exchanged insults and stormed out: Ibid., pp. 116–117.
a senior clergyman: Ibid., p. 117.
“How could you envisage such a thing?”: Bakhtiary (1992), p. 136.
Hossein Ala made it clear: Ibid., p. 140.
his voice barely audible: Ibid.
4. FARAH DIBA
“She was the woman I had been waiting for so long”: Lesley Blanch, Farah, Shahbanou of Iran (Tehran: Tajerzadeh, 1978), p. 49.
“But he was my king”: Ibid.
$40 million loan: “Shah Grieves for Ex-Wife,” Chicago Tribune, July 4, 1958.
“the hardest decision I have ever taken”: Ibid.
sent word to General Zahedi: Ardeshir Zahedi, English translation by Farhang Jahanpour, The Memoirs of Ardeshir Zahedi, vol. 2: Love, Marriage, Ambassador to the U.S. and the U.K. (1955–1966) (Bethesda, MD: Ibex, 2014), p. 130.
“He said he would accept personal responsibility”: Ibid.
$500 million: Edward J. Linehan, “Old-New Iran, Next Door to Russia,” National Geographic 119, no. 1 (January 1961): 62.
“His Imperial Majesty is above everything”: “Reformer in Shako,” Time, September 12, 1960, p. 31.
“The Shah used the military”: Ervand Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 128.
“Even yet, the Iranian economy remains”: “Reformer in Shako,” p. 32.
“cold-war criminal”: Ibid., p. 33.
“Should the Shah lose his fight”: Ibid.
“military strength alone”: Dana Adams Schmidt, “Arms Alone Will Not Ensure Security, Eisenhower Tells Iran,” New York Times, December 15, 1959.
“I hope this rumor”: Zahedi (2014), p. 148.
“If His Majesty were to go ahead”: Ibid.
observed that her choice of profession: Farah Pahlavi, My Thousand and One Days: The Autobiography of Farah, Shabanou of Iran (London: W. H. Allen, 1978), p. 39.
“sad eyes”: Ibid., p. 40.
The name Farah: Details of the Queen’s biography were gathered from sources including the author’s interviews with Farah Pahlavi and her friends and associates; newspaper and magazine articles from the period; a biography: Blanch, Farah, Shahbanou of Iran; and two autobiographies: My Thousand and One Days and Farah Pahlavi, An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah (New York: Miramax Books, 2004).
“To whom shall we give this girl?”: F. Pahlavi (1978), p. 9.
“considered one of the prettiest”: Blanch (1978), p. 38.
“I don’t usually talk about this”: Sally Quinn, “It Isn’t Easy Being the Empress of Iran,” Washington Post, October 8, 1971.
“The days were entirely given up”: F. Pahlavi (1978), p. 12.
“I would not say”: Blanch (1978), p. 39.
“A pall of melancholy”: F. Pahlavi (2004), p. 29.
not until the day she left for Paris: F. Pahlavi (1978), p. 15, and Blanch (1978), p. 40.
“Look, there’s Farah!”: Blanch (1978), p. 44.
“learned to read the [Quran]”: F. Pahlavi (2004), p. 22.
unpleasant childhood encounter: Ibid., p. 23.
“Architecture is an act of creation”: Blanch (1978), p. 45.
drew the attention of a KGB agent: This episode in Farah Pahlavi’s life is covered in Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The KGB and the World: The Mitrokhin Archive II (New York: Penguin, 2005), pp. 171–173.
The mystery man: F. Pahlavi (2004), p. 68.
“misplaced”: Andrew and Mitrokhin (2005), p. 172.
“a hard worker”: Blanch (1978), p. 46.
“And why shouldn’t the Shah marry you?”: F. Pahlavi (2004), p. 64.
“Farah Diba = Farah Pahlavi”: F. Pahlavi (1978), p. 37.
“his niece had all the requisite qualifications”: Zahedi (2014), p. 153. He confirmed this to the author in our interview of October 27, 2012.
behind a sliding glass door: Zahedi (2014), p. 153.
“Good Lord!”: F. Pahlavi (2004), p. 74.
“I think I knew, directly I saw her”: Blanch (1978), p. 49.
“I did not treat my daughter”: Zahedi (2014), p. 156.
“This time I had an inkling”: F. Pahlavi (2004), p. 75.
“The undercarriage wouldn’t come down”: Ibid., p. 78.
“It is certain that on that day”: Ibid., p. 83.
“unfair to hold that against her”: Author interview with Ardeshir Zahedi, October 27, 2012.
