Memories of World War II and beyond...
My Private Fight with British Petroleum

Above, a "Benzene Persian" birthday present from my father, still going strong half a century later...
But it caused a row at the Iranian Embassy in Ankara.

Long ago, during World War II, when my father was Iran's ambassador to Turkey, I must have been ten years old, we had two White Russian servants. One of them  by the name of George Pafnoutieff was a former high-ranking general of the Czar of all Russia's. The other one, Moysine, was just his lieutenant and still strictly obeyed his orders. A true muscular Cossack he gave us lessons of gymnastics every morning. George was a gentle and tall aristocratic man who spent his free time painting. He was totally devoted to his red ginger cat named "Poushok" and told me amazing stories of his past with the Czar and the time he was fighting Bolsheviks. My father allowed him to keep his cherished pet in the residence. He explained to me that Poushok was his only joy in exile.

What is exile? I asked my father. Exile is when you can never go back home. It is the worst thing that can happen to a man and I would rather die instead. Poushok the cat, helps George bear his sad burden. The words of my father are still echoing in my mind. Exile at the time was for me a very abstract matter, something that only happens to others but never to you. That is to say until the Shah of Iran landed at the command of his private shiny Boeing jet "Shahbaz" in Marrakech, never to return home. I was then the ambassador of Iran to Morocco.

The cat was everywhere, even at diplomatic functions. I enjoyed Poushok very much. The receptions at the embassy were held from 5 to 6pm for the Allied  camp and from 6 to 7pm for the Axis powers. Often, the diplomats of one camp lingered around longer ,just to have a glance at their enemies and perhaps glean some information. Once I saw the Ambassador of England speaking to Franz Von Papen of Germany. They went to a private salon and closed the doors.My father explained to me that they went to school together and were good friends before the war. But that did not stop the German Embassy in Ankara  from spiriting the secrets of the British ambassador. They discovered the very date of the Allied landing in Normandy and did it through Cicero, the valet-de-chambre of the British envoy, Sir Knatchbull Hugheson, or something like that. Cicero was paid in bogus Sterling pounds but unfortunately for the Germans, Berlin anyhow, never fully believed the veracity of the documents. Ambassador Von Papen was later absolved at the Nuremberg tribunal which sent a multitude of Nazis to the gallows. The "old boys" network did its duty and he was set free.

Above, my great pride

Anyway, Iran was still neutral and on my birthday, my father gave me a superb German "Märklin" electric train with lots of rails and wagons. Beside the shiny long black locomotive with a Persian flag and Orient Express passengers cars, there were also some yellow oil-tanker wagons with the markings BP. What does it mean I asked my father? It means "Benzine Persane", or "Persian OIL, It is our oil."  I was very proud. My sisters and I had close friends which regularly attended the gymnastic lessons of Moysin at our embassy. They were Pierre Lardy the son of the Swiss ambassador, pretty Regine de Monicault of France, Roberto and Mimi de Ouro Preto of Brazil, Evine Saracoglu the daughter of the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs and the two sons of the British military attaché. Following Moysin's exercises, I asked them to come and admire my new electric train. Unexpectedly, Pierre Lardy had brought with him a little boy. He was I recall, Bundy Von Stockhausen a nephew of German Ambassador Von Papen who had come from Munich on vacation. He was the son of a prominent general. We proceeded to play with the train when suddenly Bundy who had arrived with many little plastic Messershmitt fighter planes adorned with Swastika markings, proceeded to bomb the train. Why are you doing this? I asked furiously. I am bombing these "British Petroleum" wagons he replied derailing the train. British Petroleum? I was astounded. Up to that moment, I believed they were "Benzine Persane" wagons. That's what my father had told me.

I became further shocked when one of the sons of the British military attaché quite composedly explained that , yes it was true, and that he was now going to take revenge by shooting down and breaking all of Bundy's fighter-planes for destroying English property. Damn British property! For me it was the end of a nationalist dream. Fortunately, attentive George who was bringing sandwiches stopped in time this extension of World War II at the Iranian embassy and we all made peace. Penitent Bundy gave me  a few of his Stukas and Messerschmitts which I still have in Tehran and we continued to play peacefully. Later in life, these children attained prominent positions, their once warring nations are now prosperous, allied, and at peace. I rejoice for all of them.

