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

a journalist – I spent a lot of time both of with them. They took me to see their circles of
close friends as well as those in official circles. In the official circles were the governor of
the ostan, Ostandar, the mayor, the Shahdar, the various heads of ministries in the
governor’s and the mayor’s office, then the leading clerics, university professors, teachers
in the schools, artists. A list of the hierarchy of important people, was drawn up. All
consulates and embassies have a list of key personalities and their biographies – contact
lists they are now called. In the case of Isfahan and Tehran, the personalities were divided
into the appropriate classes of society, not in the Marxist way, but in the Persian way
which was in the form of a list of those who were the worthies, who were the landowners,
who were the factory owners, who were the intellectuals, artists, athletes, actors,
etc. The initial analysis of society was carefully done and reflected not our perception of
society but our local staff’s perception of their own social structure.
Q: A worthy being whom?
MILLER: A “worthy” would be, so named for one of several reasons. A worthy would
reflect power, that is, be a representative of the shah’s regime, the appointed governor, in
the case of Isfahan and the elected mayor, the head of the gendarmerie, or the head of the
secret police. Then there were the families of the existing dynasty, that’s the Pahlavis, and
then the Qajars, who were much more numerous, from the previous dynasty, and in the
case of Isfahan the Safavids from the time of shah Abbas, that great Persian dynasty.
There were even some Afshars, the dynasty from Shiraz, and there were some families of
the Afghan conquerors of the 18 th century, and so on, and there were Jewish worthies,
Christians. There were also the leaders of, the various modern oil dynasties, or the present
political system, the religious structure, the intellectual structure. Then in Isfahan,
because it was always an artisan city, the artists, the most honored miniaturists, tile
makers, and in the time I was there, the sculptors and the oil painters or water colorists.
All of the artists – from metal work to textiles to bookbinding – these were all very
important.
Q: There were no strictures within the Shiite religion about portraying human people, the
humans?
MILLER: Only in the mosques.
Q: Only in the mosques, but you know in the Wahabi and all this, there is none of that?
MILLER: No, in fact, in a number of the great mosques, even the shah mosque, now
called the Imam mosque, there were representations of animals and humans in some of
the back areas of the mosque. Usually there is a distinction between the mosque and
outside, but outside it was rampant, figures and animals.
Q: I may have asked this before, but how strong was the writ of the shah at this time?
How much were local authorities doing what local authorities do, and how much was it
deferring to the shah?
42