On the fourth of December 1949, Shah Reza Pahlavi woke up early and listened to the snow crunching under the footsteps of the guards outside. It was Friday, a holy day for Muslims. As soon as the celebrations for the fortieth anniversary of the founding of Tehran University were over, he would turn to his favourite task. He will choose an Arabian stallion and ride for hours on the rocky slopes of the desert. Security at the inauguration ceremony is said to have been well taken care of, with military units on standby alongside the police. Those wishing to reach the university had to pass through a number of checkpoints and only those specially invited could drive.
At 11:00, three strangers appeared at one of the checkpoints without an invitation and were refused entry by the agents. They protested loudly and left, followed by a few plain-clothes police agents who were acting suspiciously. One of them was particularly suspicious, about 30 years old, dark complexion, with a camera slung over his shoulder. But there were many people coming, so the agents soon lost sight of him.
At around 13:00, the same stranger reappeared, this time at another checkpoint, and since the police had a lot of other work to do, they let him into the university area, as he had a valid pass in the name of Hussein Fakhr Arai, issued by the editorial office of the newspaper Partcham Islam (Flag of Islam). Only his camera gave away that he was not a professional journalist. Such a camera, the size of a small box, could be bought for 25 rials in many shops in Tehran. At two in the afternoon, members of the university council, the court and the general staff began to emerge from American limousines.
Shah Reza Pahlavi had a lot to do in the morning; he exercised for half an hour before breakfast, checked the mail, received his Prime Minister and the Master of Ceremonies. The twenty-nine year old was one of the most desirable bachelors in the world. It was only three months since he had separated from the beautiful Fawzia, sister of King Farouk. She had given birth to a daughter, but no son, and this was to be the official reason for the divorce. In reality, the couple had been separated for quite some time. The court knew that the Shah was a womaniser and that he had many adventures with ladies of Tehran’s high society as well as with film stars such as Gene Tierney, Yvonne de Carlo, Silvana Mangano and Martine Carol. Everyone knew that he liked the tall Scandinavian women.
Reza Pahlavi drove up to the university in his Rolls-Royce, escorted by 13 black limousines. The weather was beautiful, with snow covering the roofs and terraces, and the snow-capped and sunlit Elbrus Mountains to the north. On both sides of the red carpet leading up to the steps of the entrance of the university building, a crowd of photographers were crowding around taking pictures. Only Fakhr Arai did not. He paused for a moment as the Shah walked past him, and then everything happened incredibly fast. Fakhr Arai suddenly opened his camera as if to take out the film and took out his revolver, approached the Shah at a distance of two metres and fired three shots.
The Shah stood up, turned around and looked at the assassin. His face and neck were bloody, though the bullet had only grazed him lightly. Although those present could have grabbed and restrained the assassin, no one moved. Then panic broke out. Everyone started to run, to scramble, to get to their feet and to overtake. An empty space of 30 metres was created around the Shah, with only the Shah and his assassin standing opposite each other.
Fakhr Arai came even closer to the chess and shot for the fourth time. The Shah started to retreat and stagger up the stairs, but the fifth shot hit him in the shoulder. The assassin tried to shoot again, but the revolver failed. He kept pressing the cock again and again, but nothing happened. This emboldened the men and within seconds they surrounded him. He broke free and started to run away, but several shots hit him in the leg, side and abdomen, and he collapsed on the ground.
Shah was wiping the blood from his face with a handkerchief. Miraculously, all the wounds were harmless and no bullet had broken any bones, only a lot of blood had been lost. He was quickly rushed to a nearby hospital, where his wounds were stitched up within an hour, and he was back in his palace by half past four in the afternoon. Almost at the same time, Fakhr Arai succumbed to his wounds at the police station.
Five bullets hitting the chess would almost have meant a tragic end to an adventure that began some 70 years ago.
Donkey chaser
The founder of the Pahlavi dynasty was an insignificant donkey driver who lived in the southern part of Tehran. Persia as a country was in tatters and the ruling Qajar dynasty practically controlled only Tehran and its surroundings, while the rest of the country was in open conflict with the central government. The Shah of Persia, Nasr ed-Din, spent most of his time in European spas and casinos, and spent his money successfully. When he ran out of money, he returned home just long enough to sell concessions to exploit the country’s natural wealth to foreign powers. At that time, the British were also granted concessions to exploit almost all the country’s oil fields for a mere 200 000 gold francs. When the Shah was killed in 1896, the treasury was empty, and what made matters worse was that his son had successfully carried on his father’s business.
Back then, an illiterate child named Reza Khan, who never wore shoes but much later ascended to the peacock throne of the last Qajar, was herding donkeys in the rocky desert south of Tehran. His past is unclear, even the year of his birth, 1878, is disputed. Tehran was then an insignificant city of 80 000 inhabitants, with a few palaces, a bazaar, mosques and low houses of mud and brick. It was surrounded by walls and a moat, and the only gates were locked at night to prevent marauding bands from breaking in. Reza Khan joined the Cossack regiment at the age of 14, when the soldiers were trained by Russian officers, married his cousin at 17 and took part in marches against unruly tribes.
