AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

organization within its own borders. The interests of the ISAUS were not aligned with the
foreign policy interests of the United States. However, the ISAUS also denounced the Sovietinfluenced
Tudeh party. Throughout the 1940s, the Tudeh Party was the main influence of
Iranian students, but with the rise of Mosaddeq to power, National Front ideology supplanted the
influence of the Tudeh. 103
The non-aligned ISAUS created tensions between the group, the U.S. government, and
the Iranian government. Zahedi made one final attempt to regain influence in the ISAUS when
he invited Ali Fatemi and Sadeq Qotbzadeh to a meeting at the Iranian embassy. The meeting
did not produce any positive results, and Zahedi referred to Qotbzadeh as a “son of a bitch
thug.” 104 While relations between the ISAUS and Iran struggled after the convention in
Ypsilanti, they were forever severed following the meeting at the embassy. The AFME also
broke relations with, and stopped funding the ISAUS after this sequence of events. 105
From this
point forward, the ISAUS deepened its ties with other student organizations, especially the
Confederation of Iranian Students (CIS) in Europe.
The European CIS was founded in April 1960 and it aimed to “Coordinate all Iranian
Students in Europe,” and to defend “their general interests in Iran and abroad.” 106
Also, Iranian
students at the University of Tehran organized themselves into the Organization of Tehran
University Students (OTUS). 107 The development and politicization of these organizations, along
with the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961, provided the students an opportunity possibly
to influence American foreign policy, and alter the course of the Iranian politics.
103 Matin-asgari, Iranian Student Opposition to the Shah, 10, 181.
104 Matin-asgari, Iranian Student Opposition to the Shah, 39.
105 Editors, “How the CIA Turns Foreign Students into Traitors,” Ramparts, Vol. 5, No. 5 (April 1967), 22-24.
106 “The Constitution of The Confederation of Iranian Students in Europe,” as seen in Matin-asgari, Iranian Student
Opposition to the Shah, 247-50.
107 Matin-asgari, Iranian Student Opposition to the Shah, 11.
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