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

MILLER: The hierarchy of power was at the head was the shah, the shah made the claim,
and of course, his entourage and many throughout the country believed, that Iran was the
shah, that he owned the country, but in the vibrant urban life of cities like Isfahan and
Shiraz and Tabriz this dominance was contested by those of great wealth and long held
social position. They thought they also had a piece of the country to which they had
claim. The shah needed them as well to stay in power. That vitiated absolute power to
some extent. The clergy were always split on the question of loyalty to the shah as the
“Render unto Caesar…” was a reality and the spiritual life didn’t belong to the shah, he
had to belong to the spiritual life as a kind of defender, or as more accurate, in his case,
persecutor of the faith.
There was a well known hierarchal list of power of so called “1,000 Families” who were
the great land owners of Iran. Many on the list were from the previous times – Qajars,
Safavids or the great bazaar merchants, Isfahan of course having the most extensive and
complicated bazaar. These bazaar families were extraordinarily important. They were the
financial support necessary for the regime. They were also the support for the clerical
establishment through charitable contributions on the vaqf, the inheritance, and they were
political powers in their own right. Of course, commercial activity was crucial to the
society as a whole.
Those were the worthies. Isfahan was a wonderful place for anyone interested in learning
about the complexities and richness of Iran, particularly one from the United States. A
diplomat at that time was welcome. I learned about Iranian society in ways that were
much superior to the method imposed upon embedded journalists, for example, now.
Q: When you got outside – talk about consulate trips, too. When you got outside going
into your area, which is quite an extensive one, how did you feel about what you were
picking from this?
MILLER: It was a huge consulate district. It extended to the Afghan border on the east,
included the religious city of Qom in the north, it went to the Iraqi border on the west, the
Persian Gulf to the south, and everything in between. It was a vast piece of territory, with
huge variations of kinds of life.
Typically, I would spend at least a week or two every month on the road. The trips were
primarily by jeep, because the cities and the settlements and villages were great distances
between each other. The distances between settlements were due to the largely desert
character of the plateau. Villages existed where there was water. The roads were very
difficult; at best they were corrugated dirt roads. Travel anywhere meant adventure.
So I would have our great driver, Khachik, and one of the Oriental secretaries would
often go along. A good example would be a trip to Yazd, which is to the east of Isfahan
and over a range of mountains to the edge of the desert, Dasht-e Lut. The trip to Yazd
would take about five or six hours. Yazd, itself had an extensive bazaar, several important
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