The Shah
Page 43
Once the Shah and Kennedy emerged from their private meeting, the President began by offering a brief account of their private discussion. Even the short summary he provided makes it amply clear that theirs had been a heated and contentious meeting, what diplomats call “a frank and serious” discussion. According to Kennedy, “the Shah had discussed Iran’s requirement for greater military assistance and the President had said that no build-up of the Iranian armed forces would enable it to withstand a Soviet attack alone and that the greatest present danger to Iran was internal and that [the] current government program in Iran [namely Amini] appeared to be aimed at reducing this danger.”7
Here then was the crux of the problem: the Shah was worried about the Soviet and Iraqi threat and wanted a bigger army and more military expenditure, while Kennedy believed the biggest threat facing the Shah was the domestic situation and wanted to push for more reforms and a bigger slice of the budget for social expenditures. Since it was the U.S. government that had to pay for much of any expansion of the Iranian military, Kennedy’s views carried particular weight. He wanted to convince the Shah that the Iranian army was “essentially for maintenance of internal security,” and for that purpose, Iran needed “a modern, albeit significantly smaller force.” To sweeten the deal, the United States proposed a new program that provided the Iranian army with sophisticated equipment.8 Moreover, Kennedy had ordered his staff to prepare a “list of all commitments and semi-commitments of any importance made by the United States for defense of Iran.” In other words, Kennedy wanted to reassure the Shah that, in the event of a Soviet attack, the United States would be there to help. The list of such commitments included twelve items—“from the tri-partite declaration of Tehran, December 1, 1943,” to the famous August 26, 1959, letter from Eisenhower reassuring the Shah that “Iran does not stand alone in the face of these [Soviet] pressures.”9 The Shah was not convinced. I can’t tell my military, he said, that they shoulder no responsibility in the defense of their country against Soviet aggression.
Before his next meeting with Kennedy, the Shah was to appear before a joint session of Congress—an honor bestowed only on important visiting dignitaries. Though the Shah had already appeared twice before such a joint session, the third appearance was controversial and nearly canceled. A few members of Congress had objected to the invitation and threatened to walk out when the Shah was introduced. It was a sign of the Shah’s precarious position in the new era of American politics that only after considerable cajoling by the American Embassy in Iran were congressional leaders persuaded not to cancel the invitation. Julius Holmes, the American ambassador to Iran at the time, was an unabashed supporter of the Shah and in Washington was sometimes jokingly called the Shah’s envoy.
The Shah’s speech to Congress, delivered on Thursday, April 12, around one o’clock in the afternoon, was the longest of his trip. It expanded some of the ideas he had first articulated during his remarks at the White House dinner. The big difference was that in the congressional speech he put more emphasis on the reforms that had begun in Iran. He made sure the Congress knew that it was he who “had given the government of [Amini] some authority to carry out these changes.”10 Like Kennedy, the Shah had no desire to use the dread Amini name.
The Shah’s last major speech was to the National Press Club. He was more at ease on this occasion and even engaged in some light banter with the journalists. He offered an optimistic image of Iran’s future, but also tried to convey a sense of nonchalance about power. “Let me tell you bluntly,” he told the journalists gathered there, “that this king business has given me nothing but headaches. Over the last twenty years since the beginning of my rule, I have not had even one day of peace and comfort, something every human being is entitled to.”11 The intended audience for his blunt message was not so much the journalists gathered there but officials of the Kennedy administration. One of the ironic paradoxes of the Shah’s character was that while he certainly clung to power tenaciously and fought vigorously to increase his personal hold on levers of authority, he was also from the beginning a reluctant monarch, ready to give up the throne whenever a serious threat appeared on the horizon. The Shah also tried to reassert his dedication to reforms and underscored the fact that long before the Kennedy administration came to power, he was a reformer. He talked of the days when the world and Iran were both caught in the throes of the Second World War, and how even then he had advocated social justice and demanded that every Iranian must have a guaranteed minimum of “free education, free health care, decent housing, adequate clothing and adequate food.” The Shah went on to add, with clear hints of pride in his choice of words, that “the next day, some of the people present in that meeting began to say the Shah of Iran has become a communist.”12
The Shah bedazzled the journalists with what the British Ambassador to the United States called his “diplomatic adroitness” when, in response to a question about whether Iran was still selling oil to Israel, he said with a smile, “we know nothing about that.”13
In July 1962, about three months after he returned home from America, the Shah accepted Amini’s resignation. Many in Iran, as the Shah himself knew, believed that the sole purpose of his American trip had been to convince Kennedy that Amini was expendable. If there is any evidence for such an alleged agreement between the Shah and Kennedy, it must be the aide-mémoire covering the Shah’s second discussion with Kennedy on April 13. The President “said that it was true that there were special situations in different countries which required special solutions. The Shah, however, is the keystone of Iranian security and progress and, the President continued, must keep pushing toward further development.”14 Beneath the thin veneer of diplomatic formalities, the message seems clear: the United States wanted reforms and thought Amini was fit for the job, but if the Shah could undertake the same reforms, the United States would be just as happy. This clearly seemed to be the Shah’s interpretation. The lead editorial of Etela’at, the Tehran daily that reliably reflected the Shah’s views on pending issues, offered the same interpretation.15 As diplomats who met the Shah after his return noticed, his depressed, even despondent, mood had turned to a jovial, self-assured confidence.
