Something new happened in Iran, where they struck oil by act of Parliament.

[Oil was nationalized on April 28, 1951.]

Let the scientists hurry up with atomic energy and nobody will have to care what happens to Iran’s oil.

The Shah of Iran has authorized the nationalization of oil and the British, who have large interests there, think the idea is pretty crude.

“The new premier of Iran has a habit of breaking into tears.” Overcome with poignant sorrow for the taxpayer, perhaps. Uncle Louis will doubtless note, and heave a heartfelt sigh.

[Refers to U.S. technical aid to Iran via Point Four.]

The bones of “three pinheaded men” who lived 75,000 years ago have been dug up in Iran. So there were “pinheads” back in those days too!

[Not necessarily a “dig” on Iranians, but maybe.]

Oil and politics long have had affinity for each other. Something new in Iran is the mixing of oil and religion. Demonstrating Iranians threaten a “holy war” if necessary to nationalize the country’s oil industry.

If you say it quickly, “Iran Curtain” sounds like the real thing.

[Now try “Irony Curtain”]

NOT all Persians believe in killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

When General Razmara, murdered predecessor of the present Premier, was asked what he thought of oil nationalisation he replied: “We couldn’t run even a cement factory by ourselves.”

[Ali Razmara, who opposed nationalization, made these remarks in a Majles session in 1950]

The world’s next sore spot is Iran. She has the oil to pour on troubled waters, but it is doubtful if she uses it that way.

The Scrap Book

A careful reading of the Rubaiyat reveals that oil was unknown in the happy Persia of Omar’s time.

They say this Mohammed Mossadegh, Iranian prime minister, is a whirling dervish. That training ought to fit him to deal with oil and international politics.

Iran now has a big oil plant, all right, and the Iranians are as well equipped to run it as the Eskimoes are to handle atomic energy.

[A major British and American talking point.]

Our ambassador to Iran, Henry F. Grady, would like to be relieved of his duties just as soon as possible. Perhaps he feels that entirely too much oil has been poured on the troubled water.

[Grady resigned that September, at odds with his own government’s handling of the crisis.]

Iran has proposed a stop-gap plan in the oil dispute, but more successful, perhaps, would be a stop-gabbing plan.

The grammarian who also reads the headlines wants to know whether Irate is the past tense of Iran.

Mr. Harriman went to Iran to pour oil on the troubled waters. No better place to get the oil and the trouble.

Think the trouble in Iran is that Mossadegh is out for “oil he can get!”

The Iranian press blasts the United States as the villain in its oil row. You stop to watch a fight, and look what happens.

MOHAMMED MOSSADEGH, Iranian Premier
New York

Dear Mohammed: YOUR oil is one of the most slippery subjects the UN has had to juggle.

John Peirotti (of the Post) just called. Said he had a horrible thawt: Will the troubled Middle East bring back “Good Night Iran”? . . .

[Peirotti was an editorial cartoonist with the New York Post]

In this country a man with such prolific tear ducts as Premier Mossadegh almost inevitably would have become a great football coach.

LAST MONTH THE IRANIANS drove the British out of Persia and now the Egyptians want to follow suit. It’s getting so that the sun can’t find a British Empire to set on.

ROUNDABOUT

Had a bit of cat and dog trouble a few weeks ago. Both the family pets “went west” in the one week. Now I believe we are to have the company of a Persian Kitten. An immediate name has been chosen. It is “Mossadeq”—the Persian gent who is causing the British so much bother. Don’t you think that “Mossy” sounds “oil” right.

[The phrase “went west” here means either the pets ran away or died.]

Having fanned out here, Iranian Premier Mossadegh is off for Egypt where he may sign with the Arab League.

