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

Q: They were done mainly through dispatches?
MILLER: The major reporting form was the “dispatch”, and “official informal” letters.
The major security categories for reporting were “limited official use” or “unclassified”,
because we didn’t want to go through the very onerous, time-consuming task of
encryption – using one time pads. Any messages that required one-time pads really had to
be a sensitive issue. Everything else was understood to be normal discourse in Isfahan:
such matters as so-and-so is corrupt, that the SAVAK killed so-and-so – were reported in
unclassified form. The only thing that might have been put in classified form would be a
comment on the event that was being reported, for example. Security regulations required
that our classified material had to be sent by courier, hand-carried. Getting classified
material to Tehran was not a problem, but every encryption certainly was.
Q: What about your contact and all with the mullahs at that time. How did this come
about? Were the mullahs sort of – were they open to a young kid from the American
devils or something, coming around and talking or not?
MILLER: Well, after all the mullahs were and still are, by and large, and certainly in the
cities, among the most educated. They're the brothers and cousins of people who were
leading politicians and businessmen. The mullahs were supported by the others in society
in the same way we support our pastors and priests here in the United States.
Q: So this was not really a class apart.
MILLER: No, the mullahs were an integrated part of everyday life. It is a mistake, to look
on mullahs even in contemporary Iran as a class that is somehow alienated. What’s wrong
or different for the clergy to be doing in contemporary Iran as compared to the traditional
Iran that I knew is that the clergy are now doing functions that they normally don’t do.
The clergy are running the government, but the clergy come from the same families
whose secular members ran the Shah’s government. They are relatives of the politicians
who were in power at the time of the shah.
Q: How did you wife find life there?
MILLER: Suzanne found it completely open. Perhaps because we were young and naïve,
we felt no isolation or alienation. The people we lived among were interested in us. We
had our first son born in Isfahan, in a simple but well run hospital there. She had a normal
birth with a mid-wife. It was the Christian hospital run by the Christian Church. The
hospital was made of mud – mud brick, and it was very primitive in its appointments, but
had extremely able doctors and nurses. No, Suzanne had a wonderful time. There was no
restriction on dress, but she was careful about what she wore. She would wheel a baby
carriage, with our son, Will, down the main streets. Isfahani women would stop her and
chat about the baby and the normal events of ordinary life.
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