Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran (Persian: محمدرضا پهلوی Moḥammad Rez̤ā Pahlavī) (October 26, 1919, Tehran – July 27, 1980, Cairo), was the monarch of Iran from September 16, 1941 until the Iranian Revolution on February 11, 1979. He was the second ruler of the Pahlavi dynasty and the last Shah of the Iranian monarchy.

The Shah came to power during World War II, after an Anglo-Soviet invasion forced the abdication of his father Reza Shah who was accused of collaborating with Nazis. Mohammad Reza Shah's rule oversaw the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry under prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh. His was a traditional approach to kingship, and he never extended the elitism of the court to the technocrats and intellectuals who emerged from Iranian and Western universities. Indeed, the shah’s system provoked the Persian middle class, for they were excluded from participation in real power. Unwilling to touch his despotic way of conducting national affairs, the Shah fell victim to the limitation of his authoritarian style. The Shah is judged as a megalomaniac dictator who had limited leadership ability, total disregard for human rights, who possessed vain attitudes, and was amenable to corruption and racism. According to the American Ambassador Julius Holmes; because of his innate suspicious of the ambitions of others and the lack of highly-qualified persons to assist him the Shah was not well served by his advisers, either in government or outside it. He was susceptible to exaggerated flattery and wanted to be told by his advisors what he wanted to hear. ^[1]. He was a despot whose secret police did use torture, as he once admitted to Time magazine, and who eventually earned the passionate hatred of his people. He had no great regard for women. In 1973 he exploded at Italian Journalist Oriana Fallaci: "Does it seem right to you that a King, that an Emperor of Persia, should waste time talking about such things? Talking about wives, women? Women are important in a man's life only if they're beautiful and keep their femininity. You're equal in the eyes of the law but not, excuse my saying so, in ability." --former Secretary of the Treasury William Simon once called him "a nut". The middle class was angered by the lack of political rights and by the corruption and inefficiency of a government system in which top jobs were awarded on the basis of loyalty to the Shah rather than ability ^[2]. In 1976 Amnesty International, a London-based organization that keeps track of "prisoners of conscience" around the world, estimated that 25,000 to 100,000 political prisoners were being held in Iran. The Shah's own figure was 3,000 to 3,500. Amnesty International in the 1970s described various methods of torture applied by his regime such as: electric shock, burning on a heated metal grill, and the insertion of bottles and hot eggs into the anus. However, he regarded most dissidents as potential or actual Marxist terrorists and thus common criminals rather than political prisoners. Some of the dissidents really were Marxists. The Shah is also criticized for his murderous acts (e.g the execution of the poet Khosrow Golsorkhi, the intellectual Bijan Jazani and the Foreign Minister Dr. Fatemi as well as the assassination of the journalist Mohammad Masood, among many others), his extravagant expenses (such as the Persepolice carnival or Aryamehr Tennis Tournament in the face of dire poverty in the country), and his socio-economic blunders (for example forced removal of low-income families from the prosperous parts of various cities to the remote distict such as Kooye Nohom-e Aban in Tehran which was far away from the economic centre of city where these workers could have found jobs as gardeners, janitors and cleaners. This created a drug-based crime-nourished economy). William J. Butler, a New York lawyer who investigated SAVAK for the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, spoke to Reza Baraheni, an Iranian poet who was held for 102 days by the secret police in 1973. Baraheni told of seeing in SAVAK torture rooms "all sizes of whips" and instruments designed to pluck out the fingernails of victims. He described the sufferings of some fellow prisoners: "They hang you upside down, and then someone beats you with a mace on your legs or on your genitals, or they lower you down, pull your pants up and then one of them tries to rape you while you are still hanging upside down." Baraheni himself was beaten and whipped, and released only after agreeing to make a statement on television condemning Communism. Many other SAVAK victims were tortured briefly and then released, after the secret police satisfied themselves that they would no longer oppose the Shah. ^[3]

Shah proved to be a master in the cooption of the ideas others, both as tactic of control and manipulation and as a form of channeling creativity to his advantage. For example, the much-vaunted White Revolution of the early 1960s represented a projection of the views of Prime Minister Amini and his agriculture minister, Hassan Arsanjani, both of whom were defenestrated prior to the full implementation of the reform program. ^[4] The White Revolution was a series of economic and social reforms intended to transform Iran into a modern state, and was demanded by the Kennedy administration, which was concerned about the spread of communism in Iran. It succeeded in modernizing the nation, nationalizing many natural resources and extending suffrage to women, among other things.

