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the volume and nature of Persia’s arms purchases in the next two years, it
would hardly seem that the colonel exercised much of a restraining influence at
the Persian court. He was replaced in September 1975 by an official representa­
tive appointed by Schlesinger to act as an ‘honest broker’ in arms transactions.
A few months later it emerged that the late unofficial appointee, the retired
colonel, was being employed as an adviser on arms procurement by General

Toufanian.
What the Department of Defence was increasingly prepared to admit - for
all its enthusiastic promotion of arms sales between 1972 and 1975 - but
which the State Department seemingly preferred to obscure, was that the

Persian arms programme held serious political and strategic implications for
the United States in the Middle East. Persia had become the biggest single
purchaser of American arms, military equipment and services in the world,
outside the United States herself. The American security assistance opera­
tion in Persia was by far the largest in any country: in 1976 it involved over
2,000 military advisers and specialists. Several thousand more Americans were
working on military contracts for American companies. Whereas all sales of
weapons to another country carry with them an obligation to maintain the
supply of spare parts, ammunition or whatever is required to keep the weapons
operational, it was the sheer size and complexity of the American arms pro­
gramme in Persia which marked it out from other transactions of this nature.
So deeply committed had the United States become in Persia that it seemed
doubtful whether she would be able to disengage from her role as armourer to
the shah for years to come.
It was equally doubtful whether she would be able to dissociate herself from
whatever purpose to which he might choose to put these arms in the future.
There was general agreement among qualified military observers up to the time
of the shah’s fall that the Persian armed forces were incapable of mounting a
major military operation without the assistance of American technical
specialists, whether military or civilian, or without American logistics support.
A similar disability applied with respect to the armour and missile systems

supplied by Britain. If, in the event of the Persian armed forces becoming
involved in hostilities, the United States had refused to permit her military and
technical specialists to support the Persians in the field, or to fulfil her own
contractual obligations for the supply of arms, not only would Perso-American
relations have been seriously damaged but the relations of the United States
with other countries with whom she had entered into arms contracts would
have been adversely affected. There was also the possibility that the American
technicians and advisers in Persia might have been held hostage to ensure the
fulfilment by their government of its contractual obligations. If, despite these
hazards, the United States had decided to register her disapproval of any action
taken by the Persian government by shutting off military supplies and thereby
immobilizing the Persian armed forces, the shah would have found himself in a