You will find many Iranians write about our first "democratically" elected Prime Minister, called Mossadegh. I just came across an article in the link below. But a bit of a background first.
Most left wing commentators, will put the Shah as a horrid dictator, and Mossadegh as the "Robin Hood" of Iran. Not quite.
My father was in the oil industry of Iran, and he found the largest oil well in the world. My grand father was a judge and a historian.
My grandad wrote, that on the eve of Mossadegh's election, hardly anyone turned up to vote, because of snow. Only his 50 or so members turned up, and that is why he got elected. So not exactly democracy is it? But it went to his head.
Anyway, there is another story which is very funny.
One day, dad's mum says to him to go to Mossadegh. Something has happened, and he needs his advice, as he was knowledgeable in oil.
Mossadegh sent his driver over and dad was taken to him. Mossadegh asks dad, what is his advice, now that Iran is in this awful situation.
Dad said to him quite candidly, as we were family, that Iranians like him, might be able to find and produce the oil, but we do not have any logistical or distribution to end users of our oil. Moreover, we have lost market share, no thanks to the international crisis you have created. Mossadegh said, that he was pro British and he was biased.
My dad was well known for not pulling any punches, especially as an Oil Wildcatter. But on this occasion he remained polite. Very rare. We Mostofi's are not known for tact. So he made his point very clear in general terms and put Mossadegh in his place. Mossadegh said fine and sent him home.
Dad returned and went to his room. Later at lunch, his mum asked him how the meeting went with Mossadegh and dad rolled his eyes. She asked again and dad apologised and went to his room.
Bewildered by it all, she picked up the phone, and called Mossadegh, in the familial way.
"Mossadegh!"
"Yes, Maryam Khanoom"
"I have just tried speaking to Bagher joon, and he won't answer me. You know he knows more about oil than you. He's just had his degree in United Kingdom and won the highest prize. How dare you not listen to him?"
She gave him a right telling off. He then said I'm sorry and I will send the driver around again.
The next day dad went to the Ministry again.
Mossadegh said, "Bagher joon, I apologise for being too stern with you. Please explain in more detail."
Dad said something like this, much of which still applies to this day:
"We Iranians do not have tankers to take the oil. We do not have refineries abroad. We do not have petrol stations anywhere outside Iran. Most countries have taxes put on petrol which we cannot control. Moreover, any rise in the price of oil, will bring on the more expensive oil wells in the world, and reduce Iran's oil market share."
Mossadegh understood, agreed and he said:
"I now understand. I can go all over the world, speaking to the highest people in the world, but I just cannot go through all that again with your mum. I am afraid to answer back. I will do what you said."
We know that Mossadegh agreed on oil matters, and later was removed for his ignorance, and closeness to Communists. That is another story altogether. Nevertheless, Iran's economy was in dire straits because of his political ambitions. The oil problem was solved with new contracts. But it took engineers to sort out the oil industry of Iran, not politicians.
And now after all these years, we have another set of politicians, with no clear mandate, pretending to be democratic, making decisions on oil and other matters, putting Iran in economic difficulties, and in harms way, which could only help those who benefit from high oil prices.
Finding the largest oil well in the world was a huge story. At Christmas or Knowrooz as children we would ask dad about it. He told us how he had to deal with idiotic bureaucrats again.
Dad was a classic old time geologist. He criss-crossed all the mountains and valleys of Iran. His team drew the first geological map of Iran. Later he used seismic surveys in the North of Iran of all places to find Alborz Number 5.
Some say that was one of the reasons why Iran didn't get partitioned between Russia and Britain. At the United Nations, the British had made the case, that no Iranian could find oil, and they owned it in the South of Iran, since 1906.
But dad managed to find oil in the North, where the Russians were quite prominent. So British and the Russians could not agree and Iran remains as it is.
Story has it, they struck oil just outside Qom. The power of the oil gusher was so much that the fumes had gone to many kilometres away. It was approaching a railway track not so far away and dad knew that the train from Tabriz was about to approach.
