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Memorandum by the Adviser on Political Relations (Murray) to the Under Secretary of State (Stettinius)
Mr. Stettinius: I should be glad to discuss with you at your convenience Mr. Berle’s attached memorandum of his conversation with General Hurley on the present critical situation in Iran.27
You may be interested to know that the Secretary addressed a letter to the President on this subject, dated August 16, a copy of which is attached.28 Only within the last few days, however, does it appear that consideration is being given to the matter, and both Admiral Leahy and Mr. Harry Hopkins have started to move. Mr. Hopkins has sent word to me that he would like to speak to me either [Page 393] today or tomorrow on this subject, and I am holding myself in readiness for such a discussion.
It is not entirely clear from Mr. Berle’s memorandum just what part General Hurley believes he might usefully play in the present situation in Iran, but if he in fact would be prepared to proceed there on a special mission to function at least during the time of the leave of absence of Mr. Dreyfus, who is expected to return to this country next month, we are, generally speaking, of the opinion that General Hurley might be in a position to bring a certain measure of order out of the present chaos, particularly with regard to the relations between General Connolly’s Persian Gulf Service Command and our Legation, as well as the various other American agencies now functioning under desperate difficulties in that country.
From all reports Mr. Dreyfus is not a well man and it may be that he will be in no condition to return to Iran. I doubt that General Hurley would wish to remain in Tehran for any length of time in the capacity of Chief of Mission, although if he desires such an appointment rather than the capacity of the head of a special mission or personal representative of the President, as the case might be, his services might be equally useful. In any case, I think it would be highly desirable for General Hurley, if he proceeds to Iran, to go there with his full military rank and even with two stars, rather than one, since there are already two American major generals carrying on in the country. The situation there today is so predominantly military that an American military chief of mission would not be out of order. There is ample precedent for such an appointment in the case of Admiral Bristol who functioned for years in Istanbul as the American High Commissioner and retained his rank in the Navy during the entire time.29
- See footnote 25, above.↩
- Ante, p. 377.↩
- For correspondence on the appointment of Rear Adm. Mark Lambert Bristol as American High Commissioner at Constantinople, August 1919, see Foreign Relations, 1919, vol. ii, pp. 810 ff.↩