The Fall of Heaven

by Andrew Scott Cooper

  Moviegoers in Tehran had fewer choices over the new year. New foreign movie releases were a rarity in a country that for the past several years had been blacklisted by Hollywood studios because of the Shah’s stubborn refusal to approve an increase in cinema ticket prices. The boycott ended when the government reached a deal to raise prices, but the big studios still insisted that Iranian cinemas first screen a backlog of movies that dated back to the midseventies. The result was a slew of disaster pictures that opened in late 1977 and kept audiences on the edges of their seats, each film emphasizing failure of leadership, loss of control, and public panic. In Towering Inferno (1974), which opened just before Christmas 1977, a group of hapless celebrants were stranded when fire broke out in what was supposed to be the world’s newest and most luxurious skyscraper. In Earthquake (1974), the glamorous, sun-drenched metropolis of Los Angeles was flattened by a powerful temblor and dam collapse. The protagonists in Jaws (1975), which opened in Tehran cinemas in the New Year, kept trying to swim to safety but never quite made it.

  Tehranis would have to wait before they could see Saturday Night Fever, Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the three blockbuster releases that swept American and European box offices that winter. John Travolta was the biggest movie star in the world and every teenage girl’s crush. The slim pickings on New Year’s Eve in Tehran were the usual fare of obscure horrors, spaghetti Westerns, and dated romances. Over on Old Shemiran Road the Bowling screened The Graduate (1967). Showing at the Ice Palace on Pahlavi Avenue were two movies whose titles eerily portended how most Americans living in Tehran spent their next New Year’s Eve, The Getaway (1972), starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw, followed by Peter Cushing’s Now the Screaming Starts (1973). For those planning a quiet night in, National Iranian Radio and Television’s English-language television station cut away from its regular nighttime lineup of Charlie’s Angels, Space 1999, and Shaft to broadcast the evening movie, The Pendulum, a 1969 murder thriller with George Peppard and Jean Seberg with sly political undertones. At the time of its release the American movie critic Roger Ebert had denounced it as “a fascist movie, defending strong authority figures against citizens’ rights.”

  Tonight’s big show, of course, was the televised state banquet in honor of the Carters.

  * * *

  JIMMY CARTER ROSE to deliver his toast shortly after ten o’clock. A hush fell over the dining hall in Niavaran and in private homes and in bars, hotels, and restaurants across Tehran, and indeed around the country, the meal chatter subsided, drinks were set aside, and celebrants gathered around television sets to listen to what the American president had to say. Every word the president said would be parsed and analyzed for some hidden or deeper meaning. Television audiences noticed the anxiety on the Queen’s face. From her seat at the top table, Princess Ashraf also thought she knew what was going on. “I looked at his pale face,” she remembered. “I thought his smile was artificial, his eyes icy—I hoped I could trust him.” “The situation in Iran was already bad,” recalled Elli Antoniades, Queen Farah’s friend since childhood. Farah’s circle regarded Carter with a wariness bordering on distrust. “We were in such a bad mood. We were so suspicious of Carter.”

  This president had a habit of laying it on thick with foreign heads of state. Previously, Carter had praised Yugoslavia’s Communist dictator Marshal Josip Broz Tito as “one of the world’s greatest fighters of freedom,” and he had lauded President Hafez Assad of Syria, no one’s idea of a pacifist or diplomat, as a great “peacemaker.” Both leaders ran tough dictatorial regimes. In his banquet speech in Warsaw, the first stop on his trip, Carter had startled his Communist hosts by telling them that their two countries shared similar values. “I wish you’d quit saying how great a friendship you’ve struck with some leader after meeting only briefly,” grumbled the Washington Post’s Haynes Johnson. The press pool cringed when Carter began his remarks describing the Shah’s riot-torn visit to Washington the previous month as “delightful.” There were more raised eyebrows when he offered that he had traveled to Tehran in deference to his wife’s wishes. Carter said he had asked Rosalynn: “‘With whom then would you like to spend New Year’s Eve?’ And she said, ‘Above all others, I think, with the Shah and Empress of Iran.’ So we arranged the trip accordingly to be with you.” Then Carter turned serious. To everyone’s surprise, he lauded the great strides made in Iran during the Shah’s reign. “Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah, is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world,” he declared. “This is a great tribute to you, Your Majesty, and to your leadership and to the respect and the admiration and love which your people give to you.”

