The Shah

by Abbas Milani

  But in spite of the pressures exerted by the Shah’s regime, some of the most important heads of state failed to show up. For the Shah, one of the biggest blows was the news that Queen Elizabeth would not attend. According to the British Ambassador, the Shah was “rather grumpy” when he heard the news. He then demanded that instead of the Queen, he “would like the Prince of Wales” to come. Even that, he was told, was impossible. This time the excuse was that he was “doing his service in the royal navy.” Reluctantly, he settled for Prince Philip and Princess Anne. They offered to help with the nightmarish questions of protocol that would arise—so many heads of state, each with different seniority and standing in the diplomatic rules of etiquette. The Shah was appreciative of this help, and of Prince Philip’s and Princess Anne’s participation. He gave the Princess Royal a stallion as a token of his appreciation for her presence.57

  Even President Nixon chose not to attend, sending in his place Vice President Spiro Agnew. The Russians sent President Podgorny, while Tito of Yugoslavia, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, and Prince Rainier III of Monaco and his wife, Princess Grace, were the other important invitees who agreed to come. In spite of the heavy French accent of the festivities—from food and wine to tents and towels—French President Georges Pompidou refused to attend. “If I did go,” he said in biting sarcasm, “they [would] probably make me head-waiter.”58 The Shah was told that the reason for Pompidou’s decision to skip the celebration was his unhappiness with the seating arrangements. “Who the hell does he think he is?” the Shah reportedly asked.

  The British Embassy described the event itself as “a sumptuous celebration . . . of daring enterprise,” a “good idea but marred by the element of excess.”59 It shared the fate of “so many other good projects in Iran,” derailed by a touch of the “megalomania from which the Shah,” according to the embassy, now suffered. The municipality of Tehran alone, according to the British Embassy, had spent $81 million on the celebrations. A member of the organizing committee has challenged these estimates, claiming that only $22 million was spent. Documents published by the Islamic Republic, based on the ancien régime’s archives, provide even larger numbers than those suggested by the British Embassy.

  Waiters and sommeliers were imported from Europe, some of them from the hotel in St. Moritz, where the Shah and his family owned a chalet. They served only the “Bacchic best”: magnums of Chateau Lafite (1945), bottles of Blanc de Blancs, Moët Chandon (1911), and Dom Perignon Rosé (1959). Twenty-five thousand bottles were shipped from Paris for the six hundred guests. The servers were reportedly paid $2,500 for their weeklong trip. Dinner was a six-course, five-hour extravaganza, created by the famed Max Blouet; much of it was flown in from Maxim’s of Paris. It included fifty roast peacocks, “quail’s eggs stuffed with golden caviar, crayfish mousse, saddles of lamb.” The only thing Persian on the menu was the caviar. The Shah, allergic to caviar, was served a vegetable instead. In 1980, the Guinness Book of Records chose the ceremony as the most extravagant party on record.

  Iran’s radical groups, particularly the new urban guerrilla organizations, which had emerged only a few years earlier, had vowed to disrupt the celebration and negate the claim that the Shah’s regime was an “island of stability.” Amongst the efforts to disrupt the event was the failed attempt to kidnap Shahram, the Shah’s nephew, and the successful though inconsequential destruction of an electric power line near Tehran. The regime’s success in containing damage was made possible by the arrest of a large number of dissidents and careful watch on another 1,500 individuals deemed potentially disruptive. As Ardeshir Zahedi wrote in a letter to the Shah, rumor had it that prisons were so overfilled that SAVAK had rented special houses and used them as temporary prisons. Zahedi also criticized the fact that only French food was served. If we have twenty-five hundred years of glorious civilization, he asked rhetorically, why then can we not serve them “Persian dishes like kabab kubideh or even ab-gusht?”60

  Some of the costs for the celebration were paid for by contributions from businessmen. How many of these contributions were made voluntarily, and how many were made under direct or implicit duress is not clear. The Armenians of Iran, for example, were “told to cough up one million dollars.”61

