Cable Nº 35907/35893 from Tehran

CABLE

STRICTLY SECRET

Copy Nº 1 – DISTRIBUTION LIST

Nº 2 – to Stalin

Nº 3 – to Stalin

Nº 4 – to Molotov

Nº 5 – to Mikoyan

Nº 6 – to Bulganin

Nº 7 – to Vyshinsky

Nº 8 – to Dekanozov

Nº 9 – to Abakumov

Nº 10 – to Silin

Nº 11 - Copy

Nº 12 - to the 10^th Department

Nº 13 – to file

35893

Spets NºNº 1879, 1880

URGENT

Today Colonel Razin visited Chief of the General Staff Razmara at the invitation of the latter. The topic of the discussion was the question of the Iranian government’s purchase of weapons and ammunition from us. Razmara expressed the Iranian government’s agreement to get the weapons and ammunition enumerated in our list with the following changes:

[Translator’s note: the following four points have “agreed” handwritten in the left margin].

1) 82-mm mortars – they do no want to get [them] and instead of them are requesting [we] sell [them] 50-mm mortars. Thus, they want to buy not 100 50-mm mortars*, but 200. At the same time they request [we] sell [them] 200,000 shells of this caliber with a calculation of 1000 shells for each mortar.

2) Of the illuminating and signal rockets they request [we] sell [them] 5000 red, 5000 yellow, and 29,000 white [ones].

3) Instead of SU-76 self-propelled guns they request we sell [them] closed armored cars for operations in mountains.

4) [handwritten: 10 ½ T[[ons]]for DP manual machine guns they are requesting [we] sell [them] 10,000,000 rounds, that is, 10,000 rounds for each machine gun.

[Translator’s note: the following two points have “continued” handwritten in the left margin].

5) General Razmara additionally requests [we] sell [them] 100 two-seat motorcycles.

6) The medium tanks should be no more than 10 tons in weight.

Razmara is interested in the prices for these weaponry and the calculation procedure. Colonel Razin replied in accordance with your instructions.

In reply to the question regarding the procedure for receiving the weapons from the Soviet Union Razmara replied that he will form a commission of competent officers who will go to the [Soviet] Union to receive the weapons in any city at the direction of the Soviet government. He desires that these officers become familiar with the equipment for two or three weeks on site and then transfer them to the port of Pahlavi on our ships; the aircraft can be sent to Tehran on their own power.

[Translator’s note: the first sentence of the following paragraph was highlighted in the left margin]. Please report about the possibility of granting the requests of General Razmara presented above, and also inform [me] when instructions will be given to the trade representative regarding the prices for the weapons and equipment.

23 October 1946 SADCHIKOV

13 copies rn

Sent at 0730 24 October

Done by Chalov

*refurbished

Authenticated [by] [illegible name]

[handwritten at the end: [?Allocate?] 10 million, also check with Bulg[anin], whether there are about 7-8 million old shells (in reserve units). N 11037]