August 19: ON THIS DAY in 1953, Mossadegh is ousted

August 19, 2019 Brooklyn Eagle History

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ON THIS DAY IN 1918, a Brooklyn Daily Eagle editorial stated, “Fallen on the western front, Joyce Kilmer, poet, enthusiast, warrior, patriot, has met the fate he went halfway to face. The Gael’s warm blood ran in his veins, the Gael’s vivid imagination thrilled him, yet in what he wrote and what he did there was the evidence of Saxon restraint, sanity, almost coldness of purpose … Only 31 at his passing, Kilmer had lived richly, warmly, manfully. To him, maturity of thought and fancy had come early. And stirring lines of his should never move other men to do what he himself would shrink from. Seventeen days after we entered the war, he enlisted as a private in the Seventh Infantry. He leaves a wife and four children. He leaves to them a memory the nation will keep green … America has a thousand verse-writers, few poets. Joyce Kilmer was one of the few. If his lyre is silent, he has become an inspiration immensely in an age that needs it sadly.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1928, the Eagle reported, “St. Paul, Aug. 18 — An epochal event in American transportation will be observed tomorrow when for the first time regular coordinated rail and air service will be inaugurated. The fastest movement of passengers from the Pacific to the Atlantic across the nation ever in regular commercial service will be established. Seattle, Tacoma and Portland on the west, and New York and Washington on the east, will be the extremes geographically benefited by this new service which, however, will be extended to all intermediate points. The air link which is the key in the speed element of this transcontinental service will be between Minneapolis, St. Paul and Chicago. Nowhere in the country today is this rail-air service now coordinated as will be effected in this new service, according to E.E. Nelson, passenger traffic manager of the Northern Pacific Railway. A feature of the service is that an eastbound passenger from the Northwest en route to New York or Washington, for instance, will be able to save an entire business day, and a westbound passenger from New York or Washington and intermediate points will be able to spend a large part of the business day in Chicago en route without loss of time.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1943, the Eagle reported, “Somewhere in New Georgia, Solomons, Aug. 8 (Delayed) (U.P.) — The luck of the Irish — and some first-class skill — brought lanky Lt. (j.g.) John F. Kennedy, son of former Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, and ten of his torpedo-boat mates back from a brush with the Japanese and death today. A week after they had been lost and practically given up, another PT boat went through hostile waters to rescue them in response to an SOS scrawled on a cocoanut shell and carried through enemy lines by a native. Three men, including Machinist’s Mate 2nd Class Patrick H. McMahon, 39, of Los Angeles, who has a son in the navy, credited the 27-year-old Kennedy with saving their lives.”

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ON THIS DAY IN 1953, the Eagle reported, “Tehran (UP) — Iran’s emotional, weeping dictator Premier Mohammed Mossadegh toppled from power today in a bloody coup d’etat by Iranian army forces loyal to exiled Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi. Radio Tehran, which broadcast news of the coup, said Mossadegh’s firebrand Foreign Minister Hussein Fatemi was ‘cut to pieces’ by the infuriated population. The army was in control of the capital and Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi, the shah’s appointed successor to Mossadegh, broadcast an appeal to the people to remain calm and promised to ‘raise living standards’ and ‘insure social justice.’ The fate of Mossadegh himself was not disclosed. His palatial residence was burned by shouting, riotous mobs. The tight army control of the city made it unlikely he had escaped the city. The radio reports of the successful coup were considered official since the army, loyal to the shah, was in complete control. Mossadegh, together with Fatemi, had engineered the expropriation and nationalization of the billion-dollar Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. and had resisted all efforts to find a settlement of the dispute for two years, except on Mossadegh’s terms.”