Jump to content
  • Sign Up
×
×
  • Create New...

A Century Ago, a Mob Brutally Attacked an American Diplomat in Persia. His Death Shaped U.S.-Iran Relations for Decades

Pelican Press

By Pelican Press,
in World News

 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Diamond Member
Pelican Press Warlord

Pelican Press 0

Posted
  • Diamond Member
Posted

This is the hidden content, please

A Century Ago, a Mob Brutally Attacked an ********* Diplomat in Persia. His ****** Shaped U.S.-Iran Relations for Decades

Francine Uenuma

History Correspondent

Despite ominous outbreaks of ********* in Tehran, the capital of Persia (now Iran), in recent weeks, ********* Vice Consul

This is the hidden content, please
approached the crowd gathered at a sacred fountain in the city on the morning of July 18, 1924. His status as a diplomat did little to shield him when a member of the throng accused him of poisoning the water source. Incensed, the mob attacked Imbrie and pursued him through the streets. Four hours later, Imbrie ***** of his injuries, becoming the first
This is the hidden content, please
officer to be assassinated abroad.

Imbrie’s ******** angered the U.S. and inadvertently fueled the rise of an autocratic Iranian ruler who benefited from his ******. The vice consul’s story also intersects with two flashpoints in Iranian-********* relations: a 1953 coup

This is the hidden content, please
and the 1979
This is the hidden content, please
. On a more personal level, Imbrie bore the grim distinction of being the victim of “the most atrocious ******** upon an official of the ******* States government in the history of this republic,” as one member of Congress
This is the hidden content, please
in 1927.

Imbrie was not only a diplomat but also a lawyer, a wartime volunteer and a spy. Born in Washington, D.C. on April 23, 1883, he was

This is the hidden content, please
by relatives upon the deaths of his parents. After graduating from Yale Law School, he worked as an attorney in between travels to Europe and a 1911 expedition to Congo, which piqued his sense of adventure.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

A 1906 photo of Imbrie

This is the hidden content, please

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Imbrie as a student at Yale

This is the hidden content, please

During World War I, Imbrie

This is the hidden content, please
as an ambulance driver in Europe, bolstered by his belief in the Allied cause. (The U.S. had not yet entered the war when he arrived in France in late 1915.) The conflict proved to be the most consequential event of Imbrie’s youth. As he later recounted in his 1918 book,
This is the hidden content, please
, he found himself alongside the likes of cowboys, mercenaries, a prospector and a football player.

“At the outbreak of the war, the restless ones of the earth flocked to France, drawn there by [the] prospect of adventure and a ******* to sit in the game,” Imbrie

This is the hidden content, please
of his comrades and, by extension, of himself. Volunteering offered an opportunity to test his mettle: Hearing the rumble of gunfire for the first time, he “wondered whether my nerve would hold when confronted with the conditions I had come to seek.”

Imbrie didn’t hesitate when next offered a stint on the

This is the hidden content, please
, which took him to Greece and Albania. His lengthy service earned him distinction.

“His curiosity, his interest in people and his adventuresomeness [are] just part of his personality,” says

This is the hidden content, please
, author of
This is the hidden content, please
, a 2020 biography of Imrie.

After leaving the French Army in April 1917, Imbrie pivoted to the diplomatic realm. He was appointed the U.S. vice consul in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and

This is the hidden content, please
shortly before the Bolsheviks rose to power
This is the hidden content, please
. It was a high-stakes first posting: In early 1918, the advance of the ******* Army prompted the relocation of the consulate’s ********* staff. But Imbrie soon returned to become the
This is the hidden content, please
in Petrograd.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Imbrie (left) and George F. Spaulding, members of the ********* Ambulance Field Service in France, in 1916

This is the hidden content, please

While in Russia, Imbrie witnessed a peasant shot ***** by a guard over a miniscule amount of food—a portent of the

This is the hidden content, please
that would soon claim millions of lives. Referencing the Bolsheviks in a 1919 telegram, the vice consul
This is the hidden content, please
, “For every reason, … economic, political, humanitarian, should this menace to the world’s peace be stamped out.”

The rise of Bolshevism—and Imbrie’s defiance of it—defined his tenure. He was tasked with gathering intelligence and assisting detained ********* citizens, a task that led to confrontations with the feared secret police. Imbrie’s work placed him in

This is the hidden content, please
that unsubstantiated rumors of
This is the hidden content, please
in his ****** persisted for years.

“I’m never looking for trouble,” Imbrie told the

This is the hidden content, please
in 1918, “but if it comes, I’ll welcome it with open arms.”

By August 1918, the Bolsheviks were arresting foreigners, making Imbrie a marked man. Norwegian diplomats helped him escape.

