Throughout 1946 demobilization in the United States went forward apace under the same strong pressures of public demand that voted in the November election for liquidation of other wartime inconveniences. Speaking in Boston in June, I voiced disquiet at the trend:
"The slogans 'Bring the boys home!' and 'Don't be Santa Claus!' are not among our more gifted or thoughtful contributions to the creation of a free and tranquil world. This seems to me true for the simplest of all reasons, which is that the sensible way to strengthen a structure is not to weaken its most essential parts."
The year 1946 was for the most part a year of learning that minds in the Kremlin worked very much as George F. Kennan had predicted they would. We reacted vigorously to the grosser forms of Communist probing, such as the downing of our planes in Venezia Giulia, but we were slower to see through the murkier methods by which Moscow was extending its control, always under the shadow of the Red Army. Henry Wallace had many followers in his doctrine that the Soviet Union was entitled to its spheres of influence. The Russians themselves greatly helped our education. In picking the Straits and Iran as points of pressure, they followed the route of invasion by barbarians against classical Greece and Rome and later of the czars to warm water. From Thermopylae to the Crimea the responses to pressure at these points had been traditional.' If some Americans found their history rusty, neither the British nor the President did.
The Iranian crisis of 1945-46 revolved about two issues: whether the Soviet Union would withdraw its troops from northern Iran as it had agreed to do in 1942 and 1943, and whether it would succeed in creating out of the northern Iranian province of Azerbaijan an autonomous entity subject to Soviet control. In 1942 the Soviet Union and Great Britain had put troops into northern and southern Iran, respectively, to block a possible German move and to protect Iranian oil. Troops were to be withdrawn six months after the end of hostilities. In the Teheran Declaration of December 2, 1943, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin had reaffirmed Iranian independence and integrity. In September 1945 Bevin and Molotov set the date of troop withdrawal as not later than March 2, 1946.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Government had been arming a separatist movement (the Tudeh Party) in Azerbaijan, and when it staged a revolt against the Shah in November 1945 refused to allow his troops access to the province to suppress it. The crisis was on, with the United States and Britain supporting Iran. It continued throughout the year in the Council of Foreign Ministers and the United Nations, where Gromyko walked out when the Security Council accepted jurisdiction. Bilateral discussions were carried on amid mutual suspicion. The date for troop withdrawal passed without action. In the spring tension increased through reports of reinforcement of Soviet forces in Azerbaijan. We addressed a public inquiry to Moscow.
At this point, on March 24, Teheran and Moscow reached an agreement that seemed dubious. Russian troops would be withdrawn, while Iran would agree to a joint oil company and to arrangements which seemed to permit consolidation of the autonomous Azerbaijan regime. However, in the Near East things are not always what they seem. Russian troops withdrew in April, but the Majlis (Iranian parliament) repudiated the joint oil company. Tension grew again as the Tudeh Party demanded an election under its control. In October I had a series of visits from the Iranian Ambassador, Hussein Ala, as Mr. Byrnes was still away. The Ambassador, a good man, wanted the United States to take the initiative in reopening the Iranian case in the Security Council and in having it supervise elections in Azerbaijan. I said to him—with the President's and Secretary's approval—and asked our Ambassador to tell Qavam, the Prime Minister, that we could not act for but only in support of the Iranian Government. It must take the initiatives. Furthermore, it seemed a mistake to hold elections until Iranian authority was established in the province. Then United Nations observation could be useful. A little later, similarly authorized, we sent a favorable response to Qavam's request for our strong support should the Soviet Union object to Iranian troops entering Azerbaijan. When the troops arrived they were wildly welcomed, and the separatist regime collapsed. The troop movement, begun as a tentative feeler, ended in the reacquisition of the whole province.
With the crisis over, Ambassador George Allen cabled on December 17, 1946, that in the Iranian view the quick collapse of the Tudeh Party was due to the conviction of everyone—the Russians, the Iranians, and the Azerbaijanis—that the United States was not bluffing but solidly supporting Iranian sovereignty; as he put it, "Iran is no stronger than the UN and the UN, in the last analysis, is no stronger than the US."