"The recent Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran is likely, in more ways than one, to prove the greatest stroke of good fortune that has befallen that historic land since the turn of the century. Dwarfing everything else into insignificance is the essential fact that the Allied move was directly responsible for the abdication of Roza Shah Pahlevi, Shah-in-Shah, dictator, despot. Only those who have lived' for some time in Iran and seen the effects on country and population alike of the tyrannical regime of the ex-Shah can appreciate to the full how great a yoke has lifted with his passing. Pahlevi has recently been described in.a report as being "six feet eight inches tall. powerfully "built, white haired and physically dominating his entourage." His hair is certainly white, but for the rest,: the description has either been criminal offence for an Iranian old costumes of the country; lettering was allowed to be qd where in Iran; names of streets, the British-owned Bank of Iran marked in Iranian characters. were only allowed to leave the were sent outside by the Government permission of the Government.
Even with the ex-Shah, however, it was not all bad. There is no that some ways he has done the country a great amount of good. Undoubtedly one best things he did was the of the bandits, who, until as late as 1936, terrorized long stretches of the road from Teheran to Meshed. In 1935 Mrs, Harte, wife of the British Vice-Consul at Meshed, was shot in the arm when her car was ambushed some distance from the holy city and the Consular party was robbed of clothing and jewellery. Such a protest was forthcoming after this incident that Pahlevi went about his bandit-hunting with a vengeance and his blue-clad Road Guards eventually managed to purge the countryside of the menace. Mohammed Roza Pahievi, the pre-seas.
At crees was a movement to give the The has cived a lot of attention. job to Lowell Mellett, chief of the Office of Gayda Tells The Truth Following the principle that when a dog bites a man it is not news, but when a man bites have added another maxim to the many whi a dog itis news, the journalistic fraternity adorn the profession, namely, that when an Axis propagandist tells a lie it is not news, but when he tells the truth, it is news. As @ consequence of this maxim, there has been somewhat of a dearth of news from the Axis capitals during the last few months, unless it has been by, accident that some truth or other has been allowed to get out. There is thus some real interest in the most recent statement by Signor Virginia Gayda, Mussolini's hack, quoted by the Free French News Agency today. In the "Giornale d'Italia" he candidly admitted the failure of the German "collaboration" policy in France. He added: "Anti-German hatred remains unshakeable in the heart of every Frenchman. To beat Germany remains the foremost preoccupation of the people of France. Their hooes are pegged to Britain and to the Free French movement. The movement General de Gaulle appeals tremendously to the whole nation, which refuses to recognize defeat." And in another place he said: "AIL the speeches and statements made by Marshal Petain did not succeed in shaking people's belief that General de, Gaulle alone is safeguarding France's honour." Special attention is called to these statements: by di avowed enemy of France because they paint the true picture of the feel-has the real The official job assigned to Colonel Donovan is of first importance in itself. There is real ork of assembling and ington. tion Management, for example, who are s to blueprint a amine to defeat Hitler, only rumours of the informa Army and ary from their official and private fee of excellent infor 4 elementary, while oni; too, have law, or State Dei 'An earlier attempt to solve ce-ordinating all available ini: passing it around to those who broke down because it was entrusted io. a soldier. Brig. Gen. Sherman Miles, Chief of Army Intelligence, was' supposed to do it. But being the custodian -of the most secret Army information and being interested primarily in the Army, it soon. developed that the benefited by what General quarters, but no one else did. real job for Colonel Donovan in But the man who goes in and out of the new an office at the State t most frequently is Archibald MacLeish, and writer. The first shorts d polt throw clang who jock juggernaut and; call their" action France. The French have shown that they mot want to be "saved" that way. All France has been shocked by the brutality in shooting hostages or every attack made upon a German soldier in the occupied area. it is probable that the pathetic appeal by Marshal Petain to the people of France not to attack the Germans, but to assist in finding the guilty parties—pathetic because it came from an old man who is striving desperately to cling to the shreds of a once fine reputation—proved an even greater shock than anything the Nazis have directly done. Are loyal Frenchmen to be asked to betray patriots who are fighting, though underground, for the deliverance of their Gaulle, in the belief that he alone is safeguard-country? No wonder they turn to General de ing France's honour! When the Germans Were sweeping across the fair face of the country, blackening it by the slaughter of thousands of innocents who crowded the roads and by making pyres out of farmhouses, ardent patriots appealed to the Government to call the whole people to arms, to fight to the last. They were outvoted by those who declared that modern warfare is a war of weapons, forgetting that moral is as strong a weapon as has ever been forged. The Russian peasants have proved that one need not be a professional soldier in order to defend one's country. The Soviet leaders did not counsel them to submit because a rifle match for a tank, but urged them to do everything in their power to battle the Nazis. The result has been the delaying of the German war machine and the destruction of Hitler's plans for quick conquest and big booty. France is now realising the worth of her sel ted leaders, and there is still the possibility that the uprising which might have saved the day in June 1940 may still take place, with the Nazis overwhelmed by a torrent they cannot stem—the rage of a great people who were cozened for a period into forgetting their birthright, but who have remembered it in time.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.