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THE U.S. PRESS
AND IRAN
THE US. PRESS
AND IRAN
FOREIGN POLICY AND
THE JOURNALISM OF
DEFERENCE

William A. Dormán and

Mansour Farhang

University of California Press

Berkeley Los Angeles London
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England

© 1987 by
The Regents of the University of California
First Paperback Printing 1988
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dorman, William A.
The U.S. press and Iran.

Includes index.
1. Iran—Foreign opinion, American. 2. Foreign n e w s -
United States. 3. Press and politics—United States—His-
tory—20th century. 4. Iran—Politics and government—
1941-1979. 5. Public opinion—United States—History—
20th century. I. Farhang, Mansour. II. Title.
III. Title: US press and Iran.
E183.8.I7D67 1987 070.4'49955053 86-25032
ISBN 0-520-06472-0 (alk. paper)

Printed in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
To Pat, Kym, and Chris
W. A. D.
To the memory of my parents
M. F.
 Contents

Acknowledgments, ix
Introduction, 1

1 Iran, the Press, and Foreign Policy, 11

2 Mosaddeq and the U.S. Press: 1951-1953, 31

3 The Consolidation of Power: 1954-1962, 63

4 Modernization, Myth, and Media: 1963-1973, 82

5 Further Illusions: 1963-1973, 116

6 The New Persian Empire: 1973-1977, 131

7 The Press and the 1978 Revolution: West Meets
East, 152
8 Journalism as Capitalism, 183

9 The Journalism of Deference, 201

Conclusion, 229
Notes, 237
Index, 265
 Acknowledgments

From our earliest work on this book, we were fortunate to

have the intellectual encouragement of our friend and teacher Rich-
ard Falk. He has served as a model of compassion and scholarly
inquiry for us, and as a model of commitment to a more humane
world.
Similarly, from the beginning of this project, we have benefited
greatly from the encouragement and thought of Eqbal Ahmad and
Robert Karl Manoff. Their friendship has been equally valuable.
Our book in its final version simply would not have been possible
without the sympathetic criticism and intellectual generosity of Nikki
R. Keddie of the University of California at Los Angeles, our pri-
mary reader at the University of California Press. Drawing on a sin-
gularly impressive command of Iranian history, her stylistic and sub-
stantative comments were invariably on the mark. We are deeply
grateful for corrections she offered as well. Naturally, all opinions
and remaining errors are the responsibility of the authors alone.
For their part, Julian Colby and Jim Speakman read early drafts
of the manuscript far more carefully than even friendship requires,
and we were greatly helped by their comments on matters of style
and argument.
Julie Kniseley and Thea Wares provided research assistance at a
critical moment in the writing of the book. Their contribution was
indispensable. Fergel Ringrose and John Hoffman also helped in this
regard.
Our editor, Barbara Metcalf, and Jeanne Sugiyama and Gladys C.

ix
X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Castor of U.C. Press guided us through the thickets of publishing

with unfailing good cheer and useful advice. Grant Barnes, then with
U.C. Press, gave us much needed encouragement during the early
stages of the project.
We are also appreciative of the unstinting moral support of our
families, and of many colleagues and friends, in particular Robert
Curry, Ron Fox, Paul Goldstene, the late Jack Livingston, Ralph
Talbert, and Betty Wolfman of California State University, Sacra-
mento; Gail Russell of Bennington College; and Mohsen and Ghazal
Farhang.
We owe a significant debt to Kennett Love, who generously
shared with us a wealth of materials on his days as a correspondent
in Tehran during the crucial early period of United States involve-
ment in Iran. Throughout our association, his cooperation and pa-
tience were without limit.
Too, as the reader will discover, we make liberal use of the work
of a wide range of talented scholars and writers, whose names appear
in the text and notes. Without their work, ours could not have fol-
lowed. We particularly want to thank Professors James Bill and Rich-
ard Cottam for sharing their insights in interviews.
Finally, we wish to gratefully acknowledge grants from California
State University, Sacramento, and Bennington College, which made
part of the research and writing of this book possible.
 Introduction

This is a book about how the United States press covered

Iran from 1951 to 1978. During the quarter of a century spanned by
our study the United States developed unprecedented bonds with
Iran. Indeed, even though deep mutual estrangement followed the
1979 hostage crisis, most analysts believe that Iran will continue to
have enormous strategic significance for American foreign policy. As
Amos Perlmutter, editor of the Journal of Strategic Studies, has ob-
served, "Iran, whether its ruler is the Shah or Khomeini or whoever
follows him, has been, is and will be the decisive power in the [Per-
sian] gulf" (emphasis ours).1
How well did the news media inform the American people about
"the decisive power" in the gulf region during its increasingly inti-
mate twenty-five-year association with the United States? Did the
press, as democratic theory supposes it should, critically examine
the assumptions of policy makers about a country thought to be a
major and reliable ally? Did American journalists exercise judgment
independent of official Washington in reporting Iranian life under the
shah? To what degree did journalism contribute to the "surprise" in
the United States at the 1978 revolution? What is the role of the press
in the foreign policy setting? In what ways may economics, journal-
istic practice, ideology, and ethnocentrism affect how the press per-
forms in covering U.S. client states in the Third World? We believe
that these questions and their possible answers, which are the sub-
stance of this book, should be of interest to students of Iran, the
American foreign policy process, the press, the Middle East, U.S.

1
2 INTRODUCTION

relations with developing nations, or any combination of these con-

cerns.
While there have been many studies of the media's impact on
domestic political affairs, few have concentrated on the role of the
press in the foreign policy process, and we know of no study such as
ours that examines how the press covered a client state over so long
a period of time. Moreover, in our view, the relationship of the
United States with Iran provides a particularly strong basis for a
scholarly inquiry into the prestige, or elite, press and its bearing on
foreign policy in that no other Third World country has figured so
prominently in American fortunes since World War II as has Iran.
We should be clear from the beginning that we believe the link
between press and policy is enormously complex and subtle. We
certainly do not mean to suggest that there is a simple cause-and-
effect relationship. But if the press does not make foreign or defense
policy, in some important ways it helps set the boundaries within
which policy can be made. In this respect, the press is usually affec-
tive in the policy process, rather than determining.
An understanding of how the press covers a United States ally in
the Third World is essential to anyone who is concerned about the
course of American foreign relations. And we believe our research
and analysis have implications that go far beyond a case study of
Iran, for there has been no apparent reduction in American involve-
ment abroad in relationships quite similar to the one with the shah.
Our treatment of the question of the press and the effects of ethno-
centrism and ideology, for example, might apply in any number of
situations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia in which the United
States now finds itself involved or is likely to in the future.
In brief, based on an extensive study of twenty-five years of press
coverage of Iran by the prestige mainstream print media, our major
findings are these: (1) The American news media more often than
not followed the cues of foreign-policy makers rather than exercising
independent judgment in reporting the social, economic, and politi-
cal life of Iran under the shah; and (2) journalists proved easily sus-
ceptible to ethnocentrism, a condition that served the policy goals of
official Washington remarkably well. From these conclusions we will
argue that the case of Iran offers compelling new evidence for the
contention that the press, far from fulfilling the watchdog role as-
signed it in democratic theory or popular imagination, is deferential
rather than adversative in the foreign policy arena.
 INTRODUCTION 3