Pleasant as many aspects of his American trip were, the Shah also had to face the embarrassing fact that Iranian students in the United States had organized angry demonstrations against him. The Shah, according to a CIA report, was “particularly bitter” about the demonstrations. This was the beginning of the Confederation of Iranian Students’ relentless activities against the Shah. For the rest of his tenure, he would never again travel to a Western European or American city without the specter of student demonstrations haunting him. Ironically, by the late 1960s, Communist countries were the only places the Shah felt safe from the harassment of demonstrations by leftist Iranian students!
After the official trip, the royal couple stayed on for a few more days in the United States. The Queen had never been to America before, and this, the Shah told the American Ambassador, would be a good chance for her to see some of the continent. He also wanted to spend one night in London.
The London trip was declared by the Shah to be private. In spite of the fact that because of other visiting dignitaries, it was a particularly “inconvenient time” for the British government to host the Shah, they went out of their way to roll out the royal red carpet for him and his entourage—including a meeting with Queen Elizabeth.16 The issue of this meeting almost created something of a diplomatic rift between the Shah and his British hosts. The Shah was initially asked to join a dinner the Queen had already planned to give in someone else’s honor, but he took umbrage at the idea. He felt “that his position demands that he should be invited in his own right and not as a guest at a dinner given on another occasion.”17 The British government changed plans to fit the Shah’s wishes; their efforts were a revealing sign of the incipient competition between Britain and the United States over influence in Iran and amity with the Shah.
The Shah and his wife made one more stop before returning home, going to Montreux to visit the Shah’s daughter, Shahnaz; her husband, Ardeshir; and his father, General Zahedi. The General was by then in frail health, and the Shah was keen on trying to reconcile with the man who had saved his throne in 1953 but had lived in virtual forced exile since 1955 and bore some resentment against him. Whether the General ever forgave the Shah for what he considered was his royal ingratitude is not clear.
Back in Iran, the Shah received help from two sources in his attempt to get rid of Amini. On the one hand, dissension within the Amini cabinet had all but paralyzed it. Amini’s relationship with his ambitious minister of agriculture Arsanjani was at a breaking point. Arsanjani had begun avoiding not just cabinet meetings, but other important committees and functions. He had become “openly contemptuous of Amini” and had said more than once “that he will brook no interference from him or anyone else in the land reform or agricultural affairs.”19
Arsanjani was not the only minister in defiant revolt. Safi Asfia and Khodadad Farmanfarmaian, two of the cabinet’s key economic technocrats, were also resigning, each for different reasons. Many of the younger technocrats were turned off by the fact that in the midst of a serious national crisis, Amini had taken time off to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca—a two-week ordeal at the end of which the pious sojourner returns carrying the coveted title of “Hadji” (one who has gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca). Amini’s picture in the traditional garb of a pilgrim—a long piece of white cloth, with no stitches made on it anywhere, as required by Islamic law, wrapped around the pilgrim’s body like a shroud—appeared on the front page of some newspapers and became for weeks the subject of satirical comments. Adding to Amini’s problems was the ballooning budget shortfall, estimated to reach more than $200 million for the next fiscal year.20
The Shah also received unexpected help from Edward Mason, who was sent by the White House to get a firsthand look at the situation in Iran. He arrived in Tehran on a fact-finding mission in June 1962 and found the Iranian situation “most discouraging,” with the operational budget swollen and the deficit increasing. The relentless demands for increased pay for teachers by the cantankerous minister of education, Mohammad Darakhshesh—the leader of the striking teachers who had been given a ministerial portfolio to appease the strikers—and the Shah’s unwillingness to accept a decrease in the military budget combined to make a balanced budget a pipe dream. Moreover, Mason found that Amini was “ill, exhausted, unable or unwilling to assert his will [and] restore fiscal order.” All of these facts convinced Mason that the “Shah alone possesses sufficient power and authority to take necessary action.”21 Mason further concluded that “under prevailing circumstances US should not attempt bail out operational budget by any kind of support.” Mason must have learned what everybody else seemed to have known for some time: without America’s support and the constant infusion of U.S. aid for the operational budget, Amini could not survive.
A few days after Mason delivered his assessment to the White House, Kennedy sent a “personal message to the Shah” conveying his “personal concern over the apparent serious deterioration” in the economic situation, reminding the Shah that when they had “our most cordial talks here in Washington, we agreed that accelerated economic development was the best road toward a bright future for Iran.”22 What Mason had found out in a few days the Shah had known for a few months. The Shah knew that his “Amini problem” would be resolved only if he kept the military budget at least constant. Kennedy’s letter was a subtle, albeit not forceful, request for a reduced military budget, but the Shah simply chose to ignore the request. He must have sensed that the new U.S. policy was to live with the Shah “and attempt to mold [him], i.e. support the Shah’s reform program and work through him rather than attempting to circumscribe his role.”23
On the afternoon of July 17, Ali Amini and his minister of finance, Jahanguir Amuzegar, met to discuss the new budget. After going over the numbers a few times, they realized they had a substantial shortfall of at least $35 million—even after a 10 percent across-the-board reduction of expenditures. They decided that, unless they could balance the budget, the cabinet should resign; before informing the Shah of their decision, they decided to meet with the American Ambassador and ask for an emergency loan.
