MIDDLE EAST: Clumsy Broker

Horsetrader David Harum never had such troubles. All Uncle Sam wanted to do last week was to be the honest broker between immovable Great Britain on one side and immovable Iran and Egypt on the other. It was late in the day, but nobody could say the U.S. didn't try—at least in its usual tentative way.

In Teheran, the U.S.-dominated World Bank offered to put up the money to reopen Iran's oilfields and refineries. Iran simply had to agree to a three-way profit splits—with equal shares for the bank, Iran, and for the oil purchasers (principally the dispossessed Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.). But Premier Mohammed Mossadegh wants no deals involving Anglo-Iranian; he gave the bank little welcome.

Uncle Sam tried another scheme to save Mossadegh from himself. Washington offered Iran $24 million in U.S. Point Four aid, plus another (estimated) $50 million for guns, planes and tanks. In return, Mossadegh had to agree, by the terms of the Mutual Security Act, that Iran would contribute to the "defensive strength of the free world." Again Mossy balked; after some frenzied haggling the U.S. emerged with a limp victory. It won a letter from Mossadegh reaffirming Iran's adherence to the U.N. charter; on that basis he would get the $24 million. Negotiations over the military aid continued.

Uncle Sam did even worse over Egypt. The State Department clumsily proposed to Great Britain that she surrender the Sudan to Egypt in return for Egypt's joining the West's Middle East Defense Command (TIME, Oct. 22). Britain bristled: such an idea, replied Whitehall, had "absolutely no likelihood" of being accepted "whatever the pressure." Uncle Sam, all thumbs, gave up, said weakly: "It was only one of many ideas for the solution of this problem . . ."

And still there was no peace in Egypt. The extremist weekly, Al Gomhour, offered £1,000 Egyptian ($2,880) to anyone who would kill Lieut. General Sir George Erskine, British canal zone commander, and another £100 ($288) to anyone who killed any British officer. In reply, Sir Brian Robertson, British Middle East commander, back from talks with Churchill, declared: "We shall go on month after month, for many months if need be. We shall meet force with force . . . We shall [not] be turned back from our policy by the passage of time or murderous episodes."