Ext 5001/41 'PERSIA – INTERNAL (Miscellaneous despatches).' [‎13v] (26/248)

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American advisers, and was in correspondence with the State Department on
the subject. We did know, however, that as soon as he took office, M. Bader,
Minister of Finance in the Sadr Government, began to consider a reduction in
the number of the advisers. His ostensible plan was a good one—to get rid of
the less efficient (there are many who would be no loss) and to keep perhaps
eight or ten for tasks where disinterestedness and indifference to Persian
political or personal pressure would be of most value, arbitration, partition
of the crown lands among the tenants, and so on. Private information, however
showed that he came to think that Persia could dispense with all the advisers,
and this doubtless influenced his attitude, made him unwilling to consult the
Americans (though it is true that he tended to ignore his Persian assistants too),
and therefore drove the American Embassy to the conclusion that the American
mission was unable to perform any useful service and was doing harm to United
States prestige by remaining here.
2 /ansfev of Polish Legation to Warsaw Govemment.
107. Late in June the Warsaw Government sent a telegram to the repre
sentative of I olpress ’ in Tehran, M. Lopatniuk, instructing him to take all
steps to secure the property of the Polish Government in Tehran. His Majesty’s
Embassy explained to the Foreign Office that he was an ex-chauffeur of the Polish
legation and had been convicted for theft, and was hardly suitable to be the
official representative of the new Polish Government. The embassy added that
instructions issued to the Polish Charge d’Affaires by the Polish Government in
London were to wait until the Persian Government withdrew their recognition
trom him and recognised so-and-so as duly accredited representative of the new
1 ohsh Government. He was then to ask the Persian Government to take over
the Polish Legation and property here. The embassy added that the property
and funds employed by the Polish delegation in Tehran for the benefit of the
Polish refugees were presumably to be treated separately and not handed over to
the i epi esentative of the new Government. The Foreign Office agreed
108. On the 23rd July, the Persian Government recognised the new Polish
Government and in the middle of August they accepted a M. Eugene John
u aS Char ^ ^ affaires. In peace-time he had been an inspector of schools-
he had been captured by the Russians in 1939 and released in 1941, and had
come to Palestine, where he was court-martialled and imprisoned by the former
1 ohsh military authorities on a charge of having defamed the Polish Govern
ment whilst in Russia.
109. The new charge d’affaires presented his letters to the Persian Govern-
ment on the 22nd September, and took over the Polish Legation premises from
them When he called on His Majesty’s charge d’affaires he asked for informa
tion about the Polish refugees and this was supplied to him.
Polish Refugees.
, ^J le dissolution of the Polish Government in London left the Polish
authorities there anxious lest the refugees in Persia should be deported to Russia
ugainst their will, the Foreign Office enquired whether there was any danger
of this, i he embassy thought not, particularly since the embassy had formed a
polish refugee section and the refugees were thus under its auspices. On the
other hund, the presence of these refugees in a country partially occupied by
the Russians was a potential source of Anglo-Russian friction and it was
desirable to remove them to less contentious territory. The history of the quarter
is therefore largely concerned with the proposal to evacuate the refugees to the
ebanon. The first set-back was early in July, when the movement to the
Lebanon of the children s school at Isfahan and their attendant teachers and
parents totalling 800 odd persons, was cancelled owing to the anti-French trouble
!r e r e j-xi i r6St , e ( l u ? rfcer was s P en t in overcoming various difficulties. The
nrst difficulty was that the Lebanon Government demanded further assurances
from His Majesty s Government that the refugees would not be left indefinitely
in the Lebanom his assurance His Majesty’s Government eventually granted.
Jhe second difficulty was the question of accommodation in the Lebanon Bv
the end of the quarter the move to the Lebanon of the Isfahan Poles had been
once again approved, but not the move of the remaining 3,000 Poles,
n i lu 1 Late in July U.N.R.R.A., Middle East, pointed out that, although they
had theoretically taken over the obligations of M.E.R.R.A. vis-a-vis the Poles
in F^ersia, they neither controlled the policy nor the camps, nor did they suonlv
the finance, all this being still in the hands of His Majesty’s Government and