British Diplomatic Oil Crisis: Contemporary Anglo-Saxon Geopolitical Rivalries in the Persian Gulf: Drawing a Lesson? Or Sir Anthony Eden‘s Delusion of Grandeur.
the language
and mentality of the Iranian people better than other British
officials in Iran, in Berthoud’s view, she was considered an authority on
Iranian affairs. According to E.A Berthoud’s minute,
Miss Lambton
was of the decided opinion that is was not possible to do
business with Musaddiq. She thought it important not to make concessions to
him except to the extent necessary to maintain order in southern Iran. Miss
Lambton believed that it would be possible to undermine Musaddiq’s position
by ‘covert means’. One way in which this could be done would be to give
heart to the substantial body Iranians who fear the risk of being denounced
as traitors but whose idea of the Iranian national interest coincided with
the British conception. She thought it might be possible through the public
relations officer at the British Embassy in Teheran gradually to change the
public mood and thus give an opportunity to intelligent Iranians who were
well disposed to the British to speak out against Musaddiq.25
In a further minute Berthoud wrote:
Miss Lambton feels that without
a campaign on the above lines it is not
possible to create the sort of climate in Teheran which is necessary to
change the regime. With discreet efforts on the part of the British, it
would be possible to co- operate with Iranians who were certain that
Musaddiq’s
25. PRO, London, FO371/91548/
EP1531/ 674, The General Political,
Minute by Berthoud, 15th June 1951 in W.R. LOUIS,
The British Empire in the Middle East: 1945-51, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1985), pp. 659-660.
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