Madame Diba could not hide her anxiety: F. Pahlavi (1978), p. 42.
“I saw, stretching ahead for her”: Blanch (1978), p. 50.
“He was the figure-head”: Ibid., p. 49.
mobbed at the airport: F. Pahlavi (1978), p. 46.
“I was screaming”: F. Pahlavi (2004), p. 89.
“shone like the sun”: “Shah Announces Troth,” New York Times, November 24, 1959.
a blue case: “Shah Gives Farah Dazzling Jewels,” Washington Post, November 30, 1959.
“She said she knew”: “Farah Diba Would Give the Shah a Trio,” Washington Post, November 12, 1959.
“We were the only two girls”: Author interview with Elli Antoniades, April 3, 2013.
thirty-three pounds: “Farah Diba’s Dress Weighs 33 Pounds,” Washington Post, December 21, 1959.
“She wore a matching veil”: “Shah Weds Again as Iran Calls for a Prince,” New York Times, December 22, 1959.
ritually slaughtering: “Iran’s Shah to Marry Farah Today,” Washington Post, December 21, 1959.
“By the end of the day”: Author interview with Elli Antoniades, April 3, 2013.
assigned Amir Pourshaja: Author interview with Amir Pourshaja, March 16, 2013.
“Her Majesty could fall back on her friends”: Author interview with Elli Antoniades, April 3, 2013.
“Ostentatiously, he collected identity cards”: “Reformer in Shako,” p. 34.
“May Allah grant you”: “It’s Queen Farah of Iran as Shah Takes Third Bride,” Washington Post, December 22, 1959.
“rather too much anesthetic”: F. Pahlavi (1978), p. 52.
“In the rejoicings, I think I was almost forgotten”: Ibid.
tapping her on the cheek: Ibid.
“I burst into tears”: Ibid.
“such an outpouring of universal joy and warmth”: F. Pahlavi (2004), p. 109.
President John F. Kennedy: The following scholarly articles offer analyses of Kennedy-Shah relations in the early 1960s: James Goode, “Reforming Iran During the Kennedy Years,” Diplomatic History 15, no. 1; April R. Summitt, “For a White Revolution: John F. Kennedy and the Shah of Iran,” Middle East Journal 58, no. 4 (Autumn 2004): 560–575.
“I talked to Jack”: Abbas Milani, The Shah (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 304.
“I just think it is going to be a miracle”: Senators Frank Church and Hubert Humphrey quoted in James A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 136.
half a million acres: Franc Shor, “Iran’s Shah Crowns Himself and His Empress,” National Geographic 133, no. 3 (March 1968): 306.
“Four thousand schoolteachers”: “The Shah of Iran—Will His Land Have a Revolution from Above?,” Newsweek, June 26, 1961, p. 42.
no further aid to Iran would be forthcoming: In November 1977 the Shah ordered the Iranian press to recount this episode in U.S.-Iran relations on the eve of his state visit to Washington. See Dusko Doder, “Shah Says President Kennedy Influenced Naming of Premier,” Washington Post, October 23, 1977.
“I must either rule or leave”: Summitt, “For a White Revolution,” p. 567.
“hang Amini”: “The Shah of Iran—Will His Land Have a Revolution?,” p. 46.
“We do not consider religion”: H. E. Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran Under the Shah and Khomeini (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), p. 158.
Mehdi Bazargan: To learn more about Me
hdi Bazargan’s personal religious and philosophical beliefs see Hamid Dabashi, Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2008), pp. 324–366.
“His father’s personal integrity”: Chehabi (1990), p. 107.
“You must be wondering”: Ibid.
struck by the ease with which: Ibid., p. 109.
“The French had voluntary associations”: Ibid.
“What the Iranian nation wants is just one word”: Dabashi (2008), p. 336.
“This is one of our wonderful spring days”: Carroll Kilpatrick, “Kennedy Greets Shah, Notes Similarity of Aims,” Washington Post, April 12, 1962.
“After that, it was a matter”: Maxine Cheshire, “Sneakers Were Vying for Diadems,” Washington Post, April 13, 1962.
“Actually, I preferred Mrs. Kennedy’s”: Author interview with Farah Pahlavi, November 13, 2014.
“The Shah and I both have something in common”: Cheshive, “Sneakers Were Vying for Diadems.”
“this king business”: “‘This King Business’: A Headache to the Shah,” New York Times, April 14, 1962.