Around eleven o’clock in the evening on the same day, Amuzegar arrived at the U.S. Embassy and asked for an emergency meeting with a very surprised Ambassador Julius Holmes. Unless the United States was willing to give the government an emergency $35 million loan, Holmes was told, the Amini cabinet would resign. Holmes believed that Amini was simply bluffing, and he therefore unceremoniously said no to the loan request. The next morning, Amini convened an emergency meeting of his cabinet and informed them of his decision to resign. Amini had assumed that the United States would somehow find a way to solve his budgetary crisis, but after Mason’s report, the Kennedy administration was no longer willing to bankroll the Amini experiment.
According to the British Embassy, the Shah “accepted the [Amini] resignation with a marked degree of personal satisfaction.”24 He then appointed Assadollah Alam as prime minister. By then Alam had become at once the Shah’s master of mirth and his enforcer, his reliable aide in the most sensitive political and even family issues. Alam’s mandate was clear. He was to continue the reforms started by Amini but accept the fact that they would henceforth all be under the direct aegis of the Shah. Even the name used to describe these reforms was to change. On the day of Amini’s appointment, Etela’at, Tehran’s conservative daily, considered a mouthpiece of the Court, wrote an editorial called “White Coup or Red Revolution.” Change in Iran was inevitable, the paper opined, and there were two paradigms for this change. One was promoted by the Soviet Union and was a “Red Revolution”; the other was supported by Kennedy and was a “White Coup.”25 The Shah, the paper said, had wisely chosen the “White Coup.” A few months later, Amini, in the course of answering a journalist’s question, said, “there is nothing unusual going on in Iran. . . . This government has simply decided to pursue a White Revolution that it deems necessary and in the nation’s best interest.”26 It has been the consensus of historians that this was how the term “White Revolution” was coined. Some of the Shah’s critics, hoping to underscore their claim that the entire project of reforms was masterminded by the United States, claim that even the term “White Revolution” was coined by Chester Bowles, the American official sent to Tehran by Kennedy in 1962.
But in a fascinating report, the British Embassy in Tehran claims that in 1958, Alam went to the embassy and offered a “program of reform which he said he wanted the Shah to adopt. He used the now much quoted phrase ‘White Revolution’. It is possible that in voicing these views Mr. Alam was acting as a ‘sounding board’ for some of the Shah’s own ideas.”27 However, before long, not only did the White Revolution itself metamorphose into “The Shah and People Revolution,” but, in the Shah’s narrative of this revolution, there was no place for Amini.
There was something surprising about the Alam tenure. When the appointment was first announced, foreign diplomats in Tehran observed that Alam would be nothing but “an instrument and the mouthpiece” for the Shah. In the view of the American Embassy, “the Alam appointment was the closest thing to direct rule of Shah. Alam completely devoted servant . . . from outset there will not [be a] question in anyone’s mind of independence on part of PM.”28 The embassy made another revealing observation about Alam: they had
come to believe that many members of the new cabinet, “including Alam have or have had British connections and may have been under British influence.”29 Was the Shah trying to assure Britain of its continued relevance in Iran by the appointment of an Anglophile prime minister to carry out a program supported by the United States? Whatever the Shah’s intentions and whatever the embassy’s estimation, in reality, Alam went on to play a crucial role in July 1963, saving the monarchy in its first major confrontation with the clergy.
The Shah’s clash with the clergy was the culmination of a few years of planning on both sides. In 1955, when, under pressure from the clergy, the Shah had approved the attacks on members of the Baha’i faith, the British Ambassador went to talk with the Shah “about the bad influence of reactionary mullahs.” The Shah, in response, said “he agreed that the mullahs must be kept in their place, and out of politics” but he thought it would be about two years before he could take them on and avoid any serious problem. The Shah missed it by a few years, and the confrontation took place not in two but in eight years; even then, trouble was not altogether avoided.30
The first stage of the big confrontation with radical clerics took place over an apparently insignificant proposed change in the election bylaws for local councils. Until then the law had called for everyone to take the oath of office using the Qu’ran. In recognition of the fact that there were large numbers of religious minorities in Iran—Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians, and Baha’i—the new language simply suggested that the oath must be taken with a book. Mullahs began a concentrated campaign using their elaborate networks to agitate against the new law. Their main line of attack was that the law was part of an assault on Islam and paved the way for Jews and Baha’i to use their own holy books to take their oaths.31 The mullahs opposed the new proposed law from a reactionary perspective. Nevertheless, nobody in the opposition came to the support of the new proposed legislature.