Ext 5001/41 'PERSIA – INTERNAL (Miscellaneous despatches).' [‎53r] (105/248)

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to conceal that hostility and to make a show of a genuine desire to co-operate
with a view to giving us as little excuse as possible for interfering in internal
affairs. He is fundamentally opposed to the American Advisory Mission,
believing that he and his friends are better able to devise a military organisation
suitable to Persia than are American officers, but he tolerates them while they
are the means of procuring equipment from America and is at present lavish
^ in assurances to them of co-operation.
55. The American military advisers, who have now reached their full com
plement of twenty, have unfortunately not succeeded in gaining the confidence or
support of any considerable number of Persian officers. By their presence they
have undoubtedly restricted the grosser abuses and corruption and may even have
helped towards "the establishment of the beginnings of an ideal of honesty. In
that they can certainly claim to have rendered service to Persia. But the prospect
of fundamental and lasting reforms in the Persian forces being achieved through
their endeavours grows less as the end of the war grows nearer and with it the
expectation of unlimited quantities of arms being available to the Shah and his
army.
56. The Shah, although less obviously interfering in the affairs of the army,
still looks forward to the day when, Allied troops and American advisers having
gone, he will, as Commander-in-chief in fact, rule this country as his father did.
But it is already being said that he is beginning to distrust his restlessly ambitious
and intriguing Chiet of Staff, and the usual dissensions have begun to reappear
between the General Staff and the Ministry for War.
57. All plans for the army for the current year, whether American or
Persian, are at a standstill owing to lack of funds. Dr. Millspaugh, in the budget
which he recently laid before Parliament, has allotted only 100 million torimns
against the 153 millions estimated to be necessary for the organisation approved
b> General Ridley. If the 100 millions is not increased the size of the army will
have to be reduced, a measure which is likely to be strongly opposed by the Shah,
or the underpaid officer will have to be allowed to prey on the people as he has done
before.
58. Stalin s tanks and aircraft have never materialised. The conditions
subsequently attached to the offer stipulated that the units of mixed Russian and
Persian personnel which were to be formed for the purpose of training in these
arms were to be under the command of Soviet officers, who were themselves to be
under the command of the Red Army; that the Persian personnel were to be
selected with the approval of the Russian commander, and that the units were
not to be removed from their appointed places of training—Meshed and Kazvin
nor could the material be used for any other purpose without the approval of the
Red Army. I hese conditions were too full of alarming possibilities to be accept
able to the Persian Government.
59. —(2) Gendarmerie .—In the gendarmerie, as in the army, plans for
improvement are held up by lack of funds. The credit demanded bv Colonel
Schwarzkopf foi the modified organisation he had in view for the current year
that is, eighteen regiments of gendarmerie with a total strength of 28,000—the
number he considers to be really necessary is 40,000—amounted to 60 million
tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. . The amount allotted in the budget by Dr. Millspaugh is 29 million
tomans 10,000 Persian dinars, or a gold coin of that value. , which is the bare cost of ten regiments at the increased rates of pav
which are in fact the minimum at which officers and men can be expected to
refram from partnership with brigands and thieves. Even among gendarmerie
officers the opinion is forming that in the present financial and economic situation
ot the country the interests of internal security would be better served by devotin°
the available resources to the army and the police. Colonel Schwarzkopf’s
insistence that the gendarmerie should be independent of the army has accentuated
the lack of co-operation that became immediately evident when' the force passed
from the control of the Ministry for War to that of the Interior.
Schwarzkopf ’s mission has now been completed to the maximum
strength of six officers sanctioned by the United States. Although Colonel
Schwarzkopf has extensive powers, it is obivous that six officers can exercise no
very effective influence over the actions of personnel scattered in small packets
over an area of 628,000 square miles, and consequently in the provinces the
gendarmerie shows no improvement as the result of Colonel Schwarzkopf's
eighteen months hard work. 1
6 1-—(3) Police. There is as yet no indication that the Persian Government
intend to ask for an American adviser to replace Mr. Timmerman, who died in
May. Indeed, their experience of Mr. Timmerman is not likely to encourage
them to do so. In spite of his record as an efficient police officer in the United
[56-24] c 2