The Fall of Heaven

by Andrew Scott Cooper

  * * *

  RESIDENTS OF THE northern Tehran enclave of Shemiran, “flooding back into town from Europe,” spent the last evening of August at the newly refurbished Farahabad racetrack, mingling at the new Café de Paris restaurant, and taking in dinner and a fashion show. They looked forward to the splashy opening of the Tehran skyline’s latest addition, the luxurious new twenty-six-story Hyatt Crown Tehran, which boasted a rooftop restaurant and nightclub, health club with sauna, and indoor swimming pool. Despite the closure of many watering holes and clubs around town, the autumn still promised another rich season in arts and culture entertainment. The Merry Widow was set to open at Rudaki Hall, and symphonic recitals of works by Corelli and Tchaikovsky were scheduled. The Museum of Contemporary Art featured exhibitions of modern Iranian works and Finnish and Italian architecture, and the poetry of Hafez was set to music by Shahin Farhat at the City Theater. The yacht club at Karaj Dam Lake hosted the final weekend of water skiing, and children’s rides were still open at the Mini-City amusement park on Lashkarak Road.

  If outward appearances counted, Shemiran residents were more focused on their social plans and preparing to resume work and school than the troubles several miles to the south. But the glamorous scene at Farahabad was deceptive, and an undercurrent of tension ran through the salons. Returning vacationers were shocked at the changes they encountered at home. Parts of the capital were deemed no-go zones, too unsafe to venture into even during the daytime. Their maids wore head scarves, interrupted their chores to pray, and recited quotes from the strange man they called “Imam Khomeini.” Friends who had stayed in town through the summer sported Islamic garb and stopped returning their calls. One wealthy couple noticed something was amiss when their chauffeur failed to pick them up at Mehrebad Airport. They arrived home in a taxi to find that their palatial residence had been requisitioned by the servants, who hurled abuse and refused to follow instructions. Royalists found “the windows of their homes broken and dead cats thrown into their gardens.” Queen Farah’s friend Elli Antoniades returned from Nowshahr to discover the graffitied message “Death to the Shah!” scrawled across her front door, something that would have been unthinkable six months ago.

  * * *

  ON FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, at the end of another long, grueling week of riots and civil unrest, Queen Farah decided her husband was in need of a change of scene. Fridays were the one day of the week set aside to entertain family and friends at the palace. “There was usually dinner for forty people,” said Elli Antoniades. “It was the only time the King and Queen were free to be human beings. There was horseback riding and playing bridge with his friends.” Today, however, Farah arranged an excursion by helicopter to Lake Latian, a popular boating and nature destination north of the capital. The Queen pleaded with the small party not to mention the troubles in conversation with her husband. “We felt the situation was serious,” said Elli Antoniades, “but we were afraid to talk about it. I remember the Queen said, ‘Whatever is happening, please don’t discuss it. It stays here.’”

  20

  BLACK FRIDAY

  By saying this he lost God’s farr, and through

  The world men’s murmurings of sedition grew.

  —THE PERSIAN BOOK OF KINGS

  If my people don’t want me, I will not stay by force.

  —THE SHAH

  On Monday morning, September 4, fifteen thousand people gathered in a dusty lot in the northern hills neighborhood of Qeitariyeh in Shemiran to mark Eid-e Fetr, the joyous last day of the monthlong Ramadan fast. After morning prayers and a speech by a clergyman who condemned the Shah and Prime Minister Sharif-Emami’s government as un-Islamic, the large crowd began an eight-mile “long march” down into the center of town. Along the way they were joined by tens of thousands more demonstrators waiting at designated meeting spots, their way cleared by an escort of “Motorcyclists for Allah.” Though the marchers refrained from calling for the overthrow of the Shah, they held aloft banners displaying Grand Ayatollah Khomeini’s face and chanted slogans calling for their hero’s return from exile. “Iran is our country!” “Khomeini is our leader!” “Why do government troops kill our people?”

