TEN YEARS IN IRAN – SOME HIGH LIGHTS


Lecture delivered at the Society’s Anniversary Meeting on 13 June 1991. Sir Denis Wright GCMG first went to Iran in December 1953 as charge d’affaires to reopen the British Embassy after the break in diplomatic relations following Dr. Moussadeq‘s nationalisation of oil, remaining there under Sir Roger Stevens as counsellor until October 1955 when he was appointed an under-secretary in the Foreign Office. He returned to Tehran as ambassador in April 1963 and served there for the record period of eight years before retiring in 1971. He was President of the British Institute of Persian Studies 1978-87 and is currently President of the Iran Society. He is an Honorary Fellow of two Oxford colleges, St. Edmund Hall and St. Antony’s. Translations of his two books, The English amongst the Persians and The Persians amongst the English have both been pirated in Tehran -the former by four different publishers under four different titles! Sir Denis joined the Society in 1945 and has lectured to it on three previous occasions.

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It is a singular honour, if that is the right word, to have had my arm twisted once again and been asked to deliver a second Anniversary Lecture. On the first occasion, 18 years ago, I spoke about The Changed Balance of Power in the Persian Gulf. Today, inspired by my fellow-octogenarian Wilfed Thesiger’s Anniversary Lecture last year, I am allowing myself to reminisce and say something about the more interesting events of my 10 happy years in Iran - first in 1953-55 as charge d’affaires and counsellor at the British Embassy, and then from 1963-71 as ambassador there.
All this is ancient history so, for the benefit of the younger generation here this evening, let me recall the background.
Forty years ago, in 1951, Dr. Moussadeq, the Iranian Prime Minister, did the unthinkable and nationalised the Iranian oil industry, then almost %100 owned by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. (AIOC, now BP). This was Britain’s most valuable and prestigious overseas asset, 51% of it owned by the British Government. Various efforts by ourselves, the American Government and the World Bank to solve the bitter dispute between the British and Iranian Governments failed. In October 1952 Moussadeq, who had already closed our consulates, broke off diplomatic relations and expelled all our diplomats. The Swiss assumed responsibility for British interests. In August 1953 Moussadeq was toppled in a coup conceived by M16 and delivered by CIA: General Fazlullah Zahedi became Prime Minister.
I was then head of Economic Relations Department in the Foreign Office. I had one desk officer, Peter Ramsbotham (who was to succeed me in 1971 as ambassador in Tehran) handling oil matters: nowadays there is a whole department in the FCO dealing with oil and energy. It was, I suppose, because I was thought to know something about oil that I was now chosen to go to Tehran as charge d’affaires and re-open the Embassy for I had never before served in Iran. The nearest I had been was during the last War when for two years I was Vice-Consul at Trebizond, the Black Sea terminus of the ancient caravan route from Tabriz in Azerbaijan. While there, to while away the lonely winter evenings (my wife and I were the only two British in the place) I wrote an article entitled Trebizond and the Persian Transit Trade which was published in the October 1944 Journal of this Society — my very first link with what was then the Royal Central Asian Society.
However our hopes of an immediate resumption of diplomatic relations after Moussadeq’s fall foundered on unforeseen difficulties. Many Iranians, including the Shah, had — and still have — a deep distrust of the British because of past history. Moussadeq, now under arrest, had become something of a national hero for his action against the British oil company. The Shah and his advisers feared that a resumption of relations before an oil settlement would lead to internal trouble. The British Government, for their part, insisted that diplomatic relations must precede oil negotiations. It took 3} months before the Iranians agreed that diplomatic relations should come first. Eventually on Saturday 5 December 1953 a painstakingly drafted joint communique was issued in London and Tehran announcing the resumption of diplomatic relations to be followed by oil negotiations “at the earliest mutually agreed moment". The unusual procedure of issuing this important announcement on a Saturday afternoon ahead of a statement in Parliament was for fear the Iranians might change their minds!