While a Muslim himself, the Shah gradually lost support with the Shi'a clergy of Iran. More importantly, however, he lost the support of the nation, particularly due to his misguided socio-economic policies characterized by double digit inflation, massive unemployment and irresponsible fiscal policies. Construction of white elephant projects, and extravagant expenditures enraged the growing mass of poors who were migrating to the cities in search of work. In October 1971 the Shah celebrated the twenty-five hundredth anniversary of the Iranian kings. The New York Times, October 12, 1971, 39:2 reported that $100 million was spent, where French chefs prepared breast of peacock for royalty and dignitaries around the world. This “was a major fiasco. Months before the festivities, university students struck in protest. ..Even within the entrepreneurial class there was much grumbling at what amounted to forced levies, large monetary contributions to the celebration." ^[5] On a dusty, windswept next to the ruins of Persepolis , the Shah gave orders to build a city covering 160 acres, studded with three huge royal tents and fifty-nine lesser ones arranged in a star-shaped design. No expense was spared to make this one of the most lavish events of modern times. Food was catered by Maxim’s of Paris, the buildings were decorated by Jensen’s (the same firm that helped Jacqueline Kennedy redecorate the White House), the guests ate off Ceraline Limoges china and drank from Baccarat crystal glasses… Indeed, the cost was sufficiently impressive that the shah forbade his associates to discuss the actual figures… The Persepolis ceremonies antagonized many of the Iranian people, for the contrast between the dazzling elegance of Persepolis and the misery of the nearby villages was so dramatic that no one could ignore it.^[6] Clashes with the religious right, increased communist activity, Western interference in the economy, and a 1953 period of political disagreements with Mohammad Mossadegh (in which each side accused the other of staging a coup, eventually leading to Mossadegh's downfall) would cause an increasingly autocratic rule. Various controversial policies were enacted, including the banning of the Tudeh Party and the oppression of dissent by Iran's intelligence agency, SAVAK; Amnesty International reported that Iran had as many as 2,200 political prisoners in 1978. By 1979, the political unrest had transformed into a revolution which, on January 16, forced the Shah to leave Iran after 37 years of rule. Soon thereafter, the revolutionary forces transformed the government into an Islamic republic.

Early life

Born in Tehran to Reza Pahlavi and his second wife, Tadj ol-Molouk, Mohammad Reza was the eldest son of the first Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty, and the third of his eleven children. He was born with a twin sister, Ashraf Pahlavi. However, Mohammad Reza, Ashraf, Ali Reza, and their older half-sister, Fatemeh, were born as non-royals, as their father did not become Shah until 1925.

On February 21, 1921, Reza Khan staged a successful coup d'état together with Seyyed Zia'eddin Tabatabaee against the fledgling Qajar dynasty of Persia. Eventually, he was declared the Shah by the country's National Assembly, the Majlis of Iran, on December 12, 1925. On April 25, 1926, he received his coronation, where Mohammad Reza was proclaimed the Crown Prince of Persia.

As a child, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi attended Institut Le Rosey, a Swiss boarding school, which he completed in 1935. Around the same time, his father officially asked the international community to refer to Persia as its internal name, "Iran". Upon Mohammad Reza's return to the country, he enrolled in the local military academy in Tehran, until 1938.

Early reign

Deposition of his father

In the midst of World War II in 1941, Nazi Germany began Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union, breaking the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. The act had a huge impact on Iran, as the country had declared neutrality in the conflict.^[7] However, Iran had maintained good relations with Nazi Germany, and was thus seen by the British gvernment as a potential member of the Axis Powers. Thus a preventive invasion was staged by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.

During the subsequent military invasion and occupation, the joint Allied and Soviet command forced Reza Shah to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. He replaced his father on the throne on September 16, 1941. It was hoped that the younger prince would be more open to influence from the pro-Allied West, which later proved to be the case.

Subsequent to his succession as Shah, Iran became a major conduit for British, and later, American aid to the USSR during the war. This massive supply effort became known as the Persian Corridor, and marked the first large-scale American and Western participation in Iran, an involvement that would continue to grow until the successful revolution against the Iranian monarchy in 1979.

After the departure of the Allied Forces from Iran in 1947, the prime minister Qavam decided to confront Russians, who still occupied the Northern part of Iran. Qavam succeeded by a combination of strategically smart moves, discreet backing by British, and blunt threat of the Truman Doctrine. However, Princess Ashraf, the shah’s twin sister, suspicious of Qavam ambitions, arranged for his dismissal by the parliament ^[8] This enabled the young shah to claim that it was he who freed Azerbaijan and Kurdistan. According to the US Ambassador George Allan at the time; “Despite the fact that the Shah is by far the most powerful figure in Iran today, his power is largely negative in that he can prevent almost any action he does not like, and is unable to do very much of a positive nature.” ^[9]

Oil nationalization and the 1953 coup

In the early 1950s, there was a political crisis centered in Iran that commanded the focused attention of British and American intelligence outfits.In 1951 Dr. Mossadegh came to office, committed to re-establish the democracy ,constitutional monarchy, and nationalizing the Iranian petroleum industry. From the start he erroneously believed that the Americans, who had no interest in Anglo-Iranian Oil company, would support his nationalization plan. He was buoyed by the American Ambassador, Henry Grady. In the events, Americans supported the British, and fearing that the Communists with the help of Soviets are posed to overthrow the government they decided to remove Mossadegh from the office. Shortly before the 1952 presidential election in the US the British government invited Kermit Roosevelt of the CIA to London and proposed that they cooperate under the code name “Operation Ajax” to cause the downfall of Mossadegh from office. ^[10].

