The Fall of Heaven

by Andrew Scott Cooper

  In this strange season of contrasts, with the Shah feeling supremely confident, Sullivan convinced the Shah was strong in the saddle, and Sullivan’s consul a few hundred miles to the south predicting an urban insurrection, perhaps it was oddly fitting that 120 American tourist operators flew into Tehran for a nine-day junket meant to sell them on Iran’s advantages as a major tourist destination. On the evening of Sunday, May 7, the Americans were treated to “a lavish cocktail and dinner” hosted by the Hyatt International Corporation. Managers from Hyatt Regency Hotels in Tehran, Mashad, and the Caspian were on hand to extend a warm welcome for what everyone hoped would be an unforgettable trip. The events of the next few days proved them right.

  * * *

  THE FIRST SHOTS in the latest round of unrest were fired in Tabriz on Monday, May 8, when police clashed with demonstrators outside a mosque, killing two men. From there, the end-of-mourning protest cycle spread like a brushfire. The next day Qom erupted when mourners destroyed three hundred vehicles and pushed past police lines to rampage through the central railway station, attacking commuters and trashing shops. Mobs attacked buses and beat passengers, then set fires in banks, shops, hotels, and factories. By midday barricades blocked major thoroughfares and prevented emergency crews from dousing the flames. Amid mounting chaos, police officers chased several rioters through alleyways and into a private residence, where they shot to death one person and wounded a second. Only too late they realized they had invaded the home of Grand Ayatollah Shariatmadari and that the two victims had been in search of sanctuary. The riots continued even after the authorities cut off the power supply. But even with the town plunged into pitch-black darkness, it took “squads of anti-riot police backed by army units and helicopters more than ten hours to restore law and order in the city.”

  On the morning of Wednesday, May 10, demonstrations and riots erupted in nineteen cities, including Mashad, Kashan, Ahwaz, Shiraz, Kerman, Hamadan, Yazd, and Qazvin. The size of the demonstrations—a mob estimated at more than a thousand rioted in Kerman—and the speed with which protesters seized control of streets in major urban centers stunned the palace and unnerved the security forces. Their worst-case scenario—that the Tehran slums would detonate beneath their feet—was on the verge of becoming reality. This time, Sabeti convinced the Shah and Amuzegar to issue a tough public statement warning rioters of severe consequences. For the past few weeks he had drawn up a contingency plan that proposed that the Shah move to a naval base and allow his security forces to smash revolutionary cells, uproot terror networks, and break the cycle of unrest. Liberalization would be halted and the “open political space” closed until religious and political passions had cooled. The reform process would restart only when calm returned to the streets and the threat of rebellion had receded. Sabeti anticipated that the crackdown would be in the main bloodless—he already had at his fingertips the names and addresses of those he wanted to detain. “We had the names of five thousand people divided into five categories,” he said. “I drew up plans to immediately arrest the first and second categories which came to fifteen hundred names.” Sabeti received support from other officials who by now were convinced that the Shah’s liberal policies were leading Iran to disaster.

  Sabeti presented the prime minister with his plan. “Now we have to do our job,” he told Amuzegar.

  “And what is our job?” asked Amuzegar.

  “For the past year,” said Sabeti, “we’ve been told not to arrest anyone. We relied on the regular courts. On the Red Cross. We are not doing our jobs. We have to arrest fifteen hundred people.”

  Amuzegar was aghast: “How are we going to respond to international public opinion?”

  The prime minister and the head of internal security then argued over how the White House and Ambassador Sullivan would respond to tougher security measures. Sabeti told Amuzegar to ignore Sullivan and do what was right for the Iranian nation—the survival of the regime was at stake. His own confidence in the Americans had long since collapsed. He was furious that his CIA counterparts protested the arrests of Iranian dissidents: “I told [my CIA counterparts that] if an American is arrested here you have the right to ask questions. But we don’t ask you about a black man arrested in Texas.”

  Amuzegar refused to approve Sabeti’s plan, which prompted Sabeti to make an appeal to Court Minister Hoveyda. “Now you have to help us,” he pleaded. “You can’t let Amuzegar persuade the Shah not to proceed.”

