Nobody outside of Iran—except, of course, the Communists—will disagree with the statement that Mohammed Mossadegh must be tried for high treason. The trial has begun and the world generally will follow it with interest.

For here is a man who sought to seize authority in a critical moment, in a critical area, and, in order to get it, compromised with the Reds. [Did he now?] He assumed an authority which he had not earned, destroyed historical foundations of the state and acted as any tyrant would act. Secure, as he believed, with the help of powerful forces in Russia and with a combination of minorities in Persia, he ignored all the processes of an emerging democracy in creating his own dictatorship. [garbage]

From the standpoint of those who have risen from monarchy and tyranny in their various forms to representative government by, of and for the people, anyone who would seek to turn back the clock is guilty of heinous crime. That is the natural position of any American. But the East is the East and the West cannot always understand its modes of thought. All we in the New World can do is to watch the trial and hope, whatever the result, that it will end all efforts to swing Iran out of the orbit of progress and back into the orbit of Oriental despotism, dovetailed in these days inevitably with the horrors of a Russian control.