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fM clanU >/< With a Foreword by Justice William O. Douglas “For me these forty-six days with my Kurdish friends had been a high point in twenty-five years of newspaper work." Thus Dana Adams Schmidt, New York Times correspondent in the Middle East, describes his recent adventure into Iraqi Kurdistan to interview the guerrillas struggling to win national recognition from the Iraqi government. Schmidt's trip had to be kept secret (indeed he never reveals just how he did get in and out of Kurdistan) ; to all appearances he just disappeared from his office in Beirut. He traveled on foot, by mule, when particularly lucky by horse, and on two occasions by jeep. Much of the traveling was done at night with the days spent in hiding. The physical dangers were acute; they were strafed more than once by the Iraqi air force. Always his escort was careful to keep the identity of this 6'3" “stranger" from the villagers, for fear that Kassem's men would dis­ cover his presence. The climax of his trip was an inter­ val of some ten days spent with Mullah (Continued on second flap) by Dana Adams Schmidt ANATOMY OF A SATELLITE JOURNEY AMONG BRAVE MEN JOURNEY AMONG BRAVE MEN JOURNEY AM ONG BRAVE MEN by Dana Adams Schmidt with a foreword by J u stice W illia m O . D ouglas An Atlantic Monthly Press Book LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY * BOSTON * TORONTO COPYRIGHT © I9 6 4 BY DANA ADAMS SCHMIDT FOREWORD COPYRIGHT © 19 64 BY WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRO­ DUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PAS­ SAGES IN A REVIEW TO BE PRINTED IN A MAGAZINE OR NEWSPAPER. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 6 4 - 1 5 0 5 1 FIRST EDITION All photographs, taken while Dana Adams Schmidt was in Iraq, re­ printed by courtesy of the New York Times. The author wishes to thank the New York Times for permission to reprint here in greatly expanded form an account which was originally introduced in its pages. 832134 Published simultaneously in Canada by Little, Brown & Company ( Canada) L im ited PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA to Tama Author’s Note I want to express my special gratitude for the help I re­ ceived in writing this book: To Ahmed Tofiq, who was at the beginning of it, who or­ ganized my expedition to Kurdistan, and was my guide as far as Mullah Mustafa Barzani’s headquarters; To Apo Jomart, who was my interpreter and companion, and gave me my first insight into Kurdish history; To Father Thomas Bois, the remarkable Dominican Father who has devoted a lifetime to the study of Kurds, and who supplied me with a wealth of materials on the history of the Kurds and their folklore, and who read large parts of the manuscript. I have made extensive use of his works, includ­ ing Les Kurdes, Histoire, Sociologie, Litterature, Folklore; To Shawkat Akrawi, one of Mullah Mustafa’s representa­ tives in the negotiations with the Iraqi government in Baghdad, who later became one of his representatives abroad, and who provided valuable assistance in compiling the political parts of the book; and To Jelal Talabani, who combines the qualities of fighting leader and diplomatic representative of the Kurdish cause, and who gave me valuable guidance. Particular valuable reference works have been, on the ancient history of the Kurds, Kurds and Kurdistan, by Arshak Safrastian, London, The Harvill Press, Ltd., 1948; and the classic work of C. J. Edmonds, Kurds, Turks and Arabs, London, Oxford University Press, 1957; and William Eagle- ton, Jr.’s The Kurdish Republic of 1946, London, Oxford University Press, 1963, which lighted up a little known epi­ sode in the history of the Kurds. Foreword hile the Medes and the Persians are familiar in the Western world, there are few who connect the Medes Wwith the fighting that has been going on in northern Iraq in recent years. Yet the Medes are the ancestors of the Kurds who beginning in 1961 were pitted in battle against the Bagh­ dad government and more than held their own. The leader of the Kurds is Mustafa Barzani, whom I know as a friend. The history of the Kurds, which Dana Adams Schmidt unfolds in this volume, is history I have heard from the lips of Barzani. I have heard it also from Kurds in north­ ern Iran and eastern Turkey and from furtive Kurdish visitors to my office, who arrive in this country as persecuted refugees. The details of this pre-1961 history vary, narrator by nar­ rator. But the essentials, as I have heard them, are accurately stated by Schmidt. Barzani in the 1940's was adjudged an in­ terloper by the Iraqi government, guilty of