I was now all set to fly to Tehran. But once again there was delay. When the Swiss Minister handed to the Iranian Foreign Minister the names of the staff — men and women but no wives — who were to accompany me he was reminded that Moussadeq had decreed that no British diplomat who had previously served in Iran should be allowed to return. The four senior members of my carefully chosen team had all served in Iran.
This was a bombshell. Would HMG bow to Tehran’s diktat or not? A decision on so politically sensitive a matter could only be taken by Ministers. Both Eden, the Foreign Secretary, and Churchill the Prime Minister, were in Bermuda seeing President Eisenhower. I was instructed to see Eden the moment he returned — this I did on Saturday 12 December (in those days Whitehall worked on Saturdays) when he told me that, provided I had one old hand with me, who knew his way around, we could drop the others. He left the choice to me. I opted for John Fearnley who had been in the Embassy’s Commercial Department at the time of the break. In place of the others replacements were hurriedly recruited and, notwithstanding the proximity of Christmas, we set off on 19 December — a dozen of us — in a small chartered Viking plane from Bovingdon in Hertfordshire. After spending successive nights in Athens and Baghdad and a very bumpy flight over the Zagros Mountains we landed in Tehran in the afternoon of 21 December at about the same time as Dr. Moussadeq was being sentenced by the Military Tribunal trying him — a coincidence that did not pass unnoticed in the Tehran press.
In his volume of memoirs Full Circle Eden states that I was armed with “formidable instructions”. They were certainly lengthy but in essence were quite simple —- namely, to establish friendly relations with the Iranian authorities, assess the possibilities of an oil settlement, prepare the way for an ambassador and maintain a united front with the American Embassy.
However, before I could get on with the job I found myself in an embarrassing situation with the Shah. He knew little about oil in those days and clearly wished to get the credit for the oil settlement he seemed to think I carried in my pocket. On the evening after my arrival in Tehran the Swiss Minister had arranged, at the Shah’s behest, for me to meet two royal emissaries. That was on 22 December: they came to see me again twice on Christmas Day. On each occasion they requested that I should submit direct to the Shah, through them and not the Foreign Minister, my proposals for an oil settlement. They also rather took my breath away by asking whether HMG had any objection to the Shah dismissing the Minister of Court, Husayn Ala, and by criticising General Zahedi, the newly installed Prime Minister- I explained to them that my task was to explore the possibilities of an oil settlement, not to negotiate. All I could say was that any settlement must provide fair compensation for AIOC and not leave Iran better off than other oil producing countries. I also told them that, while I would gladly keep the Shah informed, I would not wish to do anything without the knowledge of the Iranian Foreign Minister. What the Shah did with his Minister of Court was his business, not HMG’s.
In those days none of us in the Foreign Office had much of an opinion of the Shah who had shown considerable weakness in dealing with Moussadeq. I had little hesitation in recommending to London that I should expose the Shah’s game to his Foreign Minister, Abdullah Entezam, who had much impressed me at our first meeting. My telegram was submitted to Eden, who took a keen personal interest in all this: he agreed with my recommendation and I duly told Entezam the story and assured him that I would not deal with the Shah behind his back.
I doubt whether the Shahanshah — the King of Kings — had ever had a brush off like this before. Soon Tehran was buzzing with rumours that the Shah was furious with me and refusing to see me. In due course he got over his anger and I developed an easy, friendly but always brittle relationship with him — which continued throughout my years as ambassador.
I have often wondered whether I would have acted differently had I known more about the Shah’s two emissaries since, unknown to me then, they both had past links with the British Embassy. I might add that I did my best throughout my two stints in Iran to cut out self-appointed intermediaries such as these — the so-called “ professional angIophiles" — who traded on their links with the British Embassy mysteriously hidden by high walls in the very heart of Tehran and credited with powers and influence we did not possess.


