Masterly Inactivity

Winston Churchill summoned his cabinet for a three-hour emergency session last week. Topic: Iran. The word afterward was that the British were coming around to Washington's view that the fall of weepy Premier Mohammed Mossadegh would probably bring the Communist Tudeh party into power. They no longer saw any real alternative, now that the last pro-British Premier (Ahmed Qavam) had been shoved aside, the young Shah rendered helpless, and the Iranian army brought under Mossadegh's control. But they still shrank from going to Mossadegh's aid and on his terms: helping the man who expropriated Anglo-Iranian's wealth would be too humiliating. Britain, predicted one observer, would pursue a policy of masterly inactivity.

As London and Washington exchanged thousands of words on the subject, Iran continued to go steadily into the hands of the extremists. In Teheran, with the galleries screaming approval, the Majlis voted a full pardon to bearded Khalil Tahmassebi, the nationalist fanatic who murdered moderate, pro-Western Premier Ali Razmara in March 1951. Then, to the second most powerful post in Iran, president of the Majlis, it elected the Mullah Ayatullah Kashani, spiritual chief of the assassins. Extremist Kashani arranged the Nationalist-Red alliance that battered Qavam out of power and brought Mossadegh back (TIME, Aug. 4). He still fancies himself smart enough to use the Reds without being used.

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