He was brave and determined and was promoted to officer at the age of 20. In winter and summer he was always in the saddle and slept with the soldiers in the open air, wrapped only in a blanket. It bothered him terribly that the orders for the Cossack regiment came from Moscow and that the Russian officers had a large part of the Persian army under their control. Whoever controls the army also controls the power, he thought.
During one of his visits to a military casino, he first heard about the “Young Turks” who were waving the throne to the Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid, and when he learned that an organisation called the Young Persians had been set up in his homeland, he met with them in Tehran. They talked about nationalism, freedom and patriotism. Then the First World War broke out and Persia was swept up in it. The Russians invaded from the north, the Turks from the west and persecuted the Russians, the English landed in the Persian Gulf and marched north. After the end of World War I, although the British recognised Persia’s independence, various treaties forced Persia into the position of an English protectorate.
In this political climate, Reza Khan’s second wife gave birth to a boy and a girl on 26 October 1919. The boy was named Mohamed Reza and the girl Ashraf Reza. At the time of the birth, Reza Khan was not in Tehran but back on the campaign trail, and shortly afterwards he was promoted to Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Persian army, taking command of 2 500 cavalrymen in Ghazvine, which controlled the roads to Turkey, the Caspian Sea and the oil fields to the south.
Now Reza Khan was a powerful man and everyone knew his tantrums over the apparent disintegration of the country. But even he did not know which of the forces to lean on to save the country. He knew that he could not turn to the Russians because they were too close, and the Communists to boot. The only ones left were the English, who were far away. Gradually, he dismissed all the Russian officers from the army, despite the protests of the Soviet ambassador.
Then, on 21 February 1921, he rode with his 2500 cavalrymen towards Tehran. It was a clear rebellion and the city was in his hands at 3 pm without bloodshed. He immediately had all the ministers arrested and a few other important figures. His friend and journalist Seyed became the new Prime Minister and he became Defence Minister. The English, taken by surprise by the coup, could only nod. Reza Khan opted for a hard-line policy. He had those who resisted him arrested and shot, and when he had done that, he felt strong enough to appoint himself Prime Minister and advised the young Shah to do what he liked best – go to Europe and ‘have fun’. He gladly accepted and left the same evening.
But Reza Khan’s plan to turn Persia into a republic met with indignant resistance from the clergy, so he decided to carry it out by force. This was a risky move, because people equated a republic with Bolshevism. The young chess also refused to return from Europe, where he was having a great time and spending money, despite pleas. The situation was confused, but then in October 1925 a Constituent Assembly was formed, the Qajar dynasty was deposed, and Reza Khan was appointed Regent and on 12 December 1925 Shah, and the following year he was crowned in the dream palace of Golestan as Shah Reza Pahlavi.
His son, Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, became heir to the throne. He was brought up very strictly and under the complete control of his father, who did not make any concessions, regardless of his poor health. His father was so concerned that his son should not be ennobled that he removed from his vicinity anything that might remind him of luxury and comfort. No wonder, since he himself always slept on a mattress on a hard floor.
The Shah admired Kemal Ataturk and his modernisation of the country, so he decided to prescribe European dress for men and ban face-covering. However, this was not without its problems, especially when the turban and cap had to be replaced by a hat. The clergy in the north-west of the country, a stronghold of Shiite Islam, protested strongly. The problem was solved by the governor of the place calling a meeting, on the pretext that he wanted to hear everyone’s arguments, and then forcing the clerics who turned up to it to change their clothes.
Then he started on the veil-feredge. One day he appeared at an official reception, accompanied by his wife and daughter. Both were dressed in a skirt and a jacket and covered with a hat. He had their photographs taken and ordered: “All Persian women must dress like these two.” Soon, veiled women were no longer allowed to take the bus, and a little later, no longer allowed to take a taxi, veiled women were not allowed to enter cinemas and shops, and the police were ordered to rip the veil off the faces of the last rebels.
In 1931, 12-year-old Mohamed Reza was taken out of military school because his father was convinced that it was time for him to see Europe and learn how people lived and thought there. He was accompanied by his younger brother Ali Reza, a classmate, a personal doctor and a teacher. The whole family said goodbye to the passengers on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Even the father was moved. The boat took them to Baku, from where they took a train via Moscow, Warsaw and Berlin to Lausanne, where there was a boarding school near the city.
The brothers stayed in a boarding house with a French family and sent home postcards in French, which Ashraf then translated for their father and mother. Mohamed Reza was a mediocre student, even bad at maths, but he was very keen on football. He left Switzerland in 1936 and returned home at his father’s request, after which his father sent him to the military academy. When young Reza arrived home, a new Persia awaited him. Since he left and went to Switzerland, many new buildings have been built, the country has been “Iranised” and the influence of foreigners has been considerably reduced.
But Shah Reza Khan felt old and worried about his son. He noticed that he had become more and more fragile during his time abroad. He did not find in him the hardness and ruthlessness, even the brutality, needed to run a country. He regretted sending him abroad. The 18-year-old heir to the throne was often seen in nightclubs, driving exorbitantly expensive cars. Was he perhaps on the best way, like the Qajar dynasty, to waste his life on nonsense and indulge in debauchery, since he was already living like a playboy? Would it not have been better for his younger son, Ali Reza, who, despite living in Switzerland, was not Europeanised and remained hard, ruthless and independent, to succeed him? What should the elderly Shah do? Of course, the best thing to do is to marry the young man off properly.
