The Iranian Crisis and the Birth of the Cold War Benjamin F
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2016 The Bridge to Victory: The Iranian Crisis and the Birth of the Cold War Benjamin F. (Benjamin Frederick) Harper Follow this and additional works at the DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES THE BRIDGE TO VICTORY: THE IRANIAN CRISIS AND THE BIRTH OF THE COLD WAR By BENJAMIN F. HARPER A Dissertation submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 © 2016 Benjamin F. Harper Benjamin. F. Harper defended this dissertation on November 8, 2016. The members of the supervisory committee were: Michael Creswell Professor Directing Dissertation Mark A. Souva University Representative Will Hanley Committee Member Nathan Stoltzfus Committee Member Andrew Frank Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii This small work, along with everything else in my life, is dedicated to Emily Izetta. I know who I married. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted in more ways than one to Florida State University and Dartmouth College for fostering an environment conducive to academic research. Thank you to the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) for support in the form of a 2014 international research grant, which provided me the opportunity to work in Moscow, Russian Federation, and Baku, Azerbaijan. I am much obliged to Dr. Michael Creswell for his steadfast guidance, his patience, and his seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of resources and scholarship. To the remainder of my committee – Dr. Will Hanley, Dr. Nathan Stoltzfus, Dr. Andrew Frank, and Dr. Mark Souva – your dedication to your crafts and your guidance has been greatly appreciated. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES……………..……………………………………………………..................vi ABSTRACT…...…...…………………………………………………………………...............viii CHAPTER ONE: SETTING THE STAGE………………….........................................................1 CHAPTER TWO: THE SABER AND THE STAR: THE U.S. PRESENCE IN IRAN, 1942- 1946................................................................................................................................................26 CHAPTER THREE: IRANIAN PLURALITY AND THE REEMERGENCE OF AHMAD QAVĀM........................................................................................................................................60 CHAPTER FOUR: CRISIS ENSUES: ATOMIC DIPLOMACY AND QAVĀM’S COLD WAR..............................................................................................................................................91 CHAPTER FIVE: A NEW WORLD ORDER: THE IRANIAN CRISIS AND THE LEGITIMACY OF THE UNITED NATIONS...........................................................................133 CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION: ON STATESMANSHIP AND POWER…..........................159 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………..............173 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH……………………………………..…………………….............192 v LIST OF FIGURES 2-1: Iranian warship Babr, sunk by the HMAS Yarra, an Australian vessel servicing the Commonwealth and directed by British naval forces, on 25 August 1941.......................32 2-2: Soviet and British soldiers rendezvous near Qazvin..............................................................33 2-3: Soviet tankmen of the 6th Armoured Division drive through the streets of Tabriz on their T-26 battle tank .........................................................................................................33 2-4: Indian troops guarding the Abadan Refinery in Iran, 4 September 1941...............................34 2-5: A Persian Gulf Command service road bridges a gorge at Talehzang, north of Dezful..................................................................................................................................45 2-6: A group of U.S. senators inspects Iranian waterfront installations developed to speed the flow of American supplies to Russia, (Office of Technical Information)..............46 2-7: The Saber and Star Persian Gulf Command Insignia.............................................................52 2-8: This photo is of U.S. ships docked in the Persian Gulf port of Khorramshahr, unloading supplies and equipment for U.S. troops in the PGC as well as Lend Lease material destined for the Soviet Union....................................................................................52 2-9: Map of the PGC Railway and Highway, including Camps, Posts, and Stations....................53 3-1: Throngs of Constitutionalists seeking bast at the British embassy in Tehran,1906...............66 3-2: A Young Mohammed Mossadegh, likely in his 30s.............................................................84 3-3: Muzaffar al-Din Shah Qajar...................................................................................................85 3-4: Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (~18 years old at time of photograph) with his father Reza Shah, c. 1937..................................................................................................................85 3-5: Ahmad Qavām…………………………………………………...……….............................86 3-6: The Farman (royal proclamation of the Shah) of 1906 provides for the ushering in of a constitutional monarchy in Iran)…………………………………...………..............88 4-1: Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin, Potsdam Conference, July/August, 1945..................................................................................................................96 4-2: Leaders of the Grand Alliance discuss matters at the Potsdam Conference, 1945................97 vi 4-3: George F. Kennan, c. 1947.........................................……………………………..............106 4-4: The first page of George Kennan’s famed telegram, sent from Moscow to the Secretary of State in Washington, D.C., 22 February 1946..................................................107 5-1: On 24 Oct 1945, Truman signs UN Charter. ..........................…….....................................142 5-2: From L to R: Ernest Bevin, Vyacheslav Molotov, and James Byrnes, Moscow Conference, December 1945………………..........................................................142 5-3: Edward Stettinius and Andrei Gromyko....................................…………..........................142 5-4: Sir Alexander Cadogan, UN, 1946……………………………….......................................143 5-5: Hossein Ala’, speaking with the British Pathé News at the height of the conflict in 1946....................................................................................................................……......143 5-6: UNSC 1st Session, January 1946.…………………………………................…................155 5-7: UNSC, January 1946.………………………………………………................…...............156 5-8: Hossein Ala’ addresses UN, March 1946…………………………….............……............156 5-9: Hossein Ala’ feeling triumphant after his address to the UN in March 1946 ….................157 vii ABSTRACT This work examines the Iranian Crisis of 1946 and its active role in shaping the Cold War that followed. It is intended to serve as a case study of how the United States was able to successfully flex its short-lived atomic monopoly and achieve its international objectives in the early postwar era by means of direct engagement with so-called “peripheral actors.” This writing engages with the robust academic field of U.S. foreign relations that over the past number of years revisited and reimagined the origins and driving forces of the Cold War. My own international archival research and comparative historiographical analysis supports the growing synthesis of the field, and it has led me to argue the importance of peripheral actors, and specifically Iran, in establishing the Cold War system. The claims that Soviet expansionism or American economic agendas were the sole agitants behind the emergence of the decades-long struggle no longer satisfies in lieu of the new materials and analytical approaches now available. While the Russians and the British jockeyed for positions of leadership within wartime- occupied Iran, the United States was welcomed into the region by many Iranians as a potential balancing force and check on European imperialism. The Soviet Union’s violation of a troop withdrawal agreement at the conclusion of the Second World War, coupled with its active support of Kurdish and Azeri separatist movements, aggressively tested the new and evolving international order. The primary objective of this work is to understand how the international community, in this case led by the United States, the Soviet Union, Iran, and the newly-formed United Nations, achieved a relatively peaceful withdrawal of Soviet forces from Iranian territory. I contend that: 1) Iran possessed, due to its wartime role and latent economic potential, a degree of leverage in negotiations with the United States and Russia that other nations did not; 2) that viii the Iranian prime minister, Ahmad Qavām, shrewdly manipulated both superpowers with his own brand of masterful statecraft while pursuing his own “Iran-centric” objectives; 3) that the United States used its preponderance of military, economic, and diplomatic might to effectively achieve its postwar aims; and 4) the primary actors in the crisis solidified