761.91/10–2444
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Eastern European Affairs (Bohlen)95
We should pay the closest attention in the immediate future to the question of Soviet-Iranian relations. Recent evidence of the Soviet displeasure towards Iran obviously because of the cancellation by the Iranian Government of all negotiations for oil concessions is increasingly ominous. When the news of the decision of the Iranian Government was published in the Soviet press in the form of a Tass despatch, Soviet displeasure was made known in the charge that the Iranian Government, in calling off the negotiations with the Soviet Union for a Soviet oil concession in the north, was acting “contrary to public opinion in Iran”. While this was in itself a disturbing indication of Soviet attitude, at least the Tass despatch dealt openly with the question at issue.
The violent attack on the Iranian Government and on Saed, the Iranian Premier and Foreign Minister, which appeared in Trud on October 22 is more serious. (Trud, although technically the organ of the Soviet trade unions, like all publications in the Soviet Union expresses official Soviet policy.) The disturbing feature of this attack is that it does not make any specific mention of the oil concession question. It accuses the Iranian Government and Saed in particular of tolerating and even encouraging acts of sabotage of the flow of supplies to the Soviet Union on the part of “pro-fascist elements in Iran” and of the persecution of Iranian officials who were loyally trying to carry out the treaty obligations between Iran, the USSR and Great Britain.
The article is replete with characteristic charges of pro-fascist tendencies and opposition to pro-democratic elements on the part of Saed and the Iranian Government. In fact, this article has all of the customary elements of the build-up in order to justify extreme Soviet pressure if not action against the present Iranian Government. Its immediate purpose appears to be to force the resignation of Saed and [Page 352] the formation of a new government in Iran which would be prepared to continue the negotiations for an oil concession.
In view of the obvious dangers which may result from the tactics of the Soviet Government in regard to Iran, we should formulate in advance of any crisis in Soviet-Iranian relations the policy and attitude of this Government.97
- Addressed to the Director of the Office of European Affairs (Dunn) and the Deputy Director (Matthews).↩
- For instructions to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Harriman) to deliver a note to the Soviet Government regarding the views of the United States concerning the oil concessions problem, see telegram 2566, October 30, 10 p.m., p. 462.↩