First wedding
So his sightseers travelled the courts of the Middle East in search of a suitable girl for the heir to the throne. The choice fell on the 17-year-old beauty Fawzia, sister of Egypt’s King Farouk. She was a real beauty and even Hollywood was offering her film roles, so King Farouk had a hard time getting her dreams of a film career out of her head.
Faruk was initially outraged by the Persian court’s proposal. An upstart who could not even read at the age of 30 dared to suggest that his sister, whose dynasty was hundreds of years old, marry a young lecher, he reasoned. But he soon changed his mind. The inspectors he sent to Tehran reported that Mohammed Reza, like Fawzi, had attended schools in Europe and was therefore well educated.
When Fawzia returned from a skiing holiday in Europe at the end of January, the two rulers decided; there would be a wedding, even though neither of the future spouses knew anything about it. In March 1939, Reza Khan and his son were walking in the park when the father suddenly pulled out a photograph from his pocket and showed it to his son. “Who is this?” asked Mohammad Reza, and was told, “This is your future wife. Tomorrow you will travel to Cairo.”
The next day, young Reza was on his way to Cairo. He was immediately taken from the airport to the palace, where the royal family was waiting for him, including Fawzia, who had been informed by King Farouk only the day before that she was to be married. Reza was struck by her beauty and the two hours passed quickly as they chatted about trivial matters. They spent the next eight days preparing for the wedding, signing the necessary documents and celebrating their nuptials in Cairo on 13 March. They agreed to hold another ceremony in Tehran on 14 March.
Two planes flew to Tehran, one carrying the newlyweds, the other filled to the top with the bride’s belongings; 7 fur coats, 100 evening dresses and 200 large suitcases. The old Shah Reza Khan met them at the airport, embraced his daughter-in-law, showed her the distant Tehran with his hand and said: “My daughter, this is your homeland and your nation.” The next day, a Shiite wedding ceremony was held at Golestan Palace. For the first time in many years, the old Shah seemed relaxed and happy.
On October 26th 1940, Fawzia suffered a miscarriage and gave birth the next morning. The doctor came to the young prince with a cheerless face and said, “Prince, it’s a girl.” The prince bowed his head, knowing that his father would not be happy. “Let the girl’s name be Shahnaz,” he decided. When the news was broken to the old Shah, he went berserk and started banging on the table with his walking stick: “It is a bad omen if a girl is born first at court.”
Shortly afterwards, the couple had their first argument. Reza’s sister threw a party at the palace, to which Reza and Fawzia were invited. She spent the whole evening introducing her brother to the most beautiful women at the party, forcing him to dance with them and acting as if Fawzia did not exist. She pretended not to notice for an hour or so, then got up and left, saying she did not feel well. The party lasted until the early hours of the morning, and when Reza showed up at his palace at five in the morning, the rooms were empty and Fawzi and her newborn daughter were nowhere to be seen. All he found on his desk was a note in French: “I need some peace, so I have retired to my apartment.”
In the morning he hurried to her apartment in the palace and before he could open his mouth, Fawzia told him sharply, “I have decided to live my life independently of yours. I do not want to be a laughing stock. Because of my European upbringing, I want you to respect me. You insulted me last night. I will accompany you on all official duties, but that will be all. We will live in separate apartments. That’s all. Goodbye.”
The court tried to persuade her, but she threatened to return to Cairo if they pressured her, causing a huge scandal. The couple hardly saw each other again. Reports soon began to pile up on the desk of the Shah’s intelligence service of the young prince’s many new adventures, preferably with tall blondes of the Scandinavian type. Worse still, Fawzia, the future Queen of Persia, had taken a lover.
World War II did not have much of an impact on life in Persia at first, although the Germans had a strong presence in the country, arming the Shah’s army, building railways and establishing factories. Even the only airline service to Europe was in the hands of the German Lufthansa. Following the example of Ataturk, the old Shah also flirted with Germany. But when the Soviet Union joined the Allied camp, he knew that the Allies would only be able to send aid to the Russians through two routes; through Murmansk in northern Europe and through Persia.
The English put strong pressure on the old Shah to decide with whom to cooperate, and finally threatened to occupy the country and remove the monarchy. They suggested that the most appropriate course of action was for him to step down and leave the throne to his son. The old Shah had to comply. In the Parliament building, the doors of which were locked and surrounded by the army, the MPs were terrified and asked what was happening and why the old Shah wanted to resign. It was under these circumstances that Mohammed Reza became Shah of Persia in September 1940, when he was not yet twenty-two years old.
His father got into a black Rolls-Royce and drove to Isfahan without any luggage – to Exile, where he immediately had a heart attack. His final destination was a real exile in Buenos Aires. The English were, of course, immediately at hand. There was just an English steamer at Bandar Abbas in the south of the country, bound for Australia and South America, and the former Shah of Persia and his entourage should just get on board, they suggested.
