Success for Harrimam

It looked as if Averell Harriman might yet do the incredible and straighten out the Iranian oil mess. He was off to a good start. In twelve days on the job in Teheran, including many hours at Premier Mossadeq's bedside, Special Envoy Harriman got an important concession from the Iranians: they were willing to reopen talks with London about oil nationalization. The terms on which the Iranians would talk were not disclosed, but Harriman felt hopeful enough to transmit the offer to London and recommend an immediate conference.

But Britain's man in Iran was unimpressed. British Ambassador Sir Francis Shepherd, lukewarm about the Harriman mission before it started, was now openly skeptical. After the Iranian offer, he went around to see Foreign Minister Bagher Kazemi with a several-day-old irrelevant message about the World Court decision on Iran (TIME, July 16) and complaints against treatment of British personnel in Abadan. Kazemi rushed to tell Mossadeq, who was so upset that he did what he usually does on such occasions: he promptly fainted.

Displeased with Shepherd's tactics, Harriman decided to fly to London for face-to-face talks with the British cabinet. At 10 Downing Street, tired, tense Conciliator Harriman met with Prime Minister Clement Attlee and cabinet ministers. Earnest conferences continued for 2 1/2 tense and weary hours. Reportedly, Britain wanted assurances that Iran would 1) stop petty persecutions of British oil personnel, 2) drop its insistence, in negotiations, on the letter of the oil nationalization law, 3) set no preliminary limits on the scope of the negotiations. Next day, the Iranian cabinet met twice, sent reassuring messages to London.

This week, Foreign Minister Herbert Morrison rose in the House of Commons, announced what amounted to a triumph for Conciliator Harriman: the British government was prepared to send a new oil mission to Teheran, headed by Lord Privy Seal Richard Stokes, hard-hitting Socialist industrialist and Minister of Raw Materials.

Added Morrison in a noteworthy gesture of conciliation: "We have every sympathy with the natural desire of the Persian people to control their own mineral resources. . . What we have asked is that agreements freely entered into . . . should not be broken unilaterally . . ."

Later, Harriman boarded his plane, headed back to Iran to await the start of the talks. Said he: "I am optimistic." Said one of Harriman's aides: "This was certainly no lost weekend."

Meanwhile, Anglo-Iranian announced it would close down the Abadan refinery this week. Official explanation: Abadan's storage tanks were overflowing and production had to stop. Actually, Britain was serving notice that while it would negotiate, it would stand for no more pushing around.

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