خارجي ٤١/٥٠٠٠(٢) "بلاد فارس: الوضع قبيل احتلال الحلفاء، وما بعده" [و‎‎٢‎٣‎٥] (٦٠٦/٤٦٩)

< &GLS^+JlJC'
FILE COPY
&
With the? Compliments /
^ i vV t :
ftor Foreign Affair
of tb« 1 \// ^ F>
Under Soorntary of^tat#
v/
[Cypher]
28
l& A)EPARlr^ML nqU.
FROM TEHRAN TO FOREIGN OFFICE.
Sir R. Bullard
No.466.
miriuly, 1941.
D a 6o00 p.m. 25th July, 1941.
R. 1.05 p.m. 26th July, 1941.
Repeated to Government of India No.348
Moscow
Cairo for Minister of State.
[][][]
IMMEDIATE.
C°o'w^> ^sla£ Jtc>;
J° Government of India te 1 e,gram_ N.a^5.69Q.-. to Spcretary of
State for India July 20th e
I regret that illness has prevented my commenting
earlier on this important telegram.
2. If economic pressure is applied, I think that publicity
should he confined at least in the first instance to stating
that we cannot supply valuable goods and use of precious
shipping to carry them to and from country where large number
of Germans are allowed to remain in key positions. This could
be accompanied by tales of fifth column work in the
Netherlands and elsewhere.
3. We have to assume that German wireless, which is very
popular in Iran (Persia), would still be unfettered, while
German community, even if considerably reduced, could still
carry on propaganda by word of mouth on a scale that we
could not touch.
4. I cannot imagine a weaker ground on which to fight
Gothhis tan Hat cf industrial development. In Iranian (Persian)
eyes we have very bad reputation on this score - complete
indifference before the war and since the war began [at
least until quite recently), contracts made only to
be broken. Germans v«ould not fail to suggest that we were playing
the game v/e played in India, namely, suppressing or retarding
native industries for benefit of our own, and would point out
that if Iran had only carried out further its policy of
industrialism, and been able to make, for example, more beet
sugar and more textiles, she could snap her fingers at the
brutal British blockade. And so on.
5. To forestall accusation that we wished to
intimidate Iranian industries by removing technicians of vital
importance* we might say from the start that v/e realised this
difficulty, but uhat it is over a year since fifth column
methods were first revealed to the world, and there has been
time to engage specialists from neutral countries though
thanks to German aggression many countries from which such
specialists could nave been obtained have admittedly been
over-run and enslaved.
RECd. POL. DEFt.
U ul 941
INDIA OFFICE