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Show GRASSROOTS Russia Lurks in Background of Iran Oil Dispute Iran to protect English interests, which England would probably do if any effort is made to operate the mammouth plant. The President and Secretary Acheson have a real problem to solve, a problem in which we all have an interest because of the danger of Iranian oil falling into the hands of Russia and being used against us, should that threatened war materialize. But England can be assured of the very best our British-born secretary sec-retary of state can render his native na-tive country. ! By Wright A. Patterson IN AN EFFORT to settle the difficulty diffi-culty between the Iran government govern-ment and the Iran-Anglo Oil Company, Com-pany, an English corporation, 54 per cent of the stock of which is owned by the English government, the government of Iran has asked President Truman to act in the capacity capa-city of mediator. He accepted, but it means that the job will be performed by our British born and British sympathizing secretary of state, Dean Acheson. Small chance to get an unpredjudiced effort to get a settlement on its merits. And what is the heated argument all about? A number of years ago, a group of English capitalists, including the English government, organized the Iran-Anglo Oil Company for the purpose of producing the tremendous tremen-dous amount of oil in the Iran field. After making an agreement with the Iran government, the English company invested more than a billion bil-lion dollars for a plant that would take the oil from the ground, refine it and market it. Under the terms of the agreement with Iran, the English company was to pay the government of Iran 20 cents a barrel on all of the oil secured. se-cured. That agreement was satisfactory until un-til American oil companies entered the Arabian fields and arranged to extract the oil of those Arabian countries coun-tries and pay to the governments of those near East nations one half of the profits derived from their operations. opera-tions. Iran demanded a new deal, with a division of the profits on the oil tajken from Iran wells. The English Eng-lish company refused to make a new arrangement, but did advance to 26 cents a barrel paid to the Iran government. gov-ernment. The present controversy is over a renewed demand of Iran for a new agreement on a profit-division basis. When that was refused, Iran seized and nationalized the oil fields and the plants of the English company, com-pany, but because of a lack of trained technicians, Iran cannot operate op-erate the enormous plant, and the English government will not permit its citizens to work for Iran, and is taking all of them out of the country. coun-try. The only other available source of supply of technicians is Russia. With Russians in charge of that mammouth oil plant, Russia would get the product. For Russia that represents one of the vital essentials for waging war against the free nations. na-tions. Without an assured supply sup-ply of oil, she could not long operate op-erate either her planes or her transport. For the Iranian oil to fall into Russian hands would be a serious blow for the nations of the Atlantic Pact, including especially the United Unit-ed States and England. The Iran government has announced an-nounced that all the force that is available will be used to prevent England from sending a force into : |