The Foreign Service Journal, May 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2022 53 A crowd is more than a group of individuals. It can take on a life of its own and do what no individual intends to do. charges that his friendship with Turks had endangered the lives of Greeks and Armenians. He was also accused of calling Louise Bryant, the widow of John Reed and pregnant fiancée of William Bullitt, a Bolshevik. After clearing Imbrie of the charges, Dulles, by this time chief of the Near Eastern Affairs Division at State, assigned him to the consulate at Tabriz, again to spy on Soviet Russia and to facilitate the American oil concession for northern Iran that Tehran had offered as collateral for an American loan. Dulles knew he was gambling, writing on Sept. 19, 1923, that “in sending a man of Imbrie’s impetuous disposition to far away countries we are taking a certain risk. ... The only question is whether the advantages ... justify this risk. I am rather inclined to think they would.” In Iran, Imbrie was temporarily assigned to the Tehran consulate. Why did Imbrie go to the saqqa-khaneh? He had recently intervened with the Iranian government on behalf of American Baha’is, Dr. Susan Moody and her nurse Elizabeth Stewart, so his curiosity was understandable. He was also a freelance writer and photographer. In retrospect, his investigation appears to have been insufficiently cautious, perhaps because of his ignorance of the domestic political situation on that day of public prayer, shortly before the onset of Muharram, a time of public mourn- ing for the martyrdom of ImamHussein and of ritual cursing of foreign enemies: Sunnis, Arabs, Turks and—more recently— Western imperialists. The U.S. Reaction to Imbrie’s Death As I reconsider this episode in U.S.-Iranian relations, what strikes me most sharply is the ignorant arrogance of American reaction. The press, whose information came primarily from U.S. government sources, regarded the murder as the result of religious fanaticism. Or perhaps it was “a Bolshevik mob,” as a Chicago Tribune report from Istanbul put it, alleging that Imbrie had been on a “Bol- shevik death list for six years.” The prejudice, racism and violence of the American gov- ernment response to the murder were appalling. The U.S. demanded justice, but official documents suggest “justice” was a euphemism for “revenge.” Reza’s army held a court-martial for supposed rioters. The U.S. believed the process was a sham, and Chargé d’Affaires Wallace Murray protested strongly to the Iranian foreign minister. Murray wrote, “The Persian is venal. His promises and lip service can be bought for a song.” Eventually the court delivered 20 guilty verdicts and death sentences for three teenage scapegoats. One, 19-year-old Cos- sack Private Morteza, was executed for disobeying orders, not for murder. Death sentences for 14-year-old camel-driver Ali Rashti and 17-year-old “mullah” Sayyid Husain were commuted to life imprisonment. On learning of the commutations, Dulles exploded in anger to the Iranian chargé. The Iranian government reinstated the death sentences. American Chargé Murray refused pleas for mercy, and the executions were carried out in the pres- ence of a U.S. representative, chief legation translator Allahyar Saleh. Saleh, who had been educated by American Presbyterian missionaries, went on to become Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh’s ambassador to the United States in the early 1950s and, afterward, leader of National Front opposition to the shah’s dictatorship. An unsigned NEA memorandum, which I believe to have been written by Dulles, presented the old cliché, “human life as such is not greatly valued by Orientals,” as justification for seeking blood. Dulles later testi- fied to Congress, “When you are dealing with a government like Persia ... if you ask them to execute a Moslem for the death of a Christian ... if they do it, you accom- plish more for the pres- tige of your country than if they paid a million.” The U.S. also insisted Iran pay compensation. A headline captures the news of Robert W. Imbrie the day after his death, on July 19, 1924. RENOGAZETTE-JOURNAL