It’s a great relief, when you’re tired of this town’s squabbling over one thing or another, to turn to contemplation of some pastoral place such as Iran where the communications are so primitive that unless you’re actually knocked down in a brawl you’ll probably never-know there’s one going on.

ABOUT IRAN—Iran is in the news once more as the U.S. government advances, this week end, another $6,000,000 to try to keep the nation afloat long enough for it to begin supporting itself again. The measure of Iranian leadership is shown by the fact that it supported Mohammed Mossadegh in his insane campaign which turned it from a country rolling in natural wealth to a poverty-stricken parasite, supported solely by largess from the United States. You have only to know that Iran, which, believe it or not, is twice as big as Texas, sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserve and still is flat broke, to realize what really remarkable genius for madness Mossadegh had, to be able to bring about, this utter bankruptcy. [Venezuela, not Iran, has the most oil.]

MOSSADEGH—The cause of it all was supernationalism, which caused Mossadegh to expropriate the British-financed and British-owned oil business without having anybody in his own organization with brains enough to turn the key in the lock of the refinery door. Our fellow Californian, Herbert Hoover Jr., has done a masterful job of juggling Iranian and British pride with international—mostly American—money to the point where they are approaching agreement on reopening the oil industry and getting the country back on its feet again. The deal is not yet set, but it is on the fire. Meanwhile the country is safe—Mossadegh is in jail, the country is still independent, the army is strong enough to maintain order, and the government is at least semi-stable. That’s an improvement.

VITAL—If you want to know the reason for American interest in Iran don’t look at the oil fields—look at the map. Iran has the longest common border with Russia of any independent nation. It is one of three nations bordering on Russia which retain their freedom—Finland and Turkey are the others. It lies directly between two of our strong allies on the southern flank—Turkey and Pakistan. It is Russia’s most natural target because it is the shortest and most direct route to the warm water and is the weakest of the southern neighbors. We went to a lot of trouble to run the Russians out of Iran after World War II—the first and, in many ways, finest accomplishment of the United Nations—and we obviously consider it worth while to continue our struggle to maintain Iran’s independence.

ASSISTANCE—However, do not think we’ve been doing nothing but meeting the Iranian payroll. We’ve been conducting a direct military assistance program—supplying Iran with arms. We’ve had a long-standing gendarmerie agreement training their police. We’ve had a military advisory program telling them what to do with their armed forces. And we’ve had a technical assistance program—a long-range activity designed to raise the standard of living. The current financial program, which is solely to keep the country on its feet, is a temporary thing. Incidentally, Iran—when it has the money—pays the costs of some of these other programs. Because there is, in fact, no real communication system phone, wire, road or rail over much of Iran and there is almost total illiteracy, a vast majority of the Iranians haven’t known, much less cared, about Mossadegh’s antics. [“Mosadeq has the backing of 95 to 98 percent of the people of this country.” — U.S. Ambassador Henry Grady, July 1, 1951]

ODDS AND ENDS—According to the Iranian calendar, this is the year 1332, and their civilization is just about where ours was in AD 1332. They’ve let our magnificent wartime road and rail system fall completely apart—upkeep for Jeeps is about $600 a year for repairs. We’re teaching Iranians how to farm, improving their livestock and working on public health—hasn’t cost much and is making good progress. [During WWII, America took over Iran’s brand new rail system to transport goods and armaments to Russia, badly damaging it in the process.]

Hear Bill Henry, Monday through Friday, KHJ, 6:55 p.m.