Now let me turn briefly to another highlight of my early days in Tehran — the creation of the oil Consortium and settlement of the oil dispute.
I had left London well aware of I-IMG’s views about an oil settlement. These were by this time closely in line with those of the American Government who were as anxious as we for a peaceful settlement in such a strategically important corner of the world.
Much as it was politically desirable here at home that AIOC should recover their former position in Iran, the British Government under Churchill now realised that there was no possibility of the Iranians accepting this. The idea of a consortium of the major international oil companies - British, American, Dutch and French •— was believed by both London and Washington to be the most likely solution acceptable in Tehran. Even the stubborn chairman of AIOC, Sir William Fraser, had come some way to recognising this. I might add that, far from the American oil companies wishing to muscle in on AIOC’s preserve, they only reluctantly, under pressure from their own Government, agreed to participate in the consortium that was eventually established.
Thus I knew what was in everybody’s mind before I left London. But before Cabinet decisions affecting the future of AIOC could be taken HMG needed my first-hand appreciation of the situation and possibilities. During my first two weeks in Tehran I therefore sought as many opinions as possible during a busy round of calls on Iranian ministers and officials and foreign diplomats. My conclusions, telegraphed to London on 7 January 1954, were that any attempt to restore AIOC to its old position was doomed to failure; instead I recommended that I should tell the Iranians that HMG would settle for a production and marketing consortium of the major oil companies provided AIOC had a major share in it.
HMG agreed, and AIOC had little choice but to do so too. I then had a number of meetings with the Iranian Foreign Minister to explain the consortium idea. Meanwhile the top brass of the international oil companies assembled in London and after some hard bargaining established a Consortium in which AIOC was allocated 40%, the live American companies 40%, Shell 14% and CFP of France 6%.
Negotiations between the Consortium and Iranian Government began in Tehran in April and lasted three months. Ali Amini, the Minister of Finance, led the Iranian team while the American chairman of Standard Oil of New Jersey, supported by the Dutch chairman of Shell and an English director of AIOC, represented the Consortium.
Parallel, but entirely separate, negotiations took place between us, the British, and the Iranians over the difficult question of compensation for AIOC’s loss of their oil concession which still had many years to run. Agreement on this was for HMG a sine qua non of an oil settlement. Sir Roger Stevens, our ambassador who had arrived in mid-February, led the British team and the indefatigable Ali Amini the Iranian team. There were some difficult moments and exhausting afternoon and evening sessions in a stiflingly hot, un-airconditioned room before agreement was reached in time for both the Oil and Compensation Agreements to be signed on 5 August 1954. For the next 20 years the Consortium under a succession of expatriate managers — first Dutch, then American and finally British — was primarily responsible for most of Iran’s oil production and marketing.
I might add that the Shah, smarting I suspect from my refusal to deal with him through his two emissaries, kept in the background — sitting on the fence — until a late stage before backing the consortium idea. In the words of Daniel Yergin, whose monumental book The Prize on the oil business was published earlier this year, “the establishment of the Consortium marked one of the great turning points for the oil industry” (p. 476). Now, in place of an oil concession owned by foreigners, members of the Consortium recognised for the first time that the oil assets belonged to Iran. An important precedent had been established.
Another highlight during this time was Iran’s decision to join the Baghdad Pact in October 1955.
Even before the oil settlement the Shah was pressing for our help in building up his military strength. He became more persistent the following year when Iraq joined Turkey and Pakistan in what was now called the Baghdad Pact: he saw membership of the Pact as a means of securing military hardware.