The central failure of the press in the case of Iran, we contend,

was to live up to its own professed values, not the failure to live up
to some Utopian set of ideals proposed by critics outside the profes-
sion. However, we are not suggesting that the press consciously set
out to serve either the shah or U.S. policy makers. Moreover, we
should make it clear that we have great respect for the ideal of a free
press, and it is precisely because we consider the American press to
be free of external constraints that we believe it has the potential to
make a significant contribution to the formulation of a rational for-
eign policy. Our standard for criticism of the media throughout is
relatively simple: Did the press report what was reasonably knowable
about Iran?
Some observers, of course, may argue that what was reasonably
knowable in Iran under the shah was not very much, given the closed
nature of the society. Now that the shah's empire has collapsed in a
heap, the prerevolution weaknesses in the regime are easy to see.
But were these flaws discernible from the vantage point of the 1970s
(to say nothing of the 1960s and 1950s)?
The contention that hindsight was necessary to recognize the frac-
tured society that was Iran under Pahlavi rule simply does not square
with the evidence. Throughout our book we make a point of includ-
ing mention of observers and journalists—admittedly few in number
for reasons we discuss—who as early as 1954 reported accurately on
the nature of the shah's regime. We did this precisely to demonstrate
what was "knowable" about Iran before the events of 1978.
We also discuss how journalism virtually ignored the voice of
Iranian dissidents, unlike those, say, in the Soviet Union, who are
listened to with great care. In this regard, Iran was no more difficult
to cover as a closed society than the USSR. Moreover, as British
journalist and author Martin Walker has observed, "other sources
were available. Academics in the West who knew Iranian society and
its history were not hard to find. . . . [Some of them] . . . were
writing in English, about forces of religious and political opposition,
yet remained untapped by the quality press."2
A major theme of this work is that throughout the association of
the United States with the shah, the press tended to serve Washing-
ton's shortsighted policy goals by portraying political opposition to
the regime in such a way as to suggest that the shah's critics were
nothing more than benighted reactionaries. We argue that this was
particularly the case during the 1978 revolution. Undoubtedly, some
4 INTRODUCTION

readers of our book will hold the opinion that, indeed, the outcome
of the revolution, which has taken the form of a clergy-dominated
state, proves that the press and policy makers were right: Muslims
are fanatical and antimodern. They will have uppermost in mind the
endless war with Iraq, the persecution of minorities and dissidents,
and the repeated charge that the present Iranian government exports
terrorism. In short, the stereotypes conveyed by the news media (and
the U.S. government and the shah) may seem to some readers to have
been confirmed by history.
There is no doubt that the tragic outcome of the revolution itself
impedes a full understanding of the complexity of Iranian society by
serving a half- or quarter-true stereotype. Yet no more inaccurate
conclusion could be drawn by journalists or policy makers than that
Iranians in revolt were not engaged in an authentic quest for freedom
motivated by long-standing moral, political, and economic griev-
ances. To dismiss the aspirations of Iranians as mere fanaticism is to
prepare the way for future, equally serious, failures to understand
forces at work in the Third World. Therefore, while the question of
the revolution's outcome is not the focus of this study, some gener-
alizations about what has happened seem necessary.
The revolution was probably one of the most popular in history. It
united all classes and most political factions. During the first six
months of 1978 the antigovernment demonstrations were composed
largely of students and other middle-class opponents of the shah.
However, as the vulnerability of the regime became more apparent,
the urban poor began to join the demonstrations in ever-increasing
number. By September 1978 the lower-class participants in the upris-
ings constituted the dominant force of the movement. From this point
on the religious leaders were able to direct the course of events be-
cause they were much better equipped than their secular counter-
parts, both ideologically and rhetorically, to address the grievances
of the poor and appeal to their passion in order to sustain momentum.
The clergymen of Iran have always been influential among the poor.
Most of the people who regularly attend the mosques belong to the
impoverished sectors of the population; also, mosques are used as
headquarters for charitable activities to aid the poor.
During the second half of the revolution, this historic relationship
between the poor and the Shi'i clergy was transformed into an un-
precedented revolutionary alliance. On the one hand, the poor
 INTRODUCTION 5

simply hoped to improve their marginal existence; on the other, the

militant clergy gave priority to the moral objection of the religious
traditionalists to the secular changes of the previous fifty years in
sociocultural realms. Needless to say, the implications of the diverse
motives in the revolutionary movement were not fully understood
until the complete seizure of state power by the militant clergy in
1980. Indeed, the political, economic, and social abuses of the re-
gime had caused such intense discontent that the vast majority of
the participants in the anti-shah movement paid little attention to the
question of what kind of political order could or should follow the
collapse of the monarchy. It was assumed that the fall of the shah
would necessarily lead to an improvement over the existing situation.
Thus the kind or degree of this improvement was not treated as a
serious question.
Certainly, by late 1978 the fundamentalist clergy under the sur-
prisingly decisive leadership of Ayatollah Khomaini had come to
overshadow all other participants, including the moderate and liberal
religious elements, in the revolutionary movement. Yet even so, for
about a year following the collapse of the monarchy, Iran witnessed
a reasonably open political competition among the ideologically di-
verse forces that had taken part in the anti-shah movement. The fact
that the fundamentalists won the battle and suppressed even the most
accommodating of their critics should not lead one to deny the emer-
gence of a short period of noncoercive struggle for power after the
fall of the shah.3
Throughout the 1978 revolution, the U.S. press approached this
complex situation by asserting that the revolt was motivated by anti-
modern sentiments. This perception led the journalists to conclude
that fanaticism and reaction, instead of legitimate grievances, were
the primary sources of the revolt. Thus many reporters and commen-
tators can be said to have predicted the rise of clerical fascist or
theocratic government in Iran should the shah fall. Washington Star
columnist Carl T. Rowan expressed this view in the following
manner:

There is something a little eerie about the mass jubilation in Iran over
the departure, and apparent defeat, of the Shah of Iran. . . . For all
his arrogance and ruthlessness, the Shah used his power in many
constructive ways—education of the masses, the emancipation of
6 INTRODUCTION

women, making Iran an economic and military power. Khomeini's

contribution so far has been largely destructive.4

A similar appraisal in Business Week in February 1979 argued, "It

is not hard to posit a 'worst possible' scenario should Khomeini take
over. Khomeini's obscurantist religious pronouncements, his anti-
Americanism . . . all portend the kind of chaos that underground
Communist movements well know how to exploit."5 And a New York
Times editorialist, on the shah's leave-taking, wrote of the "stern
Moslem zealot, the Ayatollah Khomeini . . .[who] raises the possi-
bility of a xenophobic government distant from, even hostile to, the
West."6
Our point here is that predictions based on prejudice that happen
to come true should not be confused with systematic and evidence-
oriented understanding of a subject, as the more sensible segment of
the horse-betting public is well aware. Furthermore, even though the
possibility of which journalists wrote became reality, it would be a
grave mistake to conclude that fanaticism and antimodernism were
the motive forces behind the Iranian revolution. Just as the rule of
Robespierre and Stalin was not the goal of French and Russian rev-
olutionaries, the fundamentalist despotism of Khomaini was hardly
the objective of the anti-shah movement. Of course, Robespierrism,
Stalinism, and Khomainism must have had roots in the latent politi-
cal culture of prerevolutionary France, Russia, and Iran, but such a
potential ought not to be confused with the reasons behind mass re-
bellion against the established regimes. Indeed, no one, journalist or
otherwise, should permit himself or herself to conclude that he or
she knew the outcome of a popular revolutionary movement in ad-
vance. For history shows that revolutions, like hurricanes, do not
follow predictable courses. Thus to search for the complex causes of
a successful revolt in the excesses of postrevolutionary developments
is abandonment of analytic curiosity and the desire to learn.
Finally, in this context, journalists and other observers would do
well to remember that the final chapter in Iran's postrevolutionary
history has hardly been written, any more than the excesses of the
Terror were the concluding moments of the struggle for participatory
politics in France.
To minimize the possibility of an impressionistic sampling as the
basis for our analysis, we examined, categorized, and analyzed
 INTRODUCTION 7