  Hoveyda asked: “Who are they?”

  Sabeti showed him the list of fifteen hundred names, divided among five separate groups. Their numbers included:

  Pro-Khomeini clergy: three hundred

  National Front, Liberation Movement: fifty to sixty

  Seminary students in Qom: four hundred

  Fedayeen, Mujahedin: six hundred

  Intellectuals, writers: fifty to sixty

  Hoveyda took the list to the Shah. Later in the day, he called Sabeti and told him that His Majesty wanted General Nasiri to provide him with a report the next morning to justify such drastic action as making “collective arrests.”

  * * *

  WHILE THE SHAH’S advisers debated their options, Queen Farah took matters into her own hands when she canceled her appointments, called for her car, and ordered her driver to head straight for the slums of southern Tehran. More than her husband or his advisers, she understood the power of a symbolic gesture during a national emergency. Iranians, frightened, confused, and anxious by this outbreak of violence and mayhem, were looking for some sign that the palace understood the gravity of the emergency.

  Wearing a plain business suit, her hair pulled back in its signature chignon, and accompanied only by Minister of Education and Science Manuchehr Ganji, the Queen left her car on a downtown block trailed by her wary security detail and “simply went from door to door and street to street, talking to people about their needs, expectations and problems.” It was a bravura performance—the Queen had ventured into a Khomeini stronghold on a day when his men ruled the streets to listen to the concerns of the local people. At one point she took the hand of a small boy and allowed him to guide her through his neighborhood. They chatted together about his life, problems at school, and what he and his friends hoped to be when they grew up. “I went to try to find out what was going on,” she said. “I couldn’t understand that there were so many problems that people had to come out into the streets. I believed the basis of a just foundation had been built.” Like most everyone else in government, the King and Queen had assumed the worst problems associated with modernization would sort themselves out over time. The latest bout of unrest, however, suggested that time was not on their side. Late on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after Farah’s inspection tour ended, a mob attacked a branch of Bank Saderat in tony Shemiran, and a large printing press affiliated with Princess Ashraf’s social welfare agency was put to the torch.

  * * *

  THE SHAH READ the Sabeti plan on the morning of Thursday, May 11. Cautious as ever, he rejected it as unnecessary and fraught with risk. His trip to the southern ports the week before had convinced him that he was on the right path. The people had responded to him magnificently—the bond they shared, the farr, was indissoluble. The problem he faced was that his advisers and supporters in government and in the security forces lacked confidence in the people and were too easily cowed by bomb throwers. At the same time, though he was not worried about the National Front and Liberation Movement—their supporters numbered in the low thousands—he was anxious not to do or say anything that might provoke the mosques, which could turn millions into the streets.

  For the first time the Shah understood that inaction was no longer an option—the sewers had been flushed to the point where they were now at risk of overflowing. Even as he considered what to do next he learned that rioting had erupted in southern Tehran, outside the mosque attached to the downtown bazaar near Golestan Palace. Riot police fired warning shots into the air and hurled tear gas canisters
to disperse the crowds. “Such large demonstrations attacking the Shah personally are virtually unprecedented in Iran, particularly in Tehran,” reported the Los Angeles Times. British and American schools sent their pupils home, and American companies announced restrictions on employee travel. The Shah was sufficiently alarmed to rearrange his schedule, cancel his appointments for the rest of the day, and postpone his planned departure for Hungary and Bulgaria—the official reason given was a lingering head cold. When he emerged from his office he handed Sabeti’s report to Court Minister Hoveyda. The Shah now accepted that arrests had to be made. But he still resisted the idea of a forceful crackdown, opting instead for what he hoped would be seen as a velvet hammer rather than an iron first. Beside the names of the five groups identified for arrest he made the following notations:

  Pro-Khomeini clergy: +

  National Front, Liberation Movement: −

  Seminary students in Qom: −

  Fedayeen, Mujahedin: −

  Intellectuals, writers: −

  Hoveyda informed Sabeti that the Shah would not give the order to make “collective arrests.” The father of the nation could not behave as a dictator. Sabeti was dismayed: “In the end he only approved three hundred arrests.”

