Blood in the Streets

One hot and breezeless afternoon last week, Mohammed Mossadegh's advisers sat around the boss's iron cot on the balcony of his yellow brick house in Teheran. They had gathered to face the facts: the country was disintegrating economically and politically. Husky Firebrand Hussein Makki spoke up: "My dear Pishva [leader], unless you control the army, you will have no security." The group agreed that the Pishva should ask the Shah for control of the army.

A few days later, 7 2-year-old Mossadegh faced 32-year-old Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, Iran's well-meaning but weak monarch. He began naming the ministers for his new cabinet (TIME, July 21). "What about the War Minister?" the Shah asked. Replied Mossadegh: "I will take charge of the War Ministry, Sire."

The Hard Institution. The Shah frowned. He knew that his 140,000-man army, poorly equipped, indifferently disciplined and mottled with disaffection, was not much. But it was all that stood between him and the Mossadegh gang--the National Frontists, the religious extremists, the street mobsters. Said the Shah carefully: "The army is a hard institution to run. I think that a general enjoying my fullest confidence should be nominated."

After four hours of polite wrangling, Mossadegh hurried home, then wrote the Shah: "It is better that the next government should be organized by another person who has your confidence." He added a veiled warning: "In the actual situation, it is not possible for the Iranian people to be victorious in the struggle which it has begun."

Thus, 15 months after he took power promising his people "comfort and ease," the great nationalist departed, leaving his country richer in pride and poorer in power and pocketbook. He had cut off Iran's nose to spite its face. Deprived of $100 million a year in direct and indirect revenues from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., unable to sell its oil abroad, Iran's treasury was running into the red at a $10 million-a-month clip. Mossadegh's policies were bankrupt, and Iran was nearly so.

The Old Fox. The young Shah called for the old fox of Iranian politics to take over. The fox, who had been waiting a long time, bounded in. Eightyish and four times Premier, Ahmed Qavam, a multimillionaire, is tough, ambitious and intrigue-loving. But in his own cynical way he is also an Iranian patriot. Qavam issued a hard-hitting manifesto: "The pilot has taken a new course. God help those who try to sabotage my reform endeavors." He announced he would try to solve the oil crisis in friendly talks with the British.

That did it. Nationalists poured into the streets of Teheran and Abadan yelling: "Death to Qavam the traitor." They postured before the soldiers screaming: "Pierce our breasts with your bayonets." Mullah Kashani, whose spiritual followers murdered moderate Premier Ali Razmara in 1951, told newsmen that Qavam would also be "eliminated."

Qavam replied by sending truckloads of troops roaring through the streets and imposing a curfew. But rioting spread; soon 20 people lay dead. Others made battle banners out of white cloths dipped in the blood of the wounded. They threw themselves before Sherman tanks and pleaded with the soldiers to come over to their side. Teheran began to look like a city gripped by revolution.

After four days in office, old Qavam resigned. Impulsively, fanatically, Iran resumed its march toward chaos.

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