When I conveyed my utter confusion about BP to my father, he told me not to worry for Reza Shah had canceled the oil concession of the British a few years ago. "I was there," he said, "at the League of Nations in Geneva, defending our cause". There is a great war going on now but the case is not closed, we are going to prevail and our oil is ours and it is Benzine Persane, it will always be so". Subsequently, I found out that the words of my father were absolutely correct. Outraged by diminishing oil revenues Reza Shah, the fiery modernizer nationalist King of Iran had a few years back in a fit of anger canceled outright the British oil concession sending an electric shock throughout the world.

In the early fifties, when I was a student in America, Mossadegh came to the United States to defend Iran's case against the British  at the United Nations. He was accompanied by round-faced and jovial Issa Sepahbody, an acclaimed Tehran University professor who was also a dear cousin of my father and an ardent nationalist. At left is a unique picture of Mossadegh shaking hands with the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Above, stands a serious-looking Issa Sepahbody, they called him little Jesus because of his name. Issa meaning Jesus in Persian. There were few Iranian students in the United States at the time. We were mostly royalists and altogether united in the sacred cause of oil nationalization. Gholam Mossadegh, the son of Dr. Mossadegh and a Qajar relative of my father brought me a wristwatch, a gift from my mother and took me to visit his father who was ill at a New York hospital. Mossadegh was sitting in a bed, yet seemed loaded with energy. He offered me his photograph which he signed to my name. He urged me to spread out our good cause in universities and everywhere that could be possible. I did just that with great enthusiasm and became in high demand. Americans were curious, especially in academic circles. To me and many other young Iranian students, the Shah and Mossadegh seemed to make a great pair. How wrong we were. Still, I wonder how things would be today, had they truly worked together, hand in hand. Too bad.

My first invitation was came from Sarah Lawrence, a college for young girls. There, I delivered an impassioned talk in the middle of a flock of eager young maidens sitting in a circle by a brightly lit fireplace in an exquisite mansion. Listen I said, "how would like Churchill to come here, in these United States, grab a concession  in Texas by duress, give you peanuts instead of your due share and say: hey you natives of our ex-colony the Texan oil belongs to England!" They all applauded and I still recall a young beauty whose father was the US ambassador to Afghanistan. She became one of the most fiery defender of our cause and we kept exchanging letters for a long time. Sweet bird of youth, dreams of the flower children of yore. Greedy big business and oil cartels however, in their relentless quest for oil, riches and power entertained quite different thoughts. Crazy Mossy as the American press called him had to go. He had unleashed violent political forces he could no longer control. Later on, in the summer of 1953 and while returning to Iran with Angela, my America wife to be, we read a laconic dispatch from a news agency stapled on the news board of the trans-Atlantic boat: "Mossadegh overthrown!" I was quite sad... like it or not, he was a nationalist. But the Shah was back in the saddle and that augured well for a bankrupt nation. Why did it all had to end like this? Three months later Angela and I were married at the residence of Mrs. Zia Ashraf, Dr. Mossadegh's daughter. The ceremonies, interrupted for a time by two nasty Scottish Terriers, were conducted by the late Ayatollah Taleghani who later died mysteriously during the Revolution..

Read the Time (1952) on Dr. Mossadegh
The Mossadegh Foundation in Geneva
Dr. Mossadegh's letter to President Truman - June 28, 1951)
A 1952 Video on Dr. Mossadegh at the U.N.

It was only in the late fifties that I felt for good that we had finally won a great battle. The Shah had signed a novel and highly beneficial agreement with Enrico Mattei, the Italian oil tycoon. The announcement sent renewed shock waves in the political & financial world. The major international oil companies were rabid and outraged. Then came our great successes with OPEC. I was certain that the Shah had finally rubbed the Seven Sisters' nose down to the ground. But had he? In the mid-seventies I became head of the Economic Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and accompanied a delegation led by Empress Farah to Senegal. We were inaugurating a new industrial complex named "Keur Farah" for that developing nation with a chain of Iranian gasoline stations to boot. I was very proud to see the emblem of the National Iranian Oil Company with the Iranian lion spitting fire. We had finally made it and were now competing on the world scene with the Seven Sisters. A day to be proud off until someone in the entourage of the Queen said: "Look Farhad don't you find it odd? We have become like those imperialist bastards we fought against for so many years!" I did not appreciate the disquieting remark. In addition, it left me with the troublesome forewarning that we had invaded the turf of the major international oil companies and that they would make us pay dearly.

In Morocco, a highly depressed Shah told me explicitly that it was "the combined wrath and conspiracy of Americans, the British, the major oil cartels and in particular one lousy company which were at the root cause of Iran's chaos and his exile." They "doomed me" he said. Anyway if that's so, they certainly ruined my life too. Would a smart greedy lawyer help?

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