  “We are going the wrong way,” he told Nasiri.

  “Don’t worry,” Nasiri assured him. “His Majesty knows how to handle it.”

  The mood in Niavaran was for conciliation, consensus, and compromise—anything to buy time until things settled down. The Shah was particularly anxious to make amends with Grand Ayatollah Shariatmadari, whose house had been invaded by troops several days earlier. On the evening of Friday, May 12, he dispatched to Qom Deputy Court Minister Jafar Behbahanian, who managed his personal finances and property, for a secret nighttime rendezvous with the country’s most popular marja. Behbahanian was accompanied on the trip by Hedayat Eslaminia, a former member of the Iranian parliament whose impeccable religious credentials masked dubious morals. Eslaminia was not an easy man to read. “He was a Savak agent,” Sabeti explained. “He was a friend of General Pakravan, who introduced him to Nasiri. But Nasiri became his enemy for personal reasons. He took information on Nasiri and his corruption to the American embassy.” Eslaminia was also a CIA informant. Like other Iranian officials he was careful to always hedge his bets and kept an insurance policy in his back pocket in case the situation soured—loyalty was only as good as the last paycheck.

  Eslaminia’s presence in Qom ensured that Ambassador Sullivan and his political counselors were kept apprised of the negotiations that the Shah and Shariatmadari assumed were highly confidential. At one point during the discussions, Eslaminia asked Shariatmadari if he agreed with a recent remark by Khomeini that the current unrest “foreshadowed a gigantic explosion with incalculable consequences.” Shariatmadari said he did not. Shariatmadari lectured his visitors that he wanted the government to “stop constantly interfering” in religious matters and presented them with the names of four religious leaders he wanted released from detention. Princess Ashraf, he added, should lower her visibility. The Marja said he understood that the Shah could not possibly “accept 100 percent of his requests, but he would be happy with sufficient indications to show the Shah was cooperating.” If he saw good faith from the Shah he would issue a statement of support to the people. Eslaminia then expressed the hope out loud “that some people around the Shah, such as General Nasiri, might be removed.”

  * * *

  ON SATURDAY, MAY 13, 1978, at the end of a tumultuous week, the Shah’s top security chiefs met in private conference to discuss the raft of challenges facing the regime. By now there could be no doubt that their opponents sought the overthrow of the monarchy. A unified approach to the unrest would be essential if the regime was to survive what looked like a protracted siege. So far, at least, the Shah’s support among the middle class, workers, and farmers held firm, and they had not joined in the demonstrations.

  General Nasiri told the others that arresting a few hundred dissidents and troublemakers was only a temporary solution: they should move forward with the tougher approach outlined by Parviz Sabeti. The 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 necessary force, including killing people.” But General Hossein Fardust laid out the case for moderation, dialogue, and more concessions. “He pointed to [the] difficulty of Nasiri’s approach if prominent leaders such as Shariatmadari were to appear at the head of their followers carrying a Koran.” If the soldiers opened fire, said Fardust, “It would be a disaster if someone shot a leader in that situation, while failure to put down the demonstrations might even result in some of the soldiers going over to the other side.” He strongly argued against putting conscripts on the front lines. Many were young religious men who “should not be sent into the city of Qom, for example; only police should. Beyond that, he recommended the government open a dialogue with the people and talk to them rather than simply repressing them.”

