The British Mission in Iran in the 1970s

Ali, Luman

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-94406-7_3

Luman Ali⁴

Part of the book series: Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World ((SCCCW))

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Abstract

Ali details the experiences of the mission in Iran in the 1970s as a means of contextualising what exactly Britain’s position was in Iran at the start of 1978. Ali explores such issues as the size of the mission, the background of the ambassadors (Sir Denis Wright, Sir Peter Ramsbotham, and Sir Anthony Parsons) posted there in the 1970s and the work the embassy engaged in which caused ‘momentum syndrome’. Ali explores the machinery of British diplomacy and a detailed analysis is presented of Britain’s trading and political relationship with Iran and the Shah which flourished in spite of some differences surrounding the OPEC crisis and Iranian human rights abuses.

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Notes

1.
Parsons, Sir Anthony, Churchill Archive Centre, Cambridge, British Diplomatic Oral History Project (BDOHP), 14–18.
2.
Berridge, Geoff, Diplomacy: Theory and Practice (5th ed.) (Basingstoke and New York, 2015), 99.
3.
CAB 129/202, CP(78)72 (7 July 1978).
4.
Edwards, Ruth Dudley, True Brits: Inside the Foreign Office (London, 1994), 21.
5.
Berridge, Diplomacy, 10. See also Moorhouse, Geoffrey, The Diplomats: The Foreign Office Today (London, 1977), 390.
6.
Edwards, True Brits, 24.
7.
Young, John W., Twentieth Century Diplomacy: A Case Study of British Practice, 1963–1976 (Cambridge, 2008), 72.
8.
Moorhouse, The Diplomats, 43.
9.
Berridge, Diplomacy, 120.
10.
Ibid., 121.
11.
Hopkins, Michael F., et al. (eds.), The Washington Embassy: British Ambassadors to the United States 1939–1977 (Basingstoke, 2009).
12.
Pastor-Castro, Rogelia and Young, John (eds.), The Paris Embassy: British Ambassadors and Anglo-French Relations, 1944–79 (Basingstoke, 2013).
13.
Young, John, David Bruce and Diplomatic Practice: An American Ambassador in London, 1961–69 (London, 2014).
14.
Young, John and Berridge, Geoff, ‘Conclusion’, in Hopkins, Michael F., et al. (eds.), The Washington Embassy, 230–231.
15.
Ibid., 229.
16.
Folly, Martin, ‘Lord Inverchapel 1946–1948’, in Hopkins, Michael F., et al. (eds.), The Washington Embassy, 52.
17.
Colman, Jonathan, ‘Patrick Dean 1965–1969’, in Hopkins, Michael F., et al. (eds.), The Washington Embassy, 150.
18.
Ellison, James, ‘Pierson Dixon 1960–65’, in Pastor-Castro, and Young (eds.), The Paris Embassy, 91.
19.
See the wider essay on Christopher Soames’ tenure as ambassador to Paris by Furby and Ludlow in the edited collection by Pastor-Castro and Young.
20.
Hopkins, Michael F., et al., ‘Introduction’, in Hopkins, Michael F., et al. (eds.), The Washington Embassy, 3.
21.
Young, Twentieth Century Diplomacy, 26.
22.
Moorhouse, The Diplomats, 242.
23.
The British Council, founded in 1934, specialises in international educational and cultural promotion of the UK. See Donaldson, Frances, British Council: First Fifty Years (London, 1984).
24.
Hennessy, Peter, Whitehall (London, 2001), 269.
25.
Ibid., 269.
26.
Ibid., 272.
27.
Young, Twentieth Century Diplomacy, 40–49.
28.
Trevelyan, Humphrey, Diplomatic Channels (London, 1973), 15.
29.
Moorhouse, The Diplomats, 300.
30.
Young, Twentieth Century Diplomacy, 55.
31.
Ibid., 15.
32.
Wright—BDOHP, 33. The exact reasons for Wright’s antipathy towards Harrison are unknown but Harrison was caught in a KGB honey-trap in 1968, ending his tenure as ambassador to Moscow.
33.
Ibid., 33.
34.
Ibid., 32.
35.
Trevelyan, Diplomatic Channels, 24.
36.
Brenchley, Frank, Britain and the Middle East: An Economic History 1945–87 (London, 1989), 175.
37.
Ibid., 179.
38.
Dickie, John, Inside the Foreign Office (London, 1992), 45.
39.
Trevelyan, Diplomatic Channels, 103.
40.
Moorhouse, The Diplomats, 297.
41.
Wright—BDOHP, 34–35.
42.
Ibid., 36.
43.
Ibid., 36.
44.
Moorhouse, The Diplomats, 262.
45.
Young and Berridge, ‘Conclusion’, in Hopkins, Michael, et al. (eds.), The Washington Embassy, 231.
