AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT ...

the modernization of education threatening, more liberal students and professors believed that
the change did not come fast enough. Therefore, the implementation and progress of these
reforms were slow, and in many instances they did not happen at all. 356 The outbreak of serious
protest in Iran for the first time in five years indicated that student unrest in 1968 was truly a
global phenomenon.
Protests by Iranian students were prevalent in Austria. The American embassy in Vienna
reported that protest had “become almost a ritual with Iranian students in Austria.” 357 There
were between 700 and 900 Iranian students in Austria in 1968, with the most active in Graz.
Many were considered to be “career students” and were close to being “professional expatriates
from Iran.” 358 Between 150 and 200 students demonstrated the shah’s arrival in Vienna for a
medical exam on 10 February 1968. The protesters were mostly Iranians, but they were joined
by European leftist students. The Iranian and European students protested the extravagance of
the shah’s recent coronation ceremony while Iranian citizens starved, and were also appalled by
the torture and execution of political prisoners, lack of freedom, and economic problems. The
protest aimed at spreading knowledge of the shah’s brutal regime and to get the Austrians and
the rest of the world to understand their cause. 359
With the growth of Iranian student protest occurring in Western Europe as well as the
United States, the shah began to realize that student dissent was a widespread phenomenon. In
the middle of March 1968, the shah told Armin Meyer that he believed Iranian student protesters
356 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).
357 Airgram from American Embassy in Vienna to the Department of State, “Anti-Shah Demonstration by Iranian
Students,” 16 February 1968, General Records of the Department of State, Central Foreign Policy Files 1967-1969,
Box 2216, Folder POL 7 IRAN (1/1/68), RG 59, NA.
358 AE Vienna to DOS, “Anti-Shah Demonstration by Iranian Students,” 16 February 1968, RG 59, NA.
359 AE Vienna to DOS, “Anti-Shah Demonstration by Iranian Students,” 16 February 1968, RG 59, NA.
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