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The Shah

Page 67

by Abbas Milani


  6. Ibid., p. 124.

  7. Ibid., p. 125.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Ibid.

  10. Ibid., p. 130.

  11. Ibid., p. 126.

  12. Ibid., pp. 126–127.

  13. PRO, Tehran Legation to Foreign Office, December 24, 1925, FO371/10840.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Reza Shah Kabir (Tehran, 1356/1957); the book is in commemoration of the centennial of Reza Shah’s birth, and included copies of historic documents and photos and no page numbers. A copy of the program that day is included in Reza Shah Kabir.

  16. Suleiman Behboudi, Reza Shah: Khaterat-e Suleiman Behboudi [Reza Shah: The Memoirs of Suleiman Behboudi], edited by Gholam Hossien Mirza Saleh (Tehran, 1372/1984), pp. 281–285.

  17. Ibid., p. 32.

  18. Ibid., p. 297.

  19. Sackville-West, Passenger to Teheran, p. 133.

  20. Behboudi, Reza Shah, pp. 281–285.

  21. PRO, Tehran to Foreign Office, October 15, 1925, FO/371/10840.

  22. Behboudi, Reza Shah, p. 290.

  23. Ibid., p. 133.

  24. For a discussion of blue and its many connotations, see my “Modernity and Blue Logos,” in Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran (Washington, DC, 2004), pp. 139–154.

  25. Hassan Arfa, Under Five Shahs (New York, 1965), p. 138.

  26. K. K. Karanjia, The Mind of a Monarch (London, 1977), p. 38.

  27. Margaret Laing, The Shah (London, 1977), p. 44.

  28. Ibid., p. 46.

  29. PRO, Tehran Legation to Foreign Office, February 3, 1926, FO 371/11489.

  30. Ashraf Pahlavi, Faces in a Mirror: Memoirs from Exile (New York, 1980), p. 11.

  31. Shah, Mission for My Country, p. 52.

  32. Ibid., p. 54.

  33. Laing, The Shah, p. 44.

  34. In 1923, there were 440 primary schools with 44,205 pupils and 47 secondary schools with 9,399 students. In 1941, at the end of Reza Shah’s reign, there were 2,424 primary schools with 25,383 pupils and 301 secondary schools with 24,112 students. The number of teachers’ colleges had jumped from 1 in 1921 to 36 in 1941. See General Hassan Arfa, Under the Five Shahs (New York, 1965), p. 281.

  35. Arfa, Under Five Shahs, p. 291.

  36. Behboudi, Reza Shah, p. 325.

  37. Ashraf Pahlavi, Faces in the Mirror, p. 27.

  38. Majid A’lam, interview with author, San Diego, September 3, 2003.

  39. Behboudi, Reza Shah, p. 324.

  40. PRO, Tehran Legation to Foreign Office, October 20,1926, FO 371/11490.

  41. Shah, Mission for My Country, p. 52.

  42. Ibid., p. 55.

  43. Ibid., p. 53; Meccano is a line of metal construction toys, first produced in 1901 in Liverpool by a man named Frank Hornby. Before long they were being sold in Europe and the United States. The company still exists.

  44. Ibid., pp. 53–54.

  45. Karanjia, The Mind of a Monarch, p. 40.

  46. Shah, Mission for My Country, p. 54.

  47. Karanjia, The Mind of a Monarch, p. 44.

  48. Shah, Mission for My Country, p. 55.

  49. Ibid., pp. 54–55.

  50. Ibid., p. 55.

  4 Jocund Juvenilia

  1. PRO, “Report on Personalities in Persia,” February 24, 1940, FO/371/11489.

  2. Ibid. p. 59. A whole chapter of the memoir is called “Royal Tutelage.”

  3. General Hassan Arfa, Under the Five Shahs (New York, 1965), p. 226.

  4. Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Faces in a Mirror: Memoirs from Exile (London, 1980), p. 23.