In 1951, under the leadership of the nationalist movement of Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, the Iranian parliament voted unanimously to nationalize the oil industry. This shut out the immensely profitable Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), which was a pillar of Britain's economy and political clout. A month after that vote, Mossadegh was named Prime Minister of Iran.

In response to nationalization, Britain placed a massive embargo on Iranian oil exports, which only worsened the already fragile economy. Neither the AIOC nor Mossadegh was open to compromise in this period, with Britain insisting on a restoration of the AIOC and Mossadegh only willing to negotiate on the terms of its compensation for lost assets. The U.S. president at the time, Harry S. Truman, was categorically unwilling to join Britain in planning a coup against Mossadegh, and Britain felt unable to act without American cooperation, particularly since Mossadegh had shut down their embassy in 1952. Truman's successor, Dwight Eisenhower, was finally persuaded by arguments that were anti-Communist rather than primarily economic, and focused on the potential for Iran's communist Tudeh Party to capitalize on political instability and assume power, aligning Iran and its immense oil resources with the Soviet Bloc. Though Mossadegh never had a close political alliance with Tudeh, he also failed to act decisively against them in any way, which hardened U.S. policy against him. Coup plans which had stalled under Truman were immediately revived by an eager intelligence corps, with powerful aid from the Dulles brothers, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Welsh Dulles, after Eisenhower's inauguration in 1953.

Coup

Under the direction of Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., a senior CIA officer and grandson of the former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, the CIA and British intelligence funded and led a covert operation to depose Mossadeq with the help of military forces loyal to the Shah, known as Operation Ajax.^[11] The plot hinged on orders signed by the Shah to dismiss Mossadegh as prime minister and replace him with General Fazlollah Zahedi, a choice agreed on by the British and Americans.

The American Embassy in Tehran was reporting that Mossaedgh had near total support from the nation and was unlikely to fall. The prime minister asked Majles to give him direct control of the army. Given the situation , alongside the strong personal support of Eden and Churchill for covert action, the American government gave a go-ahead to a committee, attended by the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, Kermit Roosevelt, Ambassador Henderson, and Secretary of Defense Charles Wilson. Kermit Roosevelt returned to Iran on July 13 and on August 1 in his first meeting with the shah. A car picked him up in the midnight and drove him to the palace. He lay down on the seat and covered himself with a blanket as guards waved his driver through the gates. The shah got into the car and Roosevelt explained the mission. The CIA provided $1 million in Iranian currency, which Roosevelt had stored in a large safe, a bulky cache given the exchange rate 1000 rial = 15 dollars at the time. ^[12] .

The Communists staged massive demonstrations to hijack the prime minister’s initiatives. The United States had announced its total lack of confidence in him; and his followers were drifting to indifference. On August 16, 1953, the right wing of the Army reacted. Armed with an order by the shah, appointing General Fazlollah Zahedi as prime minister, a coalition of mobs and retired officers close to the Palace, attempting what could be counted as a coup d’etat. They failed dismally. The shah fled the country in an humiliating haste. Even Ettelaat, the nation’s largest daily newspaper, and its pro-shah publisher Abbas Masudi, published negative commentaries on the shah ^[13] .

In the following two days the Communists turned against Mossadegh. They roamed Tehran raising red flags and pulling down statues of Reza Shah. This frightened the conservative clergies like Kashani and National Front leaders like Makki , who sided with the shah. On Agust 18, Mossadegh hit back. Tudeh Partisans were clubbed to be dispersed^[14].

Tudeh had no choice but to accept the defeat. In the meantime, according to the CIA plot, Zahedi appealed to the military, and claimed to be the legitimate prime minister and charged Mossadegh with staging a coup by ignoring the shah’s decree. Zahedi’s son Ardeshir acted as the go-between for the CIA and his father. On August 19th the thugs organized with $100,000 of the CIA funds finally appeared, marched out of south Tehran into the city center, other mobs joined in. Gang with clubs, knives, and rocks controlled the street overturning Tudeh trucks and beating up anti-shah activists. As Roosevelt was congratulating Zahedi in the basement of his hiding place the new prime minister’s mobs burst in and carried him upstairs on their shoulders . That evening Ambassador Henderson suggested to Ardashir that Mossadegh not be harmed . Roosevelt furnished Zahedi with $900,000 left from the operation Ajax funds. The shah returned to power, but never extended the elitism of the court to the technocrats and intellectuals who emerged from Iranian and Western universities. Indeed, his system irritated the new classes, for they were barred from partaking in real power. ^[15]