Imbrie never returned to Petrograd, but his next destination was about as close as he could get: In early 1919, he arrived in

This is the hidden content, please
(now part of Russia), where “his work consisted largely of securing intelligence reports on the Russian situation. … It was a thrilling life,” the New York Times reported.

The next year, Imbrie was sent to the ascendant

This is the hidden content, please
, then forming out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. Initially posted to Constantinople (now Istanbul), he met a young
This is the hidden content, please
, future head of the CIA, who
This is the hidden content, please
his posting there around the same time.

Imbrie also met

This is the hidden content, please
, a relief worker whom he married in Constantinople on December 26, 1922. The newlyweds lived in a converted boxcar in Angora (now Ankara), where they were “the center of much admiration in [local] social circles,”
This is the hidden content, please
noted.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

A meeting of Persia’s Parliament in 1906

This is the hidden content, please

The Imbries’ next move was

This is the hidden content, please
—an assignment supported by Dulles, then chief of the State Department’s Near Eastern Affairs Division. Upon the couple’s arrival in May 1924, the department asked Imbrie to delay his posting to Tabriz so he could fill in for the Tehran-based consul, who was on leave.

Persia itself was in a state of flux. In 1906, the successful

This is the hidden content, please
created a new
This is the hidden content, please
, challenging the waning vestiges of the centuries-old
This is the hidden content, please
. Clerical leaders representing the majority Shiite ******* population secured political clout under the new constitution. Caught in the middle of a longstanding rivalry between the ******* Kingdom and Russia, Persia was also transformed by the turbulence of
This is the hidden content, please
.

Imbrie’s assignment to Persia came as the U.S. was eyeing access to the country’s oil reserves, which the U.K. had dominated since the

This is the hidden content, please
in the region spouted in 1908. The U.S. was lagging behind and seeking an entry point to the lucrative industry.

Direct ********* engagement with Persian politics was limited. But

This is the hidden content, please
, an ********* financial adviser employed by the Persian government, was working to restructure the foreign country’s finances, including increasing revenue through taxes. His involvement made him, alternatively, friend and foe to an ascendant politician:
This is the hidden content, please
(then known as Reza Khan), an officer in the Russian-style Persian Cossack Brigade.

In 1921, Reza supported a coup that won him control of Persia’s armed forces; in 1923, he rose to the position of prime minister. He tried to take

This is the hidden content, please
one step further, pushing for a republic-style government in March 1924, but met with opposition, particularly from Shiite clerical leaders like Sayyid Hassan Modarres. In December 1925, Reza declared himself monarch (shah) of Persia, founding the Pahlavi dynasty just a year and a half after Imbrie was *******.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Reza Shah Pahlavi in uniform in the early 1930s

This is the hidden content, please

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Allen Dulles

This is the hidden content, please

“There was quite a bit going on in addition to all of the oil interests in the country, so political, religious, commercial—all of these factors were coming together as Imbrie entered Persia,” says Stein.

Once again, Imbrie was ready to venture into new terrain. Recounting his journey to Persia from Baghdad, the vice consul

This is the hidden content, please
dryly to his friend
This is the hidden content, please
, vice president of the National Geographic Society: “I began to feel, when I saw men wearing knives, that at last we were in a he-country. We had poor luck, not being held up or shot at, but aside from this had a very good trip.”

The term “he-man” (or, in this case, “he-country”) is one that Imbrie used often in his writing. According to Stein, it was indicative of the model of manhood he wanted to emulate. As Dulles once wrote, Imbrie was “a man of … impetuous disposition.”

Many of the Americans living in Tehran at the time were

This is the hidden content, please
who had established schools and medical facilities there. The Imbries quickly befriended a prominent member of that community,
This is the hidden content, please
, a physician who had spent nearly two decades in Tehran. Soon, Packard would attend to the mortally wounded Imbrie.

The weeks leading up to Imbrie’s ******** saw a spate of violent incidents against the

This is the hidden content, please
, a ********* religious group viewed as a heretical sect by the majority Shiite ******* population. Imbrie sensed the inflaming of religious belief for political ends, noting in a June 11, 1924, dispatch that the demonstrations were “engineered by the mullahs [******* clergy], subsidized by the government.” He added, “Mobs fired by oratory and hashish swarmed through the streets, unhindered by the police, crying against Baha’ists.”

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Imbrie (far left) poses in front of a vehicle in Tehran in 1924.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

For Reza, anger at the Baha’is was a far preferable focus for mullah-led opposition than his own tenuous grasp on political power. “The ********* in the streets which is aimed against the Baha’is is, in a sense, [Reza’s] way of yielding to the clergy,” says

This is the hidden content, please
, an emeritus historian at Boise State University who has
This is the hidden content, please
about this *******.

