Patriot of Persia

by Christopher de Bellaigue

  Mossadegh at this stage was as much of a nationalist as anyone. The prime minister wanted a deal, but it seemed to him that the return of the British, in any guise, would nullify the main benefit of nationalisation, which was political independence. Those who took him seriously, like Harriman’s oil expert Walter Levy, came away with a good idea of what Mossadegh might stomach. On the strength of several hours’ discussion with the prime minister, Levy told the British that the company would have to give up its operating and distributing monopoly, and the British government would have to give up its shareholding. Mossadegh’s insistence that no Briton should sit on the board would not preclude the presence of other, less noxious foreigners – continental Europeans, for instance.

  Tant pis for him; the company was not interested. In the words of the dauntless Sir William Fraser, ‘When they need money they will come crawling to us on their bellies.’25

  Chapter 11

  Winning America

  It was the last real chance for a civilised solution to the crisis and it came on the sidelines of another self-defeating British display.

  The British had reacted to nationalisation by freezing Iranian assets in British banks and lodging an appeal with the International Court of Justice at The Hague. But Mossadegh had not recognised the court’s competence, arguing that the dispute was between a sovereign state and a private company, and he had therefore ignored an interim ruling by the court that Iran should suspend repossession.

  The British now took their complaint to the United Nations Security Council, against American advice and, ultimately, to the detriment of their own cause. Britain’s delegate to the United Nations, Sir Gladwyn Jebb, had made his reputation in the council following the invasion of South Korea, when he had debated skilfully with his Soviet counterpart. On the matter of Iran, he drafted a resolution better suited to a truculent House of Commons than an international body which had begun to fill with newly independent nations. ‘The plain fact’, as Jebb saw it, ‘is that by a series of insensate actions, the Iranian Government is causing a great enterprise, the proper functioning of which is of immense benefit not only to the United Kingdom and Iran but to the whole free world, to grind to a stop. Unless this is promptly checked, the whole of the free world will be much poorer and weaker, including the deluded Iranian people themselves.’1

  To Security Council members such as India, which had recently won independence, and Turkey, with its memories of being invaded by Britain at the end of World War I, the Iranians appeared far from deluded. India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, had already declared in favour of the Iranian nationalists, while the two communist members of the council, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia (China’s seat was still in nationalist hands), objected to the question being considered at all. In the corridors, meanwhile, the talk was of recent events in Egypt, where Mossadegh’s example had emboldened parliament to abrogate the country’s treaties with Britain and patriotic militias were assembling to attack British troops guarding the Suez Canal – of which the British government was the biggest shareholder.

  Mossadeghism was on the move, and so was the man himself, for Mossadegh had decided to reply to Jebb’s resolution in person. For the performer, whose stage hitherto had been poor, shabby Iran, it was a chance to shine, and his 49-day absence from the country turned into a public-relations triumph. Not only did Mossadegh outsmart Jebb in the council chamber, but his charm and sincerity convinced many ordinary Americans that he was a decent man who wanted the best for his people. Finally, although it had not been his intention, Mossadegh’s trip established him in the vanguard of the non-aligned movement a decade before it came formally into being.

  Arriving in New York on October 8, Mossadegh and Ghollamhossein were driven in the Iranian ambassador’s Cadillac to a state-of-the-art hospital in Manhattan. (The rest of his party went to a hotel.) There was nothing particularly wrong with Mossadegh, Ghollamhossein recalled later, but admission to the New York hospital would protect him from exhausting calls from well-wishers and journalists.

  A more important reason for Mossadegh’s choice of accommodation was probably his distrust of his own delegation. Mossadegh was accompanied by fifteen advisers, translators and assistants, including cabinet ministers and his eldest daughter, Zia Ashraf. This group was only hazily aware of his second motivation in coming to the US, which was to use the administration’s good offices to try to reach a deal with the British. Mossadegh wanted his exploratory talks with the Americans to be held in absolute secrecy. He wanted the freedom to float ideas he might later disown – and which any ill-wisher in his group might manipulate against him. Later, if it came to finalising a deal with the British, he would seek advice from his specialists.

