The Fall of Heaven

by Andrew Scott Cooper

  Farah returned home to be peppered with questions from her husband, who was curious to hear firsthand what was happening in the countryside. “His Majesty was always asking me about my day,” she said. “Where had I been? Who had I seen? You know, at some point it was difficult because even in bed before sleeping we were talking about road building projects. His life was Iran. And progress for Iran. It was part of us.”

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  IN OCTOBER 1967 an American visitor contrasted Tehran to the city he had first visited at the end of the Second World War. The Iranian capital was no longer “a sprawling city of one- and two-story buildings, where horse-drawn carts and donkeys clattered through ill-paved streets, and the municipal water supply ran through open gutters,” he wrote in National Geographic. “Now I had spent a week walking the neat streets of a modern city, looking into shop windows full of electric refrigerators, gas stoves and television sets, and staring up at 16-story office buildings. And on the broad avenues where automobiles had been few, I had fretted through some of the most stupendous traffic jams the world has ever produced. Not that Tehran had lost all its old flavor. Vendors still crowded the sidewalks. Fruit stands offering grapes, melons, figs, and pomegranates took advantage of the shade cast by a modern skyscraper. The odor of roasting kebab floated from a hundred small food shops, and corner vendors offered glasses of tart pomegranate juice—fresh from an electric blender.” Other foreign visitors were as impressed with the benefits of the Shah’s economic and social revolution. “The beaches bounce with bikinis,” said Time, “and teen-agers in Tehran have joined the transistor generation. The ancient, withered men of Yazd are being taught to read. In Qom and Bam, in Dezful and Gowater and 50,000 villages throughout Iran, 15 million peasants have been transformed, almost overnight in history’s terms, from feudal serfs into freeholders whose land is now their own.”

  With internal security ensured and demand increasing for Middle East oil, Iran’s economy in the late sixties took off with a 10 percent annual growth spurt that convinced American diplomats that the threat of socialist revolution had receded. Per capita income doubled from $130 to $250 and at last a start was made to fight the twin scourges of poverty and ignorance. Annual oil revenues surpassed $700 million, and 75 percent of the new wealth was channeled into big development and infrastructure projects. For the first time, the Shah’s 26 million subjects experienced a taste of real prosperity, with 98 percent of Iranian villagers now released from landlord control. The Shah and his admirers were convinced that the key to the boom was his style of authoritarian leadership. In the late sixties and early seventies, leaders throughout the developing world but particularly in Asia suspended constitutions, imposed censorship, and exiled or imprisoned their adversaries in the belief that Western-style democracy contributed to social instability during periods of economic reform. “Iran must first become an economically democratic society and then a politically democratic society,” the Shah insisted. “Shah is a kind of magic word with the Persian people,” he told the New York Times in 1967. “If I were not the King of this country, I could never have implemented one-hundredth of what we’ve been able to do with the White Revolution. A dictator could not do it. The leader of a political party could not do it. But the King could do it.”

  The Shah believed that at least a decade of personal rule was required to strengthen the economy and broaden the base of the middle class. Once a conservative, moderate center was established, he could begin dismantling the trappings of personal rule and quietly disengage from the political process. His confidence in his abilities and judgment soared along with the economy. He rebuked Iranian intellectuals, university students, and Mossadeq supporters who questioned his belief that the Iranian people were not ready for democracy. “When everybody in Iran is like everybody in Sweden, then I will rule like the King of Sweden,” he declared. Nor did the Shah have patience for those who wondered whether the pace of reform was more than an ancient society could handle. He said he had no choice but to drive the kingdom as he drove his sports cars. “If you don’t say to the Iranians run one hundred kilometers an hour, they wouldn’t go five kilometers,” he explained. There were “always ridiculous reasons” to explain delays. “And we have enough bad economics in this country! These are the reasons why I am pushing on and on, and every day I am going to push harder.”

