August 24, 1951 — The Courier-Mail (Brisbane)
Arash Norouzi The Mossadegh Project | November 25, 2024 |
This profile of Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh ran on page 2 of The Courier-Mail newspaper in Queensland, Australia. It was accompanied by a sidebar on AIOC’s origins, “HOW IT BEGAN”.
The British idiom “spanner in the works” means to disrupt operations, as in throwing a wrench in the machinery.
MOSSADEO, PREMIER OF PERSIA...
The man who threw the spanner in the works
by BRIAN HART
A WEAK, ailing Persian has thrown one of the century’s biggest spanners into the workings of international machinery.
Almost alone he is pushing to completion the liquidation of Britain’s £300 million oil holdings in Persia.
The man who has plunged the vast Anglo-Iranian Oil Company into near-chaos is
Mohammed Mossadeq, Persian Premier and now one of the world’s most controversial figures.
In a series of highly dramatic sobbing and fainting appeals, he has swung the Persian Parliament, the Majlis, behind his
Oil Nationalisation Act.
This envisages the taking over of the country’s estimated oil reserves of 8900 million barrels, capable of yielding 31 million tons a year.
Although Mossadeq’s National Front Party has only seven deputies in the 136-strong Majlis, he has ridden to power on the popular demand for nationalisation of the country’s oil riches.
Frail and aging, Mossadeq runs his Government from a yellow brick house in one of Teheran’s more select suburbs.
Propped in bed on three pillows and strengthened by transfusions of American Blood plasma, he directs the destiny of almost 16 million Persians.
Mossadeq is reputed to be one of Persia’s wealthiest land holders, and has a background of affluence and learning.
He is married to the Persian Princess Zia Saltaneh and has five children.
His early education was in Teheran, and he later attended Ecole des Sciences Politiques in Paris. [Sciences Po]
He studied law at universities in Belgium and Switzerland, and in 1914 received a doctor’s degree from the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland. [Not Belgium]
Returning to Persia, he served in various political capacities, including a position as Under Secretary for Finance in 1917.
In 1920 he was appointed Governor General of Farsistan, [Fars] a province in the Anglo-Iranian Company’s oil concession area. [Abadan]
This sharpened his bitterness towards foreign “exploitation,” and at the same time gave him first hand knowledge of the oil company’s operations.
Subsequently, Mossadeq served as Minister for Finance and Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Then followed a long political eclipse.
Mossadeq, in disagreement with the Government’s policies, left Teheran, and did not return until 1941.
In 1944 he re-entered Parliament and emerged as the popular leader of nationalism and reform.
A DRAMATIC and emotional orator, he attacked Western “imperialism” as typified by the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
To millions of peasants, most of them landless, he promised an end to poverty and foreign domination.
Increasing pressure for oil nationalisation was put on the Government, and in March this year,
Premier Ali Razmara was assassinated.
Soon after, an Oil Nationalisation Committee was appointed, with Mossadeq as chairman.
Events then moved quickly.
The Majlis voted overwhelmingly for Mossadeq as Premier, and passed his Oil Nationalisation Act. [79-12 vote]
On April 29, Mossadeq took office and within four days oil nationalisation became law.
Since then, bitter wrangling has marked every stage of the negotiations between the Persian Government and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
Latest move has been the rejection of a compromise British offer by Britain’s Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Stokes). [Richard Stokes]
Conciliation attempts by President Truman’s special envoy (Mr. Harriman) have failed. [Averell Harriman]
UNDER the strain of constant negotiation and, lately, threats of assassination, Premier Mossadeq has begun to show signs of strain.
For months he has been a semi-invalid and has been forced to delegate many of his duties to lesser Government officials.
During a recent Press conference “his lips trembled, and his tiny, thin body quivered with emotion, as if he were being electrocuted”, according to one report.
The Persian Premier now seems certain to achieve a life-time ambition in the removal of British influence.
Biggest Middle East query is who will take their place?
HOW IT BEGAN
PERSIA’S £300 million oil industry began in 1901 when former Queensland lawyer William Knox D’Arcy was granted an oil concession covering five-sixth of the country.
Later re-organised as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the concession was due to expire in 1993. [1963, later extended by 30 years in the 1949 Supplemental Agreement]
In 1932 Persian Shah Riza Pahlevi tried unsuccessfully to have the concession cancelled. [Reza Khan Pahlavi]
In the following year the company’s concession was restricted to 100,000 square miles in the southwest.
On April 28 this year, Mohammed Mossadeq was elected Premier.
The original D’Arcy concession was torn up by the Persians four days later when the Oil Nationalisation Act became law.
The Act provides for a Persian 11-member board to “take possession of the late company and to prepare as soon as possible a charter for a State oil company.”
[“As soon as possible, the Mixed Board shall prepare the Charter of the National Oil Company including therein provision for the appointment of a Board of Management and a Board of Technical Experts...”]
Since then all negotiations have ended in deadlock.
[Annotations by Arash Norouzi]
• Also republished (minus the sidebar) on the front page of The Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative on August 30, 1951.
Related links:
A Confused Leader: Persia’s Future at the Cross Roads | The Age, June 23, 1951
Persia Reaps the Harvest | The Calgary Herald, August 29, 1951
It Looks Hopeless In Iran | Rocky Mountain News, September 29, 1951
MOSSADEGH t-shirts — “If I sit silently, I have sinned”




