After Three Years

In the midst of the Middle East furore over Nasser, another veteran twister of the British lion's tail was heard from.

Mohammed Mossadegh, as weird and wondrous a character as ever stole a headline, was swept into office as Iran's Premier in 1951 on a promise to nationalize the sprawling British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. He accomplished his purpose in a dervishlike vortex of tantrums, sulks, fainting spells, mopes and well-publicized weeping that made even readers of Lil Abner forget Daisy Mae. In doing so, he brought his country to bankruptcy. At one point in his frenzied career, Mossy succeeded in frightening the Shah clean out of his own country.

When the Shah returned, as he did less than a week later, Mossadegh was through. Though Iran's oil has remained its own property ever since, it is piped out by an international consortium. As for Mossadegh, he was dragged weeping and screaming into court in the bathrobe and pajamas that were his habitual uniform, and after a gaudy trial, sentenced to three years of solitary confinement. "This sentence," he told the court in a flood of tears, "has increased my historic glory."

Last week, shabbily resplendent in his increased glory and the same threadbare pajamas, Mohammed Mossadegh walked out of Teheran's Ghassar barracks a free man once more. No crowds were there to welcome him. But Mossy's wife, son and grandchildren were on hand to take the old man home. And when Mossy saw them, he wept.

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