Dad goes to the military commander of the area and tells him that he needs an army of soldiers to help him to stop the train. The dumb military commander could not understand what dad was saying. Time was running out and dad was getting desperate.
The train from Tabriz was approaching and dad had to make sure that it didn't get too close. The gas was spreading everywhere and the air was was quite dense. The train's wheels were giving off many sparks.
So dad just picked up the military commander's phone and asked to speak to the Shah of Iran immediately.
The Shah said:
"Yes Bagher joon, chi shodeh (what's happened)?"
Dad explained and immediately the Shah asked to be put through to the commander. He said to him to take direct orders from Mr Mostofi from now on.
The commander then took orders. Dad finally got an army of men, to go up the tracks, waving flags and making lots of noise in the fog, trying to stop the train, before it approached the dense gas zone. Luckily it all went to plan and many lives were saved.
As you can see from the picture below it was quite an amazing well.
My dad eventually went to create the Petrochemical Industry under the Shah's orders, even though he wanted to retire. They wanted to add more value to the oil. Then came Khomeini and his even bigger mouth, which drove oil prices even higher, as the war with Iraq began. Petrochemical factories got bombed by Saddam but dad had them preserved just after the first raid on them.
The story goes, that he was in London for surgery, when the Japanese firm Mitsui sent him an urgent message just before he went into comma:
"What are we to do with the Bandar Shahpour complex?"
Dad told me that he was almost half asleep when the urgent message got to his hospital bed, and he mentioned:
"Mothball"
The Chairman of Mitsui and others were all completely confused. Finally they opened the Oxford Dictionary and looked up the word Mothball, realised what their instructions were, and the circumstances that my dad was forced to be very brief. That one word, was enough to save Iran from losing its biggest non-oil income earner to date, because they put the factory in lock down.
To date, all of us remember these stories of dad and miss him dearly in this life, wherever he may be now. Here he is with the famous Red Adair who was called in to shut down the world's biggest oil well in August 1956.
Most left wing commentators, will put the Shah as a horrid dictator, and Mossadegh as the "Robin Hood" of Iran. Not quite.
My father was in the oil industry of Iran, and he found the largest oil well in the world. My grand father was a judge and a historian.
My grandad wrote, that on the eve of Mossadegh's election, hardly anyone turned up to vote, because of snow. Only his 50 or so members turned up, and that is why he got elected. So not exactly democracy is it? But it went to his head.
Anyway, there is another story which is very funny.
One day, dad's mum says to him to go to Mossadegh. Something has happened, and he needs his advice, as he was knowledgeable in oil.
Mossadegh sent his driver over and dad was taken to him. Mossadegh asks dad, what is his advice, now that Iran is in this awful situation.
Dad said to him quite candidly, as we were family, that Iranians like him, might be able to find and produce the oil, but we do not have any logistical or distribution to end users of our oil. Moreover, we have lost market share, no thanks to the international crisis you have created. Mossadegh said, that he was pro British and he was biased.
My dad was well known for not pulling any punches, especially as an Oil Wildcatter. But on this occasion he remained polite. Very rare. We Mostofi's are not known for tact. So he made his point very clear in general terms and put Mossadegh in his place. Mossadegh said fine and sent him home.
Dad returned and went to his room. Later at lunch, his mum asked him how the meeting went with Mossadegh and dad rolled his eyes. She asked again and dad apologised and went to his room.
Bewildered by it all, she picked up the phone, and called Mossadegh, in the familial way.
"Mossadegh!"
"Yes, Maryam Khanoom"
"I have just tried speaking to Bagher joon, and he won't answer me. You know he knows more about oil than you. He's just had his degree in United Kingdom and won the highest prize. How dare you not listen to him?"
She gave him a right telling off. He then said I'm sorry and I will send the driver around again.
The next day dad went to the Ministry again.
Mossadegh said, "Bagher joon, I apologise for being too stern with you. Please explain in more detail."