  The controversial celebration was taking place just as the Shah was finally realizing his dream of becoming the dominant force in the Persian Gulf. In 1965, he had learned that Britain intended to leave its bases in the Gulf, and he had indicated his determination to have Iran replace Britain as the dominant military power in the region. The British were keen on “disabusing” the Shah of any such notion. Denis Wright recommended that, in meetings with the Shah that year, the British government “should not pull our punches in explaining that it is illusory to think that there is any chance of Iran inheriting our role.”62 More than once, British officials made it clear that the reason for their opposition to the Shah’s plans was their close ties with the Arab sheiks ruling in the littoral states of the Persian Gulf. The British resistance to the Shah’s plans created a period of considerable tension in the relations between the two countries. At one time, Zahedi, in a moment of anger, threatened a military confrontation with the British. On another occasion, he declared the British Ambassador persona non grata; “the air was cleared”63 only after the Shah got involved. In fact, according to Denis Wright, the decision not to have Queen Elizabeth attend the 2,500-year celebrations was more than anything “because of the difficulties we were having with the Iranians over our withdrawal from the Persian Gulf.”64 The Shah was unhappy with the British, too. In May 1968, the British Embassy reported hearing from “too many unimpeachable sources . . . that the Shah and most of his advisors (not just the wild men such as Ardeshir Zahedi) are fed up with the British.”65

  For the Shah, one problem on his way to becoming the hegemonic force in the region was Iran’s lingering claim of sovereignty over Bahrain. He had come to believe that those claims were impossible to actualize, but he was unwilling to give up Iran’s claim with no gains. No less strategically indispensable for Iran’s regional hegemony were the three islands of Big Tomb, Small Tomb, and Abu-Musa—small but located at the heart of the Strait of Hormuz, where the Persian Gulf meets the Indian Ocean. Dominate the islands, the Shah knew, and you dominate the most important waterway in the world.

  In order to establish the legal foundations of Iran’s claims to the three islands, the Shah ordered the Foreign Ministry to dispatch a seasoned diplomat, with some experience in archival research, to be posted to London, where his responsibility would be to trace Public Record Office records for any documents asserting Iran’s legitimate claim to the islands.66 The Shah also appointed a seasoned diplomat as his personal emissary to negotiate with Denis Wright about the fate of both Bahrain and the three islands. The British were relieved that the Shah had not left these sensitive negotiations in the hands of Foreign Minister Ardeshir Zahedi, who was known for what the British viewed as his extreme nationalism, his anti-British sentiments, and his insistence on Iran’s claim of sovereignty over Bahrain. Eventually, the Shah agreed to a face-saving solution: Iran agreed to have the UN hold a referendum in Bahrain and promised to abide by the wishes of the citizens, should they opt for independence. For the Shah, the more crucial part of this agreement was the de facto recognition of Iran’s rights to the three strategic islands.

  During this period, the Shah was also constantly reminding the Americans of his desire to become the dominant force in the region. When Richard Nixon visited Tehran in 1967 in preparation for his new presidential campaign, he had an unusually long meeting with the Shah. Nixon recounted the key elements of this discussion to the American ambassador, Armin Meyer. The Shah, he said, had interesting ideas about the future security of the region: the defense of the Persian Gulf must be left to Iran, thus sparing the United States the need to spread its forces across every corner of the world. A year later, after the Shah met with Dean Rusk while visiting the United States, the Se
cretary of State’s “net impression” was that the Shah was “rather hoping that the US will pick Iran as its ‘chosen instrument’ in the Middle East.”67 When Nixon became president, the Shah’s dream became a reality—Iran was picked in the grand scheme of the Nixon Doctrine to be the dominant force, the policeman of the Persian Gulf. In Henry Kissinger’s words, the Shah was willing to fill the vacuum left in the region “by British withdrawal, now menaced by Soviet intrusion and radical momentum.” In the midst of the Vietnam War, Kissinger wrote, there was no way the United States could take on this added role.68

