1 The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Foreign ...

us in his car and lent us some money, and we got to the embassy, the embassy apartments,
and all was well. So we were there at temporary apartments for a few days and we met the
ambassador and the members of the Embassy staff.
Q: Who was that?
MILLER: Ambassador Edward Wailes. He was a very nice man. The political counselor
was Harry Schwartz.
We then went down by plane, Iran Air, to Isfahan. This was a one hour flight, over deserts
and rugged mountains; a very dramatic flight. The airport at that time was set in between
two very high mountain peaks, so it was a dangerous and interesting approach. The skies
being clear as they normally are, one could see the beauties of the Zayandeh river valley
coming down from the snow covered Zagros mountains, snaking through the piedmont,
so to speak, and into the desert plain, and here’s this green oasis that extends all the way
from the mountains to the great desert, and shiny domes, but not of gold, it’s the
wonderful green and blue and yellow tiles of Isfahan. The arrival in Isfahan was very
different than Tehran. Frank Crawford, who was then consul. We were met by the vice
consul who I was replacing, John Exum.
We went into a temporary apartment in a hotel quite near the consulate which was right at
the heart of the old city, of the 16 th century city, next to the Bridge of 33 Arches, Si-o-Seh
Pol, as it’s called. At the entrance to the bridge there’s a square that had a statue of the
shah. It’s called Mojasemeh, which means “Statues Square.” The hotel, conveniently, was
called the Isfahan. It was run by an Armenian with a very un-Armenian name, John
McDowell, who took very good care of us in those early days. We later found an
apartment right on the Mojasemeh Square in a second floor apartment over a bicycle store
that was owned by a Bakhtiari Khan, Yahya Khan Bakhtiar, who was one of the Bakhtiari
tribal leaders, unfortunately, an opium addict, but a very charming fellow. His apartment
was available as he was going off to tribal lands. He very kindly agreed to let us rent the
apartment.
It was most exotic apartment fully furnished in the Persian style, gloriously decorated
with Persian artifacts, and in his taste of dark velvets, tribal carpets, and Persian prints. It
was a wonderful place to be because all of the noises and sounds, of ordinary life were
there – the radios, the shouts of the workers below and all of the traffic going roundabout
the square and across the bridge of 33 arches. The consulate was only one building away
– just a few yards away.
Q: Let me stop.
[END TAPE]
Q: This is tape two side one of William G Miller.
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