THIS department has always striven to be father and mother’s little Holiday Helping Hand, in both interpreting our rational days and guiding the family in the proper observance, and once again this service is prepared with some handy hints to those who do not know how to count all their blessings and who would appreciate the listing of some additional, though perhaps odd, items for which to be additionally thankful this forthcoming Thanksgiving Day. For instance, had you ever thought of giving thanks that you weren’t born a Persian? It is very tough to be a Persian today. How would you like to be governed by a Fainting Francis or Weeping Willie like Doctor Mossadegh? So you can give thanks for that and add a codicil that you are even more lucky not to be Doctor Mossadegh and have to govern Persians who will assassinate you at the drop of a turban. For those geographically inclined, it is also very tough these days to be a Bulgar, Czech, Rumanian, Albanian, Yugoslav and Chinese. This gives you a considerable latitude, and variety of costumes from which to select your hymn of gratitude that you ain’t.

National Press Club members learned one thing from listening to Iranian Premier Mossadegh’s forty minute address—he speaks Persian like a native.

Oil may be expected to pour more trouble on Mossadegh.

Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh has been called the George Washington of Iran. In his boyhood, Mohammed may have chopped down a fig tree or maybe a eucalyptus.

[Refers to a line from the “Man of the Year” cover story on Mossadegh released that week.]

. . . Premier Mossadegh’s Gov’t is trying to hire a Washington press agent, but all approached to date spurned it. Sounds sinister, No?

PHOTOGRAPHERS are now feuding with Trygve Lie because he took Mossadegh out a side entrance and ducked them here recently . . .

[Lie was United Nations Secretary General]

Doc Mossadegh has nothing to prescribe for the ills of Iran.

WHAT’S YOUR QUESTION ON WORLD AFFAIRS

“What makes Iran’s Premier Mohammed Mossadegh weep and faint in public?” asks Dr. C. H.

The American doctors who recently examined him in a New York hospital found nothing wrong except abnormally low blood pressure.

Some attribute, therefore, his tears and fainting to an almost insane hatred that gets the better of him every time he thinks about the British. Others believe that he is deliberately “hamming” in order to impress his extremely excitable compatriots. It is a fact that he did not weep or faint in public while in this country.

That philosopher who wrote “Weep, and you weep alone” knew whereof he spoke. Iran’s tearful Premier Mossadegh, who has wept through many a speech, no longer has that job.

Main trouble in the Middle East these days—with Iran the main example—is that most decisions now are being shaped by mob action rather than by responsible authority. . . . The result is the same as when the mobs take over in this country—with lynching bees, character assassination and the rest. . . Another thing to remember is that men like Iran’s premier are fighting to keep what they have, which means tremendous wealth for a tiny few, while the masses remain in awful poverty and ignorance. . . . A man of extreme wealth, Mossadegh is using the cry of “national sovereignty” to keep the teeming masses satisfied and to avoid noting that what they really need is “social justice.”

Bait for Mossadegh

Truman failed to win Mossadegh with $10,000,000, but might tempt him with a few deep freezers.

[Referencing the influence-peddling scandals surrounding Gen. Harry Vaughan, a senior Truman aide and buddy.]

The Scrap Book
By SHELAGH NOLAN

Of course old man Mossadegh took to his bed. What’s going on in Iran right now would make anybody sick.

SPARKS FROM THE NEWS ANVIL by SMITH

IT has been said that much good value has been lost to the industrial and commercial world by the devaluation of a man’s work because he is a bit over the usual employment age. Well, how about 75-year-old Hjalmar Schacht, who was Hitler’s financial genius. How much of a hand he had in making a mess of Hitler I couldn’t say, but he has served his term as a war criminal and is going to Persia to help Mossadeq square accounts with Persia and the rest of the world. Some people wouldn’t employ Schacht, but Mossadeq is looking for a magician.

For continuous excitement Iran is as good a place as any. When the stuff runs low, Omar is a fellow who can always get hold of another jug.

NO oil settlement in Persia yet, but Mossadegh says he’s in the best of spirits. Trouble with the best of spirits is that not a drop gets sold till it’s seven years old...

PERSIA: Mussadeq says he’s sorry the oil crisis still persists: It’s safe to say no “Tehe-ran” down his face.

“We see that "Mossadegh’s Foes Predict His Fall." Again? And will he land on his feet—again?”

[Referencing a March 28th New York Times headline.]

Forgeries

PERSIAN police have arrested several people in Teheran alleged to have forged more than 1,000 false passports for Moslems wishing to make the pilgrimage to Mecca.