Assassination attempts

The Shah was the victim of two assassination attempts. On February 4, 1949, the Shah attended an annual ceremony to commemorate the founding of Tehran University.^[16] At the ceremony, Fakhr Arai fired five shots at the Shah from a ten foot range. Only one of the shots hit the Shah and his cheek was mildly wounded. Arai was instantly shot by nearby officers. After some investigations, it was found that Arai was a member of the Tudeh party,^[17] which was subsequently banned.^[18] However, there is evidence that the would-be assassin was not a Tudeh member, but a religious fundamentalist.^[19][20] The Tudeh was nonetheless blamed, and presecuted. The second attempt on the Shah's life was on April 10, 1965.^[21] A soldier shot his way through the Marble Palace. The assailant was killed before he reached the Shah's quarters. Two civilian guards died protecting the Shah.

According to Vladimir Kuzichkin, a former KGB officer who defected to the SIS, the Shah was also allegedly targeted by Soviet Union, who tried to use a TV remote control to detonate a Volkswagen which was turned into an IED. The TV remote failed to function.^[22]

Later years

Foreign relations

The Shah supported the Yemeni royalists against republican forces in the Yemen Civil War (1962-70) and assisted the sultan of Oman in putting down a rebellion in Dhofar (1971). Concerning the fate of Bahrain (which Britain had controlled since the 19th century, but which Iran claimed as its own territory) and three small Persian Gulf islands, the Shah negotiated an agreement with the British, which, by means of a public consensus, ultimately led to the independence of Bahrain (against the wishes of Iranian nationalists). Iran still lays claim to Greater and Lesser Tunbs and Abu Musa, three (strategically sensitive) islands in the Strait of Hormuz, however, which are claimed by the United Arab Emirates.

During this period, the Shah maintained cordial relations with the Persian Gulf states and established closer diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia. Relations with Iraq, however, were often difficult until 1975 when both countries signed the Algiers Accord, which granted Iraq equal navigation rights in the Shatt al-Arab river, with the Shah also agreeing to end his support for Iraqi Kurdish rebels. [3]

The Shah also maintained close relations with King Hussein of Jordan, Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and King Hassan II of Morocco. [4]

In July 1964, Shah Pahlavi, Turkish President Cemal Gürsel and Pakistani President Ayub Khan announced in Istanbul the establishment of the Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD) organization to promote joint transportation and economic projects also envisioning Afghanistan joining some time in the future. The Shah maintained close relations with Pakistan. During the 1965 war of Pakistan with India the Shah provided free fuel to the Pakistani planes who used to land on Iranian soil, refuel and then take off.

The Shah of Iran was the first Muslim leader to recognize the State of Israel. However, this relationship cooled after Shah decided to improve his relationships with Saddam and other Arab-states. As Dr. Trita Parsi writes:“Only weeks after signing the Algiers Accord with Iraq in the spring of 1975, the Shah described the need for a new approach to regional affairs to journalist Muhammad Heikal (of Egypt’s daily newspaper AlAhram)  : "We followed the principle 'my enemy's enemy is my friend,' and our relations with Israel began to develop. But now the situation has changed.... I think occasionally of a new equilibrium in the region .... Perhaps [it] can be integrated into an Islamic framework." And as Parsi argues he began shortly afterwards to distance himself from the Jewish state ^[23].

Westernization and autocracy

With Iran's great oil wealth, Mohammad Reza Shah became the pre-eminent leader of the Middle East, and self-styled "Guardian" of the Persian Gulf. He became increasingly despotic during the last years of his regime. In the words a US Embassy dispatch “The shah’s picture is everywhere. The beginning of all film showings in public theaters presents the shah in various regal poses accompanied by the strains of the National anthem… The monarch also actively extends his influence to all phases of social affairs…there is hardly any activity or vocation which the shah or members of his family or his closest friends do not have a direct or at least a symbolic involvement. In the past, he had claimed to take a two party-system seriously and declared “If I were a dictator rather than a constitutional monarch, then I might be tempted to sponsor a single dominant party such as Hitler organized” ^[24]. However, by 1975, he abolished the multi-party system of government so that he could rule through a one-party state under the Rastakhiz (Resurrection) Party in autocratic fashion. All Iranians were pressured to join in. The shah’s own words on its justification was; “We must straighten out Iranians’ ranks. To do so, we divide them into two categories: those who believe in Monarchy, the constitution and the Six Bahman Revolution and those who don’t. .. A person who does not enter the new political party and does not believe in the three cardinal principles will have only two choices. He is either an individual who belongs to an illegal organization , or is related to the outlawed Tudeh Party, or in other words a traitor. Such an individual belongs to an Iranian prison, or if he desires he can leave the country tomorrow, without even paying exit fees; he can go anywhere he likes, because he is not Iranian, he has no nation, and his activities are illegal and punishable according to the law” ^[25]. In addition, the Shah had decreed that all Iranian citizens and the few remaining political parties must become part of Rastakhiz. [5]