On October 27th 1941, the Allies – the British and the Russians – made it clear to the new Shah, Reza Pahlavi, what role he would play in the country. As its leader, he will do as he is told, or in other words, he will be a puppet. He will have only a representative role and the occupying forces, which will have their own troops in the country, will decide. The British and Russian troops thus patrolled Tehran and occupied all the important points in the city. In addition, the Russians were taking all the grain and meat and other produce from the northern provinces to the Soviet Union.
Finally, the Americans sent 40,000 technicians and engineers to Persia, because the southern port of Bandar Abbas was full of American ships delivering military equipment to the Soviet Union. This was then shipped out of the port by rail. For the Americans, this was a major logistical undertaking which had to be properly managed and controlled. When Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met in Tehran, the Shah did not even play a representative role.
One day, Reza got a bad news. His father did not even make it to Australia, but had to stop in Mauritius due to ill health. He was suffering from severe stomach problems and a sick heart. An ECG would have been needed for a more accurate diagnosis, but there was no machine on the island, the nearest being in Durban, South Africa. So he would have to travel there. Father and son were in constant written contact, although mail was slow. The son also sent money to his father regularly, because Reza Khan left Tehran without a penny in his pocket.
Then one morning, former Shah Reza Khan did not wake up because he had suffered a heart attack during the night. The body was embalmed and flown to Cairo, where it was to wait until the end of the war. The Indian Ocean was too dangerous to travel in the face of enemy submarines. It was not until 1950 that the old Shah’s body was transported to Tehran. Before burial, the coffin was opened once more. The old Shah’s facial features were unchanged, but all the jewelled decorations were gone, as well as the diamond and emerald-encrusted sabre. “Faruk robbed my father”, commented Reza Pahlavi.
Consequences of the assassination
As the war was drawing to a close in the autumn of 1944, the Shah asked himself who his allies would be and who he could trust. He knew he could rely on his sister Ashraf, who was beginning to appear in public. As long as Reza Khan ruled, women had to stay at home and were not allowed to meddle in public affairs. But Ashraf was different, lively and outspoken, and she knew how to give good advice.
The Shah saw the greatest danger in the Russians, in fact in the communist party, the Tudeh, which was becoming increasingly influential among all classes of the population. New parties, including fascist ones, were emerging and former opponents of the Shah’s rule reared their heads at the end of the war, especially Dr Mohamed Mosaddeq. The Kurds also began to rebel. The country was in chaos and threatened with disintegration.
The Russians were preparing to advance on Tehran, but were prevented from doing so by 3 000 US troops entering the city. Shah Reza decided to take an unusual step. He sent his 26-year-old sister Ashraf to Stalin in Moscow. This was the first time in Persian history that a woman had directly intervened in politics. “When the Kremlin doors closed behind me, I felt a little uncomfortable. I had imagined Stalin to be a tall, broad-shouldered and burly Cossack, but in reality he was short, goateed and chubby. He listened to me in silence for an hour. When I stood up and said goodbye, he called to his adjutant: ‘Look at that little woman. She really is a true patriot.'”
Before she went home, Stalin sent her a gift to her hotel, a beautiful fur coat. But Stalin only withdrew his plans for Persia under pressure from the Americans. Europe was facing a cold war that could turn hot, and Persia would only be an additional burden for the Kremlin dictator. The Shah could breathe a sigh of relief for a while.
He needed rest and found it in the seduction of beautiful women, mostly from Europe. The beauties were discreetly received at the airport by court officials and taken to a villa on the outskirts of Tehran. They had just enough time to tidy themselves up and the Shah was waiting for them. His actions aroused great resentment in some quarters.
In February 1948, the murder of Marda Emruz, the owner of a weekly newspaper, caused a great stir, as he constantly attacked corruption and the scandalous behaviour of the Shah. Mohamed Masud was a patriot, but he had no particular moral restraint in pursuing his aims. Thus, in January 1948, he announced that he would make public certain documents that would incriminate those immediately around the Shah. One night he was found behind the wheel of a car, riddled with bullets. Nobody heard the shots and the killers were never found. There are rumours in Tehran that the Shah’s secret service and his brother Ali Reza were behind the murder.
Despite the criticism in the newspapers, the Shah bought himself one sports car after another, so that he now owned 25, frequented nightclubs and had numerous love affairs. By this time, his wife Fawzia had returned to Cairo with their daughter and asked for a divorce, which became final in November 1948.
The assassination in the first days of February 1949 came as a great shock to the Shah. In the first days afterwards, he still had a fever and some pain, but slowly he began to realise that the wings of death had crawled over him. He decided to take revenge. When he heard that the assassin, Fakhr Arai, who was a member of the Tudeh Party, was dead, only one thought crossed his mind; this is the work of the Communists of the Tudeh Party. Whether or not they were involved in the assassination was never clear. The evidence pointed to traces of right-wingers as well as extreme leftists, but a state of emergency was nevertheless declared in Tehran and a curfew imposed at night. The tourists returning home that day, who knew nothing about the assassination, wondered why there were so many police and checkpoints on the streets, obstructing traffic. But by then, the hunt for the Tudeh had already begun and 200 people were behind bars.