We for our part, both in Tehran and London, believed that political stability and economic progress were a much more important priority than a military build-up. We also thought that membership of the Baghdad Pact would be unpopular and only serve to aggravate the unstable domestic scene. We therefore told the Shah that while we would welcome Iran’s eventual membership of the Pact we must leave the timing to him; nor could we promise — as he wished — in advance of membership of the Pact military supplies or a guarantee of Iran’s territorial integrity. The Americans, who had originally urged the Shah to join the regional Pact, came to share our views and by August 1955, when the Shah had the bit between his teeth, we both spoke with one voice.
When, two months later, Iran did join the Baghdad Pact it was entirely the Shah’s decision, egged on by the Turks during the State Visit in mid-September of President Bayar, accompanied by his hawkish Foreign Minister, Zorlu.
I mentioned earlier that my instructions were to maintain a united front with the American Embassy. This was not difficult since the Americans, under their admirable ambassador Loy Henderson, were as keen as we to see the oil dispute settled along the lines I have described. This puzzled the Iranians, from the Shah downwards, who found it difficult to believe that both countries could be working together and not against each other. I received a number of anonymous letters and warnings from so-called anglophiles about alleged American machinations — they were planning to rig the Majles elections against us, the Prime Minister was an American tool etc., while the Americans were being told that he was in our pockets! We and the American Embassy compared notes and spent a lot of effort in trying to convince the Tehran press and public, also the Shah and his ministers, that we were in step.
I now turn to my second stint in Tehran - from 1963-71, this time as Ambassador. For me the three highlights were:
1. The riots of June 1963
2. The announcement of Britain’s decision to withdraw from the Persian Gulf by the end of 1971, and
3. The confrontation in January and February 1971 between the Oil Consortium and the Gulf members of OPEC led by Iran.
First, though, a few words about the changes I found in Tehran on my arrival there in April 1963 after an absence of nearly eight years.
The Shah had re-married and his third wife, Farah Diba, had given him the longed-for son and heir. He seemed more settled and self-confident. His ego had been boosted by the State Visit of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh in 1961: also by the nation-wide referendum in January 1963 in support of his Six-Point reform programme that included the controversial issues of land reform and votes for women.
Since May 1961, when he had dissolved both Majles and Senate, the Shah had ruled by farman or royal decree. His Prime Minister, Assadullah Alam, and other ministers were little more than imperial lackeys obeying their master’s voice. On the other hand the country’s annual income from oil had risen dramatically since 1954 and there were signs in Tehran and the provinces that some of it was being put to good use - new buildings, schools, factories: dams and new roads; regular internal air services between Tehran and the provincial capitals: a piped water supply in Tehran — and so on. Traffic jams, super-markets, flashing neon signs in Tehran together with a change of dress and manners were signs of increased prosperity and accelerated westernisation, which saddened me in some ways but did indicate that Iran was on the move after years of stagnation.
My opinion of the Shah was no higher than when I left Tehran in 1955. He had, I knew, been largely to blame for the anti-Bahai disturbances of that year: he had intrigued against and exiled Zahedi, the Prime Minister who had saved him his throne in 1953: he had deceived his Baghdad Pact allies by entering into secret negotiations with the USSR in 1959. Few of my Iranian friends had a good word to say for him. They were cynical about his promised reforms and deplored his one-man rule. I summarized my own view in my “First Impressions" despatch written some two months after my arrival -— I saw no sign that “ the weakness of character and judgement" shown by the Shah in the past had changed and could not see him providing the leadership for which the country was waiting.
However, by the end of the year, I had changed my opinion. By then there had been elections and a carefully vetted Majles and Senate installed to rubber-stamp the Shah’s reform programme. He was still widely criticised, especially by those hit by land reform or otherwise affected by his Six Points. For my part I saw his firm handling of the June riots -5 of which I will speak in a moment- as a turning point. At the end of the year, in my annual report to the Foreign Office, I wrote of 1963 being "the Shah’s year", of his “strong personal leadership" and of his being “the one dominant figure in Iran holding the country together in the present testing time of reform”.

