IOR/L/PS/12/4596

This file contains correspondence on British propaganda in Persia [Iran]. The correspondence is primarily between the following: the Secretary of State for India; the External Affairs Department of the Government of India; the British Ambassador to Persia; the Foreign Office; and Henry Duncan Graves Law, Persian Specialist at the Middle East Division of the Ministry of Information. The file concerns the period between 2 October 1940 and 18 October 1945 and contains/covers the following:

• The statements detailing the publicity material despatched by the Publications Division, Information and Broadcasting Department, Delhi to Persia from February to September 1945, including the names, languages, destinations overland and by sea, and number of copies dispatched for each publication (ff 5-10 and ff 12-14)
• The statements detailing the publicity material dispatched by the Publications Division, Information and Broadcasting Department, Delhi to Persia from January to December 1944, including the names, languages, destinations overland and by sea, and number of copies dispatched for each publication (ff 20-22, ff 30-31, ff 35-36, ff 42-43, f 49, ff 53-54 and f 58)
• The statements detailing the publicity material dispatched by the Publicity Office (Foreign), Information and Broadcasting Department, Government of India to Persia from January to December 1943, including the names, languages, destinations overland and by sea, and number of copies dispatched for each publication (ff 62-63, f 67, ff 83-84, and f 88)
• An ‘Addendum to the Appreciation of the Situation in Persia’ by the Overseas Committee of the Ministry of Information (ff 99-100), the ‘Second Revision of the Ministry’s Policy Plan for Persia’ (ff 101-103), and ‘Area Themes Common to Middle Eastern Countries’ (ff 105-107)
• The report provided by the British Ambassador to Persia, Sir Reader William Bullard, to the Foreign Office on the ‘serious deterioration of Anglo-Persian relations and on the growing discredit of the British in Persia vis-a-vis the Russians’ with several suggestions
• The American plan of propaganda for Persia, titled a ‘Basic Directive for Iran’, and produced by the Overseas Branch of the United States Office of War Information (ff 114-116)
• The Ministry of Information’s ‘Revised Plan of Propaganda for Persia’, including papers on the ‘Policy Plan’ for Persia (ff 136-137), the ‘Appreciation of Current Situation’ (ff 138-139), and ‘Channels’ for Persia (ff 140-144), with appendices on the ‘Organisation of the Public Relations Bureau – Tehran’ (f 145) and ‘Propaganda Activities in the Provinces’ (f 146)
• The material sent by the Middle East Section of the Ministry of Information to Tehran (in Persian) from May 1942 to January 1943 (f 149, f 155, f 159, f 161, f 163, f 165, f 181, and f 186)
• The possibility of jamming Axis radio broadcasts from British stations in India and Palestine, or Soviet-controlled stations in the southern USSR and northern Persia
• The request from the Government of India, External Affairs Department to the Secretary of State for India to receive ‘regularly details of items of printed propaganda in Persian undertaken by HMG’, and the discontinuation of the distribution of Arabic material in India
• The Ministry of Information’s ‘Plan of Propaganda for Persia’, including papers on the ‘Appreciation’ of the situation (ff 203-205) and the ‘Plan Proper’ (ff 206-208)
• The effectiveness of Axis propaganda and the subsequent growth of anti-British feeling in Persia, the need to counter Axis propaganda through BBC Persian broadcasts, and a ‘vigorous propaganda campaign’ to be led by the British Legation in Tehran
• The methods outlined by the Minister of Information, Brendan Rendall Bracken to Walter Turner Monckton for British propaganda in Persia, and the general aims of that propaganda as being ‘(1) to ensure that Persia is a pro-British buffer between India and Russia should the Drang Nach Osten [German drive to the East] be checked short of Persia. (2) To ensure that Persia is a pro-British battlefield should the Drang Nach Osten reach Persia’
• The propaganda campaign by the Government of India, conducted in conjunction with BBC Radio Delhi, against the ‘ex-Shah’ of Persia [Reza Shah Pahlavi], and the necessity of pre-empting criticism that his overthrow was to advance British imperial objectives
• The perceived necessity for the removal of the Shah, in order to avoid any association of his ‘misdeeds’ with Britain, and despite the difficulty of the question of succession
• The statement of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Anthony Eden on the propaganda policy of the His Majesty’s Government, and the six stages of the propaganda campaign carried out from India against Persia in accordance with Eden’s statement (f 365)
• The report by George Frederick Rearden, Managing Director of British Distributors (India) Ltd on the ‘Film Business in the Middle East’, with sections on Egypt, Iraq, Persia, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey, with enclosures providing the details of all the names, proprietors, seating capacity and equipment for every cinema in those countries (ff 380-400)
• The report put together by Rearden at the instigation of the Press Attaché of the British Legation at Tehran, Anne Katharine Swynford Lambton, on the possibility of improving the existing conditions relating to British film propaganda in Persia (ff 403-410)
• The visit by Rearden to Afghanistan as representative of British Cinema Films Distributors and member of the Film Advisory Board to ‘explore the possibilities of [the] British film business’ and counter German propaganda by showing British film and newsreels, and Rearden’s subsequent offer to visit Persia, where German propaganda films have had great success.