When the police raided the party’s headquarters, the staff were burning the party archives and throwing membership cards into the fire. Everyone who was in the Party headquarters at the time resisted the search and a general brawl ensued. Before the police could put out the fire, half of the Party archives with the Party membership lists had already burned. The Tudeh Party could now only operate from underground. Censorship of the press was very strict and anyone who insulted the Shah and his family in any way was threatened with imprisonment.
The Shah was aware that the Prime Minister had to be a determined person and saw in this place General Ali Razmara, a man full of energy and life force, but also very ambitious. In fact, he was a brutalist and sadist, as stories were told that he used to cook his captives alive from his expeditions against restive tribes. His weak point was also his bribes, which he found difficult to refuse. But he was supported by the Americans, who feared that Iran – now called Persia instead of Persia – in which hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars had been invested for its oil wealth, would collapse economically because of corruption, bribery and embezzlement. But Ali Razmara wanted power, and total power over the country. Shah Reza was aware of the danger, but did nothing.
Murder at the bazaar
He was in love and therefore pushed political problems to the background. The love story that warmed his heart this time was cleverly staged in the summer of 1950 by the ladies of the court, led by his sister Ashraf. They had had enough of his amorous adventures and decided to find him a wife. She must be beautiful, educated, Muslim and of noble birth. The Shah was in San Francisco at the time and had already fallen in love with a 23-year-old painter, Ruth Stevens. They were often seen walking together under the palm trees. But she was a foreigner and a non-believer and, in the eyes of the Ashraf, unfit to be his brother’s wife. She wrote to him threatening the throne, threatening him and sucking up to him, until the Shah finally gave in to the pressure and broke off his relationship with the painter.
When he returned to Tehran, Ashraf showed him a photo of 19-year-old Nina. She told him that the young woman had been educated in Europe and, more importantly, that she belonged to the influential Bakhtiyar tribe. The Shah looked at the photo, frowned and said, “She is too fat.” And she had to find another young woman.
At the time, 19-year-old Soraya Esfandiari, a member of the prominent Esfandiari tribe who was in London improving her English, was trying on a new evening dress in front of a mirror. There was a knock on the door, her cousin came in and said he wanted to take some photos of her. But why, she asked him, because he had already taken her picture a few months ago. The cousin changed his mind and finally admitted that the Shah’s mother had asked him to take some new photographs of her because he was looking for a wife for his son. She burst out laughing and said, “I’ve never heard anything so stupid.”
A few weeks later, her parents received a letter from the Shah asking them to present their daughter at court. So, on 6 October 1950, Soraya, accompanied by her father, left for Tehran by plane. After landing, she was first greeted by the Shah’s mother and asked a few questions, then suddenly the Shah appeared at dinner, although it had been agreed that it would be an all-female gathering. After the meeting was over, Soraya’s father approached her and told her that the Shah was waiting for her answer. She nodded and the next morning her photographs were in all the newspapers.
While the Shah was busy getting married, Ali Razmara slowly began to implement his plan to take power; he wanted to dissolve the religious sects and the parliament and expel Dr Mossadeq and other opposition figures. His officers in the army and the police had already begun preparations. The only question left unresolved was what to do with the Shah. Will he settle for a representative position or will he have to go into exile?
But in the palace, everything was running as if there were no problems. They were busy with plans to renovate the marble palace that Soraya had been given as a gift, installing heating, replacing wallpaper and other little things. A well-known decorator, Jansen, was called in from Paris to draw up plans for the interior decoration, but when the Shah saw the estimate, he decided to wait until the renovation was finished. He just said, “Basically, I cannot offer you a comfortable life. I hope you are under no illusions about that.”
Soon after arriving in Tehran, Soraya contracted typhoid fever, then pneumonia, and her life hung in the balance for several weeks. But the wedding had to go ahead, and so a modest ceremony was held in February 1951. The couple honeymooned by the Caspian Sea, but did not enjoy it very much, as the Shah had a lot to worry about. Reports were piling up on his desk that a coup was probably in the offing.
In one of the narrow streets of a bazaar in Tehran, a sick and bitter man, 28-year-old Khalil Tahmassebi, was making crates for traders. He cursed the whole world, especially foreigners. It has been a year since he joined the “fedayne-islam” sect. He was a fanatical follower of the religious mullahs and ayatollahs, who were persecuted by Ali Razmara. In March 1951, he was summoned to a secret meeting of the sect and ordered to kill the heretic Ali Razmara. He was proud that he had been chosen for the job.
The assassination is believed to have taken place on 7 March during prayers in the Grand Mosque of the Bazaar. The Shah and his wife returned to Tehran on 4 March and were immediately informed that preparations were being made in the bazaar. When Ali Razmara entered the courtyard of the mosque, it was already full of worshippers. As he passed Khalil Tamhassebi, he grabbed his gun, rushed forward, stood behind him and shot him four times. Ali Razmara was hit by two bullets, one in the nape of the neck and one in the back. He died in hospital an hour later. The assassin wanted to try himself, but was arrested and imprisoned.
