AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

exception of “Youth Houses,” which were infiltrated by the SAVAK and its informants. Any
dissenters in Iranian universities were either expelled or drafted into the military. 446 The ISAUS
noted that in Iran, “Faculty members, as well as students, are harassed and arrested if they show
any kind of sympathy with the resistance movement or object to the crystal clear presence of
SAVAK agents in the universities.” 447
These problems in Iran created unrest among its student population, and while Iranian
students abroad had been some of the earliest student protesters, students at Iranian universities
joined in the global student movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Iranian
government was no longer immune to the domestic protests that were prevalent in other nations.
An Iranian newspaper said that “If our youth…in sheer imitation of such eccentric Western
subcultures as beatniks and blackshirts and Black Panthers would wear their hair long and grow
beards and hang donkey beads over strangely fashioned rags,…then they must be led to the right
path and saved from such deviation…These manifestations of protest and defiance totally lose
their significance and become a pathetic farce when imitated by Iranian youth who have nothing
whatsoever to protest against.” 448
However, Iranian students actually had much more to protest
than American students. To curb the sense of connection between Iranian youths and their
Western counterparts, Chief of National Police General Mohsen Mobasser initiated a law that
gave the police the power to “apprehend long-haired youth and give them haircuts.” 449 The law
was repealed and Mobasser was replaced by Lieutenant General Jafar Qoli Sadri when police
446 Helms to Kissinger, “Student Unrest Abroad” 2 September 1970, FRUS 1969-1976, Vol. E-4,
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/ (accessed on 26 February 2008).
447 ISAUS, On the Violation of Human Rights in Iran, 7.
448 Airgram from America Embassy in Tehran to Department of State, “A Tonsorial Tragedy – The Fall of Iran’s
Chief of National Police,” 10 October 1970, General Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy
Files 1970-1973, Box 2378, Folder POL 15-1 IRAN (1/1/70), RG 59, NA.
449 AE Tehran to DOS, “A Tonsorial Tragedy,” 10 October 1970, RG 59, NA. There was also concern in the United
States about the popularity of long hair among American youths. Refer to Gael Graham,. “Flaunting the Freak
Flag: Karr v. Schmidt and the Great Hair Debate in American High Schools, 1965-1975,” Journal of American
History, Vol. 91, No. 2 (September, 2004), 522-43.
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