Word: mossadegh
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Kids on bikes and men in loudspeaker-equipped trucks toured Teheran urging everyone to get on one of the government's 150 free buses and go out to the airport. Mossadegh was coming home...
...perilously close to the still-whirling propellers. The scene around the plane's unopened door became a madhouse of shouting ministers and mullahs. One Majlis leader was whacked across the mouth with a large wet floral wreath. Newly appointed U.S. Ambassador Loy Henderson, out to say hello to Mossadegh, was caught in the mob at the airport, had his pockets picked (his wallet was later returned intact), but never got to speak to the pallidly beaming Premier...
President Truman replied that "careful consideration" would be given Mossadegh's request for $120 million, which is diplomatic talk for promising nothing. The fact was that, after 41 days in the U.S., Mossadegh was going home emptyhanded. His spokesman, Deputy Premier Hussein Fatemi, told the press that Iran and Britain are engaged in a contest of "pressures." Iran will win, Fatemi said, because "I don't think the economic situation in Great Britain is any better than ours...
While the contest went on, it seemed, Mossadegh wanted the U.S. to foot Iran's bill. Asked the New York Times: "Is it really conceivable that the' U.S. should reward Iran for breaking her oil contract? What about the reaction in Great Britain if that country should now see us bail out Iran after the British had lost a billion dollar industry through confiscation? Who is our greatest ally in the defense of the West, Britain or Iran...
...State Department now seemed prepared to follow Britain's Micawberish line: let Mossadegh fall, perhaps his successor will be more tractable. Mossadegh flew off home, scheduling a stop en route at Cairo, where he and the Egyptians could make muscles at the British together. That might divert his homefolks from his empty hands...