The bazaar erupted in joy because an opponent of the faith had died. Did the Shah know what was afoot and not act? The murder of Razmara triggered a series of other murders. His Minister of Education was killed in a mosque, and later, in 1952, a former Deputy Prime Minister was killed in a Tehran cemetery. A few months later, the leader of the Shiite clerics was killed. All the assassins belonged to the “Fedayne-Islam” sect.
It was obvious that with Razmar’s death, the Shah had saved himself from one of his worst opponents. But this can also be understood in another way. In April 1951, after severe pressure, the Shah appointed Dr Mossadeq as Prime Minister instead of the slain Razmara, not knowing that he would have even greater problems with him. Dr Mosadek was considered to be an extremely skilful man. In his youth he had been a financial inspector, then governor of a province, then finance minister and a specialist in oilfield issues. But he had severe stomach problems and lived practically on tea, milk and biscuits. Shah Reza Pahlavi was sure that such a frail man would not trouble him. But he was wrong.
On his first day in office – 30 April 1951 – Masadek sent a bill to Parliament to expropriate all the oil fields in Iran, which meant the end of British power in the country. During the sitting of Parliament, he fainted from excitement, as was his old custom, and when he recovered a little, his bed and the obligatory biscuits, tea and milk were brought into the Chamber.
Nationalisation of oil fields
The English could not believe their eyes. “But they can’t work with us like this!” On the front page of the Daily Express appeared the headline: ‘Mossy has got hold of our oil, but the Navy is ready. But times had changed, the British were no longer the superpower they once were, and in Tehran they just laughed at the headline. The Iranians had a new hero, Mossadeq’s star was at its height and the Shah was restless.
After the initial euphoria, politicians began to wonder whether nationalisation might have gone too far. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company took its case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, but the Court did not know what to do, so the Iranian flag flew on the British company’s building. England sent paratroopers to Cyprus and its troops stationed in Iraq approached the Iranian border and were only a few kilometres away from the Iranian oil fields. The Shah had to admit that the situation had got completely out of hand. But he could take solace in his beautiful wife. She had not yet given him a heir, but they were both still young and barely married. There was still time.
Then, on 3 October, the British withdrew all their technical staff, mainly mechanics, from Iran and not a single drop of oil has flowed from the refinery since. The country was facing bankruptcy, the civil servants were no longer paid their salaries and the army only half. Riots broke out in Tehran and the Tudeh Party became active again. Mossadeq tried in vain to get the oil industry moving again and the British blockaded the exit from the main port of Abadan. The Shah remained silent in the face of all these events, not knowing what to do. Teheran was convulsed by mass riots. Mossadeq has now turned against the Shah. He took control of the court’s budget and cut off all the loans he wanted to give the Shah.
In July 1953, a 50-year-old American appeared at the Kaar-E-Sharin checkpoint on the road from Baghdad to Tehran. He did not want to cross the border illegally and showed a passport in the name of Kim Roosevelt to the border authorities. He was a CIA officer and was tasked with supporting Mossadeq’s downfall by any means necessary. America decided to bet on the chess. Roosevelt met General Zahedi in Tehran, who had gathered around him a few officers ready to take part in the coup. He was convinced that the Shah must depose Mossadeq and replace him with Zahedi. But how to convince the depressed Shah of this.
Even his sister Ashraf could not convince him for long that something had to be done. The Shah wandered aimlessly around the rooms, unable to get out because his palace was surrounded by Mossadeq’s tanks. But when the air commander joined the conspirators, he decided to strike.
On 11 August, Shah Reza Pahlavi and Soraya went on holiday to the Caspian Sea, as they do every year. The Shah had with him a signed order to depose Mossadeq, which was to be handed over to him in Tehran by his confidential officer. Zahedi has already arrested several ministers during the night and is now on his way to arrest Mossadeq. But he had already been informed of the intended putsch, so his palace was already full of soldiers loyal to him. Zahedi still managed to escape, but most of the other conspirators were arrested. Panic reigned on the Caspian Sea at the news that the putsch had failed. It was time to flee. The royal couple set off with the essentials to Ramsar airport, where the Shah’s private plane was waiting.
On 16 August, an unidentified Iranian aircraft appeared over Baghdad airport. The pilot did not ask for permission to land, nor did he identify himself, but landed at the far end of the runway. The aircraft was carrying three men and one woman. “I am asking for asylum, but only for a few days. I have not resigned,” said the Shah. The police searched the plane and found only a few scattered clothes, a box of documents and a suitcase of jewellery. At the press conference, the Shah reiterated that he had not resigned, but journalists were convinced that he would soon travel to Capri to join the also exiled Egyptian King Farouk.
But he did not go to Capri, but to Rome, and before leaving he announced that Mossadeq had been deposed and that General Zahedi was the new Prime Minister. In Tehran, statues of Shah Reza and his father were overturned.
Meanwhile, in his hideout on the outskirts of Tehran, Kim Roosevelt was convinced that all was not lost. All that was needed was to keep the blood calm. The Shah was supported by 400 cadets from the military academy in Akdasieh, as well as a garrison of soldiers from Kermanshah. One day he was visited by an athletic young man, the leader of a gang which practised the national sport of ‘zur khaneh’ by day and broke into and looted the town by night. He and his band of 500 young men were ready to cause disorder for money. Zahedi also gathered enough troops for a coup and was supported by a local radio station. US Ambassador Henderson filled his car with 400,000 dollars, went to the Melli bank and exchanged it for local currency.