  Army units posted at key intersections along the route warily eyed the marchers. “At one point shortly after the march began, nervous troops surrounded by the teeming thousands seemed to get riled by some of the strong slogans they chanted,” reported an Iranian journalist. “But the marchers quickly gathered around their army trucks, shouting ‘Soldiers, brothers don’t shoot brothers,’ and ‘We’ve got nothing against you if you’ve nothing against us.’” An army officer rose from the back of his truck and declared, “You are indeed our brothers but we have our duty to fulfill.” The tension broke and the crowd threw flowers into the truck, a sight repeated again and again along the route. Many onlookers came out of their homes with melons and pitchers of water to quench the marchers’ thirst. Not everyone was happy with the display of religious power, and many Tehranis, “clearly frightened by the size of the demonstration, stayed indoors, fearing the worst.” As the procession moved through the busy commercial district, marchers appealed to curious bystanders to join them in celebrating the end of Ramadan, and by early afternoon a carnival atmosphere prevailed with an estimated two hundred thousand religious protesters, students, office workers, middle-class housewives, and pensioners exchanging flowers, kisses, and handshakes. The urge to participate proved irresistible. “I was in the middle of the crowd,” said one middle-class Tehrani. “In front of me, behind me, to my side, wherever I looked I saw people in this great wave as drops in the sea, and I too was in the sea of this immeasurable gathering of the people of Iran. There was no ‘I’ there, we were nothing but ‘We.’”

  Visions of a “Persian Spring” with asphalt streets turned into a field of flowers heartened liberals and leftists, whose lingering fear of the mullahs was replaced by respect and admiration for the ones who had come out into the streets to defy the Shah and his army. Some even joined in the scattered chants of “Down with the Shah!” “The never before sighted demonstration of ‘flower power’ followed pleas for restraint from religious leaders and the police,” wrote one newspaper. “They said it with flowers not the sticks and stones that have marked demonstrations after religious meetings throughout Ramadan. The sight of women and children putting garlands around the necks of troops and throwing flowers into their trucks could not help conjuring up the Vietnam peace demonstrations of the late 1960s in the United States.” The news from the provinces was more ominous. Radio and television news bulletins reported violent clashes, with five demonstrators killed in Elam; two in Karaj; two in Khomein; and one death in Qom, where police struggled to contain a crowd of thirty thousand protesters.

  In advance of Eid, moderate clerics and opposition leaders had counseled moderation. The Qeitariyeh rally had been approved only after the authorities received assurances from National Front spokesmen that “the meeting would be similar to such gatherings in past years and would not develop into street marches or demonstrations.” Khomeini’s men agreed to the plan and then simply hijacked it by flooding the venue with their followers and marching them down the hill into town to invade the bastion of middle-class commerce. The Shah paid the price for his steadfast refusal over the past two years to legalize political activity by the National Front and Liberation Movement, his more moderate opponents. At one time both groups might have channeled popular discontent into the political process. “These groups and ‘parties’ provide the basis of what could develop into a constitutional opposition, capable of helping Iran achieve a true system of democratic debate and accountability,” noted one political commentator. “Ultimately they could serve the nation by helping create the moderate center that a truly balanced democracy needs in order to function effectively and smoothly.” Instead, their absence from the political scene allowed the opposition movement to “fall into the hands of the extremist and radical groups.” Prime Minister Sharif
-Emami’s decision two weeks earlier to end restrictions on political activity had caught them unprepared. With no time to raise funds or campaign, the moderate left was swamped by the rising groundswell of support for Khomeini and a more radical approach to forcing political change.

  * * *

  ON NIAVARAN HILL, palace courtiers reacted with shock and disbelief to news reports that as many as a million people were protesting in the streets of downtown Tehran. The Shah, who had spent the morning in a salaam ceremony with high government dignitaries, generals, and ambassadors, asked his bodyguard Colonel Djahinbini, commander of the Imperial Guard General Abdul Ali Badrei, and commander of Air Corps Forces General Manuchehr Khosrodad to fly over the demonstration, make a reconnaissance, and report back to him.