“In addition to giving children”: Farnsworth Fowle, “Shah Depicts Aim of Modern Iran,” New York Times, April 17, 1962.
“If I go there to be insulted again”: F. Pahlavi (2004), p. 119.
During their talks in the Oval Office: For a summary of the Shah-Kennedy talks see Department of State Memorandum, United States–Iran Relations, the President, the Shah of Iran et al., April 13, 1964, and Eric Hogland, project ed., Iran: The Making of US Policy, 1977–80, National Security Archive (Alexandria, VA: Chadwyck-Healey, 1990), document 450.
5. THE AYATOLLAH
“I am going to go faster”: “The Emperor Who Died an Exile,” Time, August 4, 1980, p. 36.
“I can summon a million martyrs to any cause”: Margaret Laing, The Shah (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1977), p. 168.
The chief beneficiary: The standard English-language biography of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is still Baqer Moin’s Khomeini: Life of the Ayatollah (London: I. B. Taurus, 1999). Given the factual discrepancies and varying interpretations that surround Khomeini’s early years and rise to power, I hewed closely to Moin’s book and cross-referenced with other sources, including newspaper and magazine articles, and also Said Amir Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); James Buchan, Days of God: The Revolution in Iran and Its Consequences (London: Murray, 2012); and Amir Taheri, The Spirit of Allah: Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution (Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, 1986).
“He was a particularly striking”: Moin (1999), p. 2.
“Even as a youngster”: Ibid., p. 2.
“The qualities of autocracy”: Ibid., p. 37.
“pledging allegiance to the Shah”: Confidential cable from George Lambrakis, Embassy Tehran, State Department, January 14, 1979; Eric Hogland, project ed., Iran: The Making of US Policy, 1977–80, National Security Archive (Alexandria, VA: Chadwyck-Healey, 1990), document 02086.
“I can’t be completely sure”: Author interview with Ardeshir Zahedi, October 27, 2012. In 1953 Zahedi was the nineteen-year-old son of General Fazlollah Zahedi, the general who led the royalist forces against Mossadeq. He told me that he distinctly recalled walking into the house of Ayatollah Kashani, Khomeini’s mentor and an ally of the coup plotters. The memory stuck in his mind when Khomeini rose to prominence in the early 1960s.
“There are, of course, no bars or liquor shops”: Martin Woollacott, “The Holy City of Iran Where the Shah Takes Second Place,” Guardian, June 26, 1978.
“everything goes on”: Ibid.
the apex of the clerical pyramid: An understanding of the role of marja is essential to understanding not only Shiism but also the dynamics of the Iranian revolution. The author’s description is based on his reading but also on interviews with practitioners and scholars of Iranian Shiism in Qom in 2013; with Dr. Farhad Daftary, codirector of the Ismaili Center based in London, September 4, 2014; and with Hassan Shariatmadari, the son of Grand Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari, based in Hamburg, September 21, 2014. Linda S. Walbridge wrote perhaps the definitive text in the English language on the role of marjas in Shiism; see her book The Thread of Mu’awiya: The Making of a Marja Taqlid (Bloomington, IN: Ramsay Press: 2014).
“Of the money and goods donated”: Nicholas Gage, “For Iranians, the Mullah’s Orders Are Law,” New York Times, December 9, 1978.
“If there is to be a revolution in this country”: John K. Cooley, “Prosperity, Vitality Mark Iran’s 2,500th Year,” Christian Science Monitor, October 15, 1971.
“I concluded that my destiny”: James O. Jackson, “Shah: Dedicated, Dominant, Distrustful,” Chicago Tribune, January 8, 1978.
“I am going to show”: “A Revolutionary on the Throne,” Kayhan International, October 29, 1967.
“I am going to go faster”: “The Emperor Who Died an Exile,” p. 36.
“The son of Reza Khan”: Moin (1999), p. 75.
“If you give the order”: Ibid., p. 80.
Coalition of Islamic Societies: Buchan (2012), p. 121.
“Even in the womb”: Author interview with Abolhassan Banisadr, July 11, 2013. The former president also provided the following details about his life story. Details of his conversations with Khomeini were provided in the same interview. See also Hamid Dabashi, Theology of Discontent: The Ideological Foundation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2006), pp. 367–408.
“stupid and reactionary bunch”: Buchan (2012), p. 122, and Moin (1999), p. 88.