It was decided to remove Mossadeq on 19 August. On that day, groups of young men began jamming 10 rial notes into the windscreens of cars, shouting “Long live the Shah!”. Passers-by were also given a cash reward if they praised the Shah. Traffic came to a standstill and fights broke out. Then athletic young men appeared in the main street, with torches and revolvers in their hands, and violently occupied several ministries. The rumbling of tanks, commanded by General Zahedi, was heard.
But Mosadek refused to give in. He and his followers locked themselves in the house and the shooting started. The fight was over only when tanks started shelling his house and he fled through the garden into the basement of the next house. There he realised that he would not be able to save himself and finally surrendered. He was still in his pyjamas. The sight of the old man shaking and coughing, with only his coat over his pyjamas, was pitiful.
In the meantime, Chess and his wife dined at the Hotel Excelsior in Rome. A young man came up and handed him a telegram. The Shah’s troops are in control. Zahedi is the new Prime Minister.” The Shah turned pale, Soraya began to cry. Finally the Shah calmed down and said, “I know that the people love me.” He decided to return to Tehran immediately, leaving Soraya in Europe for a while. But in Tehran he could only see that the city was in a state of obsession. There was no one on the streets except soldiers. Accompanied by armoured vehicles and a large number of soldiers, he re-entered his palace at midday.
Finally a successor
General Teynur Bakhtiar was a formidable phenomenon. For his services in the putsch against Mossadeq, the Shah appointed him military governor of Tehran. This also gave him the task of hunting down those of Mossadeq’s followers who were in hiding. Bakhtiar set about this task with vigour. He removed all the usual criminals from the large Garsa prison and reserved it for Mosaddeq’s followers. No one was allowed within eight kilometres of the prison. Trucks transported prisoners day and night to the prison yard. All Mossadeq’s followers, former ministers, officers, MPs and members of the Tudeh Communist Party were interrogated, beaten and tortured. Soon 3000 of the Shah’s opponents were in prison. After the interrogations, executions were lined up in the prison courtyard. Within a few weeks, about a hundred prisoners were shot.
The entire administrative apparatus in the rainforest has also been replaced. But so what, when the Treasury was completely empty. Only the Americans sent a few million dollars to the Shah from time to time. Finally, they signed an international contract for the extraction of Iranian oil. The British took 40% of the rights to extract it, the Americans, French and Italians the rest. Money finally started flowing into the Shah’s coffers again.
Mosadek was facing a trial that the Shah could not avoid because of the interest of the foreign public. He was sentenced to death, but the Shah commuted the death sentence to three years in prison. But not all of the Shah’s opposition was behind bars. Leaflets accusing him of corruption and oppression appeared again and again. One day, a police patrol in the bazaar spotted a woman completely wrapped in a chador – some women had started wearing them again. The cops noticed that she was not walking like a woman, but more like a man. They ripped the chador off her face and the face of a man with a beard was revealed. The basket he was carrying was full of dynamite.
In October 1954, the Shah’s Palace was in mourning. Ali Reza, the Shah’s 32-year-old brother, was killed in a plane crash. He had flown from the Caspian Sea coast to Tehran just as a violent storm was brewing to attend a celebration in honour of the Shah’s birthday. Reza Pahlavi and Soraya stood by his coffin, while ministers shook their heads and tried to find a way out of the jam. Ali Reza was officially heir to the throne, as Soraya had not yet given the Shah a male heir to succeed him after two years of marriage. Ali Reza also had only one daughter, Shahnaz. Soraya had the added problem that she was not popular at court. She was willful, quick to anger and known for flying out of the windows when she caught herself; dishes, vases, cutlery and tablecloths.
The Shah’s position was weakened, and Teymur Bakhtiar, the military governor of Tehran, began to raise his head. He had confidants everywhere and gradually consolidated his position. He had secret files with incriminating evidence on important people which he could use at the opportune moment. The Shah began to worry that he might not be the new Razmara.
Knowing that a male heir would greatly strengthen his position, he and Soraya travelled to America in December 1954. They spent a few days in a well-known New York hospital, where they were both examined and found to have no physical impediment to conception. “They need to take their time,” they were advised. But there was not much more. The other European specialists did not tell them anything new either. Of course, even in Tehran, they read the foreign magazines which repeatedly wrote about the Pahlavis’ marital problems, because over the years the royal couple had begun to quarrel.
In 1957, one of the ministers approached the Shah and said, “The succession problem is becoming more and more urgent. Either your wife will give you a male heir or the matter will have to be resolved in another way.” The Shah knew what different meant. The Mohammedan religion allows a man to have several wives and when Soraya mentioned that he would have another wife besides her, she angrily rebuffed him, “How dare you suggest such a thing to me. You know me well enough to know that I will never accept that. I would rather go.”