Reza’s stature had been eroded by his ******* bid that spring to form a republic. It was made even more precarious by a

This is the hidden content, please
over the July 3 ******** of a popular newspaper editor by two police agents.

“There was this wide hostility to the idea of a republic, and there were demonstrations against [Reza], and in early 1924, it looked very much like he had lost his grip,” says Zirinsky.

Imbrie waded directly into this tumult, defending two ********* Baha’i women, physician Susan Moody and nurse Elizabeth Stewart, after ****** crowds gathered outside of their home. By demanding government protection, Moody

This is the hidden content, please
to reporters, the diplomat had drawn the ire of the crowd. She harbored “no doubt” that Imbrie had “sacrificed his life for us.”

Around 11 a.m. on July 18, Imbrie—accompanied by Melvin Seymour, a prisoner of the U.S. consulate—

This is the hidden content, please
a fountain where, rumor had it, a Baha’i had been struck ****** for failing to pay proper homage to Shiite saints. Some reports claimed a camera carried by Imbrie set the crowd off;
This is the hidden content, please
by Packard asserted that “a Mohammedan priest suddenly cried out, pointing at Major Imbrie: ‘He has put poison in the well!’” Still other reports suggested the crowd
This is the hidden content, please
to be Baha’is themselves.

As the mob turned on Imbrie and Seymour, they hastily retreated to their carriage, making their way to the nearby

This is the hidden content, please
, which Reza then commanded. But they found no harbor there, and blows rained down on them from demonstrators and Cossack soldiers alike. The bloodied men escaped to the hospital, where Packard rushed to attend to Imbrie’s wounds, but the rioters soon breeched the building, tearing tiles from the floor of the operating room and using them to inflict grievous wounds on Imbrie’s skull. According to Packard’s
This is the hidden content, please
, Imbrie sustained more than 138 wounds, many from sharp objects. He was conscious throughout the *******.

Four horrific hours later, at 3 p.m., Imbrie succumbed to his injuries. He was 41 years old. Seymour, meanwhile, eventually recovered and returned to the U.S.

News of Imbrie’s ****** was met with shock and umbrage. While the possibility of ********* against a foreigner amid the anti-Baha’i agitation was well known, the fact that Imbrie’s status as an ********* Foreign Service officer had done nothing to save him was especially disturbing.

The U.S. threatened to withdraw its representation in Persia and issued a

This is the hidden content, please
, among them full financial compensation for the repatriation of Imbrie’s body—with full military honors—and additional compensation for his wife, Katherine, who was attacked in a car after her husband’s ******.

“The thing that struck me about the archives … was that they reflect ignorance, arrogance and a determination to get revenge” on the Persians, says Zirinsky. “And a lot of this seems to be directed by Allen Dulles,” Imbrie’s friend and boss.

Imbrie’s body arrived in Quantico, Virginia, in late September. His ******** at Washington’s storied

This is the hidden content, please
was
This is the hidden content, please
by President Calvin Coolidge, and Dulles was among his pallbearers. The words “French Army” and “Foreign Service,” highlighting the start and end of Imbrie’s career overseas, are inscribed on his headstone at Arlington National *********, where he is ******* alongside Katherine, who ***** in 1968.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Imbrie’s coffin aboard a ship in Washington’s Navy Yard

This is the hidden content, please

Initially, the Persian government

This is the hidden content, please
the deaths were an “accident” caused by Imbrie and Seymour’s “own carelessness in going to a sacred place and persisting in taking pictures.” Millspaugh, the economic adviser, similarly
This is the hidden content, please
that “a foreigner … should have realized the extreme danger with respect to any religious manifestation, of provocative action or inappropriate intrusion.”

Another friend of Imbrie, La Gorce,

This is the hidden content, please
of rebuttal under the auspices of the National Geographic Society, recalling the diplomat’s respect of religious customs and holy places. The society soon published
This is the hidden content, please
from his travels in Turkey.

Whatever role Imbrie might have played in inciting the crowd, Persian representatives moved quickly to assure ********* officials that “the culprits will receive drastic punishment after their trial,” as

This is the hidden content, please
reported. The trial would take place under
This is the hidden content, please
, freshly imposed by Reza.

The Persian prime minister could “make use of the present crisis to rid himself of clerical opposition,” the

This is the hidden content, please
predicted in an article about the decline of “Mohammedan” influence in the country. “His chance for putting through reorganization will be measurably better.”

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Reza addresses Parliament on December 6, 1925.

