Pants For Mossy
March 4, 1953 — The Chicago Daily Tribune

The Mossadegh Project | November 27, 2014    


Another moronic editorial in the self-proclaimed “world’s greatest newspaper” from Wednesday, March 4, 1953.

For the historic paper, later known as The Chicago Tribune, the violent No’he Esfand episode in Tehran presented an irresistible opportunity to indulge in rank infantilism.



The Chicago Daily Tribune

O, SHAH!

We do not know why there should be disorders and demonstrations in Iran against the United States as a result of the riots attending the scrap for power between the shah and Premier Mossadegh. Only an Iranian could have plotted this scenario.

First, old Mossy put pressure on the shah to get out of the country and the monarch acquiesced. Then mobs supporting the shah put on a demonstration, led by a character known locally as “the brainless one.” [wrestler/thug Shaban Jafari] Mossy had to run out of the back door of his house. He was in pajamas, tho he looks like the type to sport a long nightgown.

He ducked, rather appropriately, into the adjacent premises of the American point 4 headquarters, [Point Four, a U.S. foreign aid program] dealing in technological aid for backward countries. The point 4 staff failed to rise to the occasion by providing him with a pair of pants. Still in his pajamas, Mossy headed for parliament and called an emergency session.

About this point the shah appeared on a balcony and assured the populace he had changed his mind and wasn’t going to leave, after all. Mossy is given to weeping during his orations, but the shah showed his stuff and wept copiously himself. This reduced Mossy to the change of pace of giving a dry eyed oration. He fired the commanding general—always automatic in the circumstances.

Why blame the United States for all this? Maybe the resentment was occasioned by the failure of point 4 to meet the challenge of a premier in pajamas. We advise point 4 to put in a good line of matched pants against future emergencies.




Related links:

Tehran Riots Grow From Oil DeadlockThe WORLD This Week, March 6, 1953

Trouble in IranThe Morning Herald, March 5, 1953

A Cookie Nibbler Cannot Be A HeroThe Progress-Index, April 15, 1954



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

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