From
Maj.-Gen. Sir EDWARD SPEARS
To the Editor of The Daily Telegraph

SIR — Your leader has voiced the intolerable sense of humiliation we all feel at the Government’s conduct of the Persian oil dispute. It is an impressive lesson in how not to handle our affairs. Mr. Neville Chamberlain was bitterly attacked for his attempts to appease Hitler, but his umbrella at Berchtesgaden was a far less craven symbol than Attlee’s white flag at Abadan.

[Premier Clement Attlee, whom the pro-Tory Daily Telegraph opposed. Winston Churchill (“your leader”) gave a campaign speech largely concerning Iran on Oct. 2]

It is ironical that a considerable proportion of Socialists have been extremely critical of the United States and of a subservient policy towards them. Yet the Socialist Government has not dared to take any step to safeguard national assets and uphold national honour without American support. Even those of us who most admire the United States and feel the deepest gratitude for what they have done for us can but deplore such servility, especially as the result appears to be that we have not only forfeited their respect but earned their contempt for the weakness and vacillation we have shown.

There are some things men and nations must do for themselves, and one of them is to safeguard their elementary rights. It is less than fair to the United States to place on them the responsibility for judging whether we should allow ourselves to be flung out of our own property, and of deciding whether the only circumstance in which Englishmen should defend themselves is after they have been killed.

I cannot see a satisfactory relationship between the United States and Great Britain developing from the cringing attitude which has been imposed on us by our present rulers. If we had defended our undoubted rights in Persia and occupied our property in Abadan pending a settlement or a decision by The Hague Court, the United States could but approve a course they would certainly have followed themselves in a similar situation. Public opinion in the great Republic would not have tolerated American citizens being treated as ours have been in Persia.

The responsibility for the situation in which we now find ourselves is that of the Government, but why have the Conservative leaders done nothing to stop the rot and demand a different handling of our affairs before it was too late? Why did they accept in silence the last-minute decision to appeal to the Security Council; a decision whose futility has been so swiftly exposed by the announcement, made before our representative had even opened our case, that the British personnel were being withdrawn from Abadan and our property abandoned.

One reason why millions of people are resolved that Mr. Churchill shall be returned as Prime Minister is because they believe, as you say in your leader, that under him such treatment as we have received at Dr. Mossadeq’s hands would not have been tolerated. But it is time for him and the Conservative party to speak out and give the nation the lead for which it is looking.

Yours faithfully,
London, S.W.          E. L. SPEARS.
[Edward Louis Spears, 1st Baronet (1886-1974]

Mr. Churchill’s indictment of the Government’s conduct concerning Persia at Liverpool last night is reported on Page 1.

To the Editor of The Daily Telegraph
Sir—Mr. Attlee tries to justify his policy over the dispute with Persia by saying that he wishes to uphold the rule of law in international affairs. Surely there is nothing inconsistent with the rule of law in taking the necessary steps to protect our property and nationals in Persia.

If my house is entered by an armed burglar, I am justified in taking action to protect my life and property, and then handing over the for trial by the rule of law. By my acting thus the rule of law is not abrogated. Had we at the outset taken a similar course in Persia, and referred the matter to the Security Council, not only would the rule of international law have been upheld, but a disastrous loss of prestige would have been avoided.

Your obedient servant,

GUY M. KINDERSLEY
London, E.C

[Major Guy Molesworth Kindersley (1877-1956), a former Member of Parliament, Conservative Party, 1923-1931.]

To the Editor of The Daily Telegraph
Sir—I should like to comment on recent article by Mr. Malcolm Muggeridge [Who Are the Warmongers?] and two letters by Maj. Gen. Edward Spears and Mr. Guy Kindersley.

Mr. Muggeridge and Spears enunciate some general principles which are so obvious as to be truisms. They seem to be convinced, perhaps unconsciously, that what is right for Britain is not right for another nation, even one which has a glorious history full achievements and was a pioneer of civilisation before some of the present newcomers. May I also remind them that we live in the era of the United Nations in which equality before the law, judicial as well as moral, is recognised for nations with or without a powerful navy?

Mr. Kindersley’s simile of the armed burglar who has entered his house and against whom he is entitled to take action belongs to the same category. However, by no stretch of imagination can it apply Iran. Iran has not during recent centuries entered anyone’s house — be it by military aggression, political cunning or by the establishment of innocent-looking commercial companies for the ultimate purpose of colonisation.

I find two statements of Mr. Muggeridge’s particularly entertaining. He writes about Dr. Mossadeq as being put and kept in power by gunmen. He also states that “a minor military operation would have served to secure Abadan.” I can only beg him to get a more reliable source of information about Iran as his present knowledge is grossly erroneous.

I should remind him that reports supplied by a similar source about the imminent fall of Dr. Mossadeq and his replacement by a friend of Britain not only proved wrong but perhaps did some considerable harm when at the conference table Dr. Mossadeq stretched out his hand for negotiations and met with a brusque refusal from the British representative. Yours &c,

M. MALAYERY,
First Secretary, Press Affairs, Iranian Embassy.
[Mahmoud Malayery, based in London]