46.
Ullman, Richard, Anglo-Soviet Relations, 1917–1921. Vol. 1, Intervention and the War (Princeton, 1961), 8.
47.
Wright—BDOHP, 36.
48.
Ibid., 34–35.
49.
Ibid., 34–35.
50.
See Roy, Raj, ‘Peter Ramsbotham, 1974–77’, in Hopkins, Michael F., et al. (eds.), The Washington Embassy, 209–228.
51.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/sir-peter-ramsbotham-diplomat-who-served-as-ambassador-to-washington-before-being-controversially-replaced-by-peter-jay-1949390.html. Accessed 7 April 2015.
52.
Ramsbotham—BDOHP, 36.
53.
Moorhouse, Diplomats, 295.
54.
Ramsbotham—BDOHP, 36–38.
55.
McLachlan, K. S., ‘Economic Development, 1921–1979’, in Avery, et al. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Iran. Volume 7 (Cambridge, 1991), 619.
56.
Ramsbotham—BDOHP, 37.
57.
Parsons—BDOHP, 14–18.
58.
Brenchley, Britain and the Middle East, 254.
59.
Smith, Richard, ‘“Paying Our Way in the World”: The FCO, Export Promotion and Iran in the 1970s,’ in Fisher, John, et al. (eds.), The Foreign Office, Commerce and British Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century (Basingstoke, 2016), 490.
60.
Dimitakis, Panagiotis, Failed Alliances of the Cold War: Britain’s Strategy and Ambitions in Asia and the Middle East (London, 2012), 160–161.
61.
Fain, W. Taylor, American Ascendance and British Retreat in the Persian Gulf Region, 191–194.
62.
Ramsbotham—BDOHP, 39.
63.
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/14/world/sir-anthony-parsons-british-diplomat-is-dead-at-73.html. Accessed 7 April 2015.
64.
Callaghan, James, Time and Change (London, 1987), 326.
65.
Parsons, Anthony, Pride and the Fall: Iran 1974–1979 (London, 1984), 4.
66.
Ibid., 10.
67.
Ibid., 15.
68.
Ibid., 18.
69.
The National Archives (TNA), Kew, FCO8/2980, Annual Review for 1976 (1 January 1977).
70.
Moorhouse, The Diplomats, 297.
71.
Parsons, Pride and the Fall, 24.
72.
Ibid., 40.
73.
Ibid., 37.
74.
Ibid., 40.
75.
Edwards, True Brits, 200.
76.
Brenchley, Britain and the Middle East, 254 and 259.
77.
Graham, Robert, Iran: The Illusion of Power (London, 1978), 112–113.
78.
Ibid., 299.
79.
Edwards, True Brits, 199.
80.
Smith, Richard, ‘“Paying Our Way in the World”: The FCO, Export Promotion and Iran in the 1970s,’ in Fisher, et al. (eds.), The Foreign Office, Commerce and British Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century, 496.
81.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Great Britain, The Diplomatic Service List (1978).
82.
HC596-1, BT241/2844.
83.
Moorhouse, The Diplomats, 297.
84.
Ibid., 296.
85.
Saikal, Amin, The Rise and Fall of the Shah (Princeton, NJ, 1980), 159.
86.
Parsons, Pride and the Fall, 39.
87.
Taheri, Amir, Nest of Spies: America’s Journey to Disaster in Iran (London, 1988), 99.
88.
Bill, James A., The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven, CT, 1988), 396.
89.
Ibid., 395.
90.
Taheri, Nest of Spies, 102.
91.
Sullivan, William, Mission to Iran (New York, 1981), 40.
92.
Taheri, Nest of Spies, 78.
93.
Moorhouse, The Diplomats, 79.
94.
Ibid., 48.
95.
Parsons, Pride and the Fall, 53.
96.
Callaghan, Time and Change, 390.
97.
Parsons, Pride and the Fall, 53.
98.
Ibid., 58.
99.
Ibid., 46.
100.
FCO8/2980, ‘Is The Emperor Fully Clothed?’ (12 April 1977).
101.
TNA, CAB128/61, CM(77)20th (19 May 1977).
102.
Hunter, Shireen T., Iran and the World: Continuity in a Revolutionary Decade (Bloomington, 1990), 145.
103.
Sir Alan Munro, BDOHP (16 May 1996), 8–9.

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Luman Ali

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Ali, L. (2018). The British Mission in Iran in the 1970s. In: British Diplomacy and the Iranian Revolution, 1978-1981. Security, Conflict and Cooperation in the Contemporary World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94406-7_3

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94406-7_3
Published: 20 July 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94405-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94406-7
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