THE appearance in Tehran of the president of a prominent American oil company and four experts is surrounded with mystery. [W. Alton Jones of Cities Service] An Iranian official says they are there at the invitation of Premier Mossadegh to inspect the great Abadan refinery expropriated last year from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. [True] A spokesman for the State Department in Washington says the head of the group “consulted with President Truman on Iran’s oil crisis before he left for the Middle East” but definitely is not on a Government mission.

The Iranians haven’t made a go of their oil industry because the British not only have refused to give them technical assistance but also have organized a boycott of Iranian oil in world markets. American oil companies have gone along with this boycott. The State Department has been reported sympathetic toward this collusion.

The dangerous political situation in Iran, for which the Administration is partly to blame, would be eased if the technical assistance and markets Iran needs were provided by American interests. That’s what Mossadegh is angling for. Acheson can’t come right out and admit that he is trying to get off the hook. [Sec. of State Dean Acheson] The British can’t either. That would be to lose face.

Yet it would surprise no one familiar with the ways of diplomacy if eventually the American oil group now in Iran were discovered to have had the key to the problem. [Narrator: they didn’t]