I have been reading Mosaddegh’s memoirs, specifically the two books Brief Account of My Life and Memoirs and Summary of the Nationalisation of Oil Industry in Iran, and I found reading the second book very troubling, reading how foreign countries such as Britain at the time played with Iran.

Here I will be sharing snippets from Mosaddegh’s Memoir which also includes snippets from Anthony Eden’s memoirs who was the foreign minister of UK at the time. I will share the snippets in Persian as well as English.

Reasons for my government’s downfall

Eden begins his memoirs in this way: “The day I became the foreign minister, Abadan was lost and our influence in the Middle East had declined. In Egypt, developments were predicted, which I needed to study in order to know how to confront the situation, and I was sure that, first of all, I should focus on the oil business, which was the origin of this dispute.”

And he says again: “It was very unfortunate for us to come to terms with Mossadegh at any cost out of fear of communism, and I never wanted to accept that if we don’t accept Mossadegh, Iran will become communist.” (page 221)

“In order to advance the goal, on November 14, 1951, I entered into negotiations with the American Secretary of State Acheson in Paris, and my stay there lasted ten days, and five meetings were held during this period, in which Harriman also participated in our meetings, and the first days of these negotiations Mosaddegh was in America and our views were very different from the American government and the subject of the negotiations was to help Mossadegh and establish a stable government in Iran or not to help and leave him alone. The opinion of the American government was that if they do not help, Iran’s situation will be unstable. I was against this theory and said that there is a third party apart from Mossadegh’s government and communism, and if another government comes to work, we can conclude agreements with it that will satisfy us. Iranians have always been good and they should be good again.” (pages 223 and 224)

“On the 7th of November, when we were negotiating, two of my advisors arrived in Paris from London and handed me the agreement between Churchill and the British government regarding the opinions that I had expressed before leaving London, and these opinions related to the American involvement in Iranian oil that the representatives of that government did not want to take advantage of this situation and refused to accept it, and Harriman said that if this proposal had been made in the summer of the previous year, it would have greatly affected the morale of the Iranians. – Although no results were obtained from these negotiations that lasted until November 14, and the American involvement in the oil business was not confirmed, I did not despair of being able to convince America to form another government in Iran that is neither Mossadegh nor communism. The opinion of the American ambassador in England was that he said that British interests are in danger there, and the American government should stop imposing its views.” (page 226)

It is not a secret that Eden got results from this conference and did not return empty-handed: (1) the change of “Grady” the US ambassador to Iran, who was a neutral person, and the appointment of Henderson, the former US agent in India, instead of him, who was on duty. His lack of impartiality is considered one of the important results of this conference, and Eden praised him everywhere in this book, and especially in one of his memoirs, he commented as follows: “The relations between England and America improved day by day due to Henderson’s representation in Iran, and he was a worthy person who never allowed Mossadegh to take advantage of the differences between America and England. We are very grateful to him. If Henderson was not in Iran, the 1954 agreement on oil would not have turned out the way we wanted. (page 228) (2) Another result of the negotiations between these two foreign ministers was this: The American government, which after the fall of my government gave more than one billion in aid to Iran, did not give any aid to me, and the same days that the government representatives were negotiating in Paris, in Washington, I asked the American government for a loan of one hundred million dollars to be paid with any profit, and the idea of asking for a loan was to use the oil workers who were unemployed in other production matters and they would get paid for their work. The answer that was given to my request was that the issue will be studied and this study took so long until the American government took part in the oil business, and then I received this answer: until the oil business with the British government is finished, the United States will refrain from any help and assistance. (page 228)

Eden continues and says, “I wanted to do a study on the validity of my opinion, and I consulted with the ambassador of Iran, who was one of my friends. He confirmed my views and said that Mossadegh’s situation is not the same as before and he promised to personally help us as much as he can.

In the first week of 1952, I received news from Iran that strengthened my spirit, and it was the report given by the British Consul in Iran, that is, the same person Mossadegh had asked us to summon, and his report agreed with the views of the Iranian ambassador in London, that the Iranian people’s hatred of us is not based on the truth and is fake.” (page 228)

The author of the memoirs wants to say this under wraps, if the Iranian nation truly believed in their rights and the feelings it expressed were true, we could not have done anything to harm that nation. Whenever there is talk about the nationalization of the oil industry, I have said to the representatives of the interested government that on the day when the Darcy Agreement was reached, the existence of oil in Iran was not certain, and the British Navy was meeting its needs with coal, but now that it has been more than half a century, oil is being extracted from Iran and they are using it in strategic affairs. How can the people of Iran be satisfied with a foreign company extracting oil and depriving the country of its freedom and independence for the abuse it does, which the British Foreign Minister mentioned in one of his memoirs “In a meeting about the Truman-Churchill memorial, Mossadegh said that Iranians are not donkeys to let themselves to be ridden for a long time.” (page 332)

Page numbers refer to Eden’s memoir.