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technical assistance and the secret police, and he had the army so he …
Q: Coming from the world’s major exponent of democracy, was there any sort of
misgiving about supporting an absolute monarch?
MILLER: That was the debate, of course, at the time. For me, it was a major
disappointment. It seemed to me that our policy was not only a loser for the long term,
and certainly violated our own principles, and certainly violated the view of George
Kennan, that our strongest diplomatic weapon is to live as democrats abroad, as we do at
home, that we shouldn’t have a schizophrenia of purpose abroad. Iran’s policy was a
supreme example of that mistake. It was a bitter experience for me to see this decision
made. I was very disappointed in a number of my colleagues who understood, but didn’t
want to take the risk by speaking out. Holmes, I think, was one of them, really. He talked
to me a number of times about this when I brought it up with him. He said to me, “I don’t
see the Shah losing now. Not in my time.”
Q: He was right.
MILLER: However, he could have been right the other way, as well, depending on the
decision. To Holmes credit, he always heard me out and always insisted that my views be
known and reported. Ambassador Holmes supported me when I got into direct difficulties
with the shah. I saw the Shah, the queen and chief courtiers on many occasions. I had a lot
of contacts and friends in the court including some of the sons of the Shah’s sister. We
often played tennis together. One of them was a particularly odious type, for example, he
used to sell antiquities from the recent archaeological finds on the market, rather than
putting them into museums, a practice many Iranian friends found offensive.
It came to the shah’s attention that I was spending a lot of time with his opponents. So he
told Julius Holmes this, and Julius Holmes said, “Don’t worry. We need to know what is
happening with the people who oppose you. It’s good that we know and, in fact, we will,
of course, tell you what I understand was happening. Don’t worry. He’s a young officer.
He’ll be all right.”
Q: You mentioned, you say there were two major things that happened.
MILLER: The other major event was Khomeini, the emergence of Khomeini.
Q: Let me stop.
[END SIDE]
MILLER: There were discussions at that time about reforms, some of which were put into
the five points of the White Revolution – land reform, emancipation, more rights for
women, and a number of other reforms that all were actually from the program of the
opposition National Front. In Qom, religious people were upset about land reform, about
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