Paved with Good Intentions: The American ... - GLORIA Center

Paved with Good Intentions

PENGUIN BOOKSPAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSBarry Rubin is a specialist on American foreign policyand on Middle East politics. He is a Fellow at GeorgetownUniversity’s Center for Strategic and InternationalStudies.

PAVED WITHGOOD INTENTIONSThe American Experience and IranBARRY RUBINPENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKSPublished by the Penguin GroupViking Penguin Inc., 40 West 23rd Street,New York, New York 10010, U.S.A.Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,London W8 5TZ, EnglandPenguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,Victoria, AustraliaPenguin Books Canada Ltd, 2801 John Street,Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 1B4Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road,Auckland 10, New ZealandPenguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:Harmondsworth, Middlesex, EnglandFirst published in Great Britain and the United States byOxford University Press, Inc., 1980Published in Penguin Books 198110 9 8 7 6 5Copyright © Oxford University Press, Inc., 1980All rights reservedLIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATARubin, Barry M.Paved with good intentions.Originally published: New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1980.Bibliography: p.Includes index.1. United States—Foreign relations—Iran. 2. Iran—Foreign relations—United States. I. Title.E183.8.I55R83 1981 327.73055 81-4634ISBN 0 14 00.5964 4 AACR2Printed in the United States of AmericaExcept in the United States of America,this book is sold subject to the conditionthat it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulatedwithout the publisher’s prior consent in any form ofbinding or cover other than that in which it ispublished and without a similar conditionincluding this condition being imposedon the subsequent purchaser

Artificial spritesAs by the strength of their illusionShall draw him on to his confusionHe shall spurn fate, scorn death and bear:His hopes ‘bove wisdom, grace and fear:And you all know securityIs mortal’s chiefest enemy.—Macbeth

PrefaceResponding to a press-conference question in February, 1980about the United States role in the 1953 return to power ofthe shah, President Carter replied that the events were notworth going into because they were “ancient history.” Clearlythis was a tactical response—there was no sense adding fuelto the fire while fifty-three Americans were still being heldhostage. Yet there was no lack of interest within the Americanpublic in the angry charges coming daily out of Iran or inthe debate within the United States between those who supportedthese allegations of American perfidy and those whodid not.On the contrary, there was a strong and widespreadinterest in calm evaluation and better understanding. Butfirst the public wanted the facts. What exactly had the nationdone to cause the current leaders of Iran to hold the UnitedStates in such utter contempt, to charge it with such rankimperialism, and to lay at the doorstep of the White Houseall the sins of its own former monarch?The temptation to see the history of United States-Iranianrelations as a story of heroes and villains, of a few missed

opportunities, of colorful incidents and obvious lessons shouldbe avoided. Before reading conclusions into this story, oneought to examine all the evidence—what happened in Iran in1978 is unintelligible to those who know nothing of what occurredin 1953. Similarly, it is just as impossible to evaluatethe events of 1953 without reference to the special relation shipbetween the United States and Iran that had preceded them.A country’s behavior, as the Iranian crisis so vividly demonstrates,is not merely a product of a rational pursuit ofobjective national interests. Rather, it is the result of the interactionof the collective historical experience of the nationwith the individual life experiences of its citizens. The formercreates a nation’s political course, the latter shapes its politicalconsciousness. Whether or not the interaction contributesto the effective fulfillment of a nation’s objective interests is animportant question, though not always the controlling question.There is also a rather common occurrence in politics thatmight be called the vector principle. A boat sets off for theopposite shore of a river but because of various unconsideredcurrents ends up several miles downstream. Americanpolicies often seemed in theory, if not in execution, directedtoward reasonably obtainable, rational goals but failednonetheless because they did not take fully into account thecurrents of Iranian and Middle East politics.In part, United States error may be traced to the triumphof a single-minded strategy over political realities. It involvedoverdependence on seemingly changeless factors, unwarrantedreliance on the strength of the status quo, and an excessivelycynical view of considerations presented as moralistic. Certainly,some dictatorships prosper—not all decay—and someare replaced by worse alternatives. Nevertheless, the competenceand popularity of foreign governments with whom theUnited States must deal are factors contributing to or threateningthe realization of American foreign policy goals.Blindness toward these realities was heightened bybureaucratic factors within the United States government—

the discouragement of internal debate and honest reportingin the Nixon-Ford administrations and the breakdown ofcoordina tion and discipline during the Carter years. Theseoften-neglected considerations played a central role inAmerican misperceptions.Especially remarkable is the extent to which years ofAmerican-Iranian relations were built on mutual ignorance andmisperceptions. American strategists saw Iran as a chess pieceon the international political game board: capable of makingpotent military and diplomatic moves in support of the grandstrategy without reference to its own internal ten sions. Theshah’s regime and its enemies shared many serious errors aboutthe nature of the United States and its foreign policy. To them,Washington had either to be savior or satan. The road to the hellof the hostage crisis was often paved for the United States withgood intentions, coupled with exceed ingly bad judgment.How was the United States transformed in Iranian eyesfrom their nation’s savior, in the 1940s, to the world-devouringsatan of the Khomeinist era? An answer to this question, itseems, will tell much about the triumphs and tragedies ofAmerican foreign policy toward the Third World over thepast thirty-five years.This book was generated by my research as a historian inthe evolution of Middle East politics and United States policyon the one hand and from my work as a political analyst ofcontemporary developments on the other.In addition to the use of archival material—much of it onlyrecently declassified—and of other primary sources, I havein terviewed well over one hundred people involved with thisstory. These include past and present American officials fromthe Defense Department, State Department, National SecurityCouncil, the United States Embassy in Tehran, and the CIA,as well as many Iranians, both those who served under theshah, as soldiers or diplomats, and those now part of the newIs lamic Iranian government. Since these were mostly off-therecordtalks, they cannot be footnoted. Naturally, however,

personal descriptions and interpretations of events werecited only with caution and with cor roboration from othersources. I wish to thank all of those who gave generously oftheir time and candidly and cou rageously of their thoughtson this subject.I especially want to thank Jay La Monica, Devon Gaffney,and Marc Goodman for their moral support and materialassis tance. Susan Meisel helped on research and BonnieKoenig compiled the chronology. My editor, Susan Rabiner,also labored above and beyond the call of duty.To avoid overwhelming the reader with footnotes, I havegenerally attributed only direct quotes. In most cases, thebib liography should serve as a guide for those wishing todo further study. Again, for clarity I have generally used thetransliterations of Iranian names most commonly employedby the Western media.Washington, D.C. B.R.July, 1980Note to the Penguin EditionThe publication of the paperback edition has given me theopportunity to make a number of corrections and to updatethe Chronology to reflect the most recent events. I wish tothank those scholars who suggested changes. The developmentsleading to the release of the American hostages demonstratedthe book’s analysis of political forces within Iran andthose affecting U.S.-Iran relations. The Gulf region’s growingimportance further enhances the need to understand pastand present American involvement in the Middle East, andwith Iran in particular.Washington, D.C. B.R.September, 1981

ContentsAuthor’s Note………………………………………xvi1. A Friendship is Born…………………………………32. A Country Is Saved 1945-50…………………… 293. A Revolution Is Overthrown 1951-53…………… 544. An Alliance Is Made 1954-68…………………… 915. An Imperial Dream 1969-74………………………1246. Arms and the Shah 1975-76………………………1587. The Pillar Crumbles 1977-78……………………1908. Days of Reckoning 1978-79………………………2179. Charismatic Disorder 1979………………………25210. Iran’s Second Revolution 1979­80 ……………300#APPENDIX A: The Role of the Media ………337#APPENDIX B: Chronology of Events 1978-81 365#Notes ……………………………………………381#Bibliography ……………………………………402##Index ……………………………………………41

Author’s NoteWatching the Iranian revolution in 1978, it seemed to me vitalto explain the history of U.S.-Iran relations and how things hadbecome so much in conflict. This book traces that relationshipdown through the hostage crisis. Many have recognized it asthe critical account on this issue. It was published by OxfordUniversity Press in hardcover in 1980 (three printings) and byViking/Penguin in paperback in 1981 (five printings). Therewas also an unauthorized printed edition in Persian publishedin Tehran as The War for Power in Iran. The latest version ofwhich I’m aware came out in 1992.The book provided the first archives-based account on theU.S.-backed 1953 coup explaining why it was not merely anact of imperialist aggression. A focus of the book is on whythe Iranian revolution took place and the motivations for itsanti-American emphasis. One of the book’s predictions wasthat the conflict between Washington and Tehran would lastfor a very long time. Though many of the book’s points havesince been accepted, they were controversial at the time. Thisespecially applies to the explanation of why the new regimewas going to be so radical and destabilizing to the region.Remember that at the time predictions of Ayatollah RuhollahKhomeini’s moderation were as common as those of MuslimBrotherhood moderation today.

1A Friendship is BornAt the beginning of this century, few Persian officials hadeven heard of the United States. Until an American diplomattalked him out of his plan, one adventurous nineteenthcenturyshah planned to travel to the New World by anover land route. On the other side, Americans knew as littleof Per sia. As late as 1943, General Patrick Hurley, PresidentRoosevelt’s envoy to the Middle East, kept confusing Iranwith neighboring Iraq.Despite increasing political, economic, and culturalinterac tion over more recent years, neither country botheredto learn a great deal about the other. One could not evenassume that those in the highest reaches of governmentwere well in formed. In the crisis-ridden months during andafter Iran’s Is lamic Revolution of 1978-79, the consequencesof this mutual ignorance would be clearly apparent. Therevolution’s violent anger toward the United States can bemade intelligible only through reference to a long history ofprevious relations little known to most Americans.The first twentieth-century contacts between the twopeo ple were characterized by special bonds of concern.

4PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSAmerican missionaries and diplomats who viewed Persiafirsthand in the early 1900s were saddened by what they saw.Compromised from within by a greedy and oppressive rulingclique and from without by the imperialistic behavior of Russiaand Great Britain, the country seemed barely able to surviveas an independent nation. To Persian intellectuals, whowere beginning to delve into Western political history andthought, America’s distance and disinterestedness were fascinating.This new force on the horizon, a rising internationalpower, might be useful as a lever against the massive weightof Anglo-Russian domination. And possibly more important,that peculiar American concept of a constitutionally restrictedgovernment appealed to an intellectual class that no longertrusted its rulers to serve the interests of the nation. Limitingthe power of the shah might end the humiliating situationin which the people and resources of Persia were daily soldor leased out to foreign interests by the ruling clique. Whyshould not Persia take its rightful place in the glittering newcentury of industrialization, science, national pride, and motorcars?Both Americans and Persians came to believe thatindeed the United States—with its growing power and yetwith no national interest in Persia’s resources-—might cometo play some special, beneficial role in rescuing Persia from itshumiliating servitude and in restoring it to some semblanceof its past glory.Persia had indeed fallen a long way. Twenty-five hundredyears earlier, the country had produced a great and innovativecivilization that dared to dream of conquering all the knownworld. It had defeated the dreaded Assyrians, built an em pireof unsurpassed splendor, and had come close to conquer ingGreece. The early shahs had truly been the time’s “king ofkings.” Only Alexander the Great had been able to overcomethem. Beginning in 334 B.C., in three titanic battles that constitutedPersia’s first defeat at Western hands, Alexander’sforces smashed Persian armies outnumbering his force by upto five-to-one.A half-millennium later, the Sasanids started Persia on anotherflourishing era that lasted from the third to the seventhcenturies A.D. This dynasty was destroyed by an invasion of

A FRIENDSHIP IS BORN 5the Arabs, newly converted and united by Islam. Yet the Muslimtriumph, which ended Persia’s political independence, simultaneouslytransformed and broadened her cultural influence.As the Muslim religion came to change the Persian life,Persian language, arts, bureaucracy, and political methodscame to dominate the Islamic Empire. The merger was astight as that between dye and cloth. As an eleventh-centuryPersian poet wrote, “I draw glory from the best of forebearsand re ligion from the best of Prophets. I based my pride onboth sides, the majesty of the Persians and the religion of theArabs.” 1The complex relationship between Islam and Iranian nationalismwas partially resolved in the sixteenth centurywhen the Safavid dynasty brought to power a particularlyIranian interpretation of Islam in the tradition of its Shi’abranch. Religion and politics had always been tightlyblended in Per sian life—the pre-Islamic kings withZoroastrianism, the Ab-basid caliphs with Islam, and theSafavids with Shi’a Islam. Within this context, however, themonarch usually tried to subordinate the clerical hierarchy.Often he succeeded, but the penalty for any too-outspokendeviation from Islamic prin ciples might be religious revolt.In pragmatic political terms it was far more important that a​Persian ruler be properly pious than that he be democraticor even nationalistic. The Western view of consensualgovern ance had evolved through a long history of conflict,first be tween nobles and kings, and then between middleand ruling classes and had no counterpart in Middle Eastsocieties. In Persia certainly, the principle of autocracywas never so chal lenged. Further, the competing claims ofsecular nationalism and religious authority, a dichotomoustension that had been resolved in the West through theReformation and by a series of victories by secular forcesover those of the Vatican, were never settled in Iran. Thesetwo fundamental differences, therefore, between Westernand Iranian-Islamic perceptions of governance lie at thecenter of many misunderstandings re garding the shah’s falland the nature of the revolution that displaced him.Two particularly important concepts in this regard—the

6PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSright to revolt against unjust rulers and the existence of organizedreligious power centers outside state authority—weremore strongly developed in Shi’a Islam than they were in themajoritarian Sunni sect. Shi’ism was at the same time moremystical and more devoted to charismatic leadership. PersianShi’ism had a definite hierarchy of religious authorities thatstood apart from the governmental chain of command.This politically freestanding hierarchy made it possiblefor religious leaders, known as mullahs, to lead a revolution,while Shi’a doctrine provided a defensible rationale foropposi tion to the shah. As early as the 680s A.D., Shi’amullahs were fomenting revolutions to build a new order ofsocial justice. They justified their uprisings by the sayingsof the Prophet Muhammad: “At the end of time there will betyrannical amirs, vicious viziers, treacherous judges, andlying jurists. Whoever lives to that time should not servethem, not as in spector, nor as collector, nor as treasurer, noras policeman.” 2Shi’a leaders, like Muhammad’s grandson Zayd ibn Ali,summoned their followers, “to wage Holy War againstoppres sors and defend those who have been abased, to givepay to those who are deprived of it, and to share the bootyequally among those who are entitled to it, to make good thewrongs done by the oppressors,” and to aid the legitimaterepresen tatives of Islam against usurpers. 3Within this tradition, Iranian religious leaders were freeto attack the shah’s government and policies on the groundsthat they were unjust and contrary to Islam. Tens of millionsof Iranians, particularly those living in the rural villagesand even the many peasants who had recently migrated tothe cities, accepted these clerical proclamations as guides toproper behavior toward their king.Iranian history also demonstrates a striking contrastbe tween the fragility of dynasties and the remarkabledurability of the nation. Time after time, revolts or invasionsthrew down mighty king’s while the country’s Persian coreretained its distinctiveness and sense of identity. Doubtlessthis history owed much to Persia’s climate and terrain.Bounded by moun tains and deserts, the Persian homeland

A FRIENDSHIP IS BORN 7was often isolated on the great central plateau. Located onthe crossroads of trade routes, Persia was often temptinglyeasy to conquer, but it was much harder to change or to rule.Most of Iran’s land has been unfit for agriculture,hospitable solely to pastoral nomadic tribes loyal to theirown chiefs and hostile to a distant central governmentthat represented only unpopular taxation and militaryconscription. Great regional cities strove for autonomy,while non-Persian peoples who lived on the periphery—Arabs in the southwest, Turks and Kurds in the northwest,and Baluchs in the southeast—had little affection for orallegiance to any Persian shah or nation.The experience of centuries seemed to teach that rulersused an iron hand or they did not long remain in power.The alter native to strong central authority was chaos.Unfriendly foreign powers stalked the borders, seeking onlyan opportu nity for conquest. Outlying provinces awaitedonly their opportunities to break away.The decline of the Qajar dynasty in the nineteenth centurycoincided with the arrival of the Russians from the north andthe British from the south. The former, expanding their greatland empire, were continuing their historic march towardwarm waters. The British sought to secure transport routesthrough the Persian Gulf and their imperial lifeline to India.Both powers conspired, usually against each other, withtribes and factions of Persian politicians. Even withoutsuch interventions the shahs were becoming weaker, morecorrupt, and more disliked by all classes of the population.With foreign involvement, Persia also became a battlefieldfor great-power rivalry and it was Russian and Britishmachinations that were blamed for keeping the discreditedQajars on the throne.Xenophobia—hatred and dislike of foreigners—wasnot new to Persia. Islam had given the Persians a sense ofmoral supe riority over the infidels and Persian nationalismhad provided them with a sense of cultural superiorityover other Muslims. Yet if Iranian political culture oftenexaggerated the impact of hated foreign interference, it alsooften stressed the impor tance of being on the right side of

8PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSsome powerful foreign patron. If an outside power had suchoverwhelming control, Iranian politicians would do well tosecure its backing. Thus, the early constitutionalists curriedBritish support, the fortunes of the Tudeh (Communist) Partywaxed and waned with the apparent power of the SovietUnion in the 1940s, and the United States itself became theobject of the affections of a whole group of Iranian suitors.The first Americans were too exotic for the political intriguersto worry about. American missionaries, who firstar rived in 1829, worked only with the Christian minoritycom munities, but they won widely held reputations forcourage and humanitarianism. The schools and clinicsthey estab lished helped open Iran to modern ideas. It wasto protect these missionaries that the first United Statesdiplomatic mis sion was established in 1883.Beyond this minimal presence, the United States had noin terest in further involvement. Given the proximity andinten sity of British and Russian power, the wisest courseseemed careful neutrality and consistent nonintervention.Iran how ever was not standing still. Modernization andcon stitutionalism appealed to some Persians; oppositionto foreign encroachment and hatred of the oppressive shahmoti vated more. By 1906 the Qajar shah had been forced toprom ise constitutional government, an achievement hailedby American missionaries and diplomats.Despite this promising start, the constitutionalist forcesfound that they could not depend upon British support.Lon don had no incentive to back a major reform effort inPersia; its eyes were on wider geopolitical considerations.For almost a century, British and Russian interests hadcollided over a long belt of strategic territory stretchingfrom the Ottoman Empire through Persia and Afghanistanarid even into distant Tibet. This struggle, dubbed “theGreat Game,” involved the consolidation of Russia’s everexpandingsouthern borders against British attempts toprovide security for their sea routes and their Indian Empire.With Germany’s rise as Britain’s main rival in Europe,however, this periodic confrontation increasingly seemed likean unnecessarily distracting side issue. Thus, in 1907, Britain

A FRIENDSHIP IS BORN 9resolved its differences with Russia. Tibet was neutralized,Russia abandoned its interest in Afghanistan, and Persiawas partitioned into three segments. Czarist Russia wouldexercise primary influence in the north; Britain staked outthe south; and Tehran was designated a neutral zone.This action demoralized the reformers and emboldenedthe shah, who had been egged on by the Russians. Indeed,St. Pe tersburg continued to support him in violation of theiragree ment, but London, motivated by wider considerations,was willing to look the other way. The shah’s attemptedcounter revolution led to a see-saw battle. The city of Tabriz,a hotbed of anti-shah activity, successfully revolted; between1909 and 1912 the constitutionalists again briefly held power.The official American role in these exciting events wasquite limited, but the sympathy of individual Americanscreated goodwill among Persian democrats. This, in turn,pro vided a basis for Iranian hope of further American aid.Two quite different men symbolize this incipient hope:Howard C. Baskerville and W. Morgan Shuster.Baskerville, a twenty-one-year-old Princeton graduate,was a teacher at the American mission school in Tabriz.Like many of his colleagues he sympathized with theconstitutionalists. The local American consul, while sharingsome of Basker-ville’s views, was duty bound to inform himthat the United States must remain neutral in the ensuingcivil war. He asked the outspoken young teacher to refrainfrom making any more public speeches. Baskerville washardly in a position to offer the local forces real help againstthe surrounding pro-shah tribes, the consul added, since hisentire military experience consisted of watching Americantroops drill years earlier.But Baskerville persisted in attacking the shah. Ignoringpleas from the State Department and the Mission Board,he resigned his job in April, 1909. Now he threw himselfinto full-time support for the revolution. Enrolling hisIranian stu dents as soldiers, Baskerville began to trainconstitutionalist militia units.Less than two weeks later he was dead, shot down onthe edge of the city while charging a royalist barricade, a

10PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSvictim of his own tactical recklessness. Nevertheless, theAmerican con sul remarked, he had given his life in a goodcause. Basker-ville’s funeral was turned into a nationalistdemonstration, with three thousand people attending intribute. His life and death,, quickly forgotten in the UnitedStates, have often been cited by followers of both the shahand the Ayatollah Kho meini as a fine example of UnitedStates-Iranian friendship. 4The temporary victory of the constitutionalists, sparkedby the Tabriz revolt, created its own monumental tasksin the three years before the shah returned to full power.Adminis trative and financial institutions could barelykeep Iran going; foreign loans and technicians were badlyneeded. Where could the constitutionalists turn? Toward theUnited States, of course, and the new regime made contactwith President Wil liam Howard Taft. Neither Britain norRussia would object since the only alternative seemed to beincreased influence by their German rivals. America wouldnot pose any threat, Lon don and St. Petersburg reasoned.Taft, however, saw no reason for official Americaninvolve ment. He would do no more than recommend W.Morgan Shuster to be Iran’s financial adviser. A handsomeyoung Washington lawyer, Shuster had held similar jobs forthe United States government in Cuba and in the Philippinesbe fore his return to private practice in 1908. Intrigued bythis new challenge, Shuster quickly signed a three-yearcontract, chose four assistants, and boarded ship for Persia.He had no idea of the steep odds facing him.Shuster’s mission was an exercise in frustration, since anyreal reform of Persian finances would have threatened thepower and position of bureaucrats, reactionary politicians,and landlords, to say nothing of the Russians and British. “Ithought I had been up against a few difficult circumstancesin my brief career before this,” Shuster later wrote, “butevery thing in the past looks like child’s play alongside thepresent task.”As would Franklin Roosevelt much later, Shuster clung toa strong faith that American honesty, persistence, and technologycould help transform Iran into a modern democratic

A FRIENDSHIP IS BORN 11nation. His efforts, however, were constantly blocked, notonly by the foreign imperialist powers, but by the obstructionismof powerful anti-reform Persians as well.He burned with righteous indignation against the shortsightednessof the old Persian elite and against the “uncivilized”behavior of the British and Russians, who were stranglingIran. His sympathies were with the constitutionalistsand the Persian people who were “fighting for a chance tolive and govern themselves instead of remaining the serfsof wholly heartless and corrupt rulers.” 5After Shuster’s first year in Iran the Russians forced hisdismissal. Shortly afterward the shah succeeded in crushingthe constitutional regime and disbanded the Majlis (parliament],Shuster’s removal had been one step in the restorationof the shah’s autocratic powers. Commented StanislawPok-levski-Koziell, the Russian minister in Tehran, “It wasa mon umental error to bring Americans to this country. Iknow them. I know for what they stand … and you can’tmake them ‘fit’ in this country.” Americans, the British andRus sians agreed, were simply too idealistic and unrealisticto deal with Iran. Their reformist meddling unbalanced thestatus quo. 6However, the upheavals that took place around thetime of the First World War did far more to underminethe Iranian status quo than a hundred Shusters. Iran’sdeclaration of neu trality was ignored by all belligerentsand wartime strains fur ther weakened the Qajar dynasty.The constitutionalists sided with the Germans to avengethemselves on the shah’s sup porters. Russian power in Iranmelted away as that country underwent revolution and civilwar. By 1918 British primacy seemed unchallengeable.This influence was greatly reinforced by the introductionof a new factor that would forever change Persia’s fate—oil. Ten years earlier, in 1908, a British petroleum company,frustrated after many dry wells, had ordered a stop toexploration, but the determined engineer in charge,convinced that a rich field would soon be found, stalled fortime. Sure enough, at almost the last moment, the drillershit a gusher.

12PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSFirst Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill quicklyun derstood the discovery’s potential importance. The Britishfleet, competing against the kaiser’s navy, was convertingfrom coal to oil as part of its modernization program. Persianoil filled a prime strategic need and consequently the Britishgovernment bought a controlling interest in the company. ThePersian government received a 16 percent share in exchangefor the concession. Given this distribution of power, the corporationtook the name Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).AIOC earned its profits by exploring, pumping, refining,transporting, and marketing Persian oil. In doing so it broughtmuch revenue to the Tehran regime. Yet there was also amplebasis for Persian resentment toward the AIOC, which providedfar more in benefits to the British than to the Persians.While the company paid no taxes or import duties to Iran,it paid Britain income tax, corporation tax, and import duties.The British Navy bought AIOC oil at a discount. There wereno Persian directors to check the company accounts, a situationthat led to constant Persian accusations that the bookswere juggled to minimize the Iranian share of the profits.Rela tively few Persians were trained for skilled or managerialpo sitions. AIOC became a state within the state, controllingPer sia’s main resource and intervening in Persian politics.It is not surprising that Persian antagonism toward AIOCeventu ally grew to explosive proportions.To break the British monopoly over oil production, Iranianleaders approached Washington on several occasions. Sincethe United States had no incentive to challenge British primacyand since Iran was far too peripheral for America inthose isolationist years between the wars, there was littlein terest in accepting such offers.Indeed, when the Iranian government had appealed toPres ident Woodrow Wilson for help in obtaining a seat atthe 1919 Versailles peace conference, Wilson brought upthe matter with his allies, and when the British stronglyopposed any invitation for Iran, Wilson dropped the issue.Shortly thereaf ter, when London tried to impose an unequaltreaty on Tehran the United States objected but took noserious action.

A FRIENDSHIP IS BORN 13The general bent of American attitudes, however,did not go completely unnoticed by certain Persianpoliticians, two of whom would later play an importantrole in building relations between the two countries. BothQavam es-Sultanah, the most skilful political organizerof his generation, and Hussein Ala, Persia’s minister toWashington, saw the potential of an Amer ican card in theircountry’s hand. Over the course of the next thirty yearsboth sought to play such a card on a variety of oc casions.Their first attempt to bring American companies intoPersia to compete with AIOC failed. Some of the more adventuresomeindependent companies were willing to talk tothe Persians but none wanted to challenge the internationaloil cartel, in which AIOC was a key member. By the 1920sthe major petroleum-producing corporations had alreadydivided up the available world market and wanted toprevent any increased production. Trespassing on a Britishsphere of influ ence could bring retaliation from AIOC. Eventhough the Per sian government appointed Shuster as itsagent to search for alternative partners for producing oil nodeal could be orga nized.The Persians had more success with a new mission ofAmerican financial advisors, led by Arthur Millspaugh,which worked in Iran between 1922 and 1927. Millspaughhad taught economics at several universities before joiningthe United States government, where he rose to becomeeconomic advisor to the Department of State. Although heenjoyed some success in Iran, many of his experiences wereas frustrating as those faced by Shuster some fifteen yearsearlier.But there was one very significant difference. The year beforeMillspaugh’s arrival the remnants of Qajar rule had beendestroyed finally by a dashing Persian army officer, Reza Pahlevi.After putting down a Russian-sponsored Communistre volt in the north, Pahlevi marched into Tehran. He quicklyoutmaneuvered the civilian politicians who had supportedhim and overcame the few brave voices favoring a republic.The culmination of this process came on December 12, 1925,when he had parliament elect him shah. From such modest

14PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSbeginnings came the last royal dynasty in Persia’s twentyfive-hundred-yearhistory.In an ironic twist that would not fully reveal itself for anotherfifty years, Reza Shah, as he became known, had toyedwith a renewal of the republic. Shi’a religious leaders refusedto consider such an idea. The republican form of government,after all, was a Western innovation in conflict with centuriesof Persian tradition. Considering the chaos and total governmentalbreakdown that characterized Persian life at the end ofQajar rule, many believed that only an autocrat could restoreorder. With Reza Shah’s ascension to the throne his six-yearoldson, piously named Muhammad, became crown prince.The Pahlevis, father and son, were never wildly popularin Persia—or Iran, the indigenous name Reza Shah askedWes terners to use to symbolize his hopes of creating a new,forward-looking state. Of Gourse, public popularity had neverbeen a requirement for ruling Iran and few shahs ever possessedwidespread popular support. Their ability to inspirefear and respect had always been far more relevant. Essentially,Reza Shah was a despotic modernizer. He followed an ancientinjunction of Persian politics: ruthlessly centralize power.Of course, there was more to be done if one wanted to createa developed state. Although Reza Shah admired Kemal Ataturk,the father of modern Turkey, he could never match thatneighboring ruler’s organizational or propaganda abilities.Ataturk also had far better material to work with than hadReza Shah, but he managed to build an alternate Turkishsecu lar culture, to lay the foundations for Turkish industry,and to put together a well-rooted national political party.Ataturk was unquestionably an autocrat. Yet by structuringa secure base of support he built an edifice that endured.Reza Shah, in contrast, treated the urban middle class, outof which should have come his managers and technocrats,as he treated the unruly tribes. Not surprisingly, his statefacto ries malfunctioned. Ataturk broke the clergy’s power,weak ened Turkey’s pan-Islamic loyalties, and substitutedin their place a strong (though nonaggressive) nationalism.Reza Shah expounded no cohesive national ideology. It wasno mere question of relative harshness. Many of Ataturk’s

A FRIENDSHIP IS BORN 15early colleagues ended up in prison; the leaders of theTurkish Com munist Party were set adrift in a leaky boaton the stormy Black Sea. But Ataturk also found a placefor Turkish mer chants and intellectuals. He developed aphilosophy of Tur-kism, complete with a rewriting of thenation’s history; founded a series of social and politicalclubs, which could be seen even in the tiniest village; andtirelessly worked to moti vate the Turkish people. In short,he was a twentieth-century politician.Reza Shah operated more like a traditional monarch. Hewould not delegate authority. The bureaucracy trembled beforehim since anyone might be whisked off to prison atany moment for failing to comply with the shah’s dictates.He preferred prestigious construction projects to morenecessary irrigation work. He feared rather than promotedany mobiliza tion of the people. He took land from the Qajarsand from his rivals only to turn it into his own estates. Hisson would be strongly influenced by this style of ruling,though he did try at times to turn it to more beneficent ends.Reza Shah provoked the hatred of the landlords and clergywithout gaining, in exchange, the support of any segmentof Iranian society outside his own army. The corruption hein herited from the Qajar years continued and even becameinsti tutionalized. Progress toward modernization wasspotty and isolated. As his reign wore on and as he becameincreasingly dependent on the military, it, in turn, regularlyreceived up to 50 percent of government allocations toguarantee its con tinued loyalty.Arthur Millspaugh’s dislike for Reza Shah stemmed fromtheir clashes over fiscal reform. The regressive tax systemcould not be made more equitable because it was expresslydesigned to benefit the wealthy landlords. Quite logically,then, as long as Reza Shah refused to implement changes inthe tax system, it was impossible to raise any revenue exceptby levies on the poor. To the shah, Millspaugh was an arrogantand overbearing foreigner who was trying to tell himhow to run his country. This friction was not dissimilar tothat which would often enter into relations between RezaShah’s son and later American advisors.

16PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSThe very real distance between the two cultures and thesensitivity displayed by each to affronts by the other wasgraphically illustrated by several minor incidents during theyears before World War II. On July 18, 1924, Robert Imbrie, theUnited States vice-consul in Tehran and a zealous amateurphotographer, went with an American friend to take somesnapshots at one of Tehran’s public water fountains. A religiousgathering was in progress and some of the peoplepresent called out to him not to take any pictures. As Imbrieclosed the camera to put it away the case clicked. The crowd,assuming he had taken another photograph, attacked him.When the two Americans tried to escape in a passingcar riage, the mob ran after it, shouting that the men hadpoisoned the well and that they had killed several people.They stopped the carriage and while several policemen andsoldiers tried to help the Americans, others joined the mob.After being badly beaten, the two were finally able to maketheir way to the hos pital.Meanwhile, outside the hospital, a mullah furtherstirred the passions of a gathering crowd against the twoforeigners. Led by a number of soldiers, they finally rushedinto the building, overwhelmed the guard, and broke intothe operat ing room. Finding Imbrie there under treatmentby a Persian doctor, they tore up bricks from the room’sfloor and began to batter Imbrie. Before they ran away, theattackers had inflicted one hundred thirty-eight wounds onhim. Imbrie died shortly thereafter. 7So intense was the emotional hysteria in Tehran thatthe government was able only with great difficulty topunish those responsible. Local opinion blamed the murderon foreign machinations. Since American oil companyrepresen tatives had been holding talks with the Persiangovernment, the popularly accepted version ran that theBritish had mur dered Imbrie to protect their monopoly byfrightening off the Americans.The second incident showed some insensitivity on theother side of the relationship. Ghaffar Djalal, Iran’s ministerin Washington, was arrested for speeding through the smalltown of Elkton, Maryland in November, 1935. Iran protested

A FRIENDSHIP IS BORN 17this violation of Djalal’s diplomatic immunity and the localpolice chief and constable were fired. But Reza Shah wasenraged when Secretary of State Cordell Hull told Djalalthat despite immunity diplomats should obey traffic laws.The in cident was viewed as an assault on Iran’s dignity.Relations were far more seriously threatened by a series ofstories in American newspapers, particularly in the Hearstpress, claiming that Reza Shah had been as a youth a stableboy in the British legation. Reza Shah’s enemies alwayswere spreading the most fantastic stories about him—thathe was a Christian, a Russian, or, most commonly, that hehad been in stalled by the British. Distortions of this type,unfortunately, have not disappeared from Iranian politics,and this prac tice allows foreign media reports to have aneffect on do mestic politics well beyond what individualreporters might imagine.In response to the stable-boy stories, Iran issued an officialprotest and threatened to break diplomatic links. State Departmentofficials replied with explanations of the constitutionalguarantees allowing the American press to print what itchose to print. It was further noted that in America depictingsome one as a self-made man was hardly an insult.This did not apply, however, to hereditary monarchsclaim ing two-thousand-year-old thrones. To have beencalled a former stable boy was insult enough but to havebeen called a British stable boy was in anglophobic Iranintolerable! Iran’s foreign minister could only suggest thatAmerica might con sider choosing between freedom of thepress and the friend ship of Reza Shah. As a result, from1936 through 1938, United States-Iranian relations were ata standstill. The con tinued remoteness of the two countriesfrom each other was amply demonstrated by the fact thatthis breakdown had little effect on either.On the eve of World War II it was difficult to imaginethat the relative isolation of America from Iran would everchange. They seemed as distant and as mutually exotic asmight any two countries on the planet. But the war and itsaftermath would change all that forever.By the late 1930s, Reza Shah had become increasingly

18PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSauthoritarian and unpopular. The puppet Majlis followed hiswishes, the press was as controlled as any despotic governmentcould wish, and quick arrests prevented the formationof any opposition. Nazi Germany, well aware of Iran’s hatredtoward Britain and Russia, courted Reza Shah throughout thedecade. They bestowed on the Persians the honor of Aryanstatus and expanded trade between the two nations; Berlinflooded the country with agents and propaganda. Bribeswere spread thickly among politicians and journalists.Once the war began, German forces initially achievedvic tory after victory in Europe and also threatened thestrategic Middle East. Nazi forces invading the SovietUnion advanced hundreds of miles eastward. In 1940-41 Allied fortunes were at their lowest ebb. The anti-Axiscause required the survival of the Soviet Union; the SovietUnion’s survival depended on supplies from the still-neutralbut strongly anti-Nazi United States. The most convenientand secure supply route ran to Russia’s back door—via RezaShah’s newly completed Trans-Iran Railroad.To secure this prize, to protect the oil fields, and to keepthe country out of pro-German hands, British and Soviettroops invaded Iran in August, 1941. Although some of his125,000 troops fought bravely, the shah’s pampered armyquickly faded away. Once more Iran was being treated asan Anglo-Russian colony; once again foreigners woulddesignate the country’s leader. Reza Shah was packed off toexile on the un comfortable east African island of Mauritius,never to return. Muhammad Reza Shah ascended the“Peacock Throne,” to be Iran’s sovereign for the next thirtysevenyears. Many were happy to see Reza Shah go. Thetribes and local gentry hoped again to escape the centralgovernment’s hand; others had per sonal grudges. Yet thisinvasion and the subsequent occupa tion was a traumaticexperience for Iran and for the young new shah. Perhaps, hemust have thought many times, some foreign army mightone day sweep across Iran’s borders with equal ease todisplace him.Over the next four and a half years, the shah sat on thethrone without much political power. British and Soviet

A FRIENDSHIP IS BORN 19soldiers and civilians virtually ran the country. Prices rose450 percent and famine swept large parts of Iran. As in theirold 1907 agreement, the Russians controlled the north whilethe British controlled the south. With good reason, Persiansfelt not like an ally but a conquered people. 8In the face of this frightening situation Iranian leadersturned to the United States for guarantees and assurances.Al though Tehran could not convince Washington to tryto end the occupation—Allied victory was America’s toppriority— Roosevelt did agree to seek an Anglo-Russiandeclaration that the takeover was temporary and that Iranwould be returned to full independence as quickly aspossible after the war.While protesting their innocence of any imperialist intentions,both the USSR and Britain were reluctant to make sucha pledge. As the United States continued to pressure them,the two finally signed a treaty with Iran in January, 1942.Ar ticle Five stated that Allied forces should be withdrawnfrom Iranian territory “not later than six months” after thewar’s end. 9 While Tehran welcomed this promise for thefuture, it continued to complain about Soviet and Britishbehavior in the present.The Soviets excluded all Iranian troops from the north,im ported goods without paying duty, and bought up food forex port. With southern Iran dependent on northern crops, thislast action led to famine in some of the most densely populatedareas of the country. More ominously, Moscow stimulatedseparatist propaganda among the Turkish-speakingpeo ple of Azerbaijan, Iran’s northwest province, and amongthe Kurdish minority. Soviet Communist agitators belongingto related ethnic groups on the Russian side of the borderwere infiltrated into Iran. Leaders of the Iranian CommunistParty (the Tudeh, literally, “Masses” Party) were releasedfrom Reza Shah’s prisons and given Soviet subsidies andencourage ment. Journalists and non-Tudeh Majlis memberswere bribed. The old Russian imperialism had returned in anew and even more terrifying form. 10Many Iranians saw the British as only marginally better.“The British are pillaging us,” remarked Iran’s foreign

20PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSminister, although the English were, in fact, workinghard to supply Iran with food. American diplomats andintelligence agents tended to sympathize with the Iraniansand were, sometimes unfairly, quite critical of London’sbehavior. The Americans blamed the large, bloody breadriots of December, 1942 on British policy. Again and again,in Tehran and Washington, Iran’s leaders and diplomatspassed the message to their American counterparts: theyliked neither the British nor the Russians, especially thelatter, but they “fully trusted” the United States. Iran couldbe saved only by a strong United States commitment. 11Throughout 1942 and 1943, the Office of Strategic Services(OSS), predecessor to the CIA, found Iranians “unhappyand very restive,” feeling they were being “ravaged” byBritain and the Soviet Union. United States AmbassadorLouis Dreyfus thought the Iranian attitude toward Britainto be “short-sighted and unrealistic,” but would not entirelyblame them for “refusing to cooperate with a nation atwhose hands they have suffered so much.” The lesson inall this, he con tinued, was that “relations based on forceand exploitation rather than on mutual help and good willdo not pay divi dends when the day of reckoning arrives.”Fortunately, he concluded, American relations with Iranwere of the latter va riety. When some of Dreyfus’s reportswere accidentally given to the British Foreign Office, Britishdiplomats were so angry that they successfully pressed forhis removal. 12The American attitude at this time was perhaps bestsum marized by a January, 1943 report from John Jernegan,a State Department Middle East expert. “Although Russianpolicy had been fundamentally aggressive and Britishpolicy fun damentally defensive in character, the result inboth cases has been interference with the internal affairs ofIran.” This state of affairs “created an ingrained distrust ofboth powers in the Iranian people … .” 13Not surprisingly, the anger and distrust generatedby Allied actions boosted the effectiveness of Germanpropaganda. Ber lin radio broadcasts were so successful thatthe British once pressured local police to remove all radios

A FRIENDSHIP IS BORN 21from public places. When it was found that this made itimpossible for Iranians to listen to British broadcasts as wellthe radios were returned; the Soviets solved the problem byjamming the Nazi transmis sions.Movie audiences in the poor sections of south Tehransome times cheered war newsreels in the wrong placesand even applauded Hitler’s appearance on the screen.American con cern mounted. One could not possibly winthe love of Iranians by starving them, the State Departmentcautioned London. As the tide of battle turned in theAllies’ favor, however, condi tions in the south graduallyimproved. Moreover, with the ar rival of thousands ofAmerican servicemen in Iran as part of the new PersianGulf Command, established in January, 1943 to facilitatesupplies to the Soviet Union, the United States earned moreof a say in relations with Iran.This had little immediate effect on the overall politicalsitu ation. By late 1943, the much-abused Iranian governmentwas on the edge of a breakdown; Secretary of State Hulltold the president that it “may dissolve into chaos at anymoment.” 14 For the first time the United States governmentbegan to think of developing a coherent Iran policy. Twothings were needed: a United States strategy for definingIran’s place in a postwar world and a clearer guarantee forIranian indepen dence.The first requirement was partly met through the work ofthe State Department and the White House between August,1943 and August, 1944. Iran had been an Anglo-Russian battlegroundfor more than a century and, according to thisanal ysis, would be so again as soon as the military situationeased. The weakness of the Iranian government and thepresence of British and Soviet forces made this outcomemore likely. Unless this conflict was checked, it woulddestroy Iranian in dependence, an eventuality not onlycontrary to the Atlantic Charter but also disastrous to any“equitable and lasting” postwar settlement. The only way toavoid this danger, the State Department warned, would beto strengthen Iran so “she will be able to stand on her ownfeet” and hold firm against the two European powers. Only

22PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthe United States could provide effective aid to Iran andprotect it from its two unwel come guests. 15Roosevelt was enthusiastic. He was, the president wroteHull, “thrilled by the idea of using Iran as an example ofwhat we could do by an unselfish American policy. Wecould not take on a more difficult nation than Iran. I shouldlike, how ever, to have a try at it.” Neither the United Statesnor any other country should acquire a zone of influence,Roosevelt wrote British Prime Minister Winston Churchillin February, 1944, but “it will take thirty or forty years toeliminate the graft and the feudal system. Until that timecomes, Iran may be a headache to you, to Russia and toourselves.” 16“That Iran is dominated by a powerful and greedyminor ity,” reported the State Department, “is an obviouslytrue statement.” American advisors would seek to “breakthis stranglehold of the entrenched classes and to ensurefor the mass of the Iranians a fairer share in the proceeds oftheir labor.” President Roosevelt agreed with this analysis.In Iran, he told an aide, “One percent of the populationruled—and they were all grafters—while the other ninetyninepercent lived under the worst form of feudalism.” But,“if we can get the right kind of American experts who willremain loyal to their ideals I feel certain that our policy ofaiding Iran will succeed.” 17One such adviser was Millspaugh, who returned toTehran in January, 1943 as director-general of finance. Heremained in the country until the end of the war, along withseventy other Americans who worked in the ministriesof Finance, Treasury, Food and Price Stabilization, thenational bank, customs, and in the reorganization of thenational police. Although they made some progress onmodernizing Iran’s political struc tures, Millspaugh hada number of clashes with the shah. Foreshadowing thefuture, one such conflict was over the size of the armythat the country could afford. The shah wanted 108,000men; Millspaugh suggested 30,000. After Mills-paugh’sdeparture, the shah had his own way.In short, America’s practical interests seemed to require

A FRIENDSHIP IS BORN 23a strong and independent Iran, free from the internal weaknessesand the dissensions that breed foreign intervention.A weak Iran, Hull and Roosevelt concluded, might provokecon flict between the USSR and Britain or an imperialistpartition by the two. It would be far better for Iran tobecome an ex ample of Allied cooperation in the postwarperiod. Since the United States was popular among Iraniansand had few mate rial interests of its own in that country,Washington poli cymakers believed America would be thebest guarantor of this balance and the best guardian ofIran’s sovereignty.This deepening commitment was implemented at theDe cember, 1943 Tehran conference, where Roosevelt,Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin met for oneof their major wartime discussions. Stalin had refused togo any farther from Soviet territory than Iran’s capital. Bytraveling through the Soviet-occupied north of the countryhe virtually never left lands ruled by him. Stalin was theevent’s de facto host. Al though Roosevelt did meet withthe shah, it was the monarch who was kept waiting for theaudience.Despite these indignities, the Tehran Declaration, inwhich the three Great Powers promised to preserve Iran’sunity and independence and to promote developmentthere, was an im portant gain for the Iranians. In later yearsIranian govern ments would often refer to that documentas the basis for an American obligation to protect theircountry and to furnish large-scale aid. The vaguenessof the declaration made this more wishful thinking thanlegal logic. Nevertheless, the United States now was openlybound to deeper involvement in Iran and to help enforce atroop withdrawal at the war’s end.General Patrick Hurley, Roosevelt’s envoy to the MiddleEast, was the accord’s main architect. To Hurley, whosehatred for the British was as intense as his dislike for theCom munists, the project offered an opportunity to checkthe ambi tions of both countries. As soon as the signaturesof the three national leaders were on the accord, Hurley ranup to Admiral William Leahy, Roosevelt’s military advisor,

24PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSexclaiming, “Bill, I did it!” He was as happy, wrote Leahy,as a small boy who had just landed a big fish in the millpond. 18 The fish was even bigger than Leahy thought.That Iran might become a tinderbox was demonstratedby the crisis of autumn 1944, a crisis that also contributedto ris ing American suspicions of Moscow’s intentions.Attempting to strengthen American involvement as acounterweight to the occupying powers, the Tehran regimeonce again invited American oil companies to negotiatefor possible concessions in the north. Reacting to thisencroachment on their perceived sphere of influence, theSoviets sent a delegation of their own. Although this grouptried to browbeat the Iranians into grant ing them northernoil rights, they seemed far more interested in using theopportunity to bring in large numbers of Soviet techniciansand to establish a Soviet-controlled school sys tem.The Russian emissary told Prime Minister MuhammadSaed that Moscow had at first offered Finland easy peaceterms but later, after that country resisted, it was forcedto accept much less favorable arrangements. Iran, hewarned, should not make a similar mistake. “It appearsthat a crucial point in Russian penetration is at hand,” theOffice of Strategic Services re ported, “and it is quite wellestablished that the Russians are going to follow throughby whatever means are necessary.” These included bribingpublic officials, forcing a change in the cabinet, propagandacampaigns, labor strikes, restricting food shipments fromnorthern Iran, and creating disturbances calling for RedArmy intervention. All these tactics were employed in thefollowing months. 19The Iranians resisted. Few believed that the Soviets reallywere interested in working oil fields in the north—to this dayno petroleum has been found there. Equally unpersuasivewas , the Russian argument that they were asking only fortreatment equal to that afforded the British AIOC in thesouth. The solu tion to having one such privileged guestat the table was not to invite a second to hold economic,military, and political power in another key region.Prime Minister Saed, a veteran at dealing with such

A FRIENDSHIP IS BORN 25foreign pressures, came up with an ingenious response: hepostponed all negotiations for oil concessions until after thewar. Both the Americans and Soviets would have to wait.One of the main supporters of this position was a Majlismember named Muhammad Mossadegh, who sponsoredthis law in parlia ment and who would later lead the fight toremove the AIOC as well.The Soviets blamed the United States for the Iranian move,but Washington had neither fomented nor encouraged it beforehand.United States oil companies, after all, were themain victims of this action. Washington did, however, afterthe fact, support Iran’s right to have chosen its own courseof action without fear of retaliation.With the oil concession refused them, Moscow threwwhat can only be described as a temper tantrum, deploying awhole range of menacing gestures. All grain shipments fromthe north were halted. A regiment of armed Soviet troopsdrove through the streets of the capital. Soviet newspapersand radio broadcasts launched nonstop attacks against theSaed regime. Moscow’s ambassador even walked out of thediplomatic box during a Soviet-Iran soccer match to avoidspeaking to Saed.Tudeh marches were held demanding the government’sres ignation. When Iranian soldiers tried to line the paraderoutes, truckloads of Soviet troops forcibly displaced them.It was a lesson that Iranians would not soon forget. AlthoughSaed fi nally resigned, these incidents produced resentmentrather than surrender.Soviet behavior also influenced American policy. Moscow’sactions in Iran, as well as in neighboring Turkey and in EasternEurope, heightened United States suspicions toward Stalin’spostwar intentions. More and more Washington officialsbegan to echo the views of State Department Soviet specialistGeorge Kennan. The USSR, Kennan cabled from Moscow,could only conceive of its neighbors as either vassals or enemiesand “if they do not wish to be the one, must reconcilethemselves to being the other.” As the Soviets gained theupper hand in one country after another, Kennan asked,would they know where to stop? 20

26PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSW. Averell Harriman, the United States ambassador toMos cow, gradually reached similar conclusions. In a dispatchof September, 1944, he wrote Hull:What frightens me ... is that when a country begins to ex tend itsinfluence by strong-arm methods beyond its borders underthe guise of security it is difficult to see how a line can bedrawn. If the policy is accepted that the Soviet Union hasa right to penetrate her immediate neighbors for secu rity,penetration of the next immediate neighbors becomes at acertain time equally logical. … 21Six days later, in a report to the State Department PolicyCommittee, Adolph Berle made a parallel analysis. TheSoviet Union sought to extend its influence throughoutmuch of the Middle East. As long as this was done throughfriendly agree ment, the United States had no objections;“but the Soviet doctrine that the governments must be‘friendly’ is still ob scure,” Berle continued:If it is meant that these governments must not engage in intrigueagainst the Soviet Union there could be no possibleobjection: if it is meant that, by subsidizing guerrilla orother movements, virtual puppet governments are to bees tablished, a different situation would prevail. 22In summarizing the lessons of the Iran oil crisis, Harrimanwrote in January, 1945 that Moscow’s policy seemed to be oneof using occupation troops, secret police, local Communistparties, labor unions, sympathetic leftist organizations, culturalsocieties, and economic pressure to establish regimesoutwardly independent but in practice subservient to theKremlin. The overriding consideration of Soviet foreign policywas a preoccupation with security. Yet, Harriman noted,“the Soviet conception of ‘security’ does not appear cognizantof the similar needs or rights of other countries andof Russia’s obligation to accept the restraints as well as thebene fits of an international security system.” 23The question was not whether Stalin’s policy was offensiveor defensive, aggressive or fearful—it was all these thingsat the same time in practice. Nor was it seen as especially

A FRIENDSHIP IS BORN 27Marxist in motivation, for there was a strong element ofcontinuity with traditional czar ist attempts to control Iran.Nevertheless, the United States was not prepared to allowa Soviet takeover of all or part of Iran, not only because ofthe immediate consequences of the conquest for Iran itself,but also because such a step might mark the first stage ofa Soviet advance into the rest of the Middle East. Moscow’sencourage ment to the Tudeh and separatist movements, itsbanning of American and Iranian officials from the north,and its treat ment of the Tehran government all seemed topoint in this di rection. This was also the interpretation madeby Iran’s leaders.Month by month into 1945 the situation worsened.With Allied armies closing in on Berlin, the war wasclearly coming to an end. Would the Tehran Declarationbe implemented and the foreign troops removed? Moscowsidestepped United States attempts to learn its intentions.The shah was nervous. When the Germans surrendered theSoviets pointed out that the Japanese were still fighting.Finally, in August, 1945, the Japanese gave up. The crisiscould no longer be postponed.Stalin’s answer came quickly. In August the anti-Iran campaignin the Soviet press opened up like an artillery barrage.The new theme was clear. Moscow was backing the establishmentof a separate puppet state in the northern province ofAzerbaijan. A similar effort was underway in Kurdistan aswell, though there a genuine nationalist movement playedsome part. Reports began to arrive in Washington of a Sovietorganizedwave of terror in the north.When the Soviets decided to create an Azerbaijani republicin late 1945, the task was entrusted to a veteran Communist,Jaafar Pishevari, and two Soviet officials, Arkadi ArkadievichKrasnykh, the consul-general in Tabriz, and Mirza Ibragimov,deputy president of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist RepublicCouncil of Ministers. Several hundred Turkish-speakingSoviet Communists, indistinguishable from their Iraniankin, were sent to reinforce the weak local Tudeh group. Oneof them, a member of the Soviet MVD secret police, headedthe equivalent body in the puppet regime whose army,

28PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSironically, was equipped with American Lend-Lease materieldown to the cloth for their uniforms.A few weeks later, an influential group of Kurdish tribalchiefs were brought to Baku for a meeting with Jaafar Baghirov,prime minister of the Azerbaijani Soviet SocialistRepub lic. Baghirov lectured them on their need for selfdetermination. “As long as the Soviet Union exists,” hetold them, “the Kurds will have their independence.” Hepromised military equipment and training, a printing press,and financial sup port. The Kurdish delegation was quicklyushered back to the railroad station, but not before each hadbeen presented with a heavily framed, full-color photographof Stalin. While the Azerbaijanis were mere Soviet agents,the Kurds accepted Moscow’s support with some cynicism.They had their own nationalist movement and alliance withthe USSR was a matter of expediency rather than loyalty.Moscow also maintained a large espionage network inIran. Agents moved freely from one country to the otherusing So viet “safe houses” located near strategic bordercrossings. The Soviet ambassador in Tehran financed theTudeh through the operations of the Iran-Soviet bank. Awhole string of trans port, petroleum, and import-exportgroups, as well as a chain of Soviet-operated hospitalsprovided cover for propaganda and bribery programs. Allof these assets, plus the presence of many Red Army unitsin the north, presented a clear and present danger to Iran’sfuture. 24Was the Soviet aim merely to annex Azerbaijan or was thisa first step toward conquest of the entire country? Americandiplomats were not sure, but either way they agreedthat this move had to be stopped. Iran, which had earlierbeen seen as a test case for postwar Anglo-American-Sovietcooperation, had now become a decisive battleground in theemerging Cold War. United States-Iranian relations, whichhad been so tenu ous only five years earlier, had now becomethe centerpiece of a global crisis.

2A Country Is Saved 1945-50Trapped between two great powers, Britain and theUSSR, Iranian leaders, including the young new shah,looked to the United States as a “third force” that wouldhelp maintain their nation’s independence. World War II,which had greatly upset the international balance of power,provided the United States with both the ability and themotive to play such a role. Yet the United States assumedthe task only after years of re quests by Iranians to do so,during which time American leaders became convinced ofSoviet insincerity toward Iran’s right to independence. Thusit was that Iran became the first battlefield of the Cold War.President Roosevelt had hoped to make the country anex ample of Big Three cooperation. There the United Stateswould show Britain and the USSR that each party actingonly with due respect for the interests of the other twowould be a preferable and realistic alternative to a renewedGreat Power conflict. A balance of power would share outinfluence while preventing excessive infringements onIranian sovereignty.By the end of the war, as American policymakersgradually became convinced of Moscow’s aggressive designs

30PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONStoward Iran, this optimistic plan was abandoned. Instead,the United States had to ally itself with London and Tehranto force out Soviet occupation troops and to counter Russianattempts to carve up Iran. Thus, Iran became a testingground for the con tainment policy and a key experience inpersuading Ameri cans of Soviet bad faith.Yet Iran was not seen during those first few postwar yearsas a weapon against the Soviet Union. Rather it was thoughtof as a weak domino, a defensive position that might be heldonly with some difficulty. Consequently, while opposing Sovietbullying, occupation zones, or puppet enclaves, the StateDepartment also offered the carrot of good Soviet-Iranianrela tions, provided Moscow accept Iran’s independence. Butbe fore this arrangement could be established, Washingtonwould have to clearly demonstrate, as it did in the crisis of1946-47, that it was willing to go to the brink of war to safeguardIran’s sovereignty.The first three months of 1946 saw a complexinternational crisis develop out of the failure of Americanattempts at the Yalta, Potsdam, and the December, 1945Moscow conferences to resolve Big Power conflicts overIran. The tripartite treaty of January, 1942 had long beforepledged that all foreign troops would be withdrawn withinsix months of Allied victory, but the Soviet Union refusedto confirm its intention to keep that promise. Japan’scapitulation in August, 1945 set the six-month deadline forthe end of February, 1946 at the latest. What would theRussians do?United States Ambassador Wallace Murray reported ahigh level of tension in Iran. Moscow’s short-run objective,he be lieved, was the creation of a “buffer zone” in northernIran, but its long-range aim was direct access to the PersianGulf. This involved the establishment in power of a puppetTehran government “led by men under Soviet influenceamenable to Russian demands and hostile to other foreignnations.” Soviet propaganda seemed to further indicatethat the Russians might be paving the way for a coup d’etat.Such a develop ment, which would create a potential threatto United States oil holdings in Saudi Arabia, Bahrein, and

A COUNTRY IS SAVED 1945-1950 31Kuwait, could be stopped only by a strong United Statesstand. 1American Soviet experts, intelligence officers, andmilitary leaders all agreed with this assessment. The JointChiefs of Staff saw Soviet policy as a continuation of czaristattempts since the fifteenth century “to dismember Iran.”The Soviets, like the czars, sought control of raw materialsand the prin cipal routes connecting Europe and the FarEast. Iran had never been a threat to Moscow; only Russianexpansionism motivated their conflict. 2The United States press also began to adopt these new attitudes.Iran was extremely important, wrote the WashingtonPost’s Barnet Nover in a New Year’s Day column, because it“will throw light on Russian ambitions in the Middle East.”Nover concluded:Should Russia retain her present foothold on Iran the presumptionwill be hard to avoid that she will sooner orlater seek to go further. When it comes to carrying out apolicy of strategic imperialism history proves abundantlythat the ap petite grows with the eating. 3Soviet behavior seemed to foretell the worst. While thelast American troops left Iran on January 1, 1946, and Britainan nounced it would meet the March 1 deadline, Moscowrefused to set a date for its withdrawal. Shortly thereafter,the Rus sians established a puppet Kurdish state alongsidetheir Azer baijan satellite. Kurdish leaders were invited tothe USSR, and were ordered to set up their own regimeunder Soviet tute lage. Moscow’s third step seemed evenmore threatening: So viet propaganda indicated that thismight be only the begin ning. Radio Moscow proclaimedon January 18: “Is it only the Azerbaijanis who demand thesame standards of living and reasonable political freedomas are enjoyed by all nations of Europe? No! The people ofGilan and Mazandiron as well as the vast masses in Tehranare voicing the same demands.” 4The threat was unmistakable. Iran’s future might lie alongthe road down which Romania and Bulgaria had been taken.

32PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSQavam es-Sultanah, the wily politician who early on hadcon ceived of Iran’s American card, acted cautiously to avoidthis fate. He talked to the Soviets about their demands for autonomyfor Azerbaijan, a joint oil company, and the continuedpresence of Soviet troops in Iran, while simultaneously complainingto the United Nations Security Council about Moscow’sbehavior and seeking American support.As reports mounted of continued Soviet troop buildupsin Iran, American leaders became convinced of the need toback Iran’s resistance. Secretary of State James Byrnes tolda State Department meeting that the Russians were aboutto add mili tary invasion to subversion. Byrnes concludedthe meeting by pounding his fist into his other palm andremarking, “Now we’ll give it to them with both barrels.” 5These events coincided with the general intensification ofinternational tension. Stalin’s February 9 “election speech”stressed Communism’s incompatibility with capitalismand implied that future wars were inevitable. Two weekslater, Kennan finally won the State Department’s attentionwith his famous cable predicting Soviet attempts to expandfurther. “Where individual governments stand in [the] pathof Soviet purposes,” he wrote, “pressure will be brought fortheir re moval from office.” 6Faced with Republican claims that President Truman’spol icy was one of appeasement, Byrnes replied with astrong speech of his own on February 28. The United Stateswould not stand aside in the face of aggression, he warned.That same day he suggested the dispatch of an Americannaval task force to show the flag in the area. Prime MinisterWinston Churchill, speaking in Fulton, Missouri withTruman’s en dorsement, described the descent of an “ironcurtain” across Europe. The press also accepted this analysis.“Where does the search for security end and where doesexpansion begin?” asked The New York Times in referenceto Soviet policy. 7On March 2 the Russians, seeming to retreat slightly, announcedthat they would withdraw a portion of their troopsfrom Iran; the rest would remain. At Iran’s request, theUnited States delivered a stiff protest. Yet Americans in Iran

A COUNTRY IS SAVED 1945-1950 33reported not withdrawals but Soviet reinforcements, andthe movement of Soviet units from the north toward Tehran.Joseph C. Good win, the Associated Press correspondent inTabriz, reported he could barely hear the Soviet foreignminister’s announce ment of a pullback over his shortwaveradio because of the roar and rattle of heavy Soviet tanks pasthis window, down the road toward the Iranian heartland. 8While Truman, Byrnes, and other American leaders laterclaimed that Washington’s strong warnings to Moscow andits efforts through the United Nations resulted in Stalin’seven tual retreat, at least as much credit is due to Qavam.When the Iranian prime minister had visited Moscow fortalks in early March, he was subjected to strong threatsfrom Stalin and Stalin’s top aides. Qavam replied that onlya new Majlis could change the law to permit a Soviet oilconcession, that elections were necessary to elect a newMajlis, and that elec tions could be held only if Soviet troopswere withdrawn from Iranian soil. He used a conciliatorytone: If the Russians would drop their pressures, Qavamimplied, he would meet most of their demands.Byrnes promised to support Iran’s sovereignty withmilitary strength if necessary, but the United States did notcompletely trust Qavam. Was he playing a double game?Would he fill the role of Quisling, as had many formerly non-Communist politicians in Eastern Europe? Even Qavam’sold colleague Hussein Ala, once again ambassador to theUnited States, was unsure of his intentions, as was the shahand the United States ambassador, George V. Allen. Qavamwas running the country and although the shah was eagerfor more active in volvement in the political crisis, he wasleft with little more to do than pose as a symbol of Iranianindependence. 9The combination of American pressure and Qavam’sdecep tion finally worked. Believing in Qavam’ssubmissiveness, the Soviets agreed to a deal with Tehranin mid-May. They would pull out their troops and theAzerbaijan problem would be declared an internal Iranianaffair; in exchange, Qavam would submit an agreement tothe Majlis within seven months giving the USSR majority

34PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSownership in a joint north Iranian oil company. Thus theSoviet Union would avenge its 1944 defeat and gain a firmfoothold within the borders of its southern neighbor.For several months Qavam played along. He asked theUnited States to take no further actions on Iran’s earlier complaintsand to cease efforts through the United Nations. ManyIranians joined the Tudeh Party, convinced that the Sovietswere the wave of Iran’s future. In August, Qavam appointedthree Tudeh members and three pro-Tudeh politicians to hiscabinet. A State Department report concluded: “Russia hasal ready achieved such dominance over Iran that Iran seemsto have lost its power to speak as a free agent.” 10Despite appearances, Qavam had not sold out tothe Soviets. Rather, he was stalling for time in order toorganize his own political power. Qavam settled a revoltby some of the south ern tribes—who hated the shah’sauthority but feared the Tudeh even more—in exchangefor their electoral support. Meanwhile, Soviet AmbassadorIvan Sadchikoff was putting pressure on Qavam for thepromised Majlis ratification of the oil-concession proposal.When the original September 24 deadline came and went,Sadchikoff delivered an ultimatum. Simultaneously, thestill-autonomous Azerbaijan regime be came more arrogantin its negotiations with Tehran. Members of Qavam’sown cabinet, eager to curry favor with those who seemedcertain to control Iran’s future, passed on details of in ternalgovernment deliberations to the Soviet embassy.At this dramatic juncture Qavam proceeded to the next stepin his plan—to neutralize the USSR’s leverage against Iran. OnSeptember 30 he told Ambassador Allen that United Statesmilitary supplies and financial credits were needed to reestablishIran’s independence. Allen agreed—only by strengtheningQavam could the prime minister be made to resist Sovietpressures. Despite the growing crisis, up to this point theUnited States had been reluctant to increase aid to Iran or tomake any deeper commitment. Now both the military and theState Department saw the necessity of helping Iran.Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson thought that onlya concerted program of economic assistance might stop the

A COUNTRY IS SAVED 1945-1950 35existing unsettled situation or even a protracted Iraniancivil war. Otherwise, Qavam might be at the USSR’s mercy.The Joint Chiefs of Staff, asked to certify that protectionof Iran was in the United States national interest, repliedin the affirmative on October 11. Iran was of strategicimportance to the United States, both as a source of oil andas a defensive position to protect United States-controlledoil wells in Saudi Arabia. It might also serve as a territorial“cushion” in pre venting any Soviet attack from overrunningthe Middle East.While in the past the United States had been willing toagree to some Soviet arrangement over north Iranian oil,American experts now concluded that northern Iran wasan unlikely source of large-scale petroleum production.However, since the USSR “does not now derive sufficient oilfrom sources within her borders to support a major war,” itwas deemed likely that Moscow wanted to obtain oil fieldsin southern Iran, Iraq, and other parts of the region. Anycession of northern Iran or of Azerbaijan to de facto Sovietcontrol would provide a possible first base for an extendedSoviet ad vance. Consequently, the United States militaryurged limited assistance to the Iranian government toenable it to ensure in ternal stability. 11One week later, on October 18, the State Departmentagreed to give broad-based assurances to Qavam of UnitedStates sup port, including a commitment to an Export-Import Bank loan, some military aid for defensive weapons,an enlarged United States military advisory mission, andincreased cultural exchanges.Qavam had not waited for this reply. He had alreadyorgan ized the cabinet to exclude the Communists and theirsup porters. Two months later, in December, Iranian troopsmarched into Azerbaijan and Kurdistan to overthrow thetwo Soviet-backed regimes. The Azerbaijanis greeted thecentral government’s return with great enthusiasm; the pro-Moscow leaders either fled over the border to the USSR orwere exe cuted. The Majlis refused the Soviet oil concession,with only two Tudeh deputies dissenting.With careful timing, Qavam mobilized mass support for

36PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONShis Tehran government and brought the shah into action.The Tudeh quickly collapsed. Ambassador Allen commentedthat American support for Iranian sovereignty had been animpor tant factor in this victory. “Practically every Iranian,”he said, knew that Soviet acceptance of this counteroffensivelay “pri marily in the fact that [the] Soviets were finallyconvinced that the United States was not bluffing.” 12However, Iranian and American leaders had by no meansreached a complete understanding. The shah and the Tehranpoliticians now believed that the United States wouldprovide them massive economic and military assistance.The 1947 Truman Doctrine, which gave such help to Turkeyand Greece, and the Marshall Plan, which helped rebuildwar-ripped Europe, tended to heighten such expectations.American policymakers felt that the United States task wasto safeguard Iran from Soviet pressure or takeover. Internalreform was thought necessary to prevent a domestic collapseor a Communist-led revolution. Steps toward democratic politicalinstitutions, toward press freedom, and toward landreform were seen as preconditions for greater American help.There was also a second conflict. Iranian officialsnaturally thought that their country should be at the centerof American concerns, while United States counterpartsgave Iran a low priority compared with other allies in theMiddle East and elsewhere. These mutual misconceptions,which haunted United States-Iranian relations over the nexttwenty-five years, were visible almost immediately afterthe dissipation of the Russian threat. The main contentionsconcerned Iran’s devel opment program and the level ofUnited States military aid.On the former issue, the Tehran leaders wanted economicmodernization to advance at top speed. The World Bank andthe State Department were more pessimistic about Iran’spros pects. The vagueness of Iran’s plans, the obvious lackof prep aration for using foreign loans efficiently, and theenormous— and wildly fluctuating—demands for moneydiscouraged bankers and potential aid donors.Military relations went only slightly better. Althougha small sales agreement was concluded in June, 1947, the

A COUNTRY IS SAVED 1945-1950 37first arms shipment did not arrive in Tehran until March,1949. True, Ambassador Allen promised to support Iranagainst So viet intimidation when the Majlis finally rejectedthe Soviet oil proposal in October, 1947, but this did notgo beyond the American concept of a limited defensivealliance, a commit ment that was not enough for the shah.Iran wanted its own American arms to use as it pleased, notjust American pledges of protection in the event of Sovietaggression. After all, they argued, Greece and Turkey werereceiving large amounts of equipment. The difficulty, ofcourse, was that Washington thought Iran less stable andless reliable than either Turkey or Greece, an assessmentthat if put bluntly to the proud Iran ians would surely haveoffended them.In keeping with the Washington view, Undersecretaryof State Robert Lovett wrote in December, 1947 that “U.S.mili tary assistance should continue [to] be aimed at internalsecu rity, not national defense of Iran.” Furthermore,according to Lovett, Iranians were “justifiably hesitant [to]obligate them selves financially to foreign Governments …because of [the] plausibility it would lend to Soviet-inspiredcharges of Ameri can dollar imperialism.” Small amounts ofeconomic aid to strengthen the social structure and centralgovernment were useful, but the United States should avoidstirring up unnec essary Soviet-Iranian friction. 13The shah’s views could not have been more different. TheSoviets might attack at any time, he told American officials,and Iran needed a strong army of 150,000 men. It would be agood idea to limit Iran’s forces, replied John Jernegan, directorof the State Department’s Office of Greek, Turkish, and IranianAffairs, because “it could be such a drain on the nationaleconomy as to increase the very poverty of the people, whichHis Majesty considered the greatest asset of Communism.” 14The prophetic quality of this statement and others made bythe State Department at this time is striking in light of whatwould happen in the 1970s. For example, American diplomatsrepeatedly warned that an oversize conscript army mightdis integrate in the face of a real challenge, that overspendingon modern arms distracted the shah from concentrating on

38PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSsocial improvements, and that the appointment of corruptmen un dermined the people’s respect for their monarch.The shah was obsessed with weaponry too advanced forIran to handle and was dangerously indecisive in makingpolicy choices. Secretary of State Dean Acheson saw Iran aspotentially another China, ripe for a Communist triumph.America’s role, as seen in this analysis, was to guaranteeIran’s security against a direct Russian attack. This contingency,though unlikely, could never be countered byIranian forces alone. Further, the principal threat to Iranwas internal revolution. This, United States policymakersagreed, should be the shah’s primary concern. Iran wouldbe better off with a smaller and more efficient army tomaintain internal security, while domestic reforms wouldremove the causes of discon tent. The American militaryumbrella, rather than a large showy Iranian army, wouldprovide the best deterrent to Mos cow’s ambitions.Iran could solve many of its problems, the Trumanadminis tration argued, by proper use of its own resources,particularly oil revenues. The prospect of American aidwould provide psychological support and could be usedby Washington as lev erage to encourage necessary reforms.While careful never to admit this publicly, American leadersthought that the amount of aid would have to remain attoken levels.The shah’s experiences pushed him in another direction.Traumatized by his early observations of the Russians—their 1941 invasion and the dethronement of his father,their arro gant wartime treatment of Iran, their postwarrefusal to with draw, and their establishment of Kurdishand Azerbaijani puppet states—the shah wanted his ownfull-scale military de terrent.He passionately demanded large tanks and jet planes aswell as the biggest possible army. Ironically, he was actingas a proud Iranian nationalist, refusing to be dependent onany foreign power. During the 1970s, as soon as he had farlarger petroleum revenues and geostrategic leverage on hisside, the shah would have his way with the United States.In the inter vening years, the shah consistently ignored the

A COUNTRY IS SAVED 1945-1950 39United States military advisory mission and reinterpretedthe positions ex pressed by the United States ambassador,State Department, and Pentagon to suit his own desires.Despite United States advice to the contrary, he wasdetermined to take more power into his own hands and tobuild up the Iranian army.So much money was going for the pay, food, clothing, andhousing of this enlarged army, American advisors argued,that little would be left over to maintain a combat force.As for the shah’s constant attempts to obtain the most upto-datetanks and jet planes, American Ambassador JohnWiley commented, “His thinking (in) this regard is strictlyin never never land.” 15The American government’s desire to press for democratizationwas faced with several particularly Iranian paradoxes.The shah’s personal popularity was greatly enhanced by hisprime minister’s successful blocking of Soviet intervention.Now “he was eager to do something about Iran’s chaoticpoliti cal and economic situation. Yet he was also aware thatthose Iranians who were lavishing expressions of devotionon him would be the first to denounce him as a dictator if hetook any steps that affected them personally.Only the Majlis provided an alternative power center, butit was almost completely paralyzed by its lack of party disciplineand the corruption of its elections. Even more problematicwas the fact that since the Majlis was controlled byIran’s traditional landlord elite it was most hesitant to enactany social reforms. The State Department was concernedthat the shah, in trying to tilt the political balance in hisown di rection, might open the door to a right-wing militarydicta torship. The New York Times shared the concern thatany re turn to “strong-man government” in Iran would“strengthen the hand of the Communists by alienating alarge element of the population.” 16The political impasse was partly broken after theFebruary 4, 1949 assassination attempt on the shah. Thewould-be mur derer, disguised as a journalist, fired at pointblankrange as the monarch toured the Tehran Universitycampus. Bravely facing his assailant, who was an extremely

40PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSpoor marksman, the shah escaped with only minor wounds;his bodyguard killed the attacker.Though the Communists’ power had declined sharplysince the Azerbaijan crisis, a new opposition center hadarisen around the Muslim terrorist organization, theFedayeen-i-Islam, * * close to the position of Ayatollah SayyidAbu al-Qasim Kashani. Already some devout Muslims hadcon cluded that the modernization program had gone toofar. But the two anti-shah philosophies could sometimesattract the same adherents. The would-be assassin inFebruary, 1949 had affinities for both the Tudeh and Islamicfundamentalistgroups, as a search of his papers revealed.The government quickly moved to outlaw the Tudeh.There were many arrests and trials; martial law wasdeclared after the discovery of an alleged revolutionaryplot. These tense events coincided with an upswing of anti-Iranian Soviet prop aganda, centered around the charge thatthe country was becoming a United States military base.There were a number of Soviet-Iranian border clashes.While confronting these challenges, Iran also was hit witha crop failure and an economic depression. As mentionedabove, Tehran’s attempts to secure foreign loans had notmet with much success. American critics suggested thatIran was exaggerating war damage and underestimatinggovernment receipts. Since the idea of peacetime foreignaid was still a new and somewhat suspect program forCongress and the American public and since most of theavailable funds were going through the Marshall Plan tohelp Western Europe, the prospects for increased assistanceto Iran were dim.As the banks had advised, the Iranian government hireda consulting firm to draw up a seven-year economic plan.Armed with this proposal and seeking both economic andmilitary financing the shah pressed for an invitation toWash ington. The shah’s first visit to America, in November,1949, was a complete public relations success. He addressedthe United Nations, inaugurated an Iranian Studies Center at* This group is not to be confused with the later Marxist group, the Fedayeen-i-Khalq.

A COUNTRY IS SAVED 1945-1950 41Columbia University, and inspected West Point. However, hisreception by the American press, which has often displayeda fascination with foreign royalty, was far more enthusiasticthan was the reaction of the United States government.The shah, editorialized The New York Times, was “notonly a progressive ruler but also the head of a friendlynation which provided the lifeline of the grand allianceduring the war and which has now become one of theprincipal bulwarks against Soviet imperialist expansion.”Iran’s successful resis tance of Soviet pressure “was largelydue to the youthful Shah’s own cool-headed but adamantstand … .” Iran, the newspaper concluded, should receivea sympathetic hearing in Washington for its aid requests. 17Iran’s domestic political conflict, explained acorrespondent for The New York Times shortly thereafter, wasbetween the “youthful reformist mentality of the Shah” and“the hesitant, conservative or downright reactionary standof the thousand families” who controlled the parliament.“There is universal recognition that the corruption,nepotism and general incom petence characterizing therule of the thousand families is the chief hindrance tothe (development) plan’s success.” In short, the thronewas supposedly seen by Iranians as “on the side of socialprogress” while the Majlis was “regarded as the strong holdof reaction.” 18President Truman, Secretary of State Dean Acheson,United States generals, and State Department officials didnot see the distinction in such stark terms. Acheson pointedout that Iran was the only country with a favorable dollarbalance receiving grant aid. In addition, the $650 millioneconomic plan was thought to be seriously threatened bythe shah’s drive for a larger military budget.The shah was told that American resources were notunlim ited and that Congress would never support largescaleaid to Iran. Instead, Iran should depend on oil revenuesand bank loans. United States technical help would comethrough the Point Four program, but Iran must be patient:modernization would not take place overnight.The shah, Acheson later said, was a “very impractical

42PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSyoung man … full of grandiose ideas; he fancied himself asa great military leader” but his belief that Iran’s army couldcontain the Russians was “utterly fanciful and never hadany basis at all.” Even the 1949 development plan, Achesonthought, was too ambitious and beyond Iran’s capacities. 19Perhaps most interesting was the shah’s November 18,1949 meeting with Acheson. The secretary of state’s analysisfore told what actually happened in Iran a quarter-centurylater. An attempt to match Soviet military spending, hewarned, would lead to such weakness that there mightbe a collapse without any military attack. “The best wayto prevent war, which was after all our real objective, wasnot by military preparations but by so developing our freeeconomic and so cial structures that the Russians would bedeterred from at tacking.”Acheson then referred the shah to the problems of ChiangKai-shek, who was, at that time, being defeated by the Communistsin China’s civil war. He attributed Chiang’s debacleto his failure to institute reforms and to his mistaken dependenceon a large—but vulnerable—army. The shah rejectedthese arguments. China fell, he replied, because of thatregime’s corruption, a problem that did not exist in Iran.He wanted reforms, the shah continued, but Iran could notrisk a military defeat. The substance of Acheson’s positionseemed to elude him. 20Once the shah failed to win his aid demands in the UnitedStates, it became even more evident that Iran would have todepend on its oil revenue for development funds. The country’sgrowing economic and political problems made theon going negotiations with the AIOC for a more favorablepetro leum revenue contract immediately critical. Thus wasset the stage for the next turbulent period.Even if the absence of American aid had not required it,the issue of the AIOC contract would still have become anexplo sive one in the opening months of the 1950s. Iranianresent ment toward AIOC operations had been growing fordecades. Economic grievances were, of course, central; inthe early postwar years the British government and Englishstockholders had received three times as much from

A COUNTRY IS SAVED 1945-1950 43company profits as did the Iranian government. Even so,the Iranian-AIOC conflict was heavily political—due to itsvery size and importance the company came to symbolizeforeign domina tion of Iranian affairs.These issues posed special problems for an Anglo-American partnership, as the Iranian question had doneduring the war years. Many United States officials doubted,as one embassy report put it, British ability to realize “that,whether they like it or not, they are no longer merely inthe oil business in Iran, but instead are involved in a playof social forces which, con sidering the outside threat ofCommunism, requires unselfish action and long-rangevision.”In fact, the British Embassy had little control and ofteneven little knowledge of AIOC’s activities of intelligence,bribery, and political intrigue. The company acted “as a lawunto it self” and seemed “more antagonistic than friendlytoward any lasting economic development of the country.”Washington rejected a British government proposalthat American aid be used as leverage to secure Iranianratification of the com pany’s original offer. Washington,once again, was caught in the middle. It must avoid “the oldPersian trick of playing one great power against the other”while, at the same time, the United States had to maintainIranian goodwill and a policy independent of London’shard-line. 21During the 1948-51 negotiations the company offered onlyminor concessions. AIOC did not take sufficient account ofthe rising nationalist spirit taking hold not only in Iran butthroughout much of the region. By the time AIOC faced thisnew trend by meeting Iran’s more moderate requests, theTehran government had been pressured by popular opinioninto more far-reaching demands.The United States government sympathized with many ofthe Iranian demands. Better to be flexible and encourage Iran’spolitical stability and continued oil production, Washingtontold the British, than to provoke a counterproductive andbit ter conflict. Many Truman administration policymakers,in cluding Secretary of State Acheson and his Middle East

44PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSadvisors, thought that the region’s nationalists would providea strong bulwark against Communism. By blocking change,the Americans believed, the British might force Iraniannational ists into an alliance with the Soviets. Of course, it wasBritish—not American—investments that were in jeopardy.American interests in Iran were strategic, not economic. Thesmall United States military mission was already helpingthe Iranian armed forces to set up training schools to teachthe use and maintenance of P-47 Thunderbolt fighters, C-47trans ports, jeeps, and trucks.At the beginning American optimism was strong. It waswidely believed that the oil negotiations could lead to amutu ally acceptable and a mutually beneficial agreement.Only a narrow margin separated British concessions fromIranian de mands, Assistant Secretary of State for Near EastAffairs George McGhee told AIOC executives in January,1950, and a bit more flexibility would lead to a successfuloutcome. AIOC officials claimed that they had already madesuch liberal con cessions that soon the company would have“nothing in the till.” McGhee found this hard to believe,he said, since the company’s annual report indicated thatprofits were far from trifling. Conditions were changing hithe Middle East and AIOC must adjust to the times. Afterall, American companies in Latin America and the PersianGulf were moving toward a 50/50 profit split with the localgovernments. Why would Iran settle for less? 22As the talks dragged on and on, however, Washington’sown disputes with the shah also continued. The shah demandedmore arms and the Americans criticized hisleader ship and the country’s social structure. Americandiplomats still believed in the shah’s good intentions. Forexample, some pointed out, he had, in February, 1950,transferred the royal estates—the land seized by his fatherfrom Qajar nobles and from other enemies—to the ImperialOrganization for Social Welfare for distribution to thepeasants. Years later this pro gram would form the core ofhis “White Revolution.” But while the thirty-year-old shahwas thought to be sincerely dedicated to social justice andto improving the living standards of his people, he was

A COUNTRY IS SAVED 1945-1950 45also seen as a dangerous combina tion of stubbornness andweakness. Perhaps, mused one United States ambassador,“he is a little too Westernized for an Orien tal country.” 23Was he really capable of putting into motion a program ofreform from above?Good intentions were simply not enough for that crisisridden country, whose social and political structures hadad vanced little over those of the preceding centuries.The econ omy was still dominated by archaic feudalismand corruption; the ruling hierarchy was inefficient andimmobile; the hunger and despair of the masses were aninvitation to subversive ac tivity and revolution. Achesonwondered whether Iran’s gov ernment was so corrupt andincompetent that any equipment or money put into itwould be thrown away in a losing cause—as in the caseof China.The search for charismatic, non-Communist reform leaderspreoccupied United States foreign policy toward the ThirdWorld in the early 1950s. American hopes in Iran were focusedfirst on General Ali Razmara and later on MuhammadMossadegh. The United States’ long, if imperfectly implemented,tradition of liberal anti-imperialism encouragedsup port for local complaints against the British, who wereseen to be blocking the progress and peaceful change thatwere deemed necessary to creating a stable Iran. Washingtonsought instead to find and encourage forces that enjoyedpop ular support, as long as they were also anti-Communist.The Iran crisis that began in 1950 posed a major test forthis policy. The tension was between the belief that, on theposi tive side, liberal nationalists would prove to be morereliable friends, and, on the negative, the concern that theymight set in motion forces that could lead inexorably toa Communist takeover. The ultimate test would be overwhether these re formers could provide a stable government.In February, 1950 the shah appointed Ali Mansur,a man with a less than pure reputation for integrity, asprime minis ter. It was not long before the shah abandonedplans for his antigraft campaign, which had been longawaited by the United States as an indicator of how much

46PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSIran was prepared to help itself. The highly touted sevenyearplan was disrupted as leaders siphoned off money forpersonal pork-barrel projects. Ali Mansur even dared tosend an emissary to the American ambassador’s personalphysician, who was also a Majlis member, to ask his pricefor supporting the govern ment. “The time of collapse maynot be far away,” concluded a State Department report inApril. 24The American view of the situation remained essentiallyconsistent throughout this period. The major problemwas the behavior of the Iranian leadership—its inabilityto break the traditional pattern of corruption, its failureto manage the economy, and its unwillingness to makeneeded reforms— failures that all invited disaster. If onlystrong leadership could be brought forward to organize andmobilize the coun try, United States policymakers reasoned,Iran, without much American aid, might finally be able tocarry out a coherent de velopment plan, particularly if anagreement was reached with AIOC.Despite this theory, political considerations were forcingthe United States into a more active role. Only by providingIran aid and assistance through its immediate economic doldrumscould Washington maintain any leverage in pushingfor longer-range reforms. Further, Iranians had been led toex pect American assistance, and the failure to provide itwas al ready damaging United States prestige in the country.The State Department took three steps to meet thechallenge of this crisis. First, Ambassador Henry Grady, anexperienced aid administrator, was transferred from Greeceto Iran. A study mission was also dispatched to considerExport-Import Bank loans.Second, Washington increased pressure on the AIOC andthe British government to be more responsive to Iranian demands.The Iranian nationalists compared their escalatingdis pute with Great Britain to their earlier resistance effortsagainst Soviet demands for oil concessions in northern Iran.After all, Muhammad Mossadegh’s 1944 bill prohibitingoil negotiations until the war ended (an act aimed at theSoviets) was coupled with calls for Iranian control of all

A COUNTRY IS SAVED 1945-1950 47oil production. The October, 1947 Majlis act rejecting anypetroleum concession to Moscow had also called for openinga new round of talks with the AIOC.Now the members of the Majlis even more strongly reflectedthe growing nationalist opposition to any petroleum arrangementthat maintained the status quo. The 1949 SupplementalAgreement between the company and Iran could not hope tosecure the Majlis’s ratification. While McGhee and others inthe Truman administration felt the contract offered Iran a bigimprovement, they realized that it still fell far short of whatother oil-producing countries were being granted.As the proposal languished in the Majlis throughout 1950,the State Department made monthly approaches to London,calling for further concessions and criticizing the company’s“take it or leave it” approach. A 50/50 split on profitsbetween American companies and petroleum-producingstates was be coming standard and Acheson decried AIOC’s“inflexibility” in refusing to bend. Washington was furtherangered by evi dence of British attempts to forestall UnitedStates aid to Iran in order to force the Majlis to capitulate toAIOC’s position.Third, Washington sought to use its aid as leverage inelim inating the disreputable Mansur regime. Since Mansurwas in capable of either making reforms or securing passageof a new oil contract, the State Department argued, he couldhardly ex pect Washington to strengthen his position byproviding him with economic help. Within Iran, proreformpoliticians used this stand to argue for Mansur’s ouster.General Ali Razmara, the hero of the reoccupation ofAzer baijan, seemed a much more attractive candidatefor prime minister. To enhance his image as a practicaland hard-hitting leader, Razmara promised to revive theanticorruption cam paign and to limit the shah’s power. InJune, 1950, with no sign of resolution of Iran’s economic andpolitical crisis in sight, the shah gave Razmara the office.There is no evidence that America supported Razmara’scandidacy for prime minister, though Iranians seemed convincedof this point; Razmara and his friends, following traditionalpractices, may have themselves spread such rumors.

48PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSWhat may have further contributed to the impression of anAmerican link to Razmara was the memory of an embassylimousine, American flags flying, parked outside Razmara’shouse during the years he was the Iranian military chief ofstaff. The limousine belonged to Deputy Chief of MissionAr thur L. Richards, who had been asked by AmbassadorWiley to discuss then-current problems with Razmara andwho had taken to doing so every Thursday over tea. 25Despite American hopes, Razmara proved to be adisap pointing politician, unable to delegate authority,develop pro grams, or mobilize popular support. Adding toRazmara’s own personal shortcomings, the actions of theshah, of the United States, and of Great Britain all conspiredagainst his success. And ultimately, whatever Razmaramight have accomplished, great or small, would have posedthe same problem for the shah as had the achievements ofQavam before him and those of Mossadegh and Ali Aminilater. Any strong prime minister would inevitably seem tothreaten the shah’s political power and perhaps his verythrone.Thus the shah set about undermining Razmara, whoseown political base was very shaky. The shah appointed oldguard officials loyal to himself—bypassing Western-trainedtech nocrats—and tried to centralize ultimate decisionmaking in his own hands. He also tried to compete withRazmara for the support of the armed forces. An unwantedlong-range conse quence of this pattern was the narrowingof the shah’s own popularity in the civilian bureaucracy.Over the years, his ad visors and cabinet ministers werereduced to mere “yes men.” Ultimately, the shah himselfwas a victim of the decline in the quality of his staff.Although many Iranians saw Razmara as “Washington’sman,” the United States had little to do with his appointment,though it had pressed for Mansur’s removal. Actually, theState Department was not at all pleased with Razmara’sper formance. They saw the prime minister as a neutralistwho refused American loans, severely curtailed travel byembassy officials, and pressed for improved relations withthe Soviets. At the same time, his criticisms of the upper

A COUNTRY IS SAVED 1945-1950 49class were watered down. During Razmara’s administration,noted an em bassy report, American influence in Iranreached a low point. 26In part this diminished influence was the result ofnothing more complex than a breakdown in communication,as an at tempt to establish a police intelligence networkdemonstrated. Both the shah and Razmara wanted to developan Iranian ver sion of the FBI and asked for advisors fromthat American agency. This was impossible, Washingtonreplied, but per haps private citizens—most likely retiredemployees—could be found who would work for Iran ona contract basis. Some qualified people were located butTehran did not follow through and the arrangement wasabandoned. Only seven years later SAVAK was foundedwith American assistance.More often, problems were created by the differences betweenIranian aid requests and limited American responses.Despite a May, 1950 mutual defense assistance agreement,United States actions were more symbolic than real. For example,the United States Embassy was raised to “Class One”status, the staff was enlarged, and Marine guards were deployed.In contrast, Ambassador Wiley wrote in January, 1950, theIranians set their country’s strategic value so high, they feltthe United States “was literally over a barrel and obliged togive Iran the sun, the moon and the stars.” But Washingtonhad no intention of providing “even a slice of the MilkyWay.” The shah’s weakness “is that his ideas exceed the financialcapacity of Iran for the maintenance and operation”of military equipment. 27A few months later, after the Communist invasion ofSouth Korea, the shah used this new analogy. Iran mightsoon face the same fate, he told American diplomats, andwith only light weapons his army would not be able todefend the coun try. But the American Embassy and militarymission had al ready decided against equipping his air forcewith jet fighter planes. British companies were criticizedfor trying to foist on Iran munitions and machinery thatwere poorly adapted to Iranian conditions and capacities.

50PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSIranians “should not be tempted to waste their foreignexchange on equipment which cannot be used by them forsome time to come.” 28 The same problem would be createdby American companies two dec ades later.Similar differences of opinion took place over economicrelations. “The Iranians built a dream world in which ourpart was to loan them $250 million,” as one Americanembassy report put it, “and when we played our role onlyto the extent of making a $25 million loan, the Iraniansthought we had let them down.” A decline in Americanprestige followed. The Iranian slang phrase for a pledgethat would not be kept be came, in contemporary parlance,an “American promise.” 9Bureaucracy and red tape in the American lendinginstitu tions, which might have been reduced by a moredetermined leadership, were another part of the problem.Equally sig nificant was the United States preoccupationwith the Korean War, which forced Iran’s problems in 1950onto a distant back-burner.The International Bank for Reconstruction andDevelopment and the Export-Import Bank did not take intoaccount the po litical necessities underlying the aid request.By September, 1950 the United States could offer only atwenty-five-million-dollar loan from the former and a onehalf-million-dollarPoint Four assistance program. Razmarawanted four times as much and United States AmbassadorHenry Grady, who tended to favor the Iranian requests, wrotein deep frustration: “The disappointment the people of Iranfeel toward the indif ferent and routine manner in whichour Government has been fulfilling a definite promise isfully understandable.” 30 Ache-son, perhaps overly defeatist,thought no amount of money could help Razmara.While Acheson may have been correct, given politicaltrends in Iran, his policy seemed part of an unfortunatepat tern of watching Iranian politicians go out onto a limband then abandoning them there. McGhee was well awarethat if something did go wrong in Tehran there was noconceivable way in which the United States could fullyback up an earlier commitment. This was not Razmara’s

A COUNTRY IS SAVED 1945-1950 51understanding. When he told American diplomats that theonly way to implement the development program might beto imprison recalcitrant Majlis members and run the countrywith dictatorial powers, Washington did not respond witheither agreement or dis couragement to this obvious trialballoon. Without United States aid, the shah’s support, orBritish concessions on the oil issue, Razmara could find noway out of his dilemma.The highly emotional oil issue unquestionably dealt thefatal blow. The same day Razmara became prime ministerthe Majlis appointed a committee to investigate the SupplementalAgreement. Mossadegh, the committee’s chairman,and a number of his supporters in the National Front thenused the hearings as a forum to demand nationalization ofAIOC’s facilities and cancellation of its concession. On December26, 1950, accepting the unpopularity of the proposedagreement, Razmara withdrew it.Only then did the British company finally understand theneed for yielding further ground. The public announcementof a Saudi Arabian contract with an American consortiumpro viding for a 50/50 profit distribution spurred them tooffer a similar arrangement to Iran. Razmara was reluctantto proceed with the whole matter but under pressure fromthe shah he agreed to go ahead. On March 7, 1951, however,before he could even announce this new proposal, hewas assassinated by Khalil Tahmasibi, a member of theextremist Islamic Fe-dayeen-i-Islam. For the British, themoment had passed. It was too late even for the 50/50 offer;in the following weeks the tide of opinion favoring outrightnationalization swept every thing before it. Iran was aboutto enter the turbulent Mos sadegh era. On April 30, 1951, theMajlis completed passage of a law nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company; the shah signed this measure on May2.While American handling of the Russian threatagainst Iran had been a great success, Washington hadproved somewhat bumbling in the more delicate task ofassisting Iranian mod ernization. Acheson had been rightin understanding the lim ited impact the United States

52PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONScould have, but he had also un derestimated what could beaccomplished. The United States correctly identified theneed for reform and the importance of the oil issue but wasunable to develop a mechanism for solv ing these problems.“We lacked decisiveness and vigor,” Acheson later admitted,while the men in the field suffered from “thinkingin terms of large financial resources.” The limited availablefunds were not used—the Majlis did not even accept the Export-ImportBank offer. AIOC’s acceptance of Razmara’s reasonabledemands might not have prevented the escalation ofthe conflict to the point of nationalization, but the chancesfor calming the situation—and AIOC’s responsibility formissing such opportunities—were nonetheless real. Thiswas Ache-son’s evaluation. But given the AIOC’s obduracy,the failure to provide American aid only fueled the risingtemperature of the petroleum conflict.Along with the 50/50 split, Razmara had asked AIOCthat Iran be given the right to inspect the company’s books,that within Iran oil be marketed at cost rather than at worldprices, and that the company increase its employment ofIranians at executive levels. Considering the economic andpolitical disruption of the Mossadegh era, these changeswould not have been much of a price to pay. 31The shah’s memories of this period—though not entirelyac curate—are equally interesting. His failure to obtain moreaid was in part Iran’s fault “because the Americans realizedthat we were not yet handling our internal affairs with theneces sary firmness. I was determined to show America andthe world that Iran would make good use of any additionalaid that could be granted.” This was one more experiencethat reaffirmed the shah’s belief in the need for Iran’s selfrelianceand the necessity of a strong government under hiscontrol in Tehran. Yet he implies that the blame for failuresin these areas also lay with the United States. 32The New York Times, in its editorial on the Razmaraassass ination, portrayed the murdered prime ministerin the most glowing terms. He was “not only his nation’s‘strong man,’ who seemed best able to keep the divergentpolitical elements together,” but he was also devoted to the

A COUNTRY IS SAVED 1945-1950 53“urgently needed social and economic reforms.” The editorialillustrated a pat tern of misperception common to bothAmerican journalists and diplomats: the reinterpretationof Iranian political goals to match American conceptions ofprogress and justice and the relatively uncritical praise ofthose leaders identified with such goals—an attitude thatwould later invest in the shah as the master reformer fargreater hope than reality warranted. Razmara and the shah,the editorial concluded, had provided what was perhaps thelast chance “to transform Iran from a backward and stillfeudal country into a modern state and so ciety as the bestdefense against Communism.” 33In sharp contrast to this stood the State Department’sassess ment of the shah’s role. He was, the AmericanEmbassy con cluded, “greatly responsible for destroying thepromise of achievement once inherent in Razmara and hisgovernment.” The shah was seen as a far weaker and moreambiguous figure than the brave and determined reformerportrayed in the American media. 34As would happen so often in United States-Iranianrelations from that point on, every actor would pinresponsibility for misunderstandings and disasters on allthe others who were involved. Yet The New York Times’urgent tone was far more predictive than the United Statesgovernment’s relaxed han dling of the situation. Iran wasindeed on the verge of a re volutionary crisis.

3A Revolution Is Overthrown1951-53In the early 1950s the British Embassy in Tehran was agigan tic compound, covering sixteen city blocks of lovinglyland scaped ground. Nearby was the Russian Embassy, anonly slightly less impressive expanse surrounded by a highbrick wall. By contrast the American Embassy was tiny.Though just completed in 1952, it was so small that it wasstill necessary to rent additional office space elsewhere,so unimposing that it resembled a Midwestern secondaryschool. Appropriately, it was dubbed Henderson High, afterAmbassador Loy Hender son.But diplomatic architecture often tells more aboutlong-past history than about current reality. Despite itsstill-modest em bassy, the United States was already theprincipal world power and the major foreign influence inIran. Iranian leaders had consciously used their “Americancard” to end forever the era of Anglo-Russian hegemonyover their country.Yet American objectives in Iran remained limited.Although on exceptional occasions Iran had been used—and might in the future be used—as a wartime supply

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 55route or as a front line in repulsing Soviet expansionism,Washington preferred to keep aid and commitments at thelowest possible levels.When William Warne arrived in Iran in November, 1951to run the United States Point Four technical assistanceprogram there were still hopes that such modest levels ofinvolvement would be sufficient to accomplish America’slimited goals in Iran. American advisors worked hard toraise wheat yields, to fight malaria, to train teachers, tobuild textile mills, and to develop a sanitary water system.Undoubtedly, such programs won the appreciation of thoseIranians who were aware of them—a smaller number thanone might think—but great powers do not live by expressionsof goodwill alone. The de velopment of an Iranian crisis ofinternational proportions would soon force on the UnitedStates an agonizing reap praisal of its policy toward Iran.The political events of the early 1950s are little more thanancient history to most Americans. To most Iranians, however,that period was the essential backdrop to their 1978-79 revolution and was the main rationale used to justifytheir seizure of the American Embassy in November, 1979.Without an understanding of this earlier era, then, it isimpossible to understand the later fervor in Tehran’s streets.As Iran had been a major testing ground in the late1940s— during the period of the American transition fromwartime Big Three ally to Cold War combatant—so it wouldbecome in the early 1950s a similar testing ground as theUnited States moved from liberal to conservative Cold Warpolicies. The Roosevelt and Truman administrations hadtried often to fos ter non-Communist nationalist, liberal, andsocial-democratic movements. Since reform and economicdevelopment would undermine the appeal of Communism,they argued, the United States should encourage alliedgovernments to be pop ular and representative.Because the Truman and Eisenhower administrationswere both within the Cold War consensus, the differencesbetween them are often underestimated today. Given thepolitical pre dispositions of Eisenhower’s secretary of state,John Foster Dulles, congressional and Republican party

56PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSpressure, and an atmosphere heated by McCarthyism and bythe stunningly rapid Communist victory in China, the trendwas toward greater suspicion of Third World nationalism.Status quo sta bility and military pacts seemed to providebetter security against Communist encroachment than didhaving one’s allies in the midst of social upheaval.With the change in administrations, the role of theCentral Intelligence Agency also underwent major revision.Under Allen Dulles, the secretary of state’s brother, the CIAgained greater access to the White House. Although proaswell as anti-nationalist factions existed in the CIA (as in theState Department), the agency’s tendency was increasinglytoward associating nationalist movements with incipientCommu nism. Covert activities, including deep involvementin foreign coups, were enthusiastically undertaken. Theoverthrow of the Mossadegh government in Iran in August,1953 was the first major operation of this sort. Accounted agreat success in its time, it was model as well as impetus formuch to follow.The Cold War consensus stood on three levels of priority.Most important was the Soviet/Communist plane: Russianex pansionism, whether through outright conquest andannexa tion or through the midwifing of new pro-MoscowCommunist regimes, constituted threats to Americaninterests that had to be prevented at all costs. Second,Western Europe was the most vital area to be protectedin this containment strategy, and good relations with thegovernments of Western Europe were of high importance,particularly those with Britain and France. Of necessity,this objective tended to restrain Wash ington’s enthusiasmfor decolonization movements that had as their logical goalthe dismemberment of its allies’ empires. On the third levelof priority were the aspirations of what is today called the“Third World.” Within this last priority the com monly heldmain objective was the prevention of the spread of Sovietinfluence in these regions while avoiding any excessiveconflict with America’s main allies.The policy debate here concerned not the end itself butonly the best way to achieve it. All agreed on the need to

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 57oppose direct, overt Soviet or Communist aggression asin Iran in 1946 or in Korea in 1950. Beyond this there wasthe question of where and to what extent the United Statesshould support the maintenance of European empires. InIndochina, where Communists clearly led the nationalistmovement, the answer was a wholehearted pro-French stand;in many other places, traditional American anticolonialismpreferred seeing the col ony gain its independence.Where countries were already independent and whereCom munist-led revolutions seemed possible, #a differentchoice was to be made. Should the United States back allexisting governments, even those that seemed to have lostpopular support, against all opposition forces, even thosethat were not Communist dominated? Or was the answerto support ac tive non-Communist reform movementsin attempts to redress popular grievances before thesegrievances became fuel for full-scale revolutions? Here, whileTruman and Acheson felt social change was inevitable—and thus should be encouraged in a manner consistentwith American interests—Eisenhower and Dulles tendedto see reform movements as disruptive and as likely to becaptured by local Communists. The Iran experi ence markedthe transition from a United States foreign policy based onthe first perception to one based on the second.Between March, 1951 and August, 1953 events in Iran weredaily front-page news as well as a test of both viewpoints.The downfall of Mossadegh and the end of attempts tonationalize Iranian oil, brought about by a CIA-supporteduprising, laid a basis for the later unpopularity within Iranof the shah and the United States. Having begun as thenationalists’ ally in their struggle against outside control,the United States ultimately became identified by manyIranians as the new imperial force in the country, even bysome among the shah’s supporters.Yet by no means was this turnaround due solely todeci sions taken in the United States. America’s split withMos sadegh and his National Front was caused largely byfailures °f the nationalists themselves. Both the Truman andEi senhower administrations would have been happy to see

58PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSMos sadegh succeed in reshaping Iran, provided only thathis goveminent remain friendly toward the United States;the choices ultimately taken were prompted by his inabilityto create a stable regime. Something had to break theimpasse created by Mossadegh’s inability either to defeatAIOC or to compromise with it. The country seemed headedtoward a breakdown in which the Tudeh would be Iran’sonly cohesive political force, raising a spectre particularlydisquieting to the Dulles State Department.Muhammad Mossadegh was, undoubtedly, one of the mostfascinating and unique personalities in twentieth-centurypol itics. Born to a wealthy landlord family in 1881, Mossadegh(like his rival, the shah) had studied in Switzerland. He returnedhome in 1906 to work as a civil servant in educationand in provincial government. More than once he had runafoul of Reza Shah and had been forced out of public life.As an increasingly influential Majlis member during WorldWar II, he developed his concept of “negative equilibrium.”Rather than appease the Great Powers by granting themequal conces sions, Mossadegh argued that they should bekept in dynamic balance by being kept at arm’s length. Thisplan, standing in contrast to the shah’s alignment with theWest, would be the foreign policy advocated years later byAyatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s followers.Yet it was Mossadegh’s behavior as much as his politicalphilosophy that unnerved contemporary Americandiplomats. In complete contrast to the stoic and subduedstereotype of a statesman, Mossadegh wore his emotions onhis sleeve. It was his style to cry, faint, and moan. He wouldplay the fragile old man—complaining of dizzy spells andillness—or he would be jovial and sprightly, depending onhis moods and on the political requirements of the moment.On one occasion, as Acheson later recounted, when thesec retary of state met him at Washington’s Union Station,Mos sadegh emerged from the train hanging onto his son’sarm and bent weakly over his walking stick. As soon ashe saw Ache-son, though, he freed himself, tossed his stickto an aide, and skipped down the platform like a teenager,with quick, almost birdlike movements.

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 59Such performances were no mere exercises in eccentricity;Mossadegh was well adapted to the requirements of Iranianpolitics. To draw in large numbers of Iranians who had neverbefore been politically active, Mossadegh had to emphasizethe dramatic. His whole strategy was to embody Iran personally,its problems and its requirements. The highly emotionalcomponent in his nationalist cause took hold amongurban Iranians especially; his charisma could never bematched by the shy and stilted shah.Western opinion, often ignorant and condescending towardIranian political culture, generally failed to understand thevery pragmatic nature of Mossadegh’s approach or the specialflavor of Iranian statecraft. Lacking the power to achieve hisdesired total victory over external forces, however, Mossadeghwas brought down finally by a fatal flaw: an inability to compromise.While Mossadegh’s personality and political ideologywere far from those of the Ayatollah Khomeini, both themovements they led and the tactics they employed had a gooddeal in common. Indeed, Western media descriptions of Mossadeghmight be freely interchanged with their portrayals ofKhomeini twenty-five years later.For example, there was Time Magazine’s lurid portrait ofMossadegh in its January, 1952 “Man-of-the-Year” story onhim:In his plaintive, singsong voice he gabbled a defiant challengethat sprang out of a hatred and envy almost incomprehensibleto the West. There were millions insideand outside of Iran whom Mossadegh symbolized andspoke for, and whose fanatical state of mind he had helpedto create. They would rather see their own nations fallapart than con tinue their present relations with the West.… He is not in any sense pro-Russian, but he intends tostick to his policies even though he knows they mightlead to control of Iran by the Kremlin.1 .The lanky and rumpled prime minister was neither pro-Soviet nor pro-Communist: his nationalism was singleminded.Acheson saw him as being, aside from his anti-

60PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSBri tish sentiments, “a most conservative, rich, reactionary,feudal-minded Persian.” 2 But American leaders thought himnaive about the Tudeh’s aims, a concern that worried themmore and more as time went on. For his part, Mossadeghmistakenly thought he had unlimited time to solve theAIOC conflict and that political momentum was on his side.In the Qavam tradition, Mossadegh saw himself as the catand the Tudeh as the mouse: he could manipulate it howeverhe chose and destroy it whenever he desired. Such anunrealistic atti tude horrified Americans and underminedMossadegh’s own position at home.In contrast, the shah saw himself (as did many Americanobservers) as a hardheaded political realist, carefully weighingevery political issue and objective, each geographic andeconomic factor, and steering Iran safely among them. Hebe lieved that economic and military modernization was apre condition for true national independence and that hisoppo nents were naive, demagogic, and backward looking.There was more than a little truth in this analysis, but theshah failed to grasp one factor that doomed his paternalisticap proach to failure—that is, that a subjective perceptionoften gains such power to move a nation that it becomes thepri mary force, smashing every other consideration.The long-range strategies of the shah and of Mossadeghdif fered in that the latter saw independence as the necessaryfirst step from which all else would flow. Limiting foreigninflu ence and expressing Iranian pride took priority overmoderni zation. The shah saw national independence as aproduct of modernization. Most of Mossadegh’s supporterswere by no means antimodern—the movement’s backbonewas the urban middle class, which had the most to gainby progress—but they were ambivalent in later years aboutthe shah’s develop ment programs. Beneficial as they may havebeen for some Iran ians, these plans also strengthened theshah’s autocracy, deny ing the middle class participation ingoverning the nation.Yet much of the shah’s criticism of the opposition’slack of realism was also based on historical experience.Mossadegh and his fellows had stirred passions they could

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 61not possibly hope to satisfy. The Iranian prime ministerhad failed to leave himself maneuvering room; Mossadeghwas afraid, Dean Acheson would tell an executive Senatehearing in 1952, that “someone is going to move out andbe more of a nationalist than he is, and he has to be themost nationalistic … .” This was a perceptive appreciationof Mossadegh’s dilemma. “If he were doing things whichwere sensible,” Acheson commented, “I think he wouldrun greater dangers.” 3 In fact, Mossadegh found himselfunable to make necessary compromises for fear that hissupporters might, perhaps literally, tear him to pieces. Asimilar tendency would overshadow the relatively moderatepoliticians in Ayatollah Khomeini’s era.British shortsighted intransigence in the face of MiddleEast winds of change also contributed to Mossadegh’sdownfall. Better to shut down the Iranian oil fields,argued London, than to accept nationalization. The Britisheconomy was weak enough; a sudden wave of takeoversabroad might wipe out the foreign investments on whichit depended. After all, there was plenty of oil; so much sothat companies had banded together to limit productionlest oversupply drive down prices. And if they chose to,the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and its supporting sisterscould compensate for the Iranian close-down simply byincreasing production in the Arab states. A worldwideoil deficit might even strengthen the com pany’s caseby intensifying American pressure on Iran to reach asettlement. In fact, the Iranian-AIOC conflict did forcethe United States Foreign Petroleum Supply Committee toorganize defensively for the redirection of available supplies.Economic necessity and common political interestsin duced the United States government to support onpractical grounds the British hard-line it was opposing ona diplomatic level.Alas for Mossadegh, he did not possess similar leverage.Al though Washington’s assistance had grown from $500,000in fiscal 1950 to $1.6 million in 1951, and to $23.4 million in1952, American aid was simply not available to Iran in theamounts needed to sustain the nation’s staggering economy.

62PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSOn strictly economic bases, many members of Congress, includingSenators William Fulbright and Owen Brewster,were against doing more. Further, by threatening to turnto the Soviets for support, Mossadegh assured the victoryof the anti-Mossadegh forces within the executive branchas well. In June, 1953, President Eisenhower responded toMossadegh’s urgent plea for increased aid by advising thepremier that Iran would have to find the additional fundsby settling its differ ences with the British and renewingthe flow of oil revenues. Financing of Mossadegh, frozenat an annual rate of $22.1 million, would continue only toprevent Iran’s complete col lapse by assuring that militaryand bureaucratic salaries were paid.In light of British intransigence and Iranian domesticfactors preventing compromise, it is doubtful whetherany reasonable increase in American aid could have savedMossadegh. Though there was some American recognitionof the dilemma that tied Mossadegh’s hands, his continuedfailure to resolve the nationalization dispute, it wasreasoned, portended chaos. And chaos might lead to aCommunist takeover.John Foster Dulles, Acheson’s successor as secretary of statefrom 1953 to 1959, though not as monomaniacal about Sovietexpansionism as he has been portrayed, still opposed the reform-as-the-best-means-of-fightingCommunism strategy. “Irecognize full well,” he told an executive session of the Sen ateForeign Relations Committee shortly after taking office, “thatthere are plenty of social problems and unrest which wouldexist if there were no such thing as Soviet Communism in theworld, but what makes it a very dangerous problem for us isthe fact that wherever those things exist, whether it is in Indo-China or Siam or Morocco or Egypt or Arabia or Iran … theforces of unrest are captured by the Soviet Commu nists … .”Under normal circumstances, he added, the United States didnot want to support dictators, “but in times like these, in theunrest of the world today, and the divided spirit, we knowthat we cannot make a transition without losing con trol ofthe whole situation.” 4 This approach saw Mossadegh as thestalking horse of a Communist takeover. Mossadegh (and

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 63Egyptian President Gamal Abd al-Nasser for that matter)disagreed. The United States had made an error in China,Mossadegh had told Acheson, by backing Chiang Kai-shekwho was reactionary and bound to fail. America was onceagain “backing the wrong side in Iran,” the prime ministerwarned. One day it would also pay the price there. 5This extensive discussion of context and background isnec essary for an understanding of the events and decisionsof the all-important Mossadegh years. When the Majlisvoted for na tionalization in April, 1951 the intimidated shahappointed the movement’s leader, Muhammad Mossadegh,as prime minister. Some 12,000 oil-field workers had alreadygone on strike against the AIOC, while the resurgentCommunist Tudeh attacked Mossadegh and showed itsstrength with a May Day demonstration of 30,000 people.This threatened instability and the quick breakdownin Anglo-Iranian negotiations brought a swift, thoughcautious, United States response. Washington supportedIran’s right to nationalize, but called on both sides to workout their dif ferences peacefully. Formally, United Statespolicy was neu tral and noninterventionist, but in practiceit sought to medi ate with a pronounced pro-Iran tilt. WhileAmerican personnel would not be sent to help the Iraniansproduce, pump, and process oil, Mossadegh was assured ofcontinued United States technical assistance.One particular American fear was that the British mightlaunch some ill-conceived military operation againstIran. The Labour government, which despite its socialistcredentials took many of its cues from the AIOC directors,was under tre mendous pressure from the Conservatives.When the Conserva tives came to power in October, 1951,Winston Churchill made no secret of his belief that asplutter of musketry would have solved the Iran problem, aviewpoint that horrified Acheson.When McGhee presented his case for compromise tothe AIOC board at a London luncheon he was told that thecom pany had the best performance record in the MiddleEast and that only the British knew how to deal with theIranians. Un derlying this confidence were comforting but

64PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSfalse British intelligence reports claiming that Mossadeghwas not all that popular and would not long remain in office,particularly if faced with strong British resistance. Americanintelligence stated opposite conclusions: that Mossadeghwas leading a na tional revolution and that intransigencewould only make his political position stronger.In turn, the British complained about American “harassment”and “unhelpful needling.” Both sides tried to keeptheir differences quiet. Acheson was worried that excessivepressure on London, “in a matter which they feel verystrong about … could further stiffen their attitude and makehope for successful negotiations with Iranians remote.”Convincing Britain to accept nationalization in principle“has been deli cate and difficult” and they might still changetheir minds once again. The problem was, of course, thatwhen Washing ton failed to take a stronger public stand, theIranians accused the United States of complete support forthe British position. 6In contrast to the State Department, The New York Timeswas unsympathetic to Mossadegh and editorially furiousover his policies. In an “orgy of nationalist feeling, alwaysnear the boiling point in a country that has long been a focusof Great Power disputes and exploitation,” the Iranians“have flung discretion to the winds for the satisfactionof getting rid of the ‘foreigners.’ “ Yet practical problemshad been ignored in this “almost pathetic delirium.” Howwould the Iranians pay for and maintain the installations?The Times did not propose ei ther a British compromise orUnited States aid, either of which might have contributed torational solutions to Iran’s seemingly insolvable problems. 7But this was precisely President Truman’s problem.While the AIOC would only offer a 50/50 split plusjoint purchasing and marketing operations—in short,substantially what they had suggested to Razmara—thepresident tried to develop other options. In exchange forBritish willingness to recognize the nationalization decree,he wanted the Iranians to negotiate on implementation andcompensation. Shortly after the na tionalization decree,he approved NSC 107/2, which called for bringing United

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 65States influence to bear to gain a quick settlement, “makingclear both our recognition of the rights of sov ereign statesto control their natural resources and the impor tance weattach to international contractual relationships.” On June 1,Truman suggested the reopening of talks along these lines. 8At first, Mossadegh played his hand shrewdly, insistingthat his government wanted to keep the oil flowingand blaming the British for disruptions in production.He criticized the So viet Union more strongly than hadRazmara, pledged to pro tect British nationals in Iran, andstressed his desire for close relations with the United States.Washington was displeased, however, by his rejection of asecond AIOC initiative, an early sign of Mossadegh’s owninflexibility.Over the July 4th weekend of 1951, Acheson, McGhee, andother top policymakers met with British Ambassador SirOli ver Franks at the home of Averell Harriman. Harrimanwas one of America’s most distinguished statesmen, havingserved as ambassador to both London and Moscow. He hadno spec ial knowledge of Iran, although he had visited thereduring World War II and had met the shah.Faced with news of preparations on Cyprus by Britain’sSix teenth Paratroop Brigade, Acheson warned Franks thatAmerica would not passively accept a British invasion ofIran. But what could the United States do to defuse thecrisis? A suggestion was made that Harriman be sent to Iranas a special emissary, an idea that captured the immediatesupport of everyone except Harriman.Nonetheless, a few weeks later he was off to Iran to be initiatedinto the remarkable intricacies of negotiating with Mossadegh.From the first moment Harriman and his translatorVernon Walters entered Mossadegh’s unpretentious home,they were struck by the sharp change from the palacesin which the shah had feted them with caviar. The primeminis ter himself was abed, wearing a buttoned-up camelhairjacket, his palms crossed directly below his neck. Thewhole atmosphere emphasized Mossadegh’s frailty. 9Walters sat on the bed close to Mossadegh’s ear, since theprime minister was somewhat deaf, while Harriman sat at

66PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthe foot of the bed. Mossadegh particularly emphasizedhis mis trust of the British. “You do not know how craftythey are. You do not know how evil they are. You do notknow how they sully everything they touch.” Harrimanassured him that he had fought two wars by their sideand knew England’s good as well as bad side. Mossadeghalso referred to the atmo sphere of “terror, terror, terror” inwhich he lived. The con versation neatly defined the twoforces blocking an agreement: the British and Mossadegh’sown extremists.With little give from either of them, Mossadegh could notpromise much. “Today,” wrote Walters in his memorandumon one session, “Dr. Mossadegh and Mr. Harriman played thesame record on both sides for two hours.” At the same time,Mossadegh was very entertaining. After one particularlymarked anti-British tirade he referred to his grandson, theapple of his eye, who was at school—in England.A far greater gaffe, for which Mossadegh ultimatelywould pay dearly, was his raising of the Communist threat.If Britain or the United States did not help him solve hisproblems, Mossadegh warned, there might be a Communistcoup. This was at a time when the growing Tudeh wasorganizing street marches against Harriman’s visit, usingthe slogan, “Harriman is here to make another Korea inPersia.” The Western press was full of stories that “for wantof a protector” Mossadegh’s regime might be tempted into a“cozy tete-a-tete with the Soviet Union.” 10Another key political force was Ayatollah Abu al-QasimKashani. Kashani had long been a religious propagandistand an anti-British activist. His father had been killedfighting the British during World War I. Kashani himselfhad been ar rested by the British during World War II, byQavam during the 1946-47 crisis, and by the shah afterthe 1949 assassina tion attempt against him. He was apolitically influential aya tollah in a style similar to thatused by Khomeini twenty-five years later, but Kashanicould not compete with the charismatic Mossadegh forpopular support. His power was projected by assassinationsquads, like the one that had killed Razmara. Kashani did

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 67not even stop at threatening Harriman’s life or at accusingMossadegh of being pro-British. “If Mos sadegh yields,” hetold Harriman, “his blood will flow like Razmara’s.”Harriman knew an impasse when he saw one. On July 28he flew to London to meet with the British cabinet. Despitehis failure to make progress with Mossadegh, Harrimanhad be come convinced that the Iranian national movementwas gen uine and popular, that armed interferencewould lead only to Soviet intervention, and that Britishintransigence might well create a more extreme, and pro-Soviet, regime. His arguments proved persuasive, for hereturned to Tehran in August, 1951 with a British-AIOCnegotiating team. Harriman confidently declared that“Persia would realize her national aspirations in the bestpossible way and at the same time benefit to the greatestpossible extent from the important technical, transportationand marketing facilities of the international oilindus try.”The British were willing to accept nationalization inex change for compensation and if a British technicalcompany— with a British general manager—was put incharge of produc tion. Once again the talks broke down, thistime over the sec ond demand. Harriman thought himselfrobbed of a near vic tory over a minor point, but bitterdiplomatic conflict over small questions often masks farmore fundamental disagree ments.The Americans put much of the blame on the British,who leaked their positions to the press and unnecessarilyantago nized the Iranians. At one point, British negotiatorRichard Stokes went into a tirade, telling Hussein Ala thatall Iranians were corrupt and that they could run neithera business nor their own government. Later, shown theovercrowded housing of some AIOC workers, Stokescommented, “Well, this is just the way all Iranians live.”This “was unfortunately true,” Har riman noted, but hewondered why a company making $300 million a year couldnot provide better conditions.American press correspondents at this point were alsokindly disposed toward Mossadegh. “The British diplomats

68PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSwho … long for return of good old days, often fall into fatalerror. They fail to consider the revolutionary aspect of theMossadegh regime,” wrote one, referring to Mossadegh’sbroad-based, if poorly organized, support. “Because of hislong advocacy of nationalization of petroleum, Dr. Mos 1sadegh’s following is nationwide,” explained another, andone American official compared Mossadegh’s status in Iranto I that of Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine in the UnitedStates. 11Yet the crisis only deepened. AIOC’s decision to closeits Iranian refinery at the end of July had helped doomthe Har-riman mission; Iran’s takeover of the installationin late Sep tember added to the acrimony. Now no one wasmaking any money from Iranian oil. The British fruitlesslyturned to the World Court and the United Nations. WhenMossadegh came to the United States in October, 1951 tospeak to the United Nations where he made a fine showing,Acheson and McGhee seized the opportunity to reopentalks.While the Iranians and British still were close on paper,Acheson wrote, “It was like walking in a maze and every sooften finding oneself at the beginning again.” At one pointAcheson thought an agreement had been reached, but thenew Conservative government in London led by WinstonChurchill took a hard line. Once again the Americans gaveup. “You have never understood,” Mossadegh explained,“that this is basically a political issue.”Indeed it was. The night before Mossadegh left WashingtonWalters went to see him at the Shoreham Hotel. “Dr. Mossadegh,”he pleaded, “you have been here for a long time.High hopes have been raised that your visit would bringabout some fruitful results and now you are returning toIran empty-handed.”“Don’t you realize,” the prime minister answered, “that,re turning to Iran empty-handed, I return in a much strongerposition than if I returned with an agreement which I wouldhave to sell to my fanatics?”True as it was that Mossadegh could offer no pliancy inre turn, he still needed American aid. No oil revenues were

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 69coming in, due in part to British threats to take legal actionagainst any buyers or shippers of the “stolen oil.” Mossadeghwas convinced that the United States would abandon anysupport for Britain in order to save Iran from Communismand from economic collapse. Meanwhile, the National Frontintroduced an austerity program to tighten Iran’s belt. Yet,as The New York Times correspondent Michael Clark pointedout, Mos sadegh “simply cannot afford to drive the people todespera tion by cutting their pathetic standard of living. …The gov ernment cannot, to save itself, go on eating up thecountry’s patrimony indefinitely.” The regime’s responsewas to expel Clark for “writing lies” and for “activitiesin favor” of the AIOC. “A foreign correspondent cannotplay with the political and economic life of our country,”commented Iran’s foreign minister. 12Clark was writing no more than the truth: withinIran the situation was becoming more and more unruly.Rightists charged that Mossadegh was leading Irantoward Commu nism; leftists accused him of being a toolof American imperi alism. National Front cadre attackedand wrecked opposition newspapers on both ends of thepolitical spectrum. The Brit ish were convinced that thisinstability would lead to a more “reasonable” government;the Americans feared it might pro duce a Tudeh victory.Consequently, the United States con tinued the attemptto play “honest broker” between the two quarrelingcountries.This was not an easy or honored task. AmbassadorGrady expressed surprise when his aides told him that theUnited States exerted little influence in Iran. But as embassycounse lor Arthur Richards explained in a memo to Grady,there was a difference between influence and publicperceptions. “We are accused of interference whether wedo anything or not.” Similar memos were being writtenwithin the embassy by other officials. “We should beprepared to find increasing crit icism of the United Statesfor alleged interference in their in ternal affairs,” notedJohn Stutesman. At the same time, his analysis went on,“we should be prepared to find politicians calling for our

70PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONShelp and resenting non-interference on our part.” 13 He toowas right on both counts. Iranian attitudes had created ano-win situation.For example, when Hussein Makki, leader of one of themost important National Front parties, was not invitedby Mos sadegh to join his delegation to the United States,rumors spread that his participation had been blocked bythe Ameri cans. Politicians continually visited the embassy,asking for help in removing Mossadegh or seeking officefor themselves. Given the constant jealousies, politicalmaneuvering, and per sonal ambitions of the National Frontleaders—not to mention the intrigues of the court andopposition—Tehran was kept in a continual uproar.The embassy’s main function was the gathering ofinforma tion. American diplomats met not only with theshah, Mos sadegh, and other government officials, but alsowith a wide range of people on all sides of the politicaldisputes. A series of discussions were even held withAyatollah Kashani. Em bassy staff members regularlyundertook extensive travels around the country, sometimesusing a Chevrolet station wagon, visiting towns, villages,and tribes, investigating eco nomic, political, and socialconditions. Consular officers even had their own sourcesinside the Tudeh, enabling them to report regularly on localCommunist meetings.This kind of research, an integral part of the diplomat’sjob, was often viewed with suspicion by Iranians. Underthe shah’s regime in later years the mission’s flexibilitywas cirj cumscribed until it became largely dependenton government and SAVAK channels for information. Yetto Ayatollah Khome ini and his followers, virtually allinformation-gathering activity was viewed as spying.Mossadegh’s attitude was not all that different. Onone oc casion, in late 1952, the Iranian authorities wantedto arrest a State Department employee as a spy afterhe interviewed peo ple and inspected docks, railroads,factories, and public works. The man, who volunteered tostand trial to prove his innocence, was allowed to leaveIran. He was not, however, accused of being an American

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 71spy but of being a British agent!The Iranians’ fears were really focused on British subversionand Iranian leaders often charged each other with workingfor London. Some claimed that a raid on the residence ofAlOC’s British manager supplied secret documents provingthat Mossadegh’s close advisor (and later foreign minister)Hussein Fatemi and the prime minister’s son-in-law,Senator Ahmad Matin-Daftari, were traitors. In exchange,Mossadegh paid similar compliments. He even charged theBritish with instigating public servants to demand highersalaries.Spy scares played a particular role during the January,1952 elections. Just as the American Embassy became themain target in 1979, the British Embassy was labeled a spycenter in 1952. Hussein Ala, now minister of court, toldGrady’s re placement, Ambassador Loy Henderson, thatIran held docu ments proving England’s interference. WhenHenderson asked for proof, Ala merely replied that suchtrespasses were a matter of public knowledge. All Britishconsulates were shut down shortly thereafter. Some Iranianmilitants also wanted to close all the American consulates;Kashani successfully demanded the banning of all foreigncultural institutions outside of Tehran. In this xenophobicatmosphere, the National Front won a solid victory at thepolls.Buoyed by this result, Mossadegh continued to chip awayat the power of both the shah and the Majlis. He appealedover their heads to the people. The previous September,when op position deputies briefly prevented a parliamentaryquorum, Mossadegh told the crowd outside, “You are theones who count. The Majlis is not truly representative of thenation.” 14 He broke the tradition of holding weekly cabinetmeetings in the shah’s presence and refused to consult themonarch on po litical decisions.The embassy, already disillusioned by the shah’s behaviorduring Razmara’s term of office, reported constantly onthe shah’s weakness. The “Shah will not willingly changefrom this] habitual vacillation or drop his policy of awaiting[the] Play [of] other forces which may painlessly depose

72PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS[the] Mossadegh government without his intervention.” 15A similar l passivity marked the shah’s response to therevolution a quarter-century later.Acheson, increasingly concerned about the deterioratingsit-uation, asked whether the continuing oil crisis woulddrive Mossadegh into the USSR’s arms or whether it mightlead to a Communist-dominated regime in Tehran. If onlythe conflict could be settled, the secretary of state said,Mossadegh would move for reform and against the Tudeh;Acheson was con fident of Mossadegh’s anti-Communism.Or perhaps, he sug-gested, the existing state of affairsmight continue for a long time without a breakdown of thecountry. He also wondered whether Mossadegh could rallypublic opinion and take un popular austerity measures toavoid a fiscal collapse. Already, his regime was two weeksbehind in paying the army.Washington decided then to help Mossadegh onefinal time in the hope of finding some solution. DuringMossadegh’s visit to the White House in late 1951, the Iranianprime minis ter told Truman, “Mr. President, I am speakingfrom a very poor country—a country all desert—just sand,a few camels, a few sheep … .” “Yes,” Acheson interrupted,“and with your oil, rather like Texas!” Acheson’s point wasthat Iran needed aid only because it was failing to solveits problem with AIOC. The United States was willing toexpand Point Four technical aid, but it refused to make alarge loan to Iran.As America tried to use assistance to hasten a settlement,Mossadegh sought his own leverage, using Iran’s domesticunrest and the possibility of rapprochement with Moscow.In the spring of 1952, he began to negotiate with the Russiansover the sale of Iranian oil and started to talk about theneces sity of Tehran’s neutrality in the Cold War. Thesethreats won him a temporary victory. American militaryaid was con tinued on favorable terms, but he was againwarned of the need to reach agreement with Britain beforefunds could be increased.To cope with Iran’s internal crisis, Mossadegh continuedto s expand his powers. In July, 1952 he demanded dictatorial

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 73power for six months and the War Ministry portfolio,giving him control over the armed forces. “Having broughthis country to the verge of bankruptcy,” charged the anti-Mossadegh New York Times, “Premier Mossadegh is nowtrying to take it further along the road to ruin. … What heproposed is in effect a legalized coup d’etat that smacks ofHitler’s tactics.” 16The shah finally put his foot down and, when Mossadeghresigned, he appointed Qavam as prime minister. Qavamex plained that though he respected “the sacred tenets ofIslam, I divorce religion from politics and will preventthe dissemi nation of superstitions and retrogressiveideas.” 17 Neither the religious nor secular wings of theNational Front had any in tention of giving in so easily.Several days of fierce pro-Mossadegh rioting in late July,with the number of fatalities as high as two hundredand fifty, forced the shah to give way. One of the mostactive National Front organizers was the re tired general,Fazlollah Zahedi, whose home was a meeting place forMossadegh’s supporters.Mossadegh’s resignation was rescinded and Kashani becamepresident of the Majlis. The ayatollah arranged there lease of Razmara’s assassin. By October, Mossadegh feltstrong enough to dissolve parliament entirely. In January,1953 the prime minister’s special powers were extended foran addi tional twelve months.These tumultuous events led to an upswing in anti-American sentiment, as the Tudeh and allied radicalfactions in the National Front charged that a conspiracyinvolving Qavam and the American Embassy had beenbehind the shah’s attempt to unseat Mossadegh. Mobsattacked American consulates and libraries; Washingtonhad stabbed Mossadegh in the back, they claimed, becauseof its limited aid and al leged pro-British stand.The New York Times could only protest editorially: “Weknow that our object is quite honestly to be helpful andhu manitarian [and] in the process to strengthen Iranagainst chaos and communism. To do good, even againstthe wishes of the beneficiary, is still the right thing.” 18

74PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSMossadegh still tried to turn America’s good intentions tohis own benefit, but results were still lacking.Both Mossadegh and the shah were badly shaken by thevio lence in July. During his first meeting with the primeminister after his return to power, Henderson found himto be almost incoherent. “As I listened to him I couldnot but be discour aged at the thought that a person solacking in stability and clearly dominated by emotions andprejudices should repre sent the only bulwark left betweenIran and Communism.” For a time, Henderson wondered ifMossadegh might be men tally unbalanced, but the primeminister seemed to recover his equilibrium in the followingweeks. 19The shah also seemed to be in bad shape. After his initialintervention, the shah’s courage waned; visitors reportedthat he had aged visibly. The crisis continued and deepenedwith no end in sight.The deteriorating situation set off a last effort by thelame-duck Truman administration, with British approval,in August, 1952.* Under this plan, Iran would submit thecom pensation question to the International Court of Justiceand would use AIOC channels to market their oil. TheUnited States would give Iran $10 million in emergencyaid to tide them over until petroleum revenues becameavailable. Mos sadegh rejected this plan since it seemed to tieIran to contin uation of the AIOC monopoly. He expressedhis gratitude for American efforts but, given the failure tomake any progress, he broke off relations with Britain.American analysts continued to decry British obstructionismand to fear that Iran might go Communist, butthe need for Anglo-American collaboration elsewherelimited their options. The oil corporations also proveduncooperative. Mossadegh’s negotiations with theindependent Cities Service Company went nowhere andthe bigger companies supported AIOC. They ignored aNovember State Department hint that it had no objection totheir buying nationalized Iranian oil.* President Truman declined to seek another term in the November,1952 election. In cabinet meetings, Acheson and Secretary

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 75of Defense Rob ert Lovett argued that stabilizing Iranwas so important that a pending antitrust suit againstAmerican petroleum companies must be dropped to wintheir cooperation. Despite Justice De partment opposition,President Truman terminated the grand jury investigation.Only Venezuela and the Middle East could supply the oilneeded by America in any future war or by Europe underpeacetime conditions, a trilateral State-Defense-InteriorDepartment study showed the president. Since the MiddleEast was a politically explosive region, since oil was theprinciple source of those countries’ wealth, and since theoil companies dealt with this vital resource, the report concluded,the “American oil operations are, for all practicalpur poses, instruments of our foreign policy toward thesecountries.” 20Time was running out for the Truman administration.Ache-son suggested in early November that the UnitedStates ad vance Iran $100 million against future petroleumdeliveries. One or more American companies would beencouraged to purchase and market Iranian oil either aloneor in conjunction with AIOC, with compensation for theBritish company to be negotiated afterward. AIOC refusedto allow it.Truman aide Paul Nitze was dispatched to talk to AnthonyEden. Iran was on the verge of explosion, Nitze told him,and the United States would no longer wait for AIOC tomake concessions. If necessary the White House would actalone, bringing United States oil companies into the picture.Eden knew this was an empty threat—American oil giantshad earlier closed ranks with AIOC. Fearful of setting aprecedent endangering their own contracts, they werewilling to destroy anyone, including powerful tanker ownerAristotle Onassis, who attempted to undercut AIOC bycircumventing the boycott of Iranian oil. Besides, they wereunderstandably skeptical about Mossadegh’s willingness toaccept an agreement on any compromise terms.So failed Truman’s last attempt to solve the Iranian oilcon flict. The mercurial Mossadegh was by no means gloomyat this turn of events—he thought, mistakenly, that the

76PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSincoming president, Dwight Eisenhower, would offer a betterdeal. He did not seem to understand that as time weakenedthe Na tional Front’s domestic base he would be less able thanwhen he had been at the peak of popularity to put through asettle ment. Mossadegh had waited too long.He had sought to copy Qavam’s skillful game of brinkmanship.But while Qavam had toyed with the Soviets andthe Tudeh, at the decisive moment he employed the shah,the army, and, most important, United States support tokeep Moscow at bay. Mossadegh lacked both the nerve andthe in stitutional support that had carried his predecessor tosuccess. Mossadegh desired complete United States supportagainst the British but resented any American pressure onhim to settle with London. The Tudeh exploited the Americancon nection by charging that Mossadegh would give Iranianoil to the United States and that Washington wanted toconvert Iran into a gigantic military base. Even Mossadegh’sselection as “Man of the Year” by Time Magazine was usedto demon strate that he was an American puppet.By mid-1952 many middle-class elements, frustrated by thecontinuing crisis, began to desert the National Front. At thesame time, the Tudeh finally concluded that fighting againstthe broad national sentiment represented by Mossadegh hadbeen an error. Though the Ayatollah Kashani was eager forrapprochement, the Tudeh’s first offer of alliance was stronglyrejected by the National Front’s left wing. State Departmentanalyses saw the shift in Tudeh tactics as a possible imitationof those employed by the Communists as a first step in the1948 takeover of Czechoslovakia—entering the governmentcoalition and gaining key cabinet posts. Despite Mossadegh’sresistance to Tudeh overtures, Ambassador Henderson stillbelieved him to be naive on the question of Communism.Mossadegh certainly was naive about changes takingplace in the United States government. Even beforeEisenhower’s in auguration in January, 1953, Mossadeghwrote him expressing hope for understanding andassistance from the new adminis tration. “For almost twoyears,” Mossadegh noted, “the Iran ian people have sufferedacute distress and much misery merely because a company

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 77inspired by covetousness and a desire for profit supportedby the British government has been endeavoring to preventthem from obtaining their natural and elemental rights.”The American government however “has pursued whatappears to the Iranian people to be a policy of supportingthe British Government and the AIOC.” Mos sadegh wantedsympathetic consideration of Iran’s claims. “I hope,” repliedPresident Eisenhower, “our own future rela tionships willbe completely free of any suspicion, but on the contrarywill be characterized by confidence and trust in spired byfrankness and friendliness.” 21Despite these sentiments an incipient British coup effortagainst Mossadegh was already attempting to draw in theUnited States. Shortly before the 1952 presidential election,the British government invited Kermit Roosevelt of theCen tral Intelligence Agency to London and proposed thatthe CIA cooperate under the code name “Operation Ajax”in an operation to bring down Mossadegh. Allen Dulles,then CIA deputy director, decided to await Eisenhower’sinauguration, since he knew that Acheson opposed anysuch action. Walter Bedell Smith, the CIA’s director, wasaware of these contacts but avoided involvement in them. 22Ambassador Henderson returned to Iran at the end of1952 for two more months of negotiations with Mossadegh,meetings supposedly conducted with only an AmericanEmbassy Ira nian staff member as translator. On at leastone occasion, however, Henderson noticed while leavingthe embassy the cane of Foreign Minister Hussein Fatemiresting on the sec ond floor railing. Apparently, Mossadeghhad asked his ad visor to eavesdrop from an adjacent room.During the talks, Mossadegh recorded each point ofagree ment in a small black book. Once, when Hendersonreminded the prime minister of some previous point thathad been set tled, Mossadegh checked his notebook andanswered that he could find no reference to this issue.Henderson realized then that this was not the originalnotebook and that these discus sions were just one moreexercise in futility.The breakdown of these negotiations only reinforced

78PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthe new administration’s view that Mossadegh should beover-1 thrown.. On February 3, as soon as possible afterEisenhower’s I inauguration, a British delegation came toWashington to meet with Allen Dulles, now CIA director;Smith, now the undersecretary of state; and Secretaryof State John Foster Dulles. London’s representativesrecommended Kermit Roosevelt’s appointment as theoperation’s field commander. \ They decided to send himto Iran to investigate conditions there, but both sides wereoptimistic that most of the army and the people wouldsupport the shah in any showdown.The outlook in Iran was not bright. After Mossadeghwon the extension of his emergency powers in January,the shah threatened to go into exile, a traditional Persianmethod of protest. The rumor of the shah’s departurebrought on a wave of pro-shah rioting during which onemob stormed Mos sadegh’s house. The agile-when-necessarypolitician escaped by climbing over the garden wall into theadjoining offices of a United States aid mission. AlthoughAmbassador Hender son helped restore calm by persuadingthe shah to stay on, his growing direct relationship withthe monarch—bypassing Mossadegh—provoked concernwithin the National Front.The American Embassy in Tehran was reporting thatMos-1 sadegh had near-total support from the Iranianpopulation and was not likely to fall. On the other hand,his goal of a republic or the demotion of the shah to a merefigurehead was blocked by the army’s continuing loyaltyto the shah and by the rally ing of the opposition, includingsuch former National Front stalwarts as Makki and Kashani,around the court. Having been able to achieve little of apositive nature, Henderson reported, Mossadegh had madea wider and wider circle of enemies. He “has thrown out[the] British; emasculated [the] Majlis; elimi nated [the]Senate, forced all well known politicians out of public life;deposed all prominent civilian and military officials; sentvarious members [of the] royal family into exile … .””Roosevelt saw the potential in mobilizing this oppositionand a trip to Iran confirmed his views. There he contacted

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 79two Iranians with intelligence training and brought themback to the United States for training and for lie-detector teststo en sure their reliability. So secret was this whole operationthat Roosevelt was not allowed to use the standard CIApseudonyms; he had to invent special ones for the occasion.Henderson was also carrying out a hardening line in lightof the deteriorating situation. There was much discussion asto whether Iran would collapse economically; its peasantworkedagricultural sector seemed able to endure, at least at asubsistence level, the growing urban anarchy, but the countryhad clearly reached a political dead end. When Secretary ofState Dulles made plans for his May, 1953 Middle East visit,Henderson advised him to avoid Iran lest his presence beregarded as an American endorsement of the Mossadegh regime.During this time, when Dulles was attempting to assemblea “Northern Tier” military alliance to contain the SovietUnion, Iran was hardly a pillar of stability.Both the American press and the American governmentwere moving toward this conclusion. “It now seems clear,”stated The New York Times in an April analysis, “that Britainwith U.S. backing will stand on her last offer, Any new initiativemust come from Iran, from Mossadegh or an eventualsuc cessor. Which it is to be may be decided within the next fewweeks.” 24 The CIA believed that the erosion of Mossadegh’sbase would make him dependent on the Tudeh and thereforedependent on the Soviets. The Soviets, well aware of this possibility,seemed to be working diligently to take advantage ofthe situation. American intelligence claimed to have informationthat the Tudeh planned to eliminate the shah and keepMossadegh as a figurehead. This fear was reinforced by theappointment of Anatol Laurentiev—the man who had mastermindedthe Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in1948—as the new Soviet ambassador in Tehran.Mossadegh’s May 28th letter asking President Eisenhowerto increase United States assistance and to help him avoidchaos represented the prime minister’s last chance for survival.The president did not reply until June 29, after consultationswith John Foster and Allen Dulles, Walter Bedell Smith,and, Ambassador Henderson, among others. Decisions taken

80PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSin the intervening month would lead to Mossadegh’s defeat.Smith gave Eisenhower material from some of Henderson’sgloomy cables. “Most Iranian politicians friendly to theWest would welcome secret American intervention whichwould assist them in attaining their individual or grouppolitical am bitions,” the ambassador had cabled. Americanswere becom ing increasingly unpopular as “deterioratingconditions of the country fan the embers of xenophobia. Onlythose sympa thetic to the Soviet Union and to internationalcommunism have reason to be pleased at what is takingplace in Iran.” 25In his final months of power, Mossadegh even spent thearmy and civil service pension funds. It was necessary,said Secretary of State Dulles, to maintain some aid but itought to be aimed at preventing total collapse rather thanat helping Mossadegh solidify his rule. The forces of orderhad to be kept in operation until someone dependable couldbe found to gov ern.Indeed, as Mossadegh realized, the army was the shah’slast remaining card; consequently, the prime ministerpressed the Majlis to give him direct control over themilitary. These and other demands tended to alienatemany in Mossadegh’s coali tion. Kashani went over tothe opposition; whole sectors of the National Front brokeaway; and dozens of deputies resigned when Mossadeghthreatened to dissolve parliament by na tional referendum.The erosion of his own base forced the prime minister torely increasingly on the Tudeh’s support.The Communists clearly had become the best-organizedand most-disciplined force in the country. They hadinfiltrated many government departments, particularly theministries of justice, education, and health. The AmericanEmbassy es timated their strength in Tehran at 8,000 to10,000 activists, with an equal number in other cities anda great many non-member supporters. The shah was theonly other political force with a strong political base in thecountry. Yet little fur ther consideration seems to have beengiven by the Ei senhower administration to the alternativeof providing full United States support for Mossadegh and

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 81his non-Communist allies to reestablish order. That strategyhad been attempted over the previous two years, Americanpolicymakers con cluded, and had not produced success.Given this situation, alongside the strong personal supportof Eden and Churchill for covert action, the American governmentmade its decision. The go-ahead was given at ameet ing in Secretary of State Dulles’s office on June 22,attended by Allen Dulles, Kermit Roosevelt, AmbassadorHenderson, Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson, and anumber of State Department officials. One of them, RobertBowie, then director of the State Department’s PolicyPlanning Staff, would be de puty director of the CIA at thetime of the 1978 revolution. While some of the participantswere a bit less enthusias tic than John Foster Dulles, Dulleshad apparently already decided to implement the anti-Mossadegh operation. Con sequently, on June 29, PresidentEisenhower refused Mossadegh’s May 28th request; theUnited States would neither increase aid levels nor buyIranian oil. The die was cast. 26Once the decision was made, only Henderson, Minister-Counselor Gordon Mattison, and Chief Political Officer RoyMelbourne, among the embassy officials, were informedof the plan, and none of them played an active role in itsexecution. They were pleased by the choice, but Hendersoninsisted that he should not return to Iran or talk to Mossadeghwhile the Anglo-American operation was under way. In theevent of failure the ambassador might need to intervenewith the prime minister. Other than Roosevelt’s five-manteam—which in cluded the CIA man in Iran, his assistant,and two junior officers who helped with administrativeduties—American Personnel in Iran were not aware ofwhat was going on; even the two knowledgeable diplomatsremaining in the embassy did not seek details. 27Through early July, Mossadegh became increasinglydesperate as news of Eisenhower’s rebuff was leaked byhis enemies. Therefore, the United States and Iraniangovernments agreed to release the correspondence.Meanwhile, the Tudeh seized every opportunity to step upits public activity; its demonstrations were now larger by far

82PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthan those of the dispirited 1 National Front. By acclaimingMossadegh, whom they pre.1 viously had condemned,Tudeh leaders were confident they | would now earn forthemselves a place in the government.Kennett Love, correspondent of The New York Times andthe only American journalist in Iran that summer, foundthe Tudeh to be surprisingly courteous but firm. “Do youthink they can refuse our support much longer?” Tudehleader MusJ tafa Lankorani asked him as the two stood onthe speaker’s platform in front of the Majlis building duringa one-hundredI thousand-person Tudeh rally on July 21. Asthe crowd shouted anti-American slogans, he added, “Youhave seen for yourself how small they are and how big weare!” 28Appearances were deceiving. Kermit Rposevelt returnedtol Iran on July 13, and on August 1 had his first meetingwith the shah. A car picked him up at midnight and drovehim to the palace. Roosevelt lay down on the seat andcovered himself with a blanket as guards waved his driverthrough the gates. The shah got into the car and Rooseveltexplained his mission, which, he told the shah, wassupported by Ei-1 senhower and by British Prime MinisterWinston Churchill. I Up to that point the shah had knownnothing of American, plans. He had been impressed anddepressed by Mossadegh’s reception in the United States.Though he knew he had Brit-ish support, the monarchwas not convinced that this would! be helpful, given thecountry’s anti-British attitudes. The shah had awaited suchan opportunity; he would participate in Roosevelt’s plan.The CIA provided $1 million in Iranian currency,which Roosevelt had stored in a large safe—a bulky cachesince the! largest banknotes then available—the 500-rialdenomina-j tion—were worth only $7.50. Of this sum,$100,000 was given! to the two Iranian agents to disburseamong the athletic club! thugs and the poor of the southTehran slums. The shahi would fly to a remote town onthe Caspian Sea, leaving behindf him two decrees: onedismissing Mossadegh; a second apl pointing FazlollahZahedi as prime minister.

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 83Meanwhile, Mossadegh was trying to handle the growingchaos by taking dictatorial powers. The referendum to diss0lve the Majlis was held August 3, amid mounting Tudehdemonstrations supporting Mossadegh. Without a secret ballotand with rigged counting, the results were 99.9 percent infavor of the prime minister’s initiative. Opposition deputiescabled the United Nations charging Mossadegh with violationsof human rights. President Eisenhower also criticizedthe referendum. When Mossadegh declared the Majlis dissolvedand lifted the parliamentary immunity of legislators,thirteen of them took refuge in the Majlis building.Mossadegh also tried to consolidate Soviet assistance. Hethanked Moscow for improving relations and proposed ajoint Iranian-Soviet commission to resolve standing bilateralprob lems. The Iranian press hailed these moves, expressingthe hope that they would force the United States to adopt afriendlier policy. On the contrary, such moves only furtheralarmed Washington.The crisis was clearly reaching the point of no return.“Hav ing already reduced the shah to a virtual prisoner,”The New York Times editorialized on August 4, Mossadegh“is now trying to eliminate the last citadel of opposition tohis ambi tion by crushing the final vestiges of parliamentarygovern ment.” They thought he would succeed and that “Iran[would] pass under a dictatorship which the communistssupport as a precursor of their own tyranny.” 29This was the moment when the shah played his finalcard. While Zahedi hid out on one of his family’s ruralestates, Col onel Nematollah Nasiri of the Imperial PalaceGuard was en trusted with serving the shah’s two decreeson Mossadegh. (Nasiri was later head of SAVAK, the shah’ssecret police, and was one of the first men executed by theanti-shah forces in 1979.) Another officer betrayed the plan,however, and Mos sadegh’s supporters arrested Nasiri assoon as he delivered the decrees.Mossadegh’s aides declared this to be a coup attempt andunprisoned a number of oppositionists, including some of theNational Front’s former leaders. A price was put on Zahedi’shead, but Zahedi appealed to the military. He claimed to be

84PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthe rightful prime minister and charged Mossadegh withstag ing a coup by ignoring an imperial decree.As president of the Retired Officers Association, Zahedihad good contacts in the army. He also had some friendsamong the nationalists now in opposition, since he hadserved as minister of the interior in Mossadegh’s first cabinetbefore his own break with the National Front. Zahedi’s son,Ardeshir, was deputy administrator for the American aidprogram and acted as his father’s liaison with the CIA. Atthe time of the 1978-79 revolution, Ardeshir would be Iran’sambassador to the United States.All in all, only five Americans with a half-dozen Iraniancontacts had organized the entire uprising. Having finishedhis part of the operation, Roosevelt relaxed at a friend’shouse in Tehran to await results. Yet everything seemed togo wrong. Rather than announcing Mossadegh’s removal onthe morning of August 16, Tehran Radio broadcast news ofan attempted royalist coup and of Nasiri’s arrest—withoutmentioning the shah’s decrees dismissing Mossadegh andappointing Zahedi in his place. The United States Embassywas grim and wor ried; Ambassador Henderson, hearing thenews from Beirut where he was vacationing, rushed backto find Tehran in chaos. Communist mobs with red flagstore down statues of the shah and his father, pillaged shops,attacked the offices of opposition groups, and threatenedAmericans.In Isfahan, demonstrators marched outside the UnitedStates consulate chanting, “Yankees, go home!” In Tehran,Tudeh flying squads tore down the old street signs andrenamed the avenues “Stalin,” “People’s Democracy,” andso on. The shah, concluding all was lost, fled to Italy.The following day the confusion continued. The Tudehwarned the government to break with the United States;Mos sadegh’s aides hinted that the shah might be deposed,calling him a traitor. More dissidents, including a dozenMajlis depu ties, were arrested.Finally, on August 18, Henderson met with Mossadeghand] demanded protection for American citizens in Iran.Mos sadegh’s police chief called out police and soldiers to

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 85stop the Communist demonstrations. The Tudeh was forcedoff the streets by soldiers chanting, “Long live the Shah,Death to Mossadegh!” Up to this point, one of Roosevelt’saides had contacted a few military men, but now theshah’s broad sup port in the army was graphically shown.Persuaded of the Tudeh’s threat, more enlisted in Zahedi’scause. The tide was turning.Early the next day, the men organized with $100,000of CIA funds finally appeared, marching out of southTehran into the city’s center and gathering hundreds ofrecruits along the way. They destroyed the offices of a pro-Mossadegh newspa per and crashed through the gates of theprime minister’s house, though Mossadegh himself escapedfor a few hours. By noon they had taken the Foreign Officeand other government buildings. The previous Americanpessimism—Smith had or dered the CIA operatives’withdrawal, thinking the plan had failed—was quicklyreversed.Riding in a taxi that morning, The New York Times correspondentKennett Love saw shopkeepers running to slamdown their protective iron gates. Having almost been killedby a Tudeh mob two days earlier, Love now instead heardshouts of “Long Live America!” This was a pro-shah mob.Love found himself in the midst of a cheering throng; peoplestopped cars and made drivers put the shah’s picture ontheir windshields often using five-rial banknotes. 30Gangs with clubs, knives, and rocks controlled the streets,overturning Tudeh trucks and beating up anti-shah activists.Quick-witted entrepreneurs sauntered up and down Tehran’sstreets selling full-color pictures of the shah. One embassypo litical officer later recalled how his car, flying Americanflags for protection, was cheered along the entire nine-mileroute from the embassy to his home in the northern suburbs.The CIA payments alone could not explain the rapidity of themovement’s spread and the enthusiasm that greeted the shah’sreturn to power. Roosevelt had been correct: there was still areservoir of support for the shah among tens of thousands ofIranians either tired of the chaos of the Mossadegh regime orfearful of the Tudeh.

86PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSAs Roosevelt congratulated Zahedi in Zahedi’s basement] hiding place the new prime minister’s supporters burst in.A startled Roosevelt scrambled to hide behind the furnacewhile \ Zahedi was carried upstairs on the shoulders of hissup porters. He was put onto a waiting tank, which thendrove off slowly through applauding, waving crowds, pastthe Ameri can Embassy and through the center of Tehran.The mobs sup porting the Communists had either changedsides or had left the streets, giving up without a fight.American Embassy officials around Tehran had beenbusy that day phoning in reports from around the cityand these were quickly forwarded to Washington. Aboutnoon, most had concluded that the shah had won butRoy Melbourne delayed any such claim until 2:00 p.m . Hethen went to Henderson adding, as a private opinion, thatdespite the CIA’s role, these had been the most genuinedemonstrations he had witnessed during two years inIran. One proof was that earlier marches tapered off in theintensely hot Tehran afternoon, but these were continuingand growing. Henderson smiled and replied, “I agree withyou, but we certainly can’t tell that to the de partment!” asthe reason for concluding that Mossadegh was finished. 31That evening, Ardeshir Zahedi visited Henderson to ask forsuggestions. The ambassador recommended that Mossadeghnot be harmed when and if found and that the new regimein form embassies and civil servants that this was no coupbut merely a change in government. This technically wastrue, ofj course, since the shah had the constitutional right todismiss Mossadegh. By refusing to accept the shah’s decreesMos sadegh already had violated legality. Equally important,Mos sadegh had squandered his legitimacy by moving toeliminate all restraints on his own power.During the following days the new prime ministermet daily with his American advisors. The immediatepriority was to gain United States aid for the rebuildingprocess. Zahedi scarcely exaggerated when he wroteEisenhower on August 26, “The treasury is empty; foreignexchange resources are exhausted; the national economy isdeteriorated. Iran needs immediate financial aid to enable

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 87it to emerge from a state of economic and financial chaos.”He made it clear that Iran in tended to settle the oil conflictwith Britain as soon as pos sible. This, after all, had beenWashington’s precondition for increased assistance toMossadegh. 32Little time was wasted. The first infusion came fromthe $900,000 left in Roosevelt’s safe. Henderson quicklypromised to continue Point Four aid and to arrange a $45million emergency grant. American press and official praisefor the shah’s return to power was extensive; although somereporters apparently were aware of CIA involvement inthese events, the details remained unpublished for decades.The New York Times vigorously supported the return ofthe shah: “While he has been a weak monarch on the whole,he was always true to the parliamentary institutions of hiscoun try; he was a moderating influence in the wild fanaticismex hibited by the nationalists under Mossadegh, and he wasso cially progressive. The Shah was almost alone in dividingup his vast estates and fostering agrarian reform.” Iran’sdifficult social situation made matters “so dismal as to bealmost hor rifying.” The rich ruling class of landowners andarmy officers were as a group “selfish, reactionary, shortsightedand incompetent. The tragic poverty of the massesis not ex ceeded anywhere in the world.” Mossadegh hadnot been the man to deal with these problems accordingto the Times. He had “flirt(ed) with Russia,” had destroyedthe Majlis with the Tudeh’s assistance, and was responsiblefor the growth of Communist strength in Iran. The onlytwo alternatives seemed to have been the shah or theCommunists, explained the edito rial. The newspaper washopeful that law, order, and constitu tionality would berestored and that a new relationship with the West wouldproduce a revival of the oil industry, setting the nation’seconomy back on the road to recovery. 33The course and outcome of the Iran crisis illustrate wellthe complexity of diplomatic decisions. In the long run theCIA’s support for the shah’s return would breed Iranian anti-Americanism and play a central role in shaping the attitudesof the post-shah regime. The idea expressed by Eisenhower

88PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSon several occasions thereafter that he had saved Iran fromCom munism, and even that Mossadegh’s government hadbeen a “Communist-dominated regime”—Allen Dullesexpressed similar views—encouraged a tragic confusionbetween mili tant nationalism and Marxism-Leninism thatplagued United States policy elsewhere in the Third World. 34At the same time, it would be misleading to conclude thatthe United States helped evict a popular nationalist governmentand replace it with an unpopular and antinationalistone. By the autumn of 1953 Iran was at the end of its tether;the Communists were growing in strength and the NationalFront was disintegrating. Continuation of the status quo didnot seem a viable option, although the Eisenhower administrationmight have tried to work with rather than undercutMossadegh. After all, if Mossadegh had lost control ofevents this might in part be attributed to the Americandecision to freeze the level of economic assistance. Theremight have been further efforts to find a settlement, despiteearlier fail ures.At the same time, however, Mossadegh’s ill-fateddecision to use the Communist threat as a means of gainingAmerican support boomeranged. And given Acheson’smany attempts to work with Mossadegh and the lack ofprogress produced by his various plans, Eisenhower’sresponses, aside from moral considerations, were notnecessarily illogical. By August, 1953 Mossadegh’s regimewas becoming a dictatorship—and a tottering one at that—even without American intervention.In the days after Mossadegh’s removal, the shah andZahedi seemed as popular as the National Front leader hadever been. No more eager than the National Front to giveaway any of Iran’s national rights they simply realized, inthe face of Mos sadegh’s failure, that nationalization couldnot be achieved at that time. Thereafter, without everforgetting his ultimate goal, the shah moved cautiously stepby step to achieve the same ends.Equally, it cannot be said that the United States overthrewMossadegh and replaced him with the shah. The CIA merelyprovided minimal financial and logistical aid for Iranians to

A REVOLUTION IS OVERTHROWN 1951-1953 89Jo so. Many of them were genuinely frightened by the prospectsof a Tudeh takeover, were distressed by Mossadegh’ssteps toward dictatorship, and were disillusioned by hisin ability to maintain order. As Richard Cottam, an Iranscholar noted for his sympathy to the nationalist cause,points out, “Regardless of foreign participation, Mossadeghcould not have been overthrown if significant elements ofthe popula tion had not lost faith in his leadership.” 35This is an important and often-neglected point that AllenDulles did not seem fully to understand. OverthrowingMos sadegh had been like pushing on an already-openeddoor. Sup port from the general population and from aunited military had been necessary for success. When theCIA attempted simi lar adventures elsewhere under lessfavorable conditions the result was often a farcical disaster.Once having intervened, Washington, like Dr.Frankenstein, found, definite limits to further controlof its creation. By con tributing to the elimination of thedivision of power among shah, prime minister, and Majlisthat had existed since Reza Shah’s fall, American policyso strengthened the shah as to make him impervious toforeign pressures. The middle class and the National Front,including many of Iran’s most capable, honest, and forwardlookingpeople, were removed from any real role in thedecision-making process. Representative gov ernment—either in the electoral or in the charismatic-leader style—was ended. Contrary to popular Iranian belief, the developmentsof 1953 did not give the United States any longtermhold on the shah.In the short run, the shah was soon to find that theemergency commitments of August, 1953 would notnecessar ily provide him with the level of United Stateseconomic and military assistance he had sought since 1947.When Anglo-Iranian negotiations resumed in Washingtonduring October, the new Tehran regime discovered it wouldnot be easy to pry open American purse strings or to weldclosed the oil compa nies’ loopholes. The proud shah’s desirefor an independent military and for international economicstanding were rein forced by this experience.

90PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSIndeed, United States-Iranian relations seemed to devolveon the same basic contentions that had marked them in thelate 1940s. The shah demanded more help in light of what hesaw to be an insecure geostrategic position. The Americanscontinued to preach military restraint and the importanceof social progress to produce internal peace. Chastened bythe Mossadegh era, however, Washington would listen moreclosely to the shah in the future. Often in the followingyears the shah’s Iran indeed seemed to be a lonely island ofstability in a volatile and strategic region.

4An Alliance Is Made1954-68The shah’s assumption of governing power ended thepolitical instability of the Mossadegh era, but did little toresolve the underlying problems of political legitimacy andcyclical eco nomic crisis that had plagued Iran for so manydecades. Pain fully aware of this, American policymakerssought continually to minimize their commitments to Iran.Not until the mid-1960s would Iran’s growing oil wealth,its changing strategic situation, its seemingly successful“White Revolution,” and the shah’s demonstrated abilityto maintain order gradually convince American officialsthat more might be expected from the United States-Iranianrelationship.But in the intervening years, Washington’s commitmentcontinued to be essentially limited to Iran’s protectionfrom direct Soviet attack. Doubting the durability ofIran’s domestic tranquility, Washington generally triedto avoid provoking Moscow into harassing the country,while American leaders continued to stress to the shahthat only economic develop ment and social reform wouldsubstantially improve* his na tion’s security.The idea, so often and widely promulgated after the 1978-

92PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS79 revolution, that all Iranians detested the shah’s regimefrom 1953 on is surely erroneous. Many former partici pantsin the National Front, dismayed by Mossadegh’s failuresand demoralized by his defeat, went to work for the shah’sgovernment. While some of them gradually dropped out,try ing to maintain a legal opposition movement, others roseto high positions, including cabinet and ambassadorial posts.No bloodbath followed the shah’s return to power. Afew dozen of Mossadegh’s closest civilian and militarysupporters were imprisoned and only one of them, ForeignMinister Hus sein Fatemi, was executed. Mossadegh himselfwas tried in a J military court on charges of rebelling againstthe shah, tolerat ing the rise of the Tudeh, underminingthe army’s loyalty to the shah, and illegally dissolvingthe Majlis. A central issue was Mossadegh’s ignoring ofthe shah’s decree removing him in August, 1953. After all,the shah had remained head of state throughout the entireMossadegh era, his power over shadowed but still in place.In his own defense, Mossadegh challenged the shah’spower to dismiss him and the competence of the militarycourt. He attributed his own fall to a British plot and, in arousing sum mation speech, called on Iranians to continuethe fight against foreign political influence. He wassentenced to three years imprisonment in January, 1954,but was released, along with a number of his imprisonedcolleagues, in August, 1956. Mos sadegh retired to his estatewhere, shortly thereafter, he was threatened by a gang ofthugs, probably at the regime’s in stigation, and was forced torequest government protection. These guards also doubledas a form of house arrest, continu ing until his death in 1967.The main force of repression was directed against theTudeh. During the two years following the shah’s returnthere were constant rumors of Communist revolutionaryplots along with the arrests and executions of undergroundTudeh mem bers, many of them in the military. A secondarytarget was the Islamic fundamentalist group aroundAyatollah Kashani, who himself was briefly arrested inJanuary, 1956 in connection with the Razmara assassination.The shah was thus able to uproot the main two revolutionary

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 93movements that threatened the existing system and tostabilize his own rule.The shah’s emergence as a strong monarch was madepossi ble by the fact that the events of August, 1953 broughtno mere regression to the pre-Mossadegh status quo. Allbarriers to the shah’s power were swept away in the newIran, with both positive and negative implications for thecountry’s de velopment. Iran’s parliamentary system hadoften been cor rupt, inefficient, and antagonistic to reform; itsdemise made possible a revolution from above, allowing fora more efficient administration of the country and removingsome of the class bottlenecks that had blocked efforts tobroaden land owner ship and reform tax structures. Yet at thesame time, the Maj lis had spread authority and had providedsome representa tion to the middle and upper classes.While the Majlis continued under the shah, it became ashadow of itself. Often the shah allowed a loyal oppositionparty headed by one of his friends; at other times he substituteda single party. In either event, parliament became arub ber stamp for the executive branch. Further, althoughelec tions in Iran had never been particularly honest, thebenefits of such practices had been spread among severalgroups; now corrupt polling practices, rigged to favor theshah’s candidates at the expense of the urban middle class,alienated the politi cally active strata as well. Each roundof fixed elections, those of 1954 and of 1960, for example,convinced more elements of the impossibility of peacefulparliamentary opposition.The prime minister’s office was also subjected to theshah’s will—the prime minister had always been the shah’sap pointee; now he became, in effect, the shah’s executiveassis tant. In contrast to the National Front’s concept ofa constitu tional monarch, a position held onto by themoderate opposition even during much of the tumultuous1978-79 rev olution, the shah increasingly became the soleruler. His re moval of Zahedi in April, 1955 showed that hewould brook no partner: the shah had the power to hire orfire his prime ministers at will.Without the restraining hands of the parliament and of a

94PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSstrong prime ministership, Iran now moved toward a onemandictatorship in which the shah relied for his politicalsurvival on the passivity of the peasantry and on the energyof the armed forces and of SAVAK (the State Organizationfor In telligence and Security), the secret police organization.This system allowed Iran to move faster, but it also removedsome of the brakes that might have kept it from derailing.Determined to modernize Iran and to win Americansupport and aid in the process, the shah made his plans tolay a foun dation for the country’s military and economicstrength. In terms of improving his own image, he was moresuccessful in the American press initially than in the innercouncils of the United States government. Yet ultimately hisstrategy was successful both in the United States and onan international level. Even the Russians, whose hostilitytoward Tehran con tinued for a decade after the shah’s return,were finally moved toward some attempts at reconciliation,as evidenced by the shah’s 1956 state visit to Moscow and bytheir return of Tudeh ; fugitives to the shah’s punishment.Domestically, the first task was the restoration of Iran’secofl nomic equilibrium. The Iranian economy “will havenowhere to go but up from the rock bottom state of nearbankruptcy it I achieved in 1953,” reported The New YorkTimes shortly after the shah’s triumph. The question,however, was whether the new regime would use renewedAmerican aid “to create the basis of a healthy economy or,as in the past, simply as a pe-1 rennial transfusion for anunhealthy one.” 1 In fact, the emergency United States aidprogram would seek merely to 1 do the latter; the new oilagreement was to lay the foundation for the former, thoughit would take a decade to bring results. |Despite Eisenhower’s quick reaction to the first pleaofJ Prime Minister Fazlollah Zahedi for increased aid, theoriginal $45 million granted was augmented in March, 1954only by a mere $6 million more. Zahedi quickly realized thatthis doling out of funds was being used as leverage to forcea quick settle-1 ment of the oil dispute. Only in November,1954, when the first oil tanker left port, did loans and giftsreach sizeable proportions. Between August, 1953 and the

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 95end of 1956, the United States gave $200 million in economicand $200 mil lion in military assistance.In those surprisingly innocent days, this assistanceprogram created something of a scandal. Both the GeneralAccounting Office and the House of RepresentativesInternational Opera tions Committee found management ofthe operation to be shocking and slipshod. It was, arguedthe congressional re port, “neither technical assistance noreconomic development, but an ad hoc method of keepingthe Iranian economy afloat.” That was the whole point,argued the State Department, to help Iran “through oneof the most difficult periods in her his tory when economicand political disaster threatened to push Iran behind theIron Curtain.” 2Especially important in putting Iran back on its feet wasthe oil agreement the United States helped negotiate betweenTehran and the petroleum corporations. Two foreign-ownedmanagement/operating companies would carry out theexplo ration and refining of Iranian oil under a contract withthe Na tional Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and would sellthe prod uct to a new consortium. The old AIOC monopolywas replaced on the purchasing end by a partnership withinterest divided in the following proportions: 40 percentfor AIOC, 14 percent for Shell Oil, 8 percent to each of fiveAmerican giants, and 6 percent to the French CompagnieFrangaise des Petroles.The Justice Department was forced to retreat from itscom plaint that such a combination violated antitrust laws—na tional security was a higher priority—but Americanindepen dent companies were later cut in for a small share.Iran held only two of seven seats on the technical companies’boards, and while Iran’s national company (NIOC) had titleto the oil, its powers were sharply limited. Still, it was a farcry from the old days when Iranians were not even allowedto see the com pany’s books, and Iran’s financial share, 12V2percent of the Posted price, was a significant increase. Theconsortium agreement also promised a regular rise in thevolume of pro duction.After three years of intensive effort, said The New York

96PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSTimes in greeting the agreement, “one of the bitterestdisputes that has afflicted the post-war Middle East,” hadbeen settled. It was a major victory for American diplomacyand “laid the basis for a viable Iranian economy.” 3 Theshah was not as 1 jubilant, but this new arrangement didconsiderably boost export levels—and hence Iran’s income—in the followingyears.Although the 1954 settlement was certainly a stepbackward from Mossadegh’s design for an all-Iranian oilindustry, the gradualist strategy produced real results.Ironically, this ar rangement was never discussed inthe United States Congress, which later succumbed toprotectionist fears that cheap Iran ian oil would flood thecountry. In 1956, oil-import quotas were passed in attemptsto protect domestic producers and en courage developmentof domestic reserves. This policy was part of an era whenthe United States was the world’s largest oil producer andwhen oil companies feared that an oil glut would sendprices crashing. Of course, from the standpoint of the 1970sand 1980s, when the dominant feature of the petro leumfactor in international politics became the product’s shortsupply, manipulated by Middle East oil-producing states,much United States policy during the 1950s and 1960s seemsstrange.Iran progressed nonetheless. By 1957 NIOC wasnegotiating deals with independent companies to developareas outside the consortium concession. In the mid-1960s,Iran began part nerships with diverse companies on a 75/25profit division, with the lion’s share going to Iran. NIOCincreased its know-how over the years and opened directsales to Third World countries, eventually constructing itsown refinery and new pipelines. When oil-producing nationsunited to form the Or ganization of Petroleum ExportingCountries (OPEC) in I960, Iran was a charter member.Slowly, the increased flow of American aid—$611million in economic aid and a somewhat smaller figure inmilitary aid between 1953 and 1961—and the rapid growthof oil revenues—from $90 million in 1955 to $482 million

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 97in 1964—provided a firm grounding for the shah’s plans. /Nevertheless, the shah was not satisfied. The United Stateshad given twice as much aid to Yugoslavia, three times asmuch to Turkey, and four times as much to Taiwan as it hadto Iran, he complained in his memoirs. The shah constantlypressed Eisenhower for more aid and for a stronger UnitedStates commitment.Iran’s new pro-West orientation complemented this aim.“We have witnessed how aggressors have wantonly occupiedneutral countries in defiance of international law and theirown undertakings,” declared Prime Minister Zahedi inJuly, 1954. The State Department was pleased but cautiousas Iran moved toward open adherence to the Westerncamp. While Iran might play an important role in regionaldefense, it told President Eisenhower, modernization of thearmy should not become “an undue burden on the nationaleconomy.” Ameri can military aid should also be limited lestIran’s army be come an undue burden on the United Stateseconomy as well as on its own. 4Dulles heeded this advice. When Great Britain, Turkey,Pak istan, and Iraq moved toward a collective-securityagree ment—the Baghdad Pact—in 1955, the Americansecretary of state tried to keep Iran from joining. “It’s toosoon after their troubles,” he commented, but he was alsoconcerned about the upcoming Geneva summit conference.Soviet assumptions that America had encouraged Tehran tobecome a member might wreck the meeting. Before Dullescould act, however, Tehran announced its decision to signthe treaty. 5 The shah had outflanked his American friends.It would not be the last time he would do so.Especially after the 1956 Suez conflict, in which Britain,France, and Israel attacked Egypt in an attempt to bring downthe charismatic Gamal Abd al-Nasser, the shah continuedto hammer away on his old themes. He wrote Eisenhowerthat m this age of atomic warfare, the occurrence of regulararmed conflicts with conventional weapons is not to be ruled°ut as a thing of the past.” Aggression could be preventedonly “if countries occupying key positions are well preparedand their military as well as financial and economic needs

98PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSsupplied.” Americans did not always understand, the shahconcluded, that Iranian military weakness might endangernot only Iran but the entire region. 6Eisenhower and Dulles, in contrast, agreed with theviews of their predecessors in regard to Iran’s true militarycapabil ity. Iran could never really build a strong enoughmilitary force to check the USSR. Instead, Tehran shouldrely on American guarantees. After all, if the Sovietsinvaded Iran it would quickly lead to a much wider warthat would, of neces sity, involve the United States. Ratherthan engage in an un-winnable arms race with Moscow, theshah ought to build a smaller force capable of maintainingorder and of preventing internal Communist subversion.Most important, he might better devote his attentions todeveloping Iran, since poverty and frustration were thesurest breeding grounds of revolu tion.Yet the shah was also responding to new political eventsin the Arab world to his south and west. The explosion ofcoups, revolutions, wars, and civil strife, which markedArab politics of the 1950s and 1960s, naturally made Iranianleaders ner vous. For the shah, such disquieting eventsincluded Nasser’s rise to Arab leadership, Egypt and Syria’salliance with the Russians, Nasserist attempts to overthrowJordan’s King Hus sein, and the 1958 civil war in Lebanon.The Middle East re verberated with the sounds of crashingthrones. The July, 1958 military coup in next-door Iraq,where the Hashemite royal family was massacred and aseemingly pro-Moscow regime installed, brought the royalnightmare too close to home.While the shah’s demands for military aid continued, thepotential enemy changed. Instead of a full-scale Soviet invasion,the shah became preoccupied with a possible Iraqiat tack and with the expected spread of revolution across thePer sian Gulf. Radical Arabs might arm and help oppositionforces within Iran.Consequently, the shah strongly urged an activist andinter ventionist American foreign policy against those Arabshe saw acting as Soviet surrogates. He pressed for full UnitedStates membership in the Baghdad Pact, supported the 1957

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 99Eisenhower Doctrine (which promised to aid Middle Eaststates facing Communist-backed aggression), and endorsedthe 1958 American troop landings to help end the Lebanesecivil war.American response to these blandishments was cautious.The shah was the most faithful of allies, he never tired oftelling Washington. Although in an exposed position, he hadresisted both the Soviets’ threats and their overtures. Still,Dulles believed that America’s retaliatory strength was thegreatest barrier to any Soviet advance. If sixteen full-strengthdivisions were needed to defend Iranian territory, as Americangenerals estimated, only ten of these need come fromIran itself. American power would make up the difference. 7More over, Iran’s political and economic structures were toofragile to be of much help beyond the country’s own borders.Apparently unaware of the reasons for the reservations ofthe United States government, American press coverage ofIran praised the shah for ignoring Soviet attempts to lure himout of the Baghdad Pact. “Iran is the calmest country in thetroubled Middle East today,” reported The New York Times inDecember, 1956. “Partly responsible for this is a highly successfulcampaign against subversive elements.” The Tudeh,in fact, had been shattered and the Muslim fundamentalistsseemed to have lost influence. The American Embassy explainedthis stability in one word—prosperity. Yet thiswas largely a result of American willingness to cover thegovern ment’s annual budget deficits. Iran’s elite had donelittle to help themselves. 8The shah personally enjoyed a good press, though in thelate 1950s effusive articles were often matched by more worriedanalyses, obviously drawing on American governmentsources. Some reporters were almost ecstatic about what theyfound. “Iran today is experiencing a gilded convalescenceunder a mild despotism” that the shah “and his advisorsbe lieve necessary for recovery,” wrote a correspondent forThe New York Times in April, 1957. This combination hadpro duced “internal order, a pro-Western foreign policy anda modest start in the profound economic and social reformsconsidered essential for long-term stability.”

100PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSMenaced for centuries by Russian dreams of expansion,“Iran has a life and death interest in … collective security”and disliked Arabs “who by ill-considered adventure if notdesign would unlock the door for the Soviet Union.” Whilerelatively soft on the shah’s methods, this and other articlesexplained well the roots of his foreign policy. Further, despitea strong element of wishful thinking, many commentariesdid not stint on the real internal problems facing Iran.Thus, this report continued, the “slowness” of Iran’srulers “in moving against corruption and inefficiency and ...a feudal landholding system” clouded Iran’s future. Admit.tedly, the 80 percent of the population that lived in villagesas virtual serfs of the one thousand wealthiest landowningfami lies cared little about security considerations.“Centuries of neglect and exploitation have left themdisease-racked, igno rant and illiterate.” The rising middleclass, the only force that might break the landowners’power, was “frustrated and leaderless,” denied the right topolitical activity or influence. Inflation, land speculation,and the juxtaposition of conspicu ous consumption andabject poverty made the Iranian situa tion a “race betweenreform and revolution.” 9Nor was the Iranian view of America’s help andsuggestions for reform all favorable. Although in 1956 Iranhosted the larg est United States aid mission in the world—with three hundred employees—local people seemedalmost unaware of its real achievements. Such Westerninnovations as wolf whistles, blue jeans, and feature films(though men and women attended separate showings)that appeared in Tehran were seen by many as culturalcontaminants; Muslim activists were already protestingand calling for an end to the country’s “Americanization.”Noted one survey, Iranians only saw America “as somegreat gift store where prices may be high, but everything iscleaner, better packed and of higher quality than anywhereelse.” 10Aid and oil revenues had not been used very productively.By 1957 Washington was growing tired of financing Tehran’sbudget deficits. A prime cause of the imbalance was the

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 101regime’s inability to tax the wealthy, landed aristocracy;it was far easier to raise money by taxing sugar and otherstaples of the peasant and working-class diet. The situationwas even more frustrating because of the shah’s belief thathis diplo matic allegiance to the West and his vulnerableposition in relation to the Soviet Union obligated the UnitedStates to pick up Iran’s tab.Growing American concern was reflected in a January,1958 article by correspondent Sam Pope Brewer, whichincluded a rare look at the complaints of the survivingNational Front op position. “Iran is in a state of discontentthat is dangerous to her internal security and to thestability of the Middle East,” he wrote, describing chargesof corruption within the shah’s own family and repressionagainst oppositionists. “The shah,” he concluded, “has beenincreasingly authoritarian. The fear is that this might drivethe non-Communist opposition into the arms of the SovietUnion.” 11Yet the shah’s analysis of Washington’s continuingobliga tion to him was essentially accurate. As the MiddleEast situa tion became increasingly unstable, Americanpolicymakers had to counter the possibility of an additionalcrisis in Iran. The military coup in neighboring Iraq inJuly, 1958 resulted in that country’s apparent alliance withthe USSR. Secret Soviet arms shipments to Baghdad inthe following months doubled Iraq’s armed forces. At thesame time, Moscow launched an other campaign to enticeIran out of the Baghdad Pact, offer ing in exchange a longtermnonaggression pact. A Soviet-sponsored clandestineradio station, the National Voice of Iran, took to the air todenounce the shah. Washington’s Iran specialists saw theSoviets as making a major effort to under mine the shahand to stir up trouble within Iran, particularly among theKurdish minority there.Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev told Iranian AmbassadorMasud Ansari in the autumn of 1959 that a neutral Irancould obtain “ten times” as much American aid, as well asSoviet assistance. Unless the Iranians changed their ways, hewarned, Moscow might invoke a forty-year-old treaty with

102PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSIran—repeatedly disclaimed by Tehran—permitting Sovietmilitary action against foreign bases on Iranian soil. SomeIranian leaders were badly shaken by these threats. 12In the face of this situation, quick American action wasnec essary. For the first time, the American ambassador inTehran hailed that country as a “valued ally” of the UnitedStates. President Eisenhower promised to accelerate thesupply of military equipment and training assistance.In March, 1959, a bilateral United States-Iranian defensepact was signed. This accord—and contemporary parallelagreements with Pakistan and Turkey—declared supportfor Iran’s independence and in tegrity, continued militaryand economic aid, and rapid rein forcement in the event ofaggression against Iran. A visit by Eisenhower in Decemberwas aimed at further reassuring the shah. 13Fundamentally, however, the White House’s perceptionsof the situation had not changed. Since any direct Sovietattack through Afghanistan or Iraq was still consideredunlikely there was resistance to any large-scale, costlymilitary buildup for Iran. Indeed, Eisenhower was moreconcerned about the weakness of the shah’s domesticbase. Secretary of State Chris tian Herter warned that thedeterioration of Iran’s economy— inflationary pressure anda worsening balance of payments —was caused by the shah’smany military projects. He sug gested that the United Statesmight reduce military and eco nomic aid to pressure Iraninto decreasing public expendi tures and to reevaluate itsown military spending. This policy would later be adoptedunder President Kennedy. 14Given Washington’s hesitations, the shah’s complaintscon tinued to escalate throughout 1960. The Iranian forceswere short 30,000 men, he wrote Eisenhower, and his air forceneeded bombers to counter the military buildup in Iraq andAfghanistan. Eisenhower calmly replied to these criticismsof the 1959 plan (whose defensive purposes were reflected inits name, Operation Counterbalance) that Congress wouldnot ap prove the levels of aid the shah wanted and that suchmea sures would damage Iran’s economy. 15With the regional situation becoming more and more

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 103fright- ening, the shah’s nervousness was understandable.Nasser broke relations with Iran in 1960 because of Tehran’scontin ued diplomatic ties to Israel. Arab nationalistslaunched all-out propaganda attacks against Iran. Persiansettlers in the Arab sheikdoms of the Gulf were denounced aspart of a plot to steal these lands from the Arabs. Iraq, Syria,and other Arab states supported a “liberation movement”claiming Iran’s oil-rich southwestern province of Khuzistan(which they called “Arabistan”) for the Arab world. Cairoalso courted the Gulf Arabs still under British colonial rulewhile Iraq threatened to take over Kuwait.American leaders’ genuine concern over these externalthreats to Iran was fully matched by their continued beliefthat internal problems posed the major danger to the country’ssta bility. These shortcomings, principally the politicallyunrepre sentative nature of the regime and the country’sunsound eco nomic structure, seemed to culminate in thecrisis of the early 1960s. When in the spring of 1960 pressurefrom the Interna tional Monetary Fund and the United Statesgovernment forced some reining in of the runaway economy,the applica tion of spending brakes increased unemploymentand added to urban dissatisfaction. Additionally, enraged byrigged elec tions in August, 1960, the opposition took to thestreets for the first time in years. Many were predicting acrisis—even a revo lution—in Iran, though the shah wouldsurvive for another two decades in power.In retrospect, Iranians, after the 1978-79 revolution,would strongly criticize American policy toward the shahduring the 1950s. America, they charged, had broughtthe shah back to power in August, 1953, trained theSAVAK, and supplied the military and economic aid thatperpetuated his rule. Tehran’s police patrols even rode injeeps marked with the United States aid insignia—claspedhands imposed on the American and Iranian nationalshields. Although Americans were blamed for not forcingthe shah to change his ways, attempts to force reforms alsoconstituted interference, which the Ira nians claimed toresent. “The United States spent billions of dollars in Iranand saved Iran from the chains of the USSR,” one Iranian

104PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONScivil servant told an American scholar, Marvin Zonis, “butthe people hate them. My opinion is the same as almost theentire nation. The United States imposed prime ministerson the king [shah] and the people; prime ministers withprograms prepared in Washington with little knowledge ofIranian conditions.” 16American policymakers during those years were notun aware of these complaints, but on three points theirpercep tions of the political situation differed from thoseof both the contemporary and later opposition. First, theopposition in the late 1950s and early 1960s believed thatit was in Washing ton’s power to force the shah to changehis ways. Short of threatening a coup against him, whichwould not only have run directly contrary to America’saim of stabilizing the regional situation but would alsohave been inconsistent with the nonintervention postureIranians demanded of the United States, Washington didmake attempts to press for reforms. Yet the shah’s criticsrepeatedly overestimated American in fluence in Tehran.“People do not understand why the Ameri cans permit thecorruption and inefficiency they see,” said one of them inJanuary, 1960. Another commented, “Tell the Government itmust stamp out the influence-peddlers and en force the lawor there will be no more help from Washington.” Ironically,in terms of later developments, some anti-shah ac tivistshad no qualms about demanding American interven tion inIran’s internal affairs—as long as it was in support of theirown side in the battle. 17Second, while the Iranian dissidents were almost exclusivelyconcerned—and understandably so—with the Iranianinternal situation, the United States had broader interestsand worries. When asked whether an end to Americanaid would result in Iran’s collapse and a Soviet takeover,one Iranian critic of the shah responded that at least in aCommunist po lice state something would be done for thepeople, while “under this police state, there is no freedomand nothing is done for the people.” 18 From Washington’spoint of view, though, its fifteen-year involvement withIran had been mainly premised on avoiding a Communist

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 105takeover as its top priority. American policymakers arguedthat the Iranians were better off under a non-Communistregime and that Iran’s in dependence made possible someeventual improvement. But American priorities were alsoconcerned with preventing an expansion of Soviet powerand a collapse of the political sys tems in the region.Third, and perhaps most important, Washingtonthought it saw a way to institute reforms, avoid revolution,strengthen Iran, and satisfy the dissidents all at the sametime. The main criticism of the shah, after all, addresseditself to the slowness of the reform process. Part of thiswas due not to the bureau cratic inefficiency of the shah’sgovernment itself—for Iran had been governed similarlyfor centuries—but to changes in the expectations of thepeople. As one Iranian put it, “Forty years ago influenceand privilege were part of the ac knowledged system.Now people have heard of something better and they aredemanding to have it.” 19The main Iranian criticism of American policy, reportedThe New York Times in January, 1960, involved “the feelingthat the United States is not trying hard enough to get thework of reform done.” 20 If only Washington applied enoughpressure on the shah to speed up land reform and otherchanges all would be well. Accelerating the pace of modernizationwould create a stronger and more stable Iran sooner.Essentially, this was the same view that characterizedAmeri can policy toward Iran since 1946. By the time theKennedy administration came into office, however, theState Depart ment was more determined than ever to pressfor an early completion of Iran’s revolution from above. Ifthe shah wanted to finish Iran’s ark before the flood, thereseemed precious few years left.While the shah had created a tame two-party system in1957, he found it difficult to keep under control. Some Nadersof the loyal opposition began to call for free elections inthe summer of 1960 and condemned the fixing of past parliamentaryballots. These forces found a leader in Dr. AliArnini, whom the shah appointed prime minister in May,1961 in order to calm the widespread dissent. Amini was

106PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSto be another in that line of strong politicians—Qavam,Razmara, Mossadegh, and Zahedi—curbed by the shahwhen they seemed to challenge his preeminence.Amini, a member of one of Iran’s leading landowningfami lies, had studied law at the University of Paris and hadserved as a minister in the cabinets of Razmara, Mossadegh,Zahedi, and Hussein Ala. Having broken with Mossadeghin July, 1952, Amini was regarded as a traitor by the NationalFront, particularly after he joined Zahedi as minister offinance and directed his oil negotiations and campaign forAmerican aid. The shah distrusted him as a potential newrival and when Zahedi fell, Amini was made ambassadorto Washington in 1955. Amini was recalled, however, threeyears later on the shah’s suspicion that he had been involvedin a half-baked coup attempt.As ambassador, Amini apparently made a good personalim pression on then-Senator John Kennedy. Although theshah’s later claim that Amini was appointed prime ministerdue to American pressures seems untrue, there was noquestion that Amini was popular and well liked in theUnited States. Starkly stating the choice Iran faced, Aminiwarned: “Divide your lands or face revolution—or death.”This provided, edi torialized the Times, “the best prospectin years—and perhaps the last—of progress in one ofthe sickest of the world’s sick nations.” 21 Many Americandiplomats agreed.It was not that Amini’s theoretical views were so differentfrom those of the shah, who had also long favored a redistributionof Iran’s land, but that Amini wanted a more systematicand far-reaching change. The shah was suspicious: Aminihad, after all, been an activist in the National Front, whichstood for limiting the shah’s power. Nor was the shah willingto follow Amini’s proposals for comprehensive economicplanning and a strong anticorruption drive. For Amini, theland reform was only a first step; for the shah, in practice, itwas an end in itself. The shah’s failure to follow through wasto be a key element in his own regime’s downfall.A second miscalculation made by the press and by laterad ministrations was that the reforms would end middle-

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 107class grievances. Increasingly Iran’s new skilled urbanstrata ad vocated the cessation of American aid to theshah’s regime. The shah’s mechanisms of political controlwere still far less complete than they became in later years.“Nowhere in the world, in all probability, is so much freeswingingcomment and criticism hurled at the Governmentand chief of state” as in Iran, wrote Harrison Salisburyin December, 1961. There was widespread “cynicism andskepticism over the Shah and his policies.” Many Iraniansthought the shah’s commitment to the United States was“too firm.” “Their repugnance to communism is matchedonly by boiling frustration at their in ability to exercise thepowers and formulate the policies that they feel are the justdue of their new-born strength.” 22 The White Revolution,the oil boom, and the continuing growth of the middle classonly further whet these appetites and frustra tions. In 1978they would be expressed in their full fury.American attempts to bring about reform in 1962-63 werenonetheless good faith efforts to address these problems. Ironically,a passing remark by Khrushchev in 1961 helped put theissue high on Kennedy’s list of priorities. Iran, the Russianleader told him, was a typical unstable pro-West countryabout to experience political upheaval. The USSR would notbe involved, he continued, but would be blamed anyway,damaging United States-Soviet relations. Kennedy requesteda full State Department report as quickly as possible. It shouldbe noted that the Eisenhower administration had probablypassed along similar warnings to the incoming president.Kennedy’s March, 1962 plan sought to shift the shah’spreoccupation from military security to economic progress,even if it became necessary to limit American military aidas leverage. The unwieldy army would be reduced from240,000’ to 150,000 men over two or three years and wouldbe geared, in the words of the American proposal, “tomilitary realities rather than to the political glamor valueof advanced weaponry.” To gain the shah’s agreement, theUnited States Would reissue security guarantees, promiselarge contribu tions to any sound economic plan, anddevelop a five-year military-modernization schedule. 23

108PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSIn a series of meetings through the year, the shah acquiescedto Washington’s pressures, though he was hardlypleased. To go along, however, the shah felt it necessary thathe make some important changes. On the foreign front heneeded to improve relations with his neighbors. As it thenstood, he had no friends among the Arabs to his west; theSo viets to the north remained belligerent; and to his eastAf ghanistan and Pakistan, while not at odds with Iran werein conflict both with each other and with India.Therefore the shah moved dramatically toward rapprochementwith Moscow, a step he had considered as earlyas the 1959 talks following the coup in Iraq. Fortunately, theUSSR had greatly reduced its price for friendship. Its condition—thatTehran pledge to forbid any United States missilebases on Iran’s soil—was hardly onerous, since the deploymentof Polaris submarines lessened considerably the needfor such facilities.Not only did the Soviets cease propaganda attacks on receiptof the shah’s commitment, but they actually switchedto a campaign of praise and detente. By the mid-1960s largeamounts of Soviet economic aid, including some light militaryequipment, were flowing into Iran. The USSR also becamea valuable market for Persian natural gas.Through this same period the shah had been moving tostrengthen his domestic control. General Teimur Bakhtiar,the powerful head of SAVAK, was removed from powerin 1961 after he had organized demonstrations againstAmini’s reform programs. There was, however, a deeperreason for his dis missal. Some three years earlier, Bakhtiarhad visited the United States and met with KermitRoosevelt and Allen Dul les. To their horror Bakhtiar toldthem that he wanted to take over political power from theshah. Dulles replied that he would receive no Americansupport for any such action.Allen Dulles then called his brother, warning him notto allow Bakhtiar to say anything of his plans. John FosterDulles kept up a verbal barrage from Bakhtiar’s entranceuntil he was able to usher him out. The CIA informed theshah of Bakh tiar’s disloyalty and the shah bided his time

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 109until he could remove the SAVAK chief. 24 Some time later,after Bakhtiar had gone into exile in Iran’s enemy neighbor,Iraq, his own SAVAK managed to assassinate him.In July, 1962, the shah removed Amini, who seemed asec ond potential threat. Amini blamed his downfall on ashortage of American financial aid, though his real problemmay have been Washington’s inability to protect him againstthe shah. It was then that the shah proceeded to create hisown reform program from above, his “White Revolution.”These land reform decrees set off large demonstrations ledby Muslim clerics, including Ruhollah Khomeini, betweenOctober and December, 1962. One clash at the FayziyehSchool in Qom ended with the killing of a number of religiousscholars, further embittering clerical opposition to theshah. During a second round in June, 1963, three days of antigovernmentriots in Tehran were crushed with as many as3,000 dissidents killed. A sharp SAVAK crackdown followed.Today this battle is a source of pride for Iran’s Islamic rulers,who mainly opposed the shah’s program precisely be causesuch changes, if successful, would have strengthened hisregime. But to admit that the provocation for their fiercestfight was the breakup of estates and a threatened erosion oflandlord power hardly augments the Iranian clergy’s populistcredentials. It might be said in defense of the Muslim clergythat the mullah’s objection was to the government redistributionof waqf land, land whose revenue was intended forreligious and charitable purposes. But any rationalization orjustification for violent resistance to land reform in a countryof so poor a peasantry must remain less than totally convincing.On the other hand, the fallout of these riots was to havefatal consequences for the shah and for the Americans aswell. The real underlying cause of the clerics’ success intheir agitation was the regime’s lack of a popular base,its illegitimacy in the eyes of so many Iranians becauseof the events of 1953, and the growing dissatisfaction ofthe urban middle class. In the American media, however,the “reactionary” revolt only vali dated the shah’s reformcredentials. By defeating these backward forces, reporters

110PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSsaid, he had opened the door for the kind of political andeconomic progress that Americans had advocated for years.The depiction of the shah as a progressive ruler would becontinued in the American media for over a decade. Whenconflict first erupted in 1978 it was misin terpreted to be arepeat of the 1962-63 confrontation.“The Shah of Iran,” wrote Max Frankel in January, 1963,“is rapidly altering his country’s political and economiclife with a reform program of revolutionary proportions.”A forthcom ing referendum on the White Revolution wouldgive the shah constitutional power “in many respectscomparable to those recently assumed by President De Gaullein France.” The shah seemed to have been transformed into“the unaccustomed role of a Western-style politician.”Following the shah’s victory in the vote (the first inIranian history in which women participated), The NewYork Times called the success a triumph for “a revolutionin which Iran’s ruler has aligned himself directly withthe workers and peas ants against conservatives andtraditionalists.” Although the Times did report that theshah’s opponents could run only as independents and wereforbidden to organize or hold rallies, it nevertheless foundthe election “the fairest and most repre sentative electionIran has ever had.” One Times editorial sta ted: “The greatmass of the Iranian people are doubtless be hind the Shah inhis bold new reform efforts” and it held high expectationsfor “the coming elections to restore parliamen tary rule.” 25There is reason to hope, said another Times edi torial ofthat period, “that Iran will gradually come to see bet terdays. The people who voted so solidly for the Governmentsupportedcandidates must have thought so.” 26Richard Cottam, an Iranian specialist and former StateDe partment official, tried to explain that the election wasneither free nor a victory for democracy: “Have we now allbecome so enamored of economic determinism to expectthis one act to produce a happy non-communist politicalstability?” As the American press saw it the answer seemedto be in the affirma tive. 27One man who was decidedly not reconciled to the shah’s

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 111rule was a leading activist in the movement against theshah and his White Revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini. OneJune, 1963 morning, at 3 A.M. several dozen SAVAK paratrooperssurrounded his modest residence in Qom, arrestedhim. and took him off to Tehran. During the drive, the carstopped to allow him to pray on the road. He was held inTehran for two months, then was kept there under housear rest for several more months.Khomeini was firmly convinced that only Americasupport and aid enabled the shah to stay in power andhe focused much of his wrath on the United States. Forexample, during an updating of the old bilateral militaryagreements, Washing ton sought to include a standardclause giving United States military advisors immunityfrom prosecution under Iranian law. Mossadegh had agreedto such a provision, but the aroused anti-shah oppositionnow interpreted any such regu lation as a reminder of thehated extraterritoriality statutes of the colonial era.The Majlis’s approval was attacked by Khomeini in themost unrestrained language. The decree, he said, placed“the Iran ian people under American bondage … becauseAmerica is the land of the dollar and because the IranianGovernment needs dollars.” Appearances seemed tosupport this allega tion. Only a few days after passing theimmunity law, the Majlis approved another bill arranging a$200 million United States loan for military purchases.In one speech in Qom, Khomeini virtually declared waron the shah. He refused to recognize the government orcourts, he said, and would deny any law that allowed, inhis words, any American servant or cook to terrorize piousreligious leaders. “Iran has lost her greatness. The might ofthe army has tram pled” on the people, Khomeini concluded.Finally, in Novem ber, 1964, he was exiled to Turkey. Shortlythereafter, he moved to Iraq, lecturing on theology in theShi’a holy city of Najaf. 28The shah appeared to have won a total victory. PresidentKennedy, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and the specialistsat the CIA and State Department were relatively satisfied bythe shah’s initial steps toward reform. The monarch had, after

112PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSall, accelerated the land-distribution program, providedadditional benefits for urban workers, made his armysmaller and more efficient, and eased Iran’s relationshipwith Moscow. Interim economic and agricultural problemscould be worked out. The hostility of urban intellectuals,landlords, and religious leaders would not just disappear,but their disunity and the army’s loyalty would probablyassure stability. Even with his shortcomings, Americanpolicymakers agreed, the shah seemed the only man whocould provide Iran with political continuity.Still, the enthusiasm for the shah of American policymakersdid not equal that of the news media. There were those ingov ernment who were very aware of the likelihood thatthe shah would not follow through on this promising start.The CIA, for example, concluded that planning for theWhite Revolu tion was weak and that long-term economicdevelopment re mained a low priority for the shah. Twentyfivepercent of Iran’s budget still went for military spending.Most important, while land reform seemed to engender somepeasant enthusi asm, it could succeed only if cooperativeswere properly organized. Otherwise, poor peasants on theirsmall allotments could never hope to finance their ownplanting and market ing. Under such circumstances, a CIAreport predicted, Iran ian agriculture would regress. Andthis is exactly what did happen. 29A Bureau of the Budget study was even more critical. Theshah’s approach was quite different from the comprehensivedevelopment plan that most Americans believed theywere supporting. While economic stagnation would leadto greater urban discontent, the confusion in the landreformprogram might reduce farm production. Withoutthe necessary eco nomic and administrative underpinningthat the shah’s plan had neglected, the report continued, theshah could not build a political base within the peasantry;he would become in creasingly dependent on the military.The “reversion to a U.S. role as friendly advisor to a regimewhose policies are charac terized by short-term expediencyand neglect of the fundamental course necessary to theincreasing well-being of its people” would be a high-risk

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 113proposition. 30While the Bureau of the Budget thought the State Departmenttoo passive, even United States Ambassador JuliusHolmes warned Secretary Rusk that Iran lacked the infrastructureas well as the managerial and technical personnelrequired for rapid economic development. Projects facedend less delays while Iranian government departmentsbickered among themselves. The need for an investmentprogram was simply not recognized. In 1963, long beforethe financial ava lanche created by the oil price boom, thecountry’s economic situation was already getting out ofcontrol. 31By 1963 American-trained Iranian economists andplanners were being fired or ignored; consequently,American advice had little effect on the shah’s regime.American diplomats in Tehran were also aware of America’sincreasing unpopularity among young Iranians—earnedthrough a sort of guilt by asso ciation. Students in theuniversities, which were rapidly ex panding, were especiallyfrustrated by poor living conditions, overcrowding, andindefinite prospects for future employ ment. The mostpopular teachers, like Mehdi Bazargan in the School ofEngineering, were opponents of the government. WhilePresident Kennedy was personally respected, the UnitedStates was seen as the main prop of the shah.A 1963 West German poll showed that 33 percent of youngIranians asked saw America as “aggressive” (comparedwith only 19 percent who so labeled the USSR); 85 percentbe lieved that American aid worked “to make the richricher”; only 8 percent thought American aid “improves thestandard of living of the many.” Fully 50 percent thoughtthe United States “is too much on the side of having thingsremain as they are.” 32The Iranian government’s mishandling of the immunitybill further damaged the American image in Iran. Even thepro-shah New Iran Party split on the vote in the Majlis,with oppo nents calling those who had supported the bill“traitors.” The shah was insensitive to this dissent, callingthe close vote the result of a subversive plot. The more

114PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSlikely cause was the government’s failure to explain theroutine legislation’s real pur pose. Meanwhile, Khomeini’svitriol spread like wildfire through the bazaars, andbootlegged tapes of his latest speeches enjoyed largeaudiences. His exile lent him the aura of martyrdom andlikely contributed to the elevation of his status among theclergy. Most significant, the embassy re ported that theclergy was reaching out to make alliances with nationalistpoliticians.Originally, government officials had assured theAmericans that there would be no problem with theimmunity bill. After it ran into trouble, however, theyargued that the United States, with its wide intelligencesystem, should have pre dicted the results that did follow.Consequently, according to Iranians, the Americans wereat fault for accepting Iranian evaluations and pledges. Suchbelief in American omnipo tence boded ill for the future.So much depended on the shah’s ability to lead, yetAmeri can leaders had had ample experience of what a tenderreed this could be. Lean, handsome, and only beginning toap proach middle age, the shah had undergone one of themost remarkable on-the-job training programs in history.Skiing trips to Switzerland contributed to his robust healthand with his dark, soulful eyes and determined expression,it was un derstandable that the shah was seen by foreignadmirers as the embodiment of the Iranian nation.In many ways, though, he remained the painfully shy andinarticulate young man who had first mounted the throne,British and Russian bayonets at his back. His speeches werestilted and uninspiring. Despite strenuous attempts of sycophantsto build a cult of personality around him, the shahlacked the charisma of a Nasser or a Mossadegh—he was aruler, not a leader. By surrounding himself with yes-men,the shah had also winnowed out any political figure whomight teach him unpleasant truths. Playing off bureaucratsand de partments in an atmosphere of suspicion and fear,the shah could not hope to produce a respected or efficientgovern ment.For the shah, nationalism was the road to Iran’s renewed

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 115greatness, stirred to life by military might and imperialsplen dor. He was no unyielding reactionary: in the areasof eco nomic development and modernization his mottoseemed to be, The sooner, the better. As early as 1965 he waspromising that within twenty years the Iranian standard ofliving would be the highest in the world. His dreams andambitions for his people were on the grandest of scales.Yet unlike the new-style dictators springing up all overthe Third World, he was unable to cultivate even the illusionof mass participation. Nor was he able to fully utilize themodern techniques of a single-party state to create anideological con formity. He tried to build skyscrapers ofmodernism while devoting little time or planning to thepolitical foundations they required. His impatient attentionsseemed always to re turn too quickly to military affairs andforeign policy.Given these limitations, the chances that the shah wouldbecome a great domestic reformer and a constitutional monarchwere slim; but the chances that if only he would holdonto power at home he might become a dominant regionalfig ure on a strategic-military level were correspondinglygreat. Kennedy’s assassination in November, 1963 and hisreplace ment by Lyndon Johnson, who was preoccupied bythe Viet nam War and by the problems of his own “GreatSociety” program at home, marked an end to Americanpressure on the shah for reform. In the mid-1960s thisresulted in a return to the traditional United States policyof limiting arms aid. By the end of Johnson’s term, however,the shah was to be ac cepted on his own terms: Iran wouldtry to become the great Power of the Persian Gulf.At first, the shah was bitter about Washington’s continuedreluctance to increase aid: “Is it because we have been successfulin creating a country that is developing and hasbegun a social revolution that we are no longer important?”Sarcas tically he asked, “Why do the Americans think I ammaking trouble … when I have done the things they saidthey Wanted?” In other words, having fulfilled his end ofthe bargain in instituting domestic reform, he expectedthat the United States would provide him the arms he

116PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSwanted without further ado. 33There definitely had been strings attached to the 1964United States-Iran Military Sales Agreement. This fouryearplan provided for up to $50 million a year (increasedto $100 million after two years) for weaponry, beginningwith M-60 tanks. But these sales would be approved onlyafter an annual review of Iran’s economic development andsocial programs. Washington wanted to check closely intowhether military purchases would interfere with economicand social progress. Tehran did not like this approach; itwas deemed unwar ranted interference in internal affairs.The shah was also unhappy over other aspects ofAmerica’s Middle East policy. When the United Statesrecognized the pro-Nasser government in North Yemen’scivil war, the shah sided with the royalist opposition, anironic twist since Nasser was at that time blasting Iran asan “American colony.”In reality, there were many significant political differencesbetween Washington and Tehran: America’s focus was onSo viet activities; the shah was more concerned about Iraqiand Egyptian ambitions. When Johnson cut off militaryaid and spare parts to Pakistan, an old ally, in its 1965 warwith India, the shah bitterly commented, “Now we knowthat the United States would not come to aid us if we areattacked.” 34 Circum venting American regulations, the shahbought several dozen United States-built F-86s and spareparts from Canada and sent them to Pakistan. Washingtondid not protest.When the shah met President Johnson in July, 1964 theirmain topic was Nasser. The shah’s traditional distrust of theArabs was combined with his knowledge that Nasser hadoverthrown the Egyptian monarchy and had been friendlywith Mossadegh. Cairo’s 1960 break with Iran, ostensiblyover Tehran’s continued diplomatic relations with Israel,was taken as a personal insult by the shah. Nor could theArab threats to Khuzistan, whose oil provided 75 percentof Iran’s export earnings, and to the Persian Gulf, throughwhich the petro leum was shipped, be taken lightly.Conscious of Iran’s own Kurdish problem, which might

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 117be exploited by the Arabs, the shah began to aid Iraqi Kurdsagainst the Baghdad regime, and when Egyptian troopsarrived in Iraq for maneuvers, the shah suggested to theUnited States and other allies that something must be doneto stop Nasser before he took over Iraq and the Gulf. Theshah also com plained that United States food aid to Egypthelped finance Nasser’s ambitions, that Iran’s defenseswere inadequate, and that he needed United States aid tostrengthen his forces in Khuzistan, which Arab leadershad started to call Arabistan. Washington recognized thevalidity of some of these com plaints—e.g., Egyptian-backedIranian Arabs had begun sub version and sabotage operationsagainst the Khuzistan oil pipe lines—but its response didnot satisfy Tehran. The shah decided he would have to acton his own; his resentment of Washington’s position wasintensified in 1965 by American attempts to discourage himfrom building up his Gulf fleet.On the domestic scene, the ongoing White Revolution andthe co-optation or suppression of internal opposition made theshah more self-confident than he had ever been. The economicsituation at home steadily improved. Sources of foreign aidwere diversified by the shah’s successful visit to the USSR inJune, 1965. The shah and the controlled Iranian press wereoutspokenly critical of some American policies, particularlyWashington’s attempts to limit Iranian arms purchases. If necessary,the shah warned, Iran would seek new markets for itsoil and new sources for its arms. Unless the United States soldhim the modern F-4D fighter plane, he told American negotiators,he might turn to Moscow for equivalent equipment. Suchleverage was one factor in his success in obtaining the aircraft.The shah also sought to block any official American con tactswith his opponents. Ambassador Armin Meyer recalls thatshortly after his arrival in Tehran in 1965 he encounteredawoman on one social occasion who had the same name asa former prime minister. Learning that she was a relative,Meyer Mentioned that he would like to meet this politiciansome day. But the former prime minister was not in the shah’sgood graces, and a few days later the Iranian ambassador inWashington called on the undersecretary of state to protest

118PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSMeyer’s behavior. Meyer told the State Department, whichpromised to support him on the matter, that the conversationwas only tea-party small talk.When Meyer next met with the shah, reference was made tothis affair. Meyer explained the facts and suggested the importanceof keeping in touch with the opposition. The shah wasnot persuaded. In Iran’s culture, the monarch said, oppositionelements assess amicable treatment as a sign of weakness. 35The shah’s new independence was predicated on thechang ing realities in the international petroleum market.America was becoming more and more dependent onoil imports, par ticularly from the Middle East, and oilexportingstates were becoming more conscious of theirability to increase their fi nancial share from that trade. TheMiddle East war of June,1967 led to a world oil scare, with some talk of an Arab oilembargo against Israel’s friends. The shah felt he should berewarded for his continued, reliable supply of oil to the West.In 1966 he had successfully pressured the oil consortiuminto increasing production rates in Iran—and hence his government’srevenues. He demanded another increase in early1968 and, when the oil companies balked, afraid of creating aglutted oil market, the State Department entered the picture,The corporations were asked to go along with the shah and tocompensate for increased Iranian output by holding downthe production of Iran’s Arab competitors. The basis of therequest was national security. Undersecretary of State EugeneRostow urged them “not to antagonize the shah” lest he joinsome future oil shutoff against the United States. This stepwas also needed, Rostow told the complaining company executives, to counter the USSR’s gains in influence in Iran. 36This placed the oil companies in a difficult position. Asfar as the major corporations were concerned, too much oilwas already being produced. The shah was determined,however, to obtain the revenues he needed for his FourthDevelopment plan. If the consortium production would notgenerate the required revenues, he warned, he would seizethe oil fields. Although continuing to argue over productionlevels, the consortium came up with more money. This was

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 119one of the first steps contributing to the revolution in thepricing and control of oil that was to culminate in 1973.Meanwhile, increases in Iran’s exports, in its Gross NationalProduct, and in its industrial production led to the conclusionthat Iran had reached the developmental “take-off”point. American aid was virtually terminated at the end of1967, after having supplied Iran with nearly $1 billion duringthe preceding fourteen years. While the United States aidprogram in Iran had once been regarded as one of the “moreinefficient and corrupted of American overseas aid efforts,”concluded The New York Times, Washington now pointed toIran as “one of their more notable success stories.” 37These accomplishments and the shah’s new Sovietconnec tion encouraged greater American arms sales toIran. Already the shah’s army was equipped with M-l rifles,106-mm ar tillery, M-47 tanks, 3.5-mm antitank rocketlaunchers, F-86 fighters, and C-47 transport planes. Thiswas still not enough, though, in view of the shah’s attemptsto keep up with Iraq and Egypt. He wanted more and betterequipment: a compre hensive radar system to watch out forSoviet attacks, a ground-to-air missile network to protecthis Gulf coast, super sonic aircraft, and even long-rangesurface-to-surface missiles to deter his Arab enemies.The State Department justified the sale of F-4D fighterplanes on the grounds that the USSR had long since sentad vanced fighters and bombers to Iraq and Egypt. “We’vebeen painfully careful in this area not to get out in frontwith our arms sales,” Rostow wrote President Johnson inNovember, 1966. “But the Communist nations have put insome $2.3 bil lion in arms, and there comes a time when wecan’t refuse to sell the legitimate means of defense.” SinceMoscow had pro vided its allies with Mig-21s, Rostow wroteSenator William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate ForeignRelations Commit tee, America had to decide “whether weshould leave our friends without the means they feel theyneed to defend them selves or attempt through modestsales to help them achieve at least minimum defensecapability.” 38Fulbright was not convinced. “I believe we are doing a

120PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSgreat disservice to Iran by selling them these arms,” he tolda con gressional hearing. 39 Given Iran’s poverty, it shouldhave other priorities.A number of Defense Department analysts agreedwith Ful-bright’s viewpoint. Every year the department’sInternational Security Agency (ISA) was responsible forrequesting a “threat assessment” from the Joint Chiefsof Staff in order to justify arms sales abroad. After 1966ISA argued that Soviet-Iranian relations had improved tothe point that there was no immediate threat along theirmutual border. Their bilateral trade and their natural gasdeals, plus the fact that relatively second-rate Soviet unitsfaced the border were cited as factors in this conclusion.Actually, ISA officials felt that the Iranians were spendingtoo much money on arms, a position that this agency wouldtake repeatedly until the shah’s fall. The State Departmentconsistently disagreed. Year after year, until the Nixon administrationended the debate in 1969, the White Housesup ported the State Department position.There were numerous signs of the shah’s new strategicori entation. In March, 1965 he decided to focus militaryplan ning on the Gulf, and the following February heordered for mation of a new Third Corps, includingparatroop units, to be based at Shiraz. In February, 1967,more Iranian army units and bases were shifted from theRussian border in the north to the Persian Gulf. As Nasser’sinfluence reached its full height the shah’s nervousness roseto corresponding levels. Nasser had installed a congenialregime in North Yemen while Nas-serist rebels in theBritish colony of South Yemen seemed near victory. Syriahad its most radical government ever, call ing for guerrillawars of liberation throughout the Middle East. Iraq wasfriendly toward Egypt and unfriendly toward Iran. TheRussians were supplying all three of the large Arab stateswith modern equipment. There were few friendly faces forIran or for the United States in the presidential palaces ofthe Middle East.Then a dramatic event signaled a turning point in theshah’s victory over the vestiges of the Kennedy policy of arms

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 121restraint. During May, 1967 Nasser moved his troops into theeastern Sinai, openly threatening war with Israel and theclos ing of the Gulf of Aqaba. Even King Hussein of Jordanjoined the Egypt-Syria alliance. Upon the demand of Nasser,the, United Nations meekly removed its peacekeeping forcefrom the Egypt-Israel border. The world held its breath.Suddenly, Israel replied to its neighbors’ pressure with sixthunderous days of battle. Israeli troops drove through theSinai up to the Suez Canal, destroying the Egyptian air forceand army wherever it found them. Jordan was swept out ofthe West Bank and Syrian forces were knocked out of theirstrategic positions on the towering Golan Heights. The powerbalance was decisively shaken. New attitudes were bornabout the political value of a strong military to small nations.The shah’s prophecies about the region’s instabilityseemed fulfilled, but the pattern of events also indicatednew opportu nities for American policy in the Middle East.In November, the shah was promised two full squadronsof new Phantom F-4’s and more equipment on an easycreditloan plan. Methods were developed to circumventcongressional con trols. For example, the DefenseDepartment used a revolving fund to finance purchasesthrough the Export-Import Bank. The 1968 Foreign MilitarySales Act and later amendments were designed to preventsuch measures, but the executive branch found new waysaround the legislature. Objections to the arms buildupby the Agency for International Develop ment, which ranUnited States foreign-aid programs, were also ignored.There were still a few voices that warned of the dangerin abandoning or even lessening the Kennedy-era pressuresfor internal reform. Even though the shah seemed to beclearly in the saddle for the foreseeable future, and indeedhad created an Unchallengeable domestic position, he wasnot without his critics at home either. “The Shah’s regimeis regarded as an unpopular dictatorship not only by itsopponents, but far Uiore significantly, by its proponentsas well,” wrote Ameri can Embassy political counselorMartin Herz in 1964. Even high-ranking members of theshah’s regime were unwilling to defend the government’s

122PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSrepression.“There is real danger that if a revolutionary change wereto occur, the pent-up grievances … are more likely to explodeinto demagoguery, extremism, revenge-seeking and asearch for new enemies,” Herz continued. Foremost of theseenemies would undoubtedly be the United States, whichwas widely seen as the shah’s main backer. The shah wasalready con vinced that it was a mistake to yield to foreignadvice by “giv ing even a little leeway to the opposition.”Perhaps he was right, Herz admitted: “The shah is riding atiger from which he cannot safely dismount.” 40Yet, this prophetic view was also a minority one. AssistantSecretary of State Lucius Battle expressed the dominantanaly sis when he told a congressional hearing: “The successthe Shah has achieved has been phenomenal and has arousedthe envy of others who would prefer to see what the Shahcalls his ‘White Revolution’ change color. Our economicassistance, now shifting from grant to credit sales, hasassisted Iran in maintaining the security and stability whichwere prerequi sites for economic and social development.” 41These years, then, helped establish an American image ofIran on three points. First, social and economic changes wereneeded in Iran; the faster they were carried out, the betterWashington liked it. The shah was not likely to be criticizedfor moving too quickly since American policymakers wereconditioned to equate a rapid pace with success.Second, while lip service continued to be given tothe broad nature of dissatisfaction among Iran’s urbanpopulation, the non-Communist opposition was seen asprimarily reactionary, perceived by Americans as beingmotivated solely by Islamic fundamentalism. Journalistsand policymakers believed that as modernization continuedthese forces would lose their power to move the Iranianpeople. Thus liberal criticism of the shah in the UnitedStates was undercut by this identification of his enemies asreactionaries.Finally, the shah seemed firmly in control at home.Increas ingly, the main threat to Iran was perceived asforeign in nature and the shah’s ability to become a major

AN ALLIANCE IS MADE 1954-1968 123actor on the in ternational scene began to be accepted asreality. In the uncertain world of Middle East politics inthe latter 1960s, Iran appeared as an island of stability in aregion filled with turmoil.These misperceptions, it should be repeated, wereaccepted far more fully within the American press than theywere in the United States government by 1968. However,developments during the next few years would intensifythem on both fronts.As for Iran, American participation in the events of 1953in no way made the shah a United States puppet. Washingtonand Tehran held two different views of Iran’s internal andin ternational needs, which, though often running parallel,just as often put the two capitals in conflict. A study of aseries of United States-Iranian conflicts before and after1953 con cluded that Iran won the disputes in only four outof fifteen cases in the earlier period, compared to five out ofseven (a 71 percent success rate) during the later era. 42 After1968, stra tegic requirements would move Washington’sobjectives for Iran and its neighborhood closer and closer tothose of the shah.

5An Imperial Dream1969-74When President Richard Nixon and National SecurityAdvisor (later Secretary of State) Henry Kissinger took officein 1969 they inaugurated a turning point in United Statespolicy to ward Iran. From its traditional peripheral position,Iran emerged as the key pillar of support for Americaninterests in an increasingly important part of the world. Thischange did not represent, however, a victory for Americanover Iranian concerns; rather it marked the triumph of theshah’s own long-held view of a proper role for himself overtwenty years of State Department reservations.When the shift came it was in response to strategic, political,and economic developments in the Persian Gulf. WithinIran’s neighborhood was developed the world’s greatestcon centration of petroleum production. Great Britain, thecolonial power controlling much of the Gulf’s Arab shore,seemed un willing to defend it and the United States wasunable to do so. The shah nominated himself for the role.Washington also came to accept the shah’s assessmentthat the principal threat to regional stability was no longerthe USSR but local radical forces against whom Iran’s army

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 125might be the logical defender. Iran, formerly a mere tripwirefor triggering American retaliation against Sovietaggression, could become an actual bulwark against theSoviet surrogates in the area. The shah was eager to assumeresponsibility for this task; his mounting oil wealth enabledhim to do so.Although Iran’s transformation into a regionally dominantpower was made possible by the 1969 Nixon Doctrine andby certain May, 1972 Nixon promises to supply the shah thenec essary weapons and technical aid, the beginnings of theshift in roles went back to the Johnson administration. In1966 the State Department was warning that Iran’s budgetdeficits came from excessive expenditures on militaryhardware. The shah, said one report, “is blaming us for highprices, even though it is not our idea that he should have allthe most expensive equipment.” Raymond Hare, assistantsecretary of state for Near East and South Asian affairs,argued later that year that Iran’s weapons purchases werebehind the shah’s demands for higher petroleum prices. 1But American officials began to change their view of Iran’smilitary demands as soon as they heard of Britain’s plansto withdraw its military forces and political authority fromthe Gulf. They judged that independence for Kuwait, Oman,Bahrein, Qatar, and the other sheikdoms would produceun stable regimes, a conclusion shared by the shah. RadicalIraq, Nasser’s Egypt, and Soviet-backed local Marxists, theyfeared, would rush in to fill the Gulf’s power vacuum.The United States, heavily committed to an increasinglycostly and unpopular Vietnam War, could not take upthis new burden; nor did it seem likely that the Americanpeople would accept such a task even after the war ended.There was also a recognition of the fact that sensitive Arabnationalists would surely resent the replacement of Britainwith another Western power, particularly one so closelyallied with Israel. A strong United States military presencewould also suggest a renewal of past European colonialism.Given the limited number of options, few officials couldargue that Iranian military forces might not best fill the gap.When some State Department Arab affairs specialists pointed

126PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSto traditional Arab mistrust of Iran—an attitude symbolizedby the use among Arabs of the name Arab Gulf rather than PersianGulf—this potential problem was partially solved by thedesignation of a “two-pillar” policy; Saudi Arabia as well asIran would be responsible for maintaining regional security.But considering that country’s relative backwardness, theSaudi role could not have been expected to be more thansym bolic. Any real strength would have to come from Iran.Undersecretary of State Eugene Rostow also had doubtsand proposed an alternative plan. In January, 1968 Rostowpub licly suggested that a broader security grouping,including Turkey, Pakistan, and Kuwait, as well as Iran andSaudi Ara bia, fill the power vacuum. Predictably, Iraq, Egypt,and Syria attacked this scheme as a danger to Arabism and asa revival of the old Baghdad Pact. When Turkey, Pakistan, andKuwait expressed reluctance to embark on any such effort itleft de pendence on Iran the only considered possibility.The stakes were high. About 75 percent of the non-Communistworld’s oil reserves, 66 percent of global reserves,and 33 percent of current petroleum production werelocated in the countries bordering the Persian Gulf. Thesecountries pro vided half of Western Europe’s and almost allof Japan’s requirements. Every thirteen minutes a tankerpassed through the narrow Straits of Hormuz, a chokepointthat a small naval or terrorist force might easily block.Shere was no measure of subservience to Washington impliedin the shah’s eagerness to become the Gulf’s guardian.That body of water was Iran’s main trade and oil-export lifeline.Any hostile fleet in the Gulf or at the Straits of Hormuzmight threaten his country’s long, exposed coastline. Therefore,the shah wanted both superpowers to stay away,leaving security to the local states. He even opposed thepresence of a small United States base in Bahrein, lest it beoffered as a pre cedent for Soviet counterparts elsewhere inthe Gulf.In fact, the shah’s intention was to use American arms inorder to free himself as much as possible from any dependenceon American protection. “What would happen ifIraq were to attack us tomorrow?” he asked in a June, 1969

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 127newspaper interview. Recalling the 1965 India-Pakistan war,he continued: “When Pakistan was forced to call a cease-fireline well inside Pakistan’s territory only a few miles fromLahore, what did CENTO do? What did the United States,with whom Pakistan had a bilateral treaty, do? We cannotrely on others for our defense; that is why we are buildingup our forces.”2 Another threat, he noted a few months later,“comes from weak governments, weak countries, corruptcountries, where the element of subversion will have freeground for their ac tivities.” “Internal struggles and strife”within the “medieval” systems on the Arab side of the Gulfwould also endanger the area’s peace. 3 Iran’s duty as theregion’s principal power would be to defeat any foreignattack on it or on others and to help fellow conservativeregimes against domestic revolu tions.Both tasks necessitated cooperation between Iran and itsArab neighbors and the shah made sincere efforts in this direction.He dropped Iran’s long-standing claim to Bahreinand visited Saudi Arabia in November, 1968. In 1970 Iranrenewed relations with Cairo, chastened by its disastrousdefeat at Israel’s hands, and improved its ties to Pakistan,India, and Afghanistan. The shah also successfully courtedthe People’s Republic of China, which likewise feared Sovietencirclement. Iran settled other territorial disputes withSaudi Arabia, in cluding the prickly question of offshoreboundaries. The shah entertained Arab rulers on huntingtrips and invited them to tour Iran. He gave economicassistance to some of the poorer sheikdoms. For their partArab oil producers worked closely with Iran in commonefforts to raise petroleum prices.Yet the success or failure of these attempts at accommodationwere never allowed to alter the shah’s ambitions. “Iranis prepared to cooperate with any and all littoral states,” thegovernment’s 1969-70 official yearbook announced, “but ifthey are unwilling, Iran is equally prepared to act on itsown.” 4The greatest friction continued to be with Iraq. In April,1969 the Baghdad government suddenly claimed the entireShatt al-Arab River, which formed the Iran-Iraq border, as an

128PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSintegral part of its territory. Unless Iran recognized this seizure,Iraq warned, it would bar Iranian ships by force. WhenIran denounced the now-violated thirty-year-old bilateraltreaty providing for joint administration of the river, Iraq respondedby expelling tens of thousands of Iranian nationals.For a time the two countries were in a virtual state of war.Two months later, the “Nixon Doctrine” was issued onGuam. Intended to signal a new American policy towardSoutheast Asia, this declaration also provided the basisfor the two-pillar strategy in the Gulf. Disillusioned bythe problems of direct military involvement in Vietnam,the United States was shifting to an indirect projection ofpower through speci fied Third World allies. America wouldcontinue to supply a shield against direct Soviet aggression;in any other contin gency a threatened nation would haveto provide for its own armed defense, using United Statesmilitary and economic aid where required. The UnitedStates would become the arsenal rather than the policemanof the non-Communist world.This was precisely the relationship preferred by the shah;but if Iran were to do its part in the Gulf, he argued, it wouldneed a vast amount of weaponry. Washington agreed. From1950 to 1970 Iran had received $1.8 billion in United Statesmilitary-grant aid. In the following six years, Americanarms sales totaled $12.1 billion, of which 80 percent was forequip ment. By comparison, 80 percent of the dollar value ofUnited States sales to Saudi Arabia during the same periodwent for construction and support services. 5The shah, of course, had been preoccupied with obtainingmilitary equipment since the late 1940s. He regularly readthe armaments trade magazines and “knew more about newweaponry developments than most of our people who wentthere to talk to him,” as one Defense Department officiallater commented. He concentrated all important decisions inhis own hands, including the planning of future purchases,and his attention was focused more and more on militaryissues than on economic or social domestic problems.Since the shah wanted to maximize Iran’s military buying,officials in his government and armed forces, many of whom

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 129were soliciting bribes from arms companies, had no incentiveto reject any opportunities to obtain additional planes, tanks,and ships. The corporations they were dealing with also hadan interest in selling the maximum possible amount of equipment.Consequently, a great deal of Iran’s money was wasted.Military expenditures outstripped Iran’s skilled labor pooland eventually even outran petroleum revenues.The arms-transfer program became a remarkable mess.Radar and other materiel costing hundreds of millions ofdol lars were ordered prematurely and had to be storedor left unused. Top Iranian officers, including the navycommander and the admiral charged with negotiationsfor the massive Chah Bahar harbor-drydock complex, werejailed for em bezzling millions of dollars. The CIA and theUnited States Air Force fought for control of Iran’s electricalintelligence system; the air force and navy competed on thesale of fighter planes.The Iranian military had no cohesive system for requisitioningneeded parts. Harbors were clogged with deliveryships. Training pilots barely had time to master one aircraftbefore being forced to start over again on the arrival of thenext, more advanced system. This chaos was not necessarilyinnate in the two-pillar policy. Rather, it resulted from theshah’s having gained the upper hand in the United States-Iranian relationship, a transformation that would later becom pleted by President Nixon’s May, 1972 promise to allowhim to buy from Americans anything he wanted short ofnuclear weapons.Nixon was an old friend of the shah from the Eisenhoweradministration days, their acquaintance and mutual confidencerenewed by the American’s 1968 pre-election visit toTehran and by the shah’s October, 1969 trip to Washington.Between these two visits, a March, 1969 Defense Departmentmemorandum once again raised reservations about armssales—particularly because of the possible security compromiseof new technology and the danger of placing so muchre liance on one man—but a State Department policy review,or dered by Kissinger, disagreed.Under the direction of Assistant Secretary of State for Near

130PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSEast and South Asian Affairs Joseph Sisco, the State Departmentonce again triumphed over the Defense Department.In deed even the annual review of the arms program wasphased out. While defense secretaries continued to worry,none would dare challenge Kissinger, who had the ear ofboth Nixon and his successor, Gerald Ford. Kissinger’s laterap pointment as secretary of state in September, 1973 wouldfur ther solidify the pro-shah lobby within the government.Kissinger’s conception was that the shah should “fill thevacuum left by British withdrawal, now menaced by Sovietintrusion and radical momentum.” Best of all, “this wasachievable without any American resources since the shahwas willing to pay for the equipment out of his oil revenues.”6 There was, however, one catch: the more equipmentIran ordered, the more oil revenue was required to pay forit.Iran had enjoyed some success in the 1960s in pressuringoil companies for production increases. A second moneyraising possibility, proposed by the shah on his 1969 visit,was to barter oil for arms. The United States would buymore oil than it really needed at prevailing prices and usethe surplus to build a strategic reserve. President Nixonrejected this sugges tion; in later years, as petroleum costsclimbed, more than one high official would look back withregret on this as a missed opportunity.Tehran’s remaining option was to raise the price of oil. Inturn, it became an unspoken American policy to use armssales to help balance the United States’ rising oil-importbill. Some observers believed the result was an inflationaryleap frogging in which petroleum prices and arms pricespushed each other ever upwards.Of course, military expenses made up only one factor inthe shah’s decision to maximize oil prices. Nevertheless, there sults were dramatic. Iran produced 1.7 million barrelsa-day(b/d) and received $482 million in 1964. By 1973, 5.9million b/d earned $4.4 billion. After OPEC’s price increasestook full effect in 1974, 6 million b/d, virtually the same asthe preced ing year, returned $21.4 billion. The shah couldafford to buy almost anything—or so it seemed at the time.

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 131Iran’s dependence on oil also had its negative side. Theshah was well aware that unless new reserves were found itwould be impossible to maintain such levels of productionin the 1980s. The temporary decline of the petroleummarket in 1976-77, because of the West’s business slowdown,fueled an Iranian recession. At the same time, the shah’sconcern over his one-product economy—oil provided over80 percent of foreign exchange—pushed him into a crashindustrialization program whose problems paralleled thoseof his military-modernization drive.Up to 1969, the oil companies had been strong enoughto hold production and prices in line; in response, Iranand other oil-producing states formed the Organization ofPetroleum-Ex porting Countries (OPEC). Although the shahwas not the’ most extreme price-hawk, he was no moresubservient to the United States on oil matters than onstrategic and political is sues. “I cannot, build the future ofmy country on promises,” he said in May, 1969. “I say this isour oil—pump it. If not, we pump it ourselves.” 7In December, 1970 Iran sponsored an OPEC proposalthreat ening a halt in production unless the share of thehost coun tries was increased. The private companies,shaken by the challenge, asked former Secretary of StateWilliam Rogers to send Undersecretary of State John Irwinto Tehran with a warning: the shah’s relations with theUnited States would be damaged if oil deliveries were cutoff. But Irwin, accepting the shah’s assurance that OPEC’squarrel was only with the companies, endorsed the shah’sproposal that separate Persian Gulf price agreementswould insulate the area from increases by Mediterraneanproducers.This led to the February, 1971 Tehran Agreement, in whichthe companies granted large price increases to producingcountries in exchange for their promise to keep the pricesstable. Six months later, however, OPEC countries returnedwith more demands. Libya and Iraq nationalized most oftheir oil production in 1972 and Iran took over its consortiumthe following year. These events laid the basis for OPEC’stripling of prices at the end of 1973, breaking forever the

132PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSmarket power of the “Seven Sisters” oil companies. * Duringthis whole era, the United States government put a higherpriority on good relations with Iran than on attempts tostop or delay this process.Meanwhile, Iran still was able to maintain a generallyfavor able image in the United States. The American pressaccepted the two-pillar strategy, celebrated the shah’s WhiteRevolu tion, and praised Iran’s economic progress. Writingin 1970, The New York Times correspondent in Tehran founda new feeling of hope and pride as well as “new officebuildings, supermarkets, freeways, and modern factories.”The White Revolution was seen as “a sweeping programof reforms aimed at turning a primitive, peasant societyinto an indus trialized nation.” True, there was “no realdemocracy in Iran. The press is controlled, criticism of theShah is forbidden and his power is absolute. Yet his personalpopularity has soared with the White Revolution.” A laterarticle claimed that growth and stability seemed enough formany Iranians, even without any democracy. 8Military progress was also impressive. The InternationalIn stitute for Strategic Studies in London commented that theIranian air force was “more than a match for the combinedArab air forces in the Gulf area,” that the navy was far superiorto any potential Arab rivals, and that Iran enjoyed aclear military advantage over Iraq. “Already Iran’s militarypower is being taken into account” in world affairs, exultedthe shah. 9Britain’s withdrawal from the region prompted the shahto accelerate his buildup. He announced that Iran’s navywould be greatly expanded in order to patrol the IndianOcean as well as the Persian Gulf. Iranian troops were sent* During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Arab oil producers attempted touse their petroleum as a political weapon against the United Statesand several smaller Western friends of Israel. The embargo of October,1973-March, 1974 in volved both production cutbacks and a refusal tosell oil to specific consum ing states. Ironically, some of the most radicalArab states—Iraq and Algeria, for example—took advantage of thesituation to sell larger amounts under the table. But Iran did not participatein the embargo at all, and its output in creased, helping supply itsown allies, including the United States.

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 133to fight a Marxist insurgency in Oman. A lavish celebrationat Persepolis in March, 1971 of the twenty-five hundredthanniver sary of the original Iranian empire was intendedto mark con temporary Iran’s graduation into the ranks ofthe Great powers. Yet the shah’s wasteful expenditures onimported food, crockery, and luxuries for the pageant—ina country where annual per-capita income still was only$350—brought mixed reviews.In an analysis of Iran’s prospects that month, Washingtonpost correspondent Jonathan Randal found the small terroristopposition groups to be of little threat. More serious was thewidespread corruption, including “voluntary silent businesspartnerships and other means of creaming off unearned incomeprevalent in the royal circle and among their closefriends.” Although Iran was one of the few underdevelopedcountries “whose problems are the consequences of its ownsuccess,” the shah’s full-speed-ahead program straineda vul nerable economy; future difficulties “may lie less inpolitics than economics.” 10The first act of Iran’s new imperial era was the seizure ofthree strategic islands that guarded the Hormuz Straits—Abu Musa, and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs—all threepreviously the property of Arab sheikdoms. This step wasimplemented with British, and possibly with American,consent. On one island, Arab police resisted the Iraniantroops; there were ca sualties on both sides.After the takeover, Iran offered compensation to theformer owners, but the sheik of Sharjah, who accepted,was later as sassinated in reprisal by local opponents. Libyaused the Iran ian occupation as an excuse for expropriatingBritish Petro leum; Iraq broke relations with Britain andIran. The overall effect was to strain Arab-Iranian relations.This unmistakable sign of Iran’s intention to police theGulf Was followed by another: a $2 billion order for helicoptergun-ships, F-5E and F-4 fighter planes, and C-130 transportPlanes. This was the biggest single deal concluded to date bythe Pentagon, but the context of events in and around the Gulftoward the end of 1971 and the beginning of 1972 seemed tojustify such measures. This included the completion of Brit-

134PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSain’s withdrawal, the partition of Iran’s neighbor Pakistanafter another losing war against India, the emergence of aMarxist South Yemen, the ominous terrorist attack on an oiltanker in the Red Sea, the South Yemen-backed guerrilla warin Oman’s Dhofar province, the growing Soviet naval activityin the Red Sea, and an Iraqi-Soviet friendship treaty. The shahbegan to add more of everything to his shopping list: ships,helicopters, tanks, hovercraft, late-model Phantoms, and theconstruction of a string of bases along the Gulf.President Nixon reacted with a series of decisionsculminat ing in his May, 1972 visit to Tehran. Therehe promised the shah that detente did not imply anydivision of the world into American and Soviet spheresof influence—the shah well re membered the 1907 Anglo-Russian agreement—and that old friends like Iran wouldnot be neglected. Most important, the president promisedto sell Iran any nonnuclear weapon it wanted in unlimitedquantities. The United States also agreed to the shah’s twoother demands in this connection: America would providetechnicians to train the Iranian military in the use andmaintenance of this equipment, and would join Iran insupporting the Kurdish nationalist insurgency against Iraq.Earlier, there had been a number of Defense Departmentob jections to any open-ended commitment. The Pentagonhad advised against selling laser-guided bombs to Iran andop posed any firm offer to sell the F-14 or F-15 because theywere still in early stages of development. By the time theycould be delivered, they argued, it might no longer be in theAmerican interest to supply them to Iran. Defense SecretaryMelvin Laird had been reluctant to send technical assistanceteams. Questions were also raised about security; advancedweaponry secrets might leak from Iran to the Soviet Union.But Nixon’s choice foreclosed such concerns. Policy wasnow a matter for implementation, not debate; the DefenseDe partment review process was to be a rubber stamp. Evenif Iran bought the wrong equipment or items it would neveruse, there was now no incentive for American officials tooppose such sales. No one had considered the possibleconflict be tween the goal of keeping the shah happy so that

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 135he would remain a firm American ally and that of objectivelystrength ening Iran’s military forces and political stability.Everyone in the bureaucracies—the State Department,the CIA, the Defense Department, and the United Statesmilitary— jcnew that news contradicting the White Houseline would not be welcome. Under such circumstancesreports would be re turned for rewriting and the individual’scareer might be unfa vorably affected. Internal governmentanalysis over Iran be came an exercise in the mobilization ofwishful thinking.In Tehran, “it was a salesman’s dream for a while,” saidGeneral Ellis Williamson, chief of the United States MilitaryAssistance Advisory Group (MAAG) there from 1971to 1973. About thirty-five corporate visitors a week droppedin at MAAG headquarters, and this was only a portion ofthe total. General Hassan Toufanian, Iran’s vice-ministerof defense in charge of military procurement, complainedabout this de luge. Other countries trying to sell weaponryto Iran, he told Williamson, had only one producer per item.To obtain a clear deal with reliable prices and delivery dates,Toufanian went on, he met with only that nation’s defenseminister, ambas sador, and the relevant industrialist. But theAmericans rigidly separated government and business—the ambassador and MAAG were ordered to remain neutralamong competing companies and to stay away from attendingcompany presen tations to the Iranians. The shah, Toufanianexplained, pre ferred government-to-government dealings. 11The shah also said he wanted to eliminate Iranian“influ ence peddlers” who engineered deals for Westerncompanies through contacts and bribery of military andgovernment of ficials. These agents, ran the official Iranianposition, were swindling both sides—American companiesbecause their claims of influence were phony and the Iranianpeople be cause these fraudulent fees were unfairly passedon through Price increases. But the companies knew all toowell that the right agent often made the difference betweensuccessful and broken deals, a fact also well understood inthe State Depart ment.Even the best-intentioned Iranian government officials

136PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSob- viously had difficulty judging the claims of competingcomp a. nies on the benefits of different weapons systems.Both Ameri-can salesmen and Iranian bureaucrats oftenunderestimated the extent of maintenance problems andthe cost of training Iranians to keep up a given type ofequipment. Price increases and the problems of meetingpromised delivery dates caused additional confusion.This led to significant tension. Iranians felt cheated whenthey could not operate the advanced technology ordered, butwere insulted by any American suggestions that they shouldgo slower. By the time of the 1978-79 revolution this resentmenthad helped produce the widespread Iranian convictionthat the Americans had defrauded them. Ayatollah Khomeiniand others maintained that the Americans had grabbed Iran’soil money and left them in exchange useless American hardware,or, at the very least, material designed to serve UnitedStates purposes rather than Iranian interests.The United States decision to send as many advisorsas nec essary also had important ramifications outsideweaponry maintenance. The presence of these Americansstoked tradi tional Iranian xenophobia. Back in 1952,Ambassador Loy Henderson had warned of the need forUnited States military and technical personnel to maintaina low profile: “The more attention that is attracted to theactivities of these American nationals the more susceptiblethe Iranian people in general are likely to be to appeals tothrow the Americans out of the country.” No matter howsincere individual Americans were in their desire to helpIran, Henderson explained, local sensi tivity to foreigninfluence and mistrust of non-Muslims would producemore suspicion than gratitude. 12During the first three years of the Nixon administration,Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and the MA AG hadresisted sending the number of technicians requested bythe shah, in part because of war requirements in Vietnam.The acceleration of the shah’s military-expansion program,however, greatly increased the need for instructors andadvisors. But it was hard for Iran to keep up its owncommitments: villagers barely acquainted with automobiles

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 137were becoming mechanics fo r armored personnel carriers,tanks, and supersonic aircraft. The Iranian air force hadexcellent pilots but few good elec tricians. Ironically, airforce technicians—who had experi enced the greatest ofcultural leaps—furnished a reservoir of revolutionaries inthe military for Ayatollah Khomeini’s forces.By July, 1976 there were 24,000 Americans working in Iran,with their number increasing at a remarkable rate. While theState Department issued soothing statements predicting thisgrowth would level off soon, officials privately commentedthat without more and more American personnel the wholeIranian military would grind to a halt. American advisorsand Iranian counterparts generally worked well together, butthe relatively higher living standards of the Americans andthe false—though emotionally powerful—belief that theywere taking jobs away from Iranians ultimately heightenedanti-American feelings. Reza Barahani, an anti-shah writer,later explained how “I simply had every bad notion of theAmeri cans before” coming to the United States because theonly Americans Iranians ever saw were “working for” theshah. 13This was hardly surprising since most American techniciansand their families lived lives well isolated from Iranians.They bought their goods at PXs, lived in special subsidizedhousing, sent their children to their own schools,and socialized primarily with each other. Bell Helicopteralone had 1,700 employees working on a forty-five acreIsfahan base. Company inducements for them and their6,000 dependents included tripled salaries, promotions,and tax breaks. But their skills were indispensable forIran’s military: Bell heli copters needed eight to ten hours ofmaintenance for every hour of flight. Few of these Americansspoke Farsi and, given their physical and cultural isolation,most had ideas about Iran not much different from thoseheld by fellow Americans back home. Understanding Iran,after all, was not their job. But by the same token their onthe-spotpresence did little to f aise the level of knowledge ofthe American government about the Iranian political scene.The third element in the United States-Iranian agreement

138PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSwas American support for the Kurdish revolt in Iraq. TheKurds, anon-Arab people divided among the rugged borderlands of Iraq, Turkey, and Iran, had striven for decades to gainsome mea sure of autonomy. In these efforts, various Kurdishpolitical groups had sought support from widely divergentsources. They alternately cooperated with and foughtagainst the Iraqi central government as Iraq’s Kurdishpolicy shifted over time.Since Iraq was attempting to undermine the centralgovern ment in Tehran through support of Iran’s Arabminority, Tehran sought to trouble Baghdad by aiding itstwo million rebellious Kurds. Of course, the Kurds wereseen as mere pawns in the Iranian-Iraqi conflict. TheIranian government never thought that the Kurds mightactually win their war and had little desire for them to doso—their victory would en courage hope for independenceor autonomy among Iran’s own two million Kurds.Both the State Department and the CIA had seriousreserva tions about American participation in this game;Kissinger did not discuss the matter with the NationalSecurity Council staff. The Forty Committee, responsible forruling on covert operations, was not informed until a monthafter operations had begun. Former Treasury SecretaryJohn Connally was sent as messenger to inform the shahof the start of arms deliveries to the Kurds; eventually, theCIA supplied tens of millions of dollars worth of Sovietand Chinese weapons captured in Vietnam and elsewhere.Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani pre sumed that this logisticsupport also meant American political backing for his cause.Kurdish successes on the battlefield were undermined,how ever, by diplomatic developments. In March, 1975Jordan, Egypt, and Algeria finally succeeded in negotiatingan Iraqi-Iranian agreement that settled the border disputeand pledged both sides to stop supporting each other’senemies. The shah abandoned the Kurds to their fate,sealing his border with Iraq, and Washington went alongwith his decision. Cut off from their rear base, the Kurdswere forced to surrender or become refugees.Fulfillment of the shah’s three conditions guaranteed his

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 139willingness to cooperate with America’s new policy, althoughhe needed little incentive to seek military primacy in theregion. Iran was the “most determined and best equippedstate in the Gulf to assert leadership,” Assistant Secretary ofDefense James Noyes declared. The shah himself explainedthat he was buying modern arms to become so self-reliantthat he would never have to pick up the telephone to callPresi dent Nixon.14 The combination seemed perfect.The events of 1973 reinforced the White House’s belief inthe correctness of its strategy. The October, 1973 war betweenIsrael and its Arab neighbors and the dramatic emergence ofthe energy crisis reminded Americans of the Middle East’sfra gility as well as its political and economic importance. Yetthat year’s petroleum revolution also foretold the further concessionsthe United States would have to make to ensure theshah’s continued support of American policy and interests.In January, 1973, on the tenth anniversary of the White Revolution,the shah announced his decision to take control of oilproduction from the consortium, transferring managementto the NIOC. “We may say that the Nationalization Act hasbeen implemented in its fullest sense after a lapse of 23years, thus realizing our long-cherished national objective,”rejoiced Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda. The shahhad suc ceeded in implementing Mossadegh’s failed dream.Worried that this action might further upset the alreadyreeling international petroleum system, the Treasury Departmentproposed a strong White House message asking theshah to rescind his action and to hold down prices. The shahre turned a blistering reply: nobody would tell him what todo. Another United States protest, following steep OPECprice increases later that year, generated a similar response.Both sides well understood that growing Americanvulnera bility over oil had increased the shah’s leverageagainst Wash ington. In 1970 the United States became anet importer of oil; three years later 23 percent of thesetanker-loads originated in countries bordering the Gulf.By 1976, 42 percent of United States consumption camefrom overseas, 38 percent of imports were from the Gulf.American dependence on foreign oil passed 50 percent in

140PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthe winter of 1977. Iran, the world’s second largest petroleumexporter and America’s number three supplier, provided anincreasingly large portion of these needsThe Arab oil embargo, beginning in October, 1973,graphi cally illustrated the political potential of this shift inthe inter national balance of power. Yet the shah’s continuedsupplying of America throughout the crisis, despite Arabpressure on him, seemed to confirm the correctness ofUnited States policy to ward Tehran. The shah found otherways to mend his fences with the Arabs: calling for Israel’swithdrawal from the terri tories occupied in 1967, airliftingmedical supplies to Jordan, providing logistical aid to SaudiArabia, and permitting over flight of Soviet supply planes.At the same time, he backed Kissinger’s peace missionand sought to promote an Arab-Israeli settlement. Iran’scordial relations with Israel had long been a plus in the eyesof Congress; now, like the great world leader he thoughthimself, the shah was trying to build good relations withboth sides in the conflict.But the shah was far less evenhanded in his defense ofOPEC’s actions. The West, he argued, was wasting oil andwas making OPEC the scapegoat for its own problems,and for the “excessive profits” of the oil companies. WhenPresident Gerald Ford called for price reductions, the shahsuggested that industrialized nations might first cut theirown prices for exported goods; perhaps products might beindexed for stabil ity. Yet he also warned that Iran would notbe intimidated: “No one can dictate to us. No one can wavea finger at us, because we will wave a finger back.” 15Earlier, Nixon and Kissinger, who had become secretaryof state in September, 1973, rejected suggestions by TreasurySecretary William Simon and others to use arms sales as leverageagainst Iran’s oil policy. After all, they argued, the shahwas paying for the arms and other suppliers, particularly Europeanones, were eager to grab this business. Besides, thespe cial strategic relationship was too valuable to endanger.Western states simply would have to make up for theirbalance-of-payments deficits by selling more to Iran and otherOPEC members. Military deals took up a large part of the

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 141slack, but consumer goods, food, and industrial equipmentwere also exported in growing quantities. An American tradecenter in Tehran and a United States-Iranian joint economiccommission were organized to facilitate commerce. By 1975,American companies had ventured over $1 billion there.Despite these efforts, the oil shock also stimulated domesticcriticism against Washington’s Iran policy. State Departmentofficials already were beginning to leak concerns over a Gulfarms race or war; the general public was unhappy at Iran’sseeming ingratitude. The shah defended his arms programwith the same vigor with which he supported the quadruplingof oil prices. The October, 1973 Arab-Israeli war provided atimely example of the shah’s concerns: “Wasn’t Israel and therest of the world surprised by the huge amount of weaponsthat were poured on her and which almost crippled her?” heasked. “I’m not taking any chances.” 16Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco concurred withIran’s concern. The shah had plenty to worry about, he explained:a long border with the USSR; Moscow’s tighteningalliances with Syria, Iraq, South Yemen, and Somalia; Iraq’sthreat against Kuwait; South Yemen’s subversion in Dhofar;the Soviet-Indian friendship treaty; and the upswing ofSoviet naval activity in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean. 17Pri vately, the State Department added Iraq’s clandestineanti-shah radio stations and the Baluchi guerrillas inPakistan, as well as Baghdad’s aid to Arab separatists andurban terrorists within Iran.Congressman Lee Hamilton, chairman of the House ofRep resentatives Committee on Foreign Affairs’ MiddleEast sub committee, still thought the United States responsedispropor tionate. “You do not need a sledge hammer tocrack a nut,” he complained. “Since 1965, our sales of armsand services to Iran and Saudi Arabia are roughly six timesestimates of So viet activity in the Persian Gulf area.” Heimplied that the vol ume of sales was being based more onthe desire to soak up petrodollars than on Iran’s reasonableneeds and he was particularly worried about possibleIranian-Saudi friction. 18Sisco disagreed. Arms sales were not knee-jerk reactions

142PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSto the energy crisis or to minor border incidents, but weremeant to allow allies to defend themselves without UnitedStates intervention. “An Iran and Saudi Arabia which notonly are but feel themselves to be secure,” Sisco explained,“are essential prerequisites to a policy based on their rolesof assuming pri mary responsibility for maintenance ofstability in the area.” 10 In the narrow sense Sisco was quitecorrect. The fear of Saudi-Iranian conflict was exaggerated;Saudi Arabia complained about Iran’s growing powerand ambitions from time to time and noted the shah’shawkishness on oil prices, but relations between themwere never angry. Similarly, the need to re trieve the dollarsAmerica was paying for petroleum was only a secondarymotivation for the huge arms-sales program.But American officials, preoccupied with theinternational implications of the United States-Iranianrelationship, re mained poorly informed on Iran’s risingdomestic difficulties. In retrospect, it seems so clear thatthe shah’s almost unlim ited appetite for security tended toundermine the very sta bility he sought, but as long as theproblems manifested them selves only domestically, theywent unnoticed by American policymakers. For example,the desire for the superficial signs of modernization led theshah’s advisors to welcome rural migration to the cities andeven to end government invest ment in the countryside’sfifty thousand villages. The political consequences weredisastrous. Those who stayed home were embittered becausethe shah’s regime had not helped them; those who moved tocities, disoriented by their sudden entry into the twentiethcentury and unable to find jobs or hope in that strangenew world, gradually turned to their religious leaders forguidance. The result would be seen in the mass anti-shahdemonstrations of 1978.As early as 1973, Iran specialists, most notably ProfessorMarvin Zonis of the University of Chicago and ProfessorRich ard Cottam of the University of Pittsburgh, weretrying to draw attention to the troubles on that country’shorizon. While acknowledging Iran’s economic successes,they also pointed to the growing gap between rich and

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 143poor, the endemic corruption, and SAVAK’s repression, allof which were alienating millions of Iranians from theirshah.Certainly between 1967 and 1970 alone, Iranianownership of radios per 1,000 people had increased from110 to 200, of autos from 9 to 16, and of telephones from 7to 10. The number of primary-school pupils had doubled,those in secon dary school had quadrupled, and universitypopulations had tripled. Despite this real material progress,Zonis explained, outsiders were misreading the realitiesof Iran. “One can visit the Hilton, La Residence, the KeyClub, the Dargand, the Im perial Country Club or one of thestaggeringly large number of boutiques in Tehran and notrealize he is in one of the poorest nations in the world.” 20More than a few Western visitors, including journalists,seemed to make precisely this mistake.Cottam discussed the frustration even of government bureaucratsat the red tape, corruption, and overconcentrationof power in the shah’s hands that made it so difficult to dealwith the country’s crises. Iranians generally believed thata few wealthy agents and corrupt officials were reaping allthe benefits from foreign purchases and that the demandsof these few for consumer goods were burdening everyoneelse with inflation. “I know of no more successful publicrelations operation than the Iranian Government’s,” saidCottam, but an investigation would reveal “scandals thatwould make Wa tergate look like nothing.”Iran was still a poor country. Over 75 percent of ruralfami lies earned less than $66 a month and malnutrition waswide spread among them. Food prices alone rose 10.2 percentfrom 1971 to 1972; by 1975 the overall inflation rate hadalmost doubled. Urban migration did not result in new jobs:although Iran’s Gross National Product doubled between 1962and 1971, employment increased by only 23 percent—this ina country with a high birth rate. Oil production, Iran’s largestmoney-earning industry, required relatively few workers.Worse, its large profits made it easy for Iran’s wealthy class toimport consumer goods and even to buy food abroad ratherthan pro duce it at home with Iranian labor.

144PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSThere was also a whole set of political problems. “As countlesshistorical cases exemplify,” said Zonis “state power cannotbe built except on the base of an advanced, committed,and involved population.” This did not necessarily imply democracy,as Soviet experience demonstrated, but it did involvefinding ways to mobilize and motivate people, includingbroad acceptance of a regime’s nationalist legitimacy. Theshah never succeeded in this task, particularly because somany Iranians saw him for better or worse as an Americanagent. Unless his authority “can dissociate itself more completelyfrom our Government,” Zonis concluded, “it will betroubled by widespread doubts as to its policies and loyalties.”21Doubts about the wisdom of America’s Iran policyquickly spread from the academics to the journalists.European corre spondents were the first to see the fliesin the ointment. In 1973 Le Monde’s Eric Rouleau wasalready writing about the full range of Iran’s internalproblems: the housing crisis in poor urban areas, where“rents have doubled in three years”; a bureaucracy thatwas “in many cases incompetent or corrupt”; inflationand a greater dependence on food imports; and the hugeunemployed sector that kept wage levels low. Tehran,whose modernization was so often used as a metaphorfor Iran’s state of affairs, consumed 50 percent of thecountry’s available services and products though itheld only 10 percent of the population. Its Westernizednorthern and central neigh borhoods, Rouleau wrote, “areislands of prosperity in a sea of poverty.” Other Iranianswere turning to alcohol and narcotics in disturbingnumbers.“Some observers are amazed that the absence of safetyvalves, like independent trade unions, a representativepar liament and genuine opposition parties, has not ledto mass outbursts,” Rouleau concluded. This was becauseIran’s “economic progress has been really beneficial—evenmod estly—for some sections of the population, and thisin turn has given rise to hopes in other strata.” Anotherreason was the “very backward and politically immature”

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 145peasantry. those recent migrants also made up most of theurban work ing class. 22The following year some American newspapers began toreport these problems, although this more critical approachdid not become fully evident until 1975 and 1976. Moreover,the continued lack of any visible opposition within Iran andthe accelerating economic boom still promoted optimismover the shah’s future prospects. Thus, Lewis Simons’sMay, 1974 Washington Post series discussed Iran’s newoil wealth, the luxury and development visible in Tehran,and the confidence of Iranian government officials intheir dramatic economic plans. At the same time, it citedAmerican specialists as pre dicting mounting discontent ifthe shah proved unable to keep his promises.Notwithstanding any good intentions about thesepromises, there were simply not enough teachers andschools to imple ment the projected free education, notenough facilities for improved health care; there was noteven enough milk for a school milk program. The shah’sbelief in quick, easy develop ment was everywhere evident;said his chief planner, “We have no real limit on money.None.” But the barriers to suc cess also seemed endless.There was the overconcentration of power and wealth,wild inflation, luxury-centered consump tion, debilitatingcorruption, the military’s priority over civil ian needs, thelack of trained technicians, the general wishful thinkingthat substituted for truthful evaluation among those whoran the country, and the rising food-import bill.Nor did Simons fail to mention a “police-state”atmosphere, the shah’s growing isolation from the people,and his increas ing inability to obtain accurate informationfrom his syco phantic advisors. “Nevertheless,” Simonsconcluded, “the great majority of Iranians all but worshiphim. … There’s no denying that Iran’s gains in the lastdecade have been impres sive … .” Further, given Iran’sstrategic importance, the United States government did not“worry about restrictions °n Iranians’ personal freedom,although they concede their e xistence.” As one Americandiplomat put it, “The government is stable, that’s far more

146PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthan you can say about any of the others in this part of theworld.” 23A more optimistic correspondent of The New York Timescontinued to see the shah as a genuinely popular reformerseeking to foster increased political participation by the generalpopulation. Similarly, Business Week warned of dangersbut sang of the dazzling prospects. A generally upbeat Newsweekstory explained the shah’s goal as trying to “raise Iran’sstandard of living fast enough to prevent his subjects from …organizing a revolution of their own against him.” 24Nevertheless, the foci of media coverage of the Iranian dilemmaremained the international rather than the domesticaspects of the shah’s policies. There were reports that StateDepartment officials were beginning to say privately thatthe arms-transfer program had “achieved a magnitudepeople didn’t anticipate” without adequate “considerationof the long-term consequences”; Congressman Hamiltonwas quoted as calling United States policy toward Iran “ahigh-risk kind of venture.” In August, 1974 the WashingtonPost, warning of the shah’s regional ambitions, asked ifAmerican interests dictated support for “what can onlybe described as Iranian imperialism?” It advocated acongressional investigation of United States arms policy.Over the following months, many other voices chimed inwith challenging questions. 25Although there were more than a few conservatives worriedthat the shah’s appetite for military hardware might escalatethe Persian-Arab conflict, most critics of United States policytoward Iran tended to be liberals. On the other hand, many ofthe Iranian Embassy’s best friends in Washington were alsoliberals, usually senators and reporters who had been wonover by the image of the shah as reformer. To further complicatethe problem, the issue of a proper attitude toward Iranbe came caught up in the struggle between Congress and theWhite House for control of foreign policy that marked Washingtonpolitical life during the mid-1970s.The case against the administration’s way of handlingrela tions with Iran rested on several different arguments.Critics of the shah deemed his regime to be repressive,

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 147unpopular and lacking even minimal domestic support.Nations so gov erned were thought to be inherently unstableand, particularly when they were autocratic monarchies,doomed by the irre versible tide of history. It was onlya matter of time before the Pahlevi chapter of the age ofroyalty was closed; all ap pearances to the contrary werebelieved deceptive. For ten years I have been predicting theshah’s overthrow, more than one specialist commented, andI see no reason to change my prediction.Further, by putting so much American prestige on oneman, who might die or be assassinated, this view continued,the White House was taking an extraordinarily dangerousrisk. And what a man he was: arrogant, ambitious, and likelyto create a local arms race, if not an outright war. Iran wasal ready strong enough militarily to handle any conceivablethreat to its sovereignty, except those so massive that theywould naturally trigger direct United States intervention;the continued excessive buildup of the shah’s militarymight was promoting rather than defusing regional tensionand instabil ity.In addition, critics continued, the administration hadgreatly overestimated the Cold War implications of thearea’s problems. The Soviets did not seem interested inescalating Great Power rivalry in the Persian Gulf, norwere they likely to attack Iran in the near future. An Iraqioffensive against Iran seemed equally farfetched. It mayhave been that Washington had reversed the causalityof interrelated events and that it was America’s armingof Iran that was encouraging Moscow to give Iraq moreadvanced weapons. Diplomatic mediation may have beenthe best way to ease friction in the region; the successfulconclusion of an Iraqi-Iranian treaty in 1975 seemed toreinforce this argument.Finally, the critics still assumed that Washington couldexert a fair measure of leverage over the shah. The UnitedStates might press him over oil supplies and prices, urge himto make more domestic reforms, or persuade him to slowdown his military expansion. Different groups of criticsem phasized different aspects of these arguments but, all in

148PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSall, most would have favored the more limited and cautiouspolicy toward the shah that had been employed in the yearsprior to 1968.Defenders of the two-pillar policy replied that UnitedStates-Soviet detente did not extend to the confrontationsin the Gulf, that Iraqis and other radicals were trying tosubvert the region, and that the shah’s arms were actingas deterrent to open war. Since America was unwillingor unable to be the region’s policeman, Washington couldhardly deny the shah the means for his own self-defense.After all, they riposted, when compared to other rulersin his neighborhood, the shah was popular, progressive,and stable; modern Iranian history did not hold much hopefor the creation of a successful democracy there. Most tookhis pres ence for granted. If the shah did fall from power ordie, they believed that the geostrategic factors shaping theshah’s policy would continue to operate and would keep anynew leader friendly toward the United States. After all, theRussians and Iraqis would still be on Iran’s borders and anynew ruler would still need American help and technologyto cope with the tasks of defense and development.Supporters of the Nixon-Kissinger policy toward Iranalso minimized the extent of American leverage over theshah. If Washington tried to pressure him he would simplyturn else where to buy arms and to sell oil. But no matterwho might succeed the shah, they argued, there was nosense in alienating him while he ruled, nor in undermininga strategy that seemed to be working. The continuedincumbency of that pol icy’s architects in the White Houseresolved the debate in favor of those who supported acontinued free hand for the shah.Both American sides, however/agreed on severalimportant points. All concurred that the faster the shahcarried out his promised reforms, the more quickly Iranwould be able to modernize. And the more quickly Iranmodernized, the more stable his government wouldbecome. This consensus came out of the 1950s-1960s viewthat poverty and frustration bred revolution. Economicprogress above all would defuse the time-bomb of Iranian

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 149backwardness. The shah, all agreed, rightly believedhimself engaged in a race against time: the questions weremerely over the details of the best course and pace to befollowed by him.Modernization theory, as developed by Western politicalscientists of the day, sharply differentiated between the socialforces at work in “traditional” and in “modern” societies. Asa culture became more developed, ran this line of analysis,traditional institutions would fade; religion, for example,would lose its hold on the people. The idea that certain innovations—likeimproved systems of communication andurban migration—might strengthen the hold of the olderframework, even revitalize it, was outside the scope of thisevaluation. Speed of change, in and of itself, with the loss ofequilibrium and the dislocation it produced, was generallynot perceived as capable of generating “backward-directed”revolutions.At the same time, even those who most strenuously documentedIran’s severe internal problems did not envision thenear-future emergence of any cohesive opposition. On thecontrary, Iran’s oil prosperity seemed to be undercutting anyurge to express dissent, while SAVAK was preventing anymanifestation of it. The shah appeared to be more popularthan he had ever been before. Indeed, no real anti-shahmove ment was visible until it appeared in full force duringthe 1978 demonstrations. What so caught Washington andthe American press by surprise was that the dissatisfactionboil ing beneath the surface had been as much the product ofspiri tual and psychological dissatisfaction as of materialisticor po litical deprivation.A third problem derived ironically from the failure ofprior criticism. Some time before the shah’s fall, a diplomatasked the director of the State Department’s Office of IranianAffairs whether the shah was likely to remain in power.The official simply waved his hand at a row of picturesshowing the shah Meeting every United States presidentfrom Roosevelt on. “Well,” he replied drily. “He’s been therethis long.” The shah’s downfall had so often been predictedand his survival so often observed that warnings about his

150PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSimminent downfall had gradually lost credibility. Therewere some who were not dazzled by the emperor’s newclothes, including a few of the Nixon Doctrine’s strongestadvocates. But who could forget the many previous expertswho had ended up sounding lik eChicken Little when thesky had not fallen?Finally, the shah maintained his reputation as a wellintentioned reformer. If he was an autocrat, he seemed tobe more in the tradition of Peter the Great than of Ivan theTerrible. Nor was the shah in any way indifferent to thepotential bene fit in Washington of his image as a progressive.His attempts to maintain that accreditation generated bothsubstantive pol icy initiatives and public relations efforts.Iran’s emphasis on education can be placed in the formercategory. The shah built new universities to promote therapid expansion of Iran’s student population, seeking aidfrom fifty American colleges for this purpose. Yet the speedof his drive for modernization dictated that many youngpeople be sent abroad for study; by mid-1977 there were anestimated 60,000 Iranians attending American universities.The financial con tributions and tuition payments for theseIranian students, at a time when American universityenrollments were falling, created additional inducementsfor academic communities to accept them in large numbers.The Iranian government also gave millions of dollars indirect grants to a wide variety of technical schools, colleges,and universities.Harvard received a $400,000 grant to plan a postgraduateuniversity in northern Iran; Columbia gained $361,000 for aninternational medical complex and for aiding a new Iraniansocial-welfare school. An $11 million educational exchangeprogram linked Georgetown and Ferdowsi Universities.Many of these projects, cut short by Iran’s budget deficitsand by the shah’s downfall, were never fully implemented.One unforeseen or, at least, poorly understood consequenceof quickly educating so large a number of students was there markable brain drain it produced. Between 1950 and 1968, atotal of 325,731 students completed studies in other countrieswhile many of them never returned to Iran. Others who had

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 151studied in Iran went overseas to further personal professionalr financial goals. A decade after gaining degrees, 160 out of0315 physicians who had graduated from the University ofTehran Medical School in June, 1966 were permanent residentsin the United States. 26The shah’s image as a progressive was also furthered bya host of direct public relations efforts, including the sponsorshipof pro-shah books and advertisements. The New Yorkadvertising agency of Ruder & Finn received a $507,000 contractto promote Iran’s image; one of its executives, MarionJavits, wife of the New York senator who was a Foreign RelationsCommittee member, was paid $67,500 a year to conducta pro-Iran information campaign. After newspaper coveragesuggested a possible conflict of interest in this arrangement,the Iranian government shifted its account to another firm.The well-connected former undersecretary of state, WilliamRogers, became the lawyer for the American operations ofthe Pahlevi Foundation, an ostensibly charitable fund thatserved as one of the royal family’s main financial bases.But the most active force in these endeavors was theIranian Embassy in Washington. Under the direction ofAmbassador Ardeshir Zahedi its staff increased by 250percent between 1973 and 1979. Zahedi, a gregarious andsuave man whose social activities were an integral part ofhis work, was well acquainted with the American people.He had made his first visit to the United States in 1943,at the age of fifteen, and later worked his way throughan American college. Back in Iran, he worked as a liaisonofficer with the American aid mis sion and in 1953 wasgo-between for the CIA and his father, Fazlollah Zahedi,during the planning of the 1953 anti-Mos sadegh operation.Despite his father’s removal by the shah two years later, andmore than one period of his own in personal disfavor, theyoung Zahedi remained loyal to the shah.The Iranian Embassy, one of Washington’s most inefficient,Was as much under Zahedi’s personal control as the Iraniangovernment was under the shah’s. It did not function inthe normal fashion; rather Zahedi communicated directlywith the shah, ignoring Foreign Ministry channels. He

152PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSbuilt around him a group of loyalists in competition withhis rival, long, time Prime Minister Abbas Amir Hoveyda.When Zahedi was foreign minister he clashed with Hoveydaover the size of his department’s budget. Hoveyda deemedhimself personally in. suited in the argument and convincedthe shah to oust Za hedi. Only the empress’s interventionmade possible Zahedi’s return to a position of authority.Determined to avoid any such humiliation in the future,Zahedi even eliminated SAVAK’s presence from the embassylest it threaten his control. His sole master was the monarchhimself, as witnessed by the floor-to-ceiling pictures of theshah and empress in the embassy reception room.Even within Washington’s already bustling, social scene,Zahedi became famous for his lavish parties and generousgifts to political and media luminaries. In one month, hemight give three formal dinner-dances, each for seventy-fiveguests, two or three buffet dinners for three hundred, andone or two receptions for fifty, besides countless businesslunches, late-night suppers, and pool-side barbecues. Entryinto Iran’s impressive Massachusetts Avenue chancerybuilding became one of Washington’s most sought-afterindices of social suc cess.But Zahedi’s frequent society-page appearances and hisplayboy image cloaked a well-organized lobbying effort. Zahedibelieved that he could more easily influence politicians,reporters, and columnists through personal friendship andgifts of gold or diamond jewelry, caviar, flowers, champagne,and rugs. Middle East rulers commonly put a high valueon the American media’s power. Egyptian President Anwaral-Sadat has called Walter Cronkite, “one of the peoplewho rule the United States,” and Morocco’s King Hassan IIdramatically explains that the tools of mass communication,rather than missiles or atom bombs, are “the most dangerousweapons today.” 27Zahedi’s object was not to win one or two favorablearticles, but to place his own image of Iran into the mindsof influen tial Americans so that they would perceive it asa modern, progressive, and successful country, taking itsplace in the ranks of world powers. Moving with an already

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 153powerful cur- rent, he largely succeeded in this effort. Yetthis achievement eventually backfired. American reportersand politicians were hard-pressed to explain in 1978 why,if Iran were so success ful, so many people had gone intothe streets to overthrow the shah. Consequently, thisoverestimate of the shah’s support and the underestimateof the opposition’s appeal lulled Wash ington into passivityuntil it was too late to take action.Persistent rumors have hinted at the existence ofIranian po litical operations equal to or greater than SouthKorea’s no torious influence-buying campaign and thatthe shah contrib uted large amounts to Richard Nixon’s1968 presidential campaign. After the shah’s fall, ShahriarRouhani, the Kho meini-appointed successor to Zahedi,accused the Iranian Em bassy of “cash payments, bribes,provision of luxury overseas travel accommodations,prostitution, and blackmail of Ameri can officials and publicfigures.” No proof has been offered to back up any of theseallegations. 28Obviously, Zahedi’s prolific gift-giving was intended towin friends for Iran. Over 1,000 presents were deliveredeach Christmas, including 150 cans of caviar, 90 bottlesof Dom Perignon champagne, and 600 to 700 books. Thisprobably did not change any sympathies directly, for theWhite House and Congress were already friendly towardthe shah. But given the importance to Iran of continued andunfettered United States military supplies, neither Zahedinor his monarch wanted to take any chances. Further, Zahediwanted to maintain his own informal and independentsources of information in Congress to augment and to verifythe news he received through State Department channels. Hehad particularly close relations with Senators Charles Percy,Jacob Javits, Barry Goldwater, Birch Bayh, Lloyd Bentsen,and Abraham Ribicoff, among others. As for any possibleillegal or unethical activities, extensive inves tigations andinterviews have failed to turn up a single au thenticated case.While Zahedi’s success very much relied on the indifferenceor sympathy of most Americans toward Iran, antishahIranians within the United States often damaged

154PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONStheir own cause. They gained some press coverage fromprotests during the shah’s visits, letters to newspapers,and paid advertise ments, but they failed to spark any realopposition. The viru lent anti-American rhetoric and NewLeft alliances of the Iran ian Student Association cut themoff from mainstream American opinion and sometimesproduced a pro-shah back lash. The most active factionswere outspokenly Marxist; there was little foreshadowing ofthe Islamic fervor that would dom inate the movement afterthe ascendancy as absolute leader of Ayatollah Khomeini.Given all these factors, United States-Iranian relationsgen erally continued on a smooth footing. By 1975, despiterising public criticism, the bilateral tie remained a “veryspecial one,” as Sisco’s successor, Alfred Atherton, putit, and “had probably never been better,” as Kissingerappraised it. 29 Nev ertheless, there were still misgivings andmuffled voices of dissent even in the highest circles of theadministration.On February 21, 1976, United States Ambassador RichardHelms gave the shah a message from President GeraldFord. “I have let it be known to the senior officials of myadministra tion who deal with these issues that they shouldkeep con stantly in mind the very great importance which Iattach to the special relationship that we enjoy with Iran,”Ford wrote. “The collaboration between our two countriesis firmly based on common interests, which are not changedby the recurring ups and downs of economic and financialaffairs which may affect both our countries.” 30Such a communication was necessary precisely becauseeconomic and financial affairs had created friction on bothsides. Iran’s participation in the recurring rounds of OPECprice increases had angered many Americans. At varioustimes, Defense Secretaries James Schlesinger and DonaldRumsfeld, Treasury Secretary William Simon, and otherspointed out the link between arms deliveries and oil prices.Schlesinger sought to raise research and developmentcharges to Iran for the F-14 after the 1973 price rises’ whilein 1976 Simon advocated restricting or terminating somefood and arms sales to obtain added leverage. The White

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 155House turned down each of these proposals.Others, despite the public relations campaigns ofAmbas sador Zahedi and the new chic of the royal family,apparently maintained a relatively low opinion of the shahhimself. Gen eral George Brown, then chairman of the JointChiefs of Staff, spoke disparagingly of the shah’s visionsof a revived Persian Empire. In February, 1974, Simoncalled the shah a “nut,” in a widely publicized speech. Thetreasury secretary’s subsequent protestation that he hadonly referred to the shah’s extreme enthusiasm probablydid little to assuage Tehran’s anger.Rising United States dependence on Middle East oil,which increased from 6.6 percent of total energy needsin 1975 to 12.4 percent in 1976, made good relations witha stable Mid dle East all the more necessary. By 1976, Iranwas supplying 8 to 9 percent of those imports. Paying forall this oil required more and more sales of military andcivilian goods to the OPEC countries. The shah’s new statusled him to lecture American businessmen to become “moreaggressive and dy namic,” while telling Westerners to workharder. Iran would provide the example: “In 10 years’ time,”he said, “we shall be what you are today.” 31Commercial prospects for both sides certainly did seemex cellent in the mid-1970s. A March, 1975 United States-Iranian trade agreement called for $15 billion in commerceover the next five years, one-third of it in petroleum. Inexchange, the United States would provide eight nuclearpower stations and their fuel, prefabricated housing,hospitals, ports, electrical equipment, fertilizers, pesticides,farm machinery, superhigh ways, and a vocational trainingcenter. An even more optimis tic 1976 trade protocol projected$52 billion in trade over the next five years.But practice did not match projections. By 1974 Iran’s,economyhad been seriously strained from inflation, breakdownsin planning, a contraction of oil markets, and by the rate ofde velopment itself. The 1975 budget had been planned to bethree times larger than its predecessor, allocating 28 percentfor defense and 24 percent for economic development. Butrevenues did not meet expectations.

156PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSThe measures taken to contain this crisis only underminedthe shah’s political base. The 1975 “antiprofiteering” campaignled to the fining of 10,000 merchants, the arrest of7,500 others, and the closing of over 600 shops. The alienatedba zaar tradesmen were thereby made more receptive tothe anti-shah speeches of Ayatollah Khomeini. Accordingto the shah himself, the decision that brought down histhrone was taken at this time. To effect another saving itwas decided to end the traditional government subsidiesto Muslim mullahs. The beginning of the merchant-clergyalliance emerged when businessmen stepped in to make upthe mosques’ new deficit.These two groups were also united in their belief thata small strata of new rich, whose success was based oncorrupt court connections, were monopolizing Iran’s oilwealth. The shah did little to curb the ascendancy or thearrogance of this new class, which lived by high-levelcorruption. One visiting American was surprised to see anumber of deserted, partly completed construction projects.The reason, he was told, was that the contractor’s ability towin government contracts had not depended on any abilityto fulfill them. His few employees simply went from onesite to the other, doing a little here and a little there.The very day in February, 1976 when the United StatesTreasury reported a sharp decline in Iran’s investible surplus—from$10.7 billion in 1974 to a projected $4.5 billionin 1976—Empress Farah was returning from Europe with aplaneload of three tons of French rose marble for the royalfamily’s new swimming pool. The next day, the Tehran governmentannounced a $2.4 billion budget deficit for the comingyear despite $20 billion in oil revenues. Rising militarycosts were named as the cause for the shortfall.When the shah warned that he would have less money tospend for purchases from the United States, the WashingtonPost greeted this possibility with optimism. The “mindlessAmerican policy of supplying our most advanced militarytechnology to Iran is increasingly likely to get both countriesinto trouble,” it announced in a February, 1976 editorial, andIran’s need to economize offered an escape from “a network

AN IMPERIAL DREAM 1969-1974 157of commitments that are becoming steadily more dangerousand onerous. ... As long as economic requirements haveto take second place to military ambitions that requireGrumman Tomcats at $18 million apiece, the outlook forstable growth [in Iran] is obscure.” 32If the shah had to choose between arms and economicde velopment, however, his decision would not be indoubt. In deed, in 1975 and 1976 an increasing volume ofcriticism of the administration’s Iran policy addresseditself to exactly this reality. It was one of two main issueseroding Washington’s earlier consensus of confidence inthe shah. Dismay over the seemingly out of control armssalesprogram was the first. The second was the increasingAmerican embarrassment and re pulsion over revelations ofrepression in Iran.

6Arms and the Shah1975-76The single most important link in the United States-Iranian al liance during the last decade of the shah’s rulewas Washing ton’s massive arms-sales program. During the1970s, Iran be came the largest buyer of military equipment inthe developing world; roughly 27 percent of its governmentspending went for defense, and this budget quadrupled insize between 1973-74 and 1976-77. Over one-third of UnitedStates foreign military purchases during that period weremade by Iran. Inflation made this program steadily moreex pensive: a Spruance-class destroyer selling for about $200mil lion in 1974 cost about $350 million two years later. 1The shah’s philosophy was to buy the best equipmentin the greatest quantities at the fastest possible rate. Thismeant the most up-to-date systems: hovercraft with surfaceto-surfacemissiles, mine-laying helicopters, small aircraftcarriers with vertical takeoff (V/STOL) planes for antisubmarinewarfare. Some of this equipment was boughtfrom Britain, France, Italy, and even the USSR, but theoverwhelming majority, par ticularly for the air force, wasordered from the United States.

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 159“If one understands the Iranian government’s perceptionof the threats it faces and the interests it seeks to defend,”wrote Iranian military expert Shahram Chubin, “its weaponsacquisitions are not difficult to comprehend.” 2 The country’swild terrain and long, exposed borders dictated a large troopairlift capacity, a stronger air-defense system, supersonicintercep tors equal to Soviet and Iraqi first-line planes, anda navy able to defend not only Iran’s shores but free accessto the Persian Gulf as well. Iran’s goal of coproducing themost advanced equipment—for which its industrial base wasclearly inade quate—was justified as part of a drive for thegreatest possible degree of self-reliance.“What is the use of having an advanced industry in acountry which could be brought to its knees [by outsiders],”asked the shah, rejecting as irrelevant any guns-versus-butterdebate. Internal development was worthless without defense:“There is no economic power without military power.” 3While there was a strong factual basis for Iran’s strategicworries, the arguments for the breakneck pace and massivesize of the buildup were not as compelling. Was it reallynecessary to exhaust so totally the country’s skilled laborpool, its resources, and its income on military spending?The program’s excessive speed and its early investment innew weaponry meant that Iran would bear a large part ofthe in creased per unit costs associated with underwritingthe re search and development phase of all new technology.The short answer lies partly in the psychology of theshah and partly in the glorious prospects raised by OPEC’sgreat victory in petroleum pricing. Oil seemed to be a genieof un limited bounty, capable of fulfilling not only Iran’swishes but also those of Iran’s oil-producing neighbors,friendly and unfriendly. Chubin claimed that Iran’s defensespending was not out of line with that of other Middle Eastcountries and represented no greater a percentage of GrossNational Product than did the military budgets of Iraq,Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt. 4 Yet whereasthe participation of these countries in the Arab-Israeliconflict provided strong, domestic support for high militaryspending, Iranian public opinion did not understand

160PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSwhy so much of their oil income was being spent for warequipment. *The shah considered stability on the Arab side of the Gulf,and in Pakistan and Afghanistan, to be of prime importancefor Iran’s interests. He worried about Soviet support forIraq, about Moscow’s moves toward creating an IndianOcean fleet, and about its entrenchment in South Yemen andSomalia. American policymakers shared the same concerns.Although the shah did not have complete confidence in theUnited States, his alignment with Washington was vital ifhe were to defend himself against the giant on his northernborder and the forces of revolution supported by it.In Washington’s analysis, Iran’s orientation was a naturalresult of geopolitical realities—unlikely to change no matterwhat regime came to power. While this was perhaps a correctanalysis of objective power factors, it underestimated theim portance of ideological and emotional factors. Iraniansbe lieved, rightly or wrongly, that the shah’s foreignpolicy did not serve Iranian interest; that it served only toperpetuate his own regime and United States influence inIran. The shah’s strategy was aimed at guaranteeing Iran’sindependence, but his opponents managed to convince mostIranians that it led only to dependence on America.Ironically, though, the entire United States strategy wasbased on greater dependence on the shah. True, after 1968, theUnited States aerospace industry underwent a contractiondue to post-Vietnam cutbacks in government spending,anti-infla tionary measures, and a temporary decline in thecivil air transport market. The need to counterbalance theoutflow of American dollars for foreign oil also increasedpressures for sales abroad. Between 1970 and 1975 Americanmilitary ex ports increased from $1 billion to $10 billion ayear, primarily to Saudi Arabia and Iran. 5But American policy was motivated by strategic ratherthan economic factors. These latter considerations may help* It might also be noted that Saudi Arabia and Iraq had higher percapita oil incomes than did Iran, while the other countries mentionedreceived larg e amounts of foreign aid.

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 161explain how the arms-sales program got out of hand, yethave little to do with the origins and nature of the twopillarap proach. At the same time, some of the economicbenefits of the policy may even have been illusory. Whileforeign sales some times reduced costs for the United Statesmilitary, the stretch ing of delivery times forced increasedmaintenance expenses on existing systems and inflationaryoverruns on the awaited replacements. A CongressionalBudget Office study on Iran’s order of 80 F-14s, for example,showed an initial United States Navy saving of $60 millionin production expenses, while additional closing costs andslower procurement added $120 million to their bill. 6The decision to sell the shah anything he wanted threwopen all the doors to the candy store. The shah had no ideaof self-restraint; his pliant officials, moved by their ownaggran dizing impulses, were eager to go along. DefenseDepartment officials, particularly those from the airforce and navy, were given every incentive to maximizesales and to override any objections by referring to theneeds of national security and military strategy. TheState Department and the CIA were given every incentiveto avoid criticism or even pessimistic reports. The armscompanies, of course, wanted to do as much business aspossible. The result was predictable; what is sur prisingwas that so many within the United States government didraise objections and that the system, albeit belatedly, finallytried to rein in the policy.Most damaging was the contribution of the arms-sale processto two vicious circles. First, the companies promoted specificweapons in Tehran even before they had been approvedor ordered by the United States military. Consequently, theIranians were constantly finding new things to order thatthe United States was committed to sell them. Thus, thepace of orders went faster and faster as competing vendorstried to leapfrog each other by offering newer and fancierweaponry. Second, Iran’s high expenses for military importssharpened its appetite for revenues. The subsequent increasesin oil Prices contributed to inflation in the West, which, inturn, Pushed up once again the cost of arms. Obviously, the

162PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSshah’s appetite for military hardware was by no means thesole cause of OPEC price-rise demands, but it was a factor indestabilizing the economic and commercial status quo.In theory, the sales procedure was for the Iranian governmentto ask the MAAG to quote prices on a given item. Whenan order was made, the MAAG relayed it to the Defense Departmentwhich, in turn, farmed it out to ISA’s Near Eastand South Asia region. They would discuss this with theircoun terparts in the State Department’s area bureau andwould make a recommendation. The secretary of state hadthe final decision, though he became involved only withparticularly large and controversial deals. In practice, theMay, 1972 White House decision had approved in advancevirtually every order that came from Tehran. Finally, theDefense Security Assis tance Agency carried out the actualarrangements for payment and delivery.Understandably, the companies did not wait passivelyfor the Iranians to discover their wares. Their problems,however, were both unusual and complex ones; thesebusinesses needed guidance through the labyrinth of Iranianbureau cracy. Grumman Aircraft Corporation PresidentJoseph Gavin explained the problem to a Senate investigatingcommittee: “Imagine … that you, unable to speak English,represent a foreign manufacturer trying to sell an aircraft tothe U.S. Navy. You would probably know who is the Secretaryof De fense, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Chief of NavalOpera tions, although you might well be uncertain about thesepa rate roles and responsibilities of each of them.“You would soon find your way to the Naval Air SystemsCommand,” he continued, “but at that point you wouldbe confronted with literally hundreds of specialists, bothmilitary and civilian, each with complicated titles andcomplex rela tions to each other and each very busy withhis own prob lems.” This was the American position in Iran:“We knew nothing of Iranian laws, traditions and customs,”while com peting companies had already retained Iraniansales represen tatives. So each American firm hired its ownagents. 7When Martin Hoffmann, a special assistant to Defense

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 163Secretary James Schlesinger, visited Iran in the fall of 1974he found that this system was not working to everyone’ssatisfac tion. No American laws were actually being broken,but there were a number of potential problems. For example,arms man ufacturers were pushing their products withoutDefense De partment clearance and without checking withthe MAAG. No classified specifications seem to have beencompromised, but the United States government had noidea who was telling the Iranians what, whether the shahwas being steered toward cer tain systems, and what impactsuch actions might have. Iran’s purchasing decisions oftenturned on which companies had the better salesmen, orworse, the sharper agents.Hassan Toufanian, vice-minister of war in charge ofIran’s arms-purchasing program, was equally dissatisfied.Some companies were misrepresenting their products, hetold Hoff mann, claiming that the prices quoted sometimesdid not in clude surcharged research and development costs.He asked for greater Pentagon controls on the companies.The shah particularly objected to paying any agents’com missions on equipment purchased through the UnitedStates government. When Senate investigators disclosedthat Northrop paid $2.1 million for the F-5 sales andGrumman put up $24 million in such fees on the F-14deal—both amounts added to Iran’s bill—the shah forcedboth companies to make restitution. Grumman settled forpayment in spare parts, but this arrangement was cancelledafter the shah’s ouster.Defense Department officials thought cynically of theseIranian complaints as mere varnish on the regime’s corruption.Everyone knew that large amounts of baksheesh werechanging hands; in two specific deals Textron paid $2.9 millionand Northrop $700,000 which ended up in the pockets ofIranian officers and royal family members. Yet Toufanian’sstatements might better have been taken as attempts to getWashington’s help in saving Iran from the effects of its ownsystem.On the other hand, the American side was not entirelyfree from any conflict-of-interest taint. Many American

164PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSofficials in the arms-sales program later turned up workingfor private companies involved in those transactions. Threemonths after retiring as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,Admiral Thomas Moorer visited Tehran as a consultant forStanwick International Corporation, a firm managing Iranianship re pairs. After his retirement in 1972, General HamiltonHowe considered the father of air cavalry doctrine, was hiredby Bell Helicopter to help direct its sales program. As partof the com pany’s campaign, he first lectured Iranian armycommanders on military tactics, then showed them a filmdemonstrating the merits of Bell’s Huey Cobra helicopter.Other companies recruited former MAAG commanders:Major General Harvey Jablonsky returned to Iran to pushNorthrop’s telecommunications system; Air Force MAAGchief Major General Harold L. Price went to Philco-Ford, sellingaircraft warning systems and telephone cables, and NavyMAAG chief Captain R. S. Harward went first to TRACOR,supplying sensors and aircraft equipment, and later movedto Rockwell International, one of the largest contractors forIran. None of this was illegal, but it did strengthen the bondbe tween the military and their suppliers—which manyDefense Department civilians already thought too close. Inthe eyes of Iranians, American officers and the salesmenmust have be come indistinguishable.By far the most serious and controversial case was thatof Richard R. Hallock, Schlesinger’s personal representativein Iran between 1973 and 1975. Hallock, a self-mademystery man and a former Schlesinger colleague at theRAND Corpora tion, was supposed to be a watchdog andinvestigator on the arms program’s functioning.Hallock did not waste much time. He quickly proposedsharp cuts in the billion-dollar Iranian air defense electronicsprogram and was able to build close relations with the shah.He made such a good impression that Intrec, his consultingcompany, signed a multi-million dollar contract with theIran ian government in July, 1974 to advise it on research,plan ning, and training. The programs he advocated to theshah, however, were not necessarily those backed by theMAAG and the Defense Department. There were also rumors

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 165that Intrec jjad among its clients a number of companiesseeking Iran’s business, including Northrop, E Systems, andTeledyne-Ryan.This seemed to put Hallock in the enviable positionof ad vising the shah on what to buy, advising the UnitedStates government on what to recommend to him, helpingthe arms-supply companies close the deals, and overseeingthe program under which all these transactions were beingmade. Al though Hallock’s associates denied any conflictof interest, blaming the innuendos on jealous corporationswhose pro posals Hallock had opposed, the DefenseDepartment’s Crimi nal Division launched an investigationand his connection with the United States government wasterminated.Lower-ranking Americans got along passably well. Whilethe Defense Department sent Technical Assistance FieldTeams (TAFTs) to give on-the-job training, the vast majority ofAmerican advisors in Iran were provided by the contractingcompanies. According to official figures, there were 16,700Americans in Iran by 1975, of which 1,355 were military staff,including 201 in the world’s largest United States MAAG, andsome 600 assigned to the rotating TAFTs. In addition, therewere 2,000 civilian Defense Department employees, alongwith 3,200 Americans and 1,400 third-country nationalswork ing for United States defense industry employers. 8Advisory services cost Iran $5.5 million in fiscal 1974,climbing to $94 million within two years. By then, Iran waspaying for all the TAFTs and some of the MAAG expenses.Friction between individual Americans and Iranians wasgen erally limited, though some Bell instructors werecensured or even dismissed for drinking, fighting, and racingmotorcycles near mosques. For their part, American pilotscomplained about the low quality of the Iranian trainees andabout the loose safety regulations. After the assassination oftwo MAAG colonels in May, 1975, senior officers had armedguards, es cort cars, and some carried weapons themselves.While doubtlessly true that many American military menPressed too hard for quick modernization of the Iranianarmed forces, sometimes becoming virtual salesmen for

166PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSadvanced weapons, such over-enthusiasm was most oftendue to their determination to achieve their mission ofcreating a credible military force out of the Iranian armedservices. When discov ered, such zealots were cautionedtoward restraint. The goal was not, they were told bysuperiors, to remake the Iranian military into a mirror imageof its American counterpart. Few had many illusions on thatscore; the Iranian army did not have a high reputation. Poorperformance and even poorer leadership were the norm:in the Oman fighting Iranian junior officers and seniornoncommissioned officers had enjoyed the lowest casualtyrates.The sheer complexity of modern warfare, so differentfrom the straightforward infantry tactics of Reza Shah’s day,com pounded many of Iran’s military problems. As earlyas 1970, Grumman began attempts to sell its forthcomingF-14 to Iran. Distressed by Soviet overflights and Iraq’snew MIG—23s, su perior to Iran’s Phantoms, the shah wasreceptive to Grum-man’s approach and began his ownlobbying effort within the United States government. TheDefense Department ques tioned whether the sale was inthe interests of either the United States or regional security,but President Nixon went along with Tehran and promisedthe plane to the shah in May, 1972.So complicated was the F-14 that even the United StatesNavy had difficulty operating it. As another example of Iran’sappetite for the most advanced equipment, the model ofSpruance-class destroyer ordered by Iran was even more sophisticatedthan the kind bought by the United States Navy.These systems required a high level of technical capability,well-educated technicians, and modern management procedures,all of which Iran lacked. To provide the neededperson nel, one United States study concluded, the Iranianmilitary might need virtually the country’s entire highschool graduat ing class each year.Those aware of the difficulties lying behind the glowingpress releases, particularly those among Defense Departmentlogistical specialists and ISA analysts, were critical of theex isting United States policy. On the other side, the military

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 167services and the Defense Security Assistance Agencygenerally supported the program. Military intelligence,which empha sized the Soviet buildup of Iraqi forces, wasalso in the latter camp.More often than not, the secretary of defense, especiallyduring the Schlesinger years, leaned toward the doubters.Yet the Schlesinger-Kissinger relation was already tenuousenough without the introduction of an additional issueof con tention. Besides, since Kissinger always had thepresident’s ear and since he also controlled the StateDepartment—sup ported there by Undersecretary Sisco,an architect of the policy—dissent was deemed useless.Kissinger’s well-known ferocity in bureaucratic battles andhis primacy in policymak ing discouraged open debate.Of course, the Washington bureaucracy always had itsown means of passive resistance, able to outlast any politicalap pointee. Critics leaked information to Congress and thenews papers, dragged their feet on specific projects, and wrotememos complaining about the dangers. Yet those opposed tothe policy remained a small minority. Most of those involvedin its implementation still believed it was going rather well;criticism, external and internal, only made them defensive.On occasion, the main area of complaint—the possibleleak of American technological secrets to Moscow—forestalled the sale of some specific item to Iran. Such acase involved a “smart-bomb” system not used in Vietnam.Another major project was deliberately misplaced in thefiles until the Ira nian government lost interest. Althoughthere were never any known security leaks of Americanclassified information, one Iranian general was executed asa Soviet spy shortly before the revolution. It seems quitepossible that once the shah fell Moscow’s agents quicklygained access to the sophisticated Planes, electronic gear,and other material left behind.The strategic importance of certain specific projects overrodegeneral security concerns. Thus, the Defense Departmentended up supporting the sale of the AWACs aircraft-borneradar warning system because the competing groundbasedsystem would have been far more costly and would

168PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONShave involved more American technicians on the scene. Butthis proposal served other interests of the American armedservices as well. AWACs sales to Iran would bring per unitcosts low enough to convince European allies to buy them,which, in turn, might further drop unit cost enough topersuade Congress to acquire the system for American use.Another dimension was the potential support suchsystems might provide to American defense requirements.In the event of a larger war, Iranian AWACs units couldguide American fighter planes defending the Middle Eastagainst Soviet at tacks. Even so, the sale of AWACs barelyavoided being blocked by congressional opposition in 1977.The high prior ity the shah placed on obtaining the systemdisposed the Carter White House to follow through on theproject, but the revolution came about before a single planecould be deliv ered.A similar multi-use criterion influenced development ofthe top secret IBEX project, designed to put a $500 millionsur veillance system on Iran’s borders and to expand thenumber of CIA monitoring stations from two to eleven.Rockwell Inter national won the contract in 1975, but storiesof influence buying and of American skepticism over thepracticality of the system led to Iranian complaints that theircountry was being used as a technical dumping ground.In August, 1976, three American advisors working on theproject were murdered by terrorists. Eventually, IBEX wasabandoned.The presence of the monitoring installations, designedto eavesdrop on Soviet missile ranges and bases in thesouthern USSR, was one of the most important services theshah offered his allies. These installations provided vitalintelligence, necessary for any strategic-arms-limitationsagreement and were often cited as one reason whyWashington ought to avoid ever antagonizing the shah.These special stations originated in a rather curiousfashion. In the early 1950s, the American consul in Tabrizheld an ad vanced degree in physics and his hobby waselectronics. Tin kering with his own receiving equipment,he intercepted a strange, continuous sound. After checking,

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 169he concluded tha this was produced by missiles in flight. Heobtained more sophisticated apparatus and soon it becameapparent that he had become the first foreigner to detect theSoviet missile test center at Kapusin Yar.While concerned about security leaks, a regional armsrace, and the shah’s ambitions, not even the strongestcritics of ex isting policy ever suggested that the shah’sgovernment might fall. The National Intelligence Estimatesand the reports from the State Department, the CIA, militaryintelligence, and the MAAG all discounted the likelihoodof any domestic up heaval. When Israel’s representativein Tehran, Uri Lubrani, suggested to American visitors asearly as 1974 that the shah’s regime might be entering itsfinal days, the United States Em bassy ridiculed the notion.Yet while Iran itself was thought to be in reasonably goodshape, by mid-1975 the United States-Iranian arms-sales relationshipwas increasingly seen as a serious mess. A January,1975 General Accounting Office (GAO) study warned thatthe advisory program was draining off critical militaryskills needed by United States forces. A RAND Corporationcritique pointed out that there was no joint Iranian planning;all ser vices reported separately to the shah. A later GAOreport con cluded that the Defense Department apparatusfor monitoring contractor performance was often inadequateand needed major improvements. If this were not corrected,“The Govern ment of Iran will not develop the desired defensecapabilities and our relations … could suffer avoidablestrain.” 9 One Participant called the situation a “managerialnightmare.”Other reports found the Iranian armed forces to be yearsaway from being a credible military organization. TheyPointed to difficulties in motivating the conscript force andto its poor technical level. There were, as well, problems infining and in securing good officers and skilled technicians.the shah’s own regulations, designed to prevent the militaryfrom posing any political threat to him, also weakened itsca pacity to perform its mission.The policy shortcomings being discovered by some in thee*ecutive branch were also becoming visible to those on the

170PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSoutside. Mounting congressional criticism of the administration’sarms-sale programs led to a provision in the ForeignAs sistance Act of 1974 that gave Congress up to thirty days toblock a major arms deal. Senator Henry Jackson asked Secretaryof State Kissinger for a reassessment of his Iran policyafter the March, 1975 Iran-Iraq agreement seemed to reducethe Iraqi threat to Iran that had been an often-cited justificationfor the pace and quantity of arms sales. Senator EdwardKennedy called for a six-month suspension of weaponstransfers to the Persian Gulf countries, questioning whetherthe president’s strategy really increased United States influencein the region. Representative Les Aspin of Wisconsintried to stop the sale of six destroyers. Other proposalscalled for taking into account the human rights policiesof arms cus tomers, for more public disclosure of militarytransfers, and for increased congressional oversight.Defense officials made a number of attempts to straightenout the program. Air Force General Robert Huyser, commanderof United States forces in Europe who was also responsiblefor Middle East MAAGs and logistical planning,traveled to Tehran several times to advise the Iranian government.Seeking to wean Tehran, the United States refusedto do contingency planning for the Iranians. Meanwhile,General Howard Fish, director of the Defense SecurityAssistance Agency, tried to tighten his agency’s operations.The main effort was made by Defense SecretarySchlesinger. After severing ties with Hallock, hedispatched Eric von Mar-bod to Iran in September, 1975as his new personal represen tative. There, von Marbodattempted with some success to convince the Iraniansto cancel several unrealistic projects. At about the sametime, Schlesinger sent C. Glenn Blitgen, an other DefenseDepartment civilian, to study Iran’s military ab sorptivecapacity and the arms-sales program’s internal management.Blitgen, too, concluded that things were movingtoo fast.This second mission led to a Defense Department reportfor President Ford late in 1975 requesting a reconsiderationof United States policy toward Iran. Top personnel in the

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 171State Department and the National Security Council, whowere happy with the existing policy, managed to waterdown the re-evaluation, first by broadening it into a studyof American policy toward the entire Persian Gulf andthen by guiding it into an almost verbatim restatementof past principles. Many of those involved believe that itwas Kissinger who was re sponsible for so slowing downthis project that it was never really finished during Ford’sremaining months as president. But the backstairs debateinfluenced the Carter White House when it took office inJanuary, 1977.Some Iranian leaders were also becoming increasinglyner vous over the level of arms purchases, primarily becauseof the rising costs of equipment and Iran’s lagging oil income.Al ready, falling petroleum revenues had forced the deferralof some of the shah’s planned roads, airports, docks, andcom munications facilities, among other things. The ideathat Iran’s spending might outrun its skyrocketing profitshad seemed impossible in 1974, but the shah’s spendthriftways had managed to force the country into deficit once theincome rise leveled off;One major error was Iran’s overestimate of futureWestern oil consumption; OPEC’s high oil bills, along withother prob lems, had produced an economic downturnin the indus trialized world. To try to raise oil shipments,Toufanian again suggested a straight oil-for-arms trade, butagain Washington replied that the United States was not inthe oil buying and selling business.When Toufanian met with Secretary of Defense DonaldRumsfeld, Schlesinger’s successor, in January, 1976 hede manded that the price of arms be lowered and thatthe United States help Iran sell more oil; otherwise, hethreatened, Iran would seek new suppliers and new allies.The shah gave simi lar warnings, demanding oil companiespay more per barrel to make up for the lower quantity ofIran’s production they were u sing. In response, DefenseDepartment personnel were in structed not to push furtherweapons sales. If Toufanian Wanted to cancel any existingdeals they should quickly agree to do so.

172PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSAs the year went on, tempers quickened on both sides.In another discussion, Toufanian defended sharp increasesin Iran’s oil prices by holding up a helicopter door handlepriced at $11.62. “This costs us one barrel of oil,” he fumed.He also claimed that it cost Iran 10,000 barrels of oil a yearto support a single American warehouseman or mechanic. 10The disillusionment was by no means one-sided. WhenToufanian complained that one system had gone up 50per cent in price between 1973 and 1976, General Fishreplied, “Yeah, but the price of oil has tripled.” An angrySchlesinger had declared earlier, “We are going to makethem pay through the nose, just as they are making uspay them through the nose for oil.” 11 By the mid-1970s eachside was blaming the other for the cycle of mutual priceincreases.Another conflict developed around mutual charges ofcor ruption. Shortly after Toufanian’s visit, the shah sentRums feld a six-page letter charging top Pentagon officialswith “malfeasance” and “crude deceptions” in hidingdeficiencies in the weapons sold Iran. He told visitors thathe was fed up with “the chicanery of Pentagon officials andtheir military and civilian representatives here … .” 12Who was the more culpable, the one who demanded orthe one who paid a bribe? The shah did little to end thetaking, in which members of the royal family were ofteninvolved. True, Admiral Ramzi Attaei, commander of theIranian navy, was sentenced to five years imprisonment forembezzlement in 1976—the scope of the crime indicatedby the $4 million fine he was also required to pay—andnineteen Iranian army engi neers were also convicted. ButCommerce Minister Fereidun Mahdavi was removed whenhis anticorruption campaign aimed too high.Prime Minister Hoveyda attacked the foreign companiesfor their behavior and the foreign press for its criticism; hein sisted that all charges were being investigated and accusedsome companies of pocketing money they claimed to havepaid as bribes. “All this is a sad reflection on the standards ofconduct that we have come to expect from the internationalbusiness community,” he said. “We are constantly being

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 173lectured to about our various shortcomings and yet it seemsthat those who preach to us themselves suffer from a laxityof moral tone.” 13 Ironically, the shah arrested Hoveyda asa scapegoat for corruption shortly before his own fall; theformer prime minister was one of the first men executed bythe victorious Khomeini forces.These cross accusations produced more and more disenchantmentbetween the two partners. Typical of the state ofcongressional, press, and public criticism was a February,1976 editorial in The New York Times warning that the UnitedStates was making a “profound mistake” by selling so muchweaponry in the Persian Gulf; local governments weremaking an equally profound mistake by squandering thenwealthon military display. 14Such doubts made the shah even more insecure aboutAmerican support and more strident in his replies. If theUnited States ever cut off the flow of weapons to him, heas sured Americans, Iran “can hurt you as badly if not moreso than you can hurt us.” Washington’s only options, theshah said, were arms sales or regional instability. His oldfear of Washington’s unreliability returned: “I am afraidthat today America’s credibility is not too high. You lookrather like a crippled giant.” Yet he would not remainpassive in such an event, the shah promised. “We have tenother markets to pro vide us with what we need. There arepeople just waiting for that moment.” 15 When the UnitedStates refused to sell him nuclear reactors, he simplyturned to France.The hardest blow to administration policy was struckby a devastating Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffreport on arms sales that was released in August, 1976,during the final months of the Ford administration. Thestudy concluded that Iran would probably not be able toengage in major corn-oat operations over the next five to tenyears “without sus tained U.S. support.” The price of Iran’sregional superpower status had become the possibility thatAmerica might be dragged into a local war, at a time andplace of the shah’s choosing.By subverting ordinary review procedures, the report

174PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONScontinued, President Nixon’s 1972 decision had “created abonanza for U.S. weapons manufacturers, the procurementbranches of the three U.S. services and the Defense SecurityAssistance Agency.” Up to 1975 there had been no close supervisionof arms salesmen, an excess of interservice rivalry,and a failure to inform the Iranians of the complexities oftraining, logistics, and maintenance required for their newequipment. Though both Iran and the Defense Departmentwere praised for finally beginning needed reforms, only recentlyhad there been any appreciation of the managementproblems involved. The program was still not under control.Nor was that all. The presence of so many Americans inIran created socioeconomic problems there and might leadto serious anti-Americanism “if there were to be a changein gov ernment,” a possibility that could not be ruled out.The Amer ican commitment to support the equipment it soldmight be come a trap, with thousands of Americans held inIran as “hostages” to guarantee United States backing forTehran’s policies. Already, there were 24,000 Americansthere, includ ing 4,000 military personnel and the employeesof forty com panies implementing military contracts. By1980, it was es timated, there might be as many as 50,000 to60,000 United States citizens in Iran.The staff report did not advocate any sharp reversal,noting, “The United States cannot abandon, substantiallydiminish, or even redirect it’s arms programs withoutprecipitating a major crisis in U.S.-Iranian relations.” Butit did call for a far more responsible execution of Americanpolicy. 16This far-ranging critique was widely quoted anddiscussed. Secretary of State Kissinger, who was scheduledto hold important talks with the shah just days after thereport’s re lease, gave the administration’s response, arguingthat the United States could not assume all responsibilityaround the world—it had to value and support friends likeIran. Those who did not want heavier direct commitmentsabroad could achieve this end only through greater indirectcommitments. The pace of arms sales, he told a Tehran pressconference, would continue through 1980.

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 175The shah was less calm; for him the American headlinesseemed to fulfill his worst nightmares. Iran, he proudly announced,would not change its plans: “We are a sovereigncountry looking after our defense. … We are the only judgeof what we need.” He asked, “Can the United States, can thenon-Communist world, afford to lose Iran? Do you have anychoice? What will you do if Iran is in danger of collapse?”The answer, he thought, was clear: “If you do not pursue apolicy of standing by your own friends, who are spendingtheir own money and are ready to spend their own blood,the alternative is nuclear Holocaust or more Vietnams.” 17Certainly, the Ford administration had no thought oflessen ing support for the shah. Kissinger’s announcementin late August of plans to sell Iran 160 F-16s for $3.4 billion,with delivery between 1979 and 1983, was intended as asign of that continuity; the attempt of several senators,including Gay-lord Nelson and William Proxmire, to blockthis deal was equally a sign of the emerging mood inCongress.The affair of the F-18L light bomber at the end of 1976 onlyfurther confirmed the critics in their objections. Northropwas trying to persuade the United States government to buythat plane, still on the drawing board. Without breaking anylaws, the company circumvented controls on monitoringarms sales abroad by taking its case directly to Iran. As agovernment official explained: “They get Iran all hot to buythis plane and then if the [Pentagon review] is negative,we’ve got a diplo matic problem on our hands.” 18After Northrop President Thomas Jones met with theshah, Toufanian ordered 250 F-18Ls plus equipment andservices, a $2.5 -billion value. According to some sources,Northrop helped prepare Toufanian’s letter and may havegiven Iran the impression that the Pentagon agreed. ButRumsfeld barred any such arrangement pending UnitedStates government ap proval of the plane’s export. TheDefense Department, which “ad not yet decided whether itwanted the F-18L, was not going to finance its developmentmerely because Iran wanted it.The staff report and other investigations were clearly

176PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSturning the tide against the arms-sales program. The SenateForeign Relations Committee now asked that no more majorsales be submitted for approval until after a complete reviewof all United States transfers to the Gulf. Even Fred Ikle, theFord administration’s conservative director of the Arms Controland Disarmament Agency, warned that supplying additionalfighter planes to Persian Gulf countries would be “destabilizing.”19 Ford’s successor would even more seriouslyand skeptically reconsider the strategy adopted in 1972.While the United States-Iranian military relationshipwas perhaps the issue that received the most attention inthese years, revelations about the shah’s repressive policieshad an important psychological effect in the debate overAmerican policy. “The shah of Iran retains his benevolentimage despite the highest rate of death penalties in the world,no valid sys tem of civilian courts and a history of torturewhich is beyond belief,” said Amnesty International’s 1974-75 report. Yet the Iranian government’s policy here wascomplex and subtle, by usual police-state standards.For example, the widely quoted figure of 25,000 to100,000 political prisoners often attributed to AmnestyInternational was actually cited from opposition sources;Amnesty Interna tional estimated the real number at “severalthousands.” Thus, while repression was ferocious—with“routine” torture of political prisoners during interrogationand imprison ment—the number directly affected seemsless than claimed by the post-shah regime. Further, whenan international com mission went to Tehran in early 1980to hear directly from the victims of torture and repression,many of the injuries dis played were inflicted not in theformer government’s prisons but in the fighting during therevolution.On a global list of countries holding political prisonersIran ranked behind Cuba, Ethiopia, East Germany, Pakistan,Oman, Syria, and others. William Butler of the InternationalCommis sion of Jurists, whose 1976 mission concluded thatthere was abundant evidence of systematic psychologicaland physical torture, said the shah was “way down the listof tyrants. He would not even make the A-list.” Western

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 177estimates suggest that the shah’s regime killed around 10,000people in over thirty years of rule, about half of them duringthe 1978 revolu tion. Amnesty International estimated about300 executions from 1972 on, though there must have beenhundreds more never officially announced. Nevertheless,even if these figures are doubled, they fall far short ofthe 300,000 deaths in Uganda, millions in Cambodia, andaround 6,000 in one year in neighboring Afghanistan. Therecords of many Third World and most Communist statesare no better than that of Iran under the shah. 20Still, from the viewpoint of Iranians living under theshah’s regime, all this had an abstract ring. The shah’sIran was a police state, though its treatment of prisonerswas based heav ily on Iranian historical practices. Thoseconvicted of ordinary crimes were treated as badly as werethe political prisoners. Unfortunately, prison reform doesnot seem to have any higher priority with the post-shahgovernment than it had for the royal regime.The intensity of anti-shah hatred after the revolutioncan be explained by three particular features of Iranianrepression. First, prisoners were subjected to horrendoustorture, equal to the worst ever devised. Jailers regularlyused beatings, shock treatments, electric drills, and otherinstruments that some times left prisoners crippled orinsane. It is still not clear whether the CIA was involved intraining SAVAK on torture techniques, though such thingswere not so alien to Iranian traditions that instruction seemsto have been needed.Second, SAVAK deliberately spread fear of its methods andexaggeration of its power as a mechanism for maintainingcon trol. Prisoners were often released only if they, or membersof their family, agreed to become informers. Further, giventhe importance of the extended family in Iran, every timeone per son was killed or arrested the government madeone hundred bitter enemies from among his relatives. Sincemost Iranians, Particularly in urban areas, had kin who hadsuffered the depredations of SAVAK, its methods becametheir most emotionally expressed complaint.Finally, and perhaps most important, SAVAK’s victims

178PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSwere not merely a small group of active dissidents or apoliti. cally conscious minority. The existing system meantthat the entire population was subjected to a constant,all-pervasive terror. While most secret police operationsconcentrate on finding their government’s most activeenemies SAVAK went out of its way to punish thosesuspected of the most petty offenses. The broad natureof SAVAK’s intimidation and the surety of its blow wasa constant psychological hu miliation for almost everyIranian. The result was a deep de sire for vengeance on thepart of the shah’s subjects.Some of those who would lead the anti-shah revolutionwere direct victims of SAVAK. Ayatollah Khomeini’s oldestson, Mustafa, killed under mysterious circumstances, wasprobably assassinated by its agents. Ayatollah Hussein AliMontazeri, one of the most fiery of Khomeini’s advisors,was reportedly tortured by SAVAK, which also beat up hiseighty-five-year-old father. The shah did face a real terroristproblem throughout the 1970s, but SAVAK, in response,terrorized the entire population.At the same time, while the shah must take responsibilityfor SAVAK’s actions, it operated, like so many secret policeagencies, as a law unto itself. General Bakhtiar’s attempt totake power provided the shah with one cautionary example,but other SAVAK leaders also had their own independentpower bases. Government officials in favor with the courtmight fall afoul of SAVAK and lose their positions. AmbassadorZahedi refused to even allow them into his embassybecause of some of his past experiences. Ultimately, SAVAK’slast commander would betray the shah and help to deliverthe country to Ayatollah Khomeini.The all-pervasive, constant intimidation has beenrecorded many times. Teachers for Tehran’s United StatesrunIran-America Society were told by embassy officials toassume that there was at least one SAVAK informer in everyclassroom; the same rule applied in Iranian universities.One instructor reported that despite this warning heoccasionally mentioned the shah “just to get a reaction.”“It’s amazing,” he declared, “they are so paralyzed with

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 179fear at the mere mention of his name that they don’t even batan eyelash.” 21 American ad visors, cautioned to be careful,generally referred to the shah and empress by humorouscode names.General Nematollah Nasiri, a former military academyclass mate of the shah whose loyalty had been so decisivelydemon strated in 1953, commanded SAVAK, holding therank of deputy prime minister. General Hussein Fardost,an old classmate of the shah at the Le Rosey School inSwitzerland (also attended by American AmbassadorRichard Helms) and one of the monarch’s closest friends,headed the Special In telligence Bureau, which kept tabs onSAVAK. The number of full-time SAVAK employees wasrelatively small—slightly over 3,000—though the numberof paid informers, including journalists, students, waiters,drivers, and businessmen, might have easily numberedtwenty times as many.SAVAK also tried to keep an eye on American critics. WhenSenator Edward Kennedy visited Iran in 1975, uninvitedSAVAK agents crashed his meeting with journalists at theTehran Hilton. An aide to Senator Gaylord Nelson, who hadcome to gather information on Iran’s military buildup, wasbriefed at an embassy luncheon by an Iranian editor wholater turned out to be a SAVAK agent.When embassy press attaché Max McCarthy askedseveral Iranians in casual conversation the rationale behindIran’s military purchases, word soon reached the shah, whoex pressed his displeasure at one of his regular sessions withthe CIA station chief. Some weeks later, Nasiri summonedthe CIA man and a top assistant and read them a detailedaccount of the attaché’s conversations. 22SAVAK’s Anti-Sabotage Committee, located in an alley offForoughi Street in downtown Tehran, had carte blanche toinvestigate and arrest almost anyone in the country. For example,in April, 1973, during a break in the trial of severalpersons accused of plotting against the royal family, two Kayhanreporters, Massoud Alai’i and MustafaBashi, greeted one ofthe defendants, their former colleague Khosrow Golesorkhi.They were immediately arrested. Alai’i was released after he

180PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSwrote an article denouncing the plot; Bashi was kept in jailfour monthsWhatever the actual number of informers, their om_nipresence was a basic article of Iranian belief. One veteranEast Tehran resident said he personally knew forty full-timeagents within a square kilometer of his home; an Iranianjour-nalist said that each of Tehran’s twenty-nine policeprecincts had its own intelligence section where a SAVAKteam ad ministered a network of informers. SAVAK’s InternalSecurity Department ran its own separate system as well.In October, 1976 the shah told CBS’s “Sixty Minutes”what Iranian students had long claimed—that SAVAK alsooperated in the United States. There were about fifteen totwenty of ficials working mostly out of Iranian consulates,perhaps fifty to one hundred full-time informers, plus anumber of others on retainer. Students involved in politicalactivity were threat ened with loss of scholarships andpersecution at home unless they cooperated by reportingon their peers.SAVAK also exchanged information with the CIA. Infact, since CIA operatives in Iran concentrated on gatheringmate rial about the Soviets and since they were careful notto offend the shah, the United States was almost completelydependent on SAVAK for intelligence on developments inIran itself. At times, President Nixon and Secretary of StateKissinger ex pressed displeasure at the CIA’s heavy relianceon liaison with local intelligence agencies in variouscountries, but this system was still in place at the time ofthe 1978-79 revolution.Like many authoritarian leaders, the shah had great difficultyin understanding the internal workings of a freecoun try. He constantly mistook American permissivenesstoward the anti-shah political activities of Iranian studentsor exiles as United States government support for them. Thisled to frequent complaints from Iran’s Foreign Ministry:Why, they asked, would Washington allow such attackson a friendly country? The shah was particularly eager toavoid any demon strations during his trips to the UnitedStates; he interpreted the violent Washington march during

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 181his December, 1977 White House visit as an intended signalof Carter administra tion disfavor toward him.A particular target of Tehran’s ire was the Iran Free Press,an outspoken anti-shah newspaper published in Virginia byNasser Afshar, a naturalized American citizen. On numerousoccasions, Iran’s Foreign Ministry requested informationon Af shar, which was supplied, and requested that thepublication be shut down. The State Department replied thatwhile the paper might well be irresponsible and inaccurate,no legal steps could be taken against it.Some time in 1975 or 1976, SAVAK decided to assassinateAfshar. They requested a complete file on the editor fromthe CIA, without apprising them of their final intentions.The agency went to the FBI, obtained a file on Afshar andturned it over to SAVAK. In the meantime, the CIA obtainedword that SAVAK had been training a non-Iranian assassin,though it did not know for what purpose. Some monthslater, the man in question contacted the CIA, told themthat he had been or dered to carry out the murder, but hadrefused to go through with it.On a more mundane level, the CIA exchanged informationwith SAVAK on Iranian students, justified by Tehran’s realproblem with terrorists. A very large number of the students,of course, chose to stay in the United States after graduation,more often for personal and professional than for politicalreasons. The CIA also trained SAVAK, up to the time of theshah’s fall, in such areas as surveillance techniques, agenthandling, and intelligence-gathering methods.Within Iran itself, the CIA and the American Embassyplayed only the most marginal of roles. Far from being a“nest of spies,” the embassy was, due to its extreme cautionin avoiding any offense to the shah, poorly informed.Thus, there Was little reporting on human-rights violationsuntil 1975, when Amnesty International, the InternationalCommission of Jurists, and the United States media broughtthe subject to Public attention.Embassy staffers were somewhat beleaguered. AnyIranian they spoke to might be a SAVAK agent and thenremarks might quickly reach even the shah himself; they

182PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSsuspected that their mail was opened by Iranian censors.The shah’s regime was so eager to control all informationthat it even requested in May, 1976 the closure of the UnitedStates Armed Forces Radio and Television Network becauseits Iran ian listeners—estimated at 200,000—knew it to be anobjective source of news. American personnel were told notto divulge to any American correspondent information thatthe Iranian government did not want disclosed.Outside of university unrest and urban terrorists, whoseac tivities were covered in intelligence reports, no structuredin ternal opposition existed; consequently, the embassycannot be faulted for failing to find active dissidents. Butthis was not the issue: the real problem was the failureto penetrate the shah’s public relations facade, to gatherinformation from un official sources, to transmit the seriousdiscontent that was spreading among the people, and todescribe the serious prob lems facing them.These shortcomings were due in part to the tight controlex ercised by the Iranian government and in part to selfimposedlimits. The United States did not want to offendsuch a sensi tive and important ally; the State Departmenthierarchy was determined to discourage critical views ofexisting policy.The best of American diplomatic and intelligence reportingoften reflects the shrewd analysis of a full-time specialistwho studies a specific subject from a wide range of sources.Even with the right person in the job, it is still very difficultto make accurate predictions of future developments.Further, the best kinds of information generally come fromopen discussion with one’s counterparts in official andunof ficial meetings; in situations where different politicalfactions are trying to elicit United States sympathy orsupport, these factions themselves test the validity ofconflicting opinions. Neither of these conditions existedin the American consider ations of an Iranian policy. Thetendency was, instead, to de pend solely on the country’selite for data; Iranian officials were discouraged from beingopen with their United States counterparts. Further, theconcentration of American personal in the capital city also

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 183limited the information to which Americans could haveaccess regarding the real situation in the rest of the country.Foreign Service Officers often wear a set of political,bu reaucratic, and cultural blinders. They are accustomedto serv ing existing policy. Promotion is enhanced by theability to get along with the ambassador and with theconventional wis dom. Many American diplomats movein narrow and rela tively Westernized circles, with onlya superficial understand ing of the language, history, andideology of the country in which they serve. Although thereare many honorable excep tions, those who would be criticalof existing policy must also filter their reports through anambassador whose standing in Washington may dependon his ability to get along with the host regime. He has anincentive to reassure Washington that all is going well andthat American policy is being effectively implemented. *After information is collected it must be interpreted.Despite Iran’s importance, however, the State Department hadfew officers familiar with that country. Among the reasonsfor this is one that is absurdly simple: because personnel arefrequently moved around (two to three-year tours of dutyare common] it made little sense from a career point of viewto specialize in so distinctive a country. It had long been theac cepted wisdom among careerists that generalists had farbetter prospects for promotion than those who establishedthem selves in narrow areas of expertise. It is no wonder thenthat there was no shortage of Arabists, who could broadentheir foreign service experience by serving in any one or moreof two dozen different countries; in contrast, a knowledge ofFarsi would be useful only in one.As an explanation of the department’s lack of adequateunderstanding, Iran’s rise to importance had been so rapidthat there had not been time to reverse employee trends andde velop a better-prepared group of Iran experts. Further,* It is fascinating to compare the structural problems of the AmericanEm bassy in Tehran with those of its counterpart in Saigon during thecollapse of South Vietnam. The inside account of Frank Snepp, DecentInterval (New York, 1977), provides many parallels.

184PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSany Iran specialist who offended the shah’s government,and was declared persona non grata and ineligible to returnto Iran, would have had his value to the department sharplycurtailed.At any rate, the State Department Middle East regionalbureau tended to focus on Arab issues, particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict and on the unstable patterns of Arab politics.Iran policy was considered a success precisely because thatcountry seemed, to use the then-current phrase, an islandof stability in a tumultuous area.At last, one comes to the level of persuasion. Once datahas been analyzed it must be explained to the real decisionmakers,those at the top of the State Department, theNational Security Council and, most important, the staffand resident of the White House. These people generallyhave little or no ex perience in dealing with the Middle Eastand rarely have stud ied the region. As one veteran of theprocess put it after two decades of such efforts: “If you can’tget them to understand the difference between Sunni andShi’a Islam, you can hardly go on to more subtle points.”Policymakers usually approach problems with a predeterminedview of the situation—the “conception” in intelligencejargon—often hallowed by long years of continuity in aforeign political system or conflict. The conception of theshah’s Iran was that of a strong, emerging state, a close ally,and a regional pillar. Leaders can develop a strong vestedin terest in a given interpretation of events and, as human beings,like to believe that their policies are enjoying success.In short, they prefer to hear only good news about thecorrectness of policies they themselves had instituted.In the United States government there is a high valueplaced on bureaucratic discipline, a virtue of which HenryKissinger was an outspoken admirer. To tame the bureaucracy,he believed, was a precondition to successful diplomacy.The irony is that once tamed, the bureaucracy willrein force the prevailing views at the top. For better or worse,it can also create a surprising degree of conformity in thead ministrations that follow.Since all three levels suffered from shortcomings in

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 185dealing with Iran, the government’s inability to keep upwith develop ments there is not surprising. The IranianEmbassy in Wash ington worked its spell on elements inCongress and on the mass media. The restrictions placed onthe American Embassy in Tehran sometimes made it hardto learn seemingly simple things.The most devastating error may have been the failure todis cover the shah’s cancer. There were rumors in Tehran, forex ample those denied by Iranian government spokesmen inSep tember, 1975, that the shah was drawn and thin because ofa lingering and grave malady. But these stirred no great curiosityin Washington: embassy reports portrayed the shah as fitand healthy. Consequently, the American government spentthe first nine months of 1978 waiting for some strong responseto the revolution from a man broken in both body and spirit.The embassy also tried—and failed—in its effort to findout how many political prisoners there actually were in Iran.In the end, they simply accepted the official Iranian figures,which high-ranking American officials used repeatedly intes timony and speeches.Such political and information considerations explain Atherton’swarm defense of Iran’s human rights record in September,1976 congressional hearings. 23 Modernization was a difficultprocess, he began, and yet the shah’s White Revolutionhad achieved great things. Land titles had been distributedto 2,6 million people, women’s rights had been furthered,and Iran now boasted a Literacy Corps, a Health Corps, ruralde velopment teams, profit-sharing schemes, and subsidies tosta bilize prices. The shah had destroyed reactionary vestedin terests—tribal chiefs and large landowners—who stood inthe way of progress.Referring to the two main terrorist groups, the only visibleopposition at the time, he commented that “their principlemotivation appears to be the destruction of the current societyand its leaders; these groups have not promoted constructivealternatives.” Although Atherton did not say so at the time, itWas known that they were trained by some of the PalestineLiberation Organization’s constituent groups.In view of the Iranian government’s military court

186PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSsystem, he continued, “it is difficult to discount the manypersistent reports” of torture. He did not condone cases of“harsh meth ods” but many of these reports were two tothree years old and, most recently, “all concerned terrorists.”An embassy in vestigation showed, he maintained, “thatmany of those al leged to have been tortured had been killedor wounded in armed exchanges with the security forcesor suffered wounds during the clandestine preparation ofexplosives.”Under the strictest definition of political prisoners,Atherton went on, Iran held only 100 to 150. Most of the totalof 2,800 to 3,500 jailed for offenses against the state had beencon victed of specific acts of violence. The United States didnot make official representations to Iran on human rightsques tions for the reason that the administration of thejudicial and penal system “is above all a matter of internalIranian respon sibility, and that one sovereign countryshould not interfere lightly in another’s domestic affairs.”Assistant Secretary of State Atherton concluded at thecon gressional hearing: “I believe that the advances whichhave been made in improving the human rights of the broadmajor ity of Iran’s population under considerable adversityfar out weigh such abuses as have occurred in an attempt tocontrol the violent challenges to the government.”It cannot be doubted that in making such statementsAmeri can officials were trying to avoid any offense tothe shah. Realpolitik dictated that he was the ruler ofIran and would, the White House thought, remain so forthe foreseeable future. Washington needed and wouldcontinue to need his friend ship and favor in protectingAmerica’s regional interests. Yet such statements were nomere cynical instruments of statecraft; as far as one can tell,the vast majority of American policymakers sincerely—andmistakenly—believed them to be true.Ambassador Helms was also a strong advocate of thecon tinuing correctness of the two-pillar policy. As he putit in a February, 1976 speech at Iran’s National DefenseUniversity: “Because of the the tremendous amounts of oilthat are shipped out of the Gulf … it is no overstatement

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 187to say that the Persian Gulf is a life line for all the world.”This route must be kept open and safe; the United Statessaw Iranians “as a stabilizing influence in the region” whowere “able to de fend themselves against outside threats andto play a role commensurate with their interests.” Certainlyrapidly mod ernizing Iran was going through an inevitableperiod of dif ficulties, policymakers told each other, but in afew years the country would settle down and assimilate allthe benefits of its progress.Helms not only believed in Iran’s strategic importance,but also respected the shah’s leverage vis-a-vis the UnitedStates. The shah’s acceptance of United States listening postsin northern Iran to gather information on Soviet missilelaunches—an important resource in verification requirementsfor the SALT treaty—as well as his purchases of arms on acash basis and his regional leadership role made him a figurewho could not be easily influenced by the United States.The appointment of Helms as ambassador to Iranseems to have been a spur-of-the-moment decision. WhenPresident Nixon found it expedient to fire the directorbecause of his re fusal to use the agency to bail Nixon outof Watergate, he of fered Helms an embassy appointment asconsolation. Helms suggested Iran as a major post, which,unlike the big Euro pean embassies, was not run directlyfrom Washington. 24Nonetheless, the presence of the former head of the CIA inthe American Embassy in Iran was a symbol of the bilateralrelationship’s importance. One often-told story has it that aSoviet ambassador once asked Hoveyda, “Why do the Americanssend you their Number 1 spy?” The Iranian prime ministerlooked him straight in the eye and answered, “Becausethey are our friends. They do not send us their Number 10man.” The story, likely apocryphal, illustrates the point thatthe shah appreciated the appointment of such a seeminglypowerful man, with direct lines to the White House; theshah’s successors saw it as one more item of proof that thereal role of the American Embassy was to act as nerve centerfor American domination and interference in Iran.By the end of 1976, however, the United States-Iranian

188PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSrela- tionship was undergoing a serious challenge withinthe United States. In part, this took place within the broadercon text of the soul-searching that followed the Vietnam Warand the Watergate scandal. As a Washington Post editorialput it, many found Nixon’s legacy on Iran, “an implicitcommitment that Americans cannot accept—and yet cannoteasily reject. Condemning this kind of high-handed andirresponsible statecraft is simple enough. But working out aremedy is going to be as difficult as it is urgent.” 25President Ford’s opponent, Democratic candidate JimmyCarter, raised another criticism in their October 6 debate.The United States had become, “contrary to our longstandingbe liefs and principles—the arms merchant of thewhole world.” Ford replied that Carter did not understandthe need for arms sales: Iran, with Iraq and the USSR asneighbors, needed those weapons to protect its security. 26Within the administration, the growing criticisms setoff defensive reactions. Some few were convinced that thetime had come to get out the truth about existing problems;most saw the criticism as an impugning of their own work.Maybe the complaints about arms transfers and the shah’sbehavior were true, they said, but following the existingpolicy was vital to American security. Firm in this belief,they tried to make reports more palatable to Congress andto the public, obscuring some bothersome facts.Obviously, the shah himself preferred Ford’s re-election.The incumbents were well known to him as supporters ofhis own objectives. Carter, with his talk of human rightsand arms-sales cutbacks, introduced a worrisome factor.The architects of the two-pillar policy, on the other hand,were generally more secure in the belief that the policywould continue no matter who won the election. Theirposition, they believed, was based on objective facts. Theshah was strong in authority if not in personality; Iran wassuccessfully modern izing, economically and militarily. Evenif the shah were to disappear, Iran’s policy was not likely tochange—the Iranian military was the ultimate guarantor ofthe pro-American align ment. They had long worked withAmericans, been trained by Americans, used American

ARMS AND THE SHAH 1975-1976 189weapons and needed American spare parts to continue tomaintain their arsenal. The Soviets, Iraqis, and other hostileforces would still stand at their borders to remind them oftheir need for a strong friend.In short, although the domestic assault on administrationpolicy increased rather than abated, many—probably most—government officials, members of Congress, and reportersstill accepted substantially the misleading image built upby the shah. Even those who railed against the amountsof arms sales or against repression still thought that theywere dealing with a fully-clothed emperor. It was the veryconfidence the shah had generated among his allies thatwas to contribute to his downfall.

7The Pillar Crumbles1977-78In January, 1977, President Jimmy Carter, a politicianoutspo ken on human rights and arms exports—thetwo most con troversial issues in United States-Iranianrelations—entered the White House. Despite expectations,his administration did not inaugurate a sudden sharp breakwith its predecessors’ practices.Three factors helped determine the direction of Carterad ministration policy on Iran. First was the tremendousmomen tum of previous American commitments regardingregional strategy and arms sales. Most of the career officialskept over from the previous regime supported the twopillarand Nixon Doctrine approaches and even those fewwithin the adminis tration who were critical of standingpolicy differed with the majority mainly on tacticalgrounds. After all, unless they were willing to accept amuch-enlarged direct projection of American power intothe region, they were faced with the same reality of UnitedStates dependence on Iran that had mo tivated the policyin the first place. Further, American politi cal and militarystrategy was somewhat like a large and un wieldy ship thatrequired considerable time to be turned about. In 1977, the

THE PILLAR CRUMBLES 1977-1978 191Carter administration was dealing with arms deliveriesplanned for 1981 and beyond—schedules had already beenset for the president’s entire first term. In addi tion, as longas the policy seemed to be working—that is, that it had notbroken down into crisis—it was bureaucratically difficult topush through any revisions.Second, the Carter administration was slow to recognizethe signs when the policy did go into crisis—the WhiteHouse did not seem to understand the seriousness of thesituation until November, 1978, after ten months of riotsand demonstrations in Iran—because its own image of thatcountry was based on perceptions it had inherited from itspredecessors. Few among the new officials challenged thebelief that the shah was a rel atively successful modernizer,albeit a somewhat ruthless one, and was quite capable ofmaintaining order at home. Indeed, critics within the newadministration much more often ex pressed concern that theshah was becoming too powerful rather than that he mightlose power. His influence on oil prices, his huge arsenal,and his regional ambitions all psy chologically preparedthe Carter White House for problems that might be broughtabout by an excessively strong shah— not an excessivelyweak one.In the inner-government debate over arms sales, thoseurg ing restraint based their argument on President Carter’sin junction that the United States not be the first to introducenew kinds or quantities of weaponry into the region. Supportersof the standing policy thought the Gulf so importantand so unstable that the shah had to be given the equipmenthe demanded in order to defend it. Critics questioned Iran’shuman rights record; defenders claimed the shah had mademuch progress on that front. Those favoring cutbacks expressedfears of a regional arms race; those favoring highlevels of arms sales pointed to Iraq’s own buildup and to Sovietgains in the Horn of Africa, South Yemen, and Afghanistanas justifying a strengthening of the shah’s forces.In these debates advocates of large-scale arms sales to Iranalmost always won. Their trump argument was that denialof weapons would be not only a risky vote of no-confidence

192PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSin the shah’s leadership at a time America needed Iran’shelp but also futile, since the shah would merely buy whathe wanted elsewhere. Both sides of the debate focused onthe interna tional aspects of United States-Iranian relationsand not on Iran’s domestic problems. The critics of existingpolicy could barely win official recognition of the powerfulargument that Iran was experiencing difficulty absorbingweaponry already delivered. 1Third, the American response to Iran’s problems bothbefore and during the revolution were conditioned by theadminis tration’s international vision. Coming to power inthe after math of the Vietnam War, Carter and his advisorswere reluc tant to commit the United States to helpingrepress overseas political unrest, particularly in conflictsand in situations where military involvement might becomenecessary. To some extent, in the case of Iran, this reluctancerepresented a logical continuation of the Nixon Doctrine. Ifthe shah was strong enough to preserve order in the region,with American help generally being limited to aid andadvice, he certainly ought to be expected to maintain orderat home.Yet the Carter White House deemed revolutions againstdic tators part of the natural process of history. In suchsituations they placed more emphasis on maintaininga posture capable of adjustment to changing politicalcircumstances than on ac tive counterinsurgency. They alsodoubted that the United States would ever again be able tomanage international events to the extent it once had.A review of the handling of human rights and arms-salesquestions vis-a-vis Iran in 1977 reveals some of the inneram biguities of the Carter policy. As early as September,1976, the shah, concerned about American congressionaland media at tacks on his image, invited the InternationalCommission of Jurists (ICJ), Amnesty International (AI),and the International Red Cross (IRC) to suggest waysof improving the human rights situation in Iran. Theseagencies held a number of meet ings with Iranian officials;IRC representatives toured Iranian prisons.It is not clear whether their recommendations had any

THE PILLAR CRUMBLES 1977-1978 193longstanding effect on the treatment of Iranian prisoners, butsev eral respected outside observers suggested that progresshad been made. Iranian expert James Bill called 1977 “the yearof liberalization”; Richard Cottam reported that the shah wasimproving prison conditions and had ended torture. *At the same time, as these and other sources reported,ar rests continued. The influential Ayatollah Mahmud Talaghani,for example, was sentenced to ten years imprisonment.While no American pressure was actually applied on theshah, Washington did discuss two specific issues with Iranianofficials, urging that innocent people should not be arrestedand that prisoners should not be tortured. These appealswere distinguished from any call for a broader liberalizationof the political system, which was not made. There was abig differ ence, of course, between requests that prisonersnot be beaten and demands that Iran be transformed into ademocracy. Complaints after the revolution by the shah andhis defenders that Washington forced him to become too soft,and thus en couraged the upheaval, seem, simply, to have nobasis in fact. The human rights issue did provide one politicaldividend for the American Embassy in Tehran. In attempts tohear from the other side contacts were renewed for the firsttime in years with opposition leaders, particularly some inthe National Front, who would play important roles duringthe revolution.Despite these limited efforts, the United Statesgovernment spent more time defending the shah’s humanrights record than it did criticizing it. The State Departmenthierarchy saw the human rights issue as a nuisance thatmight create fric tions in United States-Iranian relations,which it was their job to protect. In preparing their annualreports and hearings on human rights, they fought amongthemselves more over their portrayal of Iran than over that*‘Currently available information throws considerable doubt on whether suchprogress was made. Some sources claim that the only prisoners IRC visitorswere allowed to speak with were guards in convicts’ clothing. On the otherhand, the total number of political prisoners seems to have been closer to thelower official estimates than to the huge figures cited by the opposition andwidely accepted by Americans after the shah’s fall.

194PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSof any other country in the world. Most of the time, the StateDepartment regional spe cialists emerged victorious.The congressionally-mandated State Department humanrights report prepared in late 1977 rationalized Iran’s performanceby reference to the forced pace of economic andsocial modernization and to the threat posed by terrorism.Though arbitrary imprisonment and unfair trials continued,the report said, the penal code was fairly enlightened andthere were now fewer allegations of torture. They estimatedthat there were 3,300 to 3,700 political prisoners, but thatthe number had been reduced by the shah’s amnesties.“Roughly two-thirds of the Iranian Government’s totalspending in the period 1973-78 can be classified as outlayfor economic development and social welfare programs,”the study concluded. “We believe the Iranian Governmentis com mitted to prison reform and that prison conditionshave in deed improved.” In short, the Iranian governmentwas said to be doing a good job in meeting human needsand to be genuinely trying to improve its performance onhuman rights. 2The State Department’s report of the following year, preparedin the midst of the revolution, was only marginallymore critical. It agreed that the development of politicalinsti tutions had lagged behind economic modernizationand that in the past “violations of human rights by securityforces were fairly common-place,” but this had begunto change in recent years. Torture in prisons “apparentlyended” in early 1977 and substantial numbers of politicalprisoners were released. Early in 1978 the governmentannounced reforms, including civil court trials for politicaloffenders, greater choice of coun sel, and increased judicialprotection for the individual. True, during the fightingthere were numerous instances of harsh and often brutaltreatment, but they might have been pro duced by an erosionof SAVAK discipline, it was claimed. 3In contrast, a study by the respected CongressionalResearch Service released in July, 1978 was far more critical.It spoke of the need to weigh “the benefits of modernization… against present limitations on individual freedoms and

THE PILLAR CRUMBLES 1977-1978 195civil rights.” The White Revolution achieved “considerablesuccess” in the former field but also “engendered anintolerance toward polit ical dissent and has led to anincreasing reliance upon the armed forces and securityorganizations to control opposition elements.” 4 Militaryexpenditures had competed with fund ing for economicdevelopment. Growth was unbalanced, waste extensive,projected goals were not met, housing was in short supplyand inflation was a continuing problem.Contrary to retrospective impressions, the StateDepartment hardly went out of its way to criticize Iran.Even when repres sive techniques were cited, they werecounterposed to the successful modernization effortsunderway. But it was the na ture of modernization itself—itsmethods and impact on the lives of Iranians—that caused asmuch or possibly even more opposition to the shah than didhuman rights violations. Ira nians therefore turned towardthe alternative, negative view of modernization offered byKhomeini’s camp. American policymakers and journalists,with a naive belief in the force of economic development inpolitics, had great difficulty un derstanding the roots of thisresponse, even after the revolu tion.As the revolution approached, the shah’s nervousnessabout the administration’s intentions was matched by theopposi tion’s hopefulness. Particularly expectant were thoseelements of the National Front that had been friendly towardthe United States. In May, 1977, fifty-four Iranian lawyerssigned a decla ration protesting legal revisions they feltundermined the judi ciary’s independence. The followingmonth, National Front leaders, including Karim Sanjabiand Shahpour Bakhtiar, is sued an open letter calling for anend to the dictatorship and for implementation of the 1906constitution. These appeals received no open encouragementfrom Washington yet even some of the religious oppositionseems to have had hopes for American sympathy. “Wedidn’t expect Carter to defend the shah,” Ayatollah HusseinMontazeri later recalled, “for he is a religious man who hasraised the slogan of defending human rights. How can Carter,the devout Christian, defend the Shah?” 5

196PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSIf Washington’s human rights policy had sent someconfusing signals, its arms-sales policy continued to be oneof clear sup port for the shah. Despite Tehran’s cutbacks inpurchases, the shah continued to obtain about one-third of allUnited States foreign military sales. In a two-and-a-half hourmeeting with the shah in May, 1977— the month in whichPresident Carter articulated his new policy of limiting militaryexports—Secre tary of State Cyrus Vance promised that theUnited States would remain Iran’s main arms supplier. Theidea of linking such sales to human rights reform was not evendiscussed; Vance denied any intention to seek such leverage.During the Carter administration’s first few monthsit did at tempt to distance itself from most of the priorKissinger-Ford policies. As one senior White House officialput it, “The shah has to learn this isn’t the Nixon-Kissingeradministration any more.” In May, 1977 Carter’s armsexportguidelines man dated that all sales be demonstrablyin the national interest, that a quantitative ceiling be placedon them, that the govern ment more closely supervisecompanies, and that the United States not be the first tointroduce new weapons into a region.Thus, the new president tacitly abandoned the 1972 UnitedStates-Iranian understanding and returned to the normalarms-sales-review process for the first time in a decade. Duringthose early months, Carter himself sometimes studiedspe cific proposals in great detail. Congressional reviewprovi sions had also been strengthened, stretching the timefor consideration of administration requests. Pressureson the bu reaucracy to approve all new sales, such as theWhite House had applied in prior years, were removed. Butthe emphasis remained on gradual change rather than ondramatic rever sals.In practice, the changed attitude had little practicaleffect on sales to Iran. One exception involved severalnavy frigates. In early 1978, to circumvent its own quota,the administration had to arrange to have the ships builtin West Germany and Holland while the United Statesprovided only the armament. In another instance, the F-18was not sold to Iran because the American military did not

THE PILLAR CRUMBLES 1977-1978 197want to build it for itself. Orders for F-l6s and AW AGs weredelayed by internal debates and con gressional criticism.The administration’s original resolution was eroded by thenatural processes of the presidency. New chief executives,along with their staffs and appointees, come into officewith large-scale ideas for changing everything, only tosettle down into old patterns as existing power groups andnational inter ests assert themselves. Both outside criticismsand internal doubts about the dangers of excessive idealismalso played a part with the Carter administration, as did theloyalties of ca reer officials toward policies they had beenimplementing for years.Although there was more freedom of debate within theCarter administration than there had been during the Nixonand Ford years, the advocates of change usually lost on theIran issue. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinskiand Ambassador William Sullivan were strongly againstexerting any pressure on the shah. Other key people, suchas Assistant Secretary of State for Middle East and SouthAsian Affairs Alfred Atherton and the director of the Officeof Iranian Af fairs Henry Precht, who had just returnedfrom service in the Tehran embassy, also supported theestablished policy.Iran’s declining oil revenues, however, continued toforce some cutbacks in purchases. In February, 1977, facedwith such deficits, the shah trimmed $2 billion from hisdefense budget, while also reducing spending on foreignaid and in ternal development. Contributing to the shah’snew will ingness to go along with military cutbacks werehis military’s increasing absorption problems: Iran was oneyear behind on training support personnel and establishingfacilities for the F-14; millions of dollars worth of radarequipment rusted in Warehouses.The biggest dispute over arms sales took place notbetween Iran and the Departments of State or Defense butbetween the White House and Congress. This concernedthe sale of seven AWACs (Airborne Warning and Controlsystem) early-warn ing radar planes, modified Boeing 707sfull of elaborate radar, communications, and jamming

198PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSequipment. These units, each carrying a crew of seventeenand costing $125 million apiece had radar systems capableof looking down on a two-hundred-nautical-mile radius ofair space. If the Soviets were to obtain its secrets they wouldcounter American cruise missiles; con sequently, preservingthe security of AWACs was of the great est importance. CIADirector Admiral Stansfield Turner had serious reservationsover the sale, as did a number of senators.In reply, the White House and Defense Departmentpointed out that Iran had already received other advancedequipment without security mishap. Since Iran had no airdefensesystem the shah had put a high priority on obtainingone. The alter native to AWACs—a ground-based chain ofradar installa tions—would have been far more expensiveand would have required more technicians to maintainthan the four hundred needed for the AWACs.Selling AWACs to Iran would also bring down the per unitcost low enough for these systems to be attractive to WesternEuropean NATO members. These purchases, in turn, wouldbring the price down to a level at which Congress might bewilling to allocate funds for the United States military tohave the system. Nevertheless, when the proposal was sent toCongress in the spring of 1977 there was widespread opposition.In July, the House International Relations Committeevoted nineteen to seventeen to block it; its Senate counterpartseemed likely to do the same. With summer adjournmentcoming up President Carter decided to withdraw the requesttemporarily rather than face rejection by Congress.During recess, two compromises were worked out. TheSenate Foreign Relations Committee asked for and receivedassurances from the president that the sale would “stabilizethe Middle East regional military balance.” On the securityissue the president promised to remove encipherment gearand other especially sensitive equipment, to institute continuousmonitoring of Iranian security precautions, and to cancelthe deal if these were inadequate. The sale was then ratified. 6Iran needed and deserved AWACs, Secretary Vance said,because the shah was a major oil supplier for the UnitedStates and a protector of regional stability: “To preserve our

THE PILLAR CRUMBLES 1977-1978 199mutual confidence Iran must know that the United Stateswill help it to meet its legitimate defense requirements.”Critics disagreed. A Washington Post editorial called thesale “an em barrassment to Mr. Carter’s professed intentionto reduce the American role as the leading arms merchantin the world.” Twenty-two senators had tried to block theAWACs transac tion but had lacked the required votes. 7Given Iran’s extensive and vulnerable borders, a comprehensiveair-defense system seemed a reasonably nonlethal,in nately defensive type of equipment for the UnitedStates prop erly to provide. The strenuous opposition andcontroversy in Washington shows just how far congressionalreservations had come over the arms-transfer program.Undeniably, in hindsight the security argument seemscompelling, but fortu nately, since delivery was scheduledfor 1981, none of these planes were in Iran at the time of therevolution.The second White House-Congress agreement assistingpas sage of the AWACs proposal was an administrationpromise to restudy the weapons-sales program. SomeDefense Department experts felt real progress had beenmade since the crisis days of 1975 and 1976. Iran, they argued,was becoming self-suf ficient in some areas of maintenanceand in recruitment of technicians. Admittedly, contractorperformance was uneven and Iranian forces continued tosuffer from command and logistical problems, they added,but in a few years, say by 1985, Tehran would possess acompetent and powerful mili tary.Thus, the classified State/Defense study yielded few surprises.It spoke about absorption problems with a candor notfound in preceding years, but the old optimism still dominated.Also repeated was the list of geopolitical problemssaid to necessitate the buildup: the Soviet and Iraqi threatsand Iran’s importance in maintaining regional stability.Others within the government, however, stressed stillunresolved difficulties. A Pentagon study requested byDefense Secretary Harold Brown reported in Novemberthat con tractor competition was a continuing barrier tosmooth opera tions. For them, “the stakes are so high and the

200PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONStemptation so great,” the report concluded, “that they willcontinue in the future to pay agents’ fees which can be sharedby the Iranian officials.” It called for additional restraints. 8In its contribution to the report for Congress, the StateDe partment’s Policy Planning Staff also dissented from thegen eral optimism. It found a large and growing potential forpolit ical and social instability in Iran, to which weapons-absorptionproblems were adding. A strong Iran, their surveyadded, required more than a well-armed Iran—it alsonecessi tated domestic tranquility. This view did not prevail.Thus, the arms-sale program continued despite furthercon gressional criticism, including Senate Majority LeaderRobert Byrd’s November call for a moratorium. An exchangeof visits between President Carter and the shah in November,and De cember, 1977 was set up to reinforce mutual confidenceand understanding between the two governments. There weremany questions on the shah’s mind. He wanted to know howthe changing state of United States-Soviet relations might affecthis interests and wanted reassurance that America wasnot entering a post-Vietnam stage of isolationism. Regionalevents also engaged his attention. There was Soviet interventionin the Horn of Africa and the disorder in neighboringAfghanistan that would lead to a Marxist coup in April1978. Reports of declining Soviet oil production raised thepossibil ity that Moscow might seek direct or indirect controlover petroleum-producing sections of the Middle East.This twelfth visit of the shah to Washington might havebeen successful in its private talks but was a fiasco on thepublic level. In Washington, 4,000 anti-shah students outsidethe White House attacked 1,500 pro-shah demonstrators—some of whom were subsidized by the Iranian Embassy—with clubs, leading to 124 injuries among marchers andpolice. Tear gas drifted over the White House’s south lawnduring the arrival ceremony, causing Carter to blink and wipehis eyes and the shah to dab at his face with a handkerchief.The protesters shouted, “Down with the fascist Shah” and“Down with U.S. imperialism.” The occasion provoked studentdemonstrations in Tehran; fifty-six lawyers, writers, professors,and judges, mostly associated with the National Front,

THE PILLAR CRUMBLES 1977-1978 201signed an open letter calling for disbandment of SAVAK andfor free elections.Despite these storm warnings, the shah was happy abouthis meetings with Carter. They discussed new Iranian armsorders and, to please his host as well as to stabilize his fallingoil sales, the shah promised to oppose petroleum price increasesat the next OPEC meeting. To reassure the shah, thepresident praised Iran as having “blossomed forth under enlightenedleadership” and as having become “a very stabilizingforce in the world at large” to which the United States wasbound “with unbreakable ties” and an “unshakable” militaryalliance. Congress had to be consulted on future arms sales,the president added, but the shah needn’t worry—already$12 billion in military equipment was in the pipeline, movingtoward delivery in the coming years. 9Yet the signs of crisis within Iran continued. Even beforethe shah’s Washington visit, Hoveyda resigned as primemin ister in the. face of increasing economic difficulties,shortages of consumer goods, and five-hour daily blackouts.Riot police put down demonstrations in November; lawyerswho had signed protest letters were blacklisted. As in theearly 1960s, the National Front hoped to win United Statessupport and thought that Carter’s human rights policymight protect their public statements. Bakhtiar greeted thepresident’s arrival in December: “We have always supportedMr. Carter’s campaign for human rights,” he said, addingthat he hoped the issue would be raised with the shah. 10But as far as could be heard publicly, Carter had onlypraise for Iran’s ruler: “Iran is an island of stability in oneof the more troubled areas of the world,” the president saidin one speech. “This is a great tribute to you, Your Majesty,and to your leadership and to the respect, admiration andlove which your people give to you.” 11 This might have beenmeant as no more than polite talk to an ally but it was stilldisappointing to the moderate Iranian opposition.Nor was it all no more than diplomatic flattery. As1978 began, the overwhelming majority of United Statesgovern ment officials and analysts believed that Iran wouldcontinue to be a strong ally. Information to the contrary was

202PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSignored. A later investigation by Congress concluded that“consumers did not demand analysis of the Shah’s stability.Large arms transfers and other major policies in the regionwere pursued without the benefit of in-depth analysis of theIranian political scene.” 12 This was so, the study continued,because “long, standing U.S. attitudes toward the Shahinhibited intelligence collection, dampened policymakers’appetite for analysis of the Shah’s position, and deafenedpolicymakers to the warning implicit in available currentintelligence.” Analysts were not encouraged to challengeconventional wisdom, which many accepted anyway, eitherout of habit or out of conviction. Dissenting views wereweeded out as briefings and position papers wended theirway up the chain of command.Such processes were by no means new in 1977. Before JesseLeaf, at the time a key CIA Iran analyst, resigned in 1973, hewrote a report critical of the shah’s policies as “sowing theseed for popular dissidence.” 13 This conclusion was deletedbecause, a superior told him, it did not reflect overall UnitedStates policy toward Iran. The point missed by that official,of course, was that CIA findings should not have reflectedUnited States policy but rather real conditions. This confusionin goals has continually vitiated the value of American intelligenceagencies. Policymakers have held little interest inevaluations that have not confirmed the validity and efficacyof their own past decisions. “Until recently you couldn’t giveaway intelligence on Iran,” one specialist explained. Besides,CIA operatives in Iran were under as many restrictions in thecollection of information as was the embassy. During the twoyears before the revolution the agency had few contacts withthe religious opposition.The idea of omnipotent intelligence agencies has been overdrawnby both the friends and critics of those institutions.It is a high-risk profession, trying to predict results of theinterac tion of a large variety of factors in situations wherethe out come is subject to influence by whatever new playerschoose to thrust themselves into the game. The force ofone man’s personality can alter the outcome of the mostapparently predictable event. A high percentage of the

THE PILLAR CRUMBLES 1977-1978 203data gathered and the rumors intercepted are inaccurate.Much of the best work is done through the mundane useof publicly available sources: newspaper articles, statistics,radio broadcasts, and scholarly research. Often, despite thebest efforts, drastic mistakes are made. Few analysts of theearly thirties, for example, thought Hitler would be able totake power in Germany. 14Over time, observers of international affairs tend to takefor granted the predictability and rationality of events. Inhis book on the CIA, Thomas Powers defines the two mainclues used to understand a country’s future behavior as“past behav ior” and the belief that “no nation will run arisk without sub stantial chance of success in achieving acommensurate gain.” 15 Obviously, these were not reliableguides to events in Iran in 1978 and thereafter.Still, the religious opposition in Iran had been quiescentfor fifteen years; Iran had undergone a seemingly greateconomic boom; and the shah’s armed forces—standingat 350,000 men in mid-1977, 220,000 of them in the army—seemed adequate to deal with any internal challenge. CIAdirector Admiral Stansfield Turner later said that he knewof “no other in telligence service that predicted trouble inIran” and that “even Ayatollah Khomeini didn’t realize howwell his force was moving along.” 16The shah himself was baffled by the speed andpopularity of the revolution—a sign of his isolation, whichwas itself one cause of the problem. “Driving through thecity of Meshed in an open car only four months before thesituation became des perate,” he later said, “I was acclaimedby 300,000 people. Just after the troubles in Tabriz [inFebruary, 1978] my prime minister went there and had anoverwhelming reception. I can recall nothing in the historyof the world—not even the French revolution—to comparewith what happened sub sequently.” 17 Bereft of his closestadvisor, Minister of Court Assadollah Alam who had diedabout a year before the revolu tion, and dependent on theinept and self serving-intelligence of SAVAK, the shah wastold and shown only what his courtiers thought he wishedto hear and see.

204PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSMost important, French doctors who examined the shahin early 1978 told him that he was fatally ill with cancerand that problems involving irrigation of the brain couldslow his reac tions and decision-making ability. Thisprognosis, which never became known to the United Statesgovernment, made him listless and fatalistic, contributingto his personal col-lapse in the face of the revolution. Thisalone does not explain the difference between the shah’simage and his performance. Even without this burden hewas a weak and indecisive man.Accepting the shah’s self-evaluation of himself as commandingthe loyalty of his people and of his seemingly successfulpast performance, however, the American governmentthought he was better qualified than any American to judgeand deal with his country’s domestic uprising. Given theamount of power centralized in his hands and the limited capabilityfor United States involvement it was hard to see anyoption. After all, policymakers said, the shah had been on thethrone thirty-seven years and had weathered many crises.He had created the Iranian government virtually singlehandedly,possessed great wealth, excellent internationalconnections, and the best-equipped, best-trained, most loyalarmy in the region. For years he had given Washingtonlectures on how to conduct policy. The man charged with theresponsibility of protecting the entire region should surely beable to maintain his own regime on an even keel. All that wasnecessary were verbal assurances of Washington’s support.There had been much talk in Washington of what mighthappen if the shah were to die, but no one considered thepos sibility that he might remain very much alive, holdingall the reins of authority, and yet incapable of exercisinghis power in any coherent manner. This was the crisis theUnited States would face in 1978. When Kermit Roosevelt,who well knew of the shah’s weaknesses during the 1953imbroglio, tried to explain the monarch’s shortcomings tothe Carter administra tion his advice fell on deaf ears.Nevertheless, it would be foolishly simplistic to see therev olution as a mere response to a ruler’s weakness. Theprogres sive breakdown of Iran’s economic and social system,

THE PILLAR CRUMBLES 1977-1978 205plus the long-standing resentment over repression and othergovern ment policies, merged with the ineffectual responsefrom the throne to create contempt for the shah’s authority.The final element was the emergence of a charismatic figurecapable of competing with the shah for public loyalty—even among the peasants and conscript soldiers—AyatollahRuhollah Kho meini. 18The shah’s wavering reactions could also be attributedto the peculiar pattern of the revolution itself. Each waveof riot ing was followed by a period of calm, encouragingTehran and Washington in their wishful thinking that themovement was simply running its course before dying out.Actually, the demonstrations followed the cycle of Shi’amourning: every forty days marches were held to honorthose killed in the previous round. During periods of highactivity, as in early September and early November, theshah would tend to favor a harder line; when things seemedcalmer, as in late August and early October, he switched toa softer strategy.The shah must have remembered his success in riding outthe 1962-63 upheaval over the White Revolution and, earlier,in co-opting opposition elements after Mossadegh’s fall. Onthese two occasions, he had cracked down hard and thenpro ceeded to separate moderates from radicals, winningover some of the former, eliminating the latter. That strategywould fail this time, first because the charismatic Khomeiniwas able to keep the moderates in line and second becausethe fence sitters gradually became convinced that the shahwould fall. On the earlier occasions, the hopelessness ofdissent had led the protestors to surrender. This time, thehopelessness of the shah’s position caused those in themiddle to cast their lot with the revolution.Concern over American reactions might have affectedthe shah’s behavior, but only to a minor extent. Afterall, his forces were not inhibited from regularly killingdemonstrators or from arresting opposition leaders. Iranianprisons were filled to overflowing in the first half of 1978,until torture chambers were converted into holding cellsand beatings were done in hallways. For the first ten months

206PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSor so of the crisis the Carter administration refrained frompublic or private crit icism of the shah.On January 9, 1978 only eight days after President Carter’sdeparture from Iran, came an event marking the revolution’sbeginning. When theology students in the holy city of Qomdemonstrated against the publication of an article by Ministerof Information Darius Homayoun attacking the exiled Khomeini,police fired on the crowd, killing or wounding anumberof people. On February 18, two days of rioting hit Tabriz, acity traditionally associated with Iranian constitu tionalism.This time hundreds were killed or injured. The shah tried aconciliatory line, blaming provincial officials and removingthe unpopular military governor. Troops were with drawn;life seemed to return to normal; and even some dis sidentsthought the shah had won.Such beliefs were short-lived. Another wave of protestsbroke out in Tabriz on March 29; the army had to deploytanks against demonstrations in Tehran on May 11. Forthe first time chants of “Down with the shah!” were heardin the capital’s main streets. When marches were blockedreligious leaders called an effective general strike. On May31, 2,500 students rioted at Tehran University. In July it wasMeshed’s turn. The biggest outbreak of violence began inIsfahan on August 11. Within twenty-four hours, Isfahan,Shiraz, Ahvaz, and Tabriz were all under dusk-to-dawncurfews.The shah vowed that these troubles would not change hispolicies. Both massive arms purchases and his “liberalization”program would continue, the shah said: if reforms hadhelped ignite the flames, he claimed, they might also helpdouse them. As for relations with the Carter administration,he noted, “between governments we’ve never had it sogood.” He confidently exclaimed, “Nobody can overthrowme. I have the support of 700,000 troops, all the workers,and most of the people. I have the power.” 19American correspondents echoed these sentiments. Inan April story headlined, “SHAH MAINTAINS FIRM CONTROLDESPITE NEW WAVE OF PROTESTS,“ Washington Post correspondentWilliam Branigan wrote, “Most diplomatic observers

THE PILLAR CRUMBLES 1977-1978 207and dissidents agree that the shah has more than enoughresources to crush any serious challenge to his regime.”Jonathan Ran dal found the shah “firmly in control of Iran”in late May, though many Iranians were beginning to worry.Most report ers interpreted the Muslim clergy’s leadershipto mean that the opposition’s main complaints were withland reform, li quor stores, and movies. Failure to perceivethe diverse makeup of the opposition and the revolution’sdeeper roots made it impossible for American journalistsor their readers to understand the revolt’s breadth. 20 Yetduring the spring and early summer even many of theshah’s enemies thought his defeat to be unlikely.One of the few pessimists in Iranian ruling circles was GeneralNasir Moghadam, a younger officer with good contacts andeven friendships among the dissidents. In April, accordingto some sources, he sent the shah a thirty-page report,bypassing SAVAK by using his personal connections to theroyal family. Moghadam warned that revolution was inevitableunless real reforms were made. Even the United Stateswould abandon the shah if he showed himself incapable ofdealing with the disorders, he wrote. The shah bided histime but finally appointed Moghadam head of SAVAK onJune 6.On August 20, in the midst of the holy month ofRamadan, a film theatre fire in Abadan killed 377 people.This was the sixth such conflagration in twelve days—the others had been set by fundamentalist extremists tooppose the showing of “sinful” movies. But in a countrywith an almost unlimited belief in conspiracy the wordquickly spread that SAVAK had set the fire and locked thedoors, trapping many women and children inside. Evenwithin the country’s prisons it became the main topic ofconversation.While the accusation is questionable the incident didillus trate the regime’s incompetence. It took a nearby policesta tion half an hour to call the fire department and thefirst trucks on the scene arrived with faulty equipment. Atany rate, most Iranians saw the incident as a bloodthirstymassacre. Antigovernment agitation intensified.

208PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSMeanwhile, in Washington officials were equally slowin seeing the seriousness of the crisis. Many of the MiddleEast specialists were tied up with the complexities of theCamp David peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel;congressional foreign relations committees were involvedwith proposed arms sales to Arab states. Brzezinski wasworking on normalizing relations with Peking, and Vancewas laboring on the strategic arms limitation treaty (SALT-2) as well as Camp David. Consequently, monitoring Iranwas relegated to Henry Precht at the State Department,to Robert Murray at the Pentagon, and to Gary Sick at theNational Security Council (NSC). All three were severallevels removed from the White House.Within the bureaucracy there was still strong resistanceto any suggestion that the shah might be slipping out ofpower. One official vehemently objected when a colleaguequalified his description of the shah’s regime as “one ofthe most stable” with the interjection “perhaps.” Similarreactions met the warnings of academic specialists at aMarch, 1978 State Department seminar. Professor JamesBill’s paper, “Monarchy in Collapse,” predicted that asviolence escalated, more and more groups would coalescein opposition to the shah’s regime: “As this occurs,” thepaper concluded, “the Shah will have lost the will andcapacity to use his traditional tactics of political control.Unless something is done to break this wildly spinningvicious circle, the future of the current ac tions in theIranian political drama can only be a grim one. And theAmerican future in Iran can in no way be consideredbright.” 21This tendency toward foot-dragging was also visible intwo inner-government struggles that began in March. Thefirst was over the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), aperiodic eval uation written under the supervision of theCIA director. Dur ing discussions on this document’s nextedition, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and theCIA were optimistic, but the State Department Bureau ofIntelligence and Research, represented by George Griffen,felt that Iran’s domestic prob lems belied such an upbeat

THE PILLAR CRUMBLES 1977-1978 209assessment. Unable to bridge the gap, they finally agreed tolay aside the uncompleted NIE in mid-September.A second conflict brought on a battle between a loose alligjjceof the Policy Planning Staff and the State DepartmentBureau of Political-Military Affairs on the one side andthe regional bureau, represented by Deputy AssistantSecretary for Near East and South Asian Affairs SidneySober and Henry Precht on the other. The former wantedto study the arms-transfer system, with Policy Planningemphasizing absorption difficulties and stability, and thePolitical-Military people ar guing that too much time andmoney were being spent on ad vanced technology ratherthan on building combat-ready forces. Some officials wereconcerned that equipment was being delivered too fast.One CIA analyst went along on the absorption problemuntil superiors ordered him to desist. But Brzezinski, Vance,and Brown killed the proposal to further investigate themilitary-sales program.The daily intelligence reporting to the White House alsosuffered from shortsightedness. It was good on narrationof current events but poor on analysis. Often, the CIA andState Department summaries were just even with or behindthose of The New York Times and Washington Post. Only inAugust did they report that the shah was losing his grip andthat Iran’s social fabric was unraveling. During work on theun completed NIE (the sixty-page “Iran in the 1980s”), theCIA had argued that no drastic change was likely for Iran’spoliti cal behavior in the near future. A twenty-three pagestudy, “Iran After the Shah,” concluded that “Iran is not ina rev olutionary or even a ‘prerevolutionary’ situation.”A particular failing was the lack of insight into theopposi tion’s goals or into its widespread popularity. TheDefense In telligence Agency (DIA) produced five appraisalsof Iran in the first nine months of 1978, each of whichunderestimated the extent and possible consequences of thedisturbances. As late as September 28, DIA’s prognosis wasthat the shah would remain actively in power over the nextten years.Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and South Asian

210PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSAffairs Harold Saunders testified in June, 1978: “We believea large majority of Iranians thoroughly approve of the verysubstantial improvements that have been made in livingstandards and economic and social opportunities during thepast three decades.” Such statements were, of course, partof a strategy of support for the shah, but they also indicatedWash ington’s naivete regarding events in Iran. 22The embassy in Tehran was also slow to understanddevel-opments. Ambassador William Sullivan spent mostof July and August on vacation; at all times he discouragedpessimis tic reports. As early as May the shah had startedobtaining through Ambassador Zahedi in Washingtonpledges of sup port from Brzezinski. But Americans weresaying in Washing ton what embassy officials were sayingin Tehran. We will back you, but Iran is your country andyou are its rulers. You must make your own decisions. Giventhe shah’s history of sensitivity to foreign domination thisseemed the proper pre scription. The problem now, however,was that the shah found it difficult to make any decisions inthose early months of crisis.Finally, on August 5, he promised free parliamentaryelec tions for the following year. The Abadan fire on August20 and the increased antigovernment agitation stirredhim to fur ther action. He removed Jamshid Amouzegar,Hoveyda’s suc cessor, and appointed as prime ministerJaafar Sharif-Emami, a man with a pious reputation whohad been premier a decade earlier, but who was now old andineffectual. His position as head of the Pahlevi Foundation,whose activities were rightly the focus of many suspicionsabout royal corruption, scarcely seemed likely to endearhim to the demonstrators.Behind the scenes, however, General Moghadam, the headof SAVAK, had worked toward this compromise. His contactsin the religious opposition had suggested Sharif-Emami. aman they thought had the shah’s confidence but one withwhom they could work. At this point, Khomeini had still noemerged as the rebels’ unquestioned leader and many withthe clergy were willing to settle for far less than an Islamicrevolution; none had yet called for the shah’s overthrow. What

THE PILLAR CRUMBLES 1977-1978 211they wanted, as Ayatollah Kazem Shariat-Madari frequentlyclaimed, was a return to the 1906 constitution in which theclergy, landowners, and the business community had beenable, through their influence in a powerful Majlis, to participatein the governing of the country.Indeed, many bazaar merchants and religious figures,as well as the National Front moderates, feared an all-outshow down with the government, whose military mightseemed awesome. But at each step the shah gave them lessthan they sought while still not loosing the full power ofhis military. By late December, when he was finally willingto yield real power to an opposition figure, it was too late;their demands had escalated.Sharif-Emami tried hard to bring about a reconciliationdur ing his weeks in office. The Tehran media was allowed toadmit for the first time that all was not perfect in Iran. “Whyshouldn’t we write about strikes?” the prime minister asked.“The people themselves know what is going on. ... If ourradio doesn’t broadcast it, the BBC will.” 23 Even oppositioncomments were occasionally permitted to be broadcast.Some government officials resigned; others began to speakout. For example, Tehran city council member MuhammadReza Taqizadegh talked about the capital’s social gap:North Tehran’s problem is having flowers along highwaysand high-rise parking lots, while South Tehran’s problemis having a drinking water tank and drying North Tehran’ssewage. Whereas North Tehran can be compared withthe best of the world’s cities, South Tehran has problemswhich, at times, do not even exist in the most backwardIranian villages.In the northern section, 80 percent of the one millionresi dents owned their own residences; in the south only 20per cent of the four million people owned their homes andeven much of this was substandard. 24 Out of these southernslums came many of the anti-shah demonstrators.The speed of events, and the uneven government reactionto them, made life in Iran unpredictable during these last

212PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSmonths of the shah’s regime. As Kayhan put it: “Develop,ments are taking place so rapidly that even those who aredirectly involved in them have no time for reflection andassess ment.” 25 This was particularly true of the shah himself.His disorientation was amply witnessed in a late Augustinterview with the West German magazine Stern. Whenasked about the opposition’s goals the shah compared themwith the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang. Questioned on therevolt’s cause he replied: “There are people everywhere whoare eas ily instigated. They hear a few words and immediatelythey are electrified and stop thinking.” He insisted thatconvening parliament and holding new elections wouldsettle the con flict.“Corruption has grown constantly worse” over the lastthree years, said the interviewer. Garbagemen, customsinspectors, and others worked only when bribed. “Are youaware of this?”“Do you really have to bribe people?” asked the shah.“Yes, daily,” said the journalist. Otherwise, garbagewould pile up in front of the house. “Believe me, yourMajesty, ev erybody among the people knows that this is so.”“Then,” concluded the incredulous monarch, “we willhave to talk with the people about it. Perhaps the wages aretoo low, too. But the salaries we are paying are not so badafter all.” 26This growing isolation from reality was revealed evenmore markedly in the shah’s private conversations. UnitedStates Ambassador Sullivan and British Ambassador SirAnthony Parsons were repeatedly invited to hear his long,rambling so liloquies expressing his doubt, impotence, andfrustration. He had tried everything, the king mourned andnothing had worked—neither repression nor liberalization.The anguish erased his facade of self-confidence andassurance but it did not help him understand the natureof the challenge. To him, the enemy was always the leftor, at best, “Islamic Marxists. Both ambassadors listened,offering comfort but not advice, simply assuring him—inSullivan’s case—that “the United States always honors itsobligations.” 27

THE PILLAR CRUMBLES 1977-1978 213Fulfilling his assigned function, Sharif-Emami begantalks with opposition religious figures on August 31. ButShariat-Madari rejected these initiatives, which would haveleft the shah’s power virtually intact. The government, hedemanded, must return to the 1906 constitution, whichprovided for a strong parliament and a limited monarchy.Sharif-Emami re fused to be discouraged: “There areno insoluble problems asfar as the present governmentis concerned.” 28 Sullivan wanted to negotiate with theopposition himself, though he agreed with the shah’sposition that minimal changes would suffice and heremained confident of the shah’s survival. Washington,preoccupied with other matters, did not give clearance.Shariat-Madari also had another demand: Khomeini’sreturn to Iran. Having been exiled and largely ignored forfifteen years, Khomeini—whose promotion to the rank ofayatollah had been engineered by Shariat-Madari to protecthim from execution in 1963—now had the attraction of afigure un sullied by any collaboration whatsoever with theshah’s regime. His scowling countenance was becominga symbol of the resistance movement’s tenacity. Soon,demonstrators in Tehran were pelting soldiers with flowersand trying to win them over. “Iran is our country!” theychanted over and over again, “Khomeini is our leader!”In response, the Iranian government made a serious error.Khomeini, they decided, was too close to home in Iraq; theypressured that country to expel him. Most important, theywanted to keep the ayatollah out of any Islamic countrywhere he would have a natural constituency and mightrally support. Kuwait refused him entry on a technicality.Khomeini went to France, from where he could easilycommunicate with Iran ians through cassettes smuggled intothe country, long-dis tance telephone, through messengers,and, ironically, most easily through the international newsmedia.Other events were setting the stage for Khomeini’sdramatic ascendance as the opposition’s leader. Firstcame an incident that reinforced the hostility of theantigovernment forces and further narrowed the possibility

214PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSof compromise. For some time the generals, disdainful ofSharif-Emami’s liaisons with the opposition, had askedthe shah for permission to crack down on the dissidents.On September 5, Ambassador Zahedi arrived in Tehranwith a view of American policy mainly developed throughhis conversations with Brzezinski. This con cept gavefull backing to a hard-line stand, though it was based onBrzezinski’s personal views rather than on official Ameri canstands. The following day, the shah agreed to ban demonstrations.The first test would be a large rally scheduled forthe early hours of September 8.At six o’clock that morning, marchers converged atTehran’s central Jaleh Square. Most of them were probablyunaware of the imposition of martial law a few hoursearlier. Soldiers demanded that they disperse and whenthey replied with brickbats the army opened fire. The exactnumber of casualties on “Black Friday” is still disputed butreliable sources agree that somewhere between 700 and2,000 people were gunned down.The events at Jaleh Square began to stir foreign understandingof the seriousness of the crisis. The Sovietstook the hint and started up their National Voice of Iran(NVOI) radio station, located in Baku but pretending itwas independent and operating from inside Iran. Its dailybroadcasts supported Khomeini and tried to spread anti-Americanism in Iran, often employing the most blatantlies. In the midst of the Camp David conference, Israeli andEgyptian observers also began to note the situation. Theday after the Jaleh Square shootings, President Anwar al-Sadat called the shah and extended his support.Perhaps at Sadat’s request, President Carter alsotelephoned the shah. He expressed his regret over thebloodshed and his backing for Iran’s ruler. He hoped that thedisturbances would end and suggested that liberalizationbe continued. This meant, in the shah’s lexicon, someanticorruption moves an” continued progress towardelections. The whole thing was handled in an offhand way;a routine press release was issued by the White House.If it was true, as the shah’s confidants later claimed, that the

216PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONStoward political freedom and social justice.Only in late September did a working group on Iranemerge under Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher(in charge of the department while Vance was at CampDavid) They spent most of their sessions debating whethermore public statements supporting the shah would provehelpful or harmful to his interests and to Washington’s.For his part, Sharif-Emami had not given up. He was stillconvinced of the possibility of distinguishing between the“logical and sensible” opposition with whom dialogue couldbe held—-particularly Shariat-Madari—and those withwhom there was nothing to discuss—namely Khomeini. 29But the op position would not allow itself to be split so easily.Shariat-Madari said he would no longer cooperate with theprime minister and warned that if government policy werenot modi fied there would be a revolution.Each day’s events in Iran made it easier to believe this.

1951 The shah of Iran in full regalia. (United Press International)

October, 1978: Ayatollah Khomeini living in exile in Pontchartrain, nearParis. He decided to leave Iraq after living there for fifteen years becauseauthorities prevented him from having contacts with groups seeking theoverthrow of the shah of Iran. (United Press In ternational)

November, 1979: Iranian demonstrators, perched on the United StatesEmbassy wall in Tehran, burn an American flag. (United Press International)

December 28, 1979: Ayatollah Khomeini waves from behind a giant I poster ofhimself atop the roof of his home in Qom. Iran accused the I Soviet Union of takingadvantage of the Iran-U.S. crisis by intervening in Afghanistan. (United PressInternational]

April 26, 1980: Members of the Iranian army view the bodies ofAmericans who died in the aborted mission to rescue the hostages inIran. (United Press International)

1979: Ayatollah Khomeini at his East Tehran headquarters after his returnfrom exile to take control of the revolutionary movement. (United PressInternational)

November 4, 1979: American hostages being paraded by their militantIranian captors on the first day of the occupation of the United StatesEmbassy in Tehran. (United Press International)March 1980. Poster outside the occupied U.S. Embassy shows formerPresident Jimmy Carter being strangled by the Iranian nation. From hismouth emerges the late shah, holding his wealth in his hands. (United PressInternational)

January 9,1980: Hundreds of thousands of Tehranis gather in Imam HosseinSquare to attend a rally to denounce the United States and shout, “AllahAkbar” (“God is great”] with raised fists. (United Press International)

8Days of Reckoning1978-79During September, 1978 Prime Minister Sharif-Emamicon tinued his attempts at reconciliation but the shah’ssupport of these efforts was uneven. He switched back andforth, apply ing military power and offering concessions,doing each in turn halfheartedly. Not until the year’s closingdays did he fi nally conclude that far-reaching compromiseswere necessary, but by then the situation had reached thepoint where it was clear even to the shah that he could nothave both peace and his kingdom.By September outside observers and middle-classIranians understood that the country was beginning tobreak down. One strike after another had erupted overwage and political is sues: in public transit, railroads, thepostal and air-transport services, textile factories, radioand television stations, and even among the civil servantsthemselves. There were buying panics and widespreadhoarding of goods. The economy was at dead stop. Withinthe three months after the Jaleh Square massacre, laterreports estimated, wealthy Iranians had sent $500 millionout of the country.Others also saw the writing on the wall. The shrewd

218PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSAli Amini, living in Paris and weighing a comeback inpolitical life as a transitional prime minister, now called forthe shah’s abdication.1 At the end of August, the SocialistInternational headed by former West German PrimeMinister Willy Brandt denounced the shah and called onthe United States to withdraw support.The turmoil also forced cancellation of Iran’s plansto purchase 70 F-14s for $2 billion, ordered only a fewweeks ear lier. But Washington was reluctant to stop armstransfers lest this reflect a lack of confidence in the shah.“Our continuing willingness to meet Iran’s legitimatedefense needs will be a clear expression of our firmsupport for that key country and the overall stability ofthe regime,” said Undersecretary of State Lucy WilsonBenson. 2 Thus, though Washington had turned downIran’s request for 31 F-4G fighter-bombers at the end ofAugust, this decision had not been meant to set a pattern.Not until November would it finally become clear toWashington that the shah had exhausted his last options.Then, a somewhat disorganized attempt would be madeto mediate a smooth transition to a post-shah regime thatwould not be unfriendly to America.Unable to give ground on the opposition’s main politicaldemands, Sharif-Emami acted where he could. The governmentconceded billions of dollars in wage settlements; theprime minister closed theatres and gambling halls andprom ised a return to the Islamic calendar. The shah did notattempt to change Sharif-Emami’s strategy immediately.Although the army wanted censorship reimposed, aftera two-week walkout in October by the staffs of Ettelaatand Kayhan Sharif-Emami gave the newspapers the rightto publish freely. An amnesty re leased prisoners andeven offered a pardon to Khomeini if he would moderatehis stand. Hoveyda was removed as minister of court inpreparation for his role as the scapegoat on corrup tion. OnOctober 6, Sharif-Emami opened parliament, announcing,“Unrest will not interrupt the implementation of the generalpolicy concerning the expansion of democratic libertiesin our country.” 3 Yet even the long-captive Majlis began

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 219to protest the shooting of demonstrators and governmentpolicies.Gradually, however, the shah began to doubt whether thisline was going to produce any results. Perhaps his sentimentwas reinforced by Zahedi’s second visit home, on October9, carrying another message of support from Brzezinski.In meet ings with the ambassador the shah started talkingabout a dif ferent kind of government response, a hard-lineapproach he repeatedly referred to as the “iron fist.” Insome ways, he seemed almost pleased that Sharif-Emami’splan had failed and he openly expressed contempt for hisprime minister. This would only prove to the people, theshah said, that there was no alternative to the iron fist. Hebelieved he had unlim ited time, not realizing that everyday of chaos further under mined any remaining hope thathe might save his throne.Still, the shah was no mere bloodthirsty villain. He genuinelyfelt responsibility as a symbol of the national identityand, in his own words, as head of the Iranian family. Hisreign had been based on a nationalistic goal of building Iraninto a mighty and respected nation. Such sentiments forbadehim from setting off a public bloodbath in his own country,among his own people; he did not want to be regarded inthe world’s eyes as another Idi Amin.Even in October, much of the opposition did not believeit possible to dethrone the shah, excepting only after afull-scale, bloody civil war. The moderates, thinking thatthe United States would never let the shah fall, placed ahigh value on winning American support for their efforts.They would walk into the American Embassy in Tehrandaily to talk about the situation and to present their plansfor a solution. They sig naled that with more governmentconcessions, including an end to martial law and a movetoward constitutional monar chy, a satisfactory deal mightbe worked out. A key question involved who would controlthe government during the period of preparation for new,free elections.Yet the regime’s strategy remained one of separating radicalsfrom moderates, crushing the former, and giving the

220PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSlatter as little as possible. Only in December—when it was toolate—. did the shah understand the error of this plan; thatthe opposition, including the moderates, were graduallyescalating their demands. The emergence of Khomeinias leader signaled the ascendancy to power of the mostintransigent element in the movement as a whole.When Khomeini sought refuge in France, that country’sgovernment asked whether the shah had any objection—hedid not. So Khomeini moved into a simple bungalow in thegarden of an expatriate Iranian’s house. There, in the suburbof Nauphle-le-Chateau about twenty-five miles outside ofParis, was created a place of pilgrimage for Iranian dissidentsand for journalists, all eager to see the elderly clergyman.Khomeini lived ascetically, in his black turban, browncollarless coat over a collarless green tunic, his feet clad in blueplastic sandals. Telephones rang, bringing news of more demonstrationsin Iran. The walls were decorated with posters:“35 million Muslims have said ‘no’ to the shah,” said one. Asecond showed a shantytown with the caption, “This is theshah’s modernization.” A third displayed pictures of peoplekilled at Jaleh Square. Khomeini’s aides, who themselves werebecoming household names, tirelessly jockeyed for position.And everyone gave countless interviews to the press, radio,and television. The French government did nothing to quietthem, thinking of its gains in influence if their guests were tocome to power in oil-rich Iran.But Khomeini’s public visibility was not matched by anyprivate willingness to negotiate. On his arrival in France,the CIA rented a villa near his home. American Embassypolitical officers began to meet occasionally with one ofhis advisors, Ibrahim Yazdi, though these encountersgenerally consisted of Yazdi’s monologues on his group’smoderation. Other em bassy officials stayed up late into thenight translating f° r their counterparts in Tehran the dozensof speeches and inter views given by Khomeini and hisentourage each day.The rise to dominance of Khomeini and his hard-linepd 1 ’ tics was a gradual process. The National Front leaders,accus tomed to making their own decisions, followed an

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 221independent line. Karim Sanjabi, for example, warned thatif the shah opted for military repression he would “drag Iranto extinction.” The only way out was a peaceful transitiontoward de mocracy; under such conditions the monarchycould con tinue. “What is important to us,” he said, “isthe sincere restoration of democracy and the integralimplementation of our constitutional law.” 4Shariat-Madari, while advocating a central role for Islam,spoke in similar terms, denying that the religious leaderswere “reactionary and against progress. … We want scienceand technology, educated men and women, doctors andsurgeons.” But, he warned, political differences betweenop position and rulers were becoming so great that Iran’s independencemight be endangered. He hinted at supportingthe National Front as an interim government to prepare elections.5 Many Muslim clerics, bazaar merchants, and urbanprofessionals felt the same way: they wanted order restored,bloodshed ended, and the danger of dictatorship—whethermilitary, Marxist, or Islamic fundamentalist—avoided.Some of them even tried to explain to Khomeini privatelythat his extreme views were dangerous and might lead to amilitary takeover, but the ayatollah was becoming so strongthat none dared differ with him publicly. Like Lenin, Khomeinisteeled the opposition on a maximalist line. There canbe no compromise, he proclaimed. The monarchy must bede stroyed and the shah must be punished. Only a revolutionand a return to fundamentalist Islam could cleanse thecountry. The opportunity must be seized immediately, or itwould pass forever.Mehdi Bazargan, Khomeini’s advisor and his choice forPrime minister, argued for a step-by-step approach. “Iwas convinced,” Bazargan later said, “that there was onlyone way of freeing ourselves from the shah—to persuadeAmerica to abandon him gradually so that he grew weakerand weaker as the people grew stronger and stronger.” Hewas sure that Iranians having “always been under the thumbof some despot or other were “used to being obedient, andevery time they rebelled suddenly and with force, it was afailure.”

222PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSWhen William Butler of the International Commission ofJurists told him several times of the American fear that theshah’s fall would lead to anarchy and Soviet interventionBazargan replied that he did not want a sudden revolutionei ther. “The people are not ready to cope with freedom,”he told Khomeini in Paris; “they must be accustomed to itby teaching them to develop politically, by seizing powerin small steps^ first education, then the press, then themagistracy, then the economy and then the army—otherwisewe will fall into chaos and perhaps we will find ourselveswith another tyrant.”“No gradualism, no waiting,” Khomeini replied. “Wemust not lose a day, not a minute. The people demand animmedi ate revolution. Now or never.” There was almost anargument but, Bazargan recounted, Khomeini seemed sosure and un shakable that he gave way. “Very well,” Bazarganconceded, “let us try. Let us carry out the revolution.” 6Khomeini warned National Front leaders that theywould be banished from the movement if they negotiatedwith the shah; moderates admitted that nothing couldbe done without Kho meini. The ayatollah vetoed AliAmini, who had met with Shariat-Madari to explore thepossibility of his forming a gov ernment, and demandedan escalation of the struggle to oust the shah. Like theirmentor Mossadegh, the National Front leaders knewthe dangers of allowing themselves to be out flanked inmilitancy. When oil workers went on strike October 31 atKhomeini’s call, it was an ample illustration of his popularityamong the masses.A few Americans, like Richard Cottam, were so criticalof the shah’s regime that they welcomed Khomeini. Theaya-tollah’s statements, he claimed, “are strongly in favorof land reform, welfare reform and an improved role forwomen in so-§ ciety.” Some sought “a puritanical Islamicsociety,” Cottam wrote, “but the thrust of the religiousopposition is centrist and reformist.” 7 No one in the UnitedStates government held this position—many preferred theshah; others hoped and be lieved that the moderate, nonclericalelements would emerge victorious.

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 223The Carter administration remained unshaken in itsstrong public support for the shah. At the end of Octoberthe presi dent told the crown prince, “our friendship and ouralliance with Iran is one of our important bases on which ourentire foreign policy depends,” and he referred to the shah’s“pro gressive administration.” State Department spokesmanHodding Carter praised the shah’s “political liberalizationand eco nomic reform. The Iranian government is capableof managing the present difficulties,” he said, “althoughcontinuing vio lence and strikes pose serious problems.” 8By early November, however, officials were becomingmore pessimistic. Brzezinski in particular began to arguethat the shah’s overthrow was a dangerous possibility. Thefirst meet ing of a Special Coordinating Committee on theproblem took place on November 2, chaired by Brzezinski,with Cyrus Vance and Stansfield Turner in attendance.Energy Secretary Schlesinger later came to about half adozen sessions. Operat ing immediately below it was aworking group headed by NSC staffer David Aaron, whichstarted operations November 21. In light of Vance’s constantabsences, Brzezinski became for six weeks or so the leadingfigure in formulating American strategy—and he camedown for strong support of the shah.The combination of events—Khomeini’s call for civil war,the concerns expressed to the American Embassy by Iranianofficers, and a Joint Chiefs of Staff warning that the shah mightfall—showed the need for action. Brzezinski and Schlesingerbelieved not only that Iran’s own strategic impor tance mustbe taken into account but that the monarch’s col lapse wouldalso make Iraq and other pro-Soviet elements primary in thePersian Gulf. The destruction of the shah’s re gime might alsolead other Middle East monarchies to ques tion the value ofreliance on and alliance with the United States. Given thesethoughts, Schlesinger began to press for sending Americanwarships and Marines into the Indian Ocean.Clearly, a decisive moment had come. “The situation wasreally boiling yesterday, but it’s gotten worse today,” said atop American official on November 5. “It’s completely outof control. The next 24 to 48 hours are crucial and could be

224PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSdecisive. The shah’s present government appears to be a lostcause … .” Another commented, “We’re at the point wheresomething major has to be done; the same business as usualwon’t work.” 9The shah said similar things in a telephone call toBrzezinski that day and the national security advisorreplied, on the highest authority, that the United Stateswould back him to the hilt. The State Department, skepticalof the benefits of military rule, prepared a cable callinginstead for a broad, coalition government, but Brzezinskiquashed this move.Thus, after three days of particularly serious rioting inTehran—including the burning of all movie theatres, manybanks, and the British Embassy—and after his consultationwith Brzezinski, the shah appointed a martial law government.The man he chose to head it, General Gholamreza Azhari,was aged and seriously ill with a heart condition. Buthe was also a father figure for the armed forces, perhaps theonly man acceptable to all of the mutually jealous generals.He was thoroughly loyal to the shah and not ambitiousin his own right. Azhari also had the advantage of someservice abroad, having once worked on the CENTO staff.The new prime min ister quickly adopted a hard line againstdemonstrators while continuing to promise elections onceorder was restored.When Khomeini heard of these new developments hesaid, “This is the end of the shah” and called for putting themon arch on trial after his defeat. If the “present method ofpoliti cal struggle doesn’t work,” he added, civil war wouldresult-The ayatollah also gave one of the first hints of whathis new state would look like. The shah, he complained, hadgiven away Iran’s resources to America, the Soviets, andthe Euro peans: “We want all these foreign influences andpressures out of the country.” 10Keeping its promise, the United States administrationagain strongly endorsed Tehran’s choice. The shah had “noalterna tive,” officials said, after opposition leaders refusedto enter a coalition and it became clear that Sharif-Emamicould not re store order. 11 As a further sign of American

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 225support, President Carter authorized shipment of 25,000tear-gas cannisters as well as police batons, protective vests,and other riot-control equipment to the Iranian army. Thehuman rights office at the State Department had earliermanaged to block this sale for several months. While theState Department went along with the policy its emphasiswas somewhat different from Brzezinski’s, stressing that therestoration of order was a neces sary prelude to the electionsscheduled for June, 1979. But their skepticism was growing:“The military government is about the last card the shahhas to play,” said one policy maker. “He doesn’t know whatto do next, and neither do we. It will be a miracle if he is stillaround to hold the elections he has promised.” 12The shah, however, had not altogether abandoned hiscon ciliatory option. “The revolution of the Iranian peoplecannot fail to have my support,” he said in a nationwideradio speech on November 5. “Unfortunately, side byside with this revo lution, the plots and abuses of othershave created riots and anarchy” and had endangered thecountry’s independence. Though Ambassador Sullivanthought the speech had gone well, the divide and co-optstrategy could work only if ele ments of the opposition couldbe intimidated or enticed into splitting. To bring about theformer condition was Azhari’s Job. Iran’s economy andsociety, the prime minister said, were being “destroyed asa result of riot-mongering of enemy and colonial lackeys.”Only when these were defeated would he make way for agovernment which will have the freedom to carry out … a100 percent national election.” 13To appease the opposition, Azhari arrested Hoveydaand Nasiri as scapegoats for past corruption and repressionrespectively; to frighten the dissidents, he arrested NationalFront leaders Dariush Foruhar and Karim Sanjabi onNovember 11 for holding a press conference in which theydeclared the shah’s government illegal. On November 28,with the Shi’a holy month of Ashura coming up, he forbadepublic gatherings except in the mosques.Was the Iranian military capable of implementing an“iron-strategy? Perhaps, but the odds were against it. First,

226PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSdespite its impressive statistics the army was weak front,within because the shah, for political reasons, had keptthe officer class divided. The core of the armed forceswas u n. questionably loyal, a fidelity based both on theircondition of privilege and on their ideological training.Every morning soldiers pledged allegiance to God, shah,and fatherland, Officers received from $2,000 a month forlieutenants to $70,000 a year for generals. They were givenmodern housing, servants, vacation quarters, and specialdiscount stores. Pri vates on long-term enlistments received$400 a month.But much of the rank and file were conscripts, many onlyrecently drafted from villages and campuses. They wereonly paid $1 a day and while they formed only 20 percentof the military they made up 40 percent to 50 percent ofthe infantry. Possibly they would have been good soldiersagainst a foreign foe—though they had not fought all thatwell in Oman—but even the best troops cannot indefinitelybe maintained in a state of discipline and high morale ifordered to fire on their own people. This had been shownin Pakistan the preceding year, when the army, unwillingto continue shooting Islamic demonstrators, joined them tooverthrow President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in July, 1977. Now,Khomeini was calling on Iran ian soldiers to desert. By theend of November, if not before, draftees were listening tothe opposition’s appeals and reas sessing their loyalties.Yet with officers it was not a question of loyalty alone.Their personal dedication to the throne was reinforced bya strong psychological dependence on the shah. He haddetermined who would be promoted, how the militarywould be orga nized, and what arms would be ordered. Bylong condition ing, the officers were trained to act at thetime and in the man ner dictated by their king. Contributingto this paralytic loyalty was the fact that the officers weredivided by jealousies and suspicions. When, several yearsearlier, Admiral Ahmad Madani had dared suggest thatmore power devolve on the commanders of the three militarybranches, he was forced into retirement. Not until after therevolution, when he threw in his lot with Khomeini, did

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 227Madani again command the navy. So it was that when theshah collapsed, his officer corps collapsed with him.If the army had its draftees to worry about, the air forcehad its “homafars,” technical specialists whose militaryrank, be tween officers and sergeants, was similar to that ofwarrant officers in the United States. But although these menwore uniforms they were not really in the military. Rather,they had signed ten-year contracts to obtain training assenior mechan ics, communications and computer experts,and to fill other key positions. Many of them, however, hadbeen forced to stay in the service after their contracts expiredin 1977 or 1978. Even though their pay was equivalent tothat of colonels and majors their status was far lower andthey knew that with their technical training they couldmake more money in civil ian life. When the crunch came,they would go over to Kho meini in large numbers.The leadership of the air force was very pro-shah; mostof Iran’s purchases had been devoted to its equipment. Airforce commander General Amir Hussein Rabi’i was perhapsthe most able officer in the top circles of the armed forces.Just before Azhari’s appointment, Rabi’i went to the shahinsisting on action. Otherwise, Rabi’i warned, he couldno longer guar antee the air force’s loyalty. For the seniorgenerals, the idea that the shah might give up any of hispower was frightening. They did not like his seeminglyconciliatory November 5th speech and could not understandhis passivity, though rumors of the shah’s cancer werealready circulating widely in Tehran.The generals wanted a tough reaction to the civil disturbancesbut did not feel properly equipped to deal withthem; they wanted riot-control equipment. Many of thedeaths that had occurred could have been avoided, theysaid. If they had had tear gas they would not have hadto rely on bullets. Rabi’i, Toufanian, navy commanderAdmiral Kamel Habibollahi, the hard-line army leaderGeneral Gholam Ali Oveissi, SAVAK head Moghadam,and the dashing paratroop commander Gener-^ ManuchehrKhosradad, met frequently to try to map some course ofindependent action. Individually they visited the American

228PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSEmbassy: “You Americans must make him do something!”they demanded, but they themselves did noth ing. Theirpsychological dependence on the shah’s direction was toogreat.Throughout November and December Rabi’i turnedhis na tional air force staff meetings, held once or twicea month with officers from every base in the country,into virtual pen rallies for the shah. But the doubts of thegenerals gradually spread to the colonels and majors. ByDecember, some of the long-loyal men even began to talkquietly of replacing the shah. Yet still they did nothing ontheir own, although Moghadam and Fardost might alreadyhave been thinking of changing sides, a step they took thefollowing February.The shah also knew that the martial law of the Azharigov ernment was not working. He even began to tell hisambas sadorial listeners that he had deliberately chosen anineffec tual general to prove that this option too could notsucceed. On one occasion, Azhari called to ask the shah’spermission to go on a picnic in the nearby mountains.The shah agreed, explaining to his guests in an aside thatit didn’t matter what happened to the prime minister. InDecember, Azhari spent ten days away from his desk dueto his heart problem; eventu ally, he was evacuated to theUnited States for a major opera tion.Azhari, unlike Sharif-Emami, had no plan. “Nations arelike a man when he gets angry,” he told one interviewer;“he needs time to smoke a cigarette, drink a cup of coffee,listen to some music. We are trying to win that time, andthink that they are slowly coming back to work.” 14 But thedemon strations would not go away—time was on the sideof the op position.By this point the shah was well aware of his limited lifeex pectancy and he must have given some serious thoughtto his son’s succession. As far as can be determined,however, he felt he could hold on until elections were heldand the situation stabilized. The American Embassy felt anagreement would be possible if the shah offered more tothe opposition. Among Iranians, former Prime Minister Ali

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 229Amini suggested at the Pnd of November that it might stillbe possible to establish a new government on the basis of the1906 constitution. A cabi net of technocrats could be quicklyempowered to schedule and regulate free elections. 15 Theshah continued to insist on his own terms.Meanwhile, the White House was awakening fully tothe dangers of the crisis. No less than four visitors went toTehran in late November to investigate: Treasury SecretaryMichael Blumenthal; Robert Bowie, head of the CIA’sanalysis divi sion; General E. F. Tighe, director of the DIA;and Senate Ma jority Leader Robert Byrd. Specialists werealso sent from the State Department’s regional bureau andIntelligence and Re search branch. Byrd apparently reportedthat the shah was un likely to take strong action and wasunlikely to survive the disorders. The others probablyreached similar conclusions. Additional personnel werealso sent to reinforce the embassy staff.Given the realization that valuable time had been lost,Carter blamed the intelligence services for not warninghim earlier. On November 11, the president declaredhimself “not satisfied” with their performance on Iran.Although the NIE had never actually been completed,it was widely cited as an example of the inaccuracy ofintelligence evaluations.An additional sign of the internationalization of Iran’scivil strife was Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev’s suddenwarning on November 19 against any United States militaryinterven tion to preserve the shah in power. Despite theirsupport of clandestine antigovernment radio stations,the Soviets had, up to this point, maintained cordialrelations with the shah’s regime, but now this Brezhnevpronouncement strongly sug gested that Moscow hadconcluded that the Iranian monarchy Was doomed. TheWhite House responded to the Soviet threat by saying thatthe United States had no intention of becoming involved.Within Iran itself, many American residents seemed inclinedto pull out. In the first few days of December, bloodystreet battles heightened the uncertainties of everyday lifeWhile rumors and anonymous leaflets hinted at violence

230PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSagainst individual Americans. The American Embassy wasreluctant to authorize a mass evacuation since this wouldundercut confidence in the shah, but the exodus startedanyway By mid-December Washington agreed to supplytransport planes. “For the merchant in the bazaar, the drycleaner, the people of my neighborhood,” said an Americanteacher in Isfahan, “I am identified, however wrongly, withthe repres sion imposed by Tehran. Every time the Presidentsays some thing favorable to the Shah, he makes it physicallymore dan gerous for Americans in Isfahan.” 16These events moved Washington to urge upon the shahthe acceptance of a constitutional monarchy with a broaderbasedgovernment; publicly, Carter tempered his words ofsupport. While there had been abuses, the president said, “thetrend has been … toward democratic principles and sociallibera lization.” The message was that this should continue inthe form of free elections and the decentralization of power.Carter concluded, “We personally prefer that the shah maintaina major role but that is a decision for the Iranian peopleto make.” Later, in questioning, he repeated this in a slightlydif ferent form. Would the shah survive? “I don’t know. I hopeso. This is something in the hands of the Iranian people ….” Here was the first publicly expressed doubt that the shahwould retain power. He might still do so, Carter was alsosuggesting, if he changed the policy he had been pursuing. 17As the White House was going through an agonizingreap praisal of the shah’s situation, working-level officialsin the State Department were urging the administrationto separate itself from the sinking ruler. As a December 14editorial in The New York Times put it: “The United Statescannot be ex pected to leave all its stake piled on one throne.There must be avenues of retreat, one of which leads towardmaking the Shah a constitutional monarch acceptableto a broad coali tion.” Such hopes related more to the lostpossibilities of August and September past than they didto the worsening conditions of mid-December. Yet Carterheld no brief for Kho meini, whom he attacked for hisfiery speeches, which, the president deplored, “encouragebloodbaths and violence.” 18

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 231Was the iron fist an acceptable option at this point? Not topresident whose main aim was precisely to avoid bloodbathsand violence. A credible ban on demonstrations required thatanyone who marched would have to be arrested or shot. NewJaleh Squares would have been inevitable; civil war wouldhave been a high probability. Would a United States commitmentto support the shah down this road have meant sendingAmerican troops if necessary? So soon after the end of theVietnam War this was unthinkable. Would the United Stateseven be willing to provide supplies for such an extendedstruggle when a prolonged period of instability was preciselywhat Washington was trying to avoid? The region would remainunsettled for years to come; the leftist forces might takeleadership of the opposition and the Soviets might finally beafforded their pretext for intervention. Even if the anti-shahforces were not as eager for martyrdom as their rhetoric impliedthey were, the breakdown of order had gone too far fora simple show of force to have restored the status quo ante.Rather than passively await the results of the shah’s endeavors,the United States might have chosen a second option:to commit American prestige and influence in negotiationsfor a reform government with moderate oppositionparticipation. In September or October such a plan mighthave achieved suc cess, but its long-term prospects wouldstill have faced a serious challenge from the radicals. Atthat time, however, Washington, the generals, and the shahhimself were not yet prepared to make such concessions.By November, when moderate opposition figuresstreamed into the American embassy to propose sucha solution, there was no effective coordination betweenWashington and Am bassador Sullivan to put America’sweight behind any of these Plans. Already, Khomeini’s hardline was fettering those in Iran who were inclined towardcompromise. In the United States, the conflict betweenthose who wished to give the shah Unlimited support, likeBrzezinski, and those in the State De partment who werealready concluding that the shah could not survive withoutconcessions had still not been resolved.While Carter’s statements in mid-December indicated the

232PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSbeginnings of movement toward the latter solution, politicalchanges in Iran pointed in a similar direction. The releaseof National Front leaders Sanjabi and Foruhar on December6 had led almost immediately to the resumption of talks betweenthe two sides. Sanjabi, a mild-mannered and often in.decisive seventy-three-year-old lawyer, wasted little timein declaring the continued demonstrations a “spontaneousreferendum” for the shah’s ouster.While a coalition government was impossible, he warned,“unless there is far more substantial change concerningthe monarchy,” this requirement could be satisfied by establishinga constitutional monarchy under the shah’s son.He also carefully expressed friendship toward the militaryand fear of what chaos might bring:We in the National Front want to maintain the army, weneed a strong army, and we don’t want to do anything todiscourage the army. … We have never called for desertionsor tried to create indiscipline. But inevitably, it ishap pening, and if it continues, it could become verydanger ous. 19Impressed with these arguments, the shah sent for Sanjabiand the two men met for the first time since Mossadegh’s fall.They talked for one hour and Sanjabi, according to his account,told the shah that he had to leave the country. The shahrefused—no one else had his authority, he claimed. Insteadhe asked Sanjabi to participate in a national coalition government,an invitation Sanjabi rejected, saying there could be nocoalition with the present regime. Their talks ended. 20The shah tried another National Front leader, GholamHus sein Sadighi, who had been interior minister underMos sadegh. Sadighi proposed that the shah’s powers beturned over to a Regency Council, which would govern inhis stead. Again the shah refused. 21The minimal demands of the moderate politicians werebased on both political and historical criteria. To accept thepremiership under the shah, without first having securedsome change in the distribution of power, would discredit

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 233hepi in the eyes of other oppositionists. Nor did they placelow estimate on the monarch’s skill at political infighting.Once order was restored, they reasoned, he might quicklydispose of then 1 - The past examples of Fazlollah Zahediand Ali Amini, two seemingly entrenched prime ministerswho had been so easily removed by the shah, as well asthat of Mossadegh himself, provided ample warning. Afully legitimate and institu tionalized change of power wasalso necessary to satisfy the armed forces, which otherwisewould not alter its loyalties.Khomeini’s supporters not only opposed such a rapprochement,they dreaded it. Nor did they perceive any adjustmenton the part of the United States in its support forthe shah. The ayatollah asked some visiting Americans whyCarter backed “a regime to which the Iranian people areunan imously opposed.” He told another interviewer, “Everytime Carter supports the shah, the people are massacred bythe shah the next day,” a somewhat scrambled reference to theJaleh Square incident and Carter’s after-the-fact expressionof support for the shah. SAVAK violence was used againstpeaceful demonstrations, Khomeini said, “After all that, Cartersays we are irresponsible.” Americans would soon learnto their chagrin that no amount of reassurance could assuagehis suspicions or change his conspiratorial view of events. 22Perhaps the clearest expression of the Khomeinist point ofview at that time was presented by one of his advisors, Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr. The revolution, Bani-Sadr wrote, was theresult of economic, political, social, and cultural problemscreated by the shah’s policies. Therefore, the crisis “cannotbe resolved by a compromise that allows continuation of thevery regime that has created the crisis in the first place.” 23This conclusion, Bani-Sadr continued, was also tacticallynecessary. For twenty-five years the shah had tried to convincethe urban middle class and other opposition elements“to accept a compromise based on the centralization ofpower Under executive control and the evolution of Iranwithin the framework of American strategies.” Such aplan had often Worked: “Out of their greed for power andtitles, or by reason of their misplaced faith that compromise

234PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSwould open the way to reform, some members of theopposition sided with the regime.” Here was being soundedan obvious warning from the men in Nauple-le-Chateau toAmini, Sanjabi, Bazargan and others participating in oradvocating negotiations with the regime. The step-by-stepapproach of “gradual liberalizetion” and “a weakening ofthe shah’s regime until it can be eradicated is rejected.” For“the supporters of this course of action,” noted Bani-Sadr,seem to be unaware that if the regime believed the first stepcould lead to the second, it would not itself propose thissolution.”Finally, there was a clear expression of their determinationthat the new order be an Islamic republic under Khomeini’sleadership. The only thing the opposition possessed of transcendentpower, Bani-Sadr concluded, was the people’s esteemfor Khomeini. Any compromise would “disrupt thisrela tionship” and serve as “a disastrous decoy.” Those whoaccepted it “would be discredited, their followers disillusionedand the general uprising would disintegrate.” Therecould not even be a “continuation of the shah’s regime withoutthe shah.”Inherent in this analysis were two points that wouldassume increasing importance in the months to come.First, the revo lution was being steered toward the point ofmaximum militancy. Only by hewing to this course, whichKhomeinists believed in for its own sake, as well as forits practical value, could the revolution triumph over theexisting system. As in Mossadegh’s day, compromise wouldbe publicly equated with treason, even if such rigidityendangered the success of the entire anti-shah movement.Second, hostility toward the United States was not somethingmarginal for the Khomeinists but stood at the centerof their thinking. A major feature of the shah’s regime, boththe ayatollah and Bani-Sadr argued, was its “subservience”to the United States and its collaboration with Washington.This precept established the anti-American orientationof the Iran ian revolution: any friendliness toward theUnited States would be prima facie evidence of betrayal.Anyone exhibiting such softness would be deemed unfit

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 235for leadership- America’s eternal hostility to the revolutionand its tirelessness in attempting to reverse it were thusestablished as a matter of faith.There were, of course, many oppositionists, some evenamong the clergy, who did not see the United States as aper manent foe of the revolution. But Khomeini’s ascendancymeant that their attempts to preserve Iranian-Americanfriend ship would have to be conducted in secret, if at all.Such ac tions, even when they were clearly designed toproduce or to consolidate the victory of the anti-shah forces,would later make them suspect.Ironically, this ideology took hold at a time when thedebate in Washington was going against those advocatinga hard line. Brzezinski still believed that the shah could bemain tained in power and, failing this, that the nature ofthe Ameri can commitment might make it more beneficialfor the United States to go down fighting with him. Anyappearance of hav ing abandoned the shah, he argued, wouldonly undermine other American alliances in the region.The national security advisor’s concerns were highlightedin his December 20, 1978 “arc of crisis” speech discussingthe spreading instabil ity in the area. With “fragile socialand political structures in a region of vital importance tous threatened with fragmenta tion. … the resulting politicalchaos could well be filled by elements hostile to ourvalues and sympathetic with our ad versaries. This couldface the West as a whole with a chal lenge of significantproportions.” 24Yet, while sharing these same fears most of those withinthe administration were moving toward support of adifferent tack to deal with the envisioned problems. Giventhe impasse in the internal debate, Treasury SecretaryBlumenthal suggested bringing in George Ball, a formerundersecretary of state who had opposed the Vietnam War,later returning to his law prac tice and to an active careeras a foreign policy commentator. After a couple of weeksof study, including extensive reading of earlier diplomaticcables, Ball recommended that the United States encouragethe shah toward a broadly based ci vilian government,

236PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSone in which he would surrender most of his power to aregency council. This had to be done before n, upheavalmade impossible all chances for the monarchy’s su 6 vival.The recommendation was similar to that being put f 0wardby Sanjabi and his colleagues.According to Ball’s plan, presented at an hour-long meetingwith the president and Brzezinski on December 13, a councilof notables would be created to insulate the new governmentfrom the shah. The problem was that the nominees on Ball’slist were so disparate—ranging from Khomeini’s clericalrepresentative in Tehran, Ayatollah Muhammad Beheshti, tohard-line pro-shah loyalists—that the American Embassy inTehran saw the plan as unworkable. Either President Carterrejected it on the spot at the December 13 meeting or AmbassadorSullivan’s reservations killed the idea. At any rate, Carter’sstatements at the time—that the fate of the shah’s rulewas in the hands of the Iranian people—seemed to indicatehis own growing doubts about the shah’s survival.By mid-December, then, the United States still did nothave any coherent Iran policy nor was there even a systemof coor dination between the different policymaking groups.The president did not step in to settle the debates that grewhotter daily, and so there was no rallying around one position.Con sequently, each step was dictated partly by chance,partly by the relative strength of various personalities inthe administra tion, and very much by whatever turn eventsmight be taking at the moment in Iran.Schlesinger favored an all-out effort to keep the shahin power and to further this goal he urged the presidentto send a special representative to Tehran. This man, hesuggested, might best be Brzezinski, whose views weredirected toward this same goal. The visit would assure theshah of strong American backing for an iron-fist policy.Brzezinski agreed with the idea in general but worried thathis presence would show too high a profile; instead, hesuggested sending Schles inger.The discussion of Schlesinger’s proposal took it far fromwhere either Schlesinger or Brzezinski had intended. Vance,who had played only a small role up to that point, finally

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 237intervened. The shah could not survive, he told the president,and would have to be urged to leave the country. The kingcould not rule and, as long as he was there, neither couldanyone else. On the other hand, Vance said, the transitionalgov ernment finally selected by the shah to replace him mightsur vive if the American envoy provided some assistance.Rather than dispatching a political representative, therefore,it was decided to send General Robert Huyser, who couldconcen trate on holding the Iranian military together duringthe dif ficult period to come. The key decisions were madeby Vance and President Carter at Camp David during theChristmas-New Year’s vacation period.While rejecting the hard-line .Schlesinger-Brzezinskisug gestions, the president also opposed the proposal ofAmbas sador Sullivan, whose optimism about a successfulworking-out of the problem through diplomacy was sharedby some State Department officials. They had called forattempts to fos ter a dialogue between the military andKhomeini, believing that these discussions might smooththe transition by bringing the armed forces in at an earlystage. If senior officers gave up their positions, they argued,their younger replacements might be able to make peacewith the revolutionaries. It is hard to believe, however, thatthe victorious militants would have accepted this as proofthat the soldiers were not their enemies, and even Sullivanabandoned this earlier optimistic appraisal of the situationsoon thereafter.The Carter-Vance decision was rooted in a new developmentin Tehran. The shah had finally recognized the deterioratingsituation and, giving in to the dissidents’ demands of earliermonths, found an opposition figure willing to serve asprime minister. A few days after Sanjabi’s refusal, the shahsum moned Shahpour Bakhtiar, a sixty-two-year-old scionof the powerful Bakhtiari tribe, a Sorbonne graduate, anda deputy minister in the Mossadegh government. Duringtheir first meet ing, Bakhtiar showed his boldness by tellingthe shah that Khomeini had no program but was simply asymbol for the opposition. During a second discussion theshah asked Bakh tiar if he would become prime minister.

238PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSBakhtiar’s conditions included press freedom, the releaseof political prisoners, and the dissolution of SAVAK, a freehand in running Iran, and the shah’s departure from thecountry. The shah asked for two or three days to thinkabout the last demand and finally around December 27, heacceded. By this point, the United States was also pressinghim in that direction.This historic decision was made as Iran lurched intochaos. On December 25, American Embassy guards hadto fire tear gas to ward off student demonstrators. Sovietbroadcasts con tinually interpreted the revolution as beingagainst American domination and provocatively linked theembassy and the CIA as the twin agents of United Statesimperialism attempting to defeat it. December 27 was a dayof gunfire and lawlessness. Trucks and cars burned in thestreets, which echoed to the sounds of sirens and gunshots,of auto horns and of exploding tear-gas grenades. Storesshut down as merchants carried off their stocks to hidethem. Power was cut and oil was rationed as the petroleumworkers’ strike lowered production almost to zero—thecountry had only one week’s reserves left at a time whennight temperatures hovered around freezing. Sanjabi led amarch of 10,000 as a funeral procession for a demonstratorkilled the preceding day. Nervous troops opened fire on thepeaceful march, and, after thirty minutes of wild shooting,several mourners and one of their own officers lay dead.Crowds chanted: “Carter gives the guns, the shah kills thepeople.”Thus was begun the “big push,” an all-out attempt tobring down the shah. The strikes would end, said organizers,only when the shah left the country. Foreign oil technicianspulled out and the United States lost the 900,000 barrels aday, about 5 percent of its daily consumption, that Iran hadbeen supply ing. Schools were closed, garbage collectionwas discon tinued, public transport was at a standstill.At this obviously critical juncture, on December 29,Bakh-tiar’s appointment was announced. Immediately,the National Front expelled him—they would have nofurther talk of com promise. Yet even at this point die-hard

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 239supporters of the shah tried to block any transition. WhileBakhtiar announced on December 30 that the shah wouldleave Iran, the shah’snokesman denied this. Ardeshir Zahedi insisted thatBakhtiar had been misquoted. For several days a behindthe-scenesbat tle raged over whether the shah would departIran. The first vveek in January marked the last stand of theshah’s loyalists, led by Zahedi and by Army CommanderOveissi but Bakhtiar, with American support, made hisstatement stick. Although the shah would not leave foranother ten days there was no longer any turning back.While he waited for the shah’s departure, Bakhtiarmoved quickly to court popularity with the public andthe military. He would prosecute corrupt officials, thenew prime minister said, “hanging those convicted of themost flagrant viola tions.” All top officeholders must bedismissed and replaced by those not identified with the oldregime; the shah himself must pledge not to try to regainpower. Bakhtiar also defended the importance of a smoothand legitimate transition: “If the shah fell now, the militarywould split into several factions, coup would follow coupand Iran would drift into chaos or civil war.” 25With Azhari’s resignation, it was also necessary to selecta new chief of staff for the armed forces. Bakhtiar wanted toconsult several people but, before he knew it, the shah, stillin Iran, presented him with a fait accompli, the appointmentof General Abbas Karim Gharabaghi.Bakhtiar claims that Gharabaghi’s name was suggestedto the shah by General Fardost and therein lies a possibleclue to this strange event. For Gharabaghi was indeed acurious choice for either man, certainly for the shah, tohave made. An Azerbaijani who spoke Farsi with a strongTurkish accent, Gharabaghi was an outsider in the militaryestablishment and did not enjoy a good reputation amongother officers. Surely he was not someone who would backthe shah’s case against Bakhtiar’s; nor was he likely to unitethe military behind him. Why did Fardost press this man onthe shah? Given the fact that both Fardost and Gharabaghiwould later make their own deal with Khomeini and that

240PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSboth would not be harmed while their colleagues fled orwere shot, the implication is strong that the shah’s oldestfriend had already betrayed him.Pro-shah forces in exile would later claim that Moghadamhad sent one of his aides to Paris in November, 1978 to contactthe Khomeinist forces. Did plans for a betrayal go backthat far? Moghadam and Fardost had both warned the shahearlier over the seriousness of the crisis. Did they use theirforesight to switch sides before it was too late?Whether or not there had been covert treason beforeBakhtiar’s appointment, by early January, Gharabaghi andMogha dam were meeting with opposition representativesBazargan and Beheshti. These conferences would leadto Bakhtiar’s fall in mid-February when the militaryabandoned him. On the other hand, pro-shah forces,including Zahedi and General Khosradad, attempted twoabortive pro-shah coups during Bakhtiar’s forty-plus daysin office. Other friends of the shah, Oveissi and GeneralMulawi, commander of the Tehran po lice, left the countryon January 8.Meanwhile, adjusting to the new situation, PresidentCarter tried two approaches to Ayatollah Khomeini to winhis sup port for the Bakhtiar government, or at least for anegotiated settlement. In early January, Carter sent Khomeinia message saying that it was in everyone’s interest to avoidan explosion and further bloodshed, adding that the shahwould leave shortly and would not return. Khomeini repliedthat any monarchical regime was unacceptable: Carter must“remove” the shah and not support Bakhtiar. 26Another effort was aimed at arranging a meetingbetween an American representative, Theodore Eliot,inspector-general of the Foreign Service, and Khomeini.Sullivan and Vance both agreed with the idea and informedthe shah, who had no ob jection. But Brzezinski vetoed theplan. Sullivan recounts that the shah reacted with stunnedincredulity when informed of the cancellation. “How canyou expect to have any influence with these people if youwon’t meet with them?” he asked. 27Khomeini did not entirely neglect his public relations with

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 241the West. By back channels, his aides constantly argued theirmoderation. He himself seemed to hold out olive branchesto the United States, suggesting that the two countriesmight start with a clean slate. “It would be a mistake for theAmerican government to fear the shah’s departure,” he saidon January 1. “If the United States behaves correctly, doesnot inter fere in our affairs and withdraws the advisors whoare intervening in our country, we will respect it in return,”he added a week later. 28 But Washington did not understandthe full implication of that statement until much later.These hints that good Iranian-United States relationsmight survive the revolution, though they played onAmerican hopes, were exceptional. Carter was, the ayatollahsaid else where, an enemy of Iran for supporting the shah; theUnited States was “an accessory and has backed the massacreof our people by the shah’s ignoble regime. It is now up tothe Amer ican people to exert pressure on their government.”Khomeini told another interviewer: “The United Statesobviously wants to have all countries under its influence, butwe cannot accept such domination and our people are tiredof it. Following our people’s example, other countries willfree themselves from the clutches of colonialism.” 29Nor could there be any compromise with Bakhtiar’sregime, which Khomeini labeled as “illegal” and onethat “the people are resolved to fight until an Islamicgovernment is installed. Any other regime would clashwith the people.” Bazargan, still treading cautiously, notedshortly after Bakhtiar’s ap pointment, “It is obvious that onlya return to a certain mea sure of democracy could mollify allthese extremists. However. poor Bakhtiar has no margin formaneuver on this tightrope.” 30Bazargan and Bakhtiar met at least once during thisperiod anu agreed that they had more in common asindividuals than either did with Khomeini. Still Bazargan’sloyalty to Khomeni was not shaken. He had always beenmore religiously oriented than his National Front colleagues.Born of a Tabriz mercantile family that had emigrated toTehran, Bazargan had won a scholarship from Reza Shah inthe late 1920s and had studied engineering in France. Joining

242PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthe National Front, he was undersecretary for educationand managing director of the NIOC during the Mossadeghregime. He had been jailed four times for opposition activityafterward. When Khomeini named a shadow government onJanuary 13, Bazargan was chosen as his prime minister.Against great odds, Bakhtiar strove to forge his own independentposition, breaking with the shah’s old policies.“Henceforth,” he said at one of his first press conferences,“we shall not endeavor to become what you describe as thegendarme of the Persian Gulf.” 31 He also criticized the shahfor destroying Iran’s economy despite gigantic oil revenues:An empty treasury, financial indigence, the bankruptcy ofthe private sector, general strikes, strikes by governmentor ganizations, rebellion by the younger generation,the anger of lecturers and teachers, the frustrations ofstudents and pupils, plot and machinations by foreignersand their agents to further disrupt the situation and,above all, a nation in mourning—these constitute theinheritance received by your obedient servant fromprevious governments. 32The shah himself warned that Bakhtiar would not longsur vive his own departure, that the religious leaders orthe army would oust him. Yet unwilling as he was to go—trying until almost the last minute to confine his exile tosome resort area on Iran’s Caspian or Gulf shores—theshah was finally forced to leave. The United States declaredits support of Bakhtiar and Sullivan came to the palace todiscuss the date and time of the shah’s departure.And so, finally, on January 16 the shah left for Egypt,taking with him a casket of Iranian soil. The word abdicationwas scrupulously avoided in all releases by both the shah’ssup porters and Bakhtiar’s. Back in early 1953, in the middleof a government crisis, he had announced that he wasleaving the country; on August 16 of that same year he hadactually gone. Both times the Iranian people had turnedon his opponents in thunderous pro-shah demonstrations.Now at the airport he told Bakhtiar, almost wistfully, thatthings would become so bad that the people would call him

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 243back after four or five months. But this was not 1953 and theprime minister did not believe that even the shah thoughthistory would repeat itself. General Gharabaghi promisedthat there would be no military coup after the shah left: thearmy would support any legal government.The original plan of exile was for the shah to comeeventually to the United States and to stay indefinitelyat the California estate of his millionaire friend WalterAnnenberg. Initially there was no objection raised by theCarter adminis tration, but when the Bakhtiar governmentran into its own troubles and it appeared that the UnitedStates would have to deal with an Iranian governmentcontrolled by Khomeini, the administration changed itsmind and made clear to the shah that he would have to findanother sanctuary.On the day the shah left Iran the people took to thestreets, chanting, “The shah is gone! Now it’s the Americans’turn.” Even in wealthy north Tehran they took to the streetsby the thousands to voice their joy. Lights were ablaze,automobiles loaded with people moved down the streetshonking their horns, their windshield wipers—carryingpictures of Kho meini—swishing in rhythm. Young peoplemade “V for vic tory” signs; mullahs were carried on theshoulders of crowds; others displayed banknotes with theshah’s portrait cut out of them. 33 In many ways it was likethe wild outpouring that had greeted the shah’s restorationa quarter-century earlier, except that this time it was hisdeparture not his return being cele brated.The Iranian Embassy in Washington was the laststronghold for the shah’s loyalists. There had been somedebate there over Zahedi’s policy of financing pro-shahdemonstrations during the monarch’s November, 1977 visitto the United States but generally the offices functionedsmoothly. In the fall of 1978, however, the three codeclerks went over to Khomeini and by the time the shah leftTehran, the diplomats had split into three factions. A smallgroup, led by the military attaches, continued to supportthe shah; an equally small number —backed by Iranianstudents—vocally boosted Khomeini. Many of the latter

244PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONShad previously been outspoken advocates of the shah. Themajority of the two hundred officials and work, ers decidedthat as professional diplomats they should obey whatevergovernment ruled their country, which meant, } nJanuary,1979, that of Bakhtiar.When Prime Minister Bakhtiar ordered that the shah’spicture be taken down, the charge d’affaires (Zahedi wasin Morocco with the shah) obeyed, but pro-shah dissidentstele phoned Zahedi, who countermanded that instruction.One night, the hard-liners broke into a warehouse wherethe pictures were being stored and put them back up. Whenem ployees came to work the next morning, the portraitswere all in their accustomed places. Once again they weretaken down and the charge fired those responsible fortheir return. Zahedi, returning to Washington, attemptedto remove the moderates. When the pro-Khomeini forcestook over in Tehran and gained control of the Washingtonembassy, though, they fired virtually everyone, includingthe pro-Khomeini converts.In his own office, Bakhtiar covered over the shah’s portraitwith an Iranian flag and put up a picture of Mossadegh. Couldthe Bakhtiar government long survive in the squeeze betweenmullahs and military? The White House thought so; the StateDepartment ridiculed the idea. Everyone in Washingtona-greed on the need to keep Iran’s military united, but theem bassy and the State Department doubted that Bakhtiarcould provide a stable government; the revolution’s completetriumph, they believed, could not be long delayed.The best that could be hoped for, they thought, was that themoderates would come to the fore and that Khomeini wouldretire to Qom to teach theology. Obviously, the special relationshipWashington had enjoyed with the shah’s Iran wouldnot be restored, but the previous close alliance might still bereplaced by an amiable, if more distant, link coupled withsome cooperation in their mutual interests. After all, Iranwould still face the long-standing geopolitical challengesthat had so concerned the shah. As for economic relations,Senator Frank Church, chairman of the Senate ForeignRelations Com mittee, suggested that “any government in

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 245Iran that comes to power will have to sell its oil and the onlyplace to sell its oil is in the Western world.” 34Bakhtiar, of course, tried to carry out his own negotiationswith Khomeini. He sent Jamaleddin Tehrani, head of theRegency Council, to Paris on January 16. When this failed,the prime minister called Beheshti and volunteered to gohimself. At first Khomeini agreed to meet him, but changedhis mind a few hours later; he would talk to Bakhtiar onlyif the prime minister resigned. Bakhtiar had little moresuccess with the military. They promised to support him,but Bakhtiar knew only what Moghadam and Gharabaghichose to tell him.The task of expressing the United States desire to have themilitary remain united behind Bakhtiar was left to GeneralRobert Huyser, whose mission was the outcome of thefrantic White House policy debate of late December. Huyserknew little of Iranian politics, but he had a good reputationand a warm friendship with the key Iranian generals. Hissuperior, General Alexander Haig, later maintained that he,Haig, had opposed the mission: the Iranian military wasdisintegrating and could be saved only if given the task ofrestoring order. Nor was Huyser delighted with his mission,although he did do his best to fulfill it.Sullivan, for his part, was no more happy to see Huyserin Tehran than the general was to be there. The ambassadortold Washington that the Iranian military needed guaranteesand that these could be provided only through some sortof agree ment with Khomeini. The White House agreed andbehind Carter’s secret message to Paris and his attemptto arrange a Meeting with the ayatollah was his interestin obtaining such a n arrangement. As mentioned above,nothing came of either effort.The view that the shah was doomed had been reinforcedat the Guadaloupe summit in early January, when Cartermet with British Prime Minister James Callaghan, WestGerman Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, and French PresidentValéry Giscard d’Estaing. All three European leaders agreedthat the s «ah was finished and Giscard d’Estaing, whospoke last, was Particularly strong on this point. If the shah

246PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSremained, he said, Iran would face civil war. Many peoplewould be killed and the Communists would gain a greatdeal of influence. Ultimately, American military advisorson the scene would be-come involved in the fighting andthis might form a pretext for Soviet intervention. WhatEurope needed, he continued, was Iranian oil and stabilityin the region. Khomeini had been living in France and, theFrench president suggested, might not be so unreasonable.Washington should reconcile itself to the political change.So when Huyser arrived in Tehran, about the time Bakhtiarwas being officially made prime minister on January 3, herepresented not only the United States but also, in effect, theentire Western alliance. One of Huyser’s most effective cardsin winning the generals’ acquiescence for the shah’s exilewere the minutes from that meeting of the allies. When Sullivanwent to the shah to work out the details of his departure,Huyser went with him. It was at this meeting that the shahfirst learned of the general’s presence in Iran.Washington was more immediately concerned with thedangers of a military coup than with the equally dangerouspossibility of the army disintegrating, but Huyser’s jobwas to ensure that the military remained loyal to Bakhtiarand that it contributed to a smooth transition to whateverbroadly based opposition regime finally came to power. Hewas also to as sess the state of the Iranian armed forces: Werethey united? Who were the key leaders? According to somesources, Huyser was also to hold the armed forces togetherfor possible military action if necessary in Bakhtiar’sdefense. His reports about the military were optimistic.They were 85 percent loyal, he concluded, and they wouldprobably fight if Bakhtiar gave the word to restore order.Every evening Huyser reported directly by telephone tothe Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington,General David Jones. Defense Secretary Brown or DeputySecretary Charles Duncan usually listened in.In his earliest meetings with the generals, Huyser explainedwhy it was the view of the United States and its Europeanallies that the shah’s personal rule must end. Working mostlyout of the United States MAAG office in the headquarters of

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 247Iran’s joint chiefs of staff, Huyser met with the generals dailyand talked to Gharabaghi every morning. Admiral flabibollahiusually translated, but General Rabi’i, Huyser’s closest friendamong the Iranians, often helped. Among other things, Huyserpledged that the United States would supply Iran’s armedforces with the fuel it needed to function. Shortly thereafter, atanker arrived with 200,000 barrels of oil.The generals also had their own requests. They wanted theUnited States to guarantee that Khomeini would not be allowedto return to Iran and they wanted an end to BBC broadcastsand to the distribution of Khomeini’s inflammatorystate ments. Huyser could do nothing on these demands buthe did refer them to Washington. Huyser also promisedthat America would back decisive action by the military ifthere were at tacks on their installations or on the Bakhtiargovernment. Like Bakhtiar, however, Huyser was largelydependent on the top half-dozen officers for information;they could hardly be expected to reveal to this foreigner thattheir troops were no longer dependable or that they werethinking of making their own deal with Khomeini, thoughHuyser later claimed to have been suspicious of Gharabaghi’sintentions. Still, as long as Huyser was in Tehran it seemedunlikely that they would go back on their word.Sullivan’s view of events was much more realistic. As ifcompensating for his excessive optimism of the previousyear, the ambassador now reported, contradicting Huyser,that Iran’s political structures were breaking apart. Hispersonal at titude toward Bakhtiar verged on contempt.The troops simply did not support him, the embassy toldWashington, and many leading figures as well as officerswere preparing to join their Swiss bank accounts in exile.The White House preferred to believe Huyser, and Sullivan,long viewed by many as a hold over from the Kissinger era,was criticized as being defeatist a nd perhaps even disloyalto the Carter White House.Recognizing the prevailing trend, Sullivan settled forurging Bakhtiar to meet with Bazargan, Beheshti, andNasir Minachi, opposition leaders he characterized asreasonable men to whom one could talk. By mid-January,

248PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSembassy officers were conducting their own informalsurvey, testing the possibility of bringing together Bakhtiar,the Khomeinists, and the Iranian military on a politicalformula to restore cairn and to keep non-Communistforces in control of Iran. The Khomeini forces, sensing theirimminent victory, concen trated on subverting the military.Once Khomeini judged conditions ready, he announcedthat he would now return to Iran. Bakhtiar did not daremove to block him, but he warned the Khomeinist forcesnot to violate the law. Otherwise, Iran “would probablyreturn to a black period of dictatorship and possibly even offeudalism.” Kho meini was welcome to come back, Bakhtiarannounced, but he would “not permit the affairs of the stateto be governed other than by and through the power of thecentral government.” 35Yet if Bakhtiar held the office, Khomeini held the power.On February 1 the ayatollah landed in a chartered AirFrance plane at Mehrebad Airport, from which the shah hadleft two weeks earlier. Seats on the flight had been sold toreporters to help finance the trip. Hundreds of thousandsof people poured out to see him. His aides, National Frontleaders, and prestigious mullahs met him; Koranic verseswere recited; and Khomeini made a brief speech.No soldiers could be seen anywhere but, as a last symbolof the power of the old order, television coverage wassuddenly in terrupted and was replaced by a portrait of theshah, an occur rence attributed to “technical difficulties”;radio coverage was also cut off in the middle of the event andreplaced by re corded music. Still, the rally was a completesuccess. Thou sands of banners lined the route, welcominghome Iran’s new leader.Khomeini wasted no time in announcing he would notne gotiate with Bakhtiar. Ghotbzadeh gave previews of theayatollah’s policies. The army, he said, “is overequippedand trained by the Americans, does not serve the nation’sdefense but the regime and Washington’s designs in theregion.” Its structure must be drastically changed and itsarmament reduced.As for foreign policy, he continued, the superpowers to

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 249the north and south had convinced past Iranian politiciansthat tjje country could survive only by giving way to them.Yet omplete dependence on one had never defended Iranagainst {he others and worse, during periods of detente, thetwo foreign states had agreed to share influence in Iran. Khomeini’ssupporters did not take seriously any Communistthreat because the Iranian people would accept only an Islamicideology. “The only means of liberating Iran is to removeit from the hands of the superpowers,” Ghotbzadehcon cluded. 36Khomeini was still not secure about the irreversibility ofhis victory; this constant fear would play a central role inmotivat ing the revolution’s hysterical anti-Americanism andthe fu ture kidnapping of United States diplomats. The shahmight return at any moment with American aid, producingfor a sec ond time the political miracle that had been pulledoff in August, 1953. In Washington’s view, the shah wasgone for ever, but no words or expressions of goodwill couldconvince Khomeini of American sincerity.“We will not let the United States bring the shah back,”Khomeini said shortly after his return. “This is what theshah wants. Wake up. Watch out. They want the countryto go back to what it was previously.” Soviet-directedradio broadcasts sought to spread this paranoia. “Embassyemployees and 25,000 imperialist agents” were working toreinstate the mon archy, the programs lied. “We urge ourfellow citizens to be alert and pay full attention to theactivities of the U.S. Em bassy.” But such efforts did not somuch inflame the populace as they reflected the prevailingmood in the country.Government analysts in Washington preferred to lookon the bright side. Khomeini’s statements, one said, wereneces sary political rhetoric. “As unpalatable as it was for us,he would have weakened his position by doing anythingelse.” They had not yet learned to take Khomeini’s ideologyseriously and literally. The hope continued, as one policymakerput it, that the ayatollah would be an “ultimate,moral arbiter” rather than a political power. 37Bakhtiar fought back bravely, if overoptimistically. “For

250PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS50 years, never has the army been so obedient to a primeminister,” he claimed on February 2. In reality, the armywas disin tegrating, with thousands of desertions. SAVAKwas also falling apart, as agents were either murdered orfled their posts in the countryside and provincial towns.“If I do not resist there will be a new dictatorship far worseand (more) horrendous than the previous dictatorship,” hestated on Tehran radio two days later. “Power must emanatefrom the strength of law. Club-wielding, mob rule and hueand cry do not constitute power or strength. Power mustbe coupled with the faculty of reasoning and thought.” 38He tried to distance himself from the United States. Sevenbillion out of twelve billion dollars in pending contractswith American arms suppliers were canceled. He alsoannounced Iran’s withdrawal from CENTO.On the other hand, Bazargan, Khomeini’s shadow primeminister, was careful not to attack the United States and heimplied that friendly relations would continue. “In establishingan era of equal relations with the United States,” he tolda Greek newspaper in early February, “I do not see why weshould not buy weapons from it.” 39Bazargan, who had prudently spent his first dayfollowing his appointment by Khomeini hiding at hisdaughter’s small apartment, also named his own cabinet.There were signs that the urban middle class was pleasedby Khomeini’s choice of such a well-known moderate. Newhomafar demonstrations at air bases on February 3 providedsigns that the military might also be about to change sides.Yet Huyser gave Presi dent Carter an optimistic report onFebruary 5. Bakhtiar’s gov ernment was now even better off,the general implied, because of its handling of Khomeini’sreturn. But if the White House continued to believe inBakhtiar’s chances, there were few in Tehran who hadany such illusions. “Unless they blow it by provoking thehardline officers,” said one embassy official’ “the religiousmovement essentially has won. There is a good chance theirvictory could be orderly, with any vestiges of the Bakhtiargovernment fading away.” 40The pace of demonstrations and strikes increased. The

DAYS OF RECKONING 1978-1979 251Majlis ceased to function and, on February 9, Sanjabi calledfor Bakhtiar’s resignation. The opposition’s arrangementswith Fardost, Gharabaghi, and Moghadam were completedand even Rabi’i joined in the still-secret decision to withdrawmilitary support from Bakhtiar. On the morning of FebruaryW it was all over. Gharabaghi was due in Bakhtiar’s officeat nine o’clock for a routine meeting. He did not come.Bakhtiar called him up at eleven and the chief of staff toldhim that the army had decided to declare itself neutral.“At that moment I realized it was finished,” Bakhtiar laterrecounted. “And then machine-gun fire began to open upall around the prime ministerial office.” He walked calmlydown the back stairs, boarded a helicopter, and was takeninto hid ing. Some time later, early one morning, he took acommercial airliner from Mehrebad airport in disguise. Hewent into exile in France. 41This, then was the epilogue for twenty-five hundredyears of monarchy in Iran. The revolution had triumphed;the main pillar of American policy in the Persian Gulfhad collapsed. The future for both America and Iran wassuddenly unpredic table. But to understand Iran’s new orderand its new foreign policy it is necessary to consider in moredetail the motives for the revolution and the world view ofits leaders.

9Charismatic Disorder1979In the months after the revolution, a host of theories beganto circulate among pro- and anti-shah Iranians, as well asamong Americans, as to why the shah had fallen and whatthe United States would do now that he was gone. WithinTehran, from the very first days after the revolution, radicalfactions were interpreting American initiatives toward thenew Islamic regime as sinister plots.Committed to the position that America saw its interests asinexorably tied to those of the shah and that therefore it couldnever accept the shah’s removal from power, they believedthat, as in 1953, Washington would plot a counterrevolution.Very nearly every difficulty facing the new Islamic governmentwas attributed to such machinations; anyone showingthe least sign of softness toward the United States was to bediscredited. The Ayatollah Khomeini repeatedly describedAmerica as a satanic force and as the new Iran’s number oneenemy.From the beginning, this view was based onmisinformation regarding attitudes in Washington. TheCarter administration quickly accepted the shah’s departure

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 253and certainly made no attempt to reverse the events thathad brought him down. On the contrary, Washington’saim was to cut its losses and salvage whatever could besaved of the old relationship; the hope was that conciliationwould elicit future Iranian cooperation, particularly againstany expansion of Soviet influence in the area. This policyposition was determined by strategic consid erations theadministration hoped would shape Iranian policy underthe new regime, as they had under the shah.Events subsequently demonstrated the fundamentalmisreading of the revolution involved in such thinking. Theimportance of the Khomeinist ideology was underestimated:the speeches of Iranian leaders were treated as mere rhetoric.The eventual triumph of “objective” geographic and economicfactors were, mistakenly, taken for granted, as was theinevitability of a Tehran government directed by pragmatistsattempting to achieve traditional political goals.At the opposite end of the conspiracy-explanation spectrumwere the theories of many former Iranian government officialsand a group of American critics of the White House. Notonly did the United States have no plan to return the shahto power, they argued, but Washington had been responsiblefor his removal in the first place. The collapse was caused bya conspiracy, according to pro-shah relations; some Americananalysts attributed it to presidential incompetence. Still otherswere willing to ascribe any adverse turn of events to somedeep immorality in American foreign policy.Indeed, it was quickly clear in the debate following theshah’s fall that there were two possible American scapegoats:the Nixon and Ford administrations—for creating the closerelationship with Iran—or the Carter administration—forpre siding over its disappearance. Arguments in support ofany of these positions, however, were subject to a distortingin fluence—the astonishment aroused by the event itself.How could this earthquake have happened? Why had thehighly touted Iranian military collapsed so easily? Why hadthe re portedly dynamic and masterful shah fallen so quicklyinto confusion and passivity? These and other questionswere asked by an incredulous American public. If there were

254PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONScontradictions here then someone must surely be at fault forfailing to avoid such an easily preventable disaster.Since most pro-shah Iranians were not likely to suggestthat the failure lay with their own performance, and sincethose Americans who had taken part in establishing thespecial ties between the United States and Iran wouldnot call attention to their own errors of performance andjudgment, the blows fell on the Carter administration.Obviously, they agreed, it had been too harsh on the humanrights question, too miserly with arms sales, and too slowand too soft in responding to the rev olutionary crisis.There is, however, yet another possible approach: Allsides have tended to exaggerate the importance of Americanactions and decisions on events in Iran. In studying thehistory of the two nations’ relations one is most impressedwith Washing ton’s difficulties in influencing Iranian affairs.Even the seem ing exception—the overthrow of Mossadeghin 1953—is not so clear as it seems on first impression.American intervention in Iran in that year was the resultof an unusual—and unre pealed—set of circumstances. Thefact that Washington was seeking to undermine an alreadyshaky regime—that the CIA was pushing open an unlatcheddoor—explains why the 1953 operation was so simple andsuccessful.It is not necessary to ascribe the success of the Iranianrevolu tion to some failure of American foreign policy.This misun derstanding has been created by the confusionthat exists over the Iranian political situation. Those whoassumed that the shah had been a pillar of strength andthat his policies had been relatively successful at homefound it hard to compre hend the nature of the revolt againsthim. But, on the contrary, if the shah’s strength had beenpartly illusory and if his poli cies had caused disruption anddissatisfaction among Iranians then the uprising’s appealbecomes understandable. The dis location was not betweena true image and irrational events but between a false imageand a commensurate outcome.During the first ten months of the revolution, whenWash ington never pressed the shah for concessions,

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 255the opposition was open to compromise. By the time theadministration finally began to get more actively involved,in December, 1978, the shah was ready to give way but theantiregime forces had by then become intransigent. Whilethe shah was not recep tive to American pressures during theearly period, neither would all-out support have guaranteedhis regime’s survival. The situation would have been thereverse of that which pre vailed in 1953. At that time, theUnited States aligned itself with those trying to overthrowan ineffectual, collapsing regime that had brought greathardship to Iran; in 1978 it was the shah who headed thesimilarly faltering and even more unpopular regime.Khomeini, too, overestimated the extent and potential ofAmerican influence in Iran but his view—whatever its basisin fact—became a major material force that captured theminds of Iranians and stirred their revolutionary passions.Twen tieth-century revolutions have sprung far more oftenfrom na tionalist-inspired hatred of outsiders than fromclass griev ances. The Iranian revolution succeeded bymobilizing millions of Iranians against an America equatedwith satan and against a shah successfully portrayed as un-Islamic. Within this framework the behavior of Khomeiniand other Iranian leaders was quite rational: they did notcare what ef fect their actions had on Washington, theywere concerned only with the reverberations in Tehran andaround their own country. Indeed, the more reckless theywere in contemptuous disregard for how the United Statesmight respond to their in sults, the more heroic and popularthey became to their own followers.But the mere presence of political dynamite does not alwaysbring an explosion—there must be a fuse and it must be setoff. What were the causes that turned a potential revolutioninto a rout of the region’s most solidly entrenched regime?Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ascribes theevents almost exclusively to American failings, presumablythose arising after he left office. The transformation of“inchoate unrest into a revolution,” he said, was caused byAmerican weakness and by a clumsy tactical handling ofthe crisis by the Carter administration.

256PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS“To my mind,” explains Kissinger, “the combination ofSoviet actions in Ethiopia, the South Yemen, Afghanistan,plus the general perception of an American geopoliticaldecline, had the consequence of demoralizing thosewhose stock in trade was cooperation with the UnitedStates, undermining their resolution towards potentialrevolutionaries.” The shah did not resist the oppositionmore forcefully “because he must have had doubts aboutour real intentions.” The liberalization strategy, forced onthe shah by Washington, was mistaken, he adds, since anongoing revolution cannot be moderated by concessions.These can come only when order is restored.“Whether we like it or not,” he concludes, “the shah wasconsidered our close ally in that area for 37 years. He leftof fice under the visible urging of the United States.” Otherlocal rulers, he suggested, would fear similar treatment byAmerica and seek alliances elsewhere. 1This analysis seems to ignore the fact that the idea of aweakened America, especially in its resolve, was not new tothe shah: as early as 1958 it had been a major factor in his drivefor military self-sufficiency. Nor was it clear that United Stateslosses elsewhere had any major effect on the shah’s responseto the rebellion—this understates the primacy of do mesticIranian forces operating in 1978. Moreover, during the firstten months of the crisis, the White House had nothing butprivate and public praise for the shah and his policies. Themild expressions of doubt and the urgings toward “liberalization”and coalition took place very late in the game, after ithad already become clear that the shah’s strategy was failing.Further, even these statements were so phrased as to be endorsementsof the shah’s own promises of free elections andthe establishment of a broader government.Yet the idea of White House responsibility for the shah’scollapse was an irresistible one, especially among those whosought the presidency. As early as January, 1979, Republicancandidate George Bush accused the president of “pullingthe rug out from under the shah.” His “on-again, off-againstate ments … did much to hasten his departure,” because thead ministration’s policy of “splendid oscillation” severed the

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 257links between the United States and its allies. 2 The onset ofthe hostage crisis helped to temporarily still such criticism.Others, for equally political reasons, blamed the Kissinger-Nixon strategy of building up the shah as a regional greatpower. George Ball emphasized the “pervasive corruption”in Iran and Nixon’s “disastrous encouragement to theshah to overload his country with inappropriate militaryhardware.” This “costly burden” resulted in financialpressures that caused unemployment, disaffection, and anencouragement of the shah’s megalomania.Rejecting the Kissinger analysis, Ball wrote, “The reasonthe shah did not stand and fight was that his whole countrywas solidly against him and his army was beginning todisin tegrate under the pressure of competing loyalties.”“It is fatu ous,” he concluded, “to think that we could havekept a hated absolute monarch in power by encouragingthe progressive use of military force. This was, after all, aninternal revolt. What would Mr. Kissinger have done? Sentthe Sixth Fleet steaming up the Gulf?”This view can also be challenged. The Nixon Doctrine strategywas a response to existing limitations on American resourcesand to anticipated domestic opposition toward directUnited States military interventions in defense of its allies.The shah’s fascination with arms was not an American creation;nor would Washington’s refusal to sell him arms havenecessarily prevented his overloading his country with inappropriatemilitary hardware purchased from other sources.As for the immediate White House response to the revolution,many unpopular dictators have kept themselves inpower through ruthless repression. While the shah’s causewas hopeless by the time Ball appeared on the scene in November,1978, there were times earlier in the year when differentAmerican actions might have contributed toward adif ferent outcome. An understanding of the sad course ofUnited States-Iranian relations must utilize aspects of bothanalyses.A third and less satisfactory set of explanations wasoffered by pro-shah Iranians, including the monarchhimself. The shah has blamed his downfall on a conspiracy,

258PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONShinting that American oil companies aimed to do him inas part of a scheme to raise petroleum prices. Khomeini, headded, was too uneducated to have planned the revolution;Khomeini’s aides, Yazdi and Ghotbzadeh, had spent severalyears in the United States. Therefore, the shah implies, itwas all a CIA plot.Other Iranians have carried the idea further. They assumethat the CIA clearly foresaw the future. Hence its refusal tohalt the revolution is sufficient evidence of its complicity.The CIA and British intelligence, popular myths explain,smug gled in thousands of Khomeini cassettes and used theBBC to spread such a volume of anti-shah propaganda thatthe latter became known as the “Voice of Khomeini.”Hushang Nahavandi, a former minister of educationand a respected university administrator, has developedthis theory in some detail. “The Americans certainlysupported Kho meini’s movement and helped it to set up ananti-communist hardline Islamic regime in this part of theworld.” Carter, Nahavandi explained, realized that a crisiswas coming and prompted the shah toward political reformwhile supporting “the emergence of an Islamic regime thatwould stand against any communist tide resulting from theimbalance in the coun try’s social structure.” Thus, Huyser’smission was “to prevent a pro-shah military coup like thatof 1953 in which the op position would be crushed and itsrevolution suppressed.” 3Perhaps the most systematic analysis of the revolutionmade in the pro-shah media appeared in the magazineKhandaniha in December, 1978; the article reveals theflavor of this view, which has much in common withKhomeinist logic. Behind the upheaval, it explained “arenon-Iranian hands skillfully, sometimes hastily, movingtheir unsuspecting and gullible puppets.” “As always,”external factors were primary in shap ing that process.The anti-shah demonstrations during the shah’s November,1977 Washington visit, “perhaps even encouraged by CIAof ficials,” showed that the Democratic administration wasintent on weakening the shah. After the Marxist coup inAfghani stan, the article continued, the United States wanted

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 259to force Iran to break its ties with the Soviets. “Naturally,because of Islam’s incompatibility with Communism, theUSA would not object if the contemplated replacementgovernment is a 100 percent Islamic theocracy.” To achievethis, “it was necessary to create unrest and turmoil with Iran.Hence, experienced CIA operatives set to work.”A second reason for the revolution was the shah’sactivism in OPEC, according to this view. The oil cartel andthe CIA were determined to remove the shah even—thisin contra diction to the editors’ first point—if they had tostrengthen Communist influence in Iran. Even corruptionwas part of the foreigners’ diabolical scheme. 4 Thesethemes of conspiracy and of American responsibility forevents within Iran thus characterized the CIA as scapegoatfor the domestic difficul ties of both shah and post-shahgovernments.There are at least three problems with this analysis.First, it presumes both an all-powerful United States andthe careful planning of all events. To Iranians, the idea thatthe CIA did not know what was going on in Iran or thatAmerica enjoyed only very limited influence over the shahwas preposterous. Nor does the absence of hard evidencediscourage belief in even the wildest theories. Rather, suchan absence of evidence may be taken as confirmation of theall-pervasive nature of the conspiracy.Second, this view confuses the situation of January, 1979,when the shah himself came to accept the hopelessnessof his position, and that of the months before, when hisgovernment might still have saved itself. By the time ofthe Huyser mis sion, Washington was reconciled to the factthat even the most unified and concerted military actioncould not have crushed the opposition. Public opinion andpolitical condi tions in Iran were in early 1979 already at apoint opposite those prevailing in August, 1953, when manywere eager to see Mossadegh fall.Finally, such an analysis misstates the motivation of theWhite House. By early 1979 American policy was based ona desperate attempt to adapt to clearly changing conditions.The decision to support a peaceful transition to opposition

260PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSrule was dictated by a combination of wishful thinking andan absence of options. Though none in the United Statesgovernment actually preferred that Khomeini take power,the frequently expressed hope was that political processeswould allow the moderates to come out on top. In analyzingthe actions of the Carter administration during the last daysof the shah’s regime, errors in judgment and limited choices,rather than a conspiratorial intent, must provide the essentialexplanation. Before discussing the causes of the Iranianrevolution in detail it is useful to evaluate the part playedby the Ameri can arms-transfer program in this event. Afterall, military sales were the most visible connection betweenthe two coun tries. They affected Iranian attitudes towardthe shah and to ward the United States on two levels—thoseof legitimacy as well as those of economics.The former issue has been summarized by ShahramChubin: “Few [Iranians] understood why a $10 billiondefense budget had become a necessity overnight or whya war on the Horn of Africa threatened them. Nor couldthe majority of Iranians comprehend why large loans werebeing made to other coun tries when Iran’s own countrysidewas deteriorating.” 5Many Iranians concluded that if the petroleum incomewas not serving their country’s needs, as they understoodthem, then they must be designed to meet American interests.Pe trodollars were being squandered, they believed, inexchange for “worthless” arms. Such attitudes could evenbe found among shah loyalists. A typical statement, froma Majlis member and union leader just before the shah’sdeparture, complained, “the United States Government, byfrightening the Iranian people with the spectres of theirneighbors, by selling us used weapons at exorbitant prices,has poured bil lions of rials into the pockets of U.S. militarycartels” and for United States military advisors.6In Iranian eyes, it was the arms-sale program, more thanany other aspect of the alliance between the United Statesand Iran, that compromised the shah’s image with Iraniansand le them to believe that the shah was America’s “man.”Bani-Sadr, after criticizing American military sales, aid,

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 261training and advisors, concluded: “The economic health,social wel fare and cultural integrity of the nation are allbeing sacrificed that the Shah can continue to rule withinthe framework of American strategic objectives.” 7Officially, Iran spent about 25 percent of its governmentalbudgets of the 1970s on the military, though hidden costsmight have raised this figure another 5 percent. Although aggressivecorporate salesmen oversold certain specific systems,the United States government hardly forced the material onthe shah, who bought these weapons to meet what he saw asreal threats. Though his purchases were quantitatively andqualitatively excessive, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistanand other regional events may yet demonstrate that his fearsabout aggressive neighbors were not completely foolish.Nor should it be assumed that a transfer of money from militaryspending to economic development would necessarilyhave avoided the revolution. After all, such a shift might onlyhave further accelerated Iran’s “modernization,” a centralcause of the discontent. It is interesting to note that after therevolution Bani-Sadr advocated slowing down petroleumpro duction, thereby generating less overall revenue andmaking possible a slower pace for Iran’s civilian sector.On the American side, there is no reason to doubt thatthe primary motive for the Nixon-Kissinger policy was astrategic one. The May, 1972 commitment to sell the shahunlimited amounts of equipment and the government’slater handling of arms sales can certainly be calledshortsighted and almost criminally careless, but this doesnot mean that there were ad ditional hidden motives behindthe administration’s choices. The arms-sale program helpedto discredit the shah at home, to stir Iranian antagonismstoward the United States, and to create problems for theIranian economy. Nevertheless, the overall importance ofthis program should not be overestimated in assessing thecontributing factors to the revolution, and it may well bethat these purchases were more significant in underminingthe shah’s legitimacy than they were in terms the economicdamage they did to Iran.An overall examination of the many factors leading to

262PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthe revolution would have to include a series of long-rangefactor that helped forge the unique Iranian political culture,m edium-range factors that shaped the attitudes of variousIranian social and economic groups toward the shah’sregime, and im. mediate issues that turned this strainedrelationship into amass uprising. The Iranian revolutionand its outcome can only be understood as a combination ofthese various factors’• The traditional antagonism of peasants, tribes, andoutly ing ethnic groups toward the central governmentencourages these groups to thwart their rulers whereverpossible. The shah’s forces represented the unwelcomeintrusion of military conscription, tax collection, and theconcentration of power outside of the local identity groups.The 1978-79 revolution graphically demonstrated also thebandwagon effect of any seemingly successful uprising—everyone wanted to be on the winning side.These strong antagonisms, however, have once morereas serted their influence now that the revolutionaryforces have themselves become the central governmentin the Azerbaijani, Kurdish, and Arab revolts and in theproliferation of political power centers in competition withthe central authorities. The tension between extremes oftyranny and anarchy, so often visible in Iranian history, hasoften produced an autocracy dependent on an individual—the shah and Khomeini are both examples. It is not yet clearwhether the 1979 revolution has broken this cycle, but it canprobably not tame the strong Iranian rebellious streak.• Religion has always been a source of either reinforcementof or challenge to ruling authority. Zoroastrianism was thestate religion of pre-Islamic Iran but heretical offshoots producedrevolutionary movements. Islam also blurred thedis tinction between religion and “secular” politics, sincesocial life and the conduct of public affairs were supposedto conform to the laws of God, as set down in the Koran andthe subsequent theological commentaries. The Abbassidrevolu tion of 750 used this ideology to bring down thecaliphate. Iran’s form of Shi’a Islam, which stressed descentfrom Muhammad’s family as a precondition for serving as

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 263ruler, was also united with the Safavid dynasty, becomingthe official religioin in 1502. The Safavids even launchedan international qhi’a propaganda campaign, as had thepro-Abbassid revolutionaries before them, to win converts,particularly in the do mains of their enemies. While themainstream Sunni Muslim sect tended to become tamedand bureaucratized by the ruling authority, the Shi’a clergykept their parallel and semi-independent hierarchy, as wellas their popular base among the masses.In the Christian West various sects broke off from theCatholic church, the pope’s power was defeated by secularmonarchs during the early Middle Ages, and the separationof church and state was gradually recognized. Even Jesusmade the distinction between that which was to be renderedto God and that which was to be rendered Caesar’s. TheReformation and the Renaissance, as well as the widespreadacceptance of Darwinism and the scientific method, furtherundermined religion’s role as supplier of philosophy, ethics,and law. None of this happened in the Islamic world.In Iran, for example, a relatively small number of those educatedin Western liberal, technocratic, or Marxist world viewsdominated politics from the capital city. The overwhelmingmajority of Iranians remained in their traditional life-stylesand maintained traditional values. In Turkey, Ataturk madesome basic changes, through his imposition of modernismand Turkish nationalism on the people. In the Arab world,Arab nationalism gained ideological dominance during thedecades before and after World War II.There was no such mediation of the Islamic role in Iranand consequently, the clergy there played a greater role inthe nationalist and anti-imperialist movement than did theclergy in the Arab and Sunni worlds. In this context, the Westwas suspect not only because of its alien and non-Muslimnature but also because of the East’s thwarted feelings ofsuperiority. Why was the Muslim world, more ethical andspiritual than the West, subjected to Western power? Theanswer given was that the West had immorally suppressedMuslim rights. Modernism was seen as a further conspiracyto hold down the Muslims politically and economically;

264PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSeven worse, it threatened to strip them of their very cultureand religion.• Under the decaying Qajar dynasty, in the late nineteenthand early twentieth centuries, the shahs acquired badreputations as antinationalists. Their dependence onthe British and the Russians and their concessions to thepowerful foreigner undermined their legitimacy. On morethan one occasion, an alliance of merchants, intellectuals,and clergy—reminiscent of the 1978 coalition—saw theQajars and foreign influence as a single enemy to be fought.As an example, when in 1890 the ruling shah gave a to baccomonopoly to a British subject, those opposed to his regimecried out against corruption, against misgovernment, andagainst the dominance of foreign powers simultaneously,The merchants also charged that the shah had sacrificedtheir material well-being for that of a foreigner, the intellectualsral lied for Iran’s incipient nationalism, and the clergydeclared imperiled the laws of Islam. The mullahs issued adecree or dering Muslims to abstain from tobacco products.The shah was forced to abrogate his deal.During the constitutionalist revolution the clergy wassplit into pro- and anti-shah factions. But the efforts of thelatter were recognized in the 1906 constitution (which thedemon strators of 1978 sought to revive) that provided for apanel of five clerical representatives to ensure that no lawviolated Is lamic precepts.• Reza Shah ended the decadent Qajar era but he alsode stroyed the constitutionalist forces by revitalizing themonar chy. His attempts to rebuild the centralized state ledhim to at tack the clergy, regional elites, the ethnic minoritiesana tribes, and the aristocracy. His pressure for modernism,including the campaign to unveil women, brought him intocol lision with the clergy. Few were sorry to see him go andthe antagonism carried over to his son, Muhammad RezaShah.The events of August, 1953 further put the shah inantinational, unfavorable light and associated him withforeign and un-Islamic forces. The fact that Kashani andothers also took an anti-Mossadegh stance was forgotten, as

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 265were shortcomings of the National Front regime. Oppositionelements believed the shah to be a traitor, dependent onAmerican influence for his very throne.The shah’s policies after 1953 also provoked a number ofmedium-term conflicts.• The shah’s enervation of the Majlis and the premiershipas power centers made possible a more decisive governmentbut at a price—by reducing the right to participation ofvarious groups, he lost the support of these forces. In addition, the buffers that protected his exalted status as head ofstate did not shield him from harsh criticism once he assumed the role of head of government, particularly once hedecided to exercise one-man rule. The politicized class couldhope only to be bureaucrats, executing his policy.The White Revolution further alienated the landlord partof the elite and some religious leaders, though the shah continuedto have many supporters among the clergy. The 1962-63 riots were, at one and the same time, protests againstland reform and the changing status of women—symbolsof modernization—and protests against the growing powerof the shah.• While the urban middle classes, the merchants, and professionals might have been thought beneficiaries of the system, they too shared the political complaints noted above. Aswell, they expressed a whole range of economic and personalobjections to the shah’s rule. Though corruption, for example,was by no means a phenomenon unknown in Iranian history(during the Mossadegh era, parents sometimes reportedly hadto bribe teachers in order to have their children promoted totoe next grade), the main impetus of the new corruption, fromhe 1960s on, was not its existence but its social impact. Thepending on arms, imports, and construction seemed to disproportionately benefit a group of new-rich, who becamewealthy through their particular connections with theshah, the court, and the Americans. These opportunitieswere generally closed to the 60,000 bazaar merchants inTehran, as well as to their counterparts in provincial towns.Moreover, large-scale imports of mass-produced goodsthreatened to drive these artisans and merchants out of

266PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSbusiness. The cultural challenge of the West thus becameintertwined with an economic one. Insult was often addedto such injury, as in th epersistent talk of a superhighwaythat might be run through the bazaar.• SAVAK and government repression also hit hardest themodern sectors of the urban population, those who mighthave been expected to support the shah. One aspect of thiswas the ripple effect of arrests—each victim or prisoner haddozens of relatives who were turned against the regime.That Iran was a country prepared for parliamentarydemoc racy was by no means clear, nor are the shah’ssuccessors known for their adherence to human rights orto due process of law. Much of SAVAK has been simplytaken over, though renamed, by the Khomeinists. Yetthe anti-shah movement had an element of emotionalappeal never to be matched by the shah—it was able tomobilize the masses, inspiring ideas of populism andgroup participation. In much of the Third World suchmechanisms have seemingly produced viable governments.Repression by the post-shah regime cloakeditself in the psychologically satisfying rationalization thatit was get ting revenge for the majority over the minority,rather than vice versa.• Association with foreigners made the shah appear fairgame for xenophobic appeals. He was, his enemies said, thehireling of the Americans, more interested in helping themthan in aiding his own people. The shah’s toleration of boththe Jews and the hated but inoffensive Bahai sect provokedsimilar reactions.The exchange of petrodollars for arms, leaving Iran with“worthless” weaponry, was viewed by many Iranians as agiving away of their country’s wealth for the Americans’double benefit—an advantage for both their economicand strategy interests. The handling of foreign labor alsocreated problems. When Iran imported technology it alsoimported advisors an technicians. Saudi Arabia and Kuwaithad similar problems but top-level jobs in those countrieswere reserved for citizens. The large-scale use of Arab guestworkers at all levels also lessened the cultural dissonance.

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 267Finally, of course, those countries had enough money toamply reward their nationals, Those small number madeper capita oil income several times higher than that ofthe Iranians. To the inhabitants of the Arab petroleumproducers, the foreigners seemed to be serving them; inIran the foreigners were perceived as being on top.From the Iranian point of view, diplomats, military advisors,and businessmen from abroad were housed by employersin expensive villas or apartments, had access toduty free or subsidized food, drink, and household goods,em ployed servants, and gave lavish parties. It was not aquestion of these people doing anything wrong—they weresimply liv ing the way they had at home—but the culturaland material contrast between American and Iranian lifestylesand living standards was simply too great at closequarters. “The public feeling is that members of thesegroups are particularly pam pered” at Iranian expense, saidone Tehran magazine during the revolution. 8Under the surface grew darker resentments, to be manifestedafter the revolution in the taking of United States hostages.This was the view that Iran was an American colony.“The embassy was the real center of power in Iran,” claimedBani-Sadr, and he added, “If you U.S. people, after 35 years ofinterference in and rule over your affairs by an embassy,were to carry out a revolution and achieve victory, wouldyou con sider the employees of that embassy as normalemployees?” And, again: “All that happened in Iran: It wasnot the imperial court that made the decision, it was theUnited States Em bassy.” 9 Ayatollah Khomeini would befond of saying that the united States was the cause of allIran’s troubles and this was a constant theme of the otherradical leaders.• Perhaps the most important factor behind Iran’s internalstrains was the rapid inflow of such vast amounts of oilrevenue into the country, with the subsequent headlong rushinto Modernization and disproportionate military spending.The general American view of this process contained twomisleading assumptions. First, it was assumed that life wasbeing significantly improved for the average Iranian. Second,

268PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSwas the dichotomy perceived between a promodemizationshah and a reactionary opposition.In fact, some sectors of Iran, particularly in the rural areasfaced declining fortunes, and within the overall populationdisparities increased. The most prosperous Iranians, whomade up 20 percent of the population, received 57.5 percentof the income in 1972 and 63.5 percent in 1975. The shareof the middle 40 percent decreased from 31 percent to 25.5per cent over the same period, and that of the poorest 40percent declined from 11.5 percent to 11 percent. 10For many individuals, “modernization” became associatedwith negative things—anomie, disorganization, waste, corruption,incompetent administration, dependence on foreigners,inflation, and uncomfortably dizzying change. Specificaspects of the poorly planned crash modernization damagedIranians economically and culturally at the same time. Everyvillage, for example, had its potter who made earthenwarevessels for storage and cooking. Imported plastic goods destroyedthe livelihood of these artisans. Imported plasticshoes made in Japan or Iran destroyed not only the traditionalshoe-making industry but also cut the demand for leather, andhence damaged herders, middlemen, and retailers. Naturalfibers could not compete with artificial fibers; the governmentthought it cheaper to import food than to invest in helping theIranian peasantry. Importers and contractors with special connectionsbenefited while several strata of workers, artisans,and merchants were driven to the wall. Ironically, the plasticand fibers that had this effect were made from petrochemicals,in other words, from Iran’s own oil. Efficiency, in its nar rowestsense, dictated policies that were socially disastrous. Thus,Western goods seemed to combine with Western culture andWestern power as threats to Iran.• Iran’s culture shock resulted from foreign goods andideas coming into the country and from the internal mobilityof Iranians themselves. As for the former aspect, AyatollahKho meini called television and advertising the two worstenemies of Islam, as perpetrators of alien concepts. Nor didthe Western media always present the best of Western lifeor the mos favorable views of those societies.

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 269As early as 1932, Dr. R. E. Hoffman, an American missionaryin Iran, wrote that “our films are suggesting to thePer sians that American life consists chiefly of cow-punching,res cuing abducted girls, gangster warfare, and walking likeCharlie Chaplin.”11 The next generation was able to watch themodern equivalents on their television sets: “Baretta,” “Cannon,”“Ironside,” “The Six-Million Dollar Man,” westerns,detective shows, and the worst “B” movies. American programsaveraged 30.6 percent of broadcasting time. AlthoughIran produced many films itself, Western features dominatedthe theatres. 12 All this material was un-Islamic and Khomeiniwould convince many that it was in fact anti-Islamic. If Iraniansstill wanted these goods, Khomeini tried to redirecttheir desires by force or persuasion.• The other aspect of culture shock struck the thousandsof villages and the millions of peasants who had historicallylooked up to the shah as an almost superhuman figure, anallegiance later transferred to Ayatollah Khomeini. The ignoringof rural needs encouraged migration to the cities. Therethe peasants, lacking modern skills and experience withtwen tieth-century mores, turned to their trusted leaders—the mul lahs. The White Revolution had given land titles tohundreds of thousands and then had quickly forgotten them.From 1959 to 1972 the disparity between urban and ruralincomes rose from 2:1 to 3:1. Tehran grew from 1.5 million in1956 to 2.7 million in 1966, and to 4.5 million in 1976, tri plingin twenty years. Other cities expanded at a similar pace.The urban population went from 31.2 percent in 1956 and to41 9 percent in 1972. This completely changed the balanceof Iranian politics. In the Mossadegh era, only the urbanartisans, Merchants, and workers had mattered; these sectorssupported the “secular” elements of the National Front ratherthan Ayatollah Kashani. However, the newly arrived peasantswere more likely to back clerical leaders than to supportmoderate Politicians. This shift in constituency meant thatthe symbol ^d shaper of the new revolution would be notBazargan or Sanjabi but Ayatollah Khomeini.The villagers also turned away from the shah. They hadto buy water from private landowners at a high price. No

270PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSgovernment bank or institution would give them the moneythey needed to buy a motor for their deep wells except athigh interest rates. Their transistor radios, however, gavethem access to events in the outside world. During therevolution, they decided they wanted an Islamic regime,which meant, peas ants told a Le Monde correspondent, “agovernment with Kho meini as its leader. A government thatrespects us and re spects our religion and customs.” 13 Theywould believe whatever Khomeini told them.If the long-range factors were the quiescent dynamiteand the middle-range factors the fuse, several immediateissues provided the explosive force of the revolution.• The recession, resulting from falling oil sales, when combined with the shah’s excessive spending, forced project cutbacks and increased unemployment at a time of serious inflation. Before 1976, Iran had so much money coming in that itcould afford the waste, corruption, and incompetence of thegovernment. By 1977 these shortcomings were imposingserious costs. The construction industry, which employedmany of the unskilled village immigrants, was particularlyhard hit. Wages declined as much as 30 percent for suchworkers. University graduates found it hard to get jobs, aproblem they tended to blame on the presence of foreign advisors.One money-saving cutback was the government’sreduction of the religious establishment’s subsidy from $80million to $30 million a year, a move that did not inspireincreased loy alty from the mullahs. The bazaar merchantshelped make up the difference, cementing the alliancebetween the two groups. The shah once asked an Americanlong a resident in Egypt why King Farouk had fallen in 1952.The reason, re plied the American, was that Farouk had triedto govern with out governing well. The opposition was notto a royal regime per se but to an inept ruler, whatever histitle.• To the extent that the shah’s programs had raisedliving standards and created expectations, the situationhad reached a critical threshold. The growing numbers ofstudents and the enlarged middle class were increasingly

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 271conscious of the gap between promise and delivery. Theshah had nurtured his own enemies, who now, feeling theirstrength, demanded a redistribution of power.• The shah’s illness and personal paralysis made it impossiblefor his regime to respond to the challenges of 1978. Tosome extent, this was due to his personality and in part tothe effects of his cancer. Yet it was also the failure of a systemthat could not produce alternate initiative or leadershipfrom its own military and civilian elite.• These built-in weaknesses particularly plagued thearmed forces. The generals could not and would not actwithout the shah’s direction. Their jealousies and mutualmistrusts as well as the importance of conscripts and airforce homafars further prevented decisive action.• The shah, on the basis of his experience in the 1950sand 1960s, adopted an incorrect strategy of trying to waitout the disturbances and to divide radical from moderatefactions within the opposition. Whether or not this strategycould have worked, its execution was badly flawed. Theshah offered too little too late.• The hesitation and slowness of an American responsebe tween January and December, 1978 was far moreimportant in terms of the shah’s downfall than were theactions actually carried out by Washington in January andFebruary, 1979. “Seldom have the limits of American poweror the lack of a strong policy been so obvious,” criticizedTime Magazine, but the media had also helped createthe shah’s misleading image and the underestimation ofrevolutionary forces in 1978 that lulled Washington tosleep. 14 Even if the shah, the Iranian army, and the UnitedStates had acted otherwise there were no guarantees thatthe shah could have stayed in power. Pos sible outcomesincluded a military government or a limited monarchyunder the shah’s son, but there was also a range of lesspleasing results—full-scale civil war, a strengthening ofSoviet influence, or direct American involvement in amajor inflict.• Even given all this, the revolution might not havesucceeded, and would certainly have had a far more

272PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSmoderate result if not for the emergence of AyatollahKhomeini. History has repeatedly shown that even the most“revolutionary” situation does not produce change withoutthe presence of strong insurgent leadership. Not only didKhomeini impose his inflexible determination to bringdown the shah, but he also provided a countercharismaticfigure capable of appeal ing to the masses.Khomeini and his aides, along with a great number of allies,produced an opposition ideology that fit their country’shistorical/cultural predispositions and also supplied a completeset of explanations for Iran’s problems. Embodied inthis system were also a series of proposed solutions. Tocreate a liberal or Marxist in the Islamic world takes muchtime and experience, but almost every citizen carries aMuslim orienta tion within himself. Even—one might sayespecially—the il literate masses receive the bulk of theirintellectual experience through the mosque, the mullahs,and the Koran.Failure to properly understand the importance of thisideological aspect has repeatedly led to faulty evaluations ofthe uprising and of post-shah Iran. The Islamic rhetoric wasseen as a mask, as a convenient vehicle for expressing accumulatedeconomic, political, and social grievances. Consequently,posited this analysis, the mullahs would soon returnto their usual duties, leaving decision-making to politicaland technical specialists. Yet Islamic ideology was not onlythe rebellion’s powerful motor—the masters of that weaponwere also determined to remain in the driver’s seat.The ancestors of Ruhollah al-Musawi ibn Mustafa ibnMus tafa ibn Ahmad al-Musawi al-Khomeini came fromKashmir to the town of Khomein in Iran. 15 The future leader,born in 1900, was the youngest of seven children and wasonly nine months old when his father died. His grandfather,father, and eldest brother were all ayatollahs. When he wassixteen he went to Arak to continue his religious studies andhe later traveled to Qom, where a distinguished gatheringof theologians made that city the Oxford and Harvard ofIranian Shi’ism.His memories of Iran’s humiliations at the hands of

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 273foreigners were similar to those of the shah. Khomeini laterre called: “During World War I, I also observed—I was smallbut I was going to school—the Soviet troops in the center wehad in Khomein. We were subjected to an invasion in WorldWar I “ In World War II: “We were subjected to an invasionby the three powers—America, Britain, and the Soviet Union.Their troops were nearly everywhere in our country.” Thelesson he drew from this was that weak nations “are subjectedto inva sions and bullying in peacetime and in time of war.” 16Because he had never been exposed to Western-styleeduca tion or to travel outside of Iran, Khomeini’s conceptsof this cultural and intellectual style came from secondandthird-hand sources. Yet his unapologetic isolationism,his memories of Western mistreatment of Iran, and hisidentification of the shah’s regime with America, guidedhis footsteps:Let them erect a wall around Iran and confine us inside this wall.We prefer this to the doors being open and plunderers pouringinto our country. Why should we want to achieve a civilizationwhich is worse than savagery, a civilization which behavesworse than the way wild beasts behave to ward one another?The gate to civilization that the deposed shah proposed to opento us—that is to subject us to outside powers and rob all ourwealth and bring us in return a few dolls; … what do we wantwith this great civilization? Is this a civilization? 17Khomeini was never a great original thinker but he wasa skillful popularizer. Moral principles, unity, and faith inGod would make Iran a great and free nation, he preached,but these values could gain ascendancy only in a society thatre turned to Islam’s fundamental teachings, as he interpretedthem. Khomeini wanted to establish a stable, traditional,morally controlled society where everyone knew his or herplace and understood the rules of conduct. In contrast to theWestern commitment to progress, the Islamic world lookedback to two earlier periods: the early years, when Islam wasmost Purely implemented and the middle years when it wasmost Politically powerful.But, in order to reconstruct society along Islamic lines,

274PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSKhomeini knew, one must sacrifice freedom for order. Withinthis disciplined framework, however, an effort would bemade to maximize happiness and to provide benefits for all.Khomeini and his followers not only had a counterutopiato that state of Communist perfection proffered by theleft, but his was more desirable and comprehensible toIran’s conservative poor and peasantry. Even in the West,until almost a century ago, this kind of static, structured,interdependent vision was the philosophical ideal. 18In achieving this stable society, consecrated by bothIslamic theology and an idealized picture of the earlyMuslim states of the caliphs, the means were a matter ofsecondary importance. Dictatorship was perfectly acceptableas long as it was sup ported by the people; in fact such asystem would certainly be preferable to a democracy thatdid not adhere to the laws of Islam. In Khomeini’s words,“Nobody can exercise absolute power without the consentof the people.” 19 This combination of populism, totalitariancontrol, and clearly defined ideology places Khomeinism inthe mainstream of twentieth-century antiliberal politicaltheory. To the Khomeinists, the shah was not bad becausehe was ruthless and repressive but because he performedthese deeds for a bad cause, for unacceptable goals.This ideology also had an explanation for oppositionto Khomeinist policies. The achievement of an Islamicstate ought to be a simple matter since all Muslims ofgoodwill would naturally agree on these principles. Islam ismonotheis tic, Bani-Sadr explained, and “monotheism meansthat we should guide the community toward one identityand give it one heart, one tongue, one instinct and oneconscience.” 20 Those who criticize or try to block this singlevoice, therefore, cannot be true Muslims: dissent equalstreason. Moreover, given this view of dissent, it followslogically that since con flict imperils the Islamic revolutionand aids its enemies— most obviously the United States—those who cause conflict are agents of the United States.By this process, any foreign country, like Iraq, or anyinter nal force, like the Kurds, the Azerbaijanis, or liberaldis sidents, are called American puppets under this “unity

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 275of enemies” theory. Obviously, such a formula does notpredispose the Tehran government toward compromise withits foes and it intensifies the use of America as scapegoat forall the revo lution’s problems.Political philosophy followed similar channels. If the rulerwere personally just and motivated by correct values, therewas little need for institutionalized protections of citizens’rights or for checks and balances. “Was the commander ofthe faithful, Imam Ali, who was the vali of the people, adictator? Was the prophet [Muhammad] himself a dictator?”asked Khomeini. Obviously not; it was because they spokejustly that the people followed them. *This statement was made in the context of a debate overwhether or not to establish under the new constitution theposition of Velayat-e faqih, a special position of religious governor,which would be reserved during his lifetime for Khomeini.In a discussion between Professor of Religion RezaEs-fahani and a cleric, Hojjat al-Islam Ali Hojjati Kermani,the former obviously representing a more Western style ofpoliti cal science, the difference between the two attitudesclearly emerged.Esfahani asked how, since the Velayat-e faqih wouldhave “absolute power in the Islamic society and … [hold]the reins of government, economy and administrationof the country in his hands,” he might be removed if heviolated le gality. How could society protect itself againsta dictatorial, despotic ruler of this type? For Kermani thiswas no problem. The people would simply remove him. “Inan Islamic society, the people will be clearly able to see theboundary between dictatorship and decisiveness and willfight for it.” 21From the Khomeinist/Kermani position, ethical values aremore than sufficient protection against evil rulers. Their ownrevolution seemed to offer an example of how ideas couldovercome military strength. Thus, the post-shah regimestressed cultural change rather than the reconstruction* Ali, Muhammad’s close companion and son-in-law, is seen by Shi’a Mus lims as his rightfulpolitical heir.

276PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSof the economy and the restoration of calm. Khomeini’smost striking statement on the revolution’s causes furtherdemonstrates this belief: “I cannot believe, I do not acceptthat any prudent individual can believe that the purpose ofall these sacrifices was to have less expensive melons, that wesacrificed our young men to have less expensive housing. ...No one would give his life for better agriculture.” 22The ayatollah saw the Western concept of freedom as dissolvingIranian social institutions: “They want the gamblingcasinos to remain freely open, the bars to be freely open .the fleshpots … heroin addicts … opium addicts.” He denouncedsuch things as “mixed bathing, cinemas designedto drag [the people] to corruption,” arguing that “thiswould emasculate our youth and make them indifferent topolitical and spiritual affairs.” 23Iranian culture, Khomeini demanded, must fight againstWesternization. He cited pharmacies, thoroughfares, textilefactories, and other places that, the ayatollah claimed, becamepopular only when they took Western names. He even criticizedany reference in scholarly works to Western writers.The Iranians were forgetting their own heritage, culture,and even language, he warned. 24 Given this orientation,the standard methods of Western diplomacy and politicalanalysis could not deal successfully with post-shah Iran.“For them [the West] politics is nothing but a mathematicalprocess,” said a Radio Tehran commentary on the West. “Twoplus two equals four.” But Iranians did not play by theserules: “Dignity is bet ter than full bellies.” 25Since the Khomeinists advocated struggle against theWest, they assumed that the West would respond withhatred and subversion. 26 “Your government has not yet givenup the idea of ruling Iran,” said Bani-Sadr to Americans inNovember, 1979. “Within the country and its marches yourgovernment’s hand is implicated in bloody incidents.” Allopposition was attributed to American conspiracies. Evenrumor-mongering and food-hoarding, rational responsesto the chaotic situation in Iran, were said to be fomentedby either servants of America or by those deceived by theCIA. 27

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 277While such alleged foreign threats made Iranians feel insecure,the Khomeini revolution also offered an antidote. TheIranians had long viewed themselves as pawns of great powersand their conspiracies. By building up the nation’s militaryand economic strength, the shah had hoped to overcomethis inferiority complex by making Iran a great power in itsown right. Khomeini’s answer was to emphasize Iran’s spiritualstrength but—and this was potentially dangerous for thecountry—the weakness of the, armed forces and the collapseof industrial production threw into question the efficacy ofthis strategy.In contrast to the shah’s formula for progress andindepen dence—a foreign policy resting on an alliancewith the United States, Khomeini hoped to keep all foreignpowers at arms length and to liberate Iranian minds fromthose feelings of subservience and humiliation that hadweighed them down for so long. In the hostage crisis,against a nonaggressive United States, this strategy worked.Khomeini claimed that Washington was afraid of a unitedIran willing to face martyr dom and of a worldwide Muslimuprising in Tehran’s sup port. But his regime was reallypreserved by American re straint; against less conscientiousfoes the thinness of such defenses might have been quicklyrevealed.“All the problems of the East stem from those foreignersfrom the West, and from America at the moment,” saidKho meini. “All our problems come from America.” To him,America was the richest, most oppressive, most savage, andbloodthirsty country in the world, an international plundererand Satan. “Iran was in turn enslaved by Britain and thenAmerica,” he told Iranians. Now, “the downtrodden musttriumph over the dominant elements,” in a global revolution,“not only those exploited economically but those mistreatedsocially.” If other peoples did not choose to follow Iran’s example,it was only additional proof of the power wielded byAmerica and its servants. 28The Khomeinist view of American domestic politicsand so ciety was equally unsophisticated. Khomeini’s closeadvisor, Ayatollah Montazeri, argued that “the American

278PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSnation itself is among the oppressed and is under the bondageof five or six million Jews and Zionists who have controlledthe power in the United States.”29 Khomeini believed thatAmerican blacks might rise up in support of Iran. Hecould not conceive that the American people supported theAmerican government and that the taking of diplomats ashostages would hopelessly end for all but a very few anysense of friendship with Iranian revolutionaries.This insistence on endless attacks against past Americanperfidy and on present imagined hostility poisoned anypossi bility of amicable relations after the shah’s departure.It also predetermined the reaction of Iranians to the shah’sadmission into the United States for medical treatment.“This is part and parcel of the clever and calculated planworked out by the United States ... in order to turn back thewheel of history and to retrieve its lost interests,” said aRadio Tehran commentary. 30The fact that such insecurity played a central role in theradicalization of the revolution was most clearly articulatedby President Bani-Sadr, who eventually recognized thatthings had gone too far. “In my view what has jeopardizedIran’s se curity more than anything else,” he said in aJanuary, 1980 newspaper interview, “is the problem of anentire generation’s fear that the revolution could fail andfear of what the future may hold.” 31 Iranian leaders wereparalyzed in their attempts to go forward in rebuildingtheir country by the haunting spectre of August, 1953. Itwas logical within this mindset that a good follower ofAyatollah Khomeini’s line should be willing to take anyaction—including the kidnapping of American hostages—to forestall any possible treacherous rec onciliation withWashington. Any moderate who objected to such actionswould merely betray himself as an American lackey.One additional psychological factor might be addedto the list of those contributing to the Iranian obsessionwith proving America responsible for the sins of theshah’s regime. Despn e the blood sacrifice of the revolution,Iranians knew well tna only a small minority had everresisted the shah’s regime. Tn young, who had the luxury

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 279of never having collaborated with the old order, wereparticularly harsh in their judgment of elders. Officerswere considered guilty in the Islamic courts merely becausethey were officers. Why had they followed or ders? Whyhad they not overthrown the shah themselves? Seeing theUnited States as the real power behind the throne lessenedthe burden of self-criticism over Iranian passivity toward adespotic government that fell within a year, once seriouslychallenged.Iran’s petroleum wealth, according to Khomeini’s analysis,was another example of American-inspired betrayal andcor ruption. The resource had been wasted in exchange formili tary bases and weapons. Further, having been so oftenvic timized by international power conflicts, Iranians, hefelt, now yearned for isolationism. Relations with either theUnited States or the Soviets, said Khomeini, were inherentlylike those between a sheep and a wolf or those between agoat and a butcher. “They want to milk us, … they have nodesire to give us anything. ... If only we could totally divorceour selves from them,.we would be better off.” 32“The oil revenues,” Khomeini said on another occasion,“have at no time been spent to serve the people’s interests.”Instead, the production and export policy “serves theinterests of the oil companies and the rich consumercountries … who plunder our resources, impose on us thepurchase of weapons and then set up on our lands militarybases to defend their interests and their policies.” For theirown purposes, he said, “they have turned us into the area’spoliceman. At the same time, they have sabotaged ouragriculture so that they may become the source supplyingus with wheat, rice and other food supplies.” 33Now, with the revolution, Khomeini and his followersbeieved, Iran would finally have the upper hand. “Youhave the resources and mines,” said Ayatollah Montazeriin a sermon broadcast to the Muslim world. “You do notneed the United States. The United States needs you.” SinceMuslims should follow their own path, avoiding alignmentwith the Soviets as We ll as with the Americans, both theleft and the liberals were seen as foreign agents. Further,

280PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSbecause the United States was the main threat under the“unity of enemies” theory, even Marxists may be consideredWashington’s agents as much as those of Moscow. Khomeiniaide Ibrahim Yazdi went so far as to argue that “Communismwas created in Iran by the Ameri cans and the British” todestroy the “nationalist liberation movements.” More thanonce, Khomeini himself accused the main leftist group, theFedayeen-i-Khalq, of receiving weapons and money fromthe United States. 34Nor was Khomeini any less virulent in his attack onIran’s intellectuals, who, said the ayatollah, carried withinthem selves the poisons of liberalism and that of Marxismand were largely responsible for Iran’s degradation. Their“opposition to Islam, which is 100 percent revolutionary,opened the way for imperialism and the influence ofvoracious imperialists, the onslaught of consumptionand the decline of thought and intelligence in Iraniansociety.” Khomeini welcomed reports that many middleclasspeople were leaving Iran. “Let these moribund brainsdrain away; these brains have worked for the aliens; thesebrains were part and parcel of [SAVAK]—let them flee thecountry.” 35Taken together, these precepts led to the increasingradicalization of the revolution from February, 1979 on,intimidating the moderates—who might have preferredrapprochement with the United States—but maintainingthe allegiance of the Iranian masses to the cause. Hatred ofthe United States was stoked daily by both the Khomeinistsand by much smaller Marxist groups, which were at least infull agreement over the issue of anti-Americanism.Indeed, one of the earliest acts after the revolutionbegan was the first attack on the United States Embassy inTehran. * By February 14, 1979, the capital was a nightmareof fire and smoke, with undisciplined armed bands roving* On that same day, the American ambassador in Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs, was kidnappedby unknown terrorists in Kabul. A few minutes after the take over in Tehran, Afghan policeand their Soviet advisors decided to attack the hotel room where Dubs was being held. Dubswas shot to death during the battle.

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 281the city. As many as 300,000 weapons of all types, including75,000 sub machine guns, had been passed out to variousfactions. That afternoon about 150 members of the Fedayeeni-Khalq,a group, many of whose members had been trainedby the ter rorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,launched a military assault against the embassy compound.Wearing recently captured Iranian army and air forceuni forms and carrying military-issue rifles, they openedfire on the Marine guards. While Ambassador Sullivandirected the defense, embassy officials destroyed classifiedfiles and valu able communications equipment. Seeking toavoid bloodshed, Sullivan ordered the badly outnumberedguards to fire into the air and to use tear gas to try todrive off the attackers. After an hour it was clear that thedefenders could not prevail. Sul livan called for a surrender.The guerrillas rushed in, shooting down in cold blood anunarmed Iranian employee, wounding and kidnapping aMarine.To some of those taken hostage it was only a continuationof the previous days’ horror. Among the prisoners wereAmerican advisors, technicians, and businessmen who hadtaken refuge in the embassy until they might get out ofIran. The growing pattern of violence and the harassmentof foreigners made flight seem wise, though no full-scaleevacuation had yet been ordered.Khomeini’s supporters denounced the attack. They hadnot yet consolidated their power and the leftists were quicklyturning from allies into competitors. Deputy PremierIbrahim Yazdi, who had spent a number of years as an exilein the United States, and Foreign Minister Karim Sanjabiquickly ar rived on the scene. Negotiating with the armedband they managed to effect the release of the hostages.The disorganization of the country was graphically illustratedby a February 14 communique from the Iranian airforce: “All the struggling people of the Iranian revolution arehereby informed that since the Iranian Air Force helicoptershave started flight activities between Mehrebad Airportand Doshah-Tapeh, the struggling people are hereby askedto avoid shooting at these helicopters.” 36 A few hours later

282PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthe offices of the National Iranian Radio and Televisionnetwork came under attack. Khomeini’s pleas for the returnof firearm to designated mosques were ignored.Moscow tried to further intensify anti-Americansentiment in Iran. Commenting on the embassy attack, theirNational Voice of Iran station aired a commentary entitled,“The U.S. Embassy is the headquarters of antirevolutionaryplots.” All embassy officials, it claimed, “are plotting tocreate a pretext for American military intervention in Iran.”The United States lodged a protest with the Soviets. 37But the American government never really appreciatedhow filled with hatred the new Iranian government wastoward the United States and how the simplest bilateralcontacts were fraught with danger. Once some time hadpassed, American policymakers thought, things would calmdown. They still hoped that Prime Minister Bazargan wouldstabilize Iran and that Khomeini would retire to Qom.To improve relations, Washington tried friendlygestures. Iran was sold spare parts and some oil products,as well as wheat and rice. Moderates continued to visitthe embassy and express their hope that the seriousmisunderstanding between the United States and Iranwould soon be successfully re solved. On February 12,the day after Bakhtiar’s fall, President Carter told a pressconference that he hoped to work with the new rulers andnoted Bazargan’s promise to ensure the safety of Americansin Iran. Newspaper editorials endorsed Carter’s statementof “continued hope for very productive and peace fulcooperation.” 38American activities in Iran were adjusted down to a relativelylow profile. The United States would seek to continueoil purchases and to maintain diplomatic and business tieswith Iran. But Bazargan’s apparently lessening capability tohonor his pledge of protecting the United States Embassy,though his ministers did succeed in freeing the hostagestaken on February 14, led to a recommendation on February15 by the State Department that all Americans leave thecountry.Other signs seemed to indicate a still-possible normaliza­

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 283tion. The United States granted Bazargan formal recognitionnd, on February 21, Sullivan met with the prime minister.Iran’s new Armed Forces Chief of Staff General MuhammadVali Qarani announced that Iran would honor its agreementsnot to transfer American weapons elsewhere. Americanmili tary personnel might still be allowed in the country tomain tain equipment, although experts from other countrieswould be preferred.But too much hope could not be invested in the Iranianmil itary, which was already beginning to disintegrateunder a fierce purge. Executions started on February 16,with the shooting of Generals Nasiri and Rahimi, and theycontinued through the following weeks. Qarani’s chief aide,Colonel Nasrullah Tavakoli, was forced to resign when hewas quoted as making pro-American remarks. Khomeinisaid that the rev olution was only beginning and that allforms of American in fluence must still be eliminated.Bazargan’s attempts to restore peace were frustrated by theinterference of Khomeini’s Revo lutionary Council, whichbegan at this time to act as a sepa rate government. ** The membership of the Revolutionary Council has never been officially an nounced.Even the number of participants has been kept secret, though most sources put the total atthirteen. The following were identifiable as members between February, 1979 and August,1980; Ayatollah Moussavi Ardebeli, prosecutor general; Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr, presidentof Iran; Mehdi Ba zargan, former prime minister; Ayatollah Muhammad Beheshti, leaderof the Islamic Republican Party and chief justice of Iran’s supreme court, Hojjat al-IslamMuhammad Javad Bahonar, Khomeini’s representative to the ministry of education andculture and a member of the special committee for reorganiz ing Iran’s universities; AyatollahMuhammad Ali Kani, supervisor of the interior ministry (which included jurisdictionover the Revolutionary Guard); Hojjat al-Islam Muhammad Ali Khamene’i, Khomeini’srepresentative to the regular armed forces and leader of Tehran’s Friday prayers;Ali Akhbar Mo’-infar, petroleum minister; Sadeq Ghotbzadeh, foreign minister; Hojjatal-Islam A’i Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former minister of the interior, having re ignedto become speaker of the Majlis; and Ezzatollah Sahabi, deputy minis ter of budget andplanning. Ayatollah Mahmud Teleghani, a political moder-ate and most influential of theTehran clerics during the revolution, was a member until his death in 1979. Nasir Minachi,former minister of national guidance and of information, propaganda, and religiousendowments, was a Member until the embassy occupiers provoked his arrest in late 1979.

284PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSAt first, the White House had implied that the shah Wouldbe welcome to come to America. The exiled monarch had hopedto stay at the estate of former Ambassador Walter Annenbergin California until he could find his own property there. Yetin February the American attitude changed prompted inlarge part by the first embassy seizure. The shah’s admissioninto the United States would hardly help Washington’sefforts to rebuild ties with Iran. In Morocco, the shah wastold that his personal security could not be guaran teed in theUnited States, nor could the government protect him againstpossible lawsuits by the new Iranian government and others.Former Secretary of State Kissinger who, along withChase-Manhattan Board Chairman David Rockefeller, waspressing for the shah’s admission into the United States,argued that such treatment of a former ally was indecent,but President Carter announced in March, just before theshah left Morocco for the Bahamas, that such a move couldendanger Americans living in Iran. Some of them mighteven be taken hostage by armed Iranians, the presidentwarned. When Radio Tehran broadcast false rumors thatthe shah might be given American asylum, Yazdi stressedthat any such action would be consid ered unfriendly andwould adversely affect bilateral rela tions. 39While Ayatollah Khomeini did go to Qom on March 1, itwas clear that he would continue to guide the revolution fromthere. The Iranian government announced plans to try theshah in absentia. Khomeini’s committees, not Bazargan, wererunning the country, and the moderates, despite Americanhopes, showed little ability to wrest power from their hands.Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montari was probably a member though this cannot t> econfirmed. Another possible member was Muhammad Hashem Sabaqia”’ Publicspokesman for the Council was Hassan Habibi, the Islamic Republics Party’sunsuccessful candidate for president in 1980. A number of these m e were formerKhomeini students and several had played key roles in orgaW ing and propagandizingfor the revolution in 1978. Talaghani went to scho with Khomeini asa youth, Beheshti studied under Talaghani in Tehran, & Montazeri was a pupilof Khomeini. Both Montazeri and Talaghani were r leased from the shah’s prisonsin late 1978.

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 285Not only did the radicals have the support of Khomeini,the revolution’s unquestioned leader, but they also had theguns. The purge of the army destroyed the only force onwhich Bazargan might have relied.The moderates suffered one humiliation after another.Ba zargan originally promised autonomy for the ethnicminorities but was forced to renege by the hard-liners. Hetried to stop the summary trials and executions but hadlittle success. Eve the civil service did not respond to hisappeals. The Iranians were obviously not ready to settledown and rebuild.It is important to note that the National Front leaders, Bazargan,Shariat-Madari, and most other moderates, virtuallynever attacked the United States. They wanted friendly relations.Asked if the United States was trying to ambush thenew regime, Shariat-Madari replied that there was no evidenceof such interference. Iran’s main problems, he explained,were internal and not of external origin. Others likeMehdi Rowghani, a Khomeini confidant and businessman—he had the Ford automobile franchise in Iran—tried privatelyto patch together new bilateral ties. Before Khomeini’s exile toIraq, Rowghani’s family had sheltered the ayatollah in theirhome. Now Rowghani sought to establish a liaison committeeto improve relations between Bazargan and Khomeini; healso helped to free the United States Marine kidnapped andim prisoned after the February 14 embassy takeover. 40But the radicals kept up the pressure, particularly throughfoe radio and television stations, now controlled by Ghotbzadeh.For example, Ali Safa, a frequent Radio Tehran commentator,said that the United States originally panickedafter foe shah’s fall but was now showing its teeth andhatching Plots. Carter wanted a counterrevolution and thiswas to be done, “by creating the movements of separatism, aswell as by treating and spreading tension among the Iranianpeople.’’ This was said to account for Kurdish autonomydemands and for Women’s demonstrations refusing to giveup rights they had been granted by the shah. 41At the same time, on March 13, around 50,000 Iraniansmarched to the new PLO office—established in the former

286PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSIsraeli mission building—and to the United States EmbassyAnti-American speeches were made and United State flagsburned. The march was organized and carefully directedby the Khomeinists. PLO representative Hanni Hassanexhorted the crowd to protest Carter’s Middle East policyand claimed that the aircraft carrier USS Constellation hadbeen dispatched to the Persian Gulf “to destroy the Iranianrevolution.” 42In Washington, American policymakers were askingwhat Khomeini would do next and whether Bazargan couldhold off the clerical challenge to his government. The primeminister was a good speaker, if not a good governor, andthose unfa miliar with the ways of Middle East politics andof Iranian so ciety simply found it difficult to understandthe continued momentum of the radical forces and theseriousness with which Khomeini’s ideology was taken.By the end of the sum mer the working-level specialistsunderstood that Bazargan had become a frustratedfigurehead; the intelligence experts, recovering from theirmistakes of the previous year, also fore saw a victory for theIranian hard-liners, but top-level deci sion-makers continuedfor much longer to believe that the sec ular technocratswould eventually win out.*The main focus of administration concern was not onwhether Bazargan or the fundamentalist clergy would winout but instead on the left. CIA Director Stansfield Turner, ina March, 1979 interview, said that Marxists would be the mainbeneficiary of any split between Khomeini and Bazargan. 43In addition to its overoptimistic evaluation of internal Iranianpolitics, Washington may have made an additional mistakein trying to be too friendly to the moderates. This was theparadox of United States-Iranian relations in the Khomeiniera: Iranians wanted America to stay away. The friendlier theUnited States tried to be, the more suspicious were the hardliners.Anyone perceived as being soft on America became a* Ironically, Bazargan was a victim of his own ideology. In 1965 he gave a public lecture entitled“The Boundary Between Religion and Social Affairs, which subsequently was widelydiscussed. In the speech he saw a role f°r religious leaders in social and political affairs.

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 287target for abuse and political excommunication. It was timefor a low profile on the part of the United States.April, 1979 was a difficult month for Iran. The upheavalsin Azerbaijan and Kurdistan, the assassination of someKhomeinist leaders, and the clashes between Islamic andleftist forces all heightened fear of foreign involvement, ofsome new August, 1953-type counterrevolution. Increasingdisorder fed anti-Americanism simultaneously with thestrengthening of the radical Khomeinists. One symbol ofthis was Sanjabi’s res ignation as foreign minister on April16 because of Yazdi’s interference in international affairs.But even Yazdi was sus pect because he had taken Americancitizenship during his long stay as a political exile inTexas. In retrospect, Yazdi would seem a relative moderatecompared to what was to fol low.Khomeini set the new tone: “We are still at war with thesuperpowers,” he told a meeting of 100,000 workers rallyingat his home in Qom. “The purging of the country is stillahead of us. … Those creating trouble here and there areagents of the United States of America.” Two weeks later, onApril 18, he warned that “mysterious hands were creatingdisunity in the nation. Satanic plans are under way byAmerica and its agents.” 44The Khomeini and Bazargan views of how the revolutionshould proceed continued to diverge. While Khomeini complainedthat reconstruction in agriculture and industry wasbeing blocked by traitors and by “lackeys of America” instigatingopposition, Bazargan called for calm and for anem phasis on reconstruction. Drawing an analogy with thedam age done to China by the Cultural Revolution there,Bazargan decried extreme antagonism toward all Westerninfluence. Iran “should not exercise fanaticism with regardto world technology, social principles and the principlesof natural law.” Indeed, he charged, “the atmosphereof enmity, suspi cion, and of purging and revenge” wasproving the main barrier to progress. Witch-hunts werecounterproductive. Bazargan’s aides, like Deputy PrimeMinister Abbas Amir Entezam, said that “we need foreignnationals for the development of the country.” Yet such

288PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONScounsel could not prevail in the heated and emotionalatmosphere created by Khomeini’ uncompromising anti-Americanism. 45Ayatollah Khomeini himself became more and moreangry as his Utopian goals, whose achievement had seemedso immediate when he returned to Iran, were not fulfilled.Since all good Muslims must follow him, according to hisview, the persistence of conflict meant outside, anti-Islamicforces were at work. That there might be sincere differencesor factional disputes within the revolution was unintelligibleto him. Thus, when General Qarani was assassinated, hereasoned this could only be an American attempt to preventIran from escaping “the United States’s clutches.” 46The average Iranian, of course, had far more in commonwith Khomeini’s patterns of thought than with Bazargan’scold rationalism. They tended to view the moderates asweak men, counterrevolutionaries, and even as agents ofAmerican imperialism. When Bazargan tried to take stepstoward nor malization—terminating the kangaroo courtsand executions, for example—his actions were offeredas proof of his unrelia bility. Why would anyone havesympathy with those butchers and criminals of the oldregime? They were guilty and they should be executed.Calls for careful investigation of individ ual guilt orattention to due process rights were drowned out by adesire for vengeance.Some of those shot had been soldiers or SAVAK agentsac cused of torture or of killings during the revolution, butmany of them were civilian officials tried on vague charges.More than a few had been denounced by individualsseeking to settle personal scores and a small number werecondemned primarily because they were Bahai or Jews.Their judges were generally members of the clergy anddefendants were permit ted no defense counsel during theone-day trials. Bazargan was forced to explain that Khomeinifelt these measures were necessary because of “fantasticpopular pressure. … If we d not execute the guilty people,”rationalized the prime minister, “there is a strong dangerthat the people will start a massacre.” 47

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 289When the United States criticized the summary trialsand firing squads this was regarded as proof of Americancomplic ity in the crimes of the defendants. According toRadio Tehran, for instance, Washington appealed for thelife of former Prime Minister Hoveyda, who, ironically, hadbeen imprisoned by the shah, because he was “their lackeyand slavish mercenary in Iran.” 48 Ambassador Sullivan’smany meetings with Iranian officials assuring them that nointerven tion in Iranian affairs would occur and the StateDepartment’s continual denial of Khomeini’s charges hadno effect.On May 17, the United States Senate adopted a resolutioncondemning the killings. Iran responded by asking for anAmerican delay in sending Sullivan’s replacement, AmbassadorWalter Cutler. The State Department tried everythingpossible to put the human rights criticism in a friendly context.It praised the revolution’s objectives of freedom, justice,and democratic institutions, wished Iranian leaders well, andcalled for putting the past behind. At the same time it voicedconcern over the executions, expressing the hope that basicstandards of justice and human rights would be maintained.During this period the Soviets did everything possibleto curry favor with Iran and to stir up animosity towardthe United States. Their ambassador went out of his way tocall to Yazdi’s attention the reinforcement of United Statesmilitary units in the Indian Ocean. The Moscow-controlledNational voice of Iran radio said: “The government of theUnited States ls the Number One enemy of the people andthe revolutionary government of Iran” and was “conspiringand agitating against the revolutionary achievement of ournation.” America was even planning to admit the shah as “alink in the chain of conspiracies.” 49 But the Russians had torun hard to keep up with Radio Tehran’s invective.In particular, the United States Senate resolution of May17 set off a storm. Radio Tehran sarcastically remarkedthat the Senate did not object to the “massacre of Iranianrevolutionaries in the streets a few months earlier.”Ayatollah Khomeini saw the criticisms as being due to thedamage inflicted on American interests by the revolution:

290PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS“No other country was receiving the same benefits fromIran as was the United States. They must condemn us.” 50When some Iranians worried that the United States-Iranian relationship would be damaged beyond repair,Khomeini con tinued: “May God cause it to be endangered.Our relations with the United States are the relations of theoppressed with the oppressor, they are the relations of theplundered with the plunderer. … What need have we of theUnited States?” The implication was that the destruction ofany possibility for rec onciliation would be a praiseworthyact. In this speech the ayatollah made a reference to foreignembassies, saying that such diplomats were more concernedover protecting their furniture and “did not attach anyimportance to the fact that an ambassador or others mightbe killed.”Yazdi, in contrast, called for calm. Iran, he explained,was “desirous of friendly relations with all nations” andcompared Iran’s struggle to the American Revolution.He dismissed the executions as the “provocations andconspiracies of a minor group.” He drew on his ownexperiences in the United States, in distinction to AyatollahMontazeri’s wild views of Jewish cabals and an imminentblack revolution, to explain that all power was “not in thehands of the Zionists” and that legisla tive action did notnecessarily reflect the views of the White House.Like Bazargan and Ghotbzadeh, Yazdi (also the product of amercantile family) had been a National Front supporter andlater a follower of Bazargan. He had left Iran in 1960, studiedin several American universities, and settled in Houston,Texas. There he worked as a pathologist, specializing i ncancer research, and he organized students. He fought leftistinfluence in Iranian student groups and when the shah’s regime revoked his passport he took up American citizenship’For several years, he also served as Khomeini’s representativein the United States, though the position was more symbol*than real. While loyal to Khomeini, Yazdi also remained esp ecially close to Bazargan.There were “contradictions among the American people .Yazdi stressed, and many of them wanted friendly relations.

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 291Nor was it likely that the United States would militarilythreaten Iran. Ayatollah Shariat-Madari, whose Azerbaijaniconstituents were already demonstrating against Khomeini’spolicies and who vividly remembered the Soviet interventionof 1946, also called for calm. He advocated cooperation withEgypt—Khomeini had broken relations with Cairo overthe Camp David peace agreement—and expressed concernabout the infiltration of Soviet agents and about possibleSoviet in tervention in Afghanistan. 51Moderates also continued discussions with the UnitedStates Embassy. Charge d’Affaires Bruce Laingen, whoran the mission in the absence of an ambassador, met, forexample, on June 21 with Deputy Prime Minister Entezam,who was work ing to normalize relations. “We and youhave to be patient,” Entezam said. Nor was the governmentresponsible for every thing that was taking place. Peopleoutside the regime, with no knowledge of how to conduct agovernment, would not let them do their job. According toLaingen, Entezam sighed at this point and commented, “Aconsequence of this revolution is that everyone considershimself the voice of the people.”“Immediately after the revolution,” Entezam explained,the new cabinet concluded “that everyone, including theImam [Khomeini], the Komitehs [independent Islamicpolitical/mili tary committees], the Revolutionary Guards,and the Revolu tionary Tribunals were working against”them. Hundreds of requests were made by Bazargan forKhomeini’s aid against these forces without result. Bazarganunderstood, Entezam concluded, that reactionary religiousrule could set the coun ty back one thousand years. But themoderates would still try to bring a return to order at homeand amity abroad. 52Even the documents released by the student/terrorist occupiersof the United States Embassy later on in Novemberwould show American reluctance to become involved withIranian internal conflicts. When individuals approached theembassy seeking help for armed opposition activities theywere turned down. After Vietnam and Watergate, explainedan embassy political officer, the American people would not

292PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSstand for any such foreign adventures. At most, Americandiplomats simply interviewed Iranian officials and dissidentsand gathered material for reports on political conditions. 53The proclamation of an Islamic republic on April 1 anddeliberations on a constitution designed to centralize powerand to institutionalize Khomeini’s leadership led to furtherconflicts in Iran. Anti-American rhetoric in Iranian politicswas also escalated. Demonstrations against the Senate’scriticism of the executions were held on May 25. Over 150,000people marched to the American Embassy in separate Islamicand leftist parades, chanting “Death to the United States,”and “Death to Carter.” “We consider the entire ruling systemof the United States the most criminal against humanity,”said the rally’s spokesmen. “We consider it as the Numberi enemy of our Islamic revolution; we consider this system aplundering and criminal system.” 54That evening, Ayatollah Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani,a Revolutionary Council member, was wounded by unknownassailants. Radio Tehran, referring to the fact that Rafsanjanihad given one of the main speeches at the demonstration,at tributed the shooting to the United States. It repeated Khomeini’scall for Iranians to unite and to mobilize themselvesagainst America: “Today our chief enemy is the same eternalsupporter of the Shah: The United States,” it announced. Afew days later, the Iranian government asked that Cutler’snom ination as ambassador be withdrawn. 55By the end of May an Arab revolt in the strategic southwestprovince of Khuzistan led to a great deal of bloodshed and astate of emergency was declared there on May 31. Four dayslater, the board of the National Iranian Oil Company resignedto protest the pressures of the hard-line Islamic faction. Junesaw a series of border clashes between Iran and Iraq. Theshah’s fall had given Baghdad an opportunity to reopen allthe old issues dividing the two neighbors. Fighting betweenleftists and Khomeinists led the ayatollah to warn that hemight move to destroy the former. Responding to what ittook as a signal, Islamic mobs sacked the Tudeh offices; theevent led to Moscow’s first criticism of Khomeini.For the moment, amidst all this turmoil, the shah

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 293himself seemed forgotten. On June 10 he arrived in Mexico,having traveled from the Bahamas. A number of membersof Congress were already voicing support for providinghim refuge in the United States. Senator Charles Percy ofIllinois remarked, “I have talked to ambassadors from Arabcountries who feel that it would destroy the credibility ofthis country if we do not do something. ... If we were toturn our backs at this time on a long-time friend, despitehis problems, we would somehow betray our principles.”Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island agreed: “Since wehave done all we could to cozy up to the shah in the last 20years, I think it does, not reflect well upon our country werewe to give him a cold shoulder in his time of need.” Loyalty,Pell continued, was a two-way street. How could Americahope to enjoy the trust of other friendly politi cal leaderswho knew that they might some day meet the same fate? 56Within Iran itself, increasing instability intensified the fearthat the revolution might be overthrown. There was, Khomeiniadmitted, sabotage in the southwest, the forced cancellationof school exams, the conflict between a Communistgovernment and Islamic rebels in Afghanistan, Iraqihostility, trials and purges, derailed trains, bombed bridges,strikes, wild rumors, and fighting in Kurdistan, Azerbaijan,and Khu zistan. The only explanation that Khomeini couldaccept was that CIA agents and people trained by them wereworking to create chaos, prevent employees from working,ruin harvests, and sabotage factories. “We suspect that thosewho pose as leftists and who think they are supporting thepeople are agents of the United States,” he charged. Whenhis student supporters took over the American Embassyon November 4, the first thing they did was to look forproof of these accusations. What they found was generallyunimpressive: docu ments showing that the embassy had, forexample, written re ports on the situation in Kurdistan, in thearmy, and in various government ministries. Despite the lackof evidence, however, most Iranians firmly believed all theseaccusations. 57Radicals found it far easier to stir the passions of mobsthan was for the moderates to calm them. Bazargan tried his

294PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSbest to restore order. “The masses, especially those who arein a forefront of the revolution … ask us: why don’t you act inrevolutionary way, why don’t you arrest, why don’t you beatup, why don’t you kill, why don’t you nationalize, and whydon’t you take and confiscate? They ask for harsh extremeactions to satisfy the feeling of hatred and revenge.” Yet,the prime minister complained, “they very seldom pay anyatten tion to the operation of the country,” only protestingwhen something goes wrong. Iran could only be rebuiltthrough positive cooperation, pleaded Bazargan.The conspiracy mentality, however, was still in an ascendantphase. A vivid example of these perceptions was a programaired by Radio Tehran on July 11. Iran’s problems, itsaid, “are parts of a larger plan which imperialism implementsin countries such as ours.” Such measures includedsabotage, assassinations, and psychological warfare. “TheWest tries, on the one hand, by exerting economic pressure,such as refusing to export manufactured goods or byincreas ing the prices of exported goods, the West tries toforce these countries to submit to their demands.”Various secret meetings were being held to implementthese plans, the broadcast continued, and the Westernpress spread lies as part of the scheme. The next step wasthe formation of terrorist groups, acts of murder, and thecreation of uprisings and false demonstrations. The finalstage was direct military intervention. Even the energycrisis was involved because Western fuel shortages wereblamed on “the oil-exporting countries, in particular Iran.” 58Other detailed accounts in the Iranian press and on radiopurported to reveal eight American contingency plans foroverthrowing the revolutionary government. Washingtonwas supposed to be implementing “anti-human plots and conspiracies,”“weaving evil separatist conspiracies,” and seekingto “create domestic discord and an atmosphere of fear anintimidation.” Sometimes this propaganda campaign was amost humorous in its ironies. Thus, Radio Tehran complainthat America “has always given asylum to criminals andantinational elements who flee their countries; it gives themprotection in various ways.” The shah’s regime had taken a

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 295similar attitude toward the protection offered by the UnitedStates such Iranian dissidents as Ghotbzadeh, who nowdirected Radio Tehran’s operations, and Foreign MinisterYazdi.More seriously, the United States Embassy in Tehran,which supposedly coordinated the anti-Iran effort, wasoften the target of abuse. Radio Tehran and the organ of theKhomeinist Islamic Republican Party even accused Laingenof being himself “a prominent CIA agent.” 59 Such theories, ofcourse, were not entirely based on fantasy; during the Nixonadministration (here had been a conspiratorial undercutting ofthe Chilean regime of President Salvador Allende. But the factwas that no economic pressures were being applied againstIran and no plots were being hatched in Washington.For top American policymakers, who were more attentiveto official Iranian government statements and might wellhave been unaware of the hard-line speeches and mediadistortions, there seemed some reason for continuedoptimism. Yazdi gave interviews calling for improvedbilateral relations and expres sing the belief that Americahad accepted the Islamic regime. The foreign minister alsohoped that ambassadors would soon be exchanged; whenhe visited the United Nations in October his talks withAmerican officials were fairly cordial. 60Although Americans in Iran had helped several officersand shah-era officials to escape, no visas had been officiallyissued between February and September, 1979. Now theIranian gov ernment asked that this service be reopened andseveral con sular officials were dispatched to Tehran for thispurpose. The left-leaning American Embassy Committee,which provided security” for the embassy after the events ofFebruary 14, was disbanded and replaced by RevolutionaryGuards, supposedly more reliable. Laingen gave interviewsto a number of Iranian Newspapers stressing his attemptsto promote friendly rela ys between the two countries andpointing to the successes thieved in that regard. 61Laingen returned to the United States in September andgave several talks in Washington before journalists andacademics, criticizing those who saw the situation in Iran

296PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSas one of extremism and chaos. Things were now settlingdown, he explained, and though ties with Bazargan had beenes tablished there could not be instant results. Brzezinskiwas also confident that these were people with whom theUnited States could deal.Bazargan continued to hammer away at the domesticsituation with articulate speeches but with little visibleprogress The main cause of disruption, he noted, was therevolution it-self. Its full benefits could be enjoyed onlywhen the economy began to function again. He rejectedthe obsession with Amer ican conspiracies: “There maybe … many problems in the world ... for which, althoughnot acceptable, no one has been responsible. They may bethe necessary and logical re sult of a natural cause.” Manypeople naively believed that after the shah left all would bewell, he chided, citing an Iranian poem: “When the demondeparts, the angel shall enter.” Such views were doctrinaire,part of “the destructive and negative” side of the revolution.This kind of thinking led to irrational ends: “If you say 2and 2 makes 4, he says you are satanical … hostile, and arenot acting in a revolutionary way.” 62The shah’s worsening cancer and the White Housedecision to admit him for treatment in the United Statesbrought about a dramatic change in the situation, althoughit did not really change the existing balance of powerwithin Iran. Bazargan’s regime had long been unable to act,given its lack of effective executive power and its relianceon Khomeini for popular support.Throughout 1979, with American policymakers tryingto rebuild friendly relations with Iran, the United Statesgovern ment opposed granting the shah asylum. Despitethe appeal of David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger,Vance in particular stuck to this position. When the shah’sfriends informed the White House of his serious condition,however, Washington asked the embassy for an assessmentof the situation.“We should not take any steps in the direction ofadmitting the shah until such time as we have been able toprepare & effective and essential force for the protection of

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 297the embassy,” Laingen reported. “We have the impressionthat the threat to US personnel is less now than it was in thespring. … Nevertheless, the danger of hostages being takenin Iran will persist.” 63Nevertheless, Rockefeller’s doctor reported from Mexicoon October 20 that the shah needed a gallbladder operationand special cancer treatment not available in Mexico. Anargu ment was later made that dependence on a singlereport from a physician employed by an individual who wasstrongly ad vocating the shah’s admission was careless onthe part of the administration though the State Departmentsaid three other doctors were consulted. Other critics notedthat the necessary care was available in Mexico even if theshah were to prefer that American doctors travel there totreat him. *Nevertheless, humanitarian considerations apparentlypre vailed on Carter and Vance. The shah entered the UnitedStates and checked into the New York Hospital-CornellMedi cal Center on the night of October 22. Henry Prechtflew to Tehran earlier to inform Bazargan and Yazdi ofthis possibil ity. They protested but they also promised tocontinue protec tion of the American Embassy. Bazargan’srequest that two Iranian doctors be permitted to examinethe shah was refused by the monarch, whose decision wassupported by Washing ton.The hard-liners were not bound by Bazargan’s agreement.The shah’s illness was only a pretext for a counterrevolutionaryplot, they charged, and their government’s responseto this threat was too mild. A demonstration organized forNo vember l drew 3 million participants according to RadioTehran. Yazdi defended himself: “Whatever has been possibleto do through diplomatic channels we have done. … ” 64A second simultaneous event further enraged themilitants, Bazargan and Yazdi had flown to Algeria for that* The Physician, Dr. Benjamin Kean, later said that he conferred with two of shah’s Frenchdoctors, who warned of several problems including the monarch’s increasing resistanceto chemotherapy and who said that his life was in danger. The State Department alsochecked with a Mexican doctor said that the necessary facilities did not exist in Mexico.

298PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONScountry’s independence anniversary celebrations and therethey met briefly on November 1 with Brzezinski, who wasrepresenting the United States at the celebration. Eager toundermine his old rival Yazdi, Ghotbzadeh ordered Iraniantelevision to broadcast pictures of the encounter. The hardlinersclaimed that Khomeini had not been informed thatthis meeting would take place. 65As a response to American asylum for the shah andto the alleged treason of then own government, a groupof pro-Khomeini students seized the American Embassyon No vember 4, 1979; all the American employees therebecame hostages. A demonstration of some 30,000 peoplehad been organized after several inflammatory speeches byKhomeini. As they marched by the embassy several hundredmilitants, who had planned their operation in secret, splitoff from the column and scaled the compound’s walls.The students appealed to Khomeini, basing their actionson a desire to block an alleged American-sponsoredcounter revolution and to destroy the moderate regime.“How can we tolerate this, when the responsible officialssit around one table with American wolves, while youangrily shout that the United States is the major enemyof the Muslim and op pressed masses?” The revolutionwas not finished with the removal of the shah and hisold system; the most important work of the revolution layahead—”the elimination of the economic, cultural andpolitical sovereignty of the West” and the triumph of anIslamic society. 66As they had hoped, Khomeini supported their action. Hehad been told, the ayatollah said, that the embassy was alair of espionage: “America expects to take the shah there,engage in plots, create a base in Iran for these plots, andour young people are expected simply to remain idle andwitness a” these things.” But the blood of “100,000 martyrs”had not been shed in vain. The whole revolution was atstake, for these plots threatened to force Iran to “return tothe past’ Now Iran was about to initiate a new revolution; “arevolution greater than the first one.” 67At first there were hopes of a quick solution, as there

CHARISMATIC DISORDER 1979 299had been the previous February. Yazdi communicated toLaingen on the first day of the takeover that he hoped to‘have all of them out by morning. The Americans also askedfor Iranian troops to dislodge the occupiers but Tehran’spromise to pro tect the embassy went unhonored. Indeed,the Iranian cabinet could not even keep itself in power.The Bazargan government had reached an impasse. TheRevolutionary Council, and behind it Khomeini himself, hadlong been making the real decisions. “What made my colleaguesweary,” Bazargan would later say, “was the friction,the resistance, the opposition, the interference. They did notknow what to do.” Unable to govern, unable to honor itspledges to protect the American Embassy, having lost allcon trol of the situation, Bazargan and Yazdi resigned. 68Khomeini’s long-voiced prophecy had finally fulfilleditself: at last Iran would have its confrontation with theUnited States.

10Iran’s Second Revolution1979-80United States-Iranian relations could not possibly havebeen worse in the months following November 4, 1979. Fromthe American point of view, the central problem was obtainingthe release of fifty-three American diplomats being held hostageat the American Embassy in Tehran. To the Iranians thecapture of the American Embassy and its occupants markeda successful end to one revolution and the opening shots ofa second. For Iran, like Russia in 1917, was to undergo botha February and a November revolution—the first a politicalstruggle to unseat the old regime, the second a social, economic,and cultural revolution to build a new Islamic society.In Iran’s case, it was the fundamentalist mullahs andtheir Islamic Republican Party who were seeking to achievewhs the Bolsheviks had done in Russia—monopolize power.Like Lenin, Khomeini would in time turn against moderatesegments of the revolutionary coalition and purge theirmembers from positions of authority; like the Bolsheviks,the fundamentalists, once in power, would refuse tocompromise with those ethnic movements that had aidedthe revolution: and like the Leninists, Khomeini’s supporters

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 301would try create a totalistic structure, subsuming into theirideological framework all aspects of national life, from thecourts to the schools, from the military to the conduct ofcommerce, and even the daily behavior of the citizenry.Khomeini and his fundamentalist followers felt fully justifiedin centralizing power in their own hands. Unlike Lenin,who had played no direct role in the overthrow of the czar,Khomeini had been the revolution’s most visible ideologicalguide, its most influential international spokesman, and itsac knowledged strategic leader. Yet in the first days after theflight of the shah, American policymakers mistakenly assumedthat Khomeini’s role had been only a symbolic oneand that the moderates had come to power. Many Iranianpoliticians made the same error.Iran’s first post-shah premier, Shahpour Bakhtiar, upon assumingoffice, covered up the shah’s portrait with an Iranianflag and, as he thought proper, hung-a portrait of Mossadegh,not one of Khomeini, in his office. Even after the fundamentalistshad driven Bakhtiar into exile, they did not believe therevolution complete. Bakhtiar’s successor, Mehdi Bazargan,despite his piety, represented a constitutency made up of thesame urban, liberal, middle-class professionals and technocratswho had always supported the National Front. With theirmodernistic and relatively secular views of the governingpro cess, this group was ideologically bent, certainly, moretoward nationalism than toward Islamic piety.Very soon after its assumption of the trappings of powerthe Bazargan government was forced to face the realitythat, in fact, it occupied the governmental offices only at thepleasure or the top-level Khomeinists—Ayatollahs Beheshtiand Montazeri, for example—who thought the moderatepoliticians po tentially dangerous. Behind the hard-lineleaders stood the student militants, the RevolutionaryGuards, the “komitehs” that ran local government, therevolutionary courts, and the Mamie Republican Party.These ad hoc institutions—rather than the state apparatus—were the rulers of the country.During the struggle over control of the direction therevoluion would take, the clerics mobilized the masses

302PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSand by consistently taking the most radical positions,were able to divide and defeat their opponents. Bazarganand the National Front helped them remove Bakhtiar;Yazdi conspired against Sanjabi; Ghotbzadeh eliminatedYazdi; Bani-Sadr undermined Ba zargan; and so on. As thetreatment of Yazdi, Bazargan, and Bani-Sadr illustrated,the mullahs were not content to rule through even the mostsympathetic “civilians”—they wanted full power in theirown hands, the only hands they really trusted.Dr. Mahmud Kashani, a member of the Islamic RepublicanParty’s central committee, explained these views withremark able candor in May, 1980:This revolution is a revolution by religious men under ImamKhomeini’s leadership. It has been joined by … politicians whodo not believe absolutely in the imam’s line, that is, they arenot radicals. Our experience with Dr. Mehdi Ba zargan andthe National Front is still on our mind, and we do not want arepetition of the mistake which the religious revolution madein Mossadegh’s time. … Bani-Sadr today wants to pursueMossadegh’s policy. …Bani-Sadr, Kashani claimed, worked with “all the factionsopposing control by those who [had] staged the revolution,that is, the religious men.” 1 This rewrite of recent history,giv ing credit largely to the clergy, ignored the role of themany others in the very broadly based coalition that hadbrought about the shah’s downfall. * But the mullahs, whohad been the nationalists’ junior partners in 1906 and againunder Mos sadegh, were not about to accept that status a* Conversely, many high clerics had supported both Reza Shah and his son over the years,right down to the fall of the imperial regime. Another strong group preached neutralityon political issues. Not only did many mullahs welcome the shah’s return to power inAugust, 1953, but a number of them helped to organize the August 19 demonstrations thatousted Mossadegh. During the 1950s the shah worked carefully and with a fair amountof success to ensure their support. Even in later years, most of the ayatollahs limited theircriticisms to specific issues dear to the protection of the Shi’a moral/legal code. Up untilthe autumn of 1978, the Khomeinist view was in a clear minor ity among them, and thosewho acknowledged Khomeini as the primary leader came mostly from the ranks of hisown former students.

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 303third time; indeed, they argued that the revolution’s verysurvival de pended on their leadership. They were able tohave their way on virtually every single issue.The concept of ideology first (in Maoist terminology, “politicsin command”) pervaded their thoughts and actions. “Therevolution does not succeed by providing electricity, workand housing for the citizen before the citizen understandsand becomes aware of his revolution’s principles,” said Dr.Hadi Modaressi, a leading clergyman close to Khomeini.To accel erate this radicalization process, said Modaressi,“we wish and we welcome military aggression against usbecause it strengthens the revolution and rallies the massesaround it.” Even Iran’s friends, he added, did not understandthat their intent in taking the United States Embassy wasto challenge the international order and to help build this“struggle against counterrevolutionary forces” at home. 2Within this context, it is easier to understand the reasoningbehind the kidnapping of the fifty-three American hostages.Ostensibly the embassy was taken over to force the returnof the shah and his money, but there were other motives involved—motivesthat, when understood, help explain thein tractability of the Khomeinists in the face of Americanat tempts at reconciliation and reassurance.First, the prisoners were seen as hostages in the classicalmeaning of that word: the threat to their lives would protectthe Iranian revolution from American plans for interventionthat the Khomeinists assumed were being hatched regularlyin Washington. Despite the bravado in all their rhetoric, therev olutionaries were very insecure, not fully convinced oftheir ability to prevent a dramatic reversal of the revolutionand the restoration of the shah to power—as, after all,had occurred in August, 1953. In Bani-Sadr’s words, thisrepresented “a whole generation’s fear that the revolutioncould fail and fear of what the future may hold.” 3 Khomeiniand his supporters believed that the United States wasbehind all the regime’s domestic problems and all theviolence that continued to con cise the country. The shah’spresence in America, they rea soned, might be a prelude tosome imminent coup attempt. Possession of the hostages

304PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSwould give Iran leverage against any attempt to carry outsuch a plan.According to Khomeini, all events were connected in thisgrand American design to subvert the revolution. The UnitedStates wanted “to make the world believe that … anarchyrules here. … They want to say to the world that such a countryneeds a guardian—and who is the guardian? Mr. Carter.” Theabortive American attempt to rescue the hostages in April,1980 was portrayed in this light. Bani-Sadr’s message to theUnited Nations protesting this raid made many references toother coup attempts and announced “that the recent mili taryaggression by the United States has been carried out withthe intention of toppling the revolutionary regime in Iranand reestablishing U.S. domination over Iran.” The hostagerescueoperation was deemed to be only a convenient coverfor the Americans’ real goal. 4Second, the embassy takeover was designed to make impossible any normalization of relations between Iran and theUnited States. Khomeini’s followers argued that Washingtonwas so powerful and devious that Iran would be safer in openconflict with the United States than within a dangerous“friendly” relationship. Since the United States was supposedly seeking to impose control on Iran and since therewere within Iran many “traitors”—both pro-shah elementsand moderates like Bazargan—who were prepared to renewold ties, it was good preventive medicine, said the radicalmullahs, to wreck bilateral relations beyond hope of restoration. The Bazargan-Brzezinski meeting in Algiers was as influential in sparking the embassy takeover as was the shah’s arrival in the United States. ,Third, just as the hostage-taking was immediately seizeupon by the fundamentalists as a means of forcing theresignation of Bazargan’s government, a hard line towardthe release of the hostages and in favor of continued anti-American confrontation was maintained as a reminder toBani-Sadr a other moderates of the futility of trying to dilutethe radical fervor of the revolution. “Without the embassyattack the would never have been any radicalization [of thegovernment], still less a change in the government team,”

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 305remarked one leftist leader. 5 But this process was aimed asmuch against the Marxists as it was against the moderates. Forthe clerical Khomeinists it was not only a policy of ideologyin command but also one of domestic politics in command.Aimed first against the anti-shah coalition of the liberal,middle-class center and the Marxist left, this new revolutionarystage was next aimed at those nonclerical elementswhose radical, fundamentalist credentials were genuineenough but who were seen as capable of providing an alternativeleadership to clerical domination. Even such men as Bani-Sadr were now portrayed as having been tainted by Western influence.The Islamic constitution, drawn up by an almost exclusivelyclerical assembly and adopted in a December, 1979referendum, helped complete the first stage in this process.Beheshti was the assembly’s acting chairman.Most of the openly expressed opposition to the newconsti tution was based on regionalist resistance to acontinued strengthening of the centralized authority towhich the Pah-levi dynasty had devoted such effort. Whensuch opposition was expressed, however, by the Kurds, whodemanded au tonomy, as well as by many of the Arabs andBaluchs, they were confronted by the central government’sarmy and the Khomeinist Revolutionary Guard * The* Two other minorities faced discrimination even though they remained politically quiescent.Of the 80,000 Jews in Iran in 1979, some 25,000 to 30,000 left the country. AlthoughKhomeini repeatedly promised them religious freedom, the violent attacks against Israeland Zionism frightened many into leaving.- The passports of Jews who had visited Israel(where 120,000 former Iranian Jews live) were impounded and Jews were fired from civilservice and university posts. Antisemitic pronouncements were common. Several dozenJews were imprisoned and several more were executed, often on the flimsiest charges. Evenmore precarious was the situation of hundreds of thousands °ahai. Although their religionis an extremely peaceable and humanitarian one. Bahaism is a splinter sect, whichleft Islam. Consequently, it is not recognized by Muslims as a legitimate religion and thosefollowers of the Bahai , faith have long been persecuted in Iran, where the split originated.Under the shah, the Bahai were protected despite the mullahs’ campaigns against them fte1950s, and a number of Bahai were successful in business or govern- ‘• A number of formerofficials were executed primarily because they were Bahai; others were falsely accused andpunished for belonging to the sect.

306PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSfighting was most intense in Azerbaijan, where AyatollahShariat-Madari condemned the constitution’s undemocraticcharacter, establishing as it did a special position throughwhich Khomeini could exercise almost unlimited powers.Those cri ticizing the constitution on more general libertariangrounds—including Hassan Nazieh, chairman of NIOC,and Hedayatollah Matin-Daftari, Mossadegh’s grandsonand leader of the left-liberal National Democratic Frontcoalition—were forced to go underground or into exile. TheNational Front it self disintegrated.Finally, once undertaken, the holding of the hostages andconsequent defiance of the United States became a symbolof Iran’s independence. While even Khomeini’s closestcollabo rators had their own doubts about the course theywere on, the temptation to exploit any sign of support forcompromise on the part of one of their factional opponentswas irresistible. Beheshti went so far as to accuse Bani-Sadr,after the latter’s election to the presidency, of representingthe “danger of li beralism.”To Beheshti, liberalism meant a capitalist economy, compromisewith imperialism, and imitation of the West’s dissoluteway of life. Still, Beheshti added, “It has to be confessedthat there are several million Iranians who prefer a liberalgov ernment to a militant Islamic government.” But Beheshtihad no intention of indulging them. 6 In collaboration withthe rad ical mullahs, the students holding the embassy triedto use some of the documents found there to discreditleading mod erates, a tactic used in the early 1950s bothagainst Mos sadegh’s opposition and by his political alliesagainst their rivals within the National Front.The takeover was justified by the perceived Americanthreat; the failure of that alleged threat to be carried outafter the takeover was portrayed by the Khomeinists asan Iranian victory. America, though still dangerous, hadbeen defeated’ In short, Washington’s failure to takebold steps to overthrow Khomeini did not cause themto question the whole theory ° American conspiracy.Rather, Iranians attributed the American lack of successto the effectiveness of Khomeini in anticipating President

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 307Carter’s conspiratorial designs and beating nim back withthreats of retaliation.“Our youth should be confident that America cannotdo a damn thing,” Khomeini said repeatedly. The UnitedStates, he explained, was too impotent to interfere by directmilitary force and, if necessary, Iran could defeat such amove by mo bilizing its own people, who were willing tobecome martyrs. 7 If traditional Iranian political culturehad bred in the nation excessive deference toward foreignpowers, Khomeini would restore their pride, drawinginspiration from the successful wars of early Islam.As this new confidence expressed itself in repeatedchal lenges to United States power, it confronted the USSRwith only a slightly more cautious bravado, despite theoverwhelm ing power of that great northern neighbor. Thereis an old anecdote that relates how a mullah once commentedto a Tur kish officer within hearing of the famous GermanGeneral Von Moltke, “Why should even today ten thousand[Turks] not rise and with firm belief in Allah and sharpswords ride to Moscow?”“Why not?” answered a Turkish officer. But in French, sothe clergyman would not understand him, he added, “Aslong as the Russians stamp their passports.” 8Even after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the threatof Soviet intervention did not cause the fundamentalists toseek Protection through a rapprochement with the UnitedStates. Khomeini’s vision of foreign affairs led him to believethat his leadership had created an Iran impervious to attackby either of the superpowers.Within Iran, this stance had great psychological impact.Hitherto, Iranians had seen themselves as pawns offoreigners and their conspiracies; at best, they could onlyoccasionally, and with great cunning, manipulate thesepowers so as to serve Iran’s purposes. Now Khomeiniproclaimed liberation to be at hand. If the United States,with all its power and satanic ^termination, could notfree its own diplomats, how could it ri ng down the Iranianrevolution? Washington might continue to fuss and fume,but if Iranians were united behind Khomeini’s leadership

308PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthe revolution would be invincible Tf piety could bringabout such a remarkable transformation most Iraniansbelieved, then their slogan, “God is great!” was indeedappropriate.A few semi-realists among Khomeini’s followers, howeverwere not about to rely solely on divine protection. DefenseMinister Mustafa Ali Chamran suggested that if Moscowattacked Iran the United States would be forced to come toTehran’s aid no matter what the status of the hostages; theSoviets could be similarly used to intimidate America. Iranwould thus be protected by a new Cold War equilibrium. 9Yet this was a mi nority view, maintained quietly by relativemoderates to re main calm in the dangerous situationKhomeini had created.But others expressed the fear, as the hostage crisisdragged on into 1980, that it would prove too great a burden.Many be came concerned that their plans to implement theIslamic rev olution by restructuring Iranian society wouldbe lost in the fervor directed daily against the United States.Such concerns did not illustrate the moderation of thoseexpressing them, but rather a sincere eagerness to get on withthe revolution’s work and to fulfill its goals. * Hopes of freeingthe hostages became bound up with these doubts about theprice Iranians were paying for holding them. Washington* Bani-Sadr and Ghotbzadeh, the two main advocates of a negotiated settle ment in 1980, hadbeen among Khomeini’s most hard-line advisors m 1978-79. The son of a popular ayatollah,Bani-Sadr first met Khomeini in 1972, while Bani-Sadr was attending his father’s funeralin Iraq. As an advisor, Bani-Sadr brought to his role a strong Islamic orientation but onetempered by Western academic training. As a student in Paris, in fact, Bani-Sadr had continuallypostponed defending his Ph.D. thesis to delay his return to Iran. While in Paris he wasstrongly influenced by the “small-is-beautiful’ school and wanted a decentralized, self-reliantIran. Ghotbzadeh, the son of wealthy lumber merchant, left Iran in 1959 at the age oftwenty-four and lived in Europe, the United States, and Canada. He organized anti-shahactivities the United States but flunked out of Georgetown University. Finally, his passportwas revoked and he lived in the Middle East for several years. During prerevolutionaryperiod, he worked as an important go-between linking Khomeini and the Arabs, includingthe PLO, Libya, and Syria. Despite Aid can hopes, neither man was moderate—except in atactical sense—and lacked a political base and political talent.

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 309tried to emphasize these hidden costs in negotiating for therelease of the American diplomats.“The United States enslaved Iran for 25 years,” said thein fluential Ayatollah Montazeri, “and the Iranians want to befi nally released from this subjugation.” Yet, he added, it was“impractical to sever relations between us and the UnitedStates.” 10 Even Beheshti, in late December, 1979 and in earlyJanuary, 1980, spoke out for freeing the hostages. The problemfor the Khomeinists was to find a way to end the confrontationwithout losing face or without being outflanked in militancyby some other group. They considered and rejected tacticafter tactic. In terms of domestic politics, of course, it wassafer to do nothing; as long as the hostages were held therewould be no challenge to their rule.Bani-Sadr, who, like Bazargan before him, stressed thepriority of social-economic reconstruction, saw the hostagecrisis I as endangering the normalization of domestic affairs.A few I days after the embassy takeover, he praised thestudent militants for bringing down a government that “wasfollowing a I conciliatory policy toward the United States.”But he also I spoke of negative results. That the occupiersignored the formal governmental apparatus, conductedtheir own propaganda campaigns, invited their own foreigndelegations, and professed faith only in Khomeini’s direct linkwith them, “highlighted the multiplicity of decisionmakingcenters.” The regime’s inability to control them diminishedits prestige. “The absence of a strong central governmentand the spread of an archy will eventually undermine ImamKhomeini’s authority too.” Bani-Sadr warned. “It is impossibleto govern a country with permanent spontaneity.” 11In time, Bani-Sadr’s complaints about the seriousnessof Iran’s situation intensified. “Today our economy isparalyzed, our political atmosphere is plunged into discord,our culture s no longer operative and our social environmentis disorganized,” he told hundreds of thousands of Iraniansat a rally parking the revolution’s first anniversary. 12 In adesperate attempt to reach his countrymen Bani-Sadr evenargued that the hostage-taking was an American plot toprovide an excuse for their intervention. His pleas met with

310PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSlittle response. As a political radical but a tactical moderate,Bani-Sadr was too alienated from either camp to build astrong base of support.Shariat-Madari, whose views were more democratic andde-centralist than those of Khomeini, also called for a periodof construction. A few days before the embassy takeover hecriti cized the hard-line faction: “They imagine that if thereis no severity, confusion and ruin will result, and progresswill be impeded. Contrary to this, I believe that it is thevery situation now being brought about which is impedingprogress in the affairs of the country.” He concluded: “Today,anyone who criticizes is called a counterrevolutionary andis said to be going against the revolution, whereas in myview it is the man who does not listen to criticism who is thecounterrevolu tionary.” 13But in December, 1979, heavy fighting broke out inTabriz, Azerbaijan’s main city, in which Shariat-Madari’ssupporters took over the town, protesting the newly ratifiedconstitution. During the following spring, a number ofthe leading sup porters of Shariat-Madari were executedby the Khomeinists. Apparently not willing to throw hisfellow Azerbaijanis into bloody, all-out confrontation withthe central government, the more moderate ayatollah wasforced to retreat and pledge his support to Khomeini.When Bazargan resigned on November 6, 1979, the Khomeinistsbegan consolidating their power, with nominalcon trol of the government passing to the RevolutionaryCouncil. Its membership was divided between clerics likeBeheshti and pious laymen like Bazargan and Bani-Sadr.Khomeini, of course, had the final say. Council decisionsgrowing out of the embassy seizure included directivesto withdraw financial re serves from American banks (onthe same day that President Carter froze them) and therepudiation of foreign debts.Although Khomeini freed some of the black and femalehos tages, the conflict quickly settled down into a long seige.Fifty Americans were kept in the embassy grounds andthree, in-eluding Charge d’Affaires Bruce Laingen, weresemiprisoners in the Foreign Ministry. The new factor in

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 311this affair was not the holding of hostages by terrorists—anincreasingly common phenomenon in the world—but thesupport given this act of terrorism by the host country’sgovernment.This support created special problems for the WhiteHouse. ​While the president could not have been blamed hadterrorists kidnapped American citizens it was quite anotherthing when the affront came from another government. Noteager for a direct confrontation President Carter embarkedon a cou rse that combined conciliatory gestures and agradual escalation of pressure. He quickly ruled out animmediat e rescue at tempt; proposals to capture Iran’s oildepots on Kharg Island were rejected because of possibleSoviet reactions and poten tial reprisals against the hostagesthemselves.Although Carter did authorize secret long-range planningfor a re scue raid as a last resort, he committed the UnitedStates to a public policy of gradually escalating countermeasures,including appeals to the United Nations Security Counciland to West European allies for economic sanctions againstIran. American Navy units were dispatched to the ArabianSea. Washington ended imports of Iranian oil and froze billionsof dollars of Tehran’s assets within the country; theWhite House ordered a reduction in the number of Iraniandip lomats in the United States and an immigration check onthe tens of thousands of Iranian students in the country.These actions did not bring quick results. The Europeansand Japanese were not eager to invoke sanctions that woulddamage their trade and petroleum purchases with Iran but,they argued, likely do little to help the hostages. As The Economistla ter summarized their case, they believed that “thede nial of material things is unlikely to have much effect onminds su ffused with immaterial things, and to the extentthat sanctions do move Iran they will move it economicallycloser to Russia.” 14Moreover , American courts temporarily blocked thespecial check of Iranian students’ visas and Washingtonlost track of the number of Iranian diplomats. The stream ofwould-be ne gotiators going to Tehran—some of them self-

312PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSappointed— and the promises of Iranian officials—whichwere generally re- versed within twenty-four hours—delayedthe application of stronger steps.Khomeini refused to meet with Ramsey Clark, the formerUnited States attorney-general, and William G. Miller, SenateSelect Committee on Intelligence staff director, both of whomCarter had asked to go to Tehran. (Clark would later make asecond trip to Iran not under government auspices to participatein a “crimes of America” conference.) Iran’s ambassadorin Washing ton, Ali Agah, furnished a more successfulconduit fo r communications. State Department task forcemembers also spoke via telephone and telex to Laingen, whowas under “house arrest” at the Iranian Foreign Ministry,but they could not get Iranian officials to communicate withthem direc tly. Among the various other intermediariesemployed were the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, the Vatican,the Algerian gov ernment, the Irish international civil servantSean MacBride, an Argentinian political operative, and someleftist French lawyers.Only gradu ally did Washington understand that therewere no go vernmental spokesmen or officials in Tehrancapable of keeping pledges made to negotiators. In April,1980 the White House finally gave up hopes for a diplomaticsolution and launched an ill-fated rescue mission. When thisattempt failed, President Carter gave the hostage question alower pri ority.Between November, 1979 and that point, however, PresidentCarte r had made the hostages’ freedom the centralissue in American foreign policy, a decision paralleled byextremely high levels of media coverage and the emotionalinvolvement of the American people. Putting the hostages’safety first, Carter downplayed the possibility of a militaryresponse. But the White House’s failure to use the abilitiesof Iran sp ecialists made it difficult for the Americangovernment to understand Tehran’s thinking and responses.Policymaking was increas ingly in the hands of White Housepolitical operatives whose attentions were distracted bya challeng e to the president’s renomination from SenatorEdward M. Kennedy.

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 313In the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination,the Iran i ssue seemed to help the incumbent. The feelingon the par t of many voters that in a moment of nationalcrisis they must unite around the current president helpeddefuse the challenge of Senator Kennedy, who criticizedpast United States-shah relations. For his part, conservativeRepublican Ronald Reagan advocated permanent Americanasylum be granted the shah, though all candidates agreed torefrain from debating the Iran question while the hostageswere still being held.The predom inant public sentiment, particularly duringthe first six months of the crisis, was one of anger. At its mostex treme—though expressed in a mere handful of instances—this ire led to some less-than-noble acts. The state legislaturesof Louisiana and New Mexico ordered their state universitiesto stop e nrolling Iranian students, while their Mississippicounterpa rt passed a bill doubling the tuition for the 430Iranian students attending school in that state. As anotherex ample, an Iranian student who had earlier been chosenvale dictorian of her New Jersey high school was pressuredinto with drawing. Much more frequent signs of Americananger fou nd expression on local radio and televisionprograms, par ticularly those soliciting call-ins, in boycottsagainst Iranian-owned businesses, and with the appearanceof a slew of anti-Iranian bumper stickers. More serious, werea couple of bomb threats that brought out the local police. Yetsuch in c idents, despite the ample publicity they received,”were rela tively uncommon.More typi cal was the widespread refusal of mostAmericans to make any distinction between the proandanti- Khomeini Iranians living in the United Stateswho numbe red, in total, more than 150,000 at the timeof the ho stage seizure. Many of these Iranians were notsympathetic to the new rulers in Tehran; the same could besaid of the 50,000-plus Iranian students in the United States,only a mi nority of whom partic ipated in demonstrationsbacking the Islamic regime.The slow pace of escalation was designed to lay theground wo rk for a peaceful resolution of the crisis. In

314PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSresponse to a Proposal by Foreign Minister Ghotbzadeh,backed by Beheshti and by the Revolutionary Council, thatthe administration agree to a United Nations or congressionalinvestigation into the activities of the shah and of the UnitedStates in Iran, the president let it be known that he wouldlook favorably on such a step only after the hostages werereleased. When the student militants rejected this plan, theacting Iranian gov ernment was not strong enough to force iton them. The shah’s departure for Panama on December 15,intended to cool the crisis, only further enraged the Iranians,who saw it as an American maneuver to avoid responsibilityfor returning him to trial in Tehran.By the time the administration resolved to press aheadwith the escalation of pressure a whole new set of problemshad emerged. An attack on the great mosque in Mecca, themost import ant shrine in Islam, actually carried out byIslamic ex tremists, was blamed by many Muslims on theUnited States. Demonstrations against a number of UnitedStates embassies followed, most violently in Pakistan wherethe building was burned down with two American fatalities.Even more s erious was Moscow’s stage-managed coup inAfghanistan on De cember 27. There, a friendly government,unable to s uppress nationalist and Islamic insurgents,seemed seriously threat ened by the popular anti-Communistfervor. The Soviets even tually sent over 80,000 troops intothat country with the strange mission of overthrowing theirown semi-puppet gov ernment and installing a new, moresubservient one, as well as to suppress the Islamic andnationalist resistance to Com munist domination.The brutal Soviet invasion provoked a major reconsiderationof American foreign policy. “Let our positionbe ab solut ely clear,” said President Carter in his State ofthe Union m essage. “An attempt by any outside force togain contro l of the Persian Gulf region will be regardedas an assault on the vital interests of the United States ofAmerica, and such an as sault will be repelled by any meansnecessary, including military force.” 15This new stand foretold an increase in defense spendingand a strengthening of the American military, a de-emphasis

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 315of attempts at detente with Moscow, and a recognition of thecontinuing reality of Cold War conflict. It also elevated thepriority placed on building alliances with Islamic countriesin the region. In essence, it was an abandonment of the NixonDoctrine approach: direct American military presence wasonce more seen as the way to encourage regional peace and toprotect American interests. The failure of the shah as a surrogatemade such a revision necessary; the changed attitude ofthe American people made this new orientation possible.Yet in this context, Iran was no longer the main Americanadversary or problem in the area—attention now had to beturned to the Soviet threat. Consequently, it was necessaryto ease the friction between Washington and Tehran. Thead ministration began to argue that it was in both countries’in terests to work together against the Soviets. The bestway to free the hostages, the White House argued, was topersuade the Iranians of this new reality.The rhetori c in Washington eased off and plans forincreas ing the pressure against Iran were shelved. StateDepartment briefings started to blame the embassytakeover on Marxists and terrorists, separating them fromthe Iranian government and suggesting that they might bea serious threat to that regime’s survival.“The Iranians know that the real threat to” Iran’s nationalindependence and territorial integrity “comes from the northand not from a distant country such as the United States,”said National Security Advisor Brzezinski. “My belief,” explainedPresident Carter, “is that many of the responsibleof ficials in Iran now see that this major threat to Iran’ssecurity … is becoming paramount, and that there will bean addi tional effort on their part to secure the release of thehostages and remove the isolation of Iran from the rest ofthe civil ized world.” Secretary of State Vance added, “as theSoviet threat has increased, the leaders of Iran have addedreason to bring about the prompt and unconditional releaseof the hos tages … ” 16Some of the Iranian leaders were indeed worried aboutMoscow’s in tentions and about the continued disorder athome.

316PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSThe first break came on January 12, 1980, thirty minutesbe fore the United Nations Security Council was scheduled tovote on anti-Iranian sanctions. A message from Ghotbzadehsupposedly with Khomeini’s authorization, suggested an investigationof the shah’s alleged crimes in exchange for therelease of the hostages. When Tehran failed to clarify the proposal,however, the vote went ahead. Although the councilsupported sanctions by a margin of ten to two (with two abstentions),Moscow’s veto defeated the American request.Up to that point, Vance had tried to go through morethan ten secret channels to discuss a settlement of the crisisand he personally made three undisclosed trips to UnitedNations headquarters in New York to talk with Iranianofficials. Dur ing the first months of the hostage conflict,this had been a frustrating task since Tehran kept changingboth its negotia tors and its positions. Finally, in mid-Januarythere were some reasons for hope.Ghotbzadeh offered further details of his plan on January14. In addition to the investigation, Ghotbzadeh communicated,the United States must recognize Iran’s rightto ex tradite the monarch and to sue for the return of hiswealth, not particularly onerous requirements. Further, theRevolutionary Council’s refusal to turn over Laingen andthe two other American diplomats residing in the IranianForeign Ministry to the student militants also seemed toindicate a change in course. On January 18, RevolutionaryCouncil spokesman Has san Habibi admitted that it had nocontrol over the terrorists but stated that the new presidentwould take control over Iran’s foreign policy and over thehostage negotiations.Bani-Sadr’s election as president ten days later, with about75 percent of the vote cast, gave additional credence to a diplomaticsettlement. Born in 1933, Bani-Sadr attended Teh ranUniversity where he was active in the National Front underMossadegh and later in its underground movement. He wasarrested twice by SAVAK and was wounded in the 1963 riots,after which he spent four months in jail. Permitted to leavethe country, he went to Paris to study and later to teach at theSorbonne, developing his theories of Islamic economics.

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 317As an outspoken critic of the embassy takeover, he wasa likely candidate to solve the problem. Indeed, his victorywas cautiously celebrated in Washington as a triumph formodera tion. For him, the higher priority was settling Iran’seconomic problems, albeit within an Islamic fundamentalistframework. Bani-Sadr wasted no time in endorsing theGhotbzadeh pro posals, adding that Washington mustacknowledge its errors in supporting the shah and mustpromise not to interfere in Iranian affairs in the future.He refused offers of American aid against the Sovietsand explained that Khomeini would have to approve anyarrangement leading to the release of the hos tages.The militants’ opposition to Bani-Sadr’s earlier planto refer the hostage question to the United Nations hadforced his res ignation at the end of 1979 as supervisor ofthe Foreign Minis try. As the students continued to gainsupport from the state-controlled radio and televisionstations, whose directors were not sympathetic to Bani-Sadr, and used their special access to the news broadcastersto attack the regime’s decisions, the new president accusedthem of trying to create a rival govern ment. The hostages,he suggested, should be quickly tried or quickly released.“We want American policy to change,” said Bani-Sadr,suggesting that normalization was possible—an ideahitherto abhorrent to the hard-liners. 17 Once inauguratedon February 4, Bani-Sadr set about trying to forge unity.The students openly defied him, insisting that they wouldobey only a direct order from Khomeini; to the studentsand their clerical supporters, Bani-Sadr was simply anotherBazargan. The ter rorists in the embassy attacked moderatenewspapers and polticians and provoked the arrests ofNational Guidance Minis ter Nasir Minachi and formerDeputy Prime Minister Entezam—both of whom hadfriendly contacts with the United States Embassy duringthe Bazargan period—by claiming that captured embassydocuments showed them to be CIA agents.Bani-Sadr sought to isolate the terrorists. The day after hetook office, the new president fired radio-television directorMuhammad Kho’ini, the only outsider consulted by the

318PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSstudents before their attack on the embassy and a memberof their central council. The best way for those loyal to ImamKhomeini to act, Bani-Sadr lectured the embassy occupiers,would be to submit to revolutionary discipline. Only thediversity of decision-making centers allowed the revolution’senemies “to hatch a plot every day.” “How,” he asked, “canone govern a country when a number of individuals …act in a self-cen tered manner and create ... a governmentwithin a govern ment … ?” “These children” might havegood intentions but they were damaging the revolution,and some of them might be deliberate subversives. 18Bani-Sadr, who after all had never been a political moderate,regarded men like Bazargan, Entezam, and Minachi “asreformists and pro-American,” but conceded they were notspies and should not be slandered. Instead, “Certain uncontrollableIslamic committees which are rife in the country”must be disbanded. 19At the same time, Bani-Sadr and other Iranian leaders heldout hopes of a quick settlement. The secret talks conductedthrough the United Nations produced a United Nations investigatingcommission that would come close to success. Later,Iranian officials would argue that there had never been anylink between this committee and the freeing of the hostagesbut their contemporary statements belied these claims.Waldheim had worked out a package deal. Onceunderway, the commission would visit Tehran and meet thehostages. The American diplomats would then be turnedover to the Iranian government and subsequently to theSwiss or to Inter national Red Cross representatives. Thecommission would re turn to New York to file its report andwould then return to pick up the hostages. The United Stateswould accept the United Nations report in some mutuallysatisfactory language-recognizing Iranian grievances. TheState Department sup ported this proposal on January 30,promising cooperatio with the commission—a change inthe earlier policy of opposing any such investigation untilthe hostages were freed. Further sanctions would also beheld in abeyance. Hodding Carter, the State Departmentspokesman, said that the United States would not admit

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 319guilt in past relations with Iran, but implied that someformula could be worked out.The Americans still did not understand that the embassytakeover was due to “our people’s desire for independence,”said Bani-Sadr, but if Washington examined its actionsregarding past intervention in Iranian affairs and recognizedIran’s right to obtain extradition of the shah and his fortunea solution was possible. 20Even the hard-liners seemed to indicate a change of heart.Iran must continue the anti-American struggle, Khomeinisaid on February 11, the anniversary of Bakhtiar’s fall,though, “later, provided that our alert and noble nationgrants permis sion, we will establish our very ordinaryrelations with Ameri cans just as with other countries.” Twodays later Beheshti said that Iran wanted the hostage issueresolved quickly and that the American diplomats couldbe released even without the shah’s extradition if Iranianpublic opinion agreed. Radio Tehran explained that Iranwould seek the shah’s extradition “until doomsday” butnoted that this effort could continue even once the hostageshad been released. 21On February 13, Bani-Sadr said that Khomeini hadaccepted the plan, though the embassy militants refusedto believe this. Optimistic statements abounded. Beheshtisaid that the whole conflict would be settled by mid-March;Bani-Sadr spoke of a release within forty-eight hours;Ghotbzadeh estimated a month would be necessary; theWhite House said a solution might come in a few weeks.“I am now in position to resolve the problem,” PresidentBani-Sadr announced. The people wanted a strong centralgovernment and the students must leave the embassy andre turn to their schools. “Otherwise, in six months’ timethere will be nothing left of this country.” 22 While Beheshticautioned on February 14 that there was not yet completeagreement and that Bani-Sadr’s statements only reflected hispersonal opinions, the hopeful projections continued. Twodays later, in a trial balloon of self-criticism, President Carterexpressed American regrets for any misunderstandings withIran and looked forward to normal relations with Tehran

320PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSin the future. After hearing the names of the five-manUnited Nations commission on February 18—its membersincluded jurists and diplomats from Algeria, France, SriLanka, Syria, and Venezuela—Bani-Sadr announced thatboth the Revolutionary Council and Ayatollah Khomeinihad approved the commis sion. Waldheim predicted that thehostages would be released two weeks after the commissionbegan its meetings in Tehran but now Ghotbzadeh said therelease of the hostages and the commission’s work wereunrelated. This was not the under standing of the group’smembers, who replied that their report would not be releaseduntil after the hostages had been let go.These early misunderstandings boded ill for the commission’ssuccess. The Iranians interpreted the panel as a courtinvestigating the crimes of the shah and America; Waldheimportrayed it as a fact-finding mission to hear Iranian grievancesand to promote an early settlement of the hostagecrisis. The White House claimed that it would exploreAmerican grievances against Iran. Now RevolutionaryCouncil spokes man Habibi also said that the commission’swork was not related to the release of the hostages, a viewchallenged by the group’s cochairmen. The militant studentsalso rejected any role for the commission.In a stunning announcement Khomeini called forsupport ing the terrorists and endorsed their continueddemand for the return of the shah and his wealth. Nowbacked by the only unchallengeable authority in Iran, thestudents hardened their line. The militants “have by theirrevolutionary deed dealt a crushing body blow against theworld-devouring United States, and have thereby made thenation proud,” said the aged ayatollah from his hospital bed.Iran’s Majlis, when elected, would settle the hostages’ fate,though the Revo lutionary Council would continue to handlematters until that time. 23 The State Department arguedthat Khomeini’s statement was meant only for internalIranian consumption and would not affect the work of thecommission. The problem was that this unyielding standwas a far more accurate picture of his views than the moreflexible position presented in the diplomatic exchanges.

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 321By the end of February, the situation in Tehran broke downinto complete confusion. The international commission heardtestimony on the shah’s repression and corruption, but the keyissue came to be the panel’s visit with the hostages, the signalfor the turnover of the prisoners. Contradictory reports wereissued by Iranian officials every few hours. Beheshti began toshift over to support of the intransigent militants. In a test ofwills between them and the Revolutionary Council, the studentsrefused, then agreed, and then refused again to allowthe commission to meet the American diplomats. DespiteBani-Sadr’s and Ghotbzadeh’s promises to the contrary, nothingwas done about the students’ independence.On March 6, it was even announced that the RevolutionaryCouncil would soon take custody of the hostages, and thefrustrated United Nations investigators postponed theirde parture to New York. In a conciliatory move the WhiteHouse indicated its willingness to express concern overpast United States relations with the shah, though therewould be no out right apology. As Khomeini was alternatelyportrayed as being for, against, or neutral on going aheadwith the United Na tions plan, the Revolutionary Councilstayed in almost contin ual session. Large demonstrationsand statements by the lead ership of the RevolutionaryGuards indicated support for continued confrontation.Finally, Khomeini said that the hos tages would meet withthe panel only after its report had been issued and only ifthat conclusion was satisfactory to Iran.Celebrating the ayatollah’s statement as a victory fortheir Position, the student kidnappers refused to turn overthe hos tages. On March 11 the weary United Nations groupleft Tehran. The United States complained that the Iraniangov ernment had broken its promises; Bani-Sadr blamed theRevo lutionary Council for being weak and indecisive. Bymid-March, negotiations were back to where they had beenin No vember. Beheshti explained that the RevolutionaryCouncil’s majority favored releasing the hostages only afterthe shah and his treasure had been returned to Tehran.It is no easy task to untangle for examination thisincredibly complex process, but some conclusions can be

322PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSmade over the failure of the United Nations mission. Theunyielding stand of the student militants, the hystericalatmosphere in Tehran, and the intransigent stand ofKhomeini, all contributed to the inability of Bani-Sadr andGhotbzadeh to deliver on their promises. Yet the issue wasnot a straight battle between stu dents and government:without Khomeini’s support the mili tants could not haveprevailed and without the split in the Council, Khomeinimight have been swayed.Two examples help illustrate the Iranian mood. The UnitedNations commission’s appointment, claimed Radio Tehran’sinternational service, justified the embassy takeover. Yet allthe American responses to the kidnappings—the appeals tothe United Nations and the International Court of Justice;the real and potential sanctions—were simply new “fiendishmethods. . . to suppress the Islamic revolution.” 24At a rally in front of the United States Embassy on February25, Ayatollah Muhammad Kani, a Revolutionary Councilmember and supervisor of the interior ministry, quotedthe Koran to an approving crowd: “No individual, noofficial and no Muslim has the right to show forbearanceor compromise toward an enemy who is not defeated and isnot overthrown.” Therefore, he continued, all Iranians mustsupport the militant students and “imprison the agents andspies of the enemy according to the command of the Koranuntil such day that the enemy con fesses its guilt and openlyannounces its defeat to the world.’ Yet the proof of thissubmission would be “to return the crim inal shah to us.” 25If this stand is any indication of the posi tion of hard-linerswithin the Revolutionary Council, it clearly shows why theUnited Nations commission failed to release the hostages.But none of this is surprising given the often-professedideology of the revolution. According to this creed, the shaftwas a United States puppet and the American Embassy inTehran was the real center of government. After the revolution,Washington and the embassy allegedly did everythingpossible to subvert the Islamic state. Since even an Americaapology would hardly convince them otherwise, the newIranian rulers had little reason to release the hostages.

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 323Certainly, the embassy takeover had produced anexplosion of Iranian national pride—they had slain thedragon their thoughts had conjured up. Given the fact thatmost Iranians were daily cheered by the continued holdingof the hostages, the only appeal of the moderates couldbe to the best long-range interests of the revolution. Somecould not so quickly forget Mossadegh’s example. As Bani-Sadr pointed out, as a country ungoverned, with sporadicoutbreaks of violence every where, a sick economy, andenemies all around its borders Iran was vulnerable and sowas its revolution. Continued con frontation with the UnitedStates could easily endanger the regime’s survival.On the other hand, the embassy takeover helped keepat least the ethnic Persian parts of the nation united andpro vided a strong base for the fundamentalist leaders. Tomake some dramatic initiative on the hostage issue mightunder mine the credibility of some of the major individualsand fac tions; to hold onto the hostages seemed safer fromthis per spective.Thus, the hard-line members of the Revolutionary Councilwere not blind to questions of realpolitik. Before one couldex ercise power, they reasoned, one had to maintain it at home.They did not care how much Iran was hated in Washington,D.C., or in Columbus, Ohio. The priority for them was thethinking of people in Tehran, Isfahan, and in the villages.The old rule that the successful Iranian political leader didnot allow himself to be outflanked in militancy prevailed.Besides, while an inability to compromise had done moreto bring down Mossadegh than all the efforts of the CIAin 1953, the v ery fact that the United States was not activelytrying to bring down Iran’s government in 1980—irony ofironies— made intransigence a less risky proposition.Here lay the leverage of the militant student terroristswho held the embassy. They were able to invoke Khomeini’sname Without public contradiction from him becausethey did rep resent the logical extension of his thinking.They provided a high point of radicalism that Iranianpoliticians—particularly the hard-liners among them—were challenged to match. Their intransigence presented

324PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthe clerical fundamentalists on the Revolutionary Councilwith both a danger and an opportunity both to be exploitedin the fundamentalist drive for power.Among the kidnappers of the American diplomats, thecon spiracy theory reached its most exhaustive proportions.It was claimed that the failures in Iranian agriculture weredue not to the shah’s errors but to deliberate United Statesefforts to keep Iran dependent. The arms sales were not aresponse to the shah’s demands but an American plot tosteal Iran’s oil money and to protect Washington’s interests.These young revolu tionaries firmly believed that they werethe vanguard of an in ternational revolution. The successof the Canadian Embassy in safeguarding and smugglingout six American diplomats who had escaped the AmericanEmbassy on the day of the takeover, and the continuingexistence of moderate factions within the revolutionconvinced them that they were sur rounded by enemies.There was much speculation on the identity of thosewho held the United States Embassy, particularly onthe questions of Soviet KGB and Palestine LiberationOrganization influ ence. There is no doubt that some ofthe occupiers were Marx ists and that some were trainedby the PLO, but neither the Soviets nor the PLO had anyreal control over their collective actions. Most of themwere Islamic fundamentalists and fol lowers of AyatollahKhomeini’s ideology—they had their own world view andhad no need for the direction of outsiders. 26They were strongly aligned with the hard-line factionof the revolution. Much of their fire was directed againstsuch mod erates as Nazieh and Matin-Daftari, Entezam andMinachi, Ad miral Madani and the newspaper Bamdad. Theiraccess to the mass media, even after the removal by Bani-Sadr of their sym pathizer and advisor Kho’ini from controlover radio and tele vision, was also a powerful weapon.The average age of the approximately four hundredmilitants was only twenty-two years; one-quarter of themwere women, some of whom wore a dark-blue head scarfwhn others wore the full chador. The men dressed in khakiUnited States army jackets. Islamic fundamentalists among

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 325them wore a light beard while leftists tended to cultivatethick moustaches. Most of them were indeed students—and mostly in the faculties of mathematics, chemistry,engineering, and medicine rather than in theology. Some ofthem were Arabic-speakers from Khuzistan, but most wereethnic Persians.Gradually, they developed a tight, disciplined organizationwith six committees for information, documentation,opera tions, security, logistics, and guard duty. The publicrelations office dealt with Iranian and foreign journalists—banning re porters whose writing displeased them, favoringthose who seemed to be more sympathetic. At the top stoodan eight-member central council, meeting on alternatedays. Aside from Khomeini himself, their most importanttheoretical guide was the late Ali Shari’ati, whose politicalphilosophy combined a militant defense of traditional Islamwith a radical emphasis on social justice. *The seven identified members of that central councilin cluded: Muhammad Kho’ini, forty-one years old, whohad been with Khomeini in Paris and was considered hisrepresen tative to the students; Mohsen Mirdamadi, in hisearly twen ties, who had been jailed for anti-shah activitiesin 1977; Naimi (a code name), twenty-two, the publicrelations officer; Hussein (a code name), twenty-three, anengineering student, and Hassan Habibi (a code name—notto be confused with the Revolutionary Council spokesman),early twenties, the only one of the group considered to haveMarxist tendencies. Other probable members include NilofarEbtekar, twenty-one, a sec ond-year chemistry student who,as “Mary,” became well known in the United States throughher television appear ances. As a child, she had lived forseveral years in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. Finally, there* Shari’ati combined a strong familiarity with Western thought and a very firm groundingin Islamic law and philosophy. He spoke against Western cultural influences but for a revolutionin favor of Iran’s poor. The term “Islamic-Marxist” often applied to his writing issomewhat misleading. Arrested several times under the shah’s regime, he was allowed toleave Iran for England. His work had a tremendous influence on many of those who participatedin the revolution and in post-shah politics.

326PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSwas Shahpour, twenty, three, a third-year medical student.None of them had much experience with internationalpolitics or with the workings of embassies. This, coupledwith their ideology, made their analyses of the United StatesEm bassy’s operations inaccurate in the extreme. For them, aState Department report on the Kurdish insurrection or onthe anti-Khomeini Islamic terrorist group Forqan was proofthat the United States was in contact with these movements,if not directing them. Any meeting between an Iranianofficial and embassy employees was proof of the former’streason and the latter’s espionage. What was the mostremarkable was their fail ure, after months in the embassyfiles, to produce any hard ev idence of their accusations;some of the material circulated as evidence within Iranconsisted of the most transparent forgeries.Nonetheless, their credibility within the countryremained high. They knew that the eyes and ears of theworld were focused on their every deed and pronouncement.It must have been a heady experience.For President Carter, these events were far less pleasant.White House political operatives, who had more and more influenceon the conduct of policy as 1980 wore on, tried to turnthe humiliating hostage crisis, in which the president wasdaily being vilified by foreigners on America’s own televisionnews programs, into a campaign asset. One television politicaladvertisement early in the primary season told voters: “Iowawill send a clear signal to the world ... do we or do we notsupport the president as he makes the hard decisions in responseto Iran and the Soviet aggression in Afghanistan. Let sjoin the fight for a stronger, more secure America. … Presi dentCarter—he’s fighting for all of us.” 27The president announced his abandonment of partisancam paigning to cope with the Iran issue, although hecontinued to call political allies to firm up support andto give interviews. During most of the primary season,he stayed close to Washington. At the same time, hisRepublican rivals, although kept cautious by the delicacyof the issue, tried to use the slowness of progress over thehostages against the president.

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 327After the failure of the United Nations commission,Ameri can public opinion reflected both impatience andcontinuing, if slowly eroding, support for the president. AMarch, 1980 Harris poll found that voters who five weeksearlier had judged Carter’s handling of the crisis a success—by a 51 per cent to 32 percent margin—now considered it afailure by a 47 percent to 31 percent plurality. Whereas inmid-December, a 66 percent to 32 percent majority supportedPresident Carter’s strategy, by mid-March this had turnedinto a 55 percent to 43 percent negative assessment. 28By overwhelming majorities, Americans felt personallyand emotionally involved with the hostages’ fate, were willingto wait as long as necessary to get them back unharmed,favored tightening trade restrictions on Iran, and expressedfrustration at America’s seeming helplessness at resolvingthe issue. On a tactical level, 60 percent (against 31 percent)felt it had been a mistake not to give Iran an ultimatum torelease the hostages during the first seventy-two hoursafter the takeover. By a closer margin, 53 percent (against34 percent) rejected the idea of apologizing for past UnitedStates-shah relations, seeing such a step as “humiliating andwrong” even “if it was the only way to get the hostages backunharmed.”Before further escalating the pressure against Iran,which had already been delayed by the Soviet move intoAfghanistan and by the United Nations plan, the WhiteHouse was willing to try one more diplomatic effort. If thisfailed, Carter and aides agreed at a Camp David meetingon March 22, then more economic and political sanctionswould be imposed. West European allies were alerted to thepossibility of an em bargo.This timetable was somewhat disrupted by the shah’sdecision to leave Panama. He was nervous at the Iranianattempts to extradite him from that country, though suchefforts seemed unlikely to succeed. Washington preferred thathe stay in Panama so that as the extradition procedure slowlymoved forward, the Iranians would have some incentive tomake concessions on the hostage question. Despite a personalattempt by top White House aide Hamilton Jordan to dissuade

328PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONShim, the monarch insisted that he would go elsewhere.On March 23 the shah departed for Egypt, leavingbehind him charges and countercharges in which Panama,the United States, Iran, and the shah’s own aides accusedeach other of bad faith and duplicitous actions. One issue ofcontention involved the December, 1979 agreement betweenthe Whit House and the shah, reached just before the shah leftfor Panama, on a variety of questions. The United States, theshah’s friends claimed, had originally promised the strickenmon arch that he could return to America if he so desired.Now they said, the promise was abandoned.Meanwhile, the second American diplomatic initiativewas put into operation. Known in Washington as “the Frenchcon nection,” because of its use of several French lawyers asintermediaries, the effort began with a message from PresidentCarter to Tehran, the contents of which have been hotlydebated. Apparently, belief in the potential success of thisat tempt had arisen out of earlier indirect exchanges betweenPresident Bani-Sadr and the United States government.According to some sources, the letter carried a significantwarning: it set down a short deadline for the hostages tobe transferred to Iranian government custody before toughsanc tions would be imposed. As released by the Iranians,however, the communication was quite conciliatory. Itwarned Iran of Soviet designs, said that the administrationhad inherited its earlier relationship with the shah, butnow accepted the new situation and wanted to have goodrelations with Iran’s revo lutionary government. This seemedto meet some of the condi tions publicly set down by Bani-Sadr. At the same time, Secre tary of State Vance announcedthat he would not oppose historical investigation of bilateralrelations by the Sena Foreign Relations Committee.The problem, though, was that the message wasaltered route—either by the Iranians or by some of theintermediaries—to make it much more apologetic thanit had been originally. The White House then denied allknowledge of or involvement with the message. Bani-Sadrpersisted, making relatively moderate statement proposingan arrangement which the hostages, with or without the

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 329embassy grounds, would be turned over to the custody ofthe Revolutionary Council. Yet it is clear that this time Bani-Sadr did not have the council firmly behind him. AyatollahKhomeini himself, enraged by the shah’s flight to Egypt,was in no mood for a settlement. There was also someconfusion over whether the United States had accepted anew condition—that the hos tages’ fate be determined byIran’s new parliament, which was to convene in June.Once again, Iranian officials made contradictory statementsevery hour and the council convened in day-long sessions.When Ayatollah Khomeini made a hard-line speech on AprilI marking the Islamic republic’s anniversary, everyone onceagain fell into line behind his position. The statement, read bythe ayatollah’s son Ahmed in its original form, despite Bani-Sadr’s attempts to tone it down, blamed an American plot forthe shah’s movement to Egypt and reaffirmed that only in theupcoming Majlis session could the hostage issue be settled. 29With no further hope of a diplomatic solution, the WhiteHouse now moved to the measures originally consideredfor the previous December. Relations with Iran were brokenoff, a full-scale attempt was made to encourage Americanallies to isolate Iran economically, and plans for the rescuemission were accelerated.Khomeini welcomed this severance as a further proofof Iran’s independence and the Revolutionary Councilpersisted in portraying the whole hostage issue as asecondary question. Their communique of April 8 stated:The American President tries to hide the imperialist ambitionsof his government under the cover of the issue ofthe hostages … while we know and the events of the pastyear have clearly demonstrated that the essential questionfor the American Government is not the holding of theemployees of the American Embassy … [but] the Islamicrevolution and the severance of the aggressive hands ofthat govern ment from Iran. 30Obviously, given this attitude on the part of the Iranians,any attempt to convince them of Washington’s conciliatoryintentions was doomed to fail.

330PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSIn response to the impasse, President Carter initiatedthe long-deferred economic embargo, broke diplomaticrelations with Iran, and began to inventory $8 billion infrozen Iranian assets against outstanding United Statesclaims. He also pressed American allies, particularly Japanand Western Europe, to join in the economic and politicalisolation of Iran “For long months, ours has been a restraintof strength despite outrageous provocation,” he said in aspeech. “But it has be come necessary, because Iran wouldnot act in accordance with international law and with theirown interests, for us to act again.” 31The frustrations within the administration had reacheda boiling point. When Iranian Charge d’Affaires Ali Agahand another official met with Henry Precht and DeputySecretary of State Warren Christopher to discuss the closingof their em bassy, the two visitors spent much of the timecriticizing the United States. Some of the hostages preferredto stay in Iran, they said, and they were being protected bythe Iranian gov ernment. “Bullshit!” Precht replied, and thetwo Iranians stormed out.That usually calm State Department specialist was notalone in his anger. National impatience was reflected in all theAmerican polls. A Harris survey in mid-April found that 68percent thought the sanctions were too little, too late. A contemporaryNewsweek inquiry found the public disapprovedof past strategy by a margin of 49 percent to 40 percent, theformer group demanding stronger action. Another studyfound two-to-one support for military action even if it imperiledthe hostages’ lives. Most of those questioned doubtedwhether the sanctions would bring a solution. 32American allies were reluctant to press sanctions,but were even more eager to prevent military action onWashington s part. They did not want to lose a source of oiland a trading partner and they also worried about pushingIran into Mos cow’s arms. Perhaps most important was theirdesire to prevent any action potentially disruptive to thestability of th e Persian Gulf area, which supplied 70 percentof Western Euro pean and 67 percent of Japanese petroleumimports.

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 331But the White House had already decided on a daringres cue mission. On April 11 President Carter ordered theJoint Chiefs of Staff to go ahead with the plan. Vance setforth his objections: such an operation might endanger twohundred American nationals still in Iran and could threatenrelations with Persian Gulf and European allies. The WhiteHouse de cided, however, that the importance of the issueand the need to take firm action took precedence.Eight helicopters from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitzand six C-130 cargo planes, carrying a ninety-man assaultteam and another ninety support and flight personnel, setoff on the night of April 25. They were to travel from theGulf on a northwestern course, flying above uninhabiteddesert and mountain areas, and refueling in a desolate spot.From there, they would fly 208 miles more to a site 50 milessoutheast of Tehran, arriving early in the morning.At this point the commando team would be unloadedand the helicopters flown to a place where they could behidden, camouflaged, and guarded by troops in Iranianuniforms. The rescue unit itself would spend the dayhidden in a garage. At midnight, they would drive intoTehran in five trucks, head ing for Amjadieh Stadiumopposite the embassy. The assault team would attack theembassy—using folding ladders to scale the walls—andneutralize the terrorist guards. The hos tages would thenbe taken to the stadium where they could be airlifted out.A smaller unit would rescue the three diplomats held inthe Foreign Ministry. Four helicopters would carry thehostages, two more would provide air cover or be heldin re serve. The whole group would rendezvous with theC-130s and would fly out of Iran, protected by Americanfighter planes.Events did not turn out as planned. Three helicopterssuf fered incapacitating damage, forcing the mission’stermina tion. To add to the debacle one of the helicopterscollided with a C-130, causing an explosion in which eightser vicemen died.The failure provoked extensive criticism of the Carterad ministration at home and abroad. Some questioned the

332PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONStiming and propriety of the mission; others criticized theWhite House’s decision-making and planning processesor the mili tary’s performance. Secretary of State Vanceresigned, stating that he could not, in good conscience,support the resort to the use of military means. His departurewas also a response to his loss in the administration powerstruggle—President Carter failed to inform him of the keymeeting that gave the go-ahead signal.The United States could not have waited any longer, Carterexplained, because the shorter nights, unfavorable winds,and hot temperatures of Iran’s summer would have madeany fu ture attempt increasingly difficult. He added that theUnited States had “exhausted every peaceful procedure”and de fended the rescue effort as a humanitarian missionundertaken in self-defense and not a military attack uponIran. 33The Soviet media, which for months had predicted a fullscaleAmerican attack against Iran, described the rescueat tempt as a cover for a planned coup d’etat. The Iranianscele brated the American failure, seeing it as proof of the correctnessof Ayatollah Khomeini’s leadership and perhaps evenas proof of divine intercession for their cause. To discourageany follow-up effort, the student militants announced thatthey had scattered their prisoners to a half-dozen cities.* * *By May, 1980, then, with the hostage-rescue option abandoned,with other avenues of negotiation having been triedand found fruitless, the prospects for the release of the fiftythreeAmerican diplomats had, if anything, worsened. TheAmerican position was one of resignation. Though no onewould say so publicly, the feeling in the Carter administrationhad become that the hostages would be released only whenthe Iranians decided to do so. Washington’s leverage on theissue had shown itself to be minimal, whether because ofob jective conditions or government policy.Yet from the Iranian perspective, the failed rescue-missionhad major psychological importance beyond what it said ordid not say about the will or the ability of the United Statesto act. By May, 1980, the fundamentalists had clearly gained

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 333the upper hand in the internal power struggle that had beenjoined in November, 1979 with the capture of the AmericanEmbassy. In mid-May, the results of the balloting for the Majlismade this official. While Bani-Sadr had won 75 percent of thevote in the earlier presidential election, the Islamic RepublicanParty took a clear majority of the seats in the parliamentaryelection. Having beaten back Bani-Sadr’s leadership challenge,the militant leaders of Iran’s 180,000 mullahs quickly escalatedtheir demands, now seeking to purge the universities andthe government bureaucracy of all but the most committedfundamentalists. Many of those fired had been long-time, antishahactivists who found themselves, to their surprise, accusedof collaborating with the imperial regime. Major efforts by thefundamentalists were also under taken to pressure women outof public life and to restrict their activities. Prosecutor-GeneralAyatollah Ali Qoddusi admitted in May to holding 1,500-1,700political prisoners, a number gradually approaching shah-erafigures. Large numbers of ex ecutions continued through thesummer as did barbarous stonings of Iranian sinners.For Bani-Sadr, still nominally charged with running agov ernment, the subsequent consolidation of power in fundamentalisthands made his job very nearly impossible. “Wecannot fight imperialism simply by shouting hostile slogans,”he declared, trying to orient the nation forward and direct itsattention to the real problems that lay ahead. And clearly,those problems, left unresolved, had the potential to underminethe revolution even in the face of United States impotenceor reluctance to act. Even Khomeini, absolutist that hewas, began to express concern about the revolution’s failureto produce a government capable of restoring order, aboutthe constant rumors of military coups, about the intermittentvio lence that was erupting in different parts of the country.By March, 1980, inflation had risen in Iran to 25.6 percentover the previous year; the price of rice had climbed 30.6percent. 34 The continued emigration of skilled Iranians, Bani-Sadr noted, would severely hurt the revolution, particularlywhile Iran remained very much dependent on the outsideworld. In Words reminiscent of Bazargan’s, he warned thepeople that they must settle down to work. 35

334PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSNor did the opening of the Majlis on May 28 seem to foretella speedy resolution of matters, either within Iran or in regardto the United States. Members of the new parliament continuedto talk of a trial for the hostages; many remained fixed on thegoal of punishing the United States for its past and presentrelations with Iran. As one Majlis deputy put it: “Our purposein holding the hostages is to put America on trial, so that wecan prove to the world the oppression and tyranny sufferedby this deprived nation at the hands of the American Governmentand the CIA organizations, and to expose their crimes.” 36As Bani-Sadr’s power continued to wane, the Islamic RepublicanParty tightened its hold on the country. The ailingKhomeini, though still the unchallenged leader, movedslightly toward the background. Semi-official assassinationteams successfully murdered the shah’s nephew in Parisand the outspoken Ali Akhbar Tabataba’i in Washington;an at tempt against Shahpour Bakhtiar in Paris came closeto suc cess. These events in July were matched in Tehranby a new coup scare, involving several former or currentmilitary officers. The armed forces, already weakened, wereonce again purged and several dozen people were executed.Again, an attempt was made to link proregime moderates tothese ac tivities. Madani, for example, was forced out of theMajlis.If any final event was necessary to demonstrate the newera in Iran it was furnished by the death of the shah inCairo on July 27, 1980. The revolutionary leaders’ fears thatsomehow their revolution might be undone and the shahrestored to power once again were finally put to rest. So toowas the mis placed belief among Americans that the passingof the shan could, in and of itself, lead to the release of thehostages. The shah’s role in the hostage crisis had long agobecome sym bolic. The focus had shifted—from the holdingof American diplomats as bargaining chips to force thereturn of the shah and his money to the holding of thesepeople as spies an enemies. ** On July 2,1980 the militants released hostage Richard Queen, who was later diagnosed assuffering from multiple sclerosis. This reduced the number hostages to fifty-two.

IRAN’S SECOND REVOLUTION 1979-80 335The shah’s death once again highlighted the question ofthe historical relations between the two countries. SomeAmeri cans argued that their country had deserted a longtimeally in his hour of need; others said that America shouldnever have so closely associated itself with the shah. It willtake a more detached generation to examine the evidenceand determine whether America’s error lay in doing toolittle or too much for the shah.Important as the hostage issue remained for Americans,there was more and more discussion of the problem ofUnited States-Iranian relations outside the hostage crisis.Many gov ernment people began to express the feelingthat even if the hostages were eventually freed, relationsbetween the United States and Iran were unlikely toimprove dramatically, other than through long years ofreconstructive diplomacy. Neither Iranian domestic politicsnor the will or whim of Ayatollah Khomeini would allowthe country to be responsive to any American initiative anytime in the near future. At the same time, more hawkishapproaches might threaten broader United States interests.The United States had to consider the price of revengeagainst Iran in light of its broader interests in the PersianGulf region, its relations with other Islamic coun tries andwith its European allies, and the newly perceived needto strengthen the international anti-Soviet united front,particularly in light of new Soviet expansionism as manifestedin Afghanistan.Furthermore, history had taught the United Statesthat Third World revolutions often brought in their wakeextensive and long-term diplomatic ruptures in relations,especially where regimes relatively friendly to the UnitedStates were overthrown. * While a leftist victory in Iranseemed unlikely, the revolution’s whole point had been toestablish itself as an independent power force, based on an* The 1955-57 break between America and Egypt took twenty years to resolve; the 1958Iraqi revolution, despite several later changes of government, has t 0tiuced continued hostility;United States reconciliation with China took twenty-five years. Many other examplescould be cited. Often a whole political generation must pass before such wounds are healed.

336PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSIslamic regime and ideology and distinguishable from boththe Marxist-Communist philosophy of the USSR and theWestern, democratic traditions of the United States. Such anentity could be just as opposed to America and to Americaninterests as any Communist regime, even while remainingequally hos tile toward Moscow.Thus, the United States and Iran, two countries whosefriendship had begun with such high expectations andwhose relations had included fine moments of selflesscooperation as well as many shameful episodes of corruptionand insensitivity, were now the bitterest of enemies. A newhistorical era had opened—one of uncertainty for the twonations and for the whole world as well.

APPENDIX AThe Role of the MediaMuch has been written recently about the role of the mediavis-a-vis Iran. The Iranian crisis brought the American mediaits biggest and toughest news story since Watergate. A yearlongrevolution, the rise to international celebrity status ofan unfamiliar Islamic clergyman, and the holding hostage offifty-three Americans provided the news media with a seriesof events as difficult to understand as they were sensational.For long periods at a time, developments in Iran ate up thelion’s share of the American news media’s resources, andoverall, the combination of the new phenomenon of satellitebroad casts, the assumption by American correspondents ofthe role of de facto political intermediaries, and the almostunprece dented scope of international press coverage focusedex tended worldwide attention on Iran, with an intensity andim mediacy rarely before equaled.Yet for all their efforts, American newspaper and televisionjournalists were subjected to an almost unprecedented levelof criticism. Just as the shortcomings of the United Statesgov ernment were blamed on the failure of its intelligencecommu nity, the public’s confusion over the meaning of the

338PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSIranian revolution were pinned on the shortcomings of theAmerica press, despite the fact that among the many, oftenvery different Iran stories published over the past decade,were some that were very well done, indeed. The variance inmedia performance provides one of the most illuminatingexamples of the diverse strengths and weaknesses of theAmerican media’s coverage of foreign affairs, particularlywhen their news is coming from a foreign country withwhich the American media has only modest familiarity.Over the years, leading specialists on Iran have often beenstrong in their criticism of reportage in Iran. Writing in 1967,Professor Richard Cottam complained that “the Americanpress seemed to treat the Iranian regime as sacrosanct,”ignor ing its pattern of repression and the dictatorialmanagement of its political system. No American journalistswere stationed in Tehran, he noted, and Iranian stringerscould hardly be ex pected to write stories that might lead totheir own arrests. Cottam even argued that this failure inproper coverage was a contributing factor in the middle-classopposition’s growing disillusionment with the United States. 1More than a decade later, in the midst of the Iranianrevolu tion, Professor James Bill found little improvementin the news media’s handling of Iranian tensions: “TheAmerican mass media’s coverage of Iran has over the yearsbeen consis tently sparse, superficial and distorted. Majornewspapers such as The New York Times, The WashingtonPost, and Wall Street Journal,” Bill claimed, “have beenespecially weak in their reporting on Iran, misrepresentingthe nature and depth of opposition to the Shah.” 2Other journalists echoed these evaluations. Just after heand his colleagues had been expelled from Iran in January,1980. Douglas Watson noted in the Baltimore Sun: “If Iranhad been covered half as well by the American pressduring the decades of the shah’s modernizing but arrogant,friendly but cruel and corrupt rule [as it was during thehostage crisis] American might have understood better howto avoid the disaster tha has occurred there.” 3Many similar comments came from Iranian revolutionaiesthemselves, and from sympathizers in the United States.

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 339“By and large the American news media routinely havecharacterized the Iranian conflict as the work of turbanedreligious zealots in league with opportunistic Marxists,rather than—as they might have—the reaction of peopleoutraged by a repres sive regime. By doing so the press hashelped to misinform American public opinion and narrowthe range of debate on this bellwether foreign policy crisis,”wrote William Dorman, head of the journalism departmentof the California State Uni versity in Sacramento, and ananonymous Iranian co-author in the Columbia JournalismReview. * Ayatollah Shariat-Madari, the popular, moderatereligious figure who led the revolution from inside Iran,remarked, “The journalistic community of the world hascontinually made the libelous charge that we religiousleaders are reactionary and against progress. But that is nottrue. We want science and technology, educated men andwomen, doctors and surgeons.” 4Even the Russians got into the act, as Western press coveragebecame a major issue within Iran. Many broadcasts bythe Soviet-backed National Voice of Iran and Radio of thePatriots condemned, “the liberal American press, whichat first … spoke of human rights in Iran, [but] changed itstune when the people began lighting their sacred fires.All at once they joined in step with the most conservativepapers in the world” to support the shah. “In discussing thedemonstrations,” con tinued this January, 1979 commentary,“the New York Times and the Washington Post never forgotto mention that those involved were a group of fanaticswho are opposed to the so-called liberal programs of theshah. According to them several Million demonstrators inthe streets of cities all across Iran w ere opposed to freedomand they wanted to go back to the Past. Consequently,their torture … was ignored when done bv the liberal shah.”Despite the source of these remarks, they Se em to reflectpopular Iranian sentiment as well. 5Indeed, Iranians in the postrevolutionary period seemed*According to some sources, the co-author, who used the pseudonym Ehsan Omeed, wasactually Mansour Farhang, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations in 1979-80.

340PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSwilling to believe even worse reports about the Western pressSiamak Zand, head of the protocol section of the shah’s pressoffice and responsible for liaison with important visitingjournalists, defected to England in November, 1978. Zandcharged that Western reporters, mostly Europeans, hadaccepted free plane flights, lavish hotel accommodations,and valuable gifts in exchange for favorable articles. 6While Zand admitted that most American journalists insistedon paying their own way in Iran, his charges werewidely accepted within the country. Shortly after the revolution’svictory, Abbas Amir Entezam, deputy prime ministerand government spokesman, attributed Time Magazine’s criticalcoverage of the revolution to its alleged receipt of millionsof dollars since 1953 from the shah and the National IranianOil Company. The Iranian government, he claimed, permanentlyfinanced hundreds of Western periodicals. One assumesthat he was at least partly led to his beliefs by themany paid advertisements placed by the shah’s regime invarious publications, as part of its public relations efforts inthe West. 7Lacking their own tradition of media free from governmentcontrol, the Iranians saw Western news organs as armsof the government. They were deemed to be full partners in asupposed American plan of psychological warfare, sabotage,and terror aimed at overthrowing Ayatollah Khomeini’s government.This is why, Radio Tehran repeatedly told its listeners,“the Western press without exception shamelessly attackedthe Iranian revolution and spread all sorts of lies. …” 8At times, though, Iranian officials bragged about their successin reaching Western public opinion through the newsmedia. In April, 1979, for example, the Iranian Embassy inWashington publicized at home its successes in defending thepositions of the Islamic movement “through dozens of television,radio and press interviews,” including network appearancesbefore 20 million American viewers. The revolution’sfirst prime minister, the relatively moderate Mehdi Bazargan,actually thanked the Western press for its support. “It isthanks to the truth and legitimacy of our struggle andrevolu - tion,” he told a February, 1979 press conference, “that

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 341the attention and cooperation of world public opinion andthe press has been attracted.” This was especially significantgiven the “riches and treasures” squandered by the shah inattempts “to buy” European and American public opinion. 9 *Yet the dominant opinion remained that American newsmenwere essentially acting as spies and saboteurs, linkedto the American government in a sub rosa attempt to destroyKhomeini’s new order. As such, they were no better thanthe “spy” diplomats held hostage in the American Embassy.Though this suspicion was most likely the main reason forthe expulsion of American reporters in January, 1980, therewere also two other factors contributing to the decision.First, the Iranian regime was fearful and resentful of thegenerally accu rate American reporting about divisions andconflicts within Iran, particularly the uprisings among theKurdish and Azer baijani minorities. Second, many Iranianleaders seemed na ively to have believed that if the Americanpublic could only be made to hear their side of the story largeblocs of Ameri cans would rally to support them. When thisdid not happen, the most palatable explanation was that themedia had not made their case fairly or well enough.Within the Iranian understanding of the role of the Americannews media, then, newspaper and television reporterswere as much actors in the evolving political developments ofthe Iran crisis as they were journalists. Within America, theextensive and highly dramatized coverage led many to arguethat it was the press that made Iran one of the main issues inthe early part of the presidential primary campaigns, creatingpressures on the Carter administration for action. The actualextent of media influence in either Iran or the United Stateswill be hotly debated for years to come.But what about the accusations cited above of superficial* Even Ayatollah Khomeini commented: “Coming to France allowed me to inform internationalopinion of the shameful exploitation of the Iranian people by the Shah and his regime.… So, we were able by the information media to expose our problems to the peoples ofthe whole world and to their respective governments.” Cited in Jennifer Parmelee, “Firemento Diplomats: The Western Media and Iran Before and After the Revolution,” senior thesis(Princeton, !980) pp. 39-40.

342PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONScoverage during the years before the revolution? Wascoverage really sparse and misleading? Did the pressmisinform the American public? Should the journalismprofession shoulder a large degree of responsibility for theunpleasant turns taken by this particular crisis?The answer is not a simple one. While the shortcomings ofthe media in this area are far greater than many editors andjournalists will admit, even to themselves, the problems areoften in categories different from those identified by theirchallengers. If one goes back and reads news articles and editorialsin the Washington Post and The New York Times dayby day during the four years before the revolution, dozensof pieces citing Iran’s economic problems and instability,the rampant torture and political repression can be found.There were more than a few editorials warning of the needto dis tance United States policy from the shah, challengingthe massive arms-sales programs, and critically analyzingIran’s new international role.This does not completely invalidate Bill’s criticisms, forthe media’s greatest shortcoming was in the failure of itscoverage to foster greater awareness among Americans ofIran’s domes tic politics and culture. Nor do Dorman andhis colleague en tirely miss the mark. There were manyoversimplifications in the stories that appeared in suchrespected magazines as Time and Newsweek, as well as inmany of the smaller daily news papers. Nevertheless, theemerging myth that coverage of Iran was a media disasteris quite misleading. 10The real problem is that foreign news coverage is simplytoo often the major basis of public policymakers’ perceptionsot what life in other countries is really like. In general, manypolicymakers do not read the many dispatches and reportsthat come in through embassy and intelligence sources but doavidly and carefully read their daily newspapers and watcnthe evening television news. Congress, which lacks access tomost of the sources available to the executive branch, is evenmore dependent on publicly disseminated information.While international news coverage is not exactly anorphan in the makeup of newspapers and television reports,

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 343it leads a somewhat precarious life. Most editors assume thattheir readers have little interest in overseas affairs, unlessthe events have some direct impact on their own lives. Thus,those who define the news are constantly influenced by thisperceived public disinterest. If such stories take up more ofthe editor’s limited time and space than the public wants,it is argued, the effect will eventually be felt in decliningcircula tion and ratings. On the other end of the journalismspectrum are those members of the press who see it as oneof the duties of a free press to provide facts and analysesof those events that shape history, whether they occurdomestically or in far-off lands. 11Of course, American periodicals range from the half-dozenor so prestige newspapers, which place a high emphasis onforeign news and employ their own foreign correspondents,to the hundreds of dailies that focus overwhelmingly on localdevelopments and publish only abbreviated, event-orientedre ports of foreign events culled from the dispatches of the wireservices. The network news programs tend to fall betweenthese two groups, thus playing an important supplementaryinformation role in many parts of the country. Weekly newsmagazines fill a similarly complementing, rather than selfsufficient, journalistic part.Each of these forms of reporting has its own specialcon straints. Television is restricted by self-defined needsfor brev ity, drama, and visual appeal. Since most storiesrun less than three minutes and since abstract ideas arenotoriously hard to communicate through a camera lens,such coverage is usually insufficient. Further, if an editor ofa major daily errs in his judgment on a story’s importanceit appears on page 8 rather than on page 1; if a televisioneditor makes the same error the story appears not at all.Certain innovations, like Public Broadcasting’s “MacNeil-Lehrer Report,” which spends thirty minutes on a singleimportant story, hold promise but have not yet caught on toany great extent. At any rate, until the revolution—and in areal sense until the hostage crisis—Iran remained largely aprint-journalism story.Throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the press—with

344PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSsome notable exceptions—generally held a higher view of theshah’s achievements and abilities than did the United Statesgovernment. On the other hand, beginning around 1972, coverageof Iran’s international and economic role began to generatemore attention, and a gradually more critical evaluation.While many stories continued to ratify the conventional wisdomof the Nixon-Ford years, by 1974 others began to appearseriously questioning the basis of the alliance.Before late 1977, outside of interviews with the shah onSunday panel shows and on news-magazine programs, therewas sparse television coverage of Iran. What little there wastended to emphasize the issue of arms sales even more heavilythan did the print media. One notable television scoop, however,was the shah’s admission, on CBS’s “Sixty Minutes,” ofSAVAK activities in the United States. Television reportingon the revolution itself was even more upbeat than that of thepress, with some stories holding out hopes for the shah’s victoryas late as December, 1978. Most of the evening news featuresran only one or two minutes in length; the longer itemstended to focus on the story’s American angle: the statementsof President Carter, threats to Iranian oil production, and theproblems of Americans in Iran.It would perhaps be most useful to analyze mediacoverage through three different periods: 1972 through1977, the years we call in hindsight the prerevolutionperiod; January, 1978 through February, 1979, the era of therevolution itself; and March, 1979, to the present, a timecharacterized by the confus ing nature of the new Islamicregime and, after November, 1979, by media preoccupationwith the American hostages.1972-77Iran’s drive for modernization and for great power status wasmarked by a number of events in the early 1970s, includingthe shah’s lavish celebration of the Persian empire’s twentyfive-hundred-yearanniversary; President Richard Nixon’sMay, 1972 promise to sell the shah all nonnuclear weaponshe desired; Iran’s nationalization of oil production; andthe OPEk price increases in 1973. These events produced

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 345a number of stories, each covering some aspect of Iran’sinternational poli cies and actions.The American press did a good job in explaining Iran’srole in the new Nixon Doctrine strategy, United Statesarms sales to Iran, and the Iranian role in the petroleumupheavals of 1973. Much attention was also devoted toUnited States-Iranian relations and to public and officialmoves of the Tehran government. During the first fewyears of this period, Cottam’s earlier criticisms remainedvalid—coverage of the shah’s government remained fairlyuncritical. By mid-1974, however, a turning point had beenreached; thereafter there was increasing discussion of theshortcomings of the Iranian regime and of its internalproblems.Even during this latter period, though, there was atendency within the press, as well as within academic andcongres sional circles, to focus on the regional dangers facingIran and America: Was the American military buildup of theshah pro ducing a regional arms race? Might it lead to a warin which America would be involved? Would money beingspent for ar maments perhaps be better applied to Iraniansocial and eco nomic development? If there was relativelylittle attention paid to those who stood in opposition to theshah, it was for the simple reason that by 1965 the shah hadcrushed any organized or vocal dissidence. Only urbanterrorism remained as an active antigovernment force.Typical of the lengthier early stories was Jonathan Randal’sreport, headlined, “The Shah’s Iran: Arms Debts and RepressionAre the Price of Progress,” in the Washington Post. Despitesome shoot-outs, he wrote, the guerrillas “remainedan isolated island of extreme discontent in Iran’s otherwisego-go success story.” Under the shah, he continued, Iran wasone of the few Third World states “whose problems are theconse quences of its own success.” The shah, “complicated,de voted, authoritarian and impatient,” was responsible formany of these difficulties because of his determination tomake Iran a major Middle East military power “no matterwhat the strains on his still vulnerable oil-based economy.” 12Similar articles appeared in the Washington Post and

346PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSThe New York Times over the following two years. The 1973Arab-Israeli war, with its confirmation of the fragility ofregional stability, called attention to the growing UnitedStates-to-Iran arms-sales program. Yet the real escalation innews coverage came with the sudden realization that OPEChad the power to raise oil prices almost at will. This traumatended to end con cern over the vulnerability of Iran’s singleproducteconomy, as long as the single product was oil.During 1974, however, there was some divergence inap proach between Washington Post and The New YorkTimes correspondents. James Clarity, writing for the latter,produced relatively upbeat, lighter stories about Iran’srising living stan dards and about its rush to development,while Lewis Simons, the Washington Post’s South Asiacorrespondent, produced some critical, more insightfulpieces. According to Simons, Iran’s new oil wealth madethe Iranian government confident it could overcomewhatever internal problems still existed in Iran, but UnitedStates specialists were predicting mounting discontent aspromises were being made but not being kept. The shah ran“a police state” and his drive for development in record time“is broadening a gap between the shah and the people.”Though American diplomats saw the regime as stable, themonarch’s ability to control events was decreasing whilethose around the throne were cutting him off from accurateinformation on Iran’s problems. 13By 1975 Iran was being better covered, receiving more attentionthan practically any other Third World country. If thestory was seen more in terms of strategic issues, petroleum,and United States-Iranian relations these were, after all, themost active questions of the day. No one reading the WashingtonPost or The New York Times even by that early date couldfail to sense the very real and serious problems already becloudingthe Iranian economic “miracle.” There were alsoreflections of congressional concern that American strategytoward Iran was being formulated without adequate considerationof the long-term consequences and that Congressshould examine Washington’s arms-sale policy. 14This does not mean that the administration’s arguments

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 347were summarily deprecated. A number of well-done thoughtpieces examined both sides of the debate about arms sales,the role of American technicians in Iran, and the shah’sambi tions. In one such article, Marilyn Berger expressedthe view that the shah “is a ruler who is trying to improvethe lot of his people economically; yet he is dictatorial andrepressive.” The United States was placing its bets on thisambitious and un predictable ruler because “for the timebeing there is a coinci dence of interest. But nobody wantsto look more than 10 years ahead.” The point of the articlewas the seeming lack of American options: the shah wassaid to be “the only one around with any power in an areaof weakness.” 15Editorialists and correspondents became much moredoubt ful of this policy as time progressed. The UnitedStates was making a “profound mistake” selling so muchweaponry in the Persian Gulf, concluded The New YorkTimes, and the governments in that region were makingan equally profound mistake by squandering their wealthon military display. Washington Post editorials criticized“a network of commit ments that are becoming steadilymore dangerous and onerous,” that were likely to getboth America and Iran into trouble. As long as the shahconcentrated on military hard ware to the exclusion of Iran’sother needs, “the outlook for stable growth [was] obscure.” 16Investigative journalists turned their attention toproblems in the arms-sales programs. Leaked documents,congressional reports, and other materials were usedto demonstrate the serious shortcomings, as well as thecorruption, that were in volved. Iranian complaints aboutmalfeasance, about the rising costs of arms purchases, andabout the problems created by private American commercialventures were thoroughly aired. 17Greater concern was also directed toward repressionin Iran. Simons repeated his “police state” analysis andcalled the shah’s relatives the worst offenders in corruption;there were articles on press censorship and on SAVAKand torture. “Iran Secret Police Held ‘Law Unto Self,’ “proclaimed one Washington Post headline in presenting

348PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSthe reports of respected international organizations onthe subject. Another Washington Post article, this one onSAVAK operations in the United States first exposed byAmerican television journalists pointed out that despite therepression it was now difficult to find any Iranian studentswho supported the Tehran govern ment. 18Finally, throughout 1976 and 1977, Iran’s economic problemsbecame the subject of a continuing string of stories. Forone thing, the country was not selling enough oil to pay itsbills. Bungling by Iranian officials was also being blamedfor the end of the boom. 19 A full year before the revolutionbegan, the best American newspapers were clearly tellinga story of a country with a harsh dictatorial government,severe eco nomic difficulties, and an unhealthy emphasis onimporting weapons it was unprepared to use for years tocome. Editorials warned Washington that a re-examinationof American policy was necessary.This does not mean that media coverage of Iran in theseyears was an unbroken pattern of accuracy and profoundin sight. The Washington-datelined stories on strategic andoil issues were just that, Washington stories. Althoughthey rep resented some good reporting, it was clear thatcorrespon dents had failed to understand the effect of eventson Iranian society. Even where the stories were datelinedTehran, it was obvious that correspondents found it difficultto get beyond what officials in Tehran were prepared tolet them see and hear. Seldom did reporters succeed inbreaking through or communicating to readers the culturaland political context of Iranian life. The major frictionswere uncovered but because there was a dearth of firsthandreports about these problems, they were dealt with ina few general sentences. By the time the few available factsreached the news magazines, the ratio of hard news to theshah’s public relations’ press releases, was even lower.Interviews with reporters show that while there was nocen sorship of American reporters’ dispatches, the Iraniangovernment tried to intimidate or buy the loyalty of manyjournalists. They were given gifts and free junkets whilered tape was used to limit their investigations or to curb

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 349critical writ ers. The shah tended to grant interviews only toa select group of journalists and other high officials wereoften inaccessible. There was an approved list limiting thoseto whom the latter group could speak.Correspondents had to submit a list of everythingthey wanted to cover to the Ministry of Information forapproval; cameramen needed written permission to filmany scene at all. When the American Cultural Center inTehran was bombed, just before President Carter’s visit in1977, an NBC team at tempting to film the site was brieflyarrested.Consequently, the three safest story types were thosebased on interviews with the shah or the prime minister,pieces on Americans in Iran, and travel/scenery stories.This, of course, was in addition to the internationallyorientedcoverage. Sources were limited by the fact thatmany Iranians were afraid to meet with or talk to foreignreporters; many local Iranian stringers were also employedby the Ministry of Infor mation and thus functioned asconduits for the official government line.Much of the difficulty lay in the nature of the Americanpress. The American media system, in contrast withEuropean practice, encourages reporters to be generalists,moving from story to story and region to region; assignmentsrarely last beyond three-to-five years. Reporters, therefore,generally lack the ability to speak the native language, werenever a continu ing presence in Tehran, and did not have thereliable sources that can be cultivated only by long servicein a country. As a consequence, few American journalistswere familiar with Iran, and even fewer were knowledgeableabout Islam or the values of Muslim societies. *In addition, American journalism lacked a strong traditionof scholarship. Reporters have been good at investigatorywork or at combing through documents, but rarely do theydo the hard research so apparent in the work of their British* After The New York Times closed its Tehran bureau in February, 1977 there ere no full-timeAmerican newspaper correspondents in the country until November, 1978, though manyreporters were sent in on a temporary basis.

350PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSand French colleagues. To compare American stories onIran to the detailed expositions of Le Monde’s Eric Rouleauis a so bering exercise, as are comparisons with a number ofother European newspapers.Writing in 1973, Rouleau described the poverty of the southTehran slums, the “mixed blessing” of the shah’s agriculturalreforms, and the effects of inflation: “Some observers areamazed that the absence of safety valves, like independenttrade unions, a representative parliament and genuineopposi tion parties, has not led to mass outbursts. One reasonfor this is that the country’s economic progress has beenreally benefi cial—even modestly—for some sections of thepopulation, and this in turn has given rise to hopes in otherstrata.” 20 Al though many of Rouleau’s conclusions were notaltogether ab sent in the stories of his American counterparts,Rouleau’s long experience and detailed knowledge lent hisstories an aura of authority those of many Americans lacked.Reporting the Revolution, 1978Beginning in January, 1978, a massive, twelve-month-longrevolution demonstrated the depth of opposition to the imperialregime. The American media, like the American government,found it difficult to gauge the movement’s breadthand political direction. Reporters and editors were oftenconfused over the grievances of anti-shah demonstrators,the motives of their leadership, and the likelihood of theirsuccess.Critics see a great deal of ignorance and cultural biasin the coverage of this period. They point to the chargedlanguagedescriptions of “mobs” following leftists andbackward-look ing “black-robed mullahs” in acts of “riot,”“anarchy,” and “rampage.” In comparison, the shah wasfavorably portrayed. While the opposition was pictured asfanatical and irrational, critics of the media coverage claim,the shah’s motives and goals—if not always his methods—remained unchallenged. Consequently, the American publicreceived a picture of a ruler who, with all his shortcomings,was far preferable to those who might take his place. 21There is much to be said in support of these criticisms. The

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 351lack of knowledge displayed by many journalists was nothingshort of appalling. At the same time, it should come as nosurprise that the media did far better on their home turf—thedetailed coverage of daily events—than in their more vulnerablearea—the analysis of political forces. Looking back fromthe perspective of events in Afghanistan and at the UnitedStates Embassy in Tehran, many of these early perceptionsmay have been more accurate than contemporary critics ofthe press would have thought possible.Once the revolution triumphed in January, 1979, it waspre sumed that any good observer would have been ableto predict the outcome in January, 1978. Such hindsightignores the fact that history’s dramas do not always followset scripts. The final act could quite easily have turned outdifferently; some of the factors—particularly the shah’sparalysis in the face of the crisis and Khomeini’s takeoverof the opposition—could hardly have been foreseen.Nevertheless, it is interesting to compare the media’s performanceto that of the intelligence agencies. The contrastsare often in the press’s favor. While the Washington Postand The New York Times reported in May and early June,1978 on the alliance between Islamic political forces andother opponents of the shah, the CIA’s daily reports to thepresident, which had earlier noted such a possibility, did nottake note of the alliance until June 17, and then only withsome uncertainty. On the other hand, while the press wasrelatively optimistic about the shah’s future in August andSeptember, the president’s sources—those from the StateDepartment some what more than those from the CIA—pointed out the difficulties blocking any easy resolution ofthe crisis. 22The media should beware of any excessive pride onthis point. In discussing the “intelligence failure,” theWashington Post complained that as early as February it hadbeen clear that things were getting out of hand, althoughthe United States Embassy in Tehran was still insistingat that time that there was no trouble. 23 By August, wheneven senior Iranian civil servants were saying that the shahwould have to go the American diplomats stood by their

352PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSearlier confident analyses. Yet if all this was so obvious soearly, one might well ask why didn’t the Washington Posttell its readers the score until October and November?Yet the media’s real failure lay not in predictions (or lackthereof) but in analysis. The American system of assigningoverseas events did not require in-depth background knowledgeof the actors and forces involved in the story being covered.The items reporters had followed the week before theirIran assignments and those they would turn to next, in mostcases, were not linked together in any consistent mannerconducive to building a commanding understanding of thematerial upon which the stories were based.Anyone dealing with the press in those heady days hasamusing stories to tell about attempts by the more conscientiousto obtain instant education. Network news reportersasked Middle East specialists to describe the differences betweenSunni and Shi’a Muslims, the relationship between religionand politics in Islamic countries, and the concept ofjihad—all in one five-minute phone call. The reporter had toknow all about these things by that evening when in his networknews story he would authoritatively educate millionsof viewers. There can be few experiences more disconcertingthan watching highly paid reporters—who a few hoursor days earlier had never heard the word “ayatollah” or“Shi’a”—discourse learnedly on these subjects to viewerscoast to coast. Ordinarily, such trivialization of knowledgeis annoying to the scholar, but of no great moment to theviewer. But when understanding the role of Islam in a MiddleEast country is tantamount to understanding why a crisishas oc curred in that region and, more important, why onescountry has chosen to respond to this crisis in a particularway, trivial and tragic no longer seem so far apart.What the media repeatedly failed to communicate, bothdur ing and after the revolution, was the world view of theIrania revolutionaries. I do not mean here that the mediadid n give fair time and space to Ayatollah Khomeini andhis colleagues and aides. On the contrary, they were givenmore free television time and more interviews in printthan any other foreign politicians within recent memory.

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 353But Khomeini could not adequately explain himself to anAmerican au dience—only an American reporter coulddo so. Yet the American reporters did not understand hismessage them selves. They did not read the Iranian pressor listen to the Iranian radio—even in translation. Timeand time again, they were scooped by the European press,whose journalists had area expertise and better developedand maintained sources.Most surprisingly, American journalists often seemed tohave forgotten their own pre-1978 stories. They had shownwhy Iranians were motivated to hate the shah’s regime,they had documented the economic disaster facing Iran. Yetall this material was rarely tapped as explanation for therevolu tionary response.Further, despite the media’s alleged overemphasison “black-robed mullahs,” American reporters in facttended to underestimate their influence. Since Islamicfundamentalists, it was believed, could not possibly emergeas leaders of any lasting postrevolutionary state, it wasonly necessary to await the emergence to power of a newmiddle-class pragmatic elite, whose world view would beintelligible to an American televi sion audience. Finally,there was no consistent American media “line” or level ofquality. Stories differed drastically from day to day andfrom week to week. Top-notch analyses were often followedby simplistic clichés, sometimes in stories written by thesame reporters.The technical difficulties and the danger of appearing biasedwhile covering the story were also factors that coloredthe reception, of news from Iran. During the revolution therevolu tionaries generally criticized the foreign media asbeing par tial to the government: “Newspapers throughoutthe world should support us against the shah’s regime,”said Ayatollah Khomeini. From the other side, the shah’ssupporters often acted as if Khomeini had received his wish.The shah-controlled Radio Tehran attacked the foreign pressfor “sensationalism” and for “false and fabricated reports.”This enemy attacks people’s minds and thoughts and, bycreating a psychological war, would like to see an atmosphere

354PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSof chaos and anarchy.” Similar statements would be made ayear later by the Islamic Republic’s controlled media. 24Although Prime Minister Sharif-Emami urged the Iranianmedia to report accurately on revolutionary events—”If ourradio doesn’t broadcast it, the BBC will”—the shah’s mendid not make it easy for foreign reporters. About seventyfivere porters and a few resident bureau chiefs played a catand-mousegame to circumvent these obstacles. For daysIran was shut off from the outside world. Outgoing overseascalls and incoming messages were delayed or disconnected.The telex network collapsed, wire service teleprinters shutdown, gov ernment agents monitored calls. SAVAK expelledUPI’s chief and temporarily impounded office records. AfterSeptember, 1978 the Ministry of Information stopped givingout informa tion and top officials refused interviews. 25One American reporter was killed by a stray rifle shot.Three other Western correspondents, accused of attackingan army officer and joining an antiregime demonstration,were briefly arrested. Rumors flourished and even themost basic facts or casualty figures could not be accuratelyestablished. Tehran-based correspondents, for example, hadto cover the August, 1978 Isfahan fighting via telephone. 26Early reports attempted both to understand the revolution’scauses and to communicate the high degree of confidencefreely expressed by the shah and his officials. “Rarely wouldcontemporary history appear to provide such an example of apeople’s ingratitude towards a leader who had brought aboutan economic miracle of similar proportions,” wrote JonathanRandal. But, he quickly added, there was another side to it.The shah’s haste in forcing modernization, the cost overruns,and poor management had brought on grave problems. 27Yet through early 1978 Randal and William Braniganjudged the shah to be “firmly in control” and to have “morethan enough resources to crush any serious challenge to hisregime.” 28 Randal had not pulled this judgment out of thinair: Mehdi Bazargan agreed with the assessment.Newsweek saw the uprising only in terms of the Muslin 1mullahs’ opposition to land reform, liquor stores, and movietheatres. Two months later they had grasped the alliance

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 355between “urban liberals” and the “conservative Moslemcoali tion,” but they still saw it as having “little chance ofsparking a full-scale revolution.” 29Even as late as September, Time Magazine still definedthe rev olution’s motive power as “Islamic puritanism”sparked by the shah’s “rigorous modernization campaign.”Discontent had also been encouraged by the Russians andby Palestinian groups. Branigin also continued to portraycomplaints as pri marily religious in nature. Yet only fivedays later, William Claiborne wrote a splendid think pieceon the causes of the revolt in the Washington Post. 30By the end of October, the picture of the shah’s futurebegan to look decidedly gloomier. The Washington Postreported that the country was out of control and thatwhile moderate opposition leaders were seeking a peacefultransition, Kho meini’s power was so great that none dareddisagree with him in public. The New York Times, whosecoverage had gener ally been superior, had reported indepth on the views of Khomeini and National Front leadersfor some time. Now, the Times noted the revolution’s unitybehind Khomeini and the swing of all opposition forces inhis direction. Jay Ross ex plained that the frustrated middleclass had almost entirely deserted the shah and that theruler’s great dreams had ended in failure and corruption. 31Nevertheless, repenting of their earlier criticisms of theshah, both The New York Times and the Washington Post sawthe opposition as a serious threat to American interests andto regional stability. The New York Times called on the WhiteHouse to support the shah while keeping lines open to theop position. The Washington Post concluded: “It is possibleto see with new clarity why Americans have good reason tohope [the shah] rides out the storm,” though his survival wasun certain. For him to be swept out would “be a misfortunefor the United States.” As for the two main elements of theshah’s opposition—antimodern theologians and communistsubver sives—they were “in their separate backhandedways, tributes to his vision for Iran” as a modern and non-Communist na tion. 32The media’s underestimate of the opposition’s prospects,

356PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSso similar to that made by government sources, demonstratedmajor misunderstandings of events in Iran even as theywere occurring. As for the opinions expressed in editorials,they would not soon be forgotten by the victorious rebels.The Hostage Crisis, 1979-80With the kidnapping of fifty-three American diplomatsas hos tages in November, 1979, the Iran story attained theultimate American angle. The drama of this unprecedentedact led to saturation coverage. Television cameras, on anendless stake out around the American Embassy, showedthousands of Iranian demonstrators shaking their fists andshouting anti-American slogans. Every available detail onthe hostages’ well-being, every statement by the militantstudents, and every hint of any new development wascarefully scrutinized. The media played a central role inpromoting concentration on the issue across America. Ifreporters had not improved their under standing of Iranianpolitics and ideology, at least they now had a story moreresponsive to standard treatment.Since there was no direct contact between the Iranian andAmerican governments, the press and television becamedip lomatic intermediaries. United States officials asked theAmer ican media to avoid antagonizing the Iranians; Iranianleaders sought to use journalists to carry their message toAmericans. More than a few people understandably feltthat the great amount of attention focused by the presson Tehran only in flamed the conflict. Perhaps it would bebetter, they reasoned, for the news people to go away andgive quiet diplomacy a chance to settle the issue.Iranians sincerely believed that if Americans could bemade to hear their story they would support AyatollahKhomeini’s policies. Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr, then Iran’sforeign minister, told reporters in late November, 1979 thatthe press alone could solve the crisis. The hostages would bereleased only if the shah were extradited to Iran. This wouldrequire a shift in American public opinion capable of beingbrought about only by the American press. He even offeredto hold a one-day sem inar with journalists to instruct themin how this might be done, an offer that was declined.

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 357What kind of articles and television stories did the Iranianswant? Most likely, ones showing the extent of repression, torture,corruption, and oppression during the shah’s regime—stories Americans were more familiar with than Iranians believed.Second, they wanted more coverage of the “constructive”accomplishments of the revolution, fewer reports onits chaos and its summary executions of “enemies” of Islam.Fi nally, they sought greater attention focused on American“re sponsibility” for the “crimes” of the old regime. WhileIranian contentions that the shah was a mere Americanpuppet were roundly rejected by informed reporters asabsurd, there were other areas in which the problem was notone of different per ceptions but of different levels of interest.In Iran, for example, CIA participation in the 1953 pro-shahcoup or in the origins of SAVAK five years later were livingissues of tremendous importance; to correspondents, theseevents were ancient his tory.Western press comment on the summary trials and executionsin revolutionary Iran provoked a wave of anger. “WeIranians cannot understand,” said then-Prime Minister Bazarganin May, 1979, “the sentiments and support displayedby the Western press for the traitors and criminals … whoruled this country for more than 25 years in the most oppressiveand barbarous manner.” Correspondents did not understandthat the struggle was continuing against the shah’sregime, he continued. “A nation which has given up so manydead and wounded and has been plundered is not preparedto become calm the moment the shah leaves and his regimeis overthrown.” 33 Bazargan pleaded for understanding fromjournalists, speaking of “fantastic popular pressure” for theexecutions and warning that without such measures a muchlarger-scale massacre was possible. 34Ayatollah Khomeini and the Revolutionary Councilleader ship, however, saw Western media coverage as no lessthan part of a carefully planned plot to undo their revolution.In speech after speech, Khomeini pressed home this theme.“There is a great deal of propaganda against us,” he said ina May 19 speech. “In their newspapers, in their magazines,they write that Khomeini has said that the breasts of all

358PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSwomen should be cut off.” When Western reporters wroteabout the Arab uprising in Khuzistan province, RadioTehran explained that “imperialism, American intelligence,”and other hostile forces were orchestrating the media. 35The frustration of Iran’s new leadership at their inabilityto wield the same absolute control over their country theshah had exercised was a prime factor behind the seizureof the hostages. Rather than coping with the real internalproblems behind the chaos, as Bazargan attempted todo, Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian media saw thefrequent strikes, demonstrations, and demands of theethnic minorities as springing from United States plots. Thefirst step in this cam paign was psychological warfare and“in this connection,” Radio Tehran explained, “the Westernpress without exception shamelessly attacked the Iranianrevolution and spread all sorts of lies. …” 36The Iranian Islamic leaders have a conception of therole of the press similar to that held by many other ThirdWorld rulers today. The duty of the mass media, AyatollahKhomeini told employees of the Tehran newspaper Kayhanin a speech, is to reflect the nation’s aspirations: “The pressmust write what the nation wants, not that which runscounter to the na tion’s; courses. ... If the press still wantsto write anything in support of criminals and traitors, thiswill not be our press— this will be treachery.” 37Given this philosophy, which also characterized theshah’s regime, it was very logical to the Khomeinistsnot only that those in control of the government also bein control of their own media but that friendly nationswould naturally seek to regulate what was printed aboutIran abroad. Further, they made the second assumptionthat foreign newspapers and television news were alsocontrolled by the state—if not for mally then behind thescenes. Hence, the American media were consistently seen,despite denials, to form an arm of United States foreignpolicy, rather than a variety of indepen dent institutions.Just as the shah saw Western press coverage of his studentopponents overseas as a hostile act, Khomeini interpretedthe publication of interviews with the exiled former Prime

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 359Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar as an attack on Iran. Eachquestioned not only the motives of those who would writesuch stories but the intentions of governments that vvouldallow them to be published.Khomeini’s followers even began by mid-1979 hiring peoplejust to read the foreign press reports, and these readerskept the government informed about critical reporting.Stories particularly singled out included those criticizingthe political power of the clergy, suggesting the existenceof corruption, or comparing the Islamic government withthe shah’s regime. David Lamb of the Los Angeles Timeswas expelled three days after breaking a story about thespread of opium production, addiction, and smuggling as asymptom in the breakdown of order.One story had fatal repercussions. In May, 1980 two reportersfrom the French magazine L’Express interviewed Dr.Chahin Bavafa, director of the Choada hospital in Sanandaj,the major city of southern Kurdistan. She told them aboutatrocities committed by the Khomeinist RevolutionaryGuards during fighting there. She insisted that her name beused to lend authenticity to her accounts. Shortly thereafter,she was captured by government forces and tried by anIslamic court. Charged with sabotage in her work and withpublication in a foreign journal of a counterrevolutionaryand insurrectional appeal, she was shot on June 17. *Ironically, those who claimed that the American mediawere being manipulated by the Iranian militants wereoperating on the same premise as the propagandists inTehran. Both ac cepted the idea that the more coverageKhomeini, Iranian leaders, and the kidnappers received,the more easily they might justify their actions with theAmerican audience. In feet, the exact opposite happened:the more Americans heard themselves being attackedfrom Tehran, the more hostile they became. Thus, NBC’s* The incident is described in detail by Jean-François Revel in L’Express, July J2, 1980, p. 44.“Dictators of the Third World have for several years led a campaign to stifle information.The ayatollah has found the ideal method: to Kill the oppositionists cited in the free press.”This strategy was also used by the shah’s regime.

360PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONScontroversial decision to agree to broad cast a speech fromone of the student terrorists in exchange for an exclusiveinterview with one of the hostages may have set a dangerousprecedent—as well as being in questionable taste^ butturned out to be much less of a public relations victory thanthe militants had thought it would be.Viewing correspondents as spies who were magnifying andfomenting internal disorders, the Iranian authorities beganto crack down on the foreign press even before the embassytake over. As early as June, 1979, Minister of Information NasirMinachi called for the expulsion of all foreign journalists, onthe grounds that the Western mass media were directed byin ternational Zionism and imperialism. Their object, he said,was to mobilize public opinion against the revolution so thatpeople abroad would prefer the shah’s return. 38Petty harassment accompanied new, restrictive regulations.On a number of occasions, satellite communication of televisionstories was blocked by technical means. The ground station,which had been built by the shah, allowed a faster sendingof stories; this technical innovation, like so many of theshah’s other infrastructure improvements, was turned to anotheruse by his enemies. The networks began to fly film outto London. In August, four American reporters and a CBSfilm crew were expelled for filing reports before obtainingprior clearance by local revolutionary committees.Washington Post journalists were told that they could notreport from outside Tehran without notifying the Ministryof National Guidance. They had to be accompanied to allinter views by a representative of that institution.There were some differences among the Islamic revolutionariesover how to proceed. Dr. Mehdi Momken, thedeputy minister of national guidance, said that while themajority of foreign reporters were serious persons, some,especially the Americans, were spies who deliberatelyspread incorrect news. Bani-Sadr, just after his election aspresident, took softer line. “Of course many of them havewritten abomina ble or ridiculous things about us,” he toldLe Monde, “but other have done their job honestly.” On thewhole the presence of Western journalists was “positive for

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 361us and for world opinion ‘ which understands better whatis happening in Iran.” 39Nevertheless, a number of American reporters were forcedI out of Iran in the closing months of 1979 and all were entirelybarred for about ten weeks beginning in mid-January, 1980.At the time of the general expulsion, each of the televisionnet works had about thirty-five people in Tehran. 40Immediately prior to the expulsion decision a CBS reportfrom Washington by Marvin Kalb claimed that ForeignMinister Ghotbzadeh had told foreign visitors that AyatollahKho meini was out of touch with political reality. As soon asGhotbzadeh saw wire-service reports of the story, CBS wasdeprived of satellite facilities. Next, impartial coverage ofAyatollah Shariat-Madari’s followers, including their anti-Khomeini demonstrations, became the last straw and all IAmerican reporters were ordered to leave.By the end of July, after a major coup scare, Americanreport ers were again forced out of the country. SeveralEuropean correspondents were also arrested and chargedwith furnish ing dispatches to American networks andpublications. Given the growing power of the independentrevolutionary commit tees, even the Foreign Ministry couldnot guarantee these journalists protection. Several Iraniannationals working for the television bureaus were takeninto custody and simply disappeared. Tehran newspapersran front-page pictures call ing the Intercontinental Hotel,where most journalists stayed, ‘a nest of spies,” the termearlier applied to the American Embassy.At the same time, the media were also under a certainamount of pressure from the White House. Telephonecalls w ere made to the three networks to postpone certainsegments because, according to United States governmentofficials, they might interfere with delicate negotiations tofree the hostages. Most of the targets of these efforts wereretrospectives on United States-Iranian relations during theshah’s regime.In April, when sanctions were invoked against Iran, Cartermade an unprecedented and largely ignored appeal to newsorganizations to minimize their presence and activities in

362PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSIran. These requests seem to have had relatively little effecton the overall coverage of the crisis. The networks continuedto buy pictures of the hostages from Iranian sources; ABCeven obtained copies of the plans to rescue the hostages,documents that had been captured after that mission’s failure.The entanglement of media coverage with diplomatic effortsmade the analysis of the former a more difficult task.For example, on May 6, 1980, The New York Times carrieda front-page article by Washington correspondent BernardGwertzman claiming that President Carter had assuredoutgo ing Secretary of State Cyrus Vance that he was rulingout the use of military force to settle the crisis in the foreseeablefuture. He would now emphasize political and economicstrategies to free the fifty-three Americans.The “ABC Nightly News” opened the next evening with adramatic report by correspondent Sam Donaldson. PresidentCarter had ordered the Pentagon, he revealed, to beginprepa rations for a second rescue attempt. But knowledgeof this plan might, he added, encourage the Iranians to freetheir vic tims and avoid such a confrontation.Was Donaldson’s “scoop” an irresponsible leak thatjeopar dized American plans? Or was it merely a statement ofthe ob vious dressed up in impressive language? Of course,the De fense Department always has unlimited numbers ofcontingency plans drawn and filed away, including, untilre cently, one proposing reactions to a Canadian invasion ofthe United States.On the other hand, the ABC story might have been an administrationsignal to Iran, another particle of pressure togain the hostages’ release. Equally possible was the idea thatGwertzman’s story might have been planted to misdirect theIranians into complacency, or a leak from Vance’s entourageaimed at holding Carter to his private promises. In short, asthe air filled with leaks designed to support or justify the strategiesof various factions, departments, and individuals inWashington, the contents of articles and television stories onIran took on a dual meaning. This media-political relationshipwas by no means new in Washington, but never before hadit become so central to the policymaking process. Given

APPENDIX A THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA 363the ab sence of direct communication between Washingtonand Tehran the media filled the task usually performed byembas sies and back-channel exchanges.As usual, the American media did a good job in coveringthe events of the Iran crisis. Demonstrations, riots, presscon ferences, political announcements, interviews, andbriefings were generally factually reported to the Americanpeople. Pol icy decisions in Washington, with some notableexceptions, were also reported with reasonable speed andcomprehension, though undoubtedly the close attentionpaid the hostage crisis tended to create overreactions tothe ups and downs of United States-Iranian negotiations,producing unnecessary pressures.The Iran crisis became an overwhelming national fixationin 1980, in part due to this mutual reinforcement betweenWhite House and media. An image-conscious administration,partic ularly so in the midst of a presidential-primarycampaign, carefully gauged the tone of everything written.As middle-level officials noted their superiors’ responsesto each day’s headlines they were given an incentive toleak their own posi tions and thereby bump them onto theagenda, much as many journalists traditionally passed theirstories on to counterparts at The New York Times in order tocatch their own editor’s at tention and command space intheir own papers.The heavy front-page, opening-minute coverage of thehos tage crisis may have backfired on the White House anddam aged American policy by seeming to demand quickresults and the fostering of optimism. The former factorencouraged an acceleration of diplomatic initiatives thatmight have been more effective through calmer, quieter,and slower proce dures. The latter tended to give UnitedStates-Iranian relations a roller-coaster effect. Such issuescan only be evaluated after the passage of more time.There are no easy solutions to the problems revealed inthe history of Iran coverage. Certainly, the media shouldencourage more specialization by reporters, along with basicreading and research regarding the countries and regionsthey are likely to cover. More time and space should also

364PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSbe devoted to explaining how local peoples and regimessee current issues and problems. Foreign leaders cannotdo this directly without adequate and accurate context, theshah’s statements proved misleading and Khomeini’s wereoften incomprehen sible—these ideas must be packaged byAmerican reporters for American audiences.Nowhere is this more true than in the Middle East, wherecomplex historical and ideological factors have created aworld view often at variance with Western conceptions, butit also applies to the rest of the Third World and beyond.The dual extremes of “global village” (the perception of anin creasingly homogenous world) and of exoticism (seeingthese peoples as inscrutable or irrational) must be replacedby more sophisticated levels of understanding.

APPENDIX BUnited States-Iranian RelationsChronology of Events1978-81 *January 1, 1978: The shah of Iran entertains President Carter andJordan’s King Hussein in Tehran.January 9, 1978: Police fire on a crowd of religious demonstrators,killing between six and one hundred people, depend ing on whichside’s estimates are to be believed.February 21, 1978: Police patrol the streets of Tabriz after a week endof rioting in which nine persons are killed and hundreds injured.The demonstrations spread to other cities.March 7, 1978: The government announces that several SAVAKagents and police officials will be disciplined for al lowing theFebruary disturbances to get out of hand.March 29, 1978: Hundreds are arrested in Tabriz fordemonstrating against the shah.*Some of the material used in this chronology was drawn from Congressional ResearchService chronologies prepared by Clyde R. Mark and by members of the “Iran Task Force.”

366PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSMay 11, 1978: The shah personally leads Iranian troops againstdemonstrators in Tehran.May 15, 1978: A general strike called by religious leaderscloses shops and keeps motorists off the streets of Tehran. Troopspatrolling the streets stop demonstrations.June 6, 1978: General Nematullah Nasiri is removed as headof SAVAK, the Iranian secret police.August 27, 1978: Jamshid Amouzegar resigns as prime minister.The shah appoints Jaafar Sharif-Emami to form a new govern ment.October 26, 1978: The shah grants amnesty to fourteen hundred politicalprisoners.October 31, 1978: The government releases the names of thirty-fourSAVAK officials recently relieved from duty.Iran’s oil workers go on strike, reducing oil production in one weekfrom 5.8 million barrels per day to 1.1.November 1, 1978: Troops are deployed in the oil fields to preventsabotage by striking oil workers and to protect those workers not onstrike.November 2, 1978: National Front leader Dariush Foruhar calls for areferendum on a new government. (Over the next few days, violentdemonstrations and strikes sweep through the major cities of Iran.)November 6, 1978: The shah appoints General Gholam Reza Azharias prime minister of a predominantly military govern ment.The day before, during the worst wave of violence in the continuingcrisis, Sharif-Emami had resigned. The State Depart ment announcesUnited States support for the new military government.November 7, 1978: In Paris Ayatollah Khomeini says that an Is lamicRepublic will be formed by force if necessary.November 9, 1978: The shah orders an investigation of the imperialfamily’s wealth and the activities of the Pahlevi Founda tion.Twenty-four hours earlier, the government stops all foreign currencyexchanges to halt the flow of money out of Iran into foreign bankaccounts.

APPENDIX B: CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 1978-80 367The United States ships riot control gear to Iran.Ayatollah Khomeini says in Paris that all contracts with for eignerswill be renegotiated under an Islamic Republic.November 11, 1978: Dariush Foruhar and Karim Sanjabi of the NationalFront are arrested for holding an illegal press confer ence, atwhich they charge that the shah’s government is il legal.November 26, 1978: According to press reports in Washington,President Carter criticizes the United States intelligence agen cies fortheir failure to see the crisis in Iran coming.November 27, 1978: The Washington Post reports that the UnitedStates government has initiated secret contacts with the Iran ianopposition forces.Following a meeting with the shah, Senate Majority LeaderRobert Byrd says that the United States will not interfere inIranian affairs and will view “with utmost gravity and concern”any other nation’s interference. The senator’s visit to Iranis seen as a reaffirmation of United States support for the shah.November 30, 1978: President Carter reaffirms his full confidence inthe shah and says that the United States will not intervene in Iranianaffairs. The president denies reports that he has or dered a review ofthe intelligence community’s evaluations of Iran.December 2, 1978: Ayatollah Khomeini says that when his forcestake over Iran, oil shipments to Israel will be stopped and mili taryties to the United States will be re-examined.December 29, 1978: Oil production falls below 300,000 barrels perday. (Iran’s domestic consumption is 900,000 barrels per day.)December 30, 1978: The National Front expels Shahpour Bakhtiarfor agreeing to establish a cabinet under the shah.December 31, 1978: General Azhari resigns as prime minister asdemonstrations against the shah continue in most Iranian cit ies.January 1, 1979: Bakhtiar tells an interviewer that he will forma cabinet if four conditions are met: that the shah leave Iran; thatSAVAK is disbanded; that police and military personnel responsiblefor shooting demonstrators are tried; and that civilians are put in

368PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONScharge of Iran’s foreign affairs.January 3, 1979: The Majlis (parliament) approves theappointment of Shahpour Bakhtiar as prime minister. Bakhtiarbegins forming a cabinet and a government program to present tothe Majlis for a vote of confidence.January 4, 1979: State Department spokesman Hodding Cartersays that the Carter administration has offered to cooperate withthe new government of Iranian Prime Minister Bakhtiar and thatthe administration has no intention of influencing the shah either tostay or to leave Iran.January 16, 1979: Shah Muhammad Pahlevi leaves Iran for an extended“vacation” abroad. Most observers agree that his depar turemarks the end of his thirty-seven-year-old reign. In his departingmessage, the shah appeals to his people to support the governmentof Prime Minister Bakhtiar.January 18, 1979: In Paris, Ayatollah Khomeini rejects PresidentCarter’s appeal to give Iranian Prime Minister Bakhtiar’s governmenta chance to succeed and declares that the big powersshould stay out of Iranian affairs.January 22, 1979: In Paris, Khomeini receives former United StatesAttorney General Ramsey Clark.January 25, 1979: An estimated one hundred thousand peoplemarch through the streets of Tehran in support of Bakhtiar.January 27, 1979:All airports in Iran are closed.January 28, 1979: Thirty people are killed in Tehran as sup portersof Bakhtiar, the shah, and Khomeini continue to clash.January 30, 1979:three days.Iran’s airports reopen after being closed forJanuary 31, 1979: Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran and isgreeted by crowds of supporters estimated to be in tne hundreds ofthousands.February 5, 1979: Khomeini announces that Mehdi Bazargan ishis choice for prime minister of a provisional Islamic govern ment.

APPENDIX B: CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 1978-80 369February 11, 1979: Prime Minister Shahpour Bakhtiar and themembers of the Majlis resign. General Glarabaghi, armed forceschief of staff, declares the military to be neutral in the near civilwar.February 14, 1979: The American Embassy in Tehran is attacked byMarxist guerrillas, who kill an Iranian employee, wound a UnitedStates Marine guard, and hold an estimated one hundred hostages,including Ambassador William Sullivan, for nearly two hours,before forces supporting Ayatollah Kho meini arrive to disperse theattackers.February 25, 1979: The American Embassy in Tehran announcesthat it can no longer protect American lives in Iran and “stronglyrecommends” that all Americans (in nondiplomatic roles] leave thecountry.February 16, 1979: The United States announces that it will maintaindiplomatic relations with the new Iranian government,signaling formal recognition.February 18, 1979:Iran breaks diplomatic relations with Israel.February 19, 1979: PLO leader Yasir Arafat assumes control of theformer Israeli Embassy in Tehran as PLO headquarters.February 21, 1979: Iran announces that the United States will not bepermitted to continue operating its monitoring installations innorthern Iran.February 28, 1979: Iranian Prime Minister Bazargan warns that he willresign if Khomeini’s Revolutionary Council continues to interferewith his government.March 1, 1979: Khomeini leaves Tehran to guide the revolutionfrom his new headquarters in the holy city of Qom.March 5, 1979: Seven more former government officials (underthe shah) are executed, bringing the number of twenty-four suchexecutions to date after trials by Khomeini’s committee courts.March 6, 1979: The revolutionary government announces plansto try the shah in absentia.March 30, 1979:The shah of Iran, accompanied by his family,

370PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSends his temporary exile in Morocco and flies to the Bahamas.April 30, 1979: Ayatollah Khomeini orders diplomatic relationswith Egypt to be terminated as a result of the signing of theEgyptian-Israeli peace treaty.May 17, 1979: The United States Senate adopts a resolutioncondemning the summary executions in Iran.May 20, 1979: Iran asks the United States to delay sending itsnew ambassador, Walter Cutler, to Tehran in response to the UnitedStates Senate resolution of May 17.June 4, 1979: State Department spokesman Hodding Carterannounces that the Iranian government has requested the UnitedStates to withdraw the nomination of Walter Cutler as ambassadordesignateto Iran and comments that “the action of the Iraniangovernment is not helpful in helping to restore a constructiverelationship.”June 19, 1979: The Khomeini “committees” execute three moreformer members of the shah’s regime, bringing the es timated totalof such executions to three hundred.July 10, 1979: The former shah is granted a six-month touristvisa and takes up residence in Mexico, after his sixty-day visa in theBahamas expires.July 19, 1979: Prime Minister Bazargan announces that hehas reached agreement with Ayatollah Khomeini on the sharingof power between his government and Khomeini’s RevolutionaryCouncil.August 1, 1979: Iran announces the cancellation of $9 billion inUnited States arms agreements made during the shah’s regime.August 17, 1979: The United States consulate in Tabriz is slightlydamaged by a rifle grenade attack. No injuries are re ported.September 15, 1979: Radio Tehran reports the repeal of the 1947 lawauthorizing the presence in Iran of a United States military mission.October 5, 1979: The Department of Defense announces that theUnited States has resumed delivery of spare parts for Iran’s UnitedStates-built military aircraft. (The Iranian government sends its

APPENDIX B: CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 1978-80 371own aircraft to pick up the parts.)October 22, 1979: The exiled shah arrives unannounced in NewYork to undergo medical examinations at the New York Hos pital-Cornell Medical Center.October 23, 1979: State Department spokesman Hodding Cartersays that the United States notified the Iranian government that theshah would be admitted to the United States strictly for medicalreasons and that he would return to Mexico after American andEuropean doctors had completed their treat ments.November 1, 1979: Khomeini’s office in Qom issues a statementencouraging Iranian students to “expand their attacks” against theUnited States to force the United States to return the de posed shah.November 3, 1979: The Iranian Foreign Ministry formally proteststhe United States decision to admit the shah to the United States andthe American refusal to allow Iranian doctors to ex amine him.November 4, 1979: Iranian students stage a sit-in at the AmericanEmbassy in Tehran that ends in violence and the taking ofapproximately one hundred hostages as the students storm theembassy and call on the United States to extradite the deposed shah.November 5, 1979: Ayatollah Khomeini condones the takeoverof the American Embassy saying that, “if they do not give up thecriminal … then we shall do whatever is necessary. …”November 6, 1979: Prime Minister Bazargan and his governmentresign. Khomeini gives their power to the Revolutionary Coun cil,and directs the council to manage the transition and pre pare fornew elections.November 7, 1979: Ayatollah Khomeini refuses to meet with a specialUnited States delegation that includes Ramsey Clark.The United States reaffirms that the shah will remain in the UnitedStates until his medical treatments are completed.November 8, 1979: The United States halts the shipment of sparemilitary parts to Iran.November 9, 1979: The United Nations Security Council appealsto the Iranian government for the immediate release of the h tages

372PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSbeing held at the American Embassy in Tehran.November 10, 1979: President Carter asks the United States attorngeneral to inform the 50,000 Iranian students in the Unit ri States toreport to the nearest immigration office. Any studp found to be inviolation of the terms of his or her visa is to K deported.November 12, 1979: President Carter announces that the UnitedStates will stop importing oil from Iran.Iranian officials announce that Iran has suspended all oil sales toUnited States companies.November 14, 1979: President Carter freezes Iranian assets in UnitedStates banks and their foreign branches.November 17, 1979: Khomeini orders the release and immediate deportationof blacks and females among the hostages being held atthe American Embassy.November 20, 1979: In a statement issued by the White House, theUnited States mentions the possibility of taking military actionshould Iran decide to put the remaining hostages on trial.November 23, 1979: Finance Minister Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr announcesthat Iran is repudiating all foreign debts.November 27, 1979: U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti urgesAmericans not to discriminate against Iranians in the United States“despite our justifiable anger.”President Carter says that the release of the hostages will not “wipe theslate clean” at the end of the current crisis situation in Tehran.November 29, 19-79: The United States petitions the InternationalCourt of Justice at the Hague for a speedy legal judgment againstIran demanding the immediate release of the hostages.December 2, 1979: Shah Pahlevi leaves the New York hospital wherehe has been undergoing treatment for six weeks and i flown to anAir Force hospital near San Antonio, Texas. Iranian voters approvea draft Islamic constitution prepare by Khomeini’s RevolutionaryCouncil, though voter turno is light and a number of groups boycottthe election.

APPENDIX B: CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 1978-80 373December 8, 1979: Iranian Finance Minister Bani-Sadr calls for therelease of the hostages and says that he is working to convince hiscolleagues on the Revolutionary Council to adopt this course.Foreign Minister Ghotbzadeh calls for the creation of an internationaltribunal to investigate “wrong-doing” in Iran under theshah’s regime. Ghotbzadeh holds out the possibility that such aninquiry can be part of an overall plan leading to the release of thehostages.December 10, 1979: In response to Iranian Foreign Minister Ghotbzadeh’scall for an international tribunal to investigate the crimesof the United States in Iran, the State Department reiter ates thatonly after the hostages are freed will the United States be ready todiscuss with Iran the “differences which remain between us.”December 13, 1979: The Foreign and Defense Ministers of the fifteenNATO countries issue a statement in Brussels condem ning theseizure of the American hostages and demanding their release.December 15, 1979: The White House announces that the shah hasleft Texas for Panama, where he will establish residence.The International Court of Justice unanimously rules in favor of theUnited States and orders Iran to release the hostages and restoreUnited States property.December 19, 1979: United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheimasks the United States to delay its appeal to the United NationsSecurity Council for economic sanctions against Iran because he isin the midst of intensive discussions with the Iranians. PresidentCarter agrees to a temporary delay.December 27, 1979: A coup by the most pro-Soviet faction in theAfghan Communist government takes place. Even before thisregime is formally in power, about 30,000 Soviet troops start to pouracross their common border. In the following months the numberbuilds to over 80,000.December 31, 1979: Waldheim is given permission by the SecurityCouncil to travel to Tehran to mediate for the release of the hostages,with the stipulation that further discussion on the imposition ofeconomic sanctions against Iran would be post poned only untilWaldheim reports back to the council on January 7.

374PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSJanuary 1, 1980:Secretary-General Waldheim arrives in Tehran.January 3, 1980: Waldheim meets with the Iranian RevolutionaryCouncil but is denied a meeting with Ayatollah Kho meini.January 4, 1980: Returning to New York from Tehran, Waldheimsays that he is “glad to be back, especially alive.” Waldheim predicts“no quick solution” to the Iranian crisis in the ab sence of a singleauthoritative decision-making center in Iran.January 6, 1980: President Carter meets with Waldheim todiscuss his trip to Iran. Carter rejects a proposal that a UnitedNations commission to investigate the regime of the deposed shahbe part of a “package deal” to obtain the release of the hostages.January 11, 1980: Secretary of State Cyrus Vance says that the UnitedStates can “not rule out” the possibility that it will use a navalblockade in the Persian Gulf to prevent goods from reaching Iranianports.January 12, 1980: Panama receives a warrant for the arrest of“Muhammad Reza Pahlevi” from the Iranian government.January 13, 1980: The Security Council votes on a United Statesproposedeconomic sanctions measure. The vote is ten to two, witha Soviet veto canceling the measure.January 14, 1980: Iranian Foreign Minister Ghotbzadeh criticizes theUnited States for applying too much pressure on Iran and says thatIran can hold the hostages “more or less forever.” The RevolutionaryCouncil votes to expel American journal ists from Iran for alleged“biased reporting and insulting the revolution.”January 17, 1980: The United States aircraft carrier Nimitz entersthe Indian Ocean. Two aircraft carriers, Kitty Hawk and Mid way,are already on station in the Arabian Sea.January 18, 1980: State Department spokesman Hodding Cartersuggests coordinating a “Washington-Tehran” reply to the Sovietintervention in Afghanistan. He then says that the United States isready to cooperate with Iranian authorities regarding their securityrequirements if they will release the American hostages.January 20, 1980:In one of his few public statements on the crisis

APPENDIX B: CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 1978-80 375since November 4, President Carter says that we must “protect first ofall, the short-term and long-range interests of our country and thensecondly protect the safety and lives of the hostages themselves.”January 22, 1980: President Carter tells Congress that the UnitedStates has “no basic quarrel with Iran” once the hostages are released,paving the way for possible cooperation with Iran on countering theSoviet presence in Afghanistan.January 27, 1980: Finance Minister Bani-Sadr appears to be aneasy victor in the election for Iran’s presidency, claiming be tween 75percent and 80 percent of the vote.January 29, 1980: A Canadian newspaper reports that Canadianembassy officials in Tehran have smuggled six American dip lomatsout of Tehran on forged Canadian diplomatic passports. UnitedStates and Canadian officials confirm the story. The six had beenhiding at the Canadian Embassy and in embassy housing in Tehransince Nov. 4, 1979.The conference of Islamic foreign ministers meeting in Islam abaddenounces Soviet activity in Afghanistan, condemns “pressure”on Moslem countries by “Western powers,” and calls on both Iranand the United States to resolve their dif ferences by using “peacefulmeans.”February 2, 1980: Iranian President-Elect Bani-Sadr calls uponthe United States to “block the wealth” of the shah as a “ges ture ofgoodwill” to help end the deadlock over the hostages.February 4, 1980: Bani-Sadr meets with Ayatollah Khomeini inKhomeini’s hospital room to be sworn in as the first president of theIslamic Republic of Iran.February 6, 1980: President Bani-Sadr begins trying to asserthis authority over the militants holding the American Embassysaying that the “government within a government” that they areattempting to create is “intolerable.” I; February 7, 1980:The State Department announces a delay in the implementationof unilateral economic sanctions against Iran. State Departmentspokesman Hodding Carter says that the “ad ministration is holdingthe sanction regulations in abeyance while diplomatic activitiescontinue.”

376PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSFebruary 13, 1980: President Carter says at a press conferencethat the United States will accept the creation of an internationalcommission with a “carefully defined purpose” to investigatethe shah’s regime. Carter says that recent “positive signs” innegotiations with Iranian officials through the United Nationscould lead to a resolution of the hostage crisis but warns against“excessive optimism.”February 16, 1980: Bani-Sadr tells an interviewer that the hostageswill be released after the United Nations commission reports itsfindings and after the United States meets Iran’s conditions: anadmission of guilt, recognition of Iran’s right to return of the shahand his wealth to Iran, and a promise not to interfere in Iran’s affairsin the future.February 18, 1980: United Nations Secretary-General Waldheimannounces the names of the five-person commission that is tohear the charges against the deposed shah of Iran: Algeria’sUnited Nations delegate, Muhammad Bedjaoui; Venezuela’s formerambassador to the United States, Andres Aguilar; a French jurist,Louis Pettiti; Adib Dawudi of Syria; and Jaye-wardene of Sri Lanka.February 21, 1980: The White House issues a statement welcomingthe appointment of the United Nations commission, emphasiz ingthat the commission will explore United States grievances againstIran. Iranian President Bani-Sadr’s cable of acceptance, receivedin New York, refers to the “court of inquiry” and United NationsSecretary-General Waldheim speaks of the commission’s “factfinding”purpose. To compound the uncer tainty, Khomeini andBani-Sadr both refuse to link the work of the commission to therelease of the hostages, while Commis sion Cochairmen Aguilar andBedjaoui make reference to a “gentlemen’s agreement” concerningthe release of the hos tages.February 23, 1980: Ayatollah Khomeini issues a statement leavinga decision on the fate of the American hostages to the IslamicAssembly, not scheduled to be elected until May.February 26, 1980: The Revolutionary Council announces thatAmerican journalists, barred from Iran since mid-January foralleged biased reporting, can be readmitted if the Iran Embassy inthe United States “vouches for their impartiality.”

APPENDIX B: CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 1978-80 377March 2, 1980: Ayatollah Khomeini leaves the hospital wherehe has been a heart patient for several weeks. He does not re turn tohis Qom headquarters but remains in Tehran.March 10, 1980: After days of conflicting signals, it becomesapparent that the United Nations commission will not be permit tedto see the hostages.March 11, 1980: The United Nations commission leaves Tehranadmitting defeat in helping to resolve the crisis.March 12, 1980: Bani-Sadr expresses frustration in dealing witha divided Revolutionary Council and criticizes the militants holdingthe hostages for not cooperating with the government.March 16, 1980: In early returns from Iran’s parliamentaryelections, the right-wing clerical Islamic Republican Party appearsto be heading toward a strong showing. The Islamic Party has oftensided with the militants in the hostage crisis, and against PresidentBani-Sadr.March 23, 1980 The deposed shah leaves Panama for Egypt,accepting a long-standing offer from President Anwar Sadat. Theshah leaves Panama the day before Iran is to present Panama withformal extradition papers.March 27, 1980: During a hearing before the Senate ForeignRelations Committee, Secretary of State Vance says that the administrationis reviewing the options available for dealing withIran, and that a military option has not been ruled out.April 7, 1980:President Carter announces the severing of diplomaticrelations with Iran, the implementation of an eco nomicembargo against Iran, an inventory of Iranian assets in the UnitedStates, an inventory of United States financial claims against Iranto be paid from the Iranian assets, and the cancellation of all entryvisas for Iranians. The president orders the Iranian Embassy inWashington and Iran’s five con sulates closed and Iran’s 35 diplomatsand 209 military stu dents in the United States out of the country bymidnight, April 8. April 8, 1980:Ayatollah Khomeinireacts to the United Statesdiplomatic break as a “good omen” that proves that the United States

378PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONScan no longer dominate Iran.April 9, 1980 Secretary of State Vance calls twenty-fiveambassadors of allied nations to a meeting in order to urge thesecountries to take actions against Iran.April 10, 1980: At a meeting in Lisbon, the foreign ministersof the Common Market and the Council of Europe demand therelease of the American hostages, but delays any decision to imposesanctions on Iran.April 22, 1980: In Luxembourg, the foreign ministers of the nineEuropean Community countries agree to reduce their dip lomaticrepresentation in Iran, suspend arms sales to Iran, require visasfor Iranians traveling in Common Market coun tries, and discountpurchases of Iranian oil at prices above the OPEC standard.April 25, 1980: The White House announces that a militaryoperation to rescue the hostages has been attempted and has beencanceled because of equipment failure. After the can cellation, acollision between two aircraft results in eight deaths. PresidentCarter takes full responsibility for the opera tion.April 27, 1980: Secretary of State Vance resigns his post. (Vancehad actually presented his resignation on April 21, after havingfailed to persuade President Carter not to attempt the rescuemission, but asked Carter to delay its announcement until after theoperation.)April 28, 1980: Iran’s Revolutionary Council agrees to turnover the bodies of the eight dead United States servicemen torepresentatives of the Vatican and the Red Cross, who then ar rangefor their return to the United States.April 30, 1980: In London, three Iranian Arab gunmen seizethe Iranian Embassy and take twenty people inside the em bassyhostage. The terrorists threaten to kill the hostages and blow up theembassy unless the Iranian government releases ninety-one Arabpolitical prisoners.May 2, 1980 The militants holding the American hostagesannounce that they have scattered their captives to eight citiesaround Iran to deter any future attempt to rescue them.

APPENDIX B: CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 1978-80 379May 5, 1980: The hostage seizure in London ends whenBritish commandos storm the embassy building, killing three of theArab terrorists and rescuing nineteen of the hostages.May 10, 1980: Radio Tehran reports that the Islamic RepublicanParty will hold a majority in the new parliament.May 11, 1980: United Nations Secretary-General KurtWaldheim announces that Syrian diplomat Adib Dawud (formerlya member of the “commission of inquiry” sent to Iran on Feb. 20)will go back to Tehran as Waldheim’s representative.May 18, 1980 In Italy, foreign ministers of the EuropeanCommunity approve limited economic sanctions against Iraneffec tive May 22, but exclude from the planned trade embargoall contracts signed before the Nov. 4 takeover of the AmericanEmbassy.May 22, 1980: In Islamabad, Pakistan, the 11th IslamicConference ends with resolutions condemning the United States forthe attempted hostage-rescue mission, requesting that the UnitedStates and Iran resolve their differences through nego tiations, andasking the Egyptian nation to “pursue all possi bilities for handingover the deposed Shah” to Iran.May 28, 1980: Iran’s new parliament convenes. President Bani-Sadr tells the Majlis that it “must act swiftly” to ease the frustrationsof the Iranian people, adding that Iran should re main neutral andnot ally itself with either the Eastern or Western blocs. YadollahSahabi, the acting speaker of the Majlis, says that a decision onthe fate of the hostages must await decisions on pressing domesticissues.June 2-5, 1980:Despite an executive order banning Americancitizens from traveling to Iran, a ten-person delegation (includ ingformer Attorney General Ramsey Clark) attends a confer ence inTehran on “U.S. crimes.” The mission appears to do little to help thecurrent state of affairs between the two coun tries.July 11, 1980: Ayatollah Khomeini orders the release of oneof the fifty-three hostages, Richard Queen, who was found to besuffering from multiple sclerosis.

380PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONSJuly 27, 1980: The former shah of Iran, in exile in Egypt, dies atthe age of sixty of terminal cancer,August 11, 1980: Muhammed Ali Rajai is elected prime min isterof Iran by the parliament.September 12, 1980: Khomeini states four conditions for the re lease ofthe hostages: the United States must 1) return the shah’s, wealth, 2)cancel all financial claims against Iran, 3) promise never to interferein Iranian affairs, and 4) free Iranian assets frozen in the UnitedStates. He refers final approval to the Majlis.September 22, 1980: Iraq invades Iran’s Khuzistan province and afull-scale war between the two countries begins.October 20, 1980: Secretary of State Muskie says the United Statesis “opposed to the dismemberment of Iran” and calls for an end tothe Iranian-Iraqi war. If Iran releases the hostages, Carter says hewill release Iran’s foreign assets, end economic sanctions, and seeknormal relations.November 2, 1980: The Majlis approves Khomeini’s September 12,1980, terms for release of the hostages.November 4, 1980: Ronald Reagan defeats Jimmy Carter in theUnited States presidential elections.December 21, 1980: Iran delivers a note to the United States demanding$24 billion in guarantees ($14 billion in assets plus $10billion for the shah’s wealth) to be deposited in Algeria. Muskie callsthe demand “unreasonable” and beyond the president’s powers.January 6, 1981: Algeria says that Iran is ready to complete a dealif it receives $9.5 billion in assets at once (down from $14 billion), andthe $10-billion guarantee for the shah’s wealth.January 15, 1981: Iran again reduces its demands—to $8.1 billion.The United States offers $7.9 billion and Tehran agrees, drop pingaltogether the $10-billion-guarantee requirement.January 20, 1981: After further complex negotiations, involvingAmerican banks, and after several last-minute hitches, the Americanhostages are released as Ronald Reagan is being in augurated inWashington.

NotesChapter 11. Mihyar al-Daylami cited in Bernard Lewis, ed. and trans., Islam (NewYork, 1974) vol. 2, p. 207.2. Ibid., p. 52.3. Ibid., p. 54.4. 4 American Consulate in Tabriz to United States Minister John Jackson,RG 59, 5931/377 April 3, 1909; 891.00/510 May 3, 1910 and May 20, 1910;RG 59, 391.1163B/29 September 19, 1927, National Archives.5. W. Morgan Shuster, The Strangling of Persia (New York, 1912) p. 333.6. Cited in Robert McDaniel, The Shuster Mission and the Persian ConstitutionalRevolution (Minneapolis, 1974) p. 198.7. RG 59, 123 Imbrie, Robert, particularly /201 and /245 August, 1924,National Archives.8. For a detailed discussion of U.S.-Iranian relations during the waryears, see Barry Rubin, The Great Powers in the Middle East: The Road toCold War (London, 1980) ch. 5.9. Text in J. C. Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East (Princeton,1956) vol. 2, p. 232.10. RG 226, Office of Strategic Services Report 25065 October 25,1942,National Archives.11. For example, Memorandum of Conversation with MuhammadSchayes-teh, Iranian minister to Washington, RG 59, 741.9111/66 March20, 1942 and memorandum of April 11, 1942, National Archives.

382NOTES12. RG 59, OSS Research and Analysis Report 517 February 20, 1943;Dreyfus to Hull, RG 59, 741.9111/69 May 13, 1942, National Archives.13. RG 59, Memorandum of John Jernegan, 711.91/98 January 23, 1943, NationalArchives.14. Hull to Roosevelt, RG 59, 891.00/2042a August 16, 1943, National Archives.15. Ibid., enclosure, “American Policy in Iran.”16. Cordell Hull, Memoirs (New York, 1948) vol. 2, p. 1507; Roosevelt toChurchill, February 29, 1944, in Francis Loewenheim et al., Roosevelt& Churchill (New York, 1975) p. 499n.17. Jonathan Daniels, White House Witness (New York, 1975) pp. 221-22; Roosevelt to Hurley, RG 59, 123 Hurley, Patrick, J. /128y 2March25, 1944, National Archives; for the State Department report, see theHurley file above, January 12, 1944.18. Text in Department of State Bulletin, December 11,1943, p. 409-10; WilliamLeahy, I Was There (New York, 1950).19. RG 226, OSS L47580 October 16, 1944, and OSS L48058 October 17, 1944,National Archives.20. George F. Kennan, Memoirs 1925-1950 (Boston, 1967) pp. 209, 222-23.21. Cited in W. Averell Harriman, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin(New York, 1975) pp. 345-47.22. Cited in Beatrice Berle, Navigating the Rapids (New York, 1973) pp.462-68.23. Harriman to Stettinius, RG 226, 861.9111/1-1045 January 10, 1945, NationalArchives.24. On Soviet intelligence operations and activities in Azerbaijan, see RG 84,400.1 Espionage 1950 file, Box 2250, Washington National Record Center,particularly the interrogation of Lev Vasilev, a defector from the SovietEmbassy, in 320 Iran-USSR file. On the Kurdish question, see WilliamEagleton, Jr., The Kurdish Republic of 1946 (New York, 1963) particularlypp. 44-46.Chapter 21. Barry Rubin, The Great Powers in the Middle East: The Road to ColdWar (London, 1980) ch. 9; Murray to Byrnes, RG 59, 891.00/9-2545September 25, 1945, National Archives.2. RG 218, JIS 80/9 October 26, 1945 in CCS 092 USSR (3/27/45) Section 2,Appendix B, National Archives.3. Washington Post, January 1, 1946.4. “Attitude of the Soviet Press and Radio Toward Iran,” text in RG 226,Office of Strategic Services Research & Analysis Report 3526.6 nd,proba bly January, 1946, National Archives.5. For Byrnes’s statement see Edwin Wright’s account, U.S. State Depart- .ment, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1946 (Washington, D.C.,1967) vol. 7, p. 347.

NOTES 3836. George F. Kennan, Memoirs 1925-1950 (Boston, 1967) p. 556.7. The New York Times, March 1 and March 14, 1946.8. Joseph Goodwin, letter to Washington Post, October 7, 1979; Robert Rossowto Byrnes, RG 59, 761.91/3-546 March 5, 1946, National Archives;see also RG 59, 861.24591/3-646 and /3-746, National Archives.9. George V. Allen to John Jemegan, January 21, 1948, George V. Allenpap ers, Duke University Library. During this time, Allen recounts, hebecame personally friendly with the shah. One night the shah saidlaughingly: “My sister Ashraf asked me yesterday whether I was aman or a mouse.” Turning more serious, the shah then asked Allen:“Do you mean that I should stay in my palace at Saadabad, selfishlyenjoy my pleasant gar dens, dogs and horses, and do nothing aboutthe tragic situation in my country with Pishevari (the AzerbaijanCommunist leader) about to steal the most important province of Iran?”“Well, yes,” Allen answered with some astonishment. Allen was notsure whether the king should be meddling in politics anyway and wasnot certain where the shah might stop once he became so involved.10. “Evidence of Soviet Interference in Iran,” RG 59, Office of EuropeanAf fairs Box 16 May 27, 1946, National Archives.11. RG 59, 740.00119 Council/10-146 October 1, 1946; Hilldring to Reid, RG59, 711.91/9-2646 September 26, 1946; RG 353, SWN-4776 SWNCC 091,Box 76, SM-6874 October 11, 1946, and RG 353 SWN 4818 October 12,1946; RG 59, 711.91/10-1246 October 12, 1946, National Archives.12. Allen to Byrnes, RG 59, 891.00/12-1746 December 17, 1946, National Alr rchives.13. Lovett to United States Embassy in Iran, December 9, 1947, in ForeignRelations of the United States, 1948, vol. 5, pp. 88-90.14. Memorandum of Conversation, RG 59, 891.00/3-1948 March 19,1948,National Archives.15. Wiley to Acheson, RG 59, 891.001 Pahlevi, Reza Shah /6-1449 June 14,1949, National Archives.16. The New York Times, May 17, 1949.17. Ibid., November 17, 1949.18. Ibid., February 11, 1950.19. Princeton Seminars May 15-16, 1954, Dean Acheson papers, Harry S.Truman papers, Harry S. Truman Library.20. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, vol. 6, pp. 574-79.21. Joseph J. Wagner, “The Peculiar Position of the British in Iran,” enclosedin Richards to Acheson #83, July 29, 1950, RG 84, 400.1 Espionage 1950file, Box 2250, 320 Iran-Great Britain file, Washington National RecordsCenter.22. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, vol. 5, pp. 13-15.23. Wiley to Acheson, January 30, 1950 in ibid., p. 463.24. Ibid., p. 510. See also pp. 510-26.25. Interview with Arthur L. Richards, June 3, 1980. “Iran: A Year ofDanger,” March 17, 1952, RG 84, Box 2248, 300 Iran Washington

384NOTESNational Records Center.26. Wiley to George McGhee, January 10, 1950, ibid.27. Arthur Richards, memorandum of conversation, August 3, 1950, ibid.;Wagner report, note 21 above.28. Richards, November general report, December 15, 1950, note 26 above;Stutesman to Richards, “Decline of United States Influence andPrestige,” November 20, 1950, RG 84, 400.1 Espionage 1950 file, Box2250, 320 Iran-United States file, Washington National Records Center.29. Henry Grady to Harry Eaton, February 1, 1951, Henry Grady papers,Harry S. Truman Library.30. Acheson’s account is in Present at the Creation (New York, 1969). Gradyblamed Acheson for the policy’s failure. “Had Britain and the UnitedStates backed Razmara, the former Iranian prime minister whowas a friend of the West and who was fighting that nationalizationmovement, this present situation would not have developed. Norwould Razmara have been assassinated.” He continued, “During mytenure as Ambas sador to Iran I made at least half a dozen requests,all of which were ignored or flatly turned down by our Governmentunder British influence and assistance.” The New York Times, October18, 1952.31. Shah Muhammad Pahlevi, Mission for My Country (New York, 1961).32. The New York Times, March 8, 1951.33. Report of January 12, 1951 #539, cited in note 26 above.Chapter 31. Time Magazine, January 7, 1952.2. Princeton Seminars, May 15-16, 1954, Dean Acheson papers, Harry S.Truman Library, p. 1607.3. U.S. Congress, Senate, Executive Sessions of the Foreign RelationsCommittee, 82nd Cong., 2nd sess., testimony of January 14, 1952, pp.18-27.4. Ibid., 83rd Cong., 1st sess., testimony of April 29, 1953, p. 387.5. Princeton Seminars, note 2 above, p. 1662.6. Acheson to Grady, June 7, 1951, RG 84, Box 2250, 300 Iran file, WashingtonNational Records Center; see also Grady to Acheson, April 27, 1951,320 Iran-Great Britain file.7. The New York Times, May 3, 1951.8. United States Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations,Subcom mittee on Multinational Corporations, Multinational OilCorporations and U.S. Foreign Policy, 93rd Cong., 2nd sess., January2, 1975, p. 58.9. The following account draws on Vernon Walters, Silent Missions (NewYork, 1978) pp. 241-63; Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation (New York,1969), and the Princeton Seminars, note 2 above.

NOTES 38510. The New York Times, September 23, 1951.11. Ibid., and January 8, 1952.12. Ibid., November 25 and December 7, 1951.13. Richards to Grady, October 20, 1951 and Stutesman to Richards,October 19, 1951, note 6 above, 320 Iran-U.S. file.14. “Iran: A Year of Danger,” March 17, 1952, note 6 above.15. Henderson to Acheson, February, 16, 1952, note 6 above.16. The New York Times, July 15, 1952.17. Ibid., July 20, 1952.18. Ibid., August 11, 1952.19. Henderson to Acheson, July 28, 1952, note 6 above, 320 Iran file.20. Note 8 above.21. Mossadegh to Eisenhower, January 9, 1953, and Eisenhower to Mossadegh,January 10, 1953, Dwight Eisenhower Library.22. Interview with Kermit Roosevelt, March 20, 1980. See also KermitRoosevelt, Countercoup (New York, 1979).23. Henderson to Dulles, March 19, 1953, RG 84, Box 2667, 350 Iran file,Washington National Records Center.24. The New York Times, April 5, 1953.25. Smith to Eisenhower, “Memorandum for the President,” May 23, 1953,Eisenhower Library.26. Kermit Roosevelt, Countercoup (New York, 1979) pp. 1-19. The over throwof Mossadegh was actually an Anglo-American operation, a fact still notgenerally understood today. When Roosevelt’s book was submit ted to theCIA for screening, the agency pressured him to attribute certain Britishactions to the AIOC to avoid embarrassing the British government. WhenAIOC’s successor, British Petroleum, implied it might take legal action,the book was withdrawn from circulation soon after its release.27. Roy Melbourne, “America and Iran in Perspective: 1953 and 1980,”Foreign Service Journal, April, 1980, p. 15.28. Kennett Love, “The American Role in the Pahlevi Restoration,” unpublishedmanuscript (1960).29. The New York Times, August 4, 1953.30. Note 26 above; Loy Henderson oral history, Harry S. Truman Library,pp. 210-17; Roosevelt and other interviews.31. Roy Melbourne, “America and Iran in Perspective: 1953 and 1980,”Foreign Service Journal, April, 1980, p. 16.32. Zahedi to Eisenhower, August 26, 1953, Eisenhower Library.33. The New York Times, August 21, 1953. In an August 6, 1954 editorial, theTimes concluded in reference to these events: “Underdeveloped countrieswith rich resources now have an object lesson in the heavy cost thatmust be paid by one of their number which goes beserk with fanaticalnationalism.” On the other hand, the West must study and take intoac count “before and not after great losses have been incurred—of thegreat forces which now move the people everywhere in Asia, Africa andSouth America.”

386NOTES34. Allen Dulles; The Craft of Intelligence (New York, 1963) p. 224; DwightEisenhower, Mandate for Change 1953-1956 (New York, 1963) pp. 3, 83,166, 435, and 574; Robert Branyan and Lawrence Larsen, The EisenhowerAdministration 1953-1961. A Documentary History (New York,1971) vol. 2, p. 216. 35. Richard Cottam, Nationalism in Iran (Pittsburgh,1964) p. 229.Chapter 41. The New York Times, January 5, 1954.2. Ibid., April 12, 1956, January 4 and January 25, 1957.3. Ibid., August 6, 1954.4. Dulles to Eisenhower, “Visit of the Shah of Iran,” December 13, 1954,Eisenhower Library. Iran’s inability to absorb sophisticated equipmentwas but one important reason for limiting military aid. A United Statesmilitary study mission reported, for example, that Iranian maintenancecrews filled the crankcases of new Sherman tanks with olive-drab paint,thinking it was lubricating oil.5. Interview with Raymond Hare, former acting assistant secretary forNear East Affairs, February 9, 1979; see also Norman Hannah, letter,Foreign Affairs, vol. 52, no. 3 (April, 1974) pp. 649-50.6. Shah to President Eisenhower, November 20, 1956, Eisenhower Library.7. Dulles to Eisenhower, memorandum and background information,June 28, 1958, Eisenhower Library.8. The New York Times, July 13 and December 2, 1956, February 14, 1959.9. Ibid., April 2, 1957.10. Ibid., August 21, 1955.11. Ibid., January 2, 1958.12. Wailes to Herter, September 15, 1959, Eisenhower Library.13. Hall to Eisenhower, July 15, 1958 and Eisenhower to shah, July 19, 1958,Eisenhower Library; The New York Times, July 22, 1958.14. Herter to Eisenhower, December 31, 1959, Eisenhower Library; TheNew York Times, December 15, 1958.15. Herter to Eisenhower, April 21, 1960 and September 19, 1960; Wailesto Herter, March 14, 1960, and Dillon to Eisenhower, May 18, 1960,Eisenhower Library.16. On these issues see Marvin Zonis, The Political Elite of Iran (Princeton,1971), particularly pp. 305-6, and Richard Cottam, Nationalism in Iran(Pittsburgh, 1964), particularly pp. 230-35.17. The New York Times, January 29, 1960.18. Ibid., January 2, 1958.19. Ibid., January 26, 1960.20. Ibid., January 29, 1960.21. The New York Times, May 30 and June 2, 1960; see also Manfred Halpern,“Perspectives on U.S. Policy—Iran,” SAIS Review, vol. 6, no. 3(Spring 1962) pp. 27-31; The New York Times, June 2 and August 9, 1961;E. A. Bayne, Persian Kingship in Transition (New York, 1968) p. 191.

NOTES 38722. The New York Times, December 4, 1961.23. National Security Council Action proposal 2447 and Rusk to Kennedy,“Proposed Approach to the Shah of Iran,” March 8, 1962, and Rockwellto Rusk, May 14, 1962, John F. Kennedy Library, NSF: NSC Box 340.24. Interview with Kermit Roosevelt, March 20, 1980.25. The New York Times, January 23, January 28, and June 10, 1963.26. Ibid., September 17 and September 20, 1963.27. Ibid., September 26, 1963.28. Tehran Journal, January 16, 1979; Nawal Azhari, “Secrets in Khomeini’sLife … ,” Al Watan al-’Arabi (London), March 2-8, 1979; Kayhan (Tehran)May 14, 1979, all texts in Joint Publications Research Service (hereafterJPRS) June 6, 1979, pp. 74-79.29. Director of Central Intelligence, “Special National Intelligence Estimate34-63: The Iranian Situation,” April 10, 1963, John F. Kennedy Library.30. Bureau of the Budget memorandum for Robert Komer, May 7, 1963,John F. Kennedy Library.31. Rusk to Kennedy, April 20, 1963, “Report on U.S. Strategy for Iran,”and Holmes to Rusk, May 15, 1963, John F. Kennedy Library.32. William Gaud, Oral History, John F. Kennedy Library, p. 41; UnitedStates Information Agency reports R-15-64 (1/3/64), R-212-64 (7/64),R-220-64 (12/64) and R-203-65 (12/65).33. E. A. Bayne, Persian Kingship in Transition (New York, 1968) pp. 220-22.34. Ibid., and The New York Times, September 9, 1965.35. See his account in Martin F. Herz, ed., Contacts with the Opposition,Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University(Washington, D.C., 1980) pp. 26-27.36. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommitteeon Multinational Corporations, Multinational Oil Corporations andU.S. Foreign Policy, 93rd Cong., 2nd sess., report of January 2, 1975, pp.115-31, and parts 7 and 8 of hearing records.37. The New York Times, November 24, 1967.38. Rostow to Johnson, November 4, 1966, and Rostow to Fulbright,November 11, 1966, Lyndon B. Johnson Library.39. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Arms Sales toNear East and South Asian Countries, 90th Cong., 1st sess., hearingsMarch-June, 1967, p. 17; Department of State Bulletin, July 1, 1968; TheNew York Times, June 13, 1968.40. Martin F. Herz, “A View from Tehran—A Diplomatist Looks at theShah’s Regime in June 1964,” Institute for the Study of Diplomacy,Georgetown University (Washington, D.C., 1979).41. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, ForeignAssistance Act of 1968, 90th Cong., 2nd sess., June-July, 1968, p. 258.42. Robert Paarlberg, “The Advantageous Alliance; U.S. Relations withIran 1920-1975,” in Paarlberg et al., Diplomatic Disputes (Cambridge,Mass., 1978) p. 43.

388NOTESChapter 51. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Subcommitteeon Multinational Corporations, Multinational Oil Corporations andU.S. Foreign Policy, 93rd Cong., 2nd sess., report of January 2, 1975,pp. 107ff2. Times (London), June 10, 1969.3. “Meet the Press,” October 26, 1969, cited in Shahram Chubin andSepehr Zabih, The Foreign Relations of Iran (Berkeley, 1974) p. 242.4. Ibid., p. 239.5. Anne Hessing Cahn, “United States Arms to the Middle East 1967-1976;A Critical Examination,” in Milton Leitenberg and Gabriel Sheffer,Great Power Intervention in the Middle East (New York, 1979) pp. 102-4.6. Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston, 1979), p. 1264.7. Ruhollah Ramazani, Iran’s Foreign Policy 1941-1973 (Charlottesville,1975) p. 381.8. The New York Times, July 17 and November 26, 1970.9. Cited in Richard Preece, “U.S. Policy Toward Iran, 1942-1979,” CongressionalResearch Service, May 23, 1979, p. 84; U.S. Congress, House,Committee on Foreign Affairs, New Perspectives on the Persian Gulf,93rd Cong., 1st sess., 1973, p. 69.10. Washington Post, October 10, 1971. According to the CIA’s deputychief of station in Tehran in the 1960s, Princess Ashraf’s patronage wasneces sary to obtain many contracts. He told an executive of the VinnellCorpo ration that it failed to land contracts to construct several airportsbecause Ashraf had already gone into partnership with another firm.This con struction was being financed by American aid money. WilburCrane Eveland, Ropes of Sand (New York, 1980) p. 318.11. Note 1 above, part 17, 191ff.12. Smith to Eisenhower, May 23, 1953, Eisenhower Library.13. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommitteeon International Organizations, Human Rights in Iran, 95th Cong., 1stsess., hearings of October, 1977, p. 56.14. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommitteeon Near East and South Asian Affairs, U.S. Interests in and PolicyToward the Persian Gulf, 92nd Cong., 2nd sess., hearings of February-August, 1972, pp. 6-7; Washington Post, May 14, 1973.15. See, Washington Post, January 16 and February 27, 1974; The New YorkTimes, March 7, September 27, October 4, and November 3, 1974.16. The New York Times, February 24, 1974.17. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, New Perspectiveson the Persian Gulf, 93rd Cong., 1st sess., 1973, pp. 2-4.18. Ibid., p. v.19. Sisco to Hamilton, August 17, 1973, in ibid., pp. 194-95. A similar exchangebetween Sisco’s successor, Alfred Atherton, and Hamiltontook place at the August, 1974 hearings. See U.S. Congress, House,Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Near East and South

NOTES 389Asian Affairs.20. The Persian Gulf 1974: Money, Politics, Arms, and Power, 93rd Cong.,21. 2nd sess., March 6, 1975, particularly pp. 73-85. 20. This and thefollowing is from note 9 above, 67ff. 2i. Note 9 above, p. 70.22. Manchester Guardian, International Edition, October 27, 1973.23. Washington Post, May 26 and 27, 1974.24. The New York Times, June 3 and October 14, 1974; Business Week, June22, 1974; Newsweek, March 24, 1975. The quotation from Newsweekwell illustrates the difficulty for Western journalists in understandingthe re volution four years later. Its implication was that the faster thepace of development the greater the country’s political stability; inIran, of course, the speed of change led to heightened instability.25. Wall Street Journal, August 29, 1974; Washington Post, August 16, 1974.26. Cited in Hamid Mowlana, “U.S.-Iranian Relations, 1954-1978: A Case ofCultural Domination,” paper presented at the Middle East Studies Associationconference, November 8, 1979. Ironically, Ambassador Zahediprovided one of the best analyses of the revolutionary sentiments heldby many Iranian students abroad: “Think of all those boys and girlsgoing to school in America, fresh from Iran. Here they see a haven ofdemocracy. Unique in industrialization. Unique in power. And they seethe gap bet ween America and home. Being young, leaving your nativeIran, having ambition, and seeing America, it makes you unhappy,disappointed, frustrated.” Washington Post, November 10, 1978.27. Interview in Yediot Aharnot (Tel Aviv), text in Foreign Broadcast InformationService (FBIS) April 4, 1980; cited in Barry Rubin, How OthersReport Us (Los Angeles, 1979) p. 55.28. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Standards and Official Conduct,Re port of the Staff Study of Alleged Misconduct by Members of theHouse of Representatives Involving the Former Government of Iran,96th Cong., 1st sess., October 24, 1979, plus extensive interviews.29. Department of State Bulletin, March 10, 1975, p. 293 and December 15,30. 1975, p. 864.31. 30. Max McCarthy, unpublished report to Zbigniew Brzezinski,December 3,32. 1976, parti, p. 1.33. See, for example, The New York Times, February 5, and March 2, 4,and 15, 1976; Washington Post, January 28 and February 9, 1976.34. Washington Post, February 13, 1976.Chapter 61. Shahram Chubin, “Implications of the Military Buildup in Non-Industrial States: The Case of Iran,” in Uri Ra’anan et al., ArmsTransfers to the Third World (Boulder, Colorado, 1978) pp. 262-63.2. Ibid., p. 262.3. Business Week, November 17, 1975; Le Monde (Paris), March 1, 1976.

390NOTES4. Note 1 above, p. 267.5. John Hoagland, “The U.S. and European Aerospace Industries,” innote l above, p. 216.6. Anne Hessing Cahn, “United States Arms to the Middle East 1967-1976:A Critical Examination,” in Milton Leitenberg and Gabriel Sheffer,Great Power Intervention in the Middle East (New York, 1979) p. 117.7. U.S. Congress, Senate, Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommitteeon Multinational Corporations, Multinational Oil Corporations andU.S. Foreign Policy, report of January 2, 1975, part 17, p. 121.8. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on International Relations, ThePersian Gulf 1975: The Continuing Debate on Arms Sales, 94th Cong.,1st sess., June-July, 1975, pp. 133-36.9. U.S. Government Accounting Office, Inspection Report: Contract,Ad ministration Services Secrrity Assistance Program, Iran, June 25,1976; Inspection Report: Automatic Data Processing Program SecurityAssis tance Program, Iran June 30, 1976.10. Washington Post, December 9, 1976.11. The New York Times, February 4, 1976; Washington Post, September11, 1976.12. Washington Post, February 22, 1976.13. The New York Times, March 4, 1976.14. The New York Times, February 13, 1976.15. See, The New York Times, February 5 and March 2, 4, and 15, 1976;Washington Post, January 28 and February 9, 1976.16. Middle East (London), March, 1976.17. Washington Post, August 7, 1976.18. Washington Post, October 11, 1976.19. Christian Science Monitor, November 11, 1976.20. Amnesty International Report 1975-76 (London, 1976) pp. 182-83;Washington Post, December 16, 1979. None of this is said to excusethe behavior of the shah’s regime, but comparison with neighbors andwith other countries does raise two important questions. First, thelevel of re pression cannot be used as a single-factor explanation for therevolution. If so, then why does the regime in, say, Iraq still prosper?One must look at the style and targets of repression and at the popularperception of whether such actions are justified, as well as at a largevariety of other issues. Second, if most or all of the states with a similarpolitical culture employ the same methods the task of changing thatsituation becomes more complicated: a mere change of governmentwill not necessarily produce a democratic society: more deep-seatedchanges in society or ideology are needed to produce a respect forhuman rights. See Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, The HumanRights Reader {New York, 1980) and Barry Rubin and Elizabeth Spiro,Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy (Boulder, Colorado, 1979) for abroader consideration of these questions.

NOTES 39121. Max McCarthy, unpublished report to Zbigniew Brzezinski, December3, 1976, section 2, p. 2.22. Ibid., pp. 2-11.23. U.S. State Department, text in Bureau of Public Affairs release, September8, 1976.24. Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets (New York, 1979) p.243.25. Washington Post, August 4, 1976.26. The New York Times, October 7, 1976.Chapter 71. Theodore H. Moran, “Iranian Defense Expenditures and the SocialCrisis,” International Security, vol. 3, no. 3 (Winter 1978-79) p. 179.2. U.S. State Department, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices,(Washington, 1978).3. U.S. State Department, Report on Human Rights Practices in CountriesReceiving U.S. Aid (Washington, 1979).4. Congressional Research Service, Human Rights Conditions in SelectedCountries and the U.S. Response (Washington, 1978) pp. 124—28.5. Interview in AJ Nahar Al-’Arabi wa al-Duwali (Paris), December 24-30,1979, text in Joint Publications Research Service (hereafter JPRS)January 29, 1980.6. Hubert Humphrey to President Carter, July 27, 1977; Clifford Case andHubert Humphrey “dear colleague” letter, September 19, 1977.7. Washington Post, July 28 and September 13, 1977.8. Ibid., December 1, 1977.9. Ibid., November 18, 1977.10. Ibid., December 31, 1977.11. The New York Times, January 2, 1978.12. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommitteeon Evaluation, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Iran:Evaluation of U.S. Intelligence Performance Prior to November 1978,89th Cong., 1st sess., 1979.13. Jesse Leaf, “Iran: A Blind Spot in U.S. Intelligence,” Washington Post,January 18, 1979.14. See, for example, Paul Blackstock, The Secret Road to World War Two(Chicago, 1969) pp. 260-61.15. Thomas Powers, The Man Who Kept the Secrets (New York, 1979), p. 36.16. Washington Post, February 5, 1979.17. Ibid., November 18, 1979.18. The causes of the revolution are discussed at greater length in Chapter 9.19. Washington Post, March 6, 1978; U.S. News 8- World Report, June 26,1978.20. Washington Post, April 2 and May 29, 1978.21. Herman Nickel, “The U.S. Failure in Iran,” Fortune, March 12, 1979, p.

392NOTES97; Bill’s paper is cited in Nicholas Wade, “Iran and America: The Failureof Understanding,” Science, vol. 206 (December 14, 1979) p. 1281.22. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on International Relations,Subcommit tee on Europe and the Middle East, Review of Developmentsin the Mid dle East, 95th Cong., 2nd sess., 1978.23. Speech to National Iranian Radio & Television Organization, October4, 1978, text in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) October5, 1978.24. Kayhan (Tehran), August 10, 1978, text in/PRS September 14, 1978.25. Kayhan (Tehran), August 28, 1978, text in/PRS October 25, 1978.26. Stern (Hamburg), August 31, 1978, interview by Franz Tartarotti andRolf Winter.27. Muhammad Reza Pahlevi in Now (London), December 7, 1979.28. Interview with Agence France-Presse (hereafter AFP), September 5,1978, text in FBIS September 6, 1978.29. Interview with Le Figaro (Paris), September 12, 1978.Chapter 81. Le Matin (Paris), September 14, 1980.2. U.S. Congress, House, Committee on International Relations, ArmsSale Policy and Recent Sales to Europe and the Middle East, 89thCong., 1st sess., 1979.3. Speech of October 6, text in Foreign Broadcast Information Service(FBIS) October 11, 1978.4. Kayhan (Tehran), October 18, 1978, text in Joint Publications ResearchService (JPRS) November 29, 1978; FBIS October 31, 1978. There is acomplex and intriguing story behind Khomeini’s relations with theFrench government during this period. Some sources claim that Frenchintelligence wanted Khomeini admitted to the country because he wasseen as Iran’s future leader; others credit the French Foreign Ministrywith this foresight. While Paris periodically told the ayatollah to moderatehis fiery anti-shah rhetoric, his hosts went out of their way to let himstay. For their part, Khomeini’s advisors warned that they would neverleave without publicly blaming France for expelling them—they wouldtake their revenge at some future time. Meanwhile, the French saw someadvantages in their position—for example, all foreign airline offices inTehran were wrecked except for those of Air France—and hoped tokeep their bets on both Khomeini and the shah. Khomeini’s visa wasrenewed in January, 1979. There is some evidence, however, that theFrench had high hopes for Bakhtiar, to whom France was virtually asecond home land. Consequently, Khomeini returned to Tehran just intime; his wel come was definitely wearing out.5. Cited by Joseph Kraft, Washington Post, October 29, 1978; FBISNovember 1, 1978; Agence France-Presse (AFP), October 28, 1978, textin FBIS October 30, 1978.

NOTES 3936. Interview with Oriana Fallaci, Corriere Delia Sera (Milan), September30, 1979.7. Letter to the editor, Washington Post, October 2, 1978.8. The New York Times, November 1, 1978.9. Ibid., November 6, 1978.10. Interviews in The New York Times, November 7, 1978; Time Magazine,November 6, 1978; Stern (Hamburg), November 6, 1978.11. The New York Times, November 7, 1978.12. Washington Post, November 7, 1978.13. Texts in FBIS November 6 and 7, 1978.14. Times (London), November 21, 1978.15. See Radio Tehran broadcast, November 27, 1978, text in FBIS November28, 1978, and Austrian radio interview, text in FBIS November 30, 1978.16. Washington Post, December 15, 1978.17. Text in The New York Times, December 8, 1978; Washington Post, December8, 1978.18. The New York Times, December 14 and 13, 1978.19. Interview with Manchester Guardian, December 13, 1978.20. Dagens Nyheter (Stockholm), interview with Sanjabi, December 22,1978; text in FBIS December 22, 1978.21. The shah’s accounts imply that he asked Sadighi before Sanjabi to forma government. Probably, negotiations were going on between the kingand the opposition on a number of levels and these talks were far moreexten sive and detailed than opposition leaders, for obvious reasons,were later willing to admit.22. Khomeini’s interviews in Le Monde (Paris), December 13, 1978; andAFP, December 17, 1978, text in FBIS December 18, 1978.23. Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr, “Instead of the Shah, an Islamic Republic,”The New York Times, December 11, 1978.24. The New York Times, December 28, 1978.25. Ibid., December 30, 1978.26. Reported on by Sadegh Ghotbzadeh, Washington Post, January 19,1979; and by Ibrahim Yazdi over Radio Tehran, August 7, 1979, text inFBIS August 7, 1979.27. Martin F. Herz, ed., Contacts With the Opposition, Institute for theStudy of Diplomacy, Georgetown University (Washington, D.C., 1980).28. Washington Post, January 2, 1979; Le Monde, January 10, 1979.29. Monday Morning (Beirut), January 8-14, 1979, text in FBIS January 16,1979; L’Express (Paris), January 20, 1979; Le Monde, January 10, 1979.30. Khomeini interview, Le Monde, January 10, 1979; Bazargan in LeFigaro (Paris), January 2, 1979.31. Press conference of January 3, 1979, text in FBIS January 5, 1979.32. Speech to Senate, January 13, 1979, text in FBIS January 15, 1979.33. AFP report, January 16, 1979, text in FBIS January 17, 1979.34. Washington Post, January 22, 1979.35. Radio Tehran, January 31, 1979, text in FBIS February 1, 1979.

394NOTES36. Le Monde, January 31, 1979.37. Washington Post, February 2, 1979; National Voice of Iran radio, January29, 1979, text in FBIS February 2, 1979.38. Interview on Paris radio, February 2, text in FBIS February 2, 1979;speech on Radio Tehran, February 4, text in FBIS February 5, 1979.39. Elevtherotipia (Athens), February 7, text in FBIS February 8, 1979;Ayandegan (Tehran), February 8, text in FBIS February 9, 1979.40. Washington Post, February 8, 1979.41. Interview with Manchester Guardian, September 18, 1979.Chapter 91. Interview in The Economist (London), February 10, 1979.2. Washington Post, January 26, 1979.3. Interview in Al-Nahar Al-Arabi wa al-DuwaJi (Paris), September 17-23, 1979, text in Foreign Broadcast Information Service (hereafter FBIS)September 19, 1979, pp. R6-R7.4. Khandaniha (Tehran), December 16, 1978, text in Joint Publications ResearchService (hereafter JPRS) January 26, 1979.5. Shahram Chubin, “Local Soil, Foreign Plants,” Foreign Policy, no. 34(Spring 1979) p. 22.6. Majlis deputy Qorbani-Nasab, Majlis debate, January 14, 1979, text inFBIS January 15, 1979.7. Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr, “Instead of the Shah, An Islamic Republic,”The New York Times, December 11, 1978.8. F.Y.I. Iranian Political Digest, November 6, 1978, in JPRS December 4,1978.9. Speeches over Radio Tehran, November 10 and 11, 1979, texts in FBISNovember 14 and 13, 1979.10. U.S. State Department, Report on Human Rights Practices in CountriesReceiving U.S. Aid (Washington, D.C., 1979).11. Cited in John De Novo, American Interests and Policies in the MiddleEast (Minneapolis, 1963) p. 296.12. K. Motamet-Nejad, “Image of America in Iranian Mass Media,”unpub lished paper, author’s possession.13. Le Monde (Paris), January 2, 1979.14. Time Magazine, January 15, 1979.15. The fact that Khomeini’s ancestors came from Kashmir severalcenturies ago led some of his enemies to charge that he is not a realPersian; similar accusations have been made about Reza Shah, albeitwith less genealogi cal basis. So vital is ethnicity in Iran that thereare constant rumors that such and such a political figure is “really” aKurd or an Azerbaijani, as if such a designation would in itself provediscrediting. At the same time, one of the reasons for Bani-Sadr’seasy triumph in the 1980 presidential elections was that the IslamicRepublican Party’s candidate turned out to have too much Afghan

NOTES 395blood and was disqualified. One is reminded of the great nineteenthcenturyIslamic reformer (and sometime anti-shah activist) Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. His critics charged that he took the name al-Afghani(“the Afghan”) but that he was really an Iranian, a charge that may havebeen true. As such, he would have been a Shi’a and, consequently, histeachings would have had less impact on the majority Sunni Muslimworld.16. Khomeini speech at “Crimes of America” conference, June 4,1980, textin FBIS June 5, 1980.17. Ibid.18. And indeed, it bears a striking resemblance to Marxist Utopias,and even to those of the 1960s countercultures, though Khomeini’sstrictness and—in Western religious terms—”Puritanism” would notbe welcome to the latter.19. Cited inLe Monde, November 15, 1978.20. Interview in Ettela’at (Tehran), February 2, 1980, text in FBIS February7, 1980.21. Radio Tehran, October 3, 1979, text in FBIS October 9, 1979.22. Speech to radio workers, Radio Tehran, September 8, 1979, text in FBISSeptember 10, 1979.23. Speech to Feyziyeh Theological School in Qom, August 24, 1979, textin FBIS August 27, 1979.24. Speech to Feyziyeh School, September 8, 1979, text in JPRS September19, 1979.25. Radio Tehran, November 12, 1979, text in FBIS November 13, 1979.26. Again, it should be noted that many of these patterns of analysis weresimilar to those made by the pro-shah forces in the previous regime.After an extended trip to the West, Hussein Ramtin, an Ettela’atcommentator, wrote that the United States was trying to undermineEurope by ma nipulating oil and the dollar and he suggested that theSoviet invasion of Angola and the Marxist coup in Afghanistan wereresults of a secret superpower agreement. While praising “the specialAmerican spirit of the love of freedom” and marveling at Americansocial mobility, Ramtin saw Americans in government as completelyabandoning their own mo rality. Iranians and others, he concluded,“have been and are the prisoners of the wrongful decisions” ofAmerica. Ettela’at, October 17-18, 1978, text in JPRS December 6, 1978.27. Radio Tehran, November 10, 1979, text in FBIS November 14, 1979.28. See Khomeini’s speeches to Islamic students in Qom, October 28,1979, text in FBIS October 29, 1979, and his speech of November5, 1979, text in FBIS November 6, 1979. On Khomeini’s views of theinternational revolution see Rouhollah Ramazani, “Iran’s ForeignPolicy: Perspectives and Projections,” in U.S. Congress, Joint EconomicCommittee, Economic Consequences of the Revolution in Iran, 96thCong., 1st sess., 1979, pp. 79-80.29. Radio Tehran, October 12, 1979, text in FBIS October 15, 1979.

396NOTES30. Radio Tehran, October 27, 1979, text in FBIS October 29, 1979.31. Bamdad (Tehran), January 27, 1980, text in FBIS January 31, 1980.32. Speech of October 26, 1979, text in FBIS October 30, 1979.33. Interview in Al Safir (Beirut), January 18-19, 1979, text in JPRS February13, 1979.34. Montazeri speech on Radio Tehran international service, November 9,1979, text in FBIS November 13, 1979; ibid.; and Khomeini’s speech ofOctober 26, 1979, text in FBIS October 30, 1979.35. Speech of October 30, 1979, text in FBIS November 1, 1979.36. Radio Tehran, February 14, 1979, text in FBIS February 14, 1979.37. Washington Post, February 16, 1979; National Voice of Iran broadcast,February 14, 1979, text in FBIS February 15, 1979.38. Washington Post, February 13, 1979.39. Washington Post, April 21, 1979; Radio Tehran, April 22, 1979, text inFBIS April 23, 1979.40. Shariat-Madari interview in Al-Watan al-’Arabi (London), March 9, 1979,text in JPRS March 27, 1979. Rowghani’s role is discussed in documentstaken from the U.S. Embassy. See, Kayhan (Tehran), December 3, 1979,text in /PRS January 15, 1980.41. Radio Tehran, March 14, 1979, text in FBIS March 15, 1979.42. Washington Post, March 14, 1980.43. Washington Post, March 17, 1979. The terms “left” and “right” onthe political spectrum are often misleading when applied to MiddleEast politics. Many Americans were confused because of the Marxistsound of Khomeihist rhetoric, but the two philosophies have vastlydifferent roots and implications. One might say that the insistenceon forcing ideology and individual governments and parties in theregion into left/right and East/West spectrums is one of the mainreasons for erroneous analyses. See Walter Laqueur, “Is Khomeini aNeoconservative?” The New Republic, December 8, 1979.44. Speech of April 6, text in FBIS April 9, 1979; speech of April 18, 1979,text in FBIS April 18, 1979.45. Radio Tehran, April 28, 1979, text in FBIS April 30, 1979; Radio Tehran,April 24, 1979, text in FBIS April 26, 1979; Radio Tehran, April 9, 1979,text in FBIS April 11, 1979.46. Le Monde, May 10, 1979. Qarani, of course, had been relatively friendlytoward the United States.47. Le Monde, May 15, 1979.48. Radio Tehran, April 8, 1979, text in FBIS April 9, 1979.49. National Voice of Iran, April 25, 1979, text in FBIS May 7, 1979.50. Radio Tehran, May 19, 1979, text in FBIS May 21, 1979, for Khomeini’sstatement; Radio Tehran, May 18, 1979, text in FBIS May 18,1979, for theRadio Tehran commentary.51. Yazdi interview, Radio Tehran, May 21, 1979, text in FBIS May 22,1979; Shariat-Madari interview in Al Ahram (Cairo), cited in Kayhan(Tehran), June 20, 1979, text in FBIS June 21, 1979.

NOTES 39752. This is from a dispatch by Laingen released by the occupiers of theAmerican Embassy and published in Kayhan, January 20, 1980, text inJPRS March 11, 1980.53. Embassy document published in Kayhan, February 21, 1980, text in/PflS April 11, 1980.54. Radio Tehran, May 25, 1979 text in FBIS May 29, 1979.55. Radio Tehran, May 28, 1979, text in FBIS May 31, 1979.56. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Nominations,96th Cong., 1st sess., May 15, 1979, pp. 8, 14.57. Khomeini’s speeches of July 5 and July 24, texts in FBIS July 9 and 25,1979. For an example of the militants’ attempts to use the embassy’s normaloperations as proof of sabotage, see “Revelations AnnouncementNo. 1,” November 8, 1979, text in FBIS November 9, 1979.58. Radio Tehran, July 11, 1979, text in FBIS July 11, 1979. The commentarydrew in part on a rather wild article published in Newsweek, October7, 1974.59. See Radio Tehran, August 9, 20, and 17, 1979, texts in FBIS August 10,24, and 21, 1979; Bamdad, July 18, 1979, text in FBIS August 10, 1979. Forthe attacks on Laingen, see Radio Tehran, October 12, 1979, text in FBISOctober 15, 1979, and/omhuri ye-Eslami (Tehran), October 1, 1979, textin FBIS October 2, 1979.60. See Yazdi’s interviews with An Nahar (Beirut), October 1, 1979, textin FBIS October 4, 1979, and with Radio Tehran, October 1, 1979, textin FBIS October 2, 1979, as well as Deputy Prime Minister SadeqTabataba’i in Al Nahar Al-’Arabi wa al-Duwali (Paris), October 15-21,1979, text in FBIS October 16, 1979.61. For example, see, Ettela’at, August 21, 1979, text in/PRS September 26,1979.62. Speech of September 23, 1979, text in FBIS September 24, 1979.63. Los Angeles Times, November 9, 1979; Washington Post, November11, 1979.64. See Yazdi’s interviews on Radio Tehran, October 31 and November 5,1979, texts in FBIS November 1 and 6, 1979; Tabataba’i on Radio Tehran,November 5, 1979, text in FBIS November 6, 1979.65. At the same time, Precht had spent ten days in Tehran trying toimprove bilateral relations and offering to give further aid to theIranian govern ment. These initiatives might have contributed to thestudents’ conclu sion that the Bazargan government was about to takemajor steps toward normalizing relations with the United States. Theembassy, whose staff had declined from a high of one thousand beforethe revolution (includ ing a variety of related offices) to a low of forty,had climbed back up to seventy.66. Radio Tehran, November 5, 1979, text in FBIS November 6, 1979.67. Khomeini speech to employees of the Iran Central Insurance Company,Radio Tehran, November 5, 1979, text in FBIS November 6, 1979.68. Speech of November 8, 1979, text in FBIS November 9, 1979.

398NOTESChapter 101. Interview with Ash-Sharq al-Awsat (London), May 12,1980, text inForeign Broadcast Information Service (hereafter FBIS) May 14, 1980.2. Ibid.3. Bamdad (Tehran), January 27, 1980, text in FBiS January 31, 1980.4. Khomeini speech of November 7, 1979, text in FBIS November 8, 1979.Bani-Sadr to Waldheim, Radio Tehran, April 29, 1980, text in FBIS April30, 1980.5. Pietro Petrucci, “Cultural Revolution, Iranian-Style,” A/rique-Asie(Paris) December 10-23, 1979.6. Le Monde (Paris), February 2, 1980.7. See for example, his speech of November 7, 1979, text in FBIS November8, 1979.8. Roderic Davison, Turkey (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1968), p. 68.9. Washington Post, March 21, 1980.10. Interview in Al Nahar Al-Arabi wa al-Duwali (Paris), December 24-30, 1979, text in Joint Publications Research Service (hereafter JPBS)January 29, 1980.11. Le Monde, November 7, 1979.12. Radio Tehran, February 3, 1980, text in FBIS February 4, 1980.13. Kayhan (Tehran), October 28, 1979, text in FBIS November 6, 1979.14. The Economist (London), May 21, 1980. The magazine also repeatedlysuggested after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that Washingtonwould be better advised to give priority to Moscow’s new aggressionrather than continue to focus on the Iran crisis.15. President Jimmy Carter, State of the Union Address, text in U.S. StateDepartment, Bureau of Public Affairs, Current Policy paper No. 132,Jan uary 23, 1980.16. Interview in The Wall Street Journal, January 15, 1980; President JimmyCarter, Interview on “Meet the Press,” text in U.S. State Department,Bureau of Public Affairs, Current Policy paper No. 130, January 20, 1980;Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Statement before Senate AppropriationsCommittee, text in Current Policy paper No. 135, February 1, 1980.17. Interview in Ettela’at (Tehran), February 2, 1980, text in FBIS February7, 1980.18. Radio Tehran, February 10, 1980 and Kayhan, February 6, 1980, texts inFBIS February 11, 1980.19. Le Monde, February 12, 1980.20. Ibid.21. Speech over Radio Tehran, February 11, 1980, text in FBIS February12, 1980; Agence France-Presse, February 13, 1980, and Radio Tehran,Febru ary 12, 1980, texts in FBIS February 13, 1980.22. Interview in L’Expresso (Rome), February 15, 1980.23. Speech of February 23, 1980, text in FBIS February 25, 1980.24. Tehran International Service, February 24, 1980, text in FBIS February25, 1980.

NOTES 39925. Radio Tehran, February 26, 1980, text in FBIS February 27, 1980.26. Especially useful in the following discussion has been the eyewitnessac count of Christos Ioannides, “The Hostages of Iran,” unpublishedmanu script, Athens: March, 1980.27. Cited in The New York Times, January 27, 1980.28. Washington Post, March 17, 1980.29. Text of the speech is in FBIS April 1, 1980.30. Text in FBIS April 8, 1980.31. Speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 10, 1979,text in U.S. State Department, Bureau of Public Affairs, Current Policypaper No. 159.32. Washington Post, April 13, 14, and 20, 1980.33. President Jimmy Carter, Press Conference, text in U.S. StateDepartment, Bureau of Public Affairs, Current Policy paper No. 170.34. Times (Tehran), May 15 and 19, 1980, text in FBIS June 11, 1980.35. Agence France-Presse, June 8, 1980, text in FBIS June 9, 1980.36. Deputy Teyyebi of Esfara’in, Kayhan, May 28, 1980, text in FBIS June4, 1980.Appendix A1. Richard Cottam, Competitive Interference and Twentieth-CenturyDiplomacy (Pittsburgh, 1967) p. 192.2. James Bill, “Iran and the Crisis of ‘78,” Foreign Affairs (Winter 1978-1979) pp. 323-24.3. Baltimore Sun, January 16, 1980.4. William Dorman and Ehsan Omeed, “Reporting Iran the Shah’s Way,”Columbia Journalism Review, January-Feburary, 1979. Shariat-Madari,cited in Washington Post, October 29, 1978. See also M. Reza Behnam,“Misreading Iran Through U.S. News Media,” Christian ScienceMonitor, March 12, 1979; Edward Said, “Iran,” Columbia JournalismReview, March-April, 1980 and J. C. Hurewitz reply, May-June, 1980.5. National Voice of Iran, January 10, 1979, text in Foreign BroadcastInfor mation Service (hereafter FBIS) January 11, 1979.6. See, The New York Times, November 9, 14, 17, and 23, 1978. Antagonismtoward the Western press might also have been created by the selectiveuse of its coverage in the shah’s press. “Only those cultural endeavorswhich help to uphold imperalist and capitalist ideology are permitted toenter,” wrote dissident Ahmad Faroughy in an article reprinted in TheNew York Times. Western values were presented as superior while Iranianvalues were portrayed as retrograde, he added. The Iranian press“has become a great translating machine” carrying articles from the“con formist” American newspapers. Naturally, Iranians would neverhave seen, there or in imported periodicals, the articles critical of theshah and of his government.7. Kayhan (Tehran), March 13, 1979, text in Joint Publications ResearchSer vice (hereafter JPRS) April 11, 1979.

400NOTES8. Radio Tehran, July 11, 1979, text inFBIS July 12, 1979.9. Radio Tehran, April 25, 1979, text inFBIS April 26, 1979; Radio Tehran,February 9, 1979, text in FBIS February 12, 1979.10. Much of this, of course, comes out of a larger, still-ongoing politicaldebate between those who see the men who made the revolution asfa natic reactionaries and those who do not. While the media oftenfailed to see the broad popularity of the anti-shah movement, manycritics went further in their criticism and castigated the press forbeing unsympathetic toward that struggle and for exaggerating theextremism of the revolu tion’s leaders. Whether such characterizationswere unjust may be better judged, perhaps, by a study of AyatollahKhomeini and his advisors now that they have attained power.11. For a general view of how the American media cover foreign news,see Barry Rubin, International News and the American Media (BeverlyHills, 1977J. See also Barry Rubin, “The Press in Its Own Image,” TheWashing ton Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 2 (Spring 1979).12. Washington Post, October 10, 1971.13. For example, see, The New York Times, June 3, 1974, August 12, 1974;Washington Post, May 26 and 27, 1974.14. See, The New York Times, October 7, 1974; Wall Street Journal, August 29,1974; Washington Post, December 30, 1974.15. Washington Post, January 13, 1975.16. The New York Times, February 13, 1976; Washington Post, February 13,1976. See also, Washington Post, August 4, 1976.17. For example, see, Washington Post, August 16, 1974, Feburary 22 andSeptember 11, 1976, January 2 and March 26, 1977; The New York Times,June 1, 1975.18. Washington Post, February 23, 1976, November 11, 1975, May 29 andNovember 28, 1976; The New York Times, September 29, 1976; WashingtonPost, December 17, 1976.19. Washington Post, Feburary 21 and 28, 1976.20. Eric Rouleau in Manchester Guardian, October 20 and 27, 1973.21. Note 4 above, p. 31.22. U.S. Congress, House, Subcommittee on Evaluation, Permanent SelectCommittee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives, Evaluationof U.S. Intelligence Performance Prior to November 1978, 89th Cong., 1stsess., 1979.23. Washington Post, November 25, 1978.24. Le Monde (Paris), January 10, 1979; Radio Tehran, December 3, 1978,text in FBIS December 6, 1978; see also Radio Tehran, November 30,1978, text in FBIS December 1, 1978.25. See speech to National Iranian Oil Company, October 4, 1978, text inFBIS October 5, 1978; Washington Post, November 15 and 25, 1978.26. The New York Times, December 3, 1978; PARS news agency, December 4,1978, text in FBIS December 5, 1978.27. Washington Post, April 2, 1978.

NOTES 40128. Washington Post, May 29 and April 2, 1978.29. Newsweek, May 22 and July 24, 1978.30. Time Magazine, September 11, 1978; Washington Post, September 10,1978; Washington Post, September 15, 1978.31. Washington Post, October 29, 1978; The New York Times, October 31,1978; Washington Post, November 6 and 12, 1978.32. The New York Times, December 14, 1978; Washington Post, November12, 1978.33. Radio Tehran, May 1, 1979, text in FBIS May 2, 1979.34. Ibid.; Le Monde, May 15, 1979.35. Radio Tehran, May 19, 1979, text in FBIS May 21, 1979.36. Radio Tehran, July 11, 1979, text in FBIS July 12, 1979.37. Radio Tehran, May 16, 1979, text inFBIS May 17, 1979.38. Kayhan, June 26, 1979, text in/PRS August 20, 1979.39. Radio Tehran, August 7, 1979, text in FBIS August 8, 1979; Le Monde,January 29, 1980.40. Bert Quint, “Dateline Tehran: There Was a Touch of Fear,” TV Guide,April 5, 1980. The CBS contingent included a bureau chief, three producers,four correspondents, five camera crews, a radio editor, two tapeeditors, a troubleshooting expediter, four translators, six automobileand two motorcycle drivers.