Coll 28/97 ‘Persia. Diaries. Tehran Intelligence Summaries’ [‎236r] (471/749)

THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OP HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY’S GOVERNMENT
PERSIA.
SECRET.
With the Comphme«t£
of the
UwdfiW' Secf^^.&ry of StsitA
Foreign Affairs
December 19, 1944.
S
[E 7740/422/34]
ns
8 FEB 1945
4 V 7 .
Section 1.
Copy No. 1 2
Sir R. Bullard to Mr. Eden.—[Received \^th December.)
(No. 464.)
HIS Majesty 1 ^ representative presents his compliments to His Majesty’s
Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and has the honour to transmit
herewith a copy of Intelligence Summary, No. 46, of the 27th November to the
3rd December, 1944, compiled by the military attache to this legation.
Tehran, Mh December, 1944.
0
Enclosure.
Military Attache's Intelligence Summary, No. 46, for the period the
21 th November to the 3rd December, 1944.
(Secret.)
Persian Affairs.
Political.
1. Mohsin Rais has refused the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, alleging the
ill-health of his wife as the reason. He doubtless prefers his ambassadorial post
in Bagdad to the uncertainty of tenure of a ministerial post in this Cabinet. So
far, no one else has been appointed.
2. The Tudeh continue to try and carry out the orders they receive from the
Soviet Embassy and the Military Governor continues to resist them. They
announced a large meeting at their headquarters for Friday, the 1st December,
but the Military Governor forbade entrance to their premises on the score of the
recent emergency proclamation banning as unlawful assemblies any meeting of
more than three persons.
3. On Friday, the 1st December, a reception was given at the Ministry for
Foreign Affairs to celebrate the 1st anniversary of the Tehran Conference, and
the issue of the statement confirming Persia’s political independence and
integrity.
4. On the 2nd December, Dr. Musaddiq entered the Majlis at 9 a.m., and
sprung a surprise on the Deputies. He tabled a Bill making it a penal offence
for any Prime Minister, Cabinet Minister or government representative to grant
any oil concession in Persia at any time to any foreign government or foreign oil
company. ,He was successful in obtaining “ double urgency ” procedure for his
Bill which was passed at 4 p.m. on the same day. (The full text will be given in
next Intelligence Summary.) Dr. Musaddiq was probably induced to take this
prompt and extreme action by consideration of what many intelligent Persians
have been saying and thinking ever since Sa’ed’s refusal to grant the oil
concession produced the rupture in his relations with the Russians. Most
Persians have thought that the Russians would not take this lying down
and Kavtaradzeh’s continued presence in Tehran supported this view. They
agreed that the Shah might be won over or intimidated into promising the
concession, that, the Cabinet might be bought or intimated into granting
it, that the Russians might object to and overthrow every successive Cabinet
which resisted them until government was reduced to impotency. The
one body, not from incorruptibility but from its size, its heterogeneous
nature and its internal jealousies which could not be bought in its entirety
was the Majlis. The Majlis therefore, garrulous, venal and lazy as it was,
represented to them the only obstacle in the Russian path. What was more
likely than that the Russians would urge the Shah to close the Majlis as a
[61—33]