Troubles in the Middle East are not the usual concern of our state governors. But the mounting difficulties of the nimble Mr. Mossadegh in Iran offered such an apt text in illustrating our security problems in that area that President Eisenhower was moved to give the Seattle Conference of United States Governors a quick sketch of the situation there.

[These remarks on Aug. 4th were part of a calculated U.S. strategy to help overthrow Mossadegh, which, with American and British help, occurred 13 days later]

Identifying Mr. Mossadegh politically is like trying to pick with the bare fingers a drop of mercury out of a coffee cup filled with marbles. One day’s headlines are likely to read "Mossadegh Jails Reds" and the next "Reds Help Mossadegh Dissolve Parliament." At the moment we are in the latter phase. The aged Iranian leader has found Parliament too much of an obstacle in his warfare against the Crown and against the religious leader, Kashani. [The young Shah and Ayatollah Kashani] He disposed of this little dilemma by holding a Stalin-type referendum in which the people voted 99.9 per cent to send the legislators packing. Each ballot, however, was signed with the name and address of the voter. One can only marvel at the courage of the one-tenth of 1 per cent who voted “no.”

We read that a large portion of the “yes” vote was turned in by disciplined columns of the pro-Communist Tudeh party, who marched to the polls in serried ranks singing Red songs and chanting slogans urging the ousting of United States Point Four personnel and our military mission. The Red “Youth Festival” now being held in Communist Bucharest has a delegation of Iranian students in attendance.

What the Governors can do for Ike about all of this is hard to say. It seems likely he was just unburdening himself of problems which must seem very heavy sometimes. The President said the $400,000,000 we have just appropriated to help the French in Indochina will indirectly strengthen the independence of Iran. [Vietnam] Meantime, we hope Mr. Mossadegh doesn’t fall off the tightrope.