Flirting with Neutrality: The Failed Bid for a Soviet-Iranian Non-aggression Treaty in 1959

On 12 February 1959, the front page of The New York Times reported the sensational news that the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, had made an abortive attempt to secretly negotiate a non-aggression treaty with the Soviet Union. A Soviet delegation had arrived in Tehran for talks with Mohammad Reza Shah on 29 January, but had left Iran empty handed on 11 February. At a time when the Soviet Union was confronting Britain and the United States over a brewing crisis in Berlin, it appeared as if the Shah was flirting with the idea of abandoning his Cold War allies in the West. By aligning Iran with the United States in the global Cold War, the Shah had turned to Washington to defend Iran’s long border with the Soviet Union, stretching from the Caucasus to Central Asia. The Truman administration had helped to push the Red Army out of northern Iran in 1946, while the Eisenhower administration had worked with the British to topple Prime Minister Mohammad Musaddiq in 1953 and restore the Shah to power. By the late 1950s, Iran had evolved into a fully-fledged U.S. client state in the global Cold War. What, then, was a Soviet diplomatic mission doing in Tehran in February 1959?
We still do not know what the Shah hoped to gain from these negotiations, why they were conducted in such secrecy, or why they ultimately failed. This article, relying on American, British and Iranian sources, suggests that the Shah was driven by a profound sense of insecurity to explore a Soviet offer of a non-aggression treaty. Deeply dissatisfied with the levels of American military and economic aid to Iran, and sceptical of Washington’s commitment to the security of his regime, the Shah pursued a pragmatic détente with the Soviet Union. This episode marked the Shah’s first tentative step towards a more independent posture in the global Cold War. Contrary to popular perceptions of the Shah as a mere instrument of American power, this article suggests that the Shah chafed under American patronage and that his vision for Iran’s place in the world, rooted in Iran’s glorious past, went far beyond the limits imposed by Iran’s geographical position on the southern border of the Soviet Union.