Boots for the Scotsman

Boots for the Bootsman

Hardly anything was well in Iran last week. To be sure, the Majlis (National Assembly) had accepted the Russo-British peace terms whereby: 1) the Russians "for the duration" will occupy a zone 500 miles long and from 50 to 150 miles wide, bordering the Caspian, in the country's northwest; 2) the British in the southwest will occupy another, 400 by 100 miles, embracing the oil fields; 3) all airdromes, communications and roads will be taken over by the Allies. But:

> Since the 80-hour war ended three weeks ago, old Reza Shah Pahlavi, many of whose political theories seem to be concentrated in his good right toe, had locked himself in his palace at Teheran and put to shame the classic sulk of Achilles. It was reliably reported that a Cabinet Minister who ventured to pay a call on the Shah was flogged with the flat of the royal saber, then punted off the premises by the royal boot.

> In London British public opinion grumbled that the royal bootsman should himself be given the boot. Increasingly fed up were the Allies with his shilly-shallying over a clause in the peace terms which called for delivery of all German nationals in his realm. One day last week the British expected to start 225 Nazis rolling from Teheran for internment in India; the Russians had earmarked 50 for Soviet sojourn. After 24 hours of diddle-dumpling run-around from the German Legation, the British received 72 prisoners, the Russians eight. The Allies threatened to get good & tough (i.e., to occupy Teheran) unless consignments speeded up immediately. Next day the Iranian Government ordered the removal of 400 more male Nazis from the German Legation's compound.

> Still being paged by the British was explosion-whiskered Haj Amin El-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. They want to see him about some Arab riots in Palestine and a revolt in Iraq last spring. The Russians were trying to trace a character known as Roman Gamotta, believed to be a German onetime naval officer who cannot let sleepy Arabs lie. That neither could be found did not add to the royal boots-man's popularity with the Allies.

> Pillaging the Iranian countryside were mobs of Kurds, as warlike as the royal bootsman himself and the finest-physiqued men in the Middle East. The Shah had imported them in large numbers to work on the roads. Says an Arab proverb: There are three plagues in the world--the Kurd, the rat and the locust.

> The fierce tribes in the southwest were reported rising.

> In Kermanshah disbanded Iranian soldiers were reported peddling their new German rifles in the bazaars.

> Food was running short.

> This week it was reported the royal bootsman had abdicated.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.