AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

of an impossible leader - - by enlisting national and world opinion against him.” 185
As the
decade wore on, Iranian students became increasingly involved with the American and European
protests movements. In the Civil Rights Movement, SNCC become more radicalized and the
Black Panthers emerged. From the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on 10 August 1964, through the
Tet Offensive of 1968, the American anti-war movement, FSM, and New Left became major
student organizations that interacted with the ISAUS. Similar developments took place in
Europe. All of these groups were protesting a lack of civil liberties, imperialism, and the
overbearing power of their respective states. The shah became the center of many of these
protests.
As the Iranian student movement became larger and more radical in ideology, it also
became much more anti-American. The American Embassy in Tehran noted that the rise in anti-
Americanism was primarily a result of its role in supporting a regime that denied the youth the
role they desired to play. 186 Both Kennedys were aware of this; this was why they listened to
Iranian students in the United States. However, receptiveness in Washington to the concerns of
Iranian dissidents ended with the assassination of President Kennedy on 22 November 1963.
Only a month after Kennedy’s death, a report referred to students abroad as “professional
agitators,” and recommended that U.S. policy “probably should not be overly influenced by
attitudes of the intelligentsia” and that “it could hardly be recommended at this time that we
change our overall policy to meet this problem.” 187 Instead, of altering its policy with Iran, the
U.S. government desired to superficially improve its own position with the Iranian intellectual
185 ISAUS, “Don’t Let Familiarity Breed Indifference! Six More Students have been Jailed,” publication of the
Southern California Chapter of the ISAUS printed in ISAUS, Iran in Turmoil, 48.
186 “The Iranian Intellectual Community,” DNSA, 21 December 1963.
187 “The Iranian Intellectual Community,” DNSA, 21 December 1963.
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