IOR/L/PS/12/3406

Confidential political diaries submitted on a fortnightly basis throughout 1931, on a monthly basis from May 1932, returning to a fortnightly basis in September 1939, by the British Consul General at Khorassan [Khorāsān] (Lieutenant-Colonel Cyril Charles Johnson Barrett; Major Clive Kirkpatrick Daly; Lieutenant-Colonel Everard Huddleston Gastrell; Giles Frederick Squire). The diaries describe affairs in the Khorassan region, and are arranged under a series of headings that expand and evolve over time:

• Activities of the Persian [Iranian] Government and Persian authorities, including the programme of modernisation carried out at the orders of the Shah during the 1930s, activities of the Persian military and police.
• Events at Sistan, Kain [Ka’īn], and Birjand, and in the district of Sarhad.
• Activities of the municipal government in Khorassan, including public works and urban development programmes.
• Foreign interests and affairs in the region, including British, Russian, Afghan and Turkish affairs, and the movements of foreign visitors.
• Soviet propaganda, and British and Persian counter-propaganda measures.
• Agricultural production, food supplies and food shortages.
• Trade, commerce and smuggling.
• Security, including reports of robberies, and raids on transport routes.
• Weather reports.
• Diseases and epidemics.
• Reports of locust observations and movements.

The diaries include some reports reflecting topical events: military activity on the Persia-Turkmenistan border, and reports of Russian refugees crossing into Persia from Turkmenistan; the start of the Second World War, with a focus on the activities of German subjects in Khorassan, speculation over Russian involvement in the War, and the impact upon public opinion in Iran of German radio propaganda, describing Germany’s military successes in Europe throughout 1940.

Minute papers are enclosed with reports dated up till late 1935, which frequently contain handwritten or typed notes made by India Office staff, commenting on the contents of the report.