FOIAWEAR — MOSADDEQ / The Shah the Estimate Wrote Off Tee

FOIAWEAR / ARCHIVE SERIES 069

MOSADDEQ — on 30 January 1952 the Board of National Estimates circulated NIE-46, “Probable Developments in Iran in 1952 in the Absence of an Oil Settlement.” Iran had nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company the previous year. The estimate is a forecast written at the moment the crisis was still open, and it is worth reading for one sentence in particular.

The paper's first conclusion is a judgement about staying power, and it is confident: “The probability of Mossadeq or another National Front leader continuing as Prime Minister at least for the present appears strong. His parliamentary position and that of the National Front will probably be further strengthened as a result of the current elections.” It is the second sentence of that conclusion that has aged strangely: “It is unlikely that the Shah will influence events in the immediate future.”

It then works the economics, and is sceptical in a way that reads as careful rather than naive: “It is unlikely that Iran can sell financially significant amounts of oil to non-Soviet orbit countries without the acquiescence of AIOC, or will obtain significant oil revenues from sales to the Soviet orbit countries.” The National Front's survival, it says, “will depend primarily on the government's success in solving financial problems resulting from the nationalization of oil.”

There is also a portrait of a prime minister being difficult on purpose: “Although Mossadeq will probably continue to seek US aid to enable him to meet his budgetary deficit — which would make it easier for him to stand firm on his own terms for an oil settlement and would temporarily strengthen his political position — it is increasingly clear that he opposes the development of closer military and political ties with the West.”

Eighteen months later the Shah was restored. The estimate is filed under the period spelling — Mossadeq — and is printed here as written.

The artwork is Abadan as a technical plate: distillation columns, a flare stack, a lattice derrick, a great hand-wheel valve on its pipe, drums, and a coastal tanker alongside the jetty — separate objects on bare ground. No faces are depicted.

The QR code on the front opens the source: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp79r01012a001400010012-1 — the released NIE-46 and its Board of National Estimates transmittal. Every quotation above is from it.

Garment: Comfort Colors 1717, 6.1 oz garment-dyed cotton, S–4XL. Front print only; plain back. Artwork approximately 6.9 × 4.6 in, QR approximately 1.8 × 1.8 in.

Colours: the drawing is warm cream and amber on Black, Graphite, Espresso and Navy, and the same plate struck as a dark ink drawing on White, Ivory, Butter, Chalky Mint, Blossom, Light Green and Chambray.

Care: machine wash cold, inside out, tumble dry low. Do not iron the print directly.

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