  5. R. K. Karanjia, The Mind of a Monarch (London, 1977), p. 66.

  6. Dr. Javad Sheikhol-Eslami, So’oud va Soghut-e Teymourtash [The Rise and Fall of Teymourtash] (Tehran, 1379/2000), p. 183. Quoting a British Foreign Office document, from the British Embassy in Tehran to the Foreign Office, the British ambassador calls Teymourtash one of the troika of power in Iran.

  7. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London, 1991).

  8. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, “Introduction,” Reza Shah Kabir (1355/1976). The book is a commemorative of the centennial of Reza Shah’s birth; his son, the Shah, wrote an introduction to it.

  9. PRO, Berne to Foreign Ministry, November 11, 1935, FO 371/18992.

  10. PRO, Berne to Foreign Office, October 17, 1931, FO 371/15356.

  11. PRO, British Embassy, Tehran to Berne, August 31, 1936, FO 371/15356.

  12. Fardust, Memoirs, vol. 1, pp. 38–40.

  13. Frederick Jacobi Jr. “New Boy,” New Yorker, February 26, 1949, p. 56.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Ibid.

  16. Ibid.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Ibid.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid., p. 57.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Ibid.; I have checked the school roster for that year and indeed both Charlie Childs and the author of the essay, Jacobi, were students at Le Rosey.

  24. Ibid.

  25. Ibid.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, “La Chronique Roseene,” L’Echo du Rosey, Noel 1935, p. 3.

  28. Ibid.

  29. In the joke, one of the school’s British boys, called Hannay, is lonely and melancholy; a comrade approaches, and in sympathy asks, “Are you sad my friend?”; “No,” says the Brit. “Are you gay?” asks the friend. Again “No,” says the Brit. “What the hell are you then?” asks the frustrated friend. “A Brit,” answered Hannay. About the same time, in Iran, Reza Shah was beginning to take more overtly anti-British positions, and the British Embassy was taking more interest in the education of the Crown Prince—asking the consulate at Berne to check up on the young prince.

  30. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,” La Chronique Roseene,” L’Echo du Rosey, Juin 1933, p. 15.

  31. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, “La Chronique Roseene,” L’Echo du Rosey, Novembre 1933, p. 9.

  32. Ibid., p. 8.

  33. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, “La Chronique Roseene,” L’Echo du Rosey, Noel 1934, p. 16.

  34. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, “La Chronique Roseene,” L’Echo du Rosey, Printemps 1934, p. 19.

  35. L. C. Roever, “La Saison de Tennis,” L’Echo du Rosey, Juin 1935, p. 7.

  36. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, “La Chronique Roseene,” L’Echo Du Rosey, Noel 1934, pp. 3–4.

  37. Ibid., p. 5.

  38. Ibid., p. 7.

  39. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, “La Chronique Roseene,” L’Echo du Rosey, 1935, p. 3.

  40. PRO, Berne to Foreign Ministry, November 11, 1935, FO 371/18992, pp. 2–3.

  41. Ibid., p. 3.

  42. Daniela Meier, “Between Court Jester and Spy: The Career of a Swiss Gardener at the Royal Court in Iran; A Footnote to Modern Iranian History,” Middle East Critique 9, no. 16 (Spring 2000): 75

  43. PRO, British Embassy, Tehran to Berne, August 31, 1936. FO 371/15358.

  44. Meier, “Between Court Jester and Spy,” p. 76.

  45. Ibid., p. 2.

  46. Gerard de Villier with Bernard Touchias and Annick de Villier, The Shah, translated by June P. Wilson and Walter B. Nichols (New York, 1976), p. 55.

  47. Ibid., p. 56.

  48. The title of a book by a member of the Shah’s opposition tells it all. The book is called, Ernest Perron Shohare Shahe Sabeq [Ernest Perron, Husband of Deposed Shah] (Tehran, n.d.).

