The Shah

by Abbas Milani

  Aside from his belated decision to liberalize, the second root of the revolution was tied to the nature of the Shah’s character. Ironically, his strength of character as a man was his weakness as a leader. In the 1960s and 1970s, he increasingly took on the persona of an absolutist leader, decisive and determined, even brash and brutal. But no sooner did the dark clouds of crisis appear on the horizon than he began to lose his resolve, and all the vacillations and weaknesses that had almost ended his rule in 1953 appeared once again. The once-defiant Shah who had hectored the president of the United States and haughtily dismissed the elder statesmen of his realm as useless reactionaries was now in desperate need of “advice,” not only from these same “elders,” but from the British and American Embassies. He made virtually no decision in the last year without first seeking “advice” from these divergent sources. And contradictory advice often begot either indecision, or actions that were, in retrospect, blatantly absurd and sure recipes for disaster.

  As the crisis continued, the Shah grew more desperate for signs of support from the West, particularly from the United States. But the messages he got from America were contradictory. For example, when concerned Iranians asked Ambassador Sullivan “if he would seek a personal message of support for the Shah from President Carter,” Sullivan “fobbed [the Shah] off by saying that such a message would be unusual and inappropriate [at] the present time.”56 The response depressed the Shah. A few weeks later, the Shah was told that he would in fact be “receiving a telephone call” from the President. “According to Sullivan the Shah was clearly delighted, ‘his chin moved from his knees to at least his chest.’ ”57

  In reality, there were profound contradictions in the directions the American Embassy was receiving from the White House, the National Security Council, and the State Department. The confusion and bitter bureaucratic infighting created a vacuum wherein Sullivan followed his own “foreign policy.” While Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security advisor, suggested using an “iron fist” to establish law and order, followed by rational concessions to the opposition, the State Department under Cyrus Vance insisted on the continuation of the liberalization policy. Henri Precht, in charge of the Iran Desk at the State Department in this period, was also an avid supporter of liberalization. The Shah considered him nothing less than a foe. In an interview, he calls Precht “that son of bitch McGovernite” and faults him for some of the confusion in U.S. foreign policy.58 Carter himself constantly vacillated between these two starkly different paradigms. Sullivan, too, was dancing to an increasingly bizarre tune. His self-admitted ignorance of Iranian history and Islamic traditions, which was a source of wonderment when he was first appointed, now came back to haunt him. The Shah swung from one extreme to another, invariably to disastrous result. Khomeini, dangling a tactical but tantalizing democratic platform, used each of the Shah’s moves to his own profit, ultimately convincing Sullivan that he would create a democratic polity in Iran. Not only were Khomeini’s cohorts in direct contact with the embassy in Tehran, but Sullivan supported the idea of the United States establishing ties with Khomeini himself in Paris. According to Carter, Sullivan “lost complete control of himself” when he learned that the United States had approached Khomeini “through the French instead of directly as he had pushed.”59

  As Amuzegar proved unable to control the crisis, the Shah decided to replace him. In his Answer to History, he laments the fact that he moved too quickly. Following Amuzegar’s dismissal, the Shah decided to create a government of “national reconciliation” and chose Jafar Sharif-Emami for the task. He had been the president of the Senate for almost two decades and had led the Shah’s Pahlavi Foundation ever since its creation, overseeing the expansion of the foundation into different fields of the economy, from owning and operating every casino and most luxury hotels in the country to purchasing the Omran Bank, one of the most powerful financial institutions in the country. In 1961, during his first term as prime minister, not only had he failed miserably in dealing with the severe recession, but the U.S. Embassy considered him responsible “for some of the plunders which had gone on.”60 Since that time, he had been known for harboring anti-American sentiments. He had also acquired the moniker of “Mr. Five Percent,” based on the allegation that he received 5 percent on every major government contract.61 On top of all this, he was generally known to be the Grand Master of Masonic Lodges in Iran, a fact confirmed when Esmail Rain published his famous three-volume study of Masons in Iran. In other words, it is hard to imagine a figure worse suited to the job of forming a government of national reconciliation than Jafar Sharif-Emami.

