Ext 5001/41 'PERSIA – INTERNAL (Miscellaneous despatches).' [‎40r] (79/248)

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DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
PERSIA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[E 6809/189/34]
November 6,'
IA DIREC1
With the Comphments
of the
Under Secretary of Stati
for Foreign Affairs
#• i 1 p ■
_ Section 4.
Uyb.
R A r c;
/ T. A.
Sir R. Bullard to Mr. Eden.
-{Received §th Nc toemberl )944
Copy No
(No. 401.) -n
Sir, , ‘' u ' ' Tehran, 18</i October, 1944. v.
WITH reference to my despatch No. 281 o f the 6th July, I have the honour
to convey to you herein a report on events in Persia during the months of July,
August and September 1944. i. / V H
"Mid
American A ffairs and the American Advisory Missions. z.
2. The long-heralded arrival of the new American Ambassador, Mr. I^land^^^Tj
Morris, at last took place on the 12th August. His Majesty's Charge d Affaires a ^
took an early opportunity to emphasise to him the urgent need for co-ordinating
the views and policies of the American Advisers to the Persian Government. A c
If the ambassador had come with any instructions in that sense, he did not &***
reveal the fact, but he seemed to be impressed by the arguments used; in particular,
he admitted the need for revision of the policy whereby the advisers were left <j
by the United States authorities to fend for themselves without guidance, as a~oP
servants of the Persian Government. This was getting the worst of both J 5 qjl Concur
worlds as the Persian authorities never credited the United States Government <yx j^
with such disinterestedness. The Counsellor of the American Embassy, who
was present at the interview, suggested that the United States Government had
scruples about taking a hand in a sphere which they regarded as ours; addings .
however, that he had done his best to convince the State Department of the
complete willingness of the British to back the American Advisers in so far ^
as the latter represented something homogeneous to back.
*o - 1>'6.
as the latter represented something homogeneous
3. As foreshadowed in my despatch under reference, the Persian Govern-
ment decided early in July to allow Dr. Millspaugh to continue with his existing
n
powers for four months or so—the idea being to give him a last chance to show
his worth. His stock, however, fell steadily during the subsequent weeks and ft****
early in August His Majesty’s Charge d’Affaires reported that he appeared to h,/*,**,
be accomplishing nothing which would justify his continued retention in public a
service. Dr. Millspaugh injured his reputation further by an undiplomatic
interview granted to a Tehran newspaper, in which he was reported to have
said that the United States was the only country which had championed Persia’s 7 '
freedom and that if his mission had not been present in Persia one of the thn
things would have happened : —
{a) Disturbances leading to the occupation of North and South Persia by
the Russians and the British respectively;
{h) the occupation of the country by an international force;
{c) a dictatorship even more rigorous than Reza Shah’s.
The Soviet Ambassador thereupon proposed to Mr. Lascelles that they should
make a joint demarche to the United States Charge d’Affaires asking him
whether he considered these utterances as compatible with the spirit of the
Tehran Conference Declaration. Mr. Lascelles declined, feeling that such an ^ 7
assault on the Americans was a poor way of demonstrating an Anglo-Russian
solidarity for which the Soviet authorities here had hitherto shown little desire;
but he undertook to remonstrate privately with the charge d’affaires. When
he did so, he found the charge d’affaires most embarrassed and inclined to the
view that the State Department had been awaiting just such a pretext for
recalling Dr. Millspaugh. In fact, at the end of August, the State Department
informed a member of His Majesty’s Embassy at Washington that Dr. Millspaugh
had been recalled for consultation; they wished to defer a decision about
his return to Persia until fhey had talked to him, but they that they thought
it might well end in Dr. Black—the second in command—taking over.
Mr. Lascelles’s comment on this was that the only possible course at this stage
was for Dr. Millspaugh to be retained in the United States on some face-saving
pretext and that although the fault was his in part only, his personal position
[59—61]
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