Although I had good reason in the years ahead to be critical of the Shah and his paranoia about the British, which he shared with most of his subjects, I continued to believe that he provided the Strong leadership the country so badly needed. When l left Tehran on retirement in April 1971 I noted — and reported — signs of trouble ahead — student unrest, inflation, urban guerrilla activity, a Shah unwilling to listen to others or accept criticism — but never for one moment thought he might be toppled from his throne as happened seven years later. The Ayatollah Khomeini’s broadcasts from Iraq were not, at that time, considered any more important than reports of religious fundamentalist activity among some of the young. The religious classes who had opposed the Shah’s reforms had, most of us believed, been effectively silenced following the riots of June 1963.
As a matter of policy, laid down by the Foreign Office and with which I was in full agreement, we in the Embassy made no attempt to establish contact with opposition groups. To have done so would surely have become known to the Shah: because of his character and paranoia about the British this would have destroyed my credibility as ambassador. An ambassador’s prime duty is to develop good relations with the government to which he is accredited as a means of promoting and protecting his own country’s interests. In Iran our interests were considerable - strategic, commercial, a source of oil. To protect them the Shah’s goodwill was vital: without it we would have suffered as did both the French and Germans for a time after incurring the Shah’s wrath.
There was no end to the Shah’s suspicions about us. He once told the Americans that we had thrown out the old Qajar dynasty, had installed his father in their place, had then thrown out his father and could now keep him in power or depose him as we thought fit. This fear and distrust was to some extent tempered by a certain awe. For example, more than anything he wanted our Queen to attend his long delayed Coronation in 1967; when he heard that she was unable, because of the short notice, to attend he decided not to invite any other heads of State.
Let me give you one example of the Shah’s suspicions of the British. In October 1964 he was greatly angered and surprised by opposition in the Majles to an immunities bill for American forces stationed in Iran which he had assured the American ambassador would be passed without trouble. After first blaming his new and inexperienced Prime Minister, Ali Mansour, he became convinced that we British were responsible. In consequence he not only wanted my counsellor, Horace Phillips, declared persona non gram but instituted enquiries to discover whether the Foreign Office or just myself and my staff were behind the trouble! In fact it was the Ayatollah Khomeini and others, playing on the then current strong anti-American feeling. To clear the matter up I sought an immediate audience and challenged the Shah to tell me why we would wish to cause trouble in this way: he had no answer (and accepted my word).
I now turn to the riots of June 1963.
These occurred at the end of the lunar month of Muharram when Shia mourning for the martyrdom of the Prophet’s grandson reaches its height during days known as Tassu’a and Ashura. These fell on the 2 and 3 June and passed off quietly but were followed two days later by serious rioting and shooting in Tehran and some provincial towns.
The trouble started with the arrest on the night of 4 June of Khomeini and Falsali, the leading ulema, who had during the mourning period attacked the Shah’s reform programme from their pulpits. There were peaceful demonstrations in Tehran on 4 June but the following day, when news of the arrests became known, the demonstrations got out of hand. Buildings associated with the Shah and the West in south Tehran were set on fire, cars overturned. The Army was called out and the shooting began. From the Embassy I could see the smoke of buildings on tire not far away, well before the shooting that followed. By the following evening, after some sporadic tiring in the morning, the situation was well under control with troops and tanks much in evidence south of the Embassy.
How many people were killed? The truth will probably never be known but I have never accepted the figure of thousands quoted by the Shah‘s opponents and papers such as The Guardian. When I questioned the Prime Minister, Assadullah Alam, the following week he told me between 90 and 100. In my report to the Foreign Office I stated “at least a hundred killed and several hundred injured". The English language paper Tehran Journal of 8 June reported 79 deaths in Tehran and "a large number of people injured and some killed" in Qom, Mashad and Shiraz.We also heard of trouble in Rey and Kashan. When I saw the Shah in exile in 1979 he told me, in answer to my question, that 110 people had been killed. I commented that this was more or less in line with Mr. Alam’s figure; he paused for a moment before repeating that 110 was the correct figure. More recently a former Iranian Minister, now living in the U.K., who was a member of a commission set up after the riots to provide assistance for bereaved families, has confirmed to me that the deaths were of the magnitude I mention.
I thought then, as I do now, that the Shah — at the instigation of Assadullah Alam, his Prime Minister — was right to use force against the rioters. Certainly for the next decade the country enjoyed a measure of political stability such as it had not known since the days of Reza Shah —resulting in a remarkable leap forward in economic development and prosperity under Prime Ministers Ali Mansour and Amir Abbas Hoveyda who were supported by a young team of Ministers, for the most part foreign—educated technocrats, working enthusiastically and honestly for the good of their country.
One consequence of the June riots was the Shah’s curt dismissal of two of his wisest and most respected advisers — Husayn Ala (Minister of Court) and Abdullah Entezam (then head of the National Iranian Oil Co.). They had dared urge their monarch to go slow on his reforms. Henceforth few, if any, dared question the Shah’s policies; had he listened he might still be on the throne.
My second highlight is the settlement of the Bahrain problem following the announcement in January 1968 by Harold Wilson’s Labour Government of their decision to withdraw from the Persian Gulf by the end of 1971.
As many of you know Iran’s claim to Bahrain was a long-standing irritant in Anglo-Iranian relations — allegedly Iran’s fourteenth province for whose fictitious deputies two seats were reserved in the Majles. But so long as the Pax Britannica prevailed in the Gulf the Shah was willing to let sleeping dogs lie, though from time to time he would tease us with his claim. He knew that so long as we were in the Gulf he was getting his defence on the cheap and had no wish to see us depart. Sometimes he would raise the question of Bahrain with me. He would say that the pearls had run out and the oil was running out so the island was of no interest but he could not go down in history as the man who had surrendered his country‘s historic claim without some face—saving formula.
The Shah had taken the announcement of I-IMG’s decision to leave the Gulf by the end of l97l calmly. What incensed him was an announcement in London two months later that, in order to leave behind a viable and stable area, the British Government was encouraging the creation of a union or federation of the seven Trucial States together with Bahrain and Qatar. The Shah saw this as a dirty British trick to confront him with a fait accompli whereby he would either have to recognise a union that included Bahrain and the other disputed islands (the two Tumbs and Abu Musa which Iran also claimed as hers) or else run foul of the Arab world by refusing recognition. The Shah‘s wrath was manifest in a strong and curiously worded statement issued by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs on 1 April 1968: it ran as follows:
In the Imperial Government’s view the British Government cannot leave to others, in inheritance, territories that, as history is our witness, she severed from Iran by force and fraud. The Imperial Government will protect its rights in the Persian Gulf and will on no account tolerate this bullying and historical injustice.
The tightly—controlled Tehran press, instructed from on high, was equally hostile and offensive. Nevertheless these developments served as a catalyst and opened the door to serious discussion with the Shah on ways and means of settling our differences in the Gulf. He was realist enough to know that it was better to settle with us than wait until we had shed our responsibilities. So, in the course of the following months, I had a number of solo sessions with him during which we discussed possible solutions. He proved uncompromising over the Tumbs and Abu Musa islands, arguing that as they controlled the Straits of Hormuz they were vital for the protection of Iran‘s Gulf sealane. On Bahrain he insisted that there must be a referendum or plebiscite before he could contemplate abandoning his claim. He rejected my argument that a testing of opinion in this way among people who had never voted in their lives was impractical and, in any case, would be unacceptable to the Ruler of Bahrain.