  But he had several things working in his favor. First and foremost, some of the clergy, particularly Ayatollah Shariat-Madari, had suggested him as a possible candidate to replace Amuzegar. It was a measure of the radical mood of the times that, although Shariat-Madari played a key role in bringing Sharif-Emami to office, the atmosphere created by pro-Khomeini clergy was such that he did not dare offer public support. He decided instead on “caution, deliberately refraining from allowing himself to be identified” with the new cabinet.62 Sharif-Emami also had the support of the British Embassy. According to the British Ambassador, he was “a well-respected figure, a former prime minister and of impeccable religious credentials.”63

  By this point, the Shah was growing less and less involved in the daily affairs of government. Sharif-Emami’s strategy was simple enough. He made concessions to every demand of the opposition, sometimes anticipating what those might be, and offering the concession even before the demand was made. The calendar was changed back to its Islamic origin. The casinos were shut down. Some political prisoners were freed, while dozens of ministers, generals, and key officials were arrested. The most controversial of these was the arrest of Amir Abbas Hoveyda on November 7, 1978. Ostensibly, the Shah, the Queen, and five highly placed advisors decided on his arrest on that day. However, the Shah had informed the British Ambassador a week earlier about the imminent arrest of both Hoveyda and Nematollah Nasiri, who had only recently been appointed Iran’s ambassador to Pakistan. Under General Moghadam’s leadership at SAVAK, censorship virtually ended, hundreds of political prisoners were freed, criticism of the government was not just allowed but encouraged—but it was all to no avail. As far as the opposition was concerned, Sharif-Emami’s concessions were nothing but a sign of weakness.

  Some in SAVAK had a very different view of how to handle the situation. On Saturday, May 13, 1978, all chiefs of security and police were called to Tehran for a conference. Nasiri, still SAVAK chief, “put forth the view that the way to handle the disturbances was to close the bazaars in cities such as Qom, and use all the necessary force, including killing people.” But General Fardust, also present at the meeting, presented an alternative approach, more congruent with what became Sharif-Emami’s mode of behavior. Fardust argued that military conscripts could not be counted on to carry out such a crackdown. He recommended instead “that the government open a dialogue with the people.” As Fardust himself admitted, his views were adopted by those in the room only because they assumed he was speaking for the Shah. The meeting ended by those present asking Fardust to convey to the Shah their concurrence with the position he advocated.64

  But these concessions only increased the opposition’s appetite for more. Eventually, on September 7, 1978, faced with increasing riots and strikes, the cabinet decided to declare martial law in Tehran. For reasons that have never been fully explained, the announcement of martial law, though made in the early afternoon, was not broadcast until after midnight. By eight o’clock the next morning, some 800 people had congregated in Jaleh Square. Within an hour that number swelled to about 10,000. Soldiers tried to enforce the curfew, asking the demonstrators to disperse; then tear gas and live ammunition were used. The city was suddenly awash with rumors of “thousands killed” by soldiers. According to the foreign embassies, the actual number was anywhere from a dozen to 300.65 The day was immediately labele
d “Black Friday.” The Sharif-Emami experiment in appeasement had failed.

  It is hard to pinpoint the moment at which the unwieldy coalition that eventually overthrew the Shah began to coalesce. One thing is certain: Carter’s human rights policies had an impact in reinvigorating the dormant democratic movement. Many consider the trigger to have been an ill-advised article that was published in Etela’at in January 1978. The article, titled “Iran and the Red and Black Colonialism,” had grown out of the Shah’s anger at Khomeini’s latest, particularly nasty pronouncements against the Pahlavi dynasty. He had called the Shah a “filthy pilferer” of public coffers. Khomeini’s eldest son had died, and rumors of SAVAK’s involvement—though never confirmed even by Khomeini—spread throughout the country. An angry Shah ordered SAVAK and Hoveyda, then Court minister, to prepare a blistering attack. SAVAK was—rightly, as it turned out—reluctant to stir up a hornets’ nest. Hoveyda, on the other hand, was more than eager to carry out the Shah’s orders. He had two of his journalistic hacks prepare the article. Some claimed that Hoveyda’s eagerness stemmed from his enmity toward Amuzegar and a lingering hope of a return to power.