Secret Police, SAVAK

The Shah also authorized the creation of the secret police force, SAVAK (National Organization for Information and Security, which was created and organized with the help of the CIA and Mossad.).This infamous agency operated its own secret prisons, used torture extensively, assassinated dissidents, and kept the CIA and Mossad informed of most activities. The Shah's secret police did use many forms of torture and interrogation, as he once admitted to Time magazine, and this helped many to critize the leader throughout the country. Amnesty International in the 1970s described his regime’s methods of torture: electric shock, burning on a heated metal grill, and the insertion of bottles and hot eggs into the anus. According to 1976 Amnesty International estimates 25,000 to 100,000 political prisoners were being held across Iran. The Shah's own figure was 3,000 to 3,500. Anne Burley, an Amnesty International researcher, was shown by the government a SAVAK file that she deems authentic, containing pictures of victims who had been tortured to death. Many were women, political activists and the religous clergy, she testified, and "in each case the breasts were mutilated." William J. Butler, a New York lawyer who investigated SAVAK for the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, spoke to Reza Baraheni, an Iranian poet who was held for 102 days by the secret police in 1973. Baraheni told of seeing in SAVAK torture rooms "all sizes of whips" and instruments designed to pluck out the fingernails of victims. He described the sufferings of some fellow prisoners: "They hang you upside down, and then someone beats you with a mace on your legs or on your genitals, or they lower you down, pull your pants up and then one of them tries to rape you while you are still hanging upside down." Baraheni himself was beaten and whipped, and released only after agreeing to make a force statement on television condemning Communism. Many other SAVAK victims were tortured briefly and then released. Did the Shah know? He told TIME in 1976 that "we don't need to torture people any more," implying that torture had in fact been practiced. In any case, as an absolute monarch he obviously was responsible for the actions of his own security forces.^[26]

There is some more direct evidence of the Shah's complicity in executions too. According to TIME, many SAVAK agents had testified that the Shah, under international pressure to liberalize and westernise his regime and therefore eager to hide evidence of repression, gave the secret police a terse oral order in 1975: "Don't take any prisoners. Kill them." In a confession interspersed with sobs, Bahman Naderipour described how he and other SAVAK agents, in response to this order, took nine political prisoners out of Evin prison in northwest Tehran, handcuffed and blindfolded them and then machine-gunned them. He and another agent, Fereydoun Tavangari, said that SAVAK murdered other prisoners in their cells, then turned their bodies over to police medical examiners with an explanation that they had been killed in gun fights while resisting arrest. For all the torture tales, U.S. experts estimated the number of political executions under the Shah at about 180 per year. By far the greatest bloodshed under the Shah occurred in the demonstrations that convulsed the country in 1978 and early 1979. The Shah's troops several times opened fire on unarmed crowds. One prominent member of the International Commission of Jurists classifies the Shah as in a "second league" of tyrants, below Uganda's Idi Amin, Cambodia's Pol Pot and Central African Emperor Jean Bokassa I. .^[27]

Achievements

The Shah made major changes to curb the power of certain ancient elite factions by expropriating large and medium-sized estates for the benefit of more than four million small farmers. In the White Revolution, he took a number of major modernization measures, including extending suffrage to women, much to the discontent and opposition of the Islamic clergy. He instituted exams for Islamic theologians to become established clerics, which were widely unpopular and broke centuries-old religious traditions. The mullahs were accustomed to having total control over admission to their ranks.

He was notorious for his murderous acts (e.g the execution of the poet Khosrow Golsorkhi, the intellectual Bijan Jazani and the Foreign Minister Dr. Fatemi as well as the assassination of the journalist Mohammad Masood, among many others), his extravagant expenses (such as the Persepolice carnival or Aryamehr Tennis Tournament in the face of dire poverty in the country), and his socio-economic blunders (for example forced removal of low-income families from the prosperous parts of various cities to the remote distict such as Kooye Nohom-e Aban in Tehran which was far away from the economic centre of city where these workers could have found jobs as gardeners, janitors and cleaners. This created a drug-based crime-nourished economy).