By August 1968 we had reached deadlock and it was not until four months later, in December, that the dialogue got going again. Through Senator Abbas Massoudi, owner and publisher of Ettelaht, Tehran’s leading newspaper, with whom I used to discuss our Gulf problems from time to time, I learnt that the Shah liked my suggestion that the United Nations might be used, rather than a referendum, to sound out public opinion in Bahrain. I reported this to the Foreign Office who, after consulting our representatives in Bahrain and New York, instructed me to put the idea to the Shah, impressing on him the need for secrecy and step-by-step agreement at every stage. This I did on Christmas Eve 1968, the day before the Shah left Tehran on a State Visit to India. He accepted the UN idea as “constructive” but said he would need time to prepare public opinion. I asked him with whom I should conduct what would undoubtedly be difficult and complicated negotiations. To my relief he nominated Amir Khrosrow Afshar, the Number Two in the Foreign Ministry rather than the Foreign Minister, who was the Shah’s son-in-law and was known as a hard liner on Bahrain. During the months ahead I dealt exclusively with Afshar and not his chief.
I anticipated that the Shah would need weeks, if not months, to prepare public opinion. My surprise, and delight, was great therefore when at a press conference ten days later in New Delhi at the end of his Indian visit he announced, in answer to a question, that he had no intention of using force to settle the Bahrain issue but was willing to accept " an expression of the will of the people ". I learnt later that this very important statement, which opened the way to negotiations, was made without the prior knowledge of any of his Ministers — an example of the Shah’s one-man rule.
Thereafter my negotiations with Afshar moved forward fairly fast. Twice we ran into difficulties and I had to appeal over his head to the Shah. In November 1969 l went home on my last leave believing that the Bahrain exercise was all but over, but I was wrong. The Iranians who, we had agreed, should make a formal request to the Secretary-General of the UN to use his good offices in ascertaining the wishes of the people of Bahrain, now proposed doing so in language that was so offensive to Bahraini feelings that neither they nor HMG would accept it. Unless the Iranian Government moderated their language we were ready to abandon the whole exercise.
Despite strong representations by our charge d’aH`aires in Tehran the Iranians refused to budge. I was therefore sent from London, where I was still on leave, to see the Shah who was skiing at St. Moritz. Afshar, by this time ambassador in London, was also present. Without too much difficulty we reached agreement on wording which I accepted on behalf of HMG and on 9 March 1970 the Iranian representative in New York addressed a letter to U Thant, the Secretary-General, asking him to exercise his “good offices with a view to ascertaining the true wishes of the people of Bahrain".
The rest of the story is public knowledge. U Thant sent the Italian head of the UN’s Geneva office with a four-man mission to Bahrain on 30 March 1970: on 2 May he reported that the Bahrainis were virtually unanimous in wanting to become a fully independent and sovereign Arab state. Nine days later the Security Council unanimously endorsed the report and Iran formally abandoned her ancient claim.
This peaceful settlement of a long-standing dispute was a success for the UN, for secret diplomacy, and — in the eyes of all but a few Iranians — a credit to the Shah.
The fate of the other islands, the Tumbs and Abu Musa, was not settled until the end of November 1971, six months after I had left Tehran. I had however, been involved in the early stages of negotiation. At one point I had to reject an Iranian proposal that agreement on Bahrain must be subject to agreement on the islands. I had also to warn the Iranians that any attempt to seize the islands before the abrogation of our protective treaties with the Sheikhs of Ras al Khaimeh and Sharjah, whose sovereignty over them we recognised, would bring us into armed conflict with Iran.
When, in June 1970, the Conservatives under Ted Heath won the General Election there was a possibility, hinted at in their Election Manifesto, that the new Government would reverse the Labour Government’s decision to pull out of the Gulf. In order to make up their minds Sir William Luce, a former Political Resident in the Gull was called out of retirement and instructed to consult the various Gulf Rulers including the Shah and make recommendations about withdrawal and attendant problems, namely the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates, the disputed islands, and the Saudi claim to the Buraimi oasis.
