AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

a group of picketing Iranian students upon her arrival in New York to attend an international
women’s conference. 154
The fight between Iranian students and the shah’s regime that was violently suppressed in
Tehran in June 1963 was now being fought on the streets of America. The phenomenon of
Iranian student protest was not isolated in 1963 to the United States or Iran. It was a global
phenomenon that only grew stronger as the decade progressed. Students in West Germany
protested the White Revolution and were also faced with their own passport controversy. After
Iranian students in West Germany began protesting the White Revolution, the West German
government threatened to expel one of the leaders of the movement, Hasan Masali, a medical
student in Kiel and chairman of the Committee of the Iranian National Front in Germany. In
response to the threat, the CISNU and the Organization of Afro-Asian students in the Federal
Republic of Germany rose up in his defense. 155
On 19 August 1963, the tenth anniversary of the overthrow of Mosaddeq, thirty members
of the Iranian Students Association of Greater New York picketed the U.N. headquarters
demanding his release from prison. 156 Similar protests continued to occur outside the U.N.,
including a demonstration led by Iranian students on 17 September. 157
A sit-in also occurred at
the Iranian U.N. delegations office on 23 September. 158 The 23 September incident created
concern, and Julius Holmes, the American ambassador to Tehran, argued that deportation
154 Talbot to Rusk, “Agitational Activities of Anti-Shah Iranian Students in the United States,” 5 October 1963,
FRUS 1961-1963, Vol. XVIII, 724.
155 Telegram from American Consul General in Hamburg (E. Tomlin Bailey) to the Department of State, “Iranian
Student Agitation in the Federal Republic – Case of Hessan Massali,” 5 August 1963, General Records of the
Department of State, Central Foreign Policy File 1963, Box 3942, Folder POL 22, RG 59, NA.
156 “Iranian Students Picket U.N.,” NYT, 20 August, 1963, p. 6.
157 “Pickets at the U.N.,” NYT, 18 September 1963, p. 8.
158 Talbot to Rusk, “Agitational Activities of Anti-Shah Iranian Students in the United States,” 5 October 1963,
FRUS 1961-1963, Vol. XVIII, 724.
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