  Many Iranians and most foreign observers agreed with the Shah that Iran had a long way to go before it became a stable parliamentary democracy. “The ignorance of rural Iran is incredible,” said one American visitor in 1967. “One village elder, watching his first movie, ordered a feast prepared for all the actors, convinced that they could somehow step out of the screen and join him for a chelo kebab. In another village the audience wrecked the screen by giving chase to the villain of a Hollywood western.”

  The Shah understood that present conditions could not last forever. In the midsixties he was influenced by American ideas on modernization after reading a study positing that “by the year 2000 the world would be divided into industrial and agricultural countries, and by then it would be too late for the laggards to industrialize.” This document became the blueprint and justification for the pell-mell industrialization of Iran within a single generation. “In the life of a nation you have only a few periods where everything gathers to make [swift progress] possible,” said the Shah. “This is one of those periods. We have got to take the fullest advantage of that.” He would not allow Iran to lose precious time by indulging in yet another ill-fated experiment with Western-style democracy. “We have got to catch up, and in a certain limited time.”

  Kennedy’s successor in the White House, President Lyndon Johnson, encouraged and supported reform of Iran’s economy and society, though the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research warned that “the realities of the future will not include the indefinite prolongation of one-man rule; in some fashion that cannot yet be discerned, it appears likely that the Shah will confront a choice between allowing greater participation in government or seriously risking a fall from power.” The bureau noted that “while there is no evidence that a conflagration is imminent, there is no room for complacency.… Though it enjoyed stability imposed from above and its short-term viability appears reasonably good so long as nothing happens to the Shah, Iran’s future is clouded by hazards which could profoundly affect its political climate.” Other observers noted the extent to which the security forces had strengthened their grip over Iranian society to the dismay of intellectuals, students, and the clergy who bitterly complained that independent thought and basic freedoms had been extinguished. The Shah “uses [parliament] mostly for window-dressing. All candidates must be approved by Savak, his powerful security police, and elections are arranged so as to give the Shah’s Iran Novin (New Iran) Party an overwhelming majority of the seats.… The press is controlled, and all public criticism of the Shah is forbidden by law.”

  These concerns barely registered when in August 1967 the Shah paid a triumphant state visit to Washington. Five years earlier, Kennedy had interfered in Iran’s internal affairs, foisted his candidate for prime minister on the Shah, and predicted the imminent demise of the Pahlavi Dynasty. Half a decade later, the president was dead from an assassin’s bullet, American cities were torn by urban riots and civil rights protests, and Americans were deeply split over the war in Vietnam. The Shah made it clear that with security and prosperity established Iran had strengthened itself to the point where it could pursue “positive nationalism” and adopt a less deferential posture toward the United States. Speaking to the New York Times in September, the Shah confirmed “that our independent policy is now firmly established.” He basked in the praise of Johnson, who lauded him as a visionary statesman. His effort to modernize his ancient country “beckons all the Middle East,” said the president. “You are winning progress without violence and bloodshed—a lesson others have still to learn.” Johnson approved the Shah’s request to purchase two squadrons of ad
vanced fighter jets. Diplomatic observers interpreted this as the first step in an ambitious plan that called for Iran to eventually replace Great Britain as the guardian of Western security interests in the Persian Gulf.

  The Shah’s decision to finally stage his long-delayed coronation in the autumn of 1967 was the surest sign yet of his confidence that he and his country had put to rest the bad old days of riots, assassinations, and revolutions. “It is not a source of pride or satisfaction to become King of a poor people,” he explained. “So in the past I had felt that a coronation ceremony was not justified. Now I am proud of the progress we have made.” He was the same age his father had been when he was crowned in 1926. He had turned seven that year, the same age Reza was now. He took delight in his young family. The birth of Farahnaz on March 12, 1963, coming so soon after the birth of the heir, had been a cause for great celebration. Father and daughter, both shy, developed a close bond. One evening, the Shah was presiding over a meeting of his ministers at Saadabad Palace when the door was pushed open and Farahnaz, three and a half years of age, cried out, “Daddy, it’s time to come!”

  The Shah pretended not to notice the interruption and continued with his presentation. Heads turned at the sound of a scuffle as the little girl broke free from her nurse and “ran the length of the chamber and tugged on the monarch’s trousers, looking up at him brightly.”