As part of the same exercise I was summoned to London and on 10 July flew with the Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas Home, to see the Shah in Brussels. This was Sir Alec’s first mission abroad as Foreign Secretary. He found the Shah uncompromising both on British withdrawal from the Gulf and Iran’s claims to the islands and I have little doubt that this Brussels meeting was a major factor in HMG’s ultimate decision to withdraw from the Gulf by the end of 1971 and let the Shah have the disputed islands, though for years we had upheld the Arab sheikhs’ claims to them. An example of realpolitik — and not for us British a particularly happy ending to 150 years of Pax Britannica.
Finally I come to my third highlight — the oil Consortium/OPEC confrontation in Tehran in January and February 1971 which marked a major turning point in relations between the big international oil companies and the oil producing countries.
Oil, as you know, was and is Iran’s major export and earner of foreign exchange. Throughout my years in Tehran the Shah was relentless in exerting enormous pressure on members of the oil Consortium to increase Iranian oil production and exports. He needed the money for his increasingly ambitious military and economic programmes. He was never satisfied.
Growing impatience with the oil companies came to a head when Libya succeeded in obtaining better terms from some American companies for her oil than Iran was getting. Shortly afterwards, in December 1970, OPEC members met in militant mood in Caracas, determined to get similar or better terms for themselves. They were fortified by signs of a world shortage of oil and passed a resolution calling, inter alia, for higher posted prices and a new round of negotiations with the oil companies in Tehran.
These negotiations took place in January and February 1971 when the oil companies were led by Lord Strathalmond of BP (the son of Sir William Fraser whom I have already mentioned) and the Gulf members of OPEC headed by Jamshid Amouzegar, the very able Iranian Minister of Finance. Amouzegar took his orders from the Shah, by this time very knowledgeable about oil, who was determined to squeeze the oil companies for whom he had no love; at the outset he rejected their proposal that any agreement reached in Tehran should apply to all members of OPEC and not only its Gulf members.
There is no time to describe the tense atmosphere of those hectic days in Tehran — the pressure brought to bear by the Shah on the American ambassador and myself, the representations we both made on behalf of the oil companies, the telegrams between London and Tehran etc., ending with a televised press conference in which the Shah threatened legislation against the companies unless they caved in — which they did, reluctantly accepting that the price of Marker Crude oil (Arabian Light) should be increased from 98 cents a barrel to $1-27. This was a miniscule increase compared with what happened later (again with the Shah in the lead) but a turning point. Previously the oil companies had themselves posted the price of oil without consulting the country from whose soil the oil came: henceforth the host countries would call the tune. Anthony Sampson and Daniel Yergin describe all this in some detail in their books The Seven Sisters and The Prize. Thus began the spectacular rise in oil prices — a catastrophe for much of the world because of its inflationary effect, though it stimulated the development of North Sea oil. At the same time it was a personal success for the Shah, long haunted by the ghost of Moussadeq’s triumph over AIOC 20 years earlier. But it also, I believe, contributed to his growing megalomania and so, in the long run, to his fall.
So much for some of the political highlights of my ten years in Iran. For my wife Iona and me they were intensely happy years for, as Dennison Ross once wrote, “there is a peculiar magic in the air of Persia which inspires all who visit her with poetry and romance”. It was a joy to live, as we did, in spacious Anglo—Indian style residences in the Embassy’s two delectable, shady century-old compounds — one in the very heart of Tehran, the other at Gulhak in the Shimran hills above Tehran where we spent the hot summer months.
We were lucky to be in Iran at a time when Anglo-Iranian relations became as close and friendly as they have ever been — when we were able to make friends with Iranians at all levels, and when we were free to travel where we willed — by horse and mule and Landrover — so that there were few corners we did not visit.
Perhaps my happiest memories, as I look back, are of camping and fishing for trout in the Larvalley under a cloudless blue sky with Mount Demavend towering majestically above: and of wanderings through the lively, crowded bazaars of Tehran and Isfahan, Shiraz and Yazd, Zenjan and Tabriz in search of rugs and qilims and watching coppersmiths and potters, wool carders and felt makers plying their age-old crafts. Do they still, I wonder, or have plastics killed them?