everything printed about Iran from 1951 to 1978 in the New York
Times, more than 1,600 items in all. We used the Times as the foun-
dation for our study for several reasons, some of which have theoret-
ical significance, and others, practical. For those who make foreign
policy and those who cover it the Times is probably the most widely
read and influential newspaper in the United States.7 Our study also
revealed that the Times had devoted far more space to Iran than had
any other periodical in the country, as might be expected of an insti-
tution that prides itself on being the national newspaper of record.
Finally, the Times is the only daily newspaper completely indexed
for the period of our study.
In addition to the Times we examined everything published from
1953 to 1978 about Iran in the Christian Science Monitor, News-
week, and Time, and all articles that appeared for the twenty-five-
year period in magazines indexed in Readers' Guide to Periodical
Literature. In addition, using the dates of critical historic incidents
or developments in Iran, we sampled various newspapers over the
period of the study to provide a profile of coverage by the country's
two major wire services, United Press International and Associated
Press.8 We also sampled the Washington Post and the Wall Street
Journal, using the same critical-incident method. For 1953 and
1978, two particularly critical years in contemporary Iranian history,
we sampled other major American daily newspapers as well, includ-
ing the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.
We do not include extensive discussion of television news, despite
the arguable belief that people get most of their news from this me-
dium, 9 or the more convincingly documented assertion that network
television news programs devote proportionally more attention to
foreign affairs than do the print media.10 There is in the reporting of
foreign affairs, we believe, a kind of "trickle-down" journalism at
work, with the prestige print media, for the most part, providing the
trickle. All the available evidence convinces us that in the area of
foreign coverage, television news (and most daily newspaper jour-
nalism) tends to echo the themes, explanations, frames, and contexts
established by the major print media and the two wire services."
Subjective as our method of analysis may be, we are convinced
that a useful examination of today's press performance in many im-
portant ways is dependent on an appreciation and a consideration of
journalistic nuance, tone, emphasis, and context—none of which
8 INTRODUCTION

readily lends itself to quantification, and all of which we found to be

significant dimensions of coverage during the period we undertook
to study.
With one notable exception in chapter 2, we do not include the
views of individual correspondents. This book does not intend to
duplicate what has already been done. The conventional approach to
an understanding of journalism in general and foreign correspon-
dence in particular is to ask reporters and editors how they view their
work, and chapter 8 is based largely on this literature. But our main
contention is that subjective factors are at work of which reporters
are largely unaware, and therefore, formal interviews would have
yielded little for our specific purposes.
Essentially, at one level, what we have done is to contrast cover-
age of Iran with scholarly evidence. At the second level, we have
used a form of what has been called frame analysis.12 As we use the
term, frames are simply constructions of social reality that result
from journalistic decision making about what information to include
in a news story, what language to use, what authorities to cite, which
nuance to emphasize, and so on. In short, frames are the contexts in
which news occurrences are placed by reporters, and we believe that
these frames are susceptible to textual analysis in much the same
manner as literary texts.
Throughout the book we have tried to use examples that are rep-
resentative of press performance rather than atypical, and we have
concentrated on routine patterns of journalistic performance rather
than on exceptions. We are confident that the sheer weight of our
evidence will demonstrate that we have not taken the press out of
context. Yet we do not claim that the result of our work is "the truth."
Neither,do we argue that we have avoided all pitfalls. Our effort is
intended to produce a tenable and open explanation of the relevant
issues through textual analysis.
This book should not be considered a comprehensive study of Iran
since 1951. A learned examination of Iran's history, economic devel-
opment, and religious orientation would be a much different kind of
scholarly undertaking. Yet we do include some historical background
on Iran and its association with the United States, perhaps even to
the annoyance of the area studies or the Iran scholar who has no need
for such a treatment. In writing this book, however, we felt it neces-
sary to offer a general historical picture for the benefit of those read-
 INTRODUCTION 9

ers who come from fields such as international relations or journal-

ism. Without some historical orientation, our criticism of press
performance in Iran would make little sense to those who do not have
a specialist's knowledge of the region.
Finally, in our own writing we have used a more traditional aca-
demic scheme of spelling Persian words. However, where we quote
or cite others, journalists and scholars alike, we have kept their spell-
ings.
 1
Iran, the Press, and
Foreign Policy

Before 1978 and the Iranian revolution most Americans had

only the vaguest perceptions of the Middle East. Certainly many
Americans knew of the Arab-Israeli strife and had come to hold
strong beliefs about oil-producing countries in the region following
the 1973 embargo. But beyond these emotionally charged subjects
there was little knowledge or broader sense of the area or its peoples.
After all, the United States had never had direct colonial experience
with the region, as had the British and the French. Beyond a small
circle of scholars and State Department specialists, therefore, Amer-
icans had little interest in or understanding of the area. What most
Americans knew of the Middle East came to them through such films
as Lawrence of Arabia or Exodus, or novels such as James A. Mich-
ener's Caravans, or news coverage of periodic wars and guerrilla
forays.
To be sure, sufficient attention had been paid the Middle East in
the news media and popular arts, so that Americans hold many
stereotypes about the region: harems, belly dancing, cruel punish-
ments, lavish sheiks, oil, feudal governments, and so on for the Arab
part, while the Israelis, generally, have come to be viewed as tough,
gritty, beleaguered, heroic, outnumbered.1 Non-Arab countries, like
Iran, somehow got lost in the hazy middle distance.
It was unprecedented, therefore, that the attention of so many
Americans should come to be riveted on erstwhile Persia almost con-

11
12 I R A N , T H E PRESS, A N D FOREIGN POLICY

tinuously for so long a period of time: first as a result of the revolu-

tionary drama; next during one of the most traumatic periods of U.S.
history, the hostage affair; then when Iraq invaded Iran; still later yet,
at the time of Iran's turnabout assault on Iraq in July 1982; and most
recently because of revelations in 1986-87 surrounding what has
become known as the Iran-Contra scandal.
The purpose of this book is to examine what the American public
was told about Iran by the press during a close association between
the two countries which lasted fully one-quarter of a century. We will
contrast the journalistic version of reality with what there was to be
known. Such an examination, we believe, combined with an analysis
of how and why the press operates as it does in the foreign policy
arena, has implications that go far beyond U.S.-Iranian relations,
insofar as development in the Third World, political as well as eco-
nomic, may be the major foreign affairs story of our time.
Our standard forjudging the media's performance in Iran is based
on a comparison of what the press said was going on with what was
reasonably knowable at the time. We believe that this standard is a
fair one in that (1) it transcends our particular political preferences,
and (2) it asks no more of journalists than they already say they
achieve, and, therefore, it cannot be thought "Utopian." Throughout
this book, we attempt to ask, given the American media's vast re-
sources, What is reasonable to be expected of journalists? Do they
open or close questions of political motive and action by using
loaded frames or biased language? What use do they make of avail-
able scholarly evidence, particularly evidence provided by anti-
status-quo scholars? Most important, do they remain independent in
their judgments from the foreign policy establishment?
There can be little doubt that the mass media have an educative
function, that they produce learning, whether distorted or not, partic-
ularly in foreign news situations about which little is previously
known. During the tumultuous period of the 1978 revolution, for
instance, Americans depended heavily on the mass media, as they
usually do for news of foreign affairs, and despite their cynical, time-
honored claim not to "believe what they read in the newspapers,"
most Americans probably did.
Our contention here will be that contrary to the expectations held
for a free press under American democratic theory, the U.S. news
media's coverage of Iran contributed little to the public's authentic
 IRAN, THE PRESS, AND FOREIGN POLICY 13