  The split between Savak’s two senior officials was a worrying sign for a regime that relied so heavily on unity at the top. Nasiri’s authority was undermined when his colleagues voted to reject his hard-line prescription and instead support Fardust’s compromise measures. Fardust’s special role at court helped shift the outcome, as he later admitted to Hedayat Eslaminia. The others had followed his lead because they assumed he spoke on the Shah’s behalf. But did he? “Fardust never saw the Shah in his last few years,” said Parviz Sabeti. “He stopped having audiences with the Shah. He was not in meetings with senior officials.” Queen Farah had also noticed a change in their relationship. “In the last years he wouldn’t come anymore to the palace,” she said. Instead of delivering his weekly briefing in person, Fardust communicated with the Shah through a briefcase that contained sensitive intelligence dispatches. Though no one knew what if anything had happened between them, Fardust never corrected the impression that he still retained the monarch’s favor. The Shah was presumably cheered by the news that his security chiefs favored dialogue and moderation over harsh repression. Army troops were pulled out of Qom, and the tanks that lumbered at traffic intersections in southern Tehran returned to base.

  While his security chiefs debated strategy, the Shah delivered his first public remarks on the troubles. Millions of Iranians tuned in to watch the live television broadcast from Jahan Nama Palace, and expected the Shah to condemn lawlessness, issue new security measures, and provide them with a clear time line for reforms to regain the political initiative. What they saw instead was a king on the defensive, unsure of himself and in denial about the challenges facing the country. Instead of taking responsibility for the turmoil, the Shah warned of a conspiracy to destroy the country’s unity. “These people are politically bankrupt cases whose only hope is the dismemberment of Iran in the 1907 style,” he said. Rather than engage the left and moderates, he ridiculed the National Front and insisted he would not curtail liberalization “just because these persons may abuse it.” The Shah, snorted one prominent dissident, looked and sounded “like a man in retreat, unable to concentrate or grasp hold of anything. A dictator should be more confident in his own judgment. That, after all, is the only benefit of dictatorship.”

  Queen Farah, touched by her earlier walking tour of south Tehran, drove back to the area on Sunday, May 14. Determined to rally public support for her husband, she strolled into a supermarket where she was cheered and applauded by friendly crowds. From there she set out in an unmarked minibus for the southern suburbs, where hundreds of people surrounded her vehicle crying, “Javid Shah!” Women hugged her and poured out their troubles. Hushang Nahavandi, who witnessed the scene, observed that although a section of the middle class “was already beginning to challenge the regime at this time … the lower classes remained loyal to the Sovereign and had no inhibitions showing it. That’s how it was, right to the end.”

  * * *

  ON SATURDAY, MAY 20, while th
e Shah and Queen Farah were on a state visit to Hungary, the American consul in Tabriz, Michael Metrinko, attended a four-hour dinner as a guest of the Armenian archbishop. During the meal, Metrinko listened as Archbishop Diyair Panossian “expounded at great length on his fears for Iranian political stability.”

  The archbishop told Metrinko that it was no longer a question of “if there is trouble” but exactly “when the trouble will really begin.” Since the Tabriz riots in February, Panossian said he had traveled widely throughout Iran but also to Syria and Lebanon to consult with other Armenian church leaders. “The reports he has received and meetings and discussions he has had all point to serious trouble, he said, and he no longer believes the Pahlavi regime will survive it.” Fearful of Islamic pogroms and an orgy of religious bloodshed, the archbishop informed his American guest that the only option left open to him was to evacuate his entire flock of seven thousand out of Iran to safety. He said he was already helping anyone who wanted to leave to do so. “He cannot see any real future here for Armenians or Christians as a whole, and is caught between maintaining a very ancient and valuable presence in Azerbaijan, or thinking about the real safety of his people.”

  * * *

  CUSTOM REQUIRED THE Shah and Shahbanou to spend the last week in May in Mashad, capital of Khorassan Province. Before the couple flew out they had an important family matter to attend to. For the past year Prince Ali Reza had been taking flying lessons with an instructor. Now the twelve-year-old begged his parents to allow him to make his first solo flight. The Queen could barely stand the tension as the family gathered at Mehrebad Airport to watch the littlest Pahlavi prince take off. The nose of the aircraft dipped slightly just as he was coming in to land and she exclaimed, “O my God!” His instructor radioed a warning and Ali Reza took evasive action and landed without a hitch. Custom demanded that a new pilot be doused with cold water—the Queen had done the honors when her husband piloted his first F-5—and Crown Prince Reza raised cheers and applause by tipping the bucket over his brother’s head.