Chat and Shah

Thirteen years ago, when tubby, profligate Sultan Ahmad, Shah of Persia, was debauching along the French Riviera French newsorgans came out with the old French proverb: La mdt tous les chats sont gris. This means literally: "At night all cats are grey." A punning interpretation is: "At night all Shahs are drunk. In 1925 Sultan Ahmad Shah was toppled off the throne, and swashbuckling, self-made Reza Shah Pahlavi declared himself the King of Kings. From the outset he pompously made it clear that his country would stomach no further insults of the drunken Shah variety. Last year the King of Kings, who by this time had ordered Persia to be called Iran, heard that his Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the U. S.

had been arrested by Maryland constables for speeding.

Enraged at this disrespectful treatment, His Majesty recalled his Minister, ordered the Iranian Legation in Washington and the Iranian Consulates in Manhattan and Chicago permanently closed (TIME, April 13 et ante). Last week the King of Kings was furious over "another French insult." Month ago L'Europe Nouvelle criticized the economic condition of Iran. The King of Kings demanded an apology, received one. A French columnist last week reopened the wound by rehearsing the incident under the punning headline // n'y avait pas la de quoi fouetter un Shah. This was a parody of the French phrase "There was nothing there with which to beat a cat," suggesting that the King of Kings had made a fuss about nothing. The poor pun was enough to make Reza Shah Pahlavi last week recall to Teheran his Minister to France. Mirza Abolghas-sem Nadjm "for an explanation," and withdraw his promise to lend Iranian art objects to the coming Paris International Exhibition which opens May i.

This week still another insult was forthcoming. In the Geneva council chambers of the League of Nations (see p.

17), Chilean Delegate Dr. Augustin Edwards told a story involving "a former Shah" and his 300 wives.

Delegate Edwards said that when the ruler prepared to marry his 301st wife, the others forced him to renounce this plan by abandoning the Shah en masse, seeking sanctuary in the British Legation. Red as a beet, Iranian Delegate Nasrollah Entezam demanded that this tale be expunged from the record.

Chuckling-diplomats wondered whether he too would be summoned to Teheran for an explanation of this affront to the dignity of Iran.

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