761.91/1–1145
Memorandum by the Acting Secretary of State to President Roosevelt 64
Subject: Iranian Free Port and Railway Trusteeship
When the Secretary discussed the above subject on December 30, you requested a memorandum of the Department’s views.
The proposal offers several excellent advantages. Many Soviet officials undoubtedly believe that Russia must have an assured outlet to the Persian Gulf, to be obtained by forceful means if necessary, in the interests of Soviet security. An international trusteeship to operate the trans-Iranian railway and a free port on the Gulf might render less likely a more exigent demand by Russia.
The trusteeship would assure to Russia an unhampered trade outlet to the Persian Gulf and would at the same time assist Iran economically by developing an important transit trade through the country and by improving Iranian transport facilities for its internal trade.
Perhaps more important than any of the above, the trusteeship proposal would be in the direction of British-Soviet-American cooperation rather than rivalry in Iran.
In spite of the advantages of the proposal, certain difficulties are foreseen which, in the Department’s view, make it unlikely that the proposal would be acceptable either to Iran, Russia, or Great Britain.
No matter how drawn up or proposed, the plan would appear to Iran, and doubtless to the world, as a thinly disguised cover for power politics and old-world-imperialism. Iranians are highly suspicious of foreign influence in the country and would unquestionably resent any extension of foreign control there. The railway, built by their own strenuous efforts at a cost of some $150,000,000, without foreign borrowing, is a source of especial and intense patriotic pride. The Department’s judgment is that the trusteeship could only be imposed on Iran, a sovereign, allied nation, by force of arms.
[Page 525]There is little reason to believe that Soviet Russia would be interested, at least for the present, in participating in an international trusteeship in Iran in the genuine manner contemplated, particularly if it included an element of non-Russian control in northern Iran.65
The British, we feel would almost certainly raise equally strenuous objections. British policy for more than a hundred years has been pointed toward preventing any other great power, and especially Russia, from gaining a foothold on the Persian Gulf. There is no indication that this policy has been altered. If we proceed on the assumption that the continuance of the British Empire in some reasonable strength is in the strategic interest of the United States, it might be considered wise, in protection of vital British communications in this important area, to discourage such a trusteeship. The British also will probably continue to endeavor to keep the Russians away from the vital South Iranian oil fields.
The laudable ends contemplated by the proposal might be accomplished in some measure through the employment by Iran of foreign technicians to assist them in operating the railway and port. The Iranians would prefer to employ Americans or the nationals of small European countries (Sweden or Switzerland) for this purpose, if they should agree to the idea.
- In an attached memorandum of January 16, 1945, to the Secretary of State, President Roosevelt stated: “Please speak to me about this.” There is no record in the Department files of further discussion by President Roosevelt and the Secretary of State on this subject and it was not discussed with the United Kingdom or the Soviet Union at the Conferences which took place at Malta and Yalta in January and February, 1945.↩
- For documentation on the fostering of dissident movements in northern Iran by the Soviet Union, see pp. 359 ff.↩