  The Queen called for her helicopter, too. But rather than fly over the crowds, Farah made the sensational decision to set down among them. Her office contacted Eqbal Hospital, in southern Tehran, and hastily arranged a visit to the facility’s cancer ward, so hasty indeed that officials had no time to assemble an official welcoming party or to mobilize crowds of supporters. Nonetheless, word quickly spread that she was en route, and by the time her chopper fluttered down onto the hospital grounds a throng had gathered to cheer the Queen as she made an impromptu walk along Bagher Khan Street. Farah was accompanied by Hushang Nahavandi, who had resigned his post as her private secretary and accepted a cabinet position in the new government. While the Queen toured the wards and spoke to hospital staff and patients, the crowd of admirers grew in number to several thousand. Farah waded into the throng amid cries of “Long live the Shah!,” shaking hands, asking questions, and listening to concerns. Journalists on the scene said “the crowd was so large the helicopter pilot had trouble in picking up the Queen on her way out.” Her gamble to join the Eid demonstration had paid off. “It was a remarkable, entirely spontaneous demonstration,” recalled Nahavandi.

  The Shah’s distinctive helicopter, with its blue and white markings, flew low over Shah Reza Avenue so that Djahinbini, Badrei, and Khosrodad could provide an accurate assessment of the number of demonstrators. They estimated the crowd at well under half a million people but could still hear the chants of “Down with the Shah!” They returned to Niavaran and presented their findings to the Shah, who until now had convinced himself that popular discontent with the economy, corruption, and repression was not directed at him personally but at the government and bureaucracy. As the father of the nation he believed that he somehow floated above the fray in his role as guide and counselor, and for fifteen years he had flattered himself that he could wield executive power yet escape blame for executive failings. The Day of Eid changed everything. In a single, crushing instant he realized how wrong he had been, and that far from symbolizing unity the throne had become the major source of division in the land. The farr was gone and nothing he could do could bring it back.

  By day’s end the Shah had reached a momentous decision: he would quit Iran at the earliest possible chance and end his days in exile. He was not about to beg for another chance from an ungrateful people. “He was like a man who had lavished everything for years on a beautiful woman only to find she had been unfaithful to him all along,” was how Court Minister Hoveyda described the Shah’s mood of self-pity and grief. Yet the Shah’s decision to end his mission was also an act of courage and tremendous self-sacrifice. He had never known a life other than public service, and his departure, he hoped, would restore peace and end disunity in Iran. “If my people don’t want me,” he said, “I will not stay by force.”

  * * *

  IN EARLY SEPTEMBER Ardeshir Zahedi was visiting the Texas town of Lubbock, where Crown Prince Reza had begun training as an air force pilot, when Queen Farah called and asked him to telephone the Shah, who felt demoralized and needed encouragement. “The Shah was not in a good way,” said Zahedi. Their conversation convinced him to hurry back to Tehran. He was already fielding calls from worried friends asking him to return home. “We need you,” they said. “The Shah can’t make up his mind and it’s like 1953 again.”

  During a brief stopover in Washington, Zahedi tried to talk with CIA director Stansfield Turner and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, but found they were preoccupied with the Camp David peace talks. The Eid-e Fetr march had dispersed and the streets were quiet when Zahedi’s plane landed at Mehrebad Airport late on the night of Monday, September 4. The ambassador was greeted by the Imperial Court’s grand master of ceremonies, Amir Aslan Afshar, who briefed him as they drove through the darkened streets. Their car was spotted pulling up outside Saadabad’s main entrance shortly before midnight. Queen Farah sent an aide down to Zahedi with a request that he talk to her before seeing her husband. Zahedi refused, insisting that he had come to see the Shah, but before he could make a start for the Shah’s suite Farah appeared at the top of the stairs. She came down and pleaded with him to take care: “Don’t say anything bad to His Majesty because he may kill himself.”

  Zahedi ran past her and up the stairs to the Shah’s study. The Shah greeted him and brushed aside his offer to return in the morning. “No, we must meet now,” he said, and the two men took their seats while tea was served. The ambassador’s nerves were so frayed that when at one moment the Shah reached into his jacket pocket, Zahedi lunged—he feared his hand was reaching for a pistol. The Shah gave him a quizzical glance: “Ardeshir, this is a vitamin.” But his next remark hinted at the emotional scenes that had preceded Zahedi’s arrival. “The Queen is so upset she may jump out the window,” he said. Zahedi was nonplussed. “Maybe you should push her out,” he snapped. The ambassador blamed the Queen’s liberalism for her husband’s political collapse. The Imperial Court was in disarray, the generals were circling, and the ministers were unsure what to do. Everyone wanted to be in charge, but no one would make a decision. “If you have too many midwives, the child will be born without a head” was how Zahedi later put it. But Zahedi had also misread the situation. During his years in Washington he had lost touch with events and the street. He knew nothing of the Shah’s cancer and like everyone else had been blindsided by the Shah’s determination to liberalize his regime, cede power, and introduce genuine democratic reforms.