Some time later, when the Shah hugged a playmate too tightly at a dance party, Soraya stood up and walked away, offended, and the next morning told him, “This is not the way to go on. I am leaving you. Please book me a seat on the plane.” The next day she travelled to Sankt Moritz in Switzerland. On 14 March 1958, it was officially announced that the royal couple had separated.
No sooner had he resolved the divorce issue than the Shah began to worry about the behaviour of Teymur Bakhriar, who now had a powerful weapon against him. The Americans found the Shah a liability without a guaranteed succession, but got on famously with Bakhtiar, who controlled the SAVAK secret police, whose members held important positions in the administration and the army. Linked to the CIA, they could stage a coup and Bakhtiar would declare a republic. So the Shah must find a wife to bear him a son.
Eighteen months earlier, while living in Paris, he had met a girl, 21-year-old student Farah Dibo, among Iranian students. Now 40, he had been separated for a year and a half and had proposed to her without much ceremony. The wedding took place on 21 December and on that day Farah Diba received a telegram from Switzerland saying: “Happy Birthday. Soraya.” On the thirty-first of October 1960, Farah gave birth to a son.
Now that he had a legitimate successor, the Shah decided to take decisive action. As he drove home from the office, he looked out of the car window at the great white palace that Bakhtiar had built for himself. How could a poor man, who a few years ago had only a modest house in a poor suburb of Tehran, have so much money? Corruption, that is. The Shah’s loyalists began to proclaim publicly that Iran was not progressing faster because of corruption, and the people made a big deal about it.
Then one day Shah Bakhtiar called him to his side and simply told him that he had relieved him of all his positions. Bakhtiar was stunned. He had not expected such a thing from the indecisive Shah. Another 31 generals and 270 colonels were arrested on suspicion of corruption and 643 senior officials were sacked, receiving several salaries at once. At the same time, all borders were closed to prevent anyone from escaping.
Ayatollah Khomeini
On 8 June 1963, smoke began to billow from the southern part of Tehran. The bazaar was in flames and there were fires everywhere. The fire broke out during a religious ceremony commemorating the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, who was killed on the orders of Caliph Yazid. A few days before, Ayatollah Khomeini, the highest authority of the Shiite clergy, had strongly attacked the Shah’s regime in a sermon read out in all the mosques. The Shah’s name was not mentioned, but everyone knew who the modern Yazid was. After the sermon, people poured out of the mosques into the streets, shouting: ‘Down with Yazid! Death to the dictator!”
The next day, Khomeini was arrested in the holy city of Qom, where he had his residence, the people protested and for three long days Tehran was a battlefield. There were 40,000 protesters carrying pictures of Khomeini and demanding his release. Riots involving workers, students and intellectuals also broke out in the province, in Tabriz, Meshed and Shiraz. Everything was on fire, telephone booths, cars, cafés and shops. 1000 people were killed as the Shah ordered the demonstrators to be shot. Khomeini was released, but then kidnapped from his house in the night, put on a plane and sent to Turkey. The latter tried to rescue him and sent him some time later to Baghdad, where Bakhtiar found himself unannounced.
Why did the clerics rise up? At the request of America, which was lending him money, the Shah had to accept reforms in education, welfare and the distribution of the high estates. But the clerics were particularly angered by the granting of the vote to women. Khomeini remained in Baghdad until 1978, when Iran demanded that Baghdad expel him and he had to move to Paris.
In January 1965, Bakhtiar struck. When Prime Minister Ali Mansour entered Parliament in Tehran, he was surrounded by a crowd of supplicants. One of them pulled out a revolver and fired three shots at him. He died a few days later. In April 1965, a member of the Shah’s Guard pulled out a revolver and started to run after the Shah, who entered his study, shot two guards on the way and opened fire on the Shah, but missed him. Bakhtiar’s foreign address was found on all suspects.
Bakhtiar then lived in Switzerland for a long time and appeared in Baghdad in 1970. When he went hunting with friends near the Iraq-Iran border, one of his friends “accidentally shot him”. He was executed by the SAVAK secret police, the one he had headed for many years.
Shah Reza Pahlavi looked pleased. His family has grown over the years. Farahnaz, Ali Reza and Leila followed Reza’s first-born Reza Kira. In October 1967, the real coronation took place, with Farah Diba becoming Queen, followed shortly afterwards by a lavish ceremony in October 1971 to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of the Persian Empire.
But behind all the glamour was a chasm. Poverty was increasing, inflation was rising and the Shah was indulging in outrageous luxury. The people protested, but he sent the police and the brutal secret service SAVAK after them. Some American advisers realised that a storm was brewing. Then, on 16 January 1979, Reza Pahlavi declared: ” I am tired and need rest.” He fled the country with his wife. He flew to Egypt, officially for a “medical check-up”, and sent his children to America.
He was very ill indeed. He was operated on several times, but he got sick again and again. His life ended in a Cairo hospital, where he died in July 1980, aged only 60. The Peacock Throne remained empty. On the first of February, two weeks after the Shah left the country, an Air France plane landed at Tehran airport. Ayatollah Khomeini stepped off. He was greeted by a crowd of millions of admirers. Khomeini soon proclaimed the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran.