  49. For an introduction to Kohut’s ideas, see Heinz Kohut, The Analysis of the Self (Chicago, 1971).

  50. Marvin Zonis, Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah (Chicago, 1991), pp. 115–119.

  51. Fardust claims that the Crown Prince had an affair with a maid and that 5,000 Swiss francs were given to her to keep her quiet. See Fardust, Memoirs, vol. 1. pp. 38–40.

  52. Ibid., p. 60.

  53. Margaret Laing, The Shah (London, 1977), p. 60.

  54. Quotes are all from Mission for My Country and are quoted in Zonis, Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah, pp. 48–49.r />
  55. Zonis, Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah, p. 48.

  56. Ashraf Pahlavi, Faces in a Mirror: Memoirs from Exile, p. 22.

  57. Ibid.

  5 Happy Homecoming

  1. PRO, Sir P. Loraine’s Private Interview with HM Shah Reza Pahlavi, February 2, 1926, FO 248/1377.

  2. The details of the episode are reported in the memoirs of Seyyed Hassan Taghi-Zadeh, who was, at the time, minister of roads, and in charge of the railroad construction. See Seyyed Hassan Taghi-Zadeh, Khaterat-e Seyyed Hassan Taghi-Zadeh (Tehran, 1362/1983), p. 210.

  3. For a discussion of these developments, see Michael Zirinsky, “Riza Shah’s Abrogation of Capitulations, 1927–1928,” in Stephen Cronin, ed. The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Reza Shah, 1921–1941 (London, 2003), pp. 81–99.

  4. Nigel Nicolson, ed. Vita and Harold: Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson (New York, 1992), p. 150.

  5. PRO, Tehran to Foreign Office, November 23, 1926, FO/371/11489. The file had been classified and closed until 2002—the longest number of years that documents of the Foreign Ministry were kept closed, indicating how sensitive the British considered the otherwise simple matter.

  6. PRO, Nicolson to Chamberlain, November 23, 1926, FO/371/11489.

  7. For an account of the affair, see Donald N. Wilber, Riza Shah Pahlavi: The Resurrection and Reconstruction of Iran: 1878–1944 (New York, 1975), p. 154–155.

  8. For a discussion of article ten, see Mohammad Ali Movahhed, Khabe Ashoftey-e Naft [The Oil Nightmare], vol. 2 (Tehran, 1378/1999), pp. 923–931. Movahhed’s book is one of the most authoritative sources on the subject in Persian.

  9. Ali Akbar Hakamizadeh, Asrare Hezar Saleh [Thousand-Year-Old Mysteries] (Tehran, n.d.).

  10. Ruhollah Khomeini, Kashfol-Asrar [Opening of Secrets] (Tehran, n.d.).

  11. It is a measure of Hakamizadeh’s significance to the debate that the initial title of Ayatollah Khomeini’s book included a reference to Thousand-Year-Old Mysteries. In later editions, reference to Hakamizadeh was excised from the title, lest it afford the heretical book undue significance. For a discussion of these developments, see Mohammad Taghi Hadj Bushehri, Az Kashf-al Asrar ta Asrare Hezar Saleh, a short monograph published independently.

  12. For an account of clerical responses to these changes, see the short monograph published independently by Mohammad Taghi Hadj Bushehri, Az Kashf-al Asrar a Asrare Hezar Saleh, pp. 20–23.

  13. Seyyed Mohammad Hussein Manzur-al Ajdad, ed., Marjayeyat dar Arseye Siyasat va Ejtema [Ayatollahs in the Political and Social Domain] (Tehran, 1379/1990), p. 228.

  14. Mehrangiz Dowlatshahi, Women, State and Society in Iran, 1941–1978, edited by Gholam Reza Afkhami (Washington, DC, 2002), pp. 6–8.

  15. For a brief discussion of the episode, see Seyyed Mohammad Hussein Manzur-al Ajdad, ed., Marjayeyat dar Arseye Siyasat va Ejtema [Ayatollahs in the Political and Social Domain] (Tehran, 1379/1990), p.229.

  16. In his daily journals, Assadollah Alam, the Shah’s Court minister, recounts many such moments. See, for example, Alam, Daily Journals, vol.6, p. 52.