  The hospital was a sumptuous institution. Mossadegh and Ghollamhossein had their own suite on the sixteenth floor, where the prime minister was spoilt by an army of doctors and nurses, and where he received, besides visiting diplomats from various countries, a team of American negotiators led by George McGhee. But this did not come cheap, as Ghollamhossein learned from the pages of a local newspaper, which informed its readers that the suite occupied by Iran’s prime minister cost the princely sum of $450 a night.

  Mossadegh was aghast when he found out. ‘What have we gone and done?’ he exclaimed, and Ghollamhossein hurried off to inform the hospital administrators of the prime minister’s imminent departure to prepare for his Security Council appearance. The doctors protested. They had not completed their tests, for which they gallantly proposed to waive all fees. The Mossadeghs also insisted, and Ghollamhossein was dispatched to buy parting gifts for the doctors. And so, having borrowed $5,000 from an expatriate businessman, and arranged for more money to be wired from Tehran, father and son extricated themselves from the tender attentions of the New York Hospital, $14,000 and several Iranian carpets the poorer.2

  They moved into an apartment at the Ritz Tower Hotel, where the other members of the group were staying. The American press had billed him as a great eccentric, and he did not disappoint. There was a remarkable scene in the Ritz Tower, where America’s ambassador to the UN, Ernest Gross, called to see him, along with Vernon Walters, who had been re-engaged as translator. The Americans found Mossadegh in bed, and, as it turned out, in no mood to talk. In Walters’ recollection, after Mossadegh had been introduced to Gross, the prime minister

  peered cautiously from behind his enormous nose and inquired, ‘Ambassador, what are you Ambassador to?’ ‘Oh,’ said Mr Gross, ‘I am ambassador to the United Nations.’ With that, Mossadegh let out a shriek as though he had been stabbed with a carving knife, tossed convulsively from one side of the bed to the other and sobbed wildly, huge crocodile tears pouring down his cheeks. Now this was a much more violent outburst of weeping than any I had seen previously; Ernest Gross was equally appalled by the outburst. I could not resist saying to him, ‘Mr Ambassador, I don’t think this is the day to continue the discussion.’ He said, ‘My God, neither do I.’3

  Mossadegh made a better impression on ordinary Americans. Over the course of his stay in their country, many took a liking to the bed-ridden patriot, and Mossadegh reciprocated their sympathy and interest. He made much of the common ground between Iran’s struggle and that of the colonists of 1776, and appealed for help in freeing Iran from ‘the chains of British imperialism’. He was so appreciative of the laudatory articles that were written about him by the celebrated war reporter Marguerite Higgins, he sent Ghollamhossein to the journalist’s apartment with a carpet in thanks. Mossadegh was deeply impressed when he heard that Higgins had refused the carpet lest her objectivity be compromised, and told Ghollamhossein, ‘Here lies the secret of the success of this society.’

  Mossadegh’s first appearance before the Security Council took place on October 15. Crowds had gathered outside the UN building in Flushing Meadow, and Ghollamhossein worried for his father’s powers of endurance. ‘Papa,’ he urged, ‘today is an important day. Don’t give up. Whenever you ge
t tired, just tell me . . .’ An ambulance was on hand in case he swooned. Mossadegh took his place in the chamber to great excitement, and ‘perhaps no meeting of the Security Council’, The Times of London sourly reported, ‘has opened with less dignity – thanks to the air of drama given to the personality and foibles of Dr Mossadegh. Long after he took his seat he was surrounded by photographers and a band of admirers.’4 The newsreels tell a different story: of Mossadegh sitting dignified and erect while the flashbulbs pop.

  He read in French, and his sober performance could not have been further from his histrionics in the Iranian majles. He situated the Iranian struggle in a wider quest for human liberty, for the Second World War had ‘changed the map of the world. In the neighbourhood of my country, hundreds of millions of Asian people, after centuries of colonial exploitation, have now gained their independence and freedom. It is gratifying to see that the European powers have respected the legitimate aspirations of the peoples of India, Pakistan and Indonesia, and others who have struggled for the right to enter the family of nations on terms of freedom and complete equality . . . Iran demands that right.’ He sat down after fifteen minutes and a cabinet colleague read on, for two compelling hours, detailing Britain’s historic interference in Iran and calling for the rights of the weak to be protected.