In October 1971 the Shah celebrated the twenty-five-hundredth anniversary of the Iranian monarchy. The New York Times, reported that $100 million was spent. ^[28] Next to the ruins of Persepolis , the Shah gave orders to build a city covering 160 acres, studded with three huge royal tents and fifty-nine lesser ones arranged in a star-shaped design . French chefs from Maxim’s of Paris prepared breast of peacock for royalty and dignitaries around the world, the buildings were decorated by Jensen’s (the same firm that helped Jacqueline Kennedy redecorate the White House), the guests ate off Ceraline Limoges china and drank from Baccarat crystal glasses. This became a major scandal for the contrast between the dazzling elegance of celebration and the misery of the nearby villages was so dramatic that no one could ignore it. Months before the festivities, university students struck in protest. Indeed, the cost was sufficiently impressive that the shah forbade his associates to discuss the actual figures.^{[29] [30]}

Cottam have argued that the longevity of the Shah’s rule was due largely to his success in balancing his security chiefs against each other. Although the shah was clearly willing to utilize instruments of terror to remain in power, he nevertheless was probably sincere about wishing to bring economic, social, and political reform to his country.

Corruption and Wealth

The Shah accumulated an immense wealth gathered through his corruption. Shah's own figure for the size of his fortune, given to Barbara Walters of ABC, was $50 million to $100 million. Even that would represent a spectacular increase over the years. Much of the Shah's wealth was funneled into the Pahlavi Foundation and several others, established ostensibly to fund charitable activities, like aid to the handicapped. In his book, Iran: The Illusion of Power, British Journalist Robert Graham published a 3½-page list of holdings of the Pahlavi Foundation that he was able to track down as of the end of 1977 and that he estimated to be worth $2.8 billion to $3.2 billion. They included total ownership of Bank Omran, one of Iran's largest banks; 80% ownership of Bimeh Melli, the nation's third largest insurance company; and full or partial interests in auto factories (10% of GM Iran), cement plants, sugar mills, housing projects and a string of hotels, including the Tehran Hilton. Indeed, Graham estimates that the Shah, through the foundation, once owned 70% of all the hotel beds in Iran. Whatever the size of the Shah's personal fortune.

According to TIME he ran a corrupt government from first to last. Foreign companies frequently had to pay "commissions" to government officials or members of the royal family to get any kind of contract in Iran. One example: between 1973 and 1975 the Bell Helicopter division of Textron Inc., which was selling choppers to the Iranian air force, paid a $3 million commission to a company that turned out to be secretly owned in part by a brother-in-law of the Shah. The Shah indirectly acknowledged the corruption by periodically announcing drives to root it out, but he never succeeded in doing so—if, in fact, he ever really tried. ^[31]

Author Graham believes that the Shah's motives in tolerating the corruption, and in guiding the network of investments of the Pahlavi Foundation, were less personal aggrandizement than a desire to retain tight control of the Iranian economy and win the loyalty of subordinates by lavish financial favors

. Nonetheless, the Shah in power lived very well, to put it mildly according to TIME. He shuttled among five palaces in Iran. Journalist Fallaci, interviewing the Shah in 1973 in one of them, noted that "almost everything in the place was gold: the ashtray that you didn't dare dirty, the box inlaid with emeralds, the knickknacks covered with rubies and sapphires." The ruler's sisters also basked in opulence. Princess Ashraf Pahlavi owns two town houses and a lavish triplex coop apartment in Manhattan. Princess Shams is said to have bought a seaside showplace in Acapulco and to have once planned a gold-domed palace overlooking Beverly Hills, Calif. ^[32]

Attitude Towards Womem

The Shah had no great regard for women. In 1973 he exploded at Italian Journalist Oriana Fallaci: "Does it seem right to you that a King, that an Emperor of Persia, should waste time talking about such things? Talking about wives, women? Women are important in a man's life only if they're beautiful and keep their femininity. You're equal in the eyes of the law but not, excuse my saying so, in ability." --former Secretary of the Treasury William Simon once called him "a nut". The middle class was angered by the lack of political rights and by the corruption and inefficiency of a government system in which top jobs were awarded on the basis of loyalty to the Shah rather than ability (.^[33]

Revolution

His policies led to strong economic growth during the 1960s and 1970s but at the same time, opposition to his autocratic pro-Western rule increased. His good relations with Israel and the United States and his active support for women's rights were moreover a reason for Islamic fundamentalist groups to attack his policies.

On January 16, 1979 he and his wife left Iran at the behest of Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar (a long time opposition leader himself), who sought to calm down the situation.^[34] Bakhtiar dissolved SAVAK and freed all political prisoners, and allowed Ayatollah Khomeini to return to Iran after years in exile, asking him to create a Vatican-like state in Qom, promised free elections and called upon the opposition to help preserve the constitution proposing a `national unity` including Khomeini's followers. Khomeini fiercely rejected Dr. Bakhtiar's demands and appointed his own interim government, with Mehdi Bazargan as prime minister, demanding `since I have appointed he must be obeyed." In February, pro-Khomeini Revolutionary guerrilla and rebel soldiers gained the upperhand in street fighting and the military announced their neutrality. On the evening of February 11 the dissolution of the monarchy was complete.

