Thin Line Between Oil and Hate

October 5, 1954 — The Buffalo Evening News


The Mossadegh Project | May 12, 2017                    


Highly propagandistic editorial in a Buffalo, New York newspaper, commenting on the 1954 oil consortium deal.

Iran Oil Consortium | Archive of Documents (1953-1954)




Iran Sees Reason

The world’s largest oil refinery—Abadan—has simmered under the Iranian sun, inactive and impotent, for three years, ever since it was confiscated by ex-Premier Mohammed Mossadegh from the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., in 1951. In that time it has produced no revenue for the echoing treasury of Iran nor has it contributed vital petroleum to the economy of the Western world.

Now, the period of sterility of the vast Iranian oil complex of fields and refineries is about to be ended. American, British and Dutch technicians have arrived at Abadan to revitalize the gigantic works under terms of a manufacturing and marketing agreement reached between the Iranian Government and a consortium of eight international oil companies, four of them American.

If Mossadegh had not been ousted and thrown in jail, it is almost certain that no agreement could have been reached. Preaching fanatic nationalism and hatred of the West, the senile leader of the extremists would have prevented it although his country went to wrack and ruin without oil income. Premier Fazollah Zahedi, [sic—Fazlollah Zahedi] who replaced him, has placed his tottering nation’s interests above East-West hatreds and negotiated a settlement of mutual benefit.

Rehabilitation of Iran’s economic health will have another beneficial effect, something considerably more than a fringe benefit. Before Mossadegh went to jail for treason, the Communist Tudeh Party of Iran was on the sidelines licking its chops, ready to seize power on any pretext. The old man might even have made a deal with them if he felt himself slipping from power. A revitalized Iran fills another chink in the ramparts on Soviet Russia’s far-flung frontiers. Not a big one, but important.



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Related links:

Iran Oil Dispute Ends | The San Bernardino County Sun, August 9, 1954

Iranian Oil Deal a New Victory for Free World | Philadelphia Inquirer, Aug. 6, 1954

Oil Pact Insults Iran, Mossadegh Says in Jail | AP, September 9, 1954



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