  Ambassador Sullivan’s staff, seated at the rear of the banquet hall, looked at each other in astonishment. What on earth was the president doing? For the past year they had been quietly monitoring the rising level of unrest around the country. Jack Shellenberger, the embassy’s head of public affairs, watched the scene unfold, with Carter “throwing away all the material that had been prepared. So like most of these visits by presidents, the mix of words that goes into the final speeches comes from many players,” he recalled. “But I think Carter was in such rapture at being in this palace among the friendly family, the Pahlavis, he felt, well, this guy has got it together and he won’t fall, he’ll survive.” White House speechwriter James Fallows, who crafted the final version of the toast on the drive in from the airport, knew nothing about the loaded history of “island of stability.” But if his goal was to offer the Shah assurance, his penmanship did the trick.

  After dinner the two heads of state retired for a private conference with King Hussein of Jordan, who had flown in to discuss the prospects for a Middle East peace deal. The Carters originally intended to withdraw to their suite to see in the New Year but changed their minds after the Queen prevailed on them to stay for a celebratory glass of champagne. The party moved into her library. “I have a happy memory of that evening, which was peaceful, friendly, and warm,” she recalled. On the library balcony, overlooking the floor where the heads of state and their guests danced and chatted, Crown Prince Reza and Princess Farahnaz played the latest disco hits on a record player and practiced their dance moves to applause from the adults. Their father grimaced at the racket. He waved his hands, trying to signal them to turn down the volume, but eventually gave up and let them have their fun. The New Year was greeted with a round of cheers, hugs, and handshakes.

  * * *

  WHILE JACK SHELLENBERGER sat shaking his head in the Shah’s palace, his daughter Katie Shellenberger and her friends were dancing in the Hilton’s disco before moving on to other venues around town. The American celebrants didn’t notice the stern-faced young man who watched them with disdain from the shadows. “I went to the InterContinental,” said the student revolutionary Ali Hossein. “The discotheque. Alcohol was prevalent. They were against the values of the nation. The Pahlavis did not see any limit for them. They felt they were free to do whatever they liked.”

  * * *

  THE NEXT MORNING the Pahlavis accompanied the Carters to Mehrebad Airport. As the president climbed the stairs to Air Force One he stopped, turned to the Shah, and dramatically declared, “I wish you were coming with me.” The irony of his farewell remarks did not become apparent for quite some time. After Air Force One took off, the Shah did something that for him was quite out of character. Usually reticent before large crowds, he was buoyed by Carter’s visit and agreed to Ambassador Sullivan’s suggestion that he greet several hundred members of the American community who waited patiently behind a rope line. To the surprise and delight of the crowd, the King and Queen strolled over and began shaking hands. It was a spontaneous gesture and one greatly appreciated by the Americans, who clapped and called out expressions of support. “We admired the Shah for what he was doing for the Iranian people,” said Bruce Vernor, an oil company executive who took photographs while his wife, Pat, greeted the royal couple. �
��And we liked to say that with the Shahbanou we had the most beautiful head of state in the world!” The Pahlavis left to a round of cheers and applause. The Shah was delighted with the reception. “You Americans are really very nice people,” he complimented the ambassador, who thought the remark unintentionally revealing.

