May 15, 1951 — The Cleveland Plain Dealer
| Arash Norouzi The Mossadegh Project | February 10, 2025 |
Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh’s name has long been a source of confusion. When he became Prime Minister in 1951, the Associated Press didn’t help matters when they somehow added an “F.” to his name.
There’s no telling what caused this blunder — it may have been a ham-handed typewriter keystroke or some such mishap. The stray “F.” initial appeared mainly in AP’s April and May wire articles, spread widely,
and was then dropped without explanation.
Remnants lingered for years, however. The phantom “F.” showed up occasionally in reports even into the time of the 1953 coup (the example shown here was published in The Lebanon Daily News on April 18, 1952).
Let the record show that, in addition to the foolishness described, The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper in Ohio built an entire editorial around this F-ing typo.
F Is for Fainting
Arabic names are generally pretty hard nuts for westerners to crack their jaws on. The moniker of the new premier of Iran isn’t too bad however: F. Mohammed Mossadegh.
His surname is pronounceable, and everyone is familiar with the prophet of Islam after whom he is also named. But what has puzzled us until now is what the “F.” stood for. Now we know: “F.” is for fainting.
[F is for fake news!]
Human kindness would prompt us ordinarily to feel sorry for the harrassed premier who fell over in a faint in the Majlis after reporting that his life had been threatened. But two considerations dam the well-spring of such a virtue.
Mossadegh is the head of the National Front, the
super chauvinistic Persian party which wants to boot out all foreigners and which did lead the drive to
nationalize the oil industry. These are the
people whose fanatical program led to the
assassination of the late Premier Ali Razmara. Those who live by the pistol, perish by the pistol.
Maybe Mossadegh was frightened when his own methods were threatened against him, but we doubt it. Mossadegh is an expert fainter. It’s an old political trick of his to engender sympathy. He has been known throughout his career as a man
of great histrionic abilities. It is easy for him to break into tears in the middle of his political harangues. On many previous occasions he has fainted dead away to impress the crowds.
It could be, of course, that this time he meant it. What certainly isn’t feigned is his dislike of foreigners. This is surprising because he has studied at European universities in Paris, Liege and Neuchatel.
[France and Switzerland, but not Belgium]
No one is certain of the old boy’s age. It has been guessed at 75. [He was 68] Whatever it may be, he is old enough to know that the course he is pursuing in extreme nationalism will lead to disaster
for his country and probably something more than a fainting spell for him. It turns out that this super nationalist, this “friend of the poor” who comes from the upper strata of Persian society is just another demagog, but an
entertaining one.
Related links:
Manchester Guardian Changes Spelling: Mossadeq to Musaddiq (July 1951)
‘Mossadegh’ Is Hard To Misspell | San Francisco Chronicle (1952 Letters)
World Crisis in Iran’s Oil | Janesville Daily Gazette, May 1951
MOSSADEGH t-shirts — “If I sit silently, I have sinned”