understanding of that country. Instead, as a result of generally unin-

formed and often highly ethnocentric, cold-war-oriented coverage of
Iran over the years and particularly in 1978, the American public
was taught many damaging lessons that may take years to unlearn.
We will argue that these lessons, instead of being unfortunate but
essentially harmless, helped make it possible for official Washington
to persist in policies that were contrary not only to the legitimate
national interests of the United States in the region, but to the policy
makers' own stated objectives as well.
It is not our intention here to suggest a conspiracy theory of the
media, in which we do not believe, nor is it our purpose to pursue
what might be termed a "running dog of imperialism" line of criti-
cism. Rather, our view of contemporary press behavior is that it is
deeply rooted in a cold-war mentality that is highly internalized and
is more unconscious than willful. It is a form of spontaneity based
on conditioning—usually it is not conspiratorial.
Our thesis is this: The major shortcoming of American press cov-
erage of Iran for twenty-five years was to ignore the politics of the
country. This failure was rooted in the assumption that the political
aspirations of Iranians did not really matter. This was an assumption
shaped and reinforced by the foreign policy establishment and was
given credence by highly West-centered preconceptions and an inter-
nalized cold-war-oriented ideology. Implicit in such an assumption
were the beliefs that the Iranian people were incapable of politics,
that they were incapable of self-rule, and that they were incapable of
an authentic desire for freedom. Given these beliefs, which were
held by policy makers and accepted uncritically by journalists, the
1978 revolution could only have come as a surprise to official Wash-
ington and the general public.
If the media are to produce undistorted information, within the
inherent range of their capabilities, the journalism profession must
recognize the existence and importance of political culture and the
importance of understanding sociohistorical context. We do not be-
lieve that every correspondent must be a cultural anthropologist to
understand politics or revolution in the Third World. We do believe,
however, that reporters must have a basic understanding of the differ-
ences between societies and of the inherently interpretive nature of
reporting, which is to say a healthy respect for the dangers of being
culture bound. The methods and information useful for understand-
14 I R A N , T H E PRESS, A N D FOREIGN POLICY

ing other political cultures are readily available; they are neither mys-
terious nor particularly costly. Similarly, nothing we will say here is
incompatible with the media's own professed values or goals.
In all of this, an argument can be made that the performance of
the news media in the foreign policy setting is of little consequence
and, therefore, does not deserve close study or understanding. For
after all, isn't it true that, unlike domestic politics, foreign policy
does not usually interest or excite the average citizen, whose knowl-
edge of it is practically nonexistent? More significant, isn't foreign
policy left almost entirely in the hands of elites? What does it matter,
finally, whether the press misinformed the American public about
U.S.-Iran relations if the press and public opinion are not significant
factors in the making or carrying out of foreign policy?
The argument that the media and the public are of little impor-
tance in the making of foreign policy because the process is domi-
nated by elites carries with it the peculiar strength of having been
advanced at one time or another by those who believe themselves to
be realists, idealists, conservatives, liberals, or cynics. Indirect evi-
dence that it is the prevailing view, at least in the academy, can be
found in the fact that only one general book-length study of the press
and foreign policy has been brought out by a university press.2 This
lack of scholarship and serious attention has meant that consideration
of the relationship of the press to foreign policy has routinely been
superficial. The press as a factor in foreign policy usually rates only
passing mention, and discussions are more often characterized by
rhetoric, platitudes, clichés, and unsupported generalizations than by
thoughtful analysis.
In sharp contrast to the slight attention paid the relationship of the
news media to foreign policy, there is a rich literature concerned with
the impact of media on domestic politics, which is based on exten-
sive empirical research and speculative analysis. The critical impact
of the media on domestic politics, in fact, is beyond dispute. This
disparity in the attention paid domestic and foreign politics and the
media is in some ways an extension of the tendency in the larger
population to take far closer note of domestic than of foreign affairs,
and generally to accept the state's judgment in the latter but not the
former.
The arguments most often heard in mitigation against close study
of foreign policy, the media, and public opinion are cloaked in the
 IRAN, THE PRESS, AND FOREIGN POLICY 15

language of realism. Essentially, in its most thoughtful form, the

view of a press lacking in critical importance is based on a mistaken
interpretation of the inherent limitations of the press as a truth-
seeking system and of the limitations of a mass citizenry. What we
choose to call inherent limitations theory has been most clearly stated
by Walter Lippmann in Public Opinion. Lippmann, who came to
have little faith in the competence of either the press or public opin-
ion, argued that because news and truth are not the same thing, and
because of the average person's tendency to think in stereotypes and
susceptibility to propaganda and prejudice, the conduct of political
affairs can be left only to experts. According to Lippmann, "The
function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to
bring to light the hidden facts." 3 The press, Lippmann wrote, plays
at best a limited role, functioning like a searchlight that moves "rest-
lessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of the dark-
ness into vision." 4 His biographer, Ronald Steel, has pointed out
what was equally important in Lippmann's view:
Even if the press were capable of providing an accurate picture of
the world, the average man had neither the time nor the ability to deal
with a perplexing barrage of information. The Enlightenment concep-
tion of democracy—based on the assumption that every man had di-
rect experience and understanding of the world around him—was to-
tally inadequate to a mass society where men had contact with only a
tiny part of the world on which they were being asked to make deci-
sions.
This ruthless analysis left Lippmann with the conclusion that de-
mocracy could work only if men escaped from the "intolerable and
unworkable fiction that each of us must acquire a competent opinion
about public affairs." The task of acquiring such competent opinions
had to be left to those specially trained, who had access to accurate
information, whose minds were unclouded by prejudice and stereo-
types.5

Whether one agrees with Lippmann or not, the significant point

to be made in this discussion is that he has often been misunderstood.
His normative analysis frequently has been confused with a descrip-
tive one, and his ideas have been used to support the contention that
the media and the public are not important variables in the foreign
policy process. A careful reading of Lippmann, we think, does not
support the conclusion that he believed that the press had no effect or
16 I R A N , T H E PRESS, A N D F O R E I G N POLICY

that public opinion did not matter. On the contrary, he was proposing
a normative alternative to a flawed system that in his view was pro-
ducing the wrong effects.
Indeed, Lippmann's plea was for the citizen to defer to specially
trained elites. That such elites were often hampered by an imperfect
press and a wrongheaded public was precisely his concern. Far from
not intervening in the foreign policy arena, public opinion and the
press too often were getting in the way of sensible men. The imper-
fection and imperfectibility of the press and the public, and not their
lack of political effect, therefore, were at the core of Lippmann's
argument.
In a variety of ways, the press and public opinion have assumed
an even greater importance in the foreign policy process since
Lippmann first wrote of his concerns about how competent they were
to fulfill the roles assigned them in democratic theory. Following
World War II, for instance, the frequently indifferent if occasionally
intrusive public of the 1920s of which Lippmann wrote was trans-
formed into a citizenry with far more of a sustained interest in what
happens in the world. As historian Robert Dallek has noted:

Whereas numerous Americans as late as World War II continued to

share [William Jennings] Bryan's ignorance of the outside world, this
changed rapidly after 1945. The return home of millions of Americans
thrown into wartime contact with places as remote as Tunisia and New
Guinea and postwar responsibilities as the world's premier power
made them more aware of the foreign scene. . . . Burdened with the
defense of the "free world," touched in countless ways by the rise of
a "military-industrial complex," charged with securing U.S. interests
abroad, Americans could no longer turn their backs on world affairs. 6