DENIS WRIGHT

Source:
Wright, Denis, “Ten Years in Iran-Some Highlights”, Journal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, 1991 (October), Vol. 78(22), Part 3, pp: 259-271



 
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Book Review

Kak-e Khak

The book “Kak-e Khak” is the narration of Mohammad Reza Ahmadi (Haj Habib), a commander in Kurdistan fronts. It has been published by Sarv-e Sorkh Publications in 500 copies in spring of 1400 (2022) and in 574 pages. Fatemeh Ghanbari has edited the book and the interview was conducted with the cooperation of Hossein Zahmatkesh.

Is oral history the words of people who have not been seen?

Some are of the view that oral history is useful because it is the words of people who have not been seen. It is meant by people who have not been seen, those who have not had any title or position. If we look at oral history from this point of view, it will be objected why the oral memories of famous people such as revolutionary leaders or war commanders are compiled.

Daily Notes of a Mother

Memories of Ashraf-al Sadat Sistani
They bring Javad's body in front of the house. His mother comes forward and says to lay him down and recite Ziarat Warith. His uncle recites Ziarat and then tells take him to the mosque which is in the middle of the street and pray the funeral prayer (Ṣalāt al-Janāzah) so that those who do not know what the funeral prayer is to learn it.

A Critique on Oral history of War Commanders

“Answering Historical Questions and Ambiguities Instead of Individual-Organizational Identification”
“Oral history of Commanders” is reviewed with the assumption that in the field of war historiography, applying this method is narrated in an advancing “new” way, with the aim of war historiography, emphasizing role of commanders in creation of its situations and details.