  Jebb’s reply came the following day, and he began with a salesman’s eulogy to the company, complete with glossy photographs which were passed around the delegates, showing beaming Iranian employees. But Jebb’s tone was wrong again, and he rashly described Iran’s actions as a danger to world peace. If that was the case, Mossadegh replied, Britain, which had nationalised many of its industries, should be arraigned ‘for having sapped . . . the pillars of peace . . . whatever danger to peace there may be lies in the actions of the United Kingdom government.’ It was Britain, after all, who had a flotilla of ships circling the Persian Gulf. ‘Iran has stationed no gunboats in the Thames.’

  The council was impressed, and the delegate of nationalist China reminded the British that ‘the day has passed when the control of the Iranian oil industry can be shared with foreign companies’. Seeing their moral authority slip away, the British accepted an escape route offered by the French, in the form of a resolution adjourning the debate until the International Court of Justice had given its verdict. Jebb accepted with a bad grace. Across the world, the news bulletins were full of Mossadegh. Back in Iran, the newspapers were cock-a-hoop and the Shah sent Mossadegh a congratulatory telegram.

  It was at such moments that the United Nations achieved its full dignity, when a small, defenceless nation was able to address a big one on terms of equality, and when right, for once, triumphed over might. But still there was no deal.

  Mossadegh had been talking to McGhee since his arrival in the US, and they were making what the American considered to be good progress. The parameters of an agreement were soon in place, with nationalisation preserved and the board of the National Iranian Oil Company (consisting of three Iranians and four neutrals) entering into a contract with a neutral company for access to technicians and know-how. The refinery at Abadan – which, McGhee was delighted to learn, had not been nationalised – would be sold to another neutral company and the National Iranian Oil Company would undertake to sell oil to Anglo-Iranian at wholesale prices for a fifteen-year period. By refusing to cooperate with nationalisation, Mossadegh said, the British had forfeited the right to keep technicians in Iran; he would not let them back, in whatever guise. But McGhee was optimistic. Under the proposed deal, financial gains for Iran and the company would resemble those of a 50:50 profit-sharing arrangement. The 50:50 formula would not be undercut.5

  Now it was up to the British. They had already agreed to 50:50. Jebb had trumpeted, yet again, their consent to nationalisation. The Americans would take the proposals to Churchill’s new Conservative government, which had been elected on October 25. In the meantime, Mossadegh would stay in the US with his team. If the British were willing to negotiate along the principles outlined by the Americans and approved by Mossadegh, talks between Iran and Britain could start immediately.

  Mossadegh had come to Washington DC after his triumph in the Security Council, stopping for a symbolic photo op beside the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, and was received cordially by Truman and Acheson. (He began his stay with another bonanza of hospital tests, which revealed that he was an old man with nothing much wrong with him.) It was McGhee, with his appreciation of Mossadegh’s ‘countless jokes and sallies’, and his own ready humour, who was assigned to look after the prime minister and continue their discussions. With McGhee, Mossadegh seemed always at ease, making a fuss of the American’s pyjama-clad son or visiting his farm and talking crops and irrigation to the estate manager. It is an unusual and touching image, the prime minister of a proud old country whiling away many dozens of hours with a little-known official from the new superpower, and forming relations of trust and affection.

  Years later, McGhee speculated that Mossadegh’s Anglophobia may have ‘doomed from the start our efforts to facilitate a deal’, but he was writing long after Mossadegh’s removal from power by the Americans, and the idea that Mossadegh was responsible for his own ruin had become a convenient orthodoxy. In fact, all the evidence suggests that Mossadegh was serious in his pursuit of a deal, although he feared the moment when he might have to unveil it. In proposing a deal, even a demonstrably advantageous one, Mossadegh would be exposing himself to the fury and jealousy of the Tudeh, the landowners and the Court.