Moreover, the rise of television, the country's only truly national

medium, and its capacity to dramatize worldwide events visually,
created an unprecedented immediacy for the postwar citizenry to for-
eign affairs, and for good or for ill, probably increased the size of the
nominally interested audience for news from abroad of events that
appear to affect American interests. The public has been made abun-
dantly aware by television of the "American Century," in Henry
Luce's phrase, and of all the privileges and perils such a century may
provide. This development, of course, does not necessarily mean
that Americans are better informed than they were in Lippmann's
 I R A N , T H E PRESS, A N D FOREIGN POLICY 17

time (although they probably are); it means only that they may be
paying closer attention.
Most important, as a result of the cold war, Americans acquired
for the first time in their history what they perceived as a permanent
and intractable enemy: the Soviets. At least psychologically, Amer-
ica embarked upon what seemed to be its own Hundred Years' War.
Undergirding this unprecedented sense of perpetual crisis was the
specter of nuclear Armageddon. In a sense, what exists now for
many Americans, therefore, is a garrison state of the mind, and citi-
zens living in a garrison state cannot help but be concerned about
external events.
In a democracy, an aroused or frightened public, which in the final
analysis must bear the material and human costs of foreign policy,
cannot be ignored in the policy-making process. However, it is in
electoral politics that public concern about foreign policy is more
likely to make itself felt most directly. In this regard, it is the presi-
dency rather than Congress upon which the public's attention most
often comes to focus. Increasingly, it is the chief executive and his
closest advisers who are perceived by the public as having the ulti-
mate say in shaping foreign policy, instead of Congress or the bu-
reaucracy. Whether the executive branch actually has absolute power
is not the issue. Even if the power does not completely reside in the
White House, every president since Roosevelt has behaved as if it
did, and has done little to discourage the notion that it ought to.
As a result, presidential power and politics now are linked more
than ever to foreign policy, and a president's electoral and legislative
fortunes have come more and more to turn on foreign policy issues.
This is not to say that foreign policy issues have replaced domestic
ones or even eclipsed them in electoral politics; it is to argue that
how voters perceive an incumbent president's foreign policy record
can make an important difference. The nature of this vital difference
is rooted in the willingness of Congress and the public throughout
the cold war to defer on matters of foreign policy so long as a sitting
chief executive stays within the bounds of the bipartisan cold-war
consensus and appears to be firm in his commitment to seeking an
American advantage in world politics (and, equally important, seems
to be successful in his quest).
One reason for this deferential attitude may be the widely held
assumption that living on the nuclear edge demands decision-making
18 IRAN, THE PRESS, AND FOREIGN POLICY

power be concentrated at the top. A second reason may be bipartisan

agreement on the Soviet threat. A third reason may be that an activist
foreign policy, which the United States has adopted since World War
II in its open quest for global power and its confrontation with the
Soviets, to be successful, similarly precludes shared decision mak-
ing. Certainly, the goal of a dominant American liberal capitalism in
the world has not bothered Congress, which has demonstrated no
sustained willingness to seriously challenge the White House in the
formulation of policy until well after a policy appears to be in serious
trouble. Vietnam and the national debate which surrounded the
United States' role is no exception, for popular concern about the
war was aroused only after 1968, when the point of deep American
involvement had long passed.
Whatever the explanation, the president usually is allowed to do
things with foreign policy that he would never be permitted in the
domestic realm. For example, since World War II, a president who
is perceived as having a firm grasp on foreign policy has usually been
permitted to define the national interest arbitrarily in ways in which
he would rarely be allowed to define the public interest in domestic
affairs. A citizenry that would engage in a great and howling debate
should a president declare overnight that state-subsidized abortions
are in the "public interest," for instance, has proven to be far more
willing to accept uncritically a chief executive's judgment to send
military aid or U.S. troops to some foreign land, in the "national
interest."
Domestic politics, by comparison, is positively messy, and it is
far more difficult for a president to establish a clear-cut image of
himself as an effective and forceful leader in the domestic political
realm. An administration's domestic programs can become bogged
down in partisan politics, paralyzed by special-interest groups, or
even blocked by the judiciary, and the president's reputation and
chances for reelection suffer accordingly. If politics in the last quarter
of the twentieth century has evolved toward little more than the art
of getting elected (or reelected), as it apparently has, the general
perception of the voting public becomes critical. And a positive im-
age in the conduct of foreign policy can give the incumbent or the
challenger a decided edge. This, of course, is where the ultimate
power of the media resides, for the Lippmannesque pictures of events
abroad which are in the heads of the typical voter are put there by the
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corresponding to the temperature. It is doubtless within these limits
that gliding can occur parallel to such planes as leave the molecules
most room for the purpose, and which are directions of least
resistance.

Fig. 119.—Lehmann’s
Crystallisation Microscope
arranged for Projection.

Connected with this important question is the principle enunciated

by Bravais, as a result of his discovery of the space-lattice, that
cleavage occurs most readily parallel to those net-planes of the
space-lattice which are most densely strewn with points. The force
just referred to, whether we term it cohesion or otherwise, is
obviously at a maximum within such a plane, and at a minimum in
the perpendicular direction where the points are further off from
each other. Moreover, it has been fairly well proved also, from the
experiments of Wulff, described in the last chapter, that the direction
or directions of maximum cohesion are those of slowest growth of
the crystal; so that faces parallel to those directions become relatively
more extended owing to the more rapid growth of other faces on
their boundaries, and thus become the most largely developed and
confer the “habit” on the crystal. All these are facts so important as
evidences of a controlling force at work in crystallisation, that a
purely geometrical theory of the formation of crystals which would
make “facility of fitting-in” of the molecular particles its chief tenet,
obviously does not tell us the complete story. Hence the author
desires to utter a warning against going too far with the pure
geometry of the subject. The geometricians have done a grand work
in providing us with the thoroughly well established 230 types of
homogeneous structures, as a full and final explanation of the 32
classes of crystals, and so far their results are wholly and
unreservedly acceptable.
The phenomena of “liquid crystals” lend themselves admirably to
screen demonstration, for which purpose an excellent improved form
of the crystallisation microscope of Lehmann, shown in Fig. 119, is
constructed by Zeiss, and its actual use in the projection, with the aid
of the well-known Zeiss electric lantern, but specially fitted for the
purpose, is shown in Fig. 120.
A magnification of 600–700 diameters on the screen is very
suitable, employing a Zeiss 8–millimetre objective without eyepiece.
This objective affords directly a magnification of 30 diameters. For
ordinary eye observation an eyepiece magnifying 6–8 times is added,
thus affording to the eye a magnification of about 200 diameters.
 Fig. 120.—Zeiss Apparatus for the Projection of Liquid Crystals.