“sordid and vile elements”: Moin (1999), p. 89.
stormed through the Feiziyah: The violence at the seminary school is recalled in Buchan (2012), p. 123, and Moin (1999), pp. 92–94. In July 2013 the author visited the Feiziyah to study the school’s physical layout. The school is adjacent to the Holy Shrine of Fatima in Qom and opens onto a large public square. Entry to the school is through a narrow alleyway and then into an interior courtyard enclosed by classrooms and bedrooms. Modernity and convenience have arrived at the Feiziyah: the complex now boasts at least one cash-dispensing ATM machine.
“With this crime”: Moin (1999), p. 195.
“I can summon a million martyrs to any cause”: Laing (1977), p. 168.
“We did consider the possibility of violence”: Author interview with Parviz Sabeti, May 10, 2014.
“Let me give you some advice, Mr. Shah!”: Accounts of the “Second Ashura” speech are provided by Buchan (2012), pp. 124–125, and Moin (1999), pp. 102–104.
swept into the streets: The unrest of June 3–5, 1963, is provided by Moin (1999), pp. 107–118.
“The tension was evident”: Farah Pahlavi, An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah (New York: Miramax Books, 2004), p. 130.
“Tomorrow is going to be very crucial”: Author interview with Kambiz Atabai, February 13, 2013. Atabai was in the room during this conversation and witnessed the exchange between Prime Minister Alam and the senior generals.
“He was panicking”: Author interview with Parviz Sabeti, May 10, 2014.
“I had to”: Anthony Parsons, The Pride and the Fall: Iran 1974–79 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984), p. 27.
“I was determined to make a stand”: Author interview with Kambiz Atabai, February 13, 2013.
“His Majesty was as a rock”: Laing (1977), p. 168.
“They had no plan [as such] to take over”: Author interview with Parviz Sabeti, May 10, 2014.
one-fifth that number: Ibid.
“My stomach was upset”: Author interview with Kambiz Atabai, February 13, 2013.
“In the Ministry of Justice, files were burned”: Confidential: Memorandum of Conversation, Dr. Hussein Mahdavy and William Green Miller, Dr. Mahdavy’s home, Evening—June 5, 1963, “Tehran Riots of June 5, 1963,” United States–Iran Relations, the President, the Shah of Iran et al., April 13, 1964; Hogland, project ed.,
Iran: The Making of US Policy, 1977–80, document 481.
“Eat shit!”: Author interview with Kambiz Atabai, February 13, 2013.
“Who has the guns?”: Ibid.
troops phoned General Nasiri: Author interview with Parviz Sabeti, May 10, 2014.
thousands killed: Reza Baraheni, in his polemic The Crowned Cannibals: Writings on Repression in Iran (New York: Vintage, 1977), claimed a staggering 6,000 people were killed by the security forces during the June 5–6, 1963, crackdown; see p. 7 of his book. By contrast, when the Islamic Republic commissioned historian Emad al-Din Baghi to conduct a head count of the number of people who died in 1963 he could come up with only 32 names. The Alam government admitted to 120 deaths, a number the Shah apparently believed himself. See Abbas Milani, The Shah (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 299.
“It was not an easy decision for me”: E. A. Bayne, Persian Kingship in Transition (New York: American Universities Field Staff, Inc., 1968), p. 54.
“a man of great culture”: F. Pahlavi (2004), p. 131.
“He said he knew that”: Habib Ladjevardi, ed., Memoirs of Fatemeh Pakravan, Iranian Oral History Project, Center for Middle Eastern Studies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1998), p. 39.
“If it was discussed I didn’t hear about it”: Author interview with Parviz Sabeti, May 10, 2014.
“Khomeini is a grand ayatollah like us”: Author interview with Hassan Shariatmadari, son of Grand Ayatollah Shariatmadari, September 21, 2014. He confirmed the details of his father’s decisive intervention. Important to remember is that Shariatmadari used the title “grand ayatollah” to refer to Khomeini and not “marja.” It would have been impossible for any single member of the ulama, no matter how senior, to anoint another as a “marja.” The honorific of “marja” came from the people and could not be bestowed.
“their appeals … should be disregarded”: Milani (2011), p. 298.
“He is very handsome”: Ladjevardi, ed., (1998), p. 39.
“I felt like a helpless wave”: Taheri (1986), p. 145.
“Khomeini is now an important”: Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Research Memorandum, June 26, 1963, “The Iranian Riots and Their Aftermath,” to the Acting Secretary from George C. Demney Jr., United States–Iran Relations, the President, the Shah of Iran et al., April 13, 1964; Eric Hogland, project ed., Iran: The Making of US Policy, 1977–80, 1990) document 483.
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