  As the Shah set out on an ambitious military expansion, he also decided to take out another piece of insurance against domestic or international guerilla activities. Though Yasser Arafat and his PLO were the most crucial source of training for Iranian guerillas in those days and though the Palestinian leadership went out of its way in public pronouncements to attack the Shah and his regime, particularly for their close ties to Israel, the Shah paid Arafat $500,000 by way of support on September 14, 1969.69 It was understood that both sides would try to keep this unusual transaction away from the eyes of American and Israeli officials. In his letter confirming the receipt of the check and thanking the Shah for his generous assistance, Arafat called the Shah his akhi, brother or comrade.70

  Becoming the dominant force in the Persian Gulf had several immediate consequences. The Shah’s decision in 1974 to send Iranian forces to Dhofar in the strategically important kingdom of Oman to fight Communist insurgents was one direct result of this new role. Instead of American or British forces fighting the Chinese- and Soviet-supported fighters, it was the Iranian special forces and air force that successfully pushed back the Dhofari guerillas. There were some 2,500 Iranian troops operating as “an independent brigade but formally taking their orders from the British commander of the Sultan’s armed forces.”71 As the Shah informed an American military delegation, the Dhofaris were by themselves “not a serious problem.” However, they were being furnished with sophisticated equipment by the Soviets. . . . There were over 100 Cubans and several East Germans supporting the rebels.”72 According to the British, the South Yemen government, a Soviet satellite, was also offering the guerrillas help at that time.

  In this period, the Shah grew particularly concerned about Soviet influence in Iran’s neighboring countries. Not only was Russia gaining more of a foothold in Iraq with the rise of the Ba’ath Party, but the Shah’s fear of Soviet expansion was only redoubled when the prime minister of Afghanistan, Daoud Khan, organized a coup and declared the country a republic. The Shah immediately wrote to the British government, indicating his belief that the Soviets were behind the coup. While visiting Washington, D.C. on July 24, 1973, a week after the coup in Afghanistan, the Shah told Kissinger of his plans to have the deposed king “flown secretly to some point in Afghanistan . . . and he [would] appeal for help.”73 SAVAK apparently had fresh intelligence on the issue of Russian complicity in the coup. The British Foreign Secretary wrote back to the Shah, saying that while Britain shared his concern and believed that Russia “almost certainly had foreknowledge of the coup,” the British did not believe “[the Russians had] instigated it.”74 More crucially, the Afghan king, Zahir Shah, rejected the offer of help, preferring a life of exile in Rome—partially underwritten by the stipend the Shah arranged for him.

  But the Soviet role in Afghanistan was not the only source of disagreement between the Shah and his Western allies. The price of oil was easily one of the most constant sources of tension, even acrimony. As the Shah pushed for higher oil prices, the global economy faced not only a serious energy crisis but a recession. Late in 1967, Ambassador Meyer had reported a “most unpleasant” visit with the Shah, when the latter used “terms such as ‘robbery,’ ‘thieves,’ and some unprintable epithets. Shah professed to be completely disgusted with consortium’s behavior.” At one point the Shah even declared that “if the companies wanted war they could have it,” adding that this time the war would not be “with a Mossadeq but with a united Iran behind the Shah himself.”75

  In January 1971, Nixon wrote to the Shah asking for help in finding a solution to the growing conflict between OPEC and consumer nations. Oil supply, Nixon wrote, “is vital to the free world. Therefore, your interests in oil and ours are bound intimately together. The consuming countries need a secure source of oil available on reasonable terms.” The Shah’s response was categorical. Without mentioning Mossadeq by name, he referred to the fact that Iran “already owns our resources according to the Oil Nationalization Act of 1951.” He added that Iran was different from other countries in the region in that it was the only one in a position to “becom[e] a developed country.” Finally, he blamed the oil companies for the current state of negotiations between the oil-producing nations and Western companies. A similar message was sent to British Prime Minister Edward Heath.76

  The Nixon administration discussed how to respond to the Shah’s intransigence; the idea of trying to remove him from power was bounced around. Kissinger and Nixon ultimately won by arguing that removing the Shah might well lead to the coming to power of a regime that would be even more troublesome for the United States.