This is the hidden content, please

“Reorganization” was a euphemism for what came next. Reza oversaw the arrest and trial of three teenage scapegoats. Though the court sentenced all three to ******, the Persian government commuted two of these sentences to life imprisonment—a reversal that attracted the ire of Dulles and

This is the hidden content, please
in Washington. Ultimately, the Persians moved forward with the three executions, fulfilling their promise that ********* representatives could
This is the hidden content, please
to the proceedings.

The teenagers, ranging in age from 14 to 19, would pay for the mob’s actions with their lives. As Zirinsky wrote in a 1986

This is the hidden content, please
, “Despite strong evidence of high-level military involvement in the riot that led to Imbrie’s ******, the ******* States did not insist on punishment of high-ranking officers, nor did it distance itself from a prime minister who also had been implicated.”

Whether Reza effected, enabled or cunningly took advantage of Imbrie’s ****** is impossible to prove. Speaking to reporters, Packard

This is the hidden content, please
that the ****** of an ********* in Persia was a political maneuver planned as an excuse to declare martial law. “The speed with which [Reza] moves is just amazing,” says Stein, highlighting the prime minister’s fall 1924 military campaign to bring outlying regions firmly under his control. “It just seems so much was in readiness.”

The executions seemed sufficient to quell the diplomatic outrage, in part by affording Reza the opportunity to present himself to the U.S. as the only viable alternative to the “fanatical mobs,” as they were described in

This is the hidden content, please
.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Imbrie’s wife, Katherine, standing outside the ******* States Capitol

This is the hidden content, please

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Reza’s coronation in April 1926

This is the hidden content, please

“The choice is between a military dictator and chaos” under clerical leaders like Modarres, says Zirinsky.

By the end of 1925, Reza had named himself monarch. On April 25, 1926, he was crowned in a

This is the hidden content, please
, marking the culmination of his
This is the hidden content, please
to the famed
This is the hidden content, please
of Persia.

Two decades later, Reza’s rule was interrupted by the geopolitical shuffle of World War II. Known as Iran since

This is the hidden content, please
, the shah’s domain boasted oil and a vital location as a supply corridor. In the aftermath of
This is the hidden content, please
of the ******* Union, which bordered Iran at the time, the U.K. forced Reza to
This is the hidden content, please
, replacing him with his more acquiescent eldest son,
This is the hidden content, please
.

The younger shah faced his own major crisis involving foreign powers. In 1951, Iranian politician

This is the hidden content, please
, who had opposed granting Reza monarchical powers in 1925, was named prime minister. Mossadegh attempted to nationalize Iran’s lucrative oil reserves, attracting the
This is the hidden content, please
, which had retained control of the oil fields after World War II. To take down Mossadegh, the British turned
This is the hidden content, please
, then under the leadership of none other than Imbrie’s onetime friend Dulles. Fearful of the ******* Union’s growing influence in Iran, the ********* agency
This is the hidden content, please
that ousted Mossadegh from power in August 1953.

After fleeing the country during the tumult of Mossadegh’s overthrow, the shah was promptly reinstated. Over the next two decades, his

This is the hidden content, please
of dissent engendered resentment—as did the
This is the hidden content, please
of him.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

An official portrait of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

This is the hidden content, please

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Mohammed Mossadegh

This is the hidden content, please

On November 4, 1979, student supporters of the Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini

This is the hidden content, please
in Tehran, taking dozens of ********* citizens
This is the hidden content, please
. The
This is the hidden content, please
that directly preceded this ******* was a seismic event, putting Khomeini, a former student of the clerical leader Modarres, in full control of Iran and ending the Pahlavi dynasty’s nearly 54-year reign.

When it comes to risk, the line between justifiable curiosity and roguish recklessness is a thin one, as it was during Imbrie’s fatal encounter in Tehran just over a century ago. Imbrie chose to go to the outer fringes of ********* diplomatic relations, affording him a life of adventure and consequence—one that ended prematurely but influenced the trajectory of his country’s relationship with Iran. As Zirinsky says, “The events of 1924 show threads in Iranian culture and politics which had been there for a very long time, and they culminate again in the Islamic Revolution.”

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Iranian students climb over the U.S. Embassy gates in Tehran during the 1979 ******** crisis.

This is the hidden content, please

Get the latest History stories in your inbox?




This is the hidden content, please

#Century #Mob #Brutally #Attacked #********* #Diplomat #Persia #****** #Shaped #U.S.Iran #Relations #Decades

This is the hidden content, please

This is the hidden content, please

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Vote for the server

    To vote for this server you must login.

    Jim Carrey Flirting GIF

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

Important Information

Privacy Notice: We utilize cookies to optimize your browsing experience and analyze website traffic. By consenting, you acknowledge and agree to our Cookie Policy, ensuring your privacy preferences are respected.

  I accept