  Whatever the reason for Hoveyda’s eagerness, the two journalists, both notorious for their opportunism, speedily prepared a scurrilous attack on Khomeini. It combined fact and fiction, accusing Khomeini of being of Indian origins and of being a British agent. The fact that his grandfather had moved to India was later confirmed by his brother and his biographers. But in those days, the article was seen as a sinister character assassination. Darius Homayoun, then minister of information, received a yellow envelope embossed with the seal of the royal Court. He had already been informed that it contained an article the Shah wanted published. Without reading the article, Homayoun sent it to Etela’at and asked them to publish it forthwith. But upon reading the text, both the editor and the publisher of the daily paper realized its incendiary potential. They called Homayoun to register their reservations. Prime Minister Amuzegar, was consulted, and he too, without bothering to read the essay, ordered it published. If His Majesty wants something published, Amuzegar reportedly said, then it shall be published. Amuzegar was, of course, not alone in this sentiment. For years, Hoveyda had ensured the implementation of his orders by insisting they “were from the Boss [Arbab].” The article was published on January 8, on page seven of Etela’at, and within hours, riots began to erupt in the city of Qom, and blood was shed.

  Wiser ayatollahs like Shariat-Madari knew the dangers inherent in this hornets’ nest. He immediately contacted the Court and suggested that the Shah swiftly issue an apology and bring to a speedy close the unfolding eruption. But Shariat-Madari’s wise suggestion was ignored, and within days, even he had no choice but to join the increasingly loud chorus of critics of the regime, all demanding an apology.

  As the movement in support of Khomeini gathered steam, Saddam Hussein offered, as a gesture of goodwill, to rid the Shah of this “meddlesome priest.” The Shah refused, suggesting that killing Khomeini would only make him a martyr. Apparently, the French intelligence services made a similar offer to the Shah, and his response was the same. Also, according to Iran’s Ambassador to Iraq at the time, a few months before this sudden eruption, someone in Khomeini’s entourage had inquired about the possibility of the Ayatollah’s returning to Iran “to die.” The Shah had summarily rejected the request.66

  Others believe the first salvo of the 1979 revolution was a 124-page open letter to the Shah that was written in 1977 by the famous journalist Ali Asghar Haj Seyyed Javadi, in which he detailed the breaches of law committed by the government, the Court, and the Shah himself. Some point to the ten nights of poetry at the Goethe Institute in Tehran as the genesis of the movement. On those nights some of the country’s leading dissidents read works critical of the regime, its censorship, and its undemocratic ways. An estimated 10,000 people stood for hours in the open air, often in pouring rain, to listen to these dissident artists and intellectuals. In May 1977, fifty-three of the country’s top lawyers and law professors wrote a letter to the Shah, accusing his government of interfering in the work of an independent judiciary. Less than a month later, three top leaders of the National Front (Karim Sanjabi, Darius Forouhar, and Shapour Bakhtiyar) wrote an open letter of their own to the Shah, criticizing the regime’s economic policies and suggesting that the mishandled land reform and subsequent bad policies had wrecked the country’s agricultural sector. They demanded an end to despotism, respect for the Iranian Constitution and for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an end to the one-party system, freedom of the press, and release of all political prisoners. In quick order, other groups of lawyers, professors, and political activists entered the epistolary fight for democracy.

