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

organization of society, and among the intellectuals, the socialist approach had a certain
appeal for the Iranian intellectuals. The main issue about the needed organizations of
Iranian society was democracy versus the thousands of years of royal rule by military
force. How to bring democracy to Iran was the core of the debate. How could the change
to democracy be done? Mossadeq, of course, was the hero, because he came out of
traditional society, who was definitely a bona fide nationalist who highly valued Iranian
language, culture, and had great respect for traditional Iranian social life, and religions.
He had championed a view of society in which the lowest in society had a place, and was
not simply a possession owned by someone else.
Mossadeq and his followers expressed the democratic beliefs in formal terms, in their
party organizations that later came into play, as the National Front. They also expressed
their feelings in poetry, which was the most effective means for Iranians of
communication. It was amazing to me, a society in which poetry was the most important
way you could express political views as well as emotions.
Q: Of course in a way, not quite – the Russians have some of this.
MILLER: The Russian Intelligentsia. Not to the extent of the Persians. As much as I
loved the intellectual life I led in Moscow and in Ukraine, they are primitive in some
ways in comparison to the Iranians, certainly if you value the subtly of their mind. The
Iranian intellectuals do not have the ferocity of mind which the Russians have in larger
measure than anyone else, but for precision and subtlety of thought, the Persians surpass
all others.
Q: Were you seeing anything that, I think, I suspect, became a major phenomenon later,
but the time you were in Isfahan, of the Iranian students who went to the United States
and came back?
MILLER: Oh yes, there were many. The first Iranian I met, I think I mentioned earlier,
was one of these. Hossein Mahdavy and I met at Oxford. We were together for five years
in Iran. Then we met again at Harvard, not long later in graduate school. Many of the
Iranians of my generation who were well educated were like Hossein. My closest friends
in Iran were people of similar background to that of Hossein.
Q: How did they fit in in the early 60’s?
MILLER: It was normal, not unusual. The western educated intellectuals fit in to the Iran
of the 1960s – they were the heart. Even the shah’s entourage was the same. The “1,000
Families” sent all of their talented children to universities in the West. The Bazaari class
and their extended families and the leading religious people sent their children to the
West. Everyone who was affluent and able went abroad. It was normal, it was like the
great tour of Europe that the English took in the 18 th and 19 th century. It was a finishing of
their education. It enabled them to understand how they fit into world civilization.
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