  Sharp-eyed readers who picked up their copy of that morning’s Kayhan newspaper might have noticed the teasing headline on page nine: “Period of Trepidation Ahead Says Zodiac Calendar.” According to the Asian zodiac, 1978 was the Year of the Horse. “It may be an occasion for trepidation,” the paper reported. People born in horse years were distinguished by their “energy but are prone to be impatient and emotional, often going too far and creating friction with people around them.” In a horse year, people tended to do whatever they wanted “without being nervous over small details.” It was a time to let loose and not think of the consequences. It so happened that previous horse years in Iran had coincided with great upheavals. They included 1906, which Kayhan omitted to mention was the year of the Constitutional Revolution, when the Qajar Dynasty surrendered to a popular uprising, and also 1930, when “a worldwide economic depression brought widespread bankruptcy in many countries, encouraging the rise of extremist movements.” One “startling prediction” even had it that in 1978 the holy book the Quran would become well known in the United States. Kayhan advised its readers to hold on—this year might be a wild ride.

  Internationally syndicated newspaper columnist Gwynne Dyer indulged in the sort of idle but provocative speculation that often fills newspaper copy over the holiday season. He had history on his mind. Dyer reminded his readers that “the past we are condemned to relive (with only the names changed) is a past that included vast surprises. The Black Death, the French Revolution, the rise of Islam, the creation of the Soviet Union: nobody knew those things were coming, and yet they changed practically everyone’s lives.” Revolutions and religious unrest were historical “wild cards” that no one could predict with any certainty. As an example, he cited the Shah of Iran.

  A modest example of a present-day wild card is the ‘one bullet regime’ of Iran. The Shah is clever, but he is not bullet-proof. If an assassin should get him (and several have tried) there is no guessing what would happen in Iran. Since the country supplies a large slice of Western Europe’s and Japan’s oil (and, according to foreign sources, almost all of Israel’s oil imports), radical change in Iran would mean crisis not only in the Gulf but much farther afield.

  Yet history had a way of pulling surprises. Before she flew out of Iran, celebrity journalist Barbara Walters sat down with the Shah to gauge his views on developments in the Middle East. The previous day, Yasser Arafat had presided over a four-hour military parade in Beirut to mark the Palestine Liberation Organization’s thirteenth anniversary. Before a crowd of eight thousand supporters in the war-torn city’s municipal sports stadium, Arafat denounced National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski’s recent comment that the Palestine Liberation Organization had “written itself off” for refusing to participate in regional peace talks. “It’s not bye-bye PLO, Mr. Brzezinski,” thundered Arafat. “It’s bye-bye America again and again in the Middle East. Let it sink into Mr Brzezinski’s and even Carter’s brain that America’s entire interests shall be written off rather than the PLO.” Arafat was flanked by top Palestinian commanders and faction leaders including George Habash, leader of the more radical left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. “There will never be an alternative except the gun, the gun, the gun!” Arafat told the cheering crowd.

  Arafat’s threat to attack U.S. interests in the Middle East held special resonance for Washington’s chief ally in the region. The Shah was Israel’s main oil supplier, President Sadat’s friend, and the most vocal regional supporter of the Egypt-Israel peace talks. No other Muslim leader dared express support for a treaty resolving the conflict between the two states. If the Shah was removed from the scene the U.S. strategic position would be severely weakened and Israel left dangerously exposed. The Shah’s remarks to Barbara Walters suggested that he understood he had been threatened by Arafat and Habash, who ran the terror camps where young Iranian revolutionaries trained. He made it clear that he expected a rough time of it over the next twelve months. “But the destructive, negative elements everywhere are in turmoil,” he told Walters. “Everywhere they are up to some mischief. And somewhere, all the elements of trouble are on the loose and unleashed. So every country should expect those elements to try to foment some trouble.” Iran’s rain catcher saw storm clouds on the horizon.

  Hours later, the great primal, subterranean forces the Shah had dedicated his life, his reign, and billions of dollars trying to contain and suppress came unloosed. The tectonic plates that underpinned a millennium of Iranian history began to strain and buckle. For 35 million Iranians, and for the hundreds of thousands of foreigners who made Iran their home, a way of life and an entire world was about to end. Over the next year the choices they made and the decisions made for them would seal their fate. The cleaners at the Hilton Hotel on Pahlavi Avenue had barely mopped the floors and swept up the streamers when the first stirrings of unrest that led to revolution erupted in Iran.