  One of the most important of these letters was signed by ninety-eight prominent writers, poets, and translators; it marked the reemergence of the Iranian Writers Association—a group that played an important role in the subsequent democratic struggle in Iran. With every passing day, as it became evident that the regime was no longer punishing those who signed these daring declarations, their numbers suddenly increased. The Iranian Committee for the Defense of Freedom and Human Rights was founded, and in its ranks were not only most leaders of the National Front, but also Mehdi Bazorgan—the future prime minister of the Islamic regime.

  Ironically, what fed the appetite of these critics was the Shah’s decision to establish two royal commissions to look into allegations of mismanagement and malfeasance in the Hoveyda government. Some of the journalists known for their ties to the Court also began surprisingly acerbic attacks on Hoveyda. Ali Asghar Amirani, the famous editor of Khandaniha, was easily the most noticeable of such newly emboldened critics. It is hard to imagine that his attacks were not sanctioned by the Shah. Whatever the reason, these attacks only fanned the flames of discontent among the people and weakened the resolve of the royalists. If “loyal servants” like Hoveyda and Nasiri could be arrested, no member of the ancien régime was safe. A massive flight of capital began as individuals and their fortunes sought safe harbor in Europe and the United States. Those who chose to stay and try to save the regime ended up paying a heavy price, sometimes with their lives, for their fidelity to the Shah or the country.

  The findings of the royal commissions, some of them broadcast on radio and television, seemed to further confirm opposition claims of massive fraud and misuse of public funds. Nosratollah Moinian, the Shah’s impeccably honest chief of staff for about two decades, was in charge of one of the commissions. The findings did not offer a complimentary picture of the country’s economic realities.

  Despite the role his own policies had in the creation of the crisis, the Shah felt betrayed not only by the West, but also by the people of Iran. Sometimes he accused his opponents of being nothing but “Marxists, terrorists, lunatics and criminals.” When in October 1978 he finally took a helicopter flight to witness one of the most massive demonstrations, he came back despondent, angry, and convinced of foreign connivance. That night, he met with British and American officials and told them in no uncertain terms that he held their governments responsible for what he had seen that morning. “What have I done to you?” he asked. He believed that the West’s “betrayal” of him far exceeded the “giveaway at Yalta.”67

  In 1978 the Shah and most Iranian government officials had an exaggerated view of the power of America and Great Britain to “direct events” in Iran. A few critical reports by the BBC and the American media were more than enough to convince both the people and the regime that the Shah was now vulnerable and that the West had not only abandoned him, but was now out to get him. Even Khomeini reportedly listened to nightly broadcasts of Voice of America, the BBC, and Radio Israel to get a sense of Western policy. So pervasive was the belief that the American and British media—particularly the BBC and the Voice of America—represented the official views of their governments that, after a few critical reports in both outlets, both countries’ ambassadors
felt compelled to try to dispel the notion. Nonetheless, more than once, Iran “semi-officially” objected to the British government about the content of BBC broadcasts, even threatening to end some contracts with British companies.

  The BBC in particular was deemed to be so powerful, and its influence so pernicious, that some of the Shah’s generals from the air force suggested using the cover of night “to take out the relay towers of the BBC.”68 In recent accounts offered by the BBC itself, they admit to having had a “critical” disposition toward the Shah. They write that “the image of BBC changed in the collective perception of the population. It was no longer the voice of ‘British colonialism’ but a trusted friend.”69 They attribute this anti-Shah tilt to the personal inclinations of their staff and not to some coordinated British government policy.

  Tensions over these broadcasts reached such a level that in September 1978, Sir Anthony Parsons, the British ambassador, informed the Shah and Prime Minister Sharif-Emami of his decision to dispatch an “entirely trustworthy” emissary to meet with Ayatollah Shariat-Madari, “as leader of the most important moderate opposition,” and reassure him that the BBC did not reflect official British policy and that Great Britain’s “true position” was in fact full support for the Shah.70 The U.S. government took similar steps to reassure the Shah that, in spite of what the American media reported, the American government continued to support him.