761.91/5–748
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of Greek, Turkish, and Iranian Affairs (Jernegan)
After a lunch today at the home of Mr. Wallace Murray,1 the Iranian Ambassador, Mr. Ala, spoke to me about the proposal that [Page 143] the Iranian Government should submit to the Security Council copies of the notes exchanged between Iran and the Soviet Union during the past three months on the subject of the activities of the American military missions in Iran. The Ambassador said that Mr. Entezam, Iranian representative at the UN, had just received instructions from his Government to submit to the Security Council, for information but not for action, the first three notes in this series. However, contrary to the recommendation of Mr. Entezam and Mr. Ala, made to the Government in Tehran, the instructions did not include authority to transmit the notes under cover of a letter which would state the Iranian view that Article 6 of the Soviet-Iranian Treaty of 1921 was no longer applicable. In fact, Mr. Entezam had been informed by the Foreign Office that this matter had been considered by the Cabinet and that it had been decided not to take such action. Both the Ambassador and Mr. Entezam were very much disappointed at this, because they feared that if Iran did not make its position clear at this time the Soviet Union could take advantage of that fact later and assert that Iran had implicitly recognized the validity of Article 6 and hence the Soviet right to introduce troops into Iran if this appeared necessary to protect the USSR against a threat to its security arising out of foreign activities on Iranian territory. Accordingly, they had again cabled Tehran stating their views and urging that if the Government was unwilling to submit the recommended communication to the Security Council, it should at least send a further note to the Soviet Government stating the Iranian contention. This further note could then be transmitted to the Security Council along with the others.
In the course of the conversation the Ambassador asked whether the attitude of the Department of State with respect to support for Iran had changed in any way. I replied emphatically that it had not and asked why he raised such a question. He said that recently Mr. Entezam had discussed with the American representatives in New York the proposed Iranian action in submitting the notes and covering statement to the Security Council and had asked whether the United States would be prepared to make some sort of declaration in support of the Iranian position. He had been told that no such action was contemplated at this time. The Ambassador felt that this was inconsistent with the attitude adopted by the United States on previous occasions when the Iranian case had been before the United Nations. On such occasions we had always clearly indicated our backing for Iran. The Ambassador considered that the present case involved the interests of the United States just as much as the previous instances, especially in view of the fact that our military missions formed the subject matter of the Soviet-Iranian correspondence.
I told the Ambassador that our interest in having the notes in question submitted to the Security Council for its information had been [Page 144] made plain to Ambassador Wiley, who had spoken about it on more than one occasion to the appropriate officials in Tehran. (I did not directly reply to his implied question regarding a possible American statement in this connection.) Mr. Ala replied that he thought we should again instruct the Ambassador to take the matter up and urge that the Iranian Government take some positive action to make plain its attitude toward the Treaty of 1921.
He then asked me if we had heard anything about the reported new Soviet note which had so far not been published. I said that we had only today received a telegram2 saying that the Minister of Foreign Affairs had shown to Ambassador Wiley the text of the note and the Iranian reply. The telegram had said that the Russian note was substantially a repetition of the earlier notes and the Iranian reply was likewise the same as those given to the earlier notes. Mr. Ala said that he thought this made it all the more important for the Iranian Government to take the action he had recommended and therefore all the more important for our Government to urge such action through the Ambassador in Tehran.