  At the same time, to continue without a deal seemed equally perilous. The popular support which Mossadegh enjoyed in Iran, and the sullen acquiescence of the majles to his staying in office, could not be counted upon. As he told Truman, the situation at home was grave, with salaries in arrears and a mounting budget deficit. The burden on the government was enormous, for out of a population of around 15 million, some 2.25 million were civil servants. The country could not go on forever supporting 70,000 idle workers and their families in the oil fields.

  Mossadegh was risking much by staying in the United States until Britain’s new foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, composed his response, and he seems to have felt acutely imperilled by the news of political turmoil he was receiving from home. So there is a sense of liberation and abandonment in his meetings with the intelligent, un-implicated McGhee – and in the prime minister’s detachment from his own party.

  This detachment is one of the remarkable features of Mossadegh’s American stay. The prime minister almost invariably negotiated with McGhee alone. Walters was usually the only other person in the room. (He and McGhee would sit on opposite sides of the foot of the prime minister’s bed.) Between meetings, Mossadegh might consult a few colleagues on generalities – notably his oil adviser, Kazem Hassibi, who had been summoned from Tehran – ‘indication’, as Hassibi put it, ‘that there might be a chance for a settlement’.6 The details, however, he kept secret, and he insisted that McGhee treat their discussions with the utmost discretion.

  Paranoia of this kind does not spring unbidden. For centuries, Iranian public life had been overshadowed by treason and betrayal. Mossadegh was striving to save his country; his foes waited for him to fail. He was on his guard against one suspected informer, Iran’s ambassador to Washington, a Shah-loyalist called Nasrullah Entezam. The prime minister had astonished his hosts by slamming the door of the Oval Office in Entezam’s face in order to exclude him from a meeting with President Truman.7 Mossadegh also spent much energy trying to dissuade his party from accepting the hospitality of a rich Iranian businessman who was close to Entezam. To his chagrin, some of them succumbed; the businessman had an excellent cook.

  All in all, the atmosphere in the prime-ministerial party cannot have been carefree. There had been much competition for a place on this most prestigious of junkets, and Hossein Makki had been offended by his exclusion in favour of Mossadegh’s nephew and son-in-law, Ahmad Matine-Daftary. McGhee was surprised when Mossade
gh told him that he would send any putative deal to the majles without endorsing it. Such was the prime minister’s opinion of the majles, he feared that his endorsement might make its passage more difficult.

  Mossadegh seems to have done little to lighten the mood in his party, whose members were not encouraged to express themselves independently. McGhee described the Iranians as ‘insecure and afraid to speak frankly’. On one occasion, when the Americans solicited their opinion on something, there was a stilted silence before Mossadegh interjected, ‘You see? They all agree with me!’ It is likely that not all of them knew what they were agreeing with.

  In the end, it was not Mossadegh, fretting in Washington, who scuppered a deal, but the British. Reporting after his first meeting with Anthony Eden, on November 4, Acheson wrote simply, ‘Mr Eden’s view was that the proposal was totally unacceptable.’ The British could not agree to their elimination from Iranian oil production. They also argued that the proposed solution would have a destructive effect on all foreign concessions in the Middle East.

  McGhee brought the news to Mossadegh. The two men would not meet again, though Mossadegh continued to speak highly of the American. A few weeks later, McGhee took up his new ambassadorial post, in Turkey and his boss, Dean Acheson, left office after the victory of the Republican Dwight Eisenhower in the 1952 presidential election. They had worked hard to bring Mossadegh and the British together, and in the process they acquired, from different vantage points, valuable insights into the protagonists. McGhee had found himself in the uncomfortable position of telling America’s greatest ally that it was digging itself a hole in the region. For all his pro-British sympathies, McGhee had observed with frustration Britain’s attempts to prolong its imperial hold, and its inability to see that this was what made it so disliked. McGhee appreciated the strength and validity of the nationalist movements of Iran, Egypt and other places, seeing in them ‘examples of a much wider movement in men’s minds’. He urged his friends in the Foreign Office to set their relations with the Middle East ‘on a basis of equality and do it in such a way that it is recognised by these countries that they are being treated as equals and partners’.8