The lantern is supplied with a self-feeding electric arc lamp,

ensuring a steady light. A collective lens of extra light-gathering
power is fitted in front as condenser, and from it proceeds a light-
tight tube provided with a water cell to filter out most of the heat rays
which accompany the light. The electric lantern with Brockie-Pell or
Oliver self-feeding arc lamp, shown in Figs. 71 and 79 (pages 186 and
202), is also equally suitable, and with the water cell, and
parallelising concave lens removed from the large Nicol polariser,
affords a parallel beam of the same character as the Zeiss apparatus.
The microscope stands on a sole plate provided with levelling screws,
and is naturally employed in the vertical position for such work with
fused substances. A mirror inclined at 45° at the foot of the
microscope directs the parallelised rays from the optical lantern
through the microscope, and another above the optical tube reflects
them to the screen.
The heating apparatus consists of a form of miniature Bunsen
burner fitted with blowpipe blast, the respective pressures of gas and
air being regulated by means of two taps with graduated arcs for
obtaining greater delicacy of adjustment. The tabular plate seen to
the left in Fig. 119 is the graduated semi-circle of the two taps; below
it is seen the cylindrical mixing chamber for gas and air, in the event
of the necessity for using the Bunsen as a blowpipe. There are two
separate attachments for indiarubber tubes to this cylinder,
conveying respectively gas and air. Above the object stage a double
air-blast is fitted, each tube of which is hinged with a universal joint,
so that it can be readily adjusted to any desired position on either
side of and above the glass plate (supported on little metallic
uprights) on which the experiment is being conducted. A polarising
Nicol prism and an analysing Nicol, both constructed in a manner
which protects them from the effects of heat more effectually than is
the case with the usual form, are provided for obtaining the
projections in polarised light. The objective and analysing Nicol, as
well as the substage condenser, are also specially protected from
injury by heat, by being surrounded with a water jacket, supplied
with running water, and a disc-like screen just above the objective
assists in deflecting the heat rays from the optical tube and its
Bertrand lens and other usual fittings. The miniature Bunsen flame
is usually brought about an inch below the object-plate, and the size
of the flame can be regulated with the utmost precision, so that a
fairly constant temperature can be obtained for a considerable time.
With the aid of the blowpipe air-blast temperatures up to 700° C. can
be safely employed.
The microscope shown in position on the projection apparatus in
Fig. 120 is a still more recent form introduced by Zeiss, embodying
several further conveniences and improvements.
The following substances lend themselves particularly well to
projection purposes. Para-azoxy-anisol with resin, which exhibits the
phenomenon of rotating drops; cholesteryl acetate, which affords a
fine example of spherical liquid crystals; paraazoxy-phenetol with
resin, which gives beautiful interference colours; and the acetyl ester
of para-azoxy-benzoic acid with resin, which shows the uniting of
crystals to form larger and larger individuals.
Perhaps the most interesting and beautiful of all is cholesteryl
acetate, a characteristic field of which is shown in Fig. 121 on Plate
XVI., facing page 208. It is interesting that on this Plate XVI. there
are represented the very hardest and the softest of crystals, namely,
diamonds and liquid crystals. In order to obtain the finest effect the
heating and cooling should be carried out very slowly. The little
Bunsen burner, with a very minute flame, is first placed under the
slide, and allowed to act until the substance melts and forms a clear
liquid. The gas jet is then removed and the air-blasts, both of which
are simultaneously actuated when the tap controlling them is turned,
are very gently brought into operation, one on each side of the centre
of the slide, there being a good working distance of a quarter of an
inch or more between the slide and the objective. The cooling is thus
brought about very slowly. The Nicols should be crossed, and at this
time the field is quite dark, the liquid substance being at this
temperature (well above 114.5° the ordinary melting point) an
ordinary singly refractive liquid.
As soon as the temperature has become reduced to that at which
the particular modification of cholesteryl acetate is produced which
forms liquid crystals, spots of light make their appearance at various
points in the field, and each expands into a beautiful circular and
more or less coloured disc marked by a rectangular sectorial black
cross, which latter is well shown in the illustration (Fig. 121). These
beautiful apparitions continue to occur, and each to expand to a
certain size, which is rarely exceeded, until the whole field becomes
filled with the wheels or crossed discs, the general effect very much
in some respects resembling that afforded by a slide of the well-
known polarising substance salicine. These discs, however, are
liquid, being spherical drops, of the structure already described and
illustrated in Fig. 103, and that this is so is at once made apparent on
touching the cover-glass with a pen-knife or other hard pointed
substance, which immediately causes them to become distorted.
They recover instantly their shape again when the pressure is
removed. When the cooling, moreover, has proceeded still further,
there is a sudden change, and acicular solid crystals shoot over the
screen, tinted with all the colours of the spectrum, until the field is
full of them, the ordinary solid modification of the substance having
then been produced. The experiment may be repeated with the same
specimen of the substance, mounted on the same slide, covered with
the usual thin cover-glass, time after time for months, at reasonable
intervals.
In concluding this chapter it may be mentioned that absolute proof
of the double refraction of the liquid crystals of several different
substances, derivatives of cinnamic acid, has been afforded during
the year 1910. For direct measurements have been carried out by two
independent investigators, Dorn and Stumpf, of the two refractive
indices corresponding to the ordinary and extraordinary rays in each
case, the crystals being uniaxial.
 CHAPTER XVII
THE CHEMICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF CRYSTALLOGRAPHY. THE
THEORY OF POPE AND BARLOW—CONCLUSION.

