Progress of Iran No. 40: the Shah opens the Atoms for Peace exhibition

A Farsi wall newspaper, "Progress of Iran" No. 40, filed with the U.S. Information Agency's posters (catalog date June 1957). Six photographs show the Atoms for Peace exhibition at Tehran University: cancer treatment with radiocobalt, the Shah at the "magic hands," crowds in a queue, and a Voice of America schedule (NAID 6948860).

What the sheet prints

A horizontal page laid out like a newspaper. The masthead reads "Progress of Iran," with a line saying it appears every two weeks. Six photographs with Persian captions cover one event, the Atoms for Peace exhibition at Tehran University, and a boxed notice gives Voice of America broadcast times.

On Wednesday 15 Esfand 1335 His Imperial Majesty the Shahanshah opened the Atoms for Peace exhibition at the Faculty of Science. In his opening speech the Shahanshah said: the aim of this exhibition and of the agreement between Iran and America is the development of science and knowledge, the encouragement and promotion of the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes and the betterment of human life.

[…]

The first benefit Iran has had from the agreement between Iran and America is the Atoms for Peace exhibition at Tehran University […]. Soon Iran will have machines of its own, which will be tested and experimented with as the second benefit of that agreement.

[…]

Listen to the Voice of America at these hours […]

The other captions, in the same translation, say that atomic energy "works wonders" in treating cancer, that thousands of Tehran residents visited, that scientists handle radioactive material behind thick glass with mechanical "magic hands" while the Shah looks on, that the crowds were so large the organizers lined people up in a long queue, and that a plastic protective suit was among the exhibits.

Who issued it

The National Archives files the sheet with the U.S. Information Agency's posters for Asia, Latin America and the Middle East (Record Group 306), catalog date 11 June 1957. Its masthead, "Progress of Iran," is a Persian title, and no American office is named on the page; the Voice of America box is the one sign of a U.S. sender. FRAME classes the source as blurred. A later issue in the same series, No. 50, reports the exhibition being given to Tehran University by the American government.

How to read it

FRAME tags it glittering generalities and transfer. The generalities are "peace" and "the betterment of human life." The transfer runs through the monarch: the exhibition is shown through the Shah's visit, his words, and his attention to the exhibits, so the program borrows the throne's authority, and the throne borrows the program's modernity.

That second borrowing is the part a reader who cares about self-government should notice. A foreign government's information service printed a newspaper for Iranians, under an Iranian title, that presented their king opening an American program and promising that Iran would soon have "machines of its own." Nothing on the sheet is shown to be false. But a reader could not tell from the masthead that a foreign agency was the publisher, and the people whose science policy was being announced were addressed as an audience, not asked.

For the same campaign elsewhere, see the Beirut exhibition poster, which named its American sponsor, and the civil defense and atomic age hub.