Exile and death

In 1978, the political unrest against his rule boiled over into a revolution. According to William Sullivan the last U.S. Ambassador to Iran, Jolted by the populous unrest ^[35]the shah summoned his military commanders to the palace and held a long meeting on September 7 1979. The city and the country awoke the next morning to the announcement that martial law had been declared. A demonstration had been organized and scheduled for September 8 in Jaleh Square. In short order the demonstrators who had gathered there and the troops who were brought in to disperse them were meeting face to face. A melee soon developed and shoving took place on both sides. After a few minutes of this, the troop commander called his forces back to a firing line and ordered to fire their weapons . .. The massacre was a shock to both sides. The opposition seemed sobered by the force of military action; the government – and particularly the shah – seemed astounded by the number of casualties. Later, Sullivan received a message asking him to see the shah and inform him that the United States government felt it was in his best interest and in Iran’s for him to leave the country. ..The shah listened to him state it simply and gently as he could and then turned to him, almost beseeching, throwing out his hands and saying, “Yes, but where I will go?” The ambassador asked, “Would you like me to seek an invitation for you to go to the United States?” The shah leaned forward almost like a small boy, and said “Oh, would you?” ^[36]

24. In January 1979, the Shah left Iran, officially for a visit to Egypt. Prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar's attempts to avoid a full collapse of the political system, however, could not stop the eventual success of the revolutionary forces under Ayatollah Khomeini, who returned to Iran from exile in February 1979. The Shah became persona non grata in all the Western democracies, searching for a safe country to accommodate him. President Carter Issued him a temporary visa for his medical condition. This resulted in the kidnapping of a number of American diplomats, military personnel and intelligence officers at the American embassy in Tehran, which soon became known as the Iran hostage crisis. Once the Shah's course of treatment had finished, the American government, eager to avoid further controversy, pressed the former monarch to leave the country.

He left the United States on December 15, 1979 and lived for a short time in the Isla Contadora in Panama. Finally he went back to Egypt where he died on July 27, 1980, aged 60. Egyptian President Sadat gave the Shah a state funeral.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is buried in the Al Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo, a mosque of great symbolic value. The last royal rulers of two empires are buried here, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran and King Farouk of Egypt, his former brother-in-law. The tombs lie off to the left of the entrance.

Shortly after his overthrow, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi wrote an autobiographical memoir entitled Answer to History (ISBN 0-8128-2755-4), which was translated from the original French (Réponse à l'histoire) into both English and Persian (Pasukh bih Tarikh) as well as other languages, and was later published posthumously in 1980. The book is his personal account of his reign and accomplishments, as well as his perspective on issues related to the Iranian Revolution and Western foreign policy toward Iran. His love for his country vividly come through in his final memoirs, and it is clear that at the end of his life, he realized some of the mistakes he had made.^{[original research?]} However, the Shah places some of the blame for the wrongdoings of SAVAK and the failures of various democratic and social reforms (particularly through the White Revolution) upon Amir Abbas Hoveyda and his administration.

Marriages and children

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was married three times. His first wife was Princess Fawzia of Egypt (born November 5, 1921), a daughter of King Fuad I of Egypt and Nazli Sabri; she also was a sister of King Farouk I of Egypt. They married in 1939 and were divorced in 1945 (Egyptian divorce) and 1948 (Iranian divorce). They had one daughter, Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi (born October 27, 1940).

His second wife was Soraya Esfandiary (June 22, 1932-October 26, 2001), the only daughter of Khalil Esfandiary, Ambassador of Iran to the Federal Republic of Germany, and his wife, the former Eva Karl. They married in 1951 and divorced in 1958 when it became apparent that she could not bear children. Soraya later told The New York Times that the Shah had no choice but to divorce her, and that he was heavyhearted about the decision.^[37]

After his second divorce, the Shah, who told a reporter who asked about his feelings for the former queen that "nobody can carry a torch longer than me,"^{[citation needed]} indicated his interest in marrying Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy, a daughter of the deposed Italian king Umberto II. Pope John XXIII reportedly vetoed the suggestion. In an editorial about the rumors surrounding the marriage of "a Muslim sovereign and a Catholic princess", the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, considered the match "a grave danger."^[38]

Pahlavi eventually found his third and final wife, Farah Diba (born October 14, 1938), the only child of Sohrab Diba, Captain in the Imperial Iranian Army, and his wife, the former Faredeh Ghotbi. They were married in 1959, and Queen Farah was crowned Shahbanu, or Empress, a title created especially for her in 1967. Previous royal consorts had been known as "Malakeh" (Arabic: Malika), or Queen. The couple remained together for twenty years, until the Shah's death. Farah Diba bore him four children:

1. Reza Pahlavi, the Crown Prince (born October 31, 1960)
2. Farahnaz Pahlavi (born March 12, 1963)
3. Ali Reza Pahlavi (born April 28, 1966)
4. Leila Pahlavi (March 27, 1970 – June 10, 2001)

