AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

Foreign Affairs was because they were “permitting themselves to be used as an appendage of the
security organization to extend the police state outside of Iran.” 255
In late 1964 Foreign Minister Aram was still very concerned about the “harmful activities
of some Iranian students in the United States.” 256 While Iranian and American officials were
concerned about the shah’s safety in Los Angeles, there was an attempt to assassinate the shah in
Iran in April 1965; less than six months after the assassination of Prime Minister Hasan-Ali
Mansur. Mansur was a member of the Iran-e Novin Party, which was a group of technocrats
loyal to the shah who were friendly with the United States government. 257
The assassination attempt on the shah occurred on 10 April 1965 inside Tehran’s Marble
Palace. Both the American and Iranian governments initially announced that the assassin was
Reza Shamsabadi, a 22 year old conscript in the Imperial Guard. 258 Prime Minister Hoveyda
was quoted in the French newspaper Le Monde saying that “there was not at all any question of a
plot.” 259
However, later in the month the Iranian government began to arrest a group of Iranian
students in connection with the assassination attempt including six former members of the
CISNU, five of whom were recent graduates from British universities. The CISNU believed that
255 23 December 1964 Press Release of the New York Chapter of the ISAUS printed in ISAUS, Iran in Turmoil, 41.
256 Memorandum of Conversation, “Iranian Student Activities and the Khaibar Gudarzian Case,” 5 December 1964,
General Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy Files 1964-66, Box 2332, Folder POL 15-1 (6-
1-64), RG 59, NA.
257 “[Discussion of Various Topics Including the Mansur Assassination, the National Front, and Other Political
Parties with Hedayatollah Matin-Daftari],” DNSA, Iran Revolution, 4 February 1965, Confidential, Memorandum of
Conversation Tehran, IR00547; James A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion, 164-5.
258 Current Intelligence Memorandum, “The Situation in Iran,” 23 April 1965, FRUS 1964-1968, Vol. XXII, 141;
CIS, Was it a Plot to Kill the Shah or is it a Conspiracy to Silence the Students (Düsseldorf, Postfach, West
Germany: Confederation of Iranian Students, 1966), 3; Other scholars also state that the assassination attempt was
made by Shamsabadi, see James A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion, 162; Afshin Matin-asgari, Iranian Student
Opposition to the Shah, 86.
259 CIS, Was it a Plot to Kill the Shah or is it a Conspiracy to Silence the Students, 3.
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