Coll 35/42 'Persian Gulf: cable arrangements' [‎96r] (191/859)

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• • 9 & / •
m
BRITISH EMBASSY
BAGHDAD
(ON TOOR) —
W-
li;th April
f —
! 1947.
Dear Department,
r _
Reference is made to Teheran's letter|
of 30th March, on the subject of the renew
Cable & Wireless Ltd concession in Persia.
♦he —
30 5 o
The three particular points brought up by the
Persian authorities hau been explained to the Wnbassy
by an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and
as the technical implications were not entirely clear,
some further discussion was held with the technical
branch of the Posts & Telegraphs Department. The
following information is therefore given in amplification
of the previous letter.
1) The closing of the Company's wireless station.
It was not clear whether this implied complete
cessation of the Company's wireless activities, but the
Posts & Telegraphs Department confirmed this was the
intention. Asked what was to happen in the event of
an interruption to the cable circuit to Bahrein (a not
infrequent occurrence), the Department replied that the
civil wireless station at Bushire would take over the
traffic from Cable & Wireless Ltd, adding that as their
own equipment at Bushire was rather old, it would be a
very convenient arrangement for them to take over the
existing equipment belonging to the Company.'
2) Royalties on traffic transiting Bushire.
It was not clear why this point was being stressed
so strongly, particularly as there was an alternative
route via Bahrein wnich could be used to keep traffic
transiting Bushire to an absolute minimum, and as the
Department were not aware of the intention to restore the
cables to the pre-war routeing. From the ensuing dis
cussion, it ^-appeared that the Persians were genuinely
unaware of the diversions which had been made during the
war, and therefore thought that a large amount of traffic
to and from Iraq was transiting Bushire. It also appeared
that as recently as 1946, the (then) Divisional Manager
of Cable & Wireless Ltd, Mr Thornton, had given the
Department information on the cable layout in the Gulf,
which did not include any of the wartime diversions.
However, this point is of relatively little
importance.
3) Reduction in staff at Bushire.
The Department explained that as traffic had to
be handed over by their office in Bushire to Cable &
Wireless Ltd for retransmission, the Company's office
was almost regarded as foreign territory, and they wished
to alter this arrangement. Their idea was to install a
morse reperforator in their office, and to hand over the
tapes to Cable & Wireless Ltd for automatic retransmission,
or preferably, to install a relay circuit in Busnire, so
that traffic could be sent direct from Teheran to Karachi.