They said the passports, which cost 10,000 rials (£42), were perfect except for the letters “P” and “R” in “passport.”

PREMIER MOSSADEGH
Iran

Dear Mossy: NOW that you’ve got rid of the Shah and the Parliament, what’s left to divert public attention from those idle oil wells you seized from the British?

Rimes and Remnants

IRANIC, ISN’T IT?
“Phaw!” said the Shah,
“Things look quite blue,”
Jumped in his plane
And flew the coup.
ROBERT G. PECK JR.

As if the Coronation, Mt Everest and the Ashes were not enough to convince Britain that her luck had changed, here is old Doc. Mossadeq, getting his long overdue “packet” at last. He took a bit of digging out of his foxhole, and for a time it looked as though the coup had failed, especially when the Shah bolted. Now the ruler is on his way back, so that the new crowd must be firmly in the saddle. Whether the overthrow of the Persian Government will mean that the Abadan refinery is to be handed back and the British go into the Persian oil business again will unfold itself in due course. For the present it is enough to know that the unamiable doctor is being given the runaround. (Egyptian papers please copy).

“Emergency financial aid for Iran is all right—but only if Iran displays a will to work out a way of taking care of its its own budget difficulties, as it is well able to do.”

“We need Texas to win the next world war just as much as England. Mark my words, if the British succeed in doing us out of Texas, it will be only a matter of time until we wake up some morning and find that Brooklyn also is missing. It’s a shame, but a nation has to keep everything nailed down these days.

England may get back the Anglo-Arabian Oil Co. and maybe not. [sic—Anglo-Iranian Oil Company] But in case the Shah doesn’t do so good with the Nationalists in Iran, Texas would be an ace in the hole, and the hole brimful of that lovely black gold known poetically as oil.”

Mossadegh is in jail. The big problem was to get pajamas with black and white stripes.

In the realm of world politics there is a very short distance between a political hero and a bum. Old man Mossadegh just a few days ago was one of the big wheels of the diplomatic world. Today he is just a bum in one of the Shah’s jail cells. Of course, by the same token, if his political fortunes should reverse and he should bingo he would change from a bum to a bigwig again.

Not done, sir

Sydney businessman Bede Reith, back from abroad, was in England when Mossadeq was arrested in the Teheran Officers’ Club.

A character in one of the London Service clubs was discussing the development.

“Couldn’t happen here,” he said tersely. “Against the rules . . . only officers allowed to sleep here.”

THE TEHERAN TRIAL
It’s nice to think that Mossadeq
Is getting it right in the peg.

DR. MOSSADEGH
Deposed Premier
Teheran

Dear Mossy:

FROM pictures and news accounts of your court-martial, it’s hard to tell whether you’re on trial for treason or having a physical checkup.

Ex-Premier Mossadegh of Iran, the fiery gent who caused Britain and the U.S. so much misery and annoyance over oil matters, now on trial for defying the Shah and trying to overthrow the monarch, declared from the witness stand he would commit suicide if released and if convicted and sentenced to death will not appeal. The old boy seems to have bugs in his bonnet. In view of all the turmoil the belligerent old trouble-maker has created, the court might try turning him loose to see whether he would make good his word.

Mauler Mossadegh

FORMER PREMIER MOHAMMED MOSSADEGH of Iran has tried just about every stunt imaginable to gain an advantage in his current treason trial. . . He even challenged the prosecutor to a wrestling match. . . HEARING OF HIS CLAIM to grunt-and-groan fame a Frankfurt, Germany professional wrestling promoter has sent Mossadegh an offer to make a main-go appearance against an opponent yet to be named—if and when his trial ends favorably for him.

Premier Mossadegh has come forth from the Iranian prison after three years, still weeping, and saying, “It is not the same Teheran, Iran.”

[What passed for humor those days.]

After three years in jail, Iran’s Mossadegh has come to realize that oil and teardrops don’t mix.

[Yawn]

Remember Mossadegh?

Publicity men may come and go as employees of pajama-clad Bernard Goldfine, but let’s give credit where credit is due: to Mohammed Mossadegh, the originator of press conferences in pajamas!

Rosemary Scott