1941.08.28 “Seen any crooks lately?”
by Ralph Lee (1906-1947)
14 x 22 in., ink on board
Coppola Collection
Ralph Lee was an editorial cartoonist for the Portland Oregonian. He died suddenly, at 41, in January 1947. His cousin, Art Bimrose, was the editorial cartoonist for the Oregonian for more than three decades. In 1937, the Oregonian hired him part-time to work on printing plates. Following Lee’s death, Bimrose was hired as the Sunday editorial cartoonist.
The Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, also known as the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Persia, was the joint invasion of the neutral Imperial State of Iran by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union on August 25-31,1941. The two powers announced that they would stay until six months after the end of the war with their mutual enemy.
The invasion's strategic purpose was to ensure the safety of Allied supply lines to the USSR (the Persian Corridor), secure Iranian oil fields, limit German influence in Iran (Reza Shah had leveraged Germany to offset the British and Soviet spheres of influence on Iran) and preempt a possible Axis advance from Turkey through Iran toward the Baku oil fields or British India. Following the invasion, on September 16, 1941, Reza Shah abdicated and went into exile, being replaced by his young son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Iran would remain under British and Soviet occupation until 1946.
Prior to the invasion, two diplomatic notes were delivered to the Iranian government on July 19 and August 17, requiring the Iranian government to expel German nationals. The second of the notes was recognized by the prime minister Ali Mansur as a disguised ultimatum.
