turkish generals bent over staff maps showing the new strategic motor roads and railways of Turkey and Persia. Ten years ago there was no railway striking east from Ankara toward Persia and nothing but a caravan trail running west from Teheran toward Turkey. There is no through railway yet but the motor road over which His Majesty zipped from Teheran through Tabriz and Erzerum to the Turkish coast at Trebizond is now in prime shape to become an artery of heavy trucking and carry Persian carpets on a direct route to Europe. For trade with Russia and possible defense Persia is in course of being spanned by the line from Bandar Shapur via the Anglo-Persian oil country and Teheran to Bandar Shah. The line will make it possible for the first time to cross Persia by rail. With other railways sprouting throughout the Near East, across Syria and Irak, the statesmen in Dolma Bagtche Palace last week saw spread on their unromantic staff maps the physical symbols of a future United Islam. After taking the final Turkish salute Persia's King of Kings set the wires humming with his reputed farewell words to Ankara's Dictator Kemal: ''I rejoice at the prospect of your visit to Teheran! We are soldiers, not diplomats."

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