  On Vietnam, too, the Shah supported Nixon—but increasingly on his own terms. For years, the Shah had been one of the staunchest defenders of the U.S. position in Vietnam. In October 1967, he had even offered to try to act as a mediator and find a solution and had tried to use Fereydoon Hoveyda as his special envoy on Vietnam. Hoveyda was at the time the head of a division in Iran’s Foreign Ministry that dealt with international organizations. He had lived in France for many years and had developed close relationships with some of the West’s most acclaimed intellectuals. Goddard, Truffaut, Warhol (who did a portrait of him), and Pasolini were amongst his friends. His surprising appointment to the post of Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations was in part the result of the Shah’s troubled infatuation with intellectuals: he despised their disposition yet desired their approval. In private, he invariably referred to them as An-tellectual, “an” being a Persian vernacular term for excrement. That someone like Hoveyda would accept the UN post also indicated that moderate members of the Iranian technocratic class had by then decided that only by allying themselves with the Shah, even accepting his authoritarian leadership, could they hope to push Iran toward modernization, and eventually democracy.

  Nevertheless, there was still a measure of mutual distrust between the Shah and members of the intelligentsia who had joined his regime. Thus it was with some trepidation that Fereydoon Hoveyda rushed back to Tehran in October 1967 after he was pulled out of a meeting at the UN and given a note that read: “Top Secret: To Fereydoon: Board immediately Iran Air’s direct flight to Tehran. Necessary orders have been issued to the captain and to Mehrabad airport. Signed MRP (the Shah’s initials).”77

  His worries began to gnaw at him when a police car was waiting for him on the tarmac at the Tehran airport, and he was told that they were “not at liberty to tell” him where they were taking him. By ten o’clock they arrived at Niavaran Palace, where there was a party, and he was taken to the library. Almost immediately the Shah appeared and told Hoveyda in a voice that “was solemn. ‘What I am about to tell you is an absolute secret between me and the President of the United States. It should remain so because the slightest leak might provoke an international crisis.’ ”78

  His “top secret” mission, according to Hoveyda, was to go to France and, through contacts amongst his “leftist friends,” get in touch with representatives of the North Vietnamese government. President Johnson, the Shah said, was tired of the war and wanted an honorable peace, but circumstances did not allow him to make a peace gesture. He had thus asked the Shah to act on behalf of the United States and attempt to broker a deal. It took Hoveyda only four days to receive his negative answer from the North Vietnamese government.

  Documents from the American archives offer a slightly different version of these events. It was in
fact the Shah who first offered his help in finding a “new initiative regarding Vietnam.”79 President Johnson was advised to tell the Shah that the United States “deeply appreciated his interest and concern” but added that they would offer no explicit approval of his efforts, as it “would be a kiss of death.”80 About the same time, the Shah also offered to act as a mediator in the Arab–Israeli conflict, but the United States politely demurred and asked the Shah to postpone, for the time being, the idea of sending a special emissary to launch such a peace initiative.81

  A few years later, however, the United States did need the Shah’s help in earnest. On October 21, 1972, a special Nixon envoy met with the Shah just as he had returned from the Soviet Union. Nixon wanted the Shah to immediately agree to send to South Vietnam Iran’s entire fleet of ninety F-5 airplanes. Such a transfer, the Shah was told, was essential if honorable peace was to be achieved in Vietnam. The United States of course offered to expeditiously and appropriately compensate Iran for the planes. Much to the envoy’s surprise, the Shah offered full support for the U.S. effort in Vietnam but agreed to send only a “total of 32 aircraft,” arguing that sending any more would jeopardize Iran’s national interests.82

  The Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation were not happy news for the Shah. As soon as the story broke, the Shah asked Zahedi to keep close watch and report on any major developments. In the beginning, the Shah and Zahedi both believed the Nixon line that it was much ado about nothing. It was Senator Barry Goldwater—a close friend of Zahedi’s and a big supporter of the Shah—who delivered the sobering news that a majority of the Senate was now in favor of Nixon’s impeachment. The Shah kept up his ties with Nixon even after his fall. He continued to send him gifts of caviar, and, more than once, he arranged for Nixon to find employment representing American companies wishing to do business with Iran.83