Unmagic Carpet

The richest, reddest carpet in Russia was none too good for the feet of the visiting Shah of Iran and his beauteous Queen Saroya when they arrived in Moscow last month. Unlike other foreign dignitaries who must be content with billets in the city's hotels or embassies, Iran's rulers, the first sovereigns to visit the Russian capital since 1928 (when the Shah of Afghanistan dropped by) were put up in an apartment within the walls of the Kremlin itself. New bathrooms were installed, to make the place fit for a king. The purpose of all this red-carpeting: to cozen Iran away from its allies in the Baghdad Pact.

Last week the first visiting chief of state to be housed within the Kremlin became as well the first to leave Moscow without putting his name to a single agreement of any kind. "If the Iranian government has undertaken measures for its defense," he said, "they have been dictated by the needs of state on the basis of past experience." At the last minute the Shah even refused to put his name on an innocuous, Russian-prepared joint statement of good will on the ground that it would be improper, since he is only "chief of state and not of the Iranian government."

The ceremony at Moscow's airport as the Shah and his Queen left Russia was marked by unseasonable coolness.

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