July 18, 1952

Mossadegh Out as Premier; Ghavam to Take Iran Helm

By ALBION ROSS

EHERAN, Iran, July 17--Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlevi tonight charged Ahmad Ghavam es Sultaneh, aged Iranian statesman, who was Premier during the successful struggle to force the Soviet Army out of the country after World War II, with the task of forming a new Government to succeed that of Premier Mohammed Mossadegh.

The Chamber of Deputies tonight gave Ghavam a vote of inclination in favor of his designation after Dr. Mossadegh had returned to the Shah his mandate to form a second Cabinet. Forty of the forty-three deputies in the chamber voted for the motion. However, a pro-Mossadegh group of thirty others, who did not attend, protested that the vote was illegal. They argued that three-fourths of the eighty-one Deputies should have been present.

Dr. Mossadegh's resignation was a direct result of the Shah's negative attitude toward Dr. Mossadegh's decision to become himself Minister of War. Dr. Mossadegh stated in his letter of resignation that, as this proposal "has not proved acceptable to His Majesty, it is better that the next Government should be organized by another person who has your confidence and can execute orders of His Majesty."

Dr. Mossadegh added, in concluding his letter of resignation, which was sent to the palace last night, an enigmatic statement to the effect that "in the actual situation it is not possible for the Iranian people to be victorious in the struggle which it has begun."

The Shah's declaration, in accepting Dr. Mossadegh's resignation, that he expected future governments to follow his policy in restoring Iran's rights and relations with other nations indicated there could be no complete about-face on the oil issue. Nationalization of the Iranian oil industry including the Abadan refinery, the largest in the world, evidently will be upheld.

However, it has been generally understood that Ghavam is not in agreement with Dr. Mossadegh's uncompromising devotion to a fiercely anti-British policy.

The Deputies had shown a marked lack of enthusiasm toward granting Dr. Mossadegh the dictatorial powers for six months that he had demanded in a bill presented to the Chamber last Sunday when he visited Parliament for the first time in seven months.

The position of Minister of War is of primary importance at present. A great part of the country and Teheran itself is under martial law and security is being maintained largely by the army acting under the authority of the Shah, who under the constitution is Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Dr. Mossadegh, markedly anti-military, has repeatedly made it clear that he sees little point in Iran's possessing any considerable military establishment. There are apparently fairly authentic reports that he proposed partly to meet the present Government financial crisis by cutting by as much as half the funds allotted to the armed forces.

The opposition to giving him authority to increase the issuance of currency has been particularly strong, and without some such measure the Government, now at the end of its various financial devices, simply cannot go on paying its officials and meeting its most unavoidable bills.

Furthermore, although Dr. Mossadegh received last week the vote of fifty-two out of eighty-one Deputies on the so-called vote of inclination, in which the Chamber indicates to the Shah its inclination for the nominee for the Premiership, only fourteen of the Senators had given him their vote. There are fifty-seven Senators.

There is every evidence that Dr. Mossadegh simply did not have a majority in the Senate. It would have been difficult for him to receive by a vote of the Chamber alone the dictatorial powers he had demanded.

In the vote to elect a presiding officer of the Chamber the Mossadegh forces had lost, and a member of the Opposition had been elected president of the Chamber, with only thirty-five out of eighty-one Deputies voting for the candidate of the National Front.

In any case the elections had been a disappointment to Dr. Mossadegh. He halted them in June in view of the violence that attended them after only eighty-one of 136 seats in the Chamber had been filled. At the time when they were called off the voting had been going against the Mossadegh supporters.

ONDON, July 17--The nomination of Ghavam as Premier of Iran was considered a hopeful though by no means conclusive omen in London diplomatic circles.

According to their interpretation the change in Premiership has brought a swing away from the personality and policy that have brought nothing but embarrassment to Britain and bankruptcy to Iran since Dr. Mossadegh came into office fifteen months ago.

These circles emphasized that there was no question of Ghavam or any other Iranian politician repudiating the policy of Dr. Mossadegh on oil nationalization. But they expected that in due course Ghavam, who is credited above all with a practical turn of mind, would certainly try to come to some accommodation with the British that would allow Iran to sell some oil and get some money into the country again.

No official comment was made in London. Official quarters studiously refrained from comment on Dr. Mossadegh's departure mindful of the charges that have been made in Iran of British interference in her internal affairs.

There is no disposition here to suppose that Iranian politics has seen the last of Dr. Mossadegh. Hence the importance attached in diplomatic circles here to the Shah's disinclination to allow Dr. Mossadegh to control the Army. Whatever support the Shah has given to Dr. Mossadegh in the past, it has not gone to the length of allowing him or any other Premier to interfere with the loyalty of the Army to the Shah himself. This move by Dr. Mossadegh, which would endanger the Shah's own position probably alarmed him more than anything else that Dr. Mossadegh had done.

ASHINGTON, July 17--State Department officials declined today to comment formally on either the resignation of Dr. Mossadegh as Iranian Premier or the selection of Ghavam as his successor. Informally, however, they made it clear that the first was not a surprise.

Authorities here had long expected the eventual departure of the ill and aging Dr. Mossadegh if he failed to bring the British-Iranian oil controversy to a conclusion somewhat more favorable to Iran than the economic crisis now facing the Teheran Government.

They acknowledged at the same time that the dispute over his demand for the War Ministry or military authority had not been expected here.

The Premier-designate, a plantation owner and land holder, is expected to steer a moderate course in his dealings with both East and West. His policies during his last administration as Premier, which included the dispute with the Soviet Union over Azerbaijan, were found to conform to the "general run" of Iranian policies, it was said.