Towards the Bitter End

W. Averell Harriman had done his earnest best to push back the pressures of history which seemed to be closing in on the British-Iranian oil wrangle. He had won a few weeks' respite, brought both sides together and given both a chance to try a second round of negotiations. But despite endless talk, the situation last week again took on its old air of senseless inevitability.

Early in the week, at appropriately named Sabeh Garanieh Palace ("Palace of the Man of Bad Luck"), Richard Stokes had brought out Britain's plan. Recognizing the new forces at work, the old Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. would disappear; all the company's property in Iran would be transferred to the government-owned National Iranian Oil Co. A new purchasing organization set up by the British would buy the oil from National Iranian, market it, divide the net profits 50-50 with the Iranians. The purchasing organization and National Iranian would jointly create a third outfit to handle the technical end--drilling, pumping, refining, loading. The Iranians would nominally be in charge of the third company; actually, the British would manage it.

"A jolly good offer," said Stokes--and indeed it was. (He estimated that it would triple Iran's royalties, which were $44,800,000 in 1950.) But Premier Mohammed Mossadeq thought otherwise, and promptly sank down with a heart attack. The frenetically suspicious Iranians seemed to be convinced that Britain was killing off Anglo-Iranian only on paper, and that the British would in fact still control Iran's oil industry.

What did the Iranians propose? Just three points for negotiations: 1) how much compensation did the British want to get out, lock, stock and oil barrels; 2) how much oil did the British propose to buy for their own needs; 3) under what terms would British technicians remain at Abadan.

Amiable Negotiator Stokes, whose nickname is "Slap & Tickle Dick," was not tickled. He snapped: "I am not a great believer in bargaining." Still, Mediator Harriman persevered. He saw the young Shah, who is reasonable but ineffectual. The Shah himself tried to conciliate Mossadeq, who finally blew up, said: "Do you want me to resign?" There it was; the Shah had to back down. The fact was that the oil dispute, which stretched back 20 years, had become for Iranians a cause beyond common sense. They desperately needed British technicians, and they could not possibly get along without British marketing, but not a man of them would concede the facts.

At week's end, some 200 members of the fanatical Fedayan Islam charged through Teheran's streets to the Shah Mosque, knifing six policemen on the way, shouting: "Stokes, take your proposal to the grave with you." Mullah Kashani, spiritual leader of the terrorists, unblinkingly told Stokes, who came to pay a call: "Tell the British government that if Dr. Mossadeq deviates one iota from oil nationalization, the Iranian people will dispatch him to the next world."

Stokes himself was also under pressure: the Abadan technicians served notice on him that they would not work for an Iranian management. In London, Winston Churchill warned the Socialists of dire political consequences if they abandoned Abadan. And the independent weekly, Time & Tide, sighing for the dear, dead days of "gunboat diplomacy" had an angry phrase for the new: "kicked spaniel diplomacy."

The parting that would hurt both countries was dragging to its bitter end.

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