  * * *

  THE NEXT FEW days were quiet enough.

  Across town, the Crown Players’ production of Dick Whittington opened at the Italian Theater on France Avenue, and an open casting call was held for a production of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night. On the resort island of Kish the House of Christian Dior staged a fashion show featuring the latest swimwear. In local news, the head of Tehran’s Criminal Investigation Division, General Farzaneh, reported that the capital remained one of the safest big cities in the world, with crime rates well below those in European and American capitals. But he cautioned that crime was steadily rising in Iran’s metropolitan areas: “The new, mechanized way of life, the migration of the population from rural areas to the congested cities, the sudden picture of wealth and affluence which greets the young and often uneducated people who come to Tehran for the first time, all contribute to the increasing number of thefts and murders in the city.”

  The economy rallied. After months of depressing news, Iran registered its biggest gains in oil production in a year, with daily output back at 6.4 million barrels. Crown Prince Reza arrived in Bangkok on the first leg of his three-nation Asia-Pacific tour. From Niavaran, the Shah spoke out in support of wildlife conservation—he condemned “hunting for pleasure” motived by “bloodlust”—and met with a team of international experts advising the government on a long-term plan to transform Iran into a global hub for science and medical research. Iran had already entered the computer age. There were three hundred computers in service in Iran in 1977, demand was growing by 300 percent a year, and the market for business equipment and systems was projected to hit a record figure of $500 million within the next eighteen months. This at a time when only thirteen countries had more than a hundred computers per million of population. Iran Air’s new computerized ticketing center was scheduled to come online in January 1978, at which time the Concorde would start flying American and European jet-setters to Kish.

  The Shah announced plans to fly to Aswan to confer with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, and Morocco on peace talks with Israel, followed by a stop in Riyadh on the way home to brief King Khalid of Saudi Arabia on their progress. He chose not to attend the Rastakhiz Party’s one-day special session held on Wednesday, January 4, at the Aryamehr indoor sports stadium in Tehran. But a statement read out in his behalf called on the ten thousand delegates to combat “subversive intrigues” through “political education” of the masses. Other speakers took up the theme that “red and black reactionaries” were trying to destabilize the country. Prime Minister Amuzegar warned that “a few innocent deceived youths shouting here and there, and breaking windows,” had been manipulated by more experienced foreign instigators. His government, he vowed, would “crush any attempt at ana
rchy, slavery, disorder and colonization ruthlessly.”

  The prime minister’s game of bluff was starting to wear thin. Though in public he liked to talk tough, Amuzegar had already made it clear to Ambassador Sullivan that there would be no crackdown on dissent.

  * * *

  THE ROOMFUL OF women at Damavand College erupted in laughter.

  On Saturday, January 7, 1978, Tehran’s celebrated liberal arts university for women marked its tenth birthday and the forty-second anniversary of the abolition of the veil by royal decree. Damavand College was named after Iran’s highest mountain to symbolize the spirit of endurance and excellence in women’s education. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright Associated Architects in the 1960s, the campus grounds were built on a parcel of land donated by the Shah in the hills above northeastern Tehran. Iranian and foreign-born women studied a mixed curriculum that focused on Persian and Western civilization. This morning students were gathered for a special panel discussion to commemorate Reza Shah’s bold decision in 1936 to ban the veil. Mrs. Effat Samiian reminisced about her participation in the first unveiling ceremony. She reminded the audience that American missionaries had done “a great deal to prepare fertile ground for the subsequent emancipation of women.” One former missionary, Miss Jane Doolittle, talked about the conditions that prevailed when she arrived in Persia in 1921: “Iranian women were hidden from society, and prevented from an active life.” She stood beside a student modeling a chador, pointing at it like a museum exhibit, and eliciting laughter from her audience.