The Evening Star (April 19, 1946)
Lawrence: Iran news lid endangering peace
Writer asks Security Council what it will do about it
By David Lawrence
Iran, which has needed the help of world opinion to keep Russia from grabbing her resources, now suddenly clamps a censorship on all news dispatches sent from that country. Theoretically Iran no longer needs the help of world opinion.
This is incredible. And, of course, nobody in the State Department which made public the facts about the censorship believes for one moment that this step was taken by Iran of her own free will.
Here is a situation which is far more dangerous to world peace than the Spanish problem or even the question of keeping Russian troops on the soil of Iran. For if a nation can be blacked out by the dominating influence of a neighboring government, the United Nations might as well confess failure.
The whole theory behind the Charter adopted in San Francisco is that an appeal can and should be made to the conscience of countries which are inclined to choose the path of aggression. Russia has exhibited tendencies toward aggression, though the polite word to use nowadays is “expansion.”
Menacing coercion
Up to now the question before the United Nations Security Council was whether Iran was being coerced into an agreement on oil concessions as the price of withdrawing Russian troops. Now, however, a greater and much more menacing form of coercion has appeared – the imposition, probably at the behest of Russia, of a censorship such as Moscow often imposes.
The principle of censorship is well understood in wartime but it has absolutely no justification in time of peace. The very fact that Iran had to impose the censorship indicates that the Russians are afraid to let the truth come out about what is happening. Fear of the truth about the misbehavior of major powers in their relations with other countries is the usual reason for censorship in peacetime.
The United Nations has proclaimed its interest in “freedom of information.” This was one of the “four freedoms” extolled by the late President Roosevelt and inscribed on many a banner that was unfurled during the war to encourage American boys to give their lives for that cause.
What will the United Nations Security Council do about it? Should it not ask the government of Iran for an explanation and ask for testimony from newspapers in Iran? Should not the representatives of the press and government of Iran be brought before the Council in an inquiry as to what were the forces or influences behind this sudden use of censorship powers, especially as they relate to foreign correspondents?
Unreasonable censorship
If the Security Council is authorized to investigate “any situation” which could conceivably endanger the peace of the world, then what has just occurred in Iran is pertinent. The form of censorship imposed is one of the most unreasonable ever devised. Correspondents are not even permitted to see what is deleted or to learn whether their dispatches have been suppressed. The American Embassy at Teheran cabled to the State Department the facts and indicated the seriousness of the development.
The American delegate to the United Nations Conference has the right to ask that the subject be put on the agenda of the Security Council for further investigation. Once a small country subject to foreign influences loses its autonomy, the United Nations has the right to inquire whether the nation back of the move has an aggressive purpose. The forcing of a censorship on a weak neighbor is an incipient form of aggression.
The United Nations Charter was designed to nip aggression in the bud before it could flourish. If the League of Nations could have sensed the dangers in Hitler’s totalitarianism as early as 1934 and 1935 and if the powers had acted in concert then, there might never have been an opportunity for the Nazis to gather the raw materials they needed to build their armament and World War II might have been prevented. The United Nations has before it the pattern of totalitarianism which led to aggression before. The abolition of the four freedoms can be readily regarded as the beginning of trouble in any area of the world.