  “Daddy, come now!” she insisted.

  The Shah smiled, rose to his feet, and escorted his daughter out of the room “murmuring something about ‘disgraceful behavior.’” While he was away the ministers chatted among themselves. They straightened up when the monarch returned but noticed that he was visibly relaxed. He was determined not to repeat the mistakes of his own childhood. Much to his wife’s dismay, he indulged the children and seemed quite unable to discipline them.

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  CORONATION FEVER HAD been building for the past year. “This month, Iran will hold a blowout the likes of which few countries have ever seen,” reported Time magazine. “The country is being shaken by a two-pronged revolution—social and industrial—that is bringing to the mass of its people the first real taste of prosperity in 6,000 years.… For seven roaring days and seven joyous nights, it will celebrate the coronation of the man responsible for it all.” Earlier in the year, astrologers had encouraged husbands to make love to their wives so their newborns would receive a Coronation Day blessing and “hospitals all over Iran are expecting a population explosion on Coronation Day.” Iranians were confident and optimistic about the future. “God bless His Majesty,” said the chief of a village awarded a new water well, radios, and a refrigerator. “He has made our lives better.”

  To celebrate the milestone, the government opened thousands of new schools, hospitals, and big development projects that included Tehran’s stock exchange, the Rudaki concert hall, and docking facilities in the Persian Gulf. The barbaric practice of hanging criminals in public squares was ended. Among the 4,811 convicted criminals pardoned by the Shah were the men who had planned the attack three years earlier on the Marble Palace. In Shiraz, the Queen inaugurated the first in a series of annual arts festivals that placed Iran in the forefront of the avant-garde arts scene and became a draw for foreign tourism. A performance by renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin was broadcast to the nation from the ancient ruins of the palace of the Achaemenid kings. Museums around the world held exhibitions of Persian art. Europe’s Telstar announced that its satellite would transmit the coronation live to a global audience of 270 million television viewers. Millions of lights decorated city streets so that from the air Tehran resembled a “box of jewels.”

  In recognition of his wife’s hard work, and to emphasize that there was no going back to the days when the women of Iran hid from society, in September 1967 the Shah announced his intention to ask the Constituent Assembly to name Farah regent-designate in the event he died before their son reached his maturity. The symbolism of the gesture was unmistakable. The regency initiative was hailed at home and abroad as an important step in the advancement of women’s rights in the Muslim world. Behind the scenes, however, it set off a fight led by court conservatives already uncomfortable with the Queen’s high public profile and social activism. They opposed the idea of granting power to a young woman with liberal views and fought a rearguard action to defeat the measure. Within the cabinet, Ardeshir Zahedi spearheaded the opposition. Zahedi, now serving as Iran’s foreign minister, had at one time championed Farah Diba’s credentials as a suitable consort and assuaged concerns about the Diba family’s ties to the Mossadeq clan. Now he worried that Farah’s influence threatened to eclipse his own. During a meeting of the cabinet he declared his outright opposition to the regency bill. “I told the Shah it was foolish,” he recalled. “The other ministers signed it knowing that without my signature it would never become law. No one liked the idea.”

  The Shah did not confront Zahedi over his objections but neither did he aggressively defend his plan to overhaul the Constitution. As was often the case in domestic matters where decisive action was needed, the Shah thought about it, hesitated, and gave conflicting signals in an attempt to placate both sides. Inevitably, this caused confusion and hurt feelings. The Constituent Assembly ultimately approved the change to the succession but noted conservative objections when it inserted an opt-out clause that allowed the Shah to name a new regent should he ever change his mind. If she did ever ascend the throne, the Queen would also be required to share power with an eight-person advisory council. But Foreign Minister Zahedi, who never recognized Farah’s new legal status, regarded the regency as one of the Shah’s most ill-advised and sentimental follies. Court Minister Asadollah Alam, who ran the Imperial court and kept a shrewd eye on events, was more understanding of Farah’s liberalism, which he interpreted as the natural outgrowth of a sensitive nature and social conscience. “Long may her influence be felt; a valuable safeguard against the abuse of power,” he wrote in his diary. “She alone has the ability to open His Imperial Majesty’s eyes to the truth. In this respect I run her a very poor second, but I do try my best to be truthful, which is more than can be said for anyone else at court.”