  17. Ashraf has provided an account of these events in her memoirs, Faces in the Mirror (New York, 1980), pp. 9–10.

  18. Iran-e Bastan, January 14, 1933. The English text of the mission was provided by the paper itself. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Mrs. Parvin Ashraf of the Princeton University Library for her help in finding this and other magazines of the period.

  19. Iran-e Bastan, January 21, 1933, p. 2.

  20. Iran-e Bastan, May 4, 1933, p. 1.

  21. Iran-e Bastan, December 9, 1933, p. 1.

  22. Iran-e Bastan, December 20, 1933, p. 3.

  23. I visited Le Rosey, talked to school officials, and inquired about the Shah’s records. They asked me to write them a letter of inquiry and promised to answer it. The words are from a letter to the author by the school principal, along with the archivist.

  24. Ibid.

  25. The reports prepared by SAVAK about different personalities invariably include personal gossip as well as news of political views and actions. Several collections of these documents have been published, and they all show the same pattern. Moreover, several people, including General Alavi-Kia, for many years deputy director of SAVAK, as well as Ahmad Goreishi, Parviz Sabeti, Fereydoon Mahdavi, and Fereydoon Hoveyda also told me about the Shah’s proclivity for gossip.

  26. Shah, Mission for My Country, p. 62.

  27. Fardust, Memoirs, vol. I, p. 58.

  28. Mahmood Jam, “Avalin o Akharin Didar man Ba Malek Farouk” [My First and Last Meeting with Malek Farouk], Salnameye Donya [Donya Annual Edition], no. 18, p. 5.

  29. Ibid., p. 58.

  30. Ibid., p. 59.

  31. Quoted in Adel Sabit and Dr. Maged Farag, 1939: The Imperial Wedding (Cairo, 1993).

  32. Jam, “Avalin o Akharin Didar man Ba Malek Farouk,” p. 59.

  33. Ibid., p. 60.

  34. Shah, Mission for My Country, p. 439.

  35. Ibid., p. 438.

  36. Ibid., p. 438.

  37. PRO, Tehran to Foreign Ministry, November 18, 1939, FO 371/23262.

  38. Ibid.

  39. PRO, Tehran to Foreign Office, October 21, 1939, FO 371/23262.

  40. Gahnameye Panjah Sal Shahanshahi Pahlavi, [Chronicle of Fifty Years of Pahlavi Rule], vol. 1, pp. 163–164.

  6 Crown of Thorns

  1. FRUS, 1940, vol. 3, p. 635.

  2. Miron Rezun, The Iranian Crisis of 1941: The Actors, Britain, Germany and the Soviet Union (Cologne, Germany, 1982), p. 28.

  3. I have discussed these passports and Iran’s effort to save its Jews in The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution (Washington, DC, 2000); I have also discussed it briefly in a January 5, 2005, editorial in the International Herald Tribune.

  4. For a discussion of Madame Blavatsky’s influence on Nazism, see Nicholas Goodrick-Clark, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology (New York, 1992).

  5. FDR Library, “US Embassy in Tehran to the President, June 1, 1938.”

  6. FDR Library, “President Roosevelt to Reza Shah Pahlavi, August 12, 1938.”

  7. PRO, “The Soviet Threat to British Interests in the Middle East,” December 6, 1939, FO 371/24583.

  8. FRUS, 1940, vol. 3, p. 631.

  9. Rezun, The Iranian Crisis of 1941, p. 37.

  10. PRO, Tehran to Foreign Office, November 18, 1939, FO 371/23269.

  11. PRO, Telegram from Tehran to Foreign Office, May 1, 1941, FO 371/27150.

  12. PRO, “Intelligence Summary Report,” August 1941, FO 371/22241.

  13. For a succinct account of German espionage in Iran, see http://www.iranica.com/articles/germany-ix; see also Hamid Shokat, Dar Tir Ras-e Havadeth [On the Path of the Whirlwind] (Tehran, 1386/2007), pp. 151–175.