Nothing in connection with the subject of crystallography is more

surprising than the neglect and apathy with which it has been for
long treated by the chemical world. That crystalline structure is
intimately related to chemical constitution will have been made
abundantly plain during the course of this book. Yet in spite of the
great work of Mitscherlich, essentially a chemist, and of a large
amount of striking work which has been steadily accumulating
during the last thirty years, with results of vital importance to
chemistry, it is only at the eleventh hour that chemists are really
awakening to the vast significance which crystal structure has for
them.
The explanation undoubtedly is, that the long interregnum of
conflicting investigations, doubt, and controversy, which followed
the work of Haüy and Mitscherlich, and preceded the beginning of
really accurate and painstaking investigation of an organised and
systematic character, had caused chemists to regard with more or
less of indifference the work of the crystallographers. Added to this
we must remember that the subject of crystallography has hitherto
been taught, when taught at all, merely as an appanage of
mineralogy, although the pure chemical substances which crystallise
well infinitely outnumber the naturally occurring minerals, and the
results afforded by them frequently possess a much greater value by
reason of the purity of the substances and their more definite
chemical constitution. Also the mathematical and geometrical side
has usually been unduly emphasised, and carried on in lectures
without any practical goniometrical work at all. Moreover, the
current text-books have often proved forbiddingly full of calculations
and formulæ, and of the obsolete and unenticing symbols of
Naumann.
At last we have come to see that the subject is one of fascinating
interest when its study is commenced in a practical manner from the
beginning, armed from the very first lesson with the goniometer. The
crystal itself is then our main and highly interesting study; its
exterior form unravels itself in a most delightfully simple manner
when we follow the arrangement of its faces in zones on the
goniometer itself; and its symmetry becomes immediately patent to
our eyes in all ordinary simple cases, when we construct for ourselves
its plan in a stereographic projection, drawn at first in freehand
while still at the goniometer. The calculations also become perfectly
simple when we have learnt that only the simplest of the very easy
formulæ of spherical trigonometry are required, and which a
knowledge of only elementary plane trigonometry enables us to
apply. Aided by a few very helpful rules, such as those of Napier for
calculating right-angled spherical triangles, and the rule of the
anharmonic ratio of four poles in a zone—which, when the positions
of three crystal faces of the zone are known, at once enables us to
calculate the situation of any fourth face of the zone—we have at once
a stock-in-trade which carries us over all difficulties in the way of
calculation, and relegates this side of the work to an altogether
subordinate position, although accuracy in carrying it out is, of
course, absolutely essential and even vital.
Especial interest has recently been attracted on the part of
chemists to the bearing of crystallography on their science by a
remarkable theory which has been advanced by Pope and Barlow,
connecting the internal structure of crystals with chemical valency,
the power which the atom of a chemical element possesses of
combining with the atoms of other elements, and which is generally
expressed by the number of atoms of a monad element, such as
hydrogen or chlorine, with which it is capable of combining
chemically. Thus the electro-positive metal potassium is said to have
monad valency because it is capable of combining with one atom of
the electro-negative element chlorine to form the salt potassium
chloride, KCl; calcium possesses dyad valency because it can unite
with two atoms of chlorine to form calcium chloride, CaCl2;
aluminium is triadic as it can combine with three atoms of chlorine
producing aluminium chloride, AlCl3; carbon is a tetrad because it
can take up four chlorine atoms, forming carbon tetrachloride, CCl4,
and phosphorus a pentad as it can fix five with production of
phosphorus pentachloride, PCl5; while sulphur is a hexad because it
can take up as many as six atoms of chlorine, forming sulphur
hexachloride, SCl6.
Occasion has already been taken in Chapter XI. to refer to the able
work of Prof. Pope with regard to optically active carbon compounds,
and in Chapter IX. the important contribution of Mr Barlow to the
completion of the theory of the homogeneous partitioning of space
has likewise been discussed. In collaboration these two investigators
have now propounded a theory which connects the chemical and
geometrical sides of crystallography in a somewhat startling manner,
which has naturally aroused very considerable discussion, and
which, whether right or wrong, cannot fail to have the best results in
attracting investigators to the subject.
Starting from the facts which have now been laid down in this
book as having been firmly established by the most careful
measurement and experimental investigation—notably the constancy
of the interfacial angles of the crystals of the same substance, the
fixed positions of the atoms or their spheres of influence in the
molecule and in the crystal, and the arrangement of the molecules in
space-lattices and the atoms in point-systems—Pope and Barlow
assume that valency, the expression of the relative combining power
of the chemical elements, is a question of the size of the sphere of
influence of the atom of an element, and that the relative sizes of
such spheres of influence determine the modes in which they can be
packed, that is, the nature of the homogeneous crystal structure
which they can build up. The theory consequently renders the
chemical phenomenon of valency and the physical phenomenon of
crystalline form mutually interdependent.
It will thus be apparent that the essence of their conception is that
the chemical molecule may be considered as made up of a number of
spheres corresponding to, and representing, the spheres of influence
of the atoms composing it, and that the volume of each sphere is
roughly proportional to the valency of the atom which it represents.
They then assume that the sum of the valencies of the atoms present
in the molecule may be substituted for the molecular volume, and the
quantity thus arrived at is termed by them the “valency volume.” By
using the valency volume instead of the molecular volume in the
author’s formulæ for calculating the molecular distance ratios, which
have been shown in Chapter X. to afford the relative dimensions of
the unit cell of the space-lattice, and the distances of separation of
the centres of gravity of the molecules from each other along the
directions of the crystal axes, Pope and Barlow arrive at new ratios,
which they term equivalence parameters. By the use of these latter
they have attempted to account for the crystalline structure of a
number of substances—chiefly organic compounds, in the
investigation of which Prof. Pope has proved so adept—which are
connected morphotropically in the manner described in Chapter
VIII., and of others which are still less intimately connected.
Unfortunately, the equivalence parameters do not make clear the
relationships in an isomorphous series, as do the molecular distance
ratios; for they are, from their very nature and mode of derivation,
almost identical for all the members of an isomorphous series, the
valencies of the interchangeable elements being the same. The
molecular distance ratios have also the great advantage of being
derived from the three measurements which have now been brought
to the highest pitch of experimental accuracy, namely, atomic weight
determinations, density determinations by the Retgers immersion
method, and goniometrical and physical measurements (optical and
thermal) with instruments now available of the utmost refinement.
Structural constants thus derived are obviously of especial value. It
would thus appear that the theory requires modification so as to take
account of the experimentally proved regular increase in volume and
in the directional dimensions of the structural unit cell of the crystal
space-lattice, when one element of the same family group and of the
same valency is interchanged for another. Indeed, as the theory
stands at present it entirely ignores and fails to offer any explanation
of the highly important physical property of density, specific gravity.
That this physical constant, and the equally important constant
molecular volume, derived by dividing the molecular weight by the
density, possess a real and significant meaning in isomorphous
series, formed by the interchange of elements of the same family
group, has been clearly proved in Chapter X. This fact is, indeed, so
obvious that any further development of the theory must of necessity
take account of it.
A precise statement of their conception has recently been made by
Prof. Pope in an excellent Report on the Progress of Crystallography,
issued by the Chemical Society early in the year 1909. He states that
they (Pope and Barlow) “regard the whole of the volume occupied by
a crystalline structure as partitioned out into polyhedra, which lie
packed together in such a manner as to fill the whole of that volume
without interstices. The polyhedra can be so selected that each
represents the habitat of one component atom of the material, and
are termed the spheres of atomic influence of the constituent atoms.
Up to this point no assumption is made other than that clearly
indicated by the result of crystallographic measurements, namely,
that each atom present in a crystalline structure exerts a distinct
morphological effect—or, what is the same thing, appropriates a
certain definite volume. The assumption is next made that the
crystalline structure, which is resolvable into individual molecules
and ultimately into individual atoms, exists as such by reason of
equilibrium set up between opposing attractive and repulsive forces
operating between the component atoms, and that this equilibrium
results in the polyhedra representing the spheres of atomic influence
assuming shapes which are as nearly as possible spherical.... The
polyhedra thus arrived at may be regarded as derived by
compression of a close-packed assemblage of deformable,
incompressible elastic spheres,[29] the compression sufficing for the
practical extinction of the interstitial space. When such an
assemblage is released from pressure it is evident that in place of
polyhedra, the shapes of which approximate as closely as possible to
the spherical, closely packed spheres are presented; the distances
between the sphere centres can be substantially in the same ratios as
the distances between the centres of the corresponding polyhedra in
the unexpanded mass, and the equilibrium condition of maximum
sphericity of the polyhedra will be presented in the expanded mass of
spheres by the existence of the maximum number of contacts
between spheres. The whole method of treating the primary
assumption thus resolves itself into finding close-packed
assemblages of spheres of various sizes representing by their relative
volumes the spheres of influence of the component atoms of any
particular crystalline structure.”
 Some very interesting evidence of the validity of their fundamental
assumption of spheres of influence of the component atoms as the
ultimate structural units is brought forward. They show that there
are two modes of closely packing equal spheres, which give rise
respectively to a cubic and a hexagonal crystal structure, the latter
having a specific axial ratio of the vertical to the three equal
equatorial horizontal axes; and that the chemical elements which are
solids and crystallise, and the structural units of which can naturally
be assumed to be equal spheres, being those of the similar atoms of
the same chemical element, do practically all crystallise either in the
cubic system or in the hexagonal system with the specific axial ratio
indicated by them. The theory as it concerns chemical valency is
obviously not affected by these interesting facts, as the spheres of
influence present are those of the identically similar atoms of the
same element. But the theory has received considerable support from
the results of the investigation of a number of carbon compounds,
chiefly derivatives of benzene.
Thus, in spite of the very wise decision of Barlow at the time of
developing his theory of the homogeneous partitioning of space, to
keep quite clear of attributing shape to the structural unit atoms or
molecules, and to consider them as points, he, in common with the
other contributors to that splendid geometrical work, appears driven
to consider the question of shape when, in collaboration with his
chemical colleague, he endeavours to apply his geometrical results to
the practical problems of chemistry. It may be inevitable that we
cannot get away from the idea of shape of the fundamental structural
units. Yet the moment we do admit the idea, and begin to talk of
polyhedra, or even of spheres, in close or any other packing, we enter
the debatable land, concerning which the experimental evidence is as
yet but shadowy and liable to many interpretations. Hence it is that
we have the parallelohedra of Von Fedorow, having volumes
proportional to the molecular volumes, the more general plane-faced
cell of fourteen faces, the tetrakaidecahedron of Lord Kelvin and its
deformed derivatives, and now the polyhedra of Pope and Barlow.
The more indefinite “Fundamentalbereich” of Schönflies appears to
be left behind, and we have embarked on a definite course of
attributing shape to the component atoms or their regions of
influence in the crystal structure. Von Fedorow has developed his
particular theory in a very masterly manner, and with the aid of it
professes, and with very considerable success in many cases, to
determine the correct mode of setting up a crystal for truly
comparative descriptive purposes, and has derived therefrom a
remarkable method of crystallochemical analysis.
Moreover, there is yet another view, that of Sollas,[30] that the
packing of the molecules is a more open one altogether, a view to
which he has been guided by consideration of the molecular volume.
Sollas has offered some remarkable explanations of crystal structure,
notably in the case of the dimorphous forms of silver iodide. The
abnormal contraction which occurs on heating this interesting
substance, and its sudden transformation at 146° from the ordinary
hexagonal into a cubic modification as discovered by Lehmann,
appear capable of very clear explanation on the basis of his theory.
According to this theory of Sollas the volumes of the spheres of
influence of the atoms of the different elements of the same family
group, such as those of the group of alkali metals or those of the
halogens, chlorine, bromine, and iodine, vary progressively in a
manner which is dependent on the atomic volumes of the elements,
which have a real comparative significance when the elements belong
to the same family group.
It is probable that there is a considerable substratum of truth
behind these various apparently conflicting views, and what is now
required is that the germ of real fact shall be winnowed from the
husk of fallacious speculation, just as occurred in the happy recent
settlement of the old issue between Haüy and Mitscherlich. As in that
case, moreover, it will be experimental work of superlative accuracy
which can alone offer the desirable evidence on which a satisfactory
arbitration can be founded.
It is thus obvious that we have now arrived at a stage in the history
of crystallography when more experimental data, and many more
measurements of the most carefully conducted character, on pure
materials and excellently developed crystals, are most urgently
needed, in order to decide these important, indeed fundamental,
questions, the present state of which the author has endeavoured to
present with judicial impartiality. When one looks around, and sees
the almost complete lack of opportunities for the training of
investigators in this rapidly growing branch of science, the
importance of which to chemistry and physics is increasing every
day, while the field is ripe for the harvesters, one is inclined to feel
depressed with the thought of the opportunities which are being lost.
Our country has, in this science at any rate, a fine record, having with
few breaks led the van of progress from the time of Wollaston, the
inventor in the year 1809 of the reflecting goniometer, and of Miller,
the originator of our method of describing crystals and the pioneer of
accurate experimental work, down to the present day. It may be,
also, that our country’s reputation is safe at this moment. But it is in
the hands of a band of investigators so small, and often of the private
and not professional nature, carrying on the work for sheer love of it
and deep interest in it, that the wonder is that so much has been
done, and it is the provision for carrying on our national tradition of
leadership in crystallography in the future that is a matter for the
deepest concern.
If the perusal of this book should have awakened sufficient interest
in the minds of some of its readers to prompt them to offer
themselves as recruits to this small band of investigators, and
especially if it should have inspired the zeal and enthusiasm of a few
young students looking around for a promising and fascinating field
of work, and, finally, if it should prove to be of assistance in
obtaining the means of training such recruits with the help of the
best and most accurate experimental apparatus which can be
obtained, the author’s main objects in writing it will have been
attained.
 INDEX