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  IN THE SOFT autumn light of October 26, 1967, gilt carriages cantered past hundreds of thousands of cheering spectators on their way to Tehran’s Golestan Palace, the fabled palace of the garden of roses. Hundreds of guests wearing black ties, gaily colored floor-length gowns, and diadems were already in place when shortly after eleven o’clock the Pahlavi princes and princesses entered the Golestan’s great Salaam Hall, with its Naderi Throne encrusted with more than twenty-five thousand rubies, sapphires, and emeralds and embellished with images of lions, peacocks, and dragons. The Pahlavis were followed by the Shah’s senior generals and aides-de-camp, bearing raised swords, flags, and the Imperial standard. Then, against a swelling backdrop of choral music, Crown Prince Reza entered to smiles and nods. The little Prince’s parents had made him watch old newsreels of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation so that he could take a lesson from Prince Charles, whose behavior that day had been impeccable. Next to enter the grand hall was Queen Farah, who dazzled the assembly in a white silk gown, her hair worn up in her signature chignon, her swan neck adorned with her favorite emerald earrings and necklace. A fanfare of trumpets announced the Shah’s arrival in the hall.

  The coronation ceremony began with a prayer offered by Seyyed Hassan Emami, the Imam Juma of Tehran, who hailed the monarch’s commitment to social justice and offered the King a copy of the Quran, which he kissed. “This could have been a ceremony at the court of Imperial Russia,” wrote one observer. “[The Shah] buckled on a rich sword belt and a sword knobbly with gems. The soldiers put a gold and blue cloak round his shoulders and then they offered him the crown.” “The Shah and Queen remained generally impassive throughout the ceremony,” reported the New York Times correspondent, “but the Crown Prince fidgeted in his chair during his father’s brief address. The Queen’s eye
s surveyed the audience of dignitaries, who were in full evening dress and long gowns, even though the temperature was in the seventies. Two hidden fans cooled the Shah and Queen during the ceremony, but the Shah perspired slightly under the hot lights of the cameramen. Princess Shahnaz, the Shah’s 27-year-old daughter by the first of his three marriages, wept copiously during the ceremony.”

  The Shah meant to crown himself and his consort in the style of Napoleon and Josephine. He had already conferred on his wife the new title of “Shahbanou,” or “King’s Lady,” to distinguish Farah from her predecessors. The Pahlavi crown had been fashioned for his father’s coronation, and with more than three thousand diamonds and pearls it was “shaped rather like a wastepaper basket with a tail plume at its front.” At the designated moment the Shah seized the Peacock Crown and set it on his head amid cries of “Javid Shah!” (“Long Live the King!”), and the roar of cannons from a 101-gun salute could be heard from one end of town to the other. Now the Queen approached the throne while her attendants fastened around her shoulders a twenty-six-foot-long green velvet train edged in white mink and studded with emeralds, diamonds, and pearls. She knelt before her husband on a pillow spun of gold thread while he pressed down on her chignon a crown of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds shaped like a sunburst and “as spectacular as a city in flames.” Struggling to hold back tears, the first crowned empress in Iranian history had never looked more radiant. “It was the Queen and her son, indeed, who stole the show in the icing-sugar extravaganza of the mirrored coronation hall,” observed the correspondent for the Times of London. “Queen Farah, cool, smiling and composed, wore her crown gracefully and unbent to the extreme of acknowledging her young daughter, Princess Farahnaz, who sat bouncing on her peacock blue chair throughout the half-hour ceremony. The Shah, by contrast, seemed to feel the weight of his ostrich-plumed scarlet and gold crown and the constraint of the tight-waisted uniform of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. He spoke in soft, almost breathless tones after his coronation, referring to his hopes that he and his wife and son would fulfill their responsibilities for the future.”