111.23/93
The Shah of Iran ( Reza Shah Pahlavi ) to President Roosevelt 27a
Honorable Friend: We were happy to receive your letter of August 12, 1938. The sentiments you expressed in the letter and through Mr. Wallace Murray have been a source of utmost pleasure and gratitude. Although we have asked Mr. Murray to convey to Your Excellency Our thanks and special greetings, nevertheless We are pleased to repeat [Page 742] those feelings in this letter. We personally as well as the Iranian people value, in the same degree as expressed by Your Excellency, the maintenance and strengthening of the friendship which for long years has existed between the two countries and are interested in having it continue.
In the same manner that Your Excellency has followed the efforts exerted in our country for the achievement of reforms, making particular reference to the happy completion of the Trans-Iranian railway this year, We also have been fully aware of the efforts made by the American people under Your Excellency’s guidance towards economic and social reforms, and We admire and appreciate the progress thus achieved for the American people notwithstanding all the difficulties. We have no doubt that you will with equal success achieve the remainder of the program which you have before you.
Understanding the needs and problems of other nations which in your letter you have called the policy of Good-Neighbor has always been Our aim also and we have endeavored in our relations with other nations to take into consideration the principles of humanity and to settle differences in a peaceful manner. It was in the spirit of this policy that we eliminated frontier and other differences with our neighbors and succeeded in concluding the Saadabad Pact. And We hope that this pact will not only prove to be effective in maintaining peace in the Near East, but with the extension of this spirit of good will and cooperation, will make a contribution to world peace of which the American Government is an earnest advocate.
It has always been our intention to maintain warm friendly relations with the American people, and we assure Your Excellency that the Imperial Government will not spare any effort to cooperate (with your Government) to attain this aim.
In concluding this letter we renew our sentiments of friendship and good will and express our most sincere wishes for the happiness and success of Your Excellency and the American people.
Your sincere friend
- Letter delivered by an official of the Iranian Foreign Office at Teheran to Mr. Murray on October 12, and brought by him to Washington. The letter was sent to President Roosevelt under cover of letter from the Under Secretary of State, dated November 28, 1938 (not printed).↩