Airy’s spirals, 197

Alpine snow-field, 49
Alum, ammonium iron, 43;
cæsium, 42;
potash, 5, 16, 17, 77;
vicinal faces of potash, 248, 251
Amethyst quartz, 222–229;
as example of pseudo-racemism, 231, 232
Ammonium chloride labile crystallisation, 248;
iron alum, 43;
NH4 group, and its isomorphism with alkalies, 82, 83, 131;
oleate, liquid crystals of, 259–263;
oleate, twins of, 262
Ampère’s researches on ammonia, 83
Anatase, crystal of, 37
Antimony oxide, dimorphism of, 87, 88
Apatite, crystal of, 37
Aragonite, biaxial interference figure of, 189, 190
Armstrong and Pope on sobrerol, 153
Arsenic oxide, crystals of, 5, 88
Astatic systems of molecular magnets of Lehmann, 271, 272
Asymmetric carbon atom, 144, 145
Axes and axial planes of crystals, 51, 55, 56
Axial ratios, 129

Babinet’s double-wedge quartz plate, 219

Bacteria, destruction of one enantiomorphous form by, 149
Barium nitrate, 152
Barker, researches on perchlorates, 123
Barlow, discovery of remainder of 230 point-systems, 118, 119, 140;
and Pope’s theory, 285–292
Bartolinus, Erasmus, 17
Benzoic acid, screen experiment on crystallisation of, 229–231
Bergmann and Gahn’s laws of cleavage, 18
Berzelius and Mitscherlich, atomic weights and isomorphism, 80,
82, 83, 85
Beudant’s researches on the vitriols, 75, 76
Biaxial crystals, 60°-prisms and refractive indices of, 162, 163, 184;
optic axes of, 185;
optic axial angle of, 191
Biot’s researches on tartaric and racemic acids, 143
Biquartze, natural and artificial, 181, 211, 214, 216, 217
Black band of quartz twins, 216–218
Boisbaudran, Lecoq de, 238
Boyle, Robert, 17
Brauns, 254
Bravais, 114;
space-lattices, 114
Brookite, 91

Cæsalpinus, 15
Cæsium alum, 42
Calcite, crystals of, 10–13, 38;
amount of double refraction of, 174;
in rock sections, 177, 178;
uniaxial interference figure of, 189, 190;
plate perpendicular to axis of, 209;
refractive indices of, 174;
60°-prism of, 165, 168
Calcium carbonate, three habits of crystals of, 11
Calcium dextro-glycerate, optical activity and crystal form of, 155–
160
Carangeot’s contact goniometer, 18–20
Carbonate, calcium, 11, 87;
potassium sodium, 44
Carbonates of alkaline earths, 74
Carbon, dimorphism of, 137
Carbon dioxide, liquid in quartz cavities, 46
Cavendish, 23
Chemical significance of crystallography, 73, 283, 284;
valency and crystalline form, 285–291
Cholesteryl benzoate, liquid crystals of, 258;
acetate, spherical liquid crystals of, 281, 282
Chromate, potassium, 84
Chromates and manganates, isomorphism with sulphates, 84
Classes, the 32 crystal, 6, 33
Cleavage, 17;
and glide-planes, 275, 276
Cobalt sulphate, 78
Conditions for growth of crystals, 240, 244, 245
Constancy of crystal angles, 6, 13, 14, 17, 23, 132
Convergent light experiments, 186, 188
Copper sulphate, 40, 76, 78
Coppet, de, 238
Crookes, Sir William, 138, 208
Crossed-axial-plane dispersion of optic axes, 89, 94, 95;
of ethyl triphenyl pyrrholone, 106, 107, 108;
of gypsum, 89
Crystal, definition of, 4;
germs and their influence on crystallisation, 236, 237
Crystals, modes of formation of, 4, 5
Cube and its perfection of symmetry, 38;
axes of, 52
Cubic system, 37
Cyanide, potassium cadmium, crystals of, 42

Dalton, 25
Dark field of polariscope, 188, 202
Davy, Sir Humphry, researches on ammonia, 82, 83
Delafosse and morphotropy, 101
Deville and Troost’s researches on tantalum chloride, 84, 85
Diamond, 8, 137, 138, 207, 208
Dibenzal benzidine, liquid crystals of, 264
Digonal axis of symmetry, 36
Dimensions of structural parallelepipeda, 129
Dimorphism, 79, 87;
of antimony oxide, 87, 88;
of carbonate of lime, 79, 87;
of mercuric iodide, 97;
of sodium dihydrogen phosphate, 80, 81;
of sulphur, 86;
of vitriols, 79
Directive molecular force in crystallisation, 139, 269, 274–277
Dog-tooth spar, 10–12
Double refraction, interference colours due to, 176, 177;
measure of, 169, 170;
of biaxial crystals, 184;
of uniaxial crystals, 183
Double sulphates and selenates, 35, 79, 121, 127, 128, 132
Dulong and Petit’s law, 84

Electronic corpuscles, constituents of atoms, 113, 124

Elements of a crystal, 68, 69
Enantiomorphism and optical activity, 140;
11 classes showing, 150
Epsom salts, 76, 78
Ethyl triphenyl pyrrholone, 105, 106
Eutropic series, definition of, 132
External molecular compensation, 134, 234
Extinction directions, 204, 205

Fedorow, von, discovery of remainder of 230 point-systems, 118, 119,

140;
theory of, 291, 292
Ferricyanide, potassium, 44
Ferrocyanide, potassium, 43
Ferrous sulphate, 76, 78
Fletcher, indicatrix of, 184
Fluorspar, single refraction of, 206
Form, definition of a, 11, 60, 61
Frankenheim on morphotropy, 101;
 discovery of space-lattices, 114
Frankland and Frew, 155
Fuchs, von, researches on sulphates of barium, strontium, and lead,
75, 77
Fuess reflecting goniometer, 64–66
Fundamentalbereich of Schönflies, 112, 113

Gattermann, 258
Gay-Lussac on alums, 77;
on ammonia, 83;
on racemic acid, 142
Gernez, 238
Gessner, 14
Gmelin, researches on racemic acid, 142
Goniometer, contact, 19, 20;
reflecting, 64–66
Graphite, 137
Groth, von, morphotropic researches, 98, 102–104
Growth of a crystal, 1;
from solution, 237–254
Guglielmini, researches on crystal structure, 17
Gypsum (selenite), cleavage of, 203;
crystals of, 14;
extinction directions of, 204;
60°-prism, experiment with, 163, 168;
twins of in polarised light, 205, 206

Habit of crystals, 12, 13

Hardness of crystals, 255, 274
Hatchett’s discovery of columbium, 85