Millspaugh Transportation Improvement in Iran (1943-1945)

Because of the economic problems caused by the World War II, the government of Iran hired Dr. Arthur Millspaugh as the head of Finance Organization on November 12th, 1942, to carry out the economical reforms. One of the problems Millspaugh encountered to perform his duties, was the issue of transportation, particularly the shortage of cars and suitable tires. Intensive supervision of private and public cars, the establishment of the supplier institution, reorganization of the cargo handling organization, was among his efforts to resolve the problems. However, none of the reforms was effective. The present article used the documents of the National Archives, the documents of the Documentation Center, the diplomatic history of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ettelaat newspaper (1942-1945), and parliamentary negotiations to address the issue under investigation. It implemented analytical –descriptive approach to investigate the problems of transportation at that time and Millspaugh’s efforts to solve them. Our main question is why Millspaugh failed to fix the country's transport problems? Our hypothesis is that Allied military needs to transportation, left Millspaugh reforms ineffective.