  14. PRO, “Intelligence Summary Report,” August 1941, FO 371/22241.

  15. Shokat, Dar Tir Ras-e Havadeth, p. 168.

  16. PRO, “The Soviet Threat to British Interests in the Middle East,” December 6, 1939, FO 371/24583.

  17. FRUS, 1941, vol. III, p. 383.

  18. PRO, “The Soviet Threat to British Interests in the Middle East,” December 6, 1939, FO371/24583.

  19. Shah, Mission for My Country, p. 135.

  20. PRO, “Intelligence Summary Report,” June 17, 1939, FO 371/23262.

  21. PRO, Tehran to Foreign Office, January 26, 1940, FO 371/24570.

  22. Amin Banani, interview with author, Palo Alto, November 29, 2007. He was a young Boy Scout and had participated in the program.

  23. Banani, interview with author.

  24. Ibrahim Golestan has not only written about this atmosphere in his powerful stories, but also confirmed their reality to me in interviews. Interview with author, London, November 20, 2007.

  25. PRO, “Annual Political Report for 1940,” FO 371/27149.

  26. Suleiman Behboudi, Khaterat-e Suleiman Behboudi
[Memoirs of Suleiman Behboudi], edited by Gholam Hussein Mirza-Saleh (Tehran, 1372/1993), p. 395.

  27. Ibid. Behboudi was acting as a conduit between the Court and the ministries and thus was in a perfect position to know the role of the Crown Prince.

  28. PRO, “Annual Political Report for 1940,” FO 371/27149.

  29. Ibid.

  30. PRO, “Intelligence Summary Report,” November 18, 1939, FO 371/23262.

  31. PRO, “Annual Political Report for 1940,” FO 371/27149.

  32. PRO, Tehran to Foreign Office, October 26, 1926, FO 248/1377.

  33. Gahnameye Panjah Sal Saltanat Pahlavi [Chronology of Fifty Years of Pahlavi Rule] (Tehran, 1976), vol. 1, p. 165. The book was published by the Court on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Pahlavi rule.

  34. Sir Reader Bullard, The Camels Must Go: An Autobiography (London, 1961), p. 226.

  35. PRO, Tehran to Foreign Office, July 11, 1941, FO 371/2715.

  36. PRO, Churchill to Foreign Minister, June 9, 1941, CAB 120/661.

  37. Churchill Papers, “Churchill to Foreign Secretary, 6/9/1941,” Prime Minister’s Personal Minutes. Churchill Papers are held at Churchill College; their online catalogue can be reached at http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/archives/collections/churchill_papers/biography/.

  38. FRUS, 1941, vol. 3, p. 408.

  39. Fereydoon Jam, Iranian Oral History Project at Harvard, tape 2.

  40. Shah, Collected Works, vol. 1, Mission for My Country, p. 130.

  41. Ibid., p. 123.

  42. FRUS, 1941, vol. III, p. 400.

  43. Ibid.

  44. Bullard, The Camels Must Go, p. 20.

  45. PRO, Bullard to Foreign Office, 25 August 1941, FO 371/27207.

  46. FRUS, 1940, vol. III, p. 625.

  47. FRUS, 1941, vol. III, p. 400.

  48. Ashraf Pahlavi, Faces in the Mirror: Memoirs from Exile (London, 1980), p. 40.

  49. Sir Reader Bullard, Letters from Tehran: A British Ambassador in World War II, Persia, edited by E. C. Hodgkin (London, 1991), p. 69.

  50. FRUS, 1941, vol. III, p. 419.

  51. FRUS, 1940, p. 648.

  52. Ibid., p. 642.

  53. Ibid., p. 675.

  54. FRUS, 1941, vol. III, p. 360.

  55. FRUS, 1941, vol. III, p. 389.

  56. In a number of dispatches from Iran, Bullard makes this point and complains about U.S. behavior. For a shorter account of his complaints, see his memoirs, The Camels Must Go.

 

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