something close to treason because he served as mediator between two quarrel­ ing Kurdish tribes. Iraqi intelligence in those days saw con­ spiratorial implications in mediation; and Barzani left the country for Iran — with thirty-five thousand men, women, and children, according to Schmidt, with fifty thousand as Barzani told me. In Iran he joined the Mehabad government, which had been carved out of northern Iran from territory the Russians occupied during World War II. Qazi Mohamed, a mullah, was head of that government and he lies in an un- unmarked grave in the bleak cemetery at Mehabad, having been hung by the Teheran government. He is often called a Communist; but, while I did not know him, I always doubted the charge, for though he was supported by the Soviets, his program did not have the telltale signs of a Communist regime. Xii / FOREWORD Moreover, I knew some men associated with him and they were Kurdish nationalists, not Communists. One was the Secretary of War, Amir Khan Sharifi — the grand old man of Kurdistan who died in 1959. The other was his lieutenant, Barzani. When the Persian army moved north against Mehabad, Barzani retreated with his cavalry of a thousand Kurds, en­ gaging in skirmishes. He returned to northern Iraq and was invited back to Baghdad. But he declined, he told me, for fear of being hung; and he probably acted wisely, for some of his associates who returned were hung. Barzani asked instead to go to Russia — his only real choice because he had no other, Iran and Turkey not being friendly to him. The Rus­ sians at first turned him down, revealing a schizophrenic at­ titude toward the Kurds that appears over and again in their history. Then they changed their mind. Barzani told me he took one thousand Kurds with him into Russia, but the number may have been the more modest one given by Mr. Schmidt. He stayed in Russia about twelve years, being well treated as a refugee. While many Kurds who went to Russia with Barzani married Russian women, Bar­ zani, whose wife and children were in Iraq, did not. When Kassem took over Baghdad in 1958, Barzani re­ turned to Iraq; and it was there I came to know him. On our first meeting I said: “I understand you are a Communist.” He was instantly on his feet, shouting, “Show me your proof! Show me your proof!” “You were guest of the Russians for a dozen years,” I teas- ingly replied. “To save my neck,” he retorted; and then, sensing that I was not wholly serious, he relaxed. This rude beginning was the start of a warm friendship, and I discovered in Barzani the smouldering coals of national­ ism and independence familiar to every American who re­ members 1776. After listening for a whole afternoon to the accumulated grievances of the Kurds that came gushing from Barzani, I FOREWORD / Xiii saw Kassem and brought up with him the question of this troublesome minority that today is scattered in Turkey, Rus­ sia, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. I was in no sense a go-between. I was only concerned with the Kurds as people. I had seen so much of them in the Middle East that I felt I was on an un­ derstanding basis with them. My respect for the Kurds had started with my acquaintance with the porters in Beirut, most of whom are Kurds. They carry incredible loads on their backs, as they do in Tabriz. In Damascus I came to know about Saladin, the Kurdish leader of the Arab armies who retook Jerusalem from us Christians. When we took Jerusalem, we beheaded thousands merely because they were “infidels.” When Saladin captured it he proved, I thought, to be more Christian than the Chris­ tians, for he beheaded no one. And so Saladin became a hero and his tomb a place of pilgrimage. In Turkey I learned that it was a crime to speak the Kurdish language or to publish anything in the Kurdish alphabet; and I found the Kurds pretty well segregated and confined in the eastern area. In Iran a few Kurds reached positions of eminence in govern­ ment. But in northern Iran the Kurds were so suspect they seldom could get a government job, no matter how lowly. I had heard of similar discriminations against Kurds in Iraq and asked Kassem about it. He replied, supporting the Kurdish cause. He told me that when he came to power the law lay heavier on the Kurd than on the Arab. “If a Kurd and an Arab robbed a bank,” he said, “the Kurd was hung and the Arab was sent to jail.” Kassem, I learned, was correct; for the laws promulgated by the Brit­ ish, when they held Iraq under a mandate from the League of Nations, often discriminated against tribal people, whom every ruler found to be troublesome.

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