Quotes

On the revolution

• The role of the U.S.: I did not know it then – perhaps I did not want to know – but it is clear to me now that the Americans wanted me out. Clearly this is what the human rights advocates in the State Department wanted … What was I to make of the Administration's sudden decision to call former Under Secretary of State George Ball to the White House as an adviser on Iran? … Ball was among those Americans who wanted to abandon me and ultimately my country.^[39]

• Promise to the nation: You, the people of Iran, rose against injustice and corruption… I too, have heard the voice of your revolution. As the Shah of Iran, and as an Iranian, I will support the revolution of my people. I promise that the previous mistakes, unlawful acts and injustice will not be repeated.^[40][41]

On the role of women

• Women are important in a man’s life only if they’re beautiful and charming and keep their femininity and ... this business of feminism, for instance. What do these feminists want? What do you want? You say equality. Oh! I don’t want to seem rude, but.. you’re equal in the eyes of the law but not, excuse my saying so, in ability ... You've never produced a Michelangelo or a Bach. You've never even produced a great chef. And if you talk to me about opportunity, all I can say is, Are you joking? Have you ever lacked the opportunity to give history a great chef? You've produced nothing great, nothing! … You're schemers, you are evil. All of you.^[42][43]

- When later he was asked in an interview by Barbara Walters if he had said this, he answered "Not with the same words, no." ^[44]

• ... women- who after all make up half the population- should be treated as equals...^[45]

• I have never believed that women were diabolical creatures if they showed their faces or arms, or went swimming, or skied or played basketball. If some women wish to live veiled, then it is their choice, but why deprive half of our youth of the healthy pleasure of sports?^[46]

See also

• Tehran Conference
• Trans-Iranian Railway
• Middle East Theatre of World War II
• Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr.
• Nuclear program of Iran
• National Car Museum of Iran, showcases the cars of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

Further reading

• Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Answer to History, Stein & Day Pub, 1980, ISBN 0-8128-2755-4.
• Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, The Shah's Story, M. Joseph, 1980, ISBN 0-7181-1944-4
• Farah Pahlavi, An Enduring Love : My Life with the Shah - A Memoir, Miramax Books, 2004, ISBN 1-4013-5209-X.
• Stephen Kinzer, All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, John Wiley & Sons, 2003, ISBN 0-471-26517-9
• William Shawcross, The Shah's last ride: The death of an ally, Touchstone, 1989, ISBN 0-671-68745-X.
• Ardeshir Zahedi, The Memoirs of Ardeshir Zahedi , IBEX, 2005, ISBN 1-58814-038-5.
• Amin Saikal The Rise and Fall of the Shah 1941 - 1979 Angus and Robertson (Princeton University Press) ISBN 0-207-14412-5
• Abbas Milani, The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution, Mage Publishers, 2000, ISBN 0-934211-61-2.
• David Harris, "The Crisis: the President, the Prophet, and the Shah--1979 and the Coming of Militant Islam" New York: Little,Brown &Co, 2004. ISBN 0-316-32394-2.
• Kapuściński, Ryszard (1982). Shah of Shahs. Vinage. ISBN 0-679-73801-0
• Ali M. Ansari, Modern Iran since 1921 ISBN 0-582-35685-7

References

External links

• A web site in Farsi dedicated to Reza Shah including video clip and photos March 2007).
• A web site in Farsi dedicated to Ardeshir Zahedi including video clip of marriage with Princess Shahnaz and photos of Shah Mrach 2007).
• The Shah's last interview (conducted by David Frost in Panama).
• Interview with Mike Wallace - YouTube Video
• Azadi TV: The Shah
• The Shah's last interview (conducted by David Frost in Panama).
• The Iranian constitution of 1906 (Persian).
• ISNA interview with Dr. Mahmood Kashani (Persian)
• Mossadegh saved the Shah, by Fereydoun Hoveyda
• The CIA and Iran, Ardeshir Zahedi, May 22, 2000.
• James Risen: Secrets of History: The C.I.A. in Iran -- A special report.; How a Plot Convulsed Iran in '53 (and in '79). The New York Times, April 16, 2000.
• Stephen Fleischman. Shah knew what he was talking about: Oil is too valuable to burn, CommonDreams, November 29, 2005.
• Roger Scruton. [6] In Memory of Iran by Roger Scruton, from 'Untimely tracts' (NY: St. Martin's Press, 1987), pp. 190-1
• Brzezinski's role in overthrow of the Shah, Payvand News, March 10, 2006.
• 'Free elections in 1979, my last audience with the Shah', by Fereydoun Hoveyda
• Shah of Iran and US Presidents
• Toasts of the President and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, at a State Dinner in Tehran: May 30, 1972
• A large amount of relevant historical pictures

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