On the Brink
December 17, 1951 — The Knickerbocker News

The Mossadegh Project | July 10, 2014     


A 1951 editorial in The Knickerbocker News newspaper of Albany, New York saw ‘peril’ in the land of the Persians...



Iran in Perilous Spot


Public disorders verging on outright civil war are becoming commonplace in Iran.

Not always are they confined to the streets. In the very halls of the Majlis (lower house of Parliament) there are fist fights and riots among the deputies. Mobs assembled outside—possibly on orders from Premier Mossadegh in an effort to cow the opposition—sometimes delay parliamentary sessions.

Fearful of being barred from the Majlis if they leave, numbers of the opposition deputies camp right in the building, staging what is called a “sitdown strike.”

The Persian premier has brought his country to the very brink of disaster. The Communist Party there is not strong, but it is well organized, and in a land afflicted with tumult and disorder they may be able to seize control.

Mossadegh has sown the wind, and perhaps will reap the whirlwind. A victory over the British will be empty indeed if the price is Persia’s political independence.




Related links:

A Page From Mossadegh’s Book — The Times Record, December 14, 1951

Iranians Can’t Even Agree Among Themselves On Oil — Buffalo Courier-Express, 12/30/52

Iran Opposition Stages Sitdown — The Associated Press, December 16, 1951



MOSSADEGH t-shirts — “If I sit silently, I have sinned”

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