Dad said something like this, much of which still applies to this day:
"We Iranians do not have tankers to take the oil. We do not have refineries abroad. We do not have petrol stations anywhere outside Iran. Most countries have taxes put on petrol which we cannot control. Moreover, any rise in the price of oil, will bring on the more expensive oil wells in the world, and reduce Iran's oil market share."
Mossadegh understood, agreed and he said:
"I now understand. I can go all over the world, speaking to the highest people in the world, but I just cannot go through all that again with your mum. I am afraid to answer back. I will do what you said."
We know that Mossadegh agreed on oil matters, and later was removed for his ignorance, and closeness to Communists. That is another story altogether. Nevertheless, Iran's economy was in dire straits because of his political ambitions. The oil problem was solved with new contracts. But it took engineers to sort out the oil industry of Iran, not politicians.
And now after all these years, we have another set of politicians, with no clear mandate, pretending to be democratic, making decisions on oil and other matters, putting Iran in economic difficulties, and in harms way, which could only help those who benefit from high oil prices.
Finding the largest oil well in the world was a huge story. At Christmas or Knowrooz as children we would ask dad about it. He told us how he had to deal with idiotic bureaucrats again.
Dad was a classic old time geologist. He criss-crossed all the mountains and valleys of Iran. His team drew the first geological map of Iran. Later he used seismic surveys in the North of Iran of all places to find Alborz Number 5.
Some say that was one of the reasons why Iran didn't get partitioned between Russia and Britain. At the United Nations, the British had made the case, that no Iranian could find oil, and they owned it in the South of Iran, since 1906.
But dad managed to find oil in the North, where the Russians were quite prominent. So British and the Russians could not agree and Iran remains as it is.
Story has it, they struck oil just outside Qom. The power of the oil gusher was so much that the fumes had gone to many kilometres away. It was approaching a railway track not so far away and dad knew that the train from Tabriz was about to approach.
Dad goes to the military commander of the area and tells him that he needs an army of soldiers to help him to stop the train. The dumb military commander could not understand what dad was saying. Time was running out and dad was getting desperate.
The train from Tabriz was approaching and dad had to make sure that it didn't get too close. The gas was spreading everywhere and the air was was quite dense. The train's wheels were giving off many sparks.
So dad just picked up the military commander's phone and asked to speak to the Shah of Iran immediately.
The Shah said:
"Yes Bagher joon, chi shodeh (what's happened)?"
Dad explained and immediately the Shah asked to be put through to the commander. He said to him to take direct orders from Mr Mostofi from now on.
The commander then took orders. Dad finally got an army of men, to go up the tracks, waving flags and making lots of noise in the fog, trying to stop the train, before it approached the dense gas zone. Luckily it all went to plan and many lives were saved.
As you can see from the picture below it was quite an amazing well.
My dad eventually went to create the Petrochemical Industry under the Shah's orders, even though he wanted to retire. They wanted to add more value to the oil. Then came Khomeini and his even bigger mouth, which drove oil prices even higher, as the war with Iraq began. Petrochemical factories got bombed by Saddam but dad had them preserved just after the first raid on them.
The story goes, that he was in London for surgery, when the Japanese firm Mitsui sent him an urgent message just before he went into comma:
"What are we to do with the Bandar Shahpour complex?"
Dad told me that he was almost half asleep when the urgent message got to his hospital bed, and he mentioned:
"Mothball"
The Chairman of Mitsui and others were all completely confused. Finally they opened the Oxford Dictionary and looked up the word Mothball, realised what their instructions were, and the circumstances that my dad was forced to be very brief. That one word, was enough to save Iran from losing its biggest non-oil income earner to date, because they put the factory in lock down.
To date, all of us remember these stories of dad and miss him dearly in this life, wherever he may be now. Here he is with the famous Red Adair who was called in to shut down the world's biggest oil well in August 1956.
Bagher Mostofi, Myron Kinley, Alborz Number 5, Aug 1956, World biggest Oil Well,
as confirmed by the Guiness Book of World Records