  The next morning Zahedi met in secrecy with a delegation of senior courtiers, generals, senators, and parliamentarians, who begged him to assume a leadership role. “They recalled the crisis in 1963 and how they took their orders from Alam and not the Shah,” said one participant. “They were looking desperately for a civilian to step in and tell them what to do. They were waiting for the Shah to act, and they wanted someone who was a hundred percent loyal to him.” Zahedi also paid a quiet visit to southern Tehran to meet sympathetic clergy, who were prepared to support an army putsch to prevent Khomeini from seizing power.

  Out of these meetings emerged Operation Kach, a top secret plan for a military coup d’état to overthrow Sharif-Emami’s flailing government and smash Khomeini’s rebellion. Named after a small town deep in Iran’s desert interior, Operation Kach relied on the commanders of the three branches of the armed forces to take leadership positions. In phase one of the operation, the Shah and his family would retire to Kish Island, while the army, navy, and air force arrested moderate opposition leaders and detained them at the naval base on Kharg Island. Anyone who came out onto the streets to defy martial law would be rounded up and held in Tehran’s Olympic stadium. “The police would have a list and the arrests would be made at the same time,” said Zahedi. “We made sure the facilities had enough food, showers and toilets for a long stay.” Religious extremists and Mujahedin and Fedayeen guerrilla fighters would be flown to holding pens at Kach, deep in the province of Baluchistan, near the border with Pakistan. The coup planners studied how to keep Iran’s cities supplied with food and powered with electricity if workers went out on strike. Strict discipline would be imposed on the army. “Being tough, you have to look to your army,” observed Zahedi. “But you have to keep your army off the
streets to stop fraternization and not let the soldiers get infected by protests.” Once order was restored, only after a suitable cooling-off period would the ruling junta implement far-reaching political reforms to return power to parliament, stamp out corruption, and hold free and fair general elections. The Shah’s role would be reduced to that of a constitutional figurehead.

  The coup plotters were overtaken by events when on Wednesday, September 6, Mujahedin commandos staged a daring early morning raid on a police barracks in Tehran. Armed with submachine guns, they killed the officer on duty and fled the scene, leaving behind a car bomb that failed to detonate. Fearing the assault was the prelude to an armed uprising, the government announced an immediate ban on all unauthorized rallies. The Islamists responded by staging a show of strength after dark, massing twenty thousand people at the southern end of Pahlavi Avenue and announcing plans to hold a second big rally, at Qeitariyeh field, on Thursday morning. In Shemiran, a Mujahedin terror cell tossed a pipe bomb under a bus taking eighteen British aerospace workers home. Though there were no injuries, news of the ambush spread fear throughout the foreign community. Everyone sensed events were rushing to a climax.

  On Thursday morning, September 7, for the second time in three days tens of thousands of Khomeini supporters filled Tehran streets in a defiant show of force. This time they left the flowers at home and came in anger. The men wore white to signify their willingness to die, and the women marched in separate columns clad in black to proclaim their chastity and modesty. They chanted in support of an Islamic republic and cried “Death to the Shah!” The surging crowds alarmed Iranians and Americans alike. Across the road from the Tehran American School, where more than three and a half thousand American children went to class, high school senior Jonathan Kirkendall was taking a nap in his family’s apartment when he began “dreaming of an ocean, the murmur of the waves driving themselves onto a sandy beach.” He slowly awakened to hear “excited, noisy voices in the living room” and assumed his father, James, had returned home. He was very much mistaken when he realized that “in the distance came another noise. It sounded like the ocean that I had heard in my dreams, a low, ever present murmur, but louder and more rhythmic than the ocean. I got up from bed and went out onto the porch. I could make out a chant. It wasn’t an ocean of water, but an ocean of people, and as I was later to see and hear carrying banners and chanting ‘Death to the Shah!’” His mother, Libby, looked out the window at the flood of people surging past their home and shook her head in dismay. “The ball has started rolling,” she told her son. “Not even the Shah will be able to stop it now.”