Night in Tehran

by Kaplan, Philip

  Hanif lit another cigarette and blew the smoke from the Turkish tobacco so that it formed a circle between them. “I’ve learned one thing in my life,” he said. “One has to choose between democracy and security, between order and false idols—such as ‘human rights for all.’ A decent society cannot allow its enemies to rule. It cannot afford to hand the nation to the worst elements. Strong leaders must protect their people.”

  Weiseman spoke very carefully. Managing the SAVAK chief was central to his plan, and he did not want to send a wrong signal. “General, I understand what you’re saying,” he said. “But the United States is also concerned about the risks of repression. You mentioned university students, for example. You mustn’t lose their support—”

  “Mr. Weiseman,” Hanif interrupted. “Justin Trevor told me I could trust you. I hope so. I have known other American agents in Iran, and some came to grief.”

  Hanif stared at him meaningfully, and Weiseman stared back, knowing the SAVAK chief was laying the cards on the table. Hanif said, “If we are to work together, I must be sure about why Justin sent you to my country.”

  “I’m here, General, to safeguard our alliance, our mutual interest in a strong Iran led by the Shah. Our talk this morning has deepened my understanding of your key role and my confidence in our working together to make this happen.”

  Hanif rose from his gilded chair, extended his hand and shared a stiff smile. But Weiseman knew he had been put on notice, that Hanif would be monitoring his every move, and he recalled once again Françoise’s cautionary words that he would be a hostage the moment he landed in Tehran.

  6

  NEW YEAR’S EVE

  JUSTIN TREVOR SAT at a large desk in the presidential suite of the Intercon hotel in Tehran, immaculately dressed in a striped suit and gray suede vest with pearl buttons that marked him as a statesman of the American century. Weiseman studied his patron, the high forehead and ruddy cheeks, the intense blue eyes, the gold cuff links. He was still in his prime after serving as ambassador to Moscow and Prague. But he wasn’t a Carter man. Not at all. He was a rock-ribbed Republican, kept on to give the new White House political cover.

  Before Trevor was a stack of briefing papers with marginal notations made in pencil by a clear, firm hand. Portraits of the Shah in full military regalia and Empress Farah in crown and gown hung behind the desk. An illustrated presentation book on Persepolis rested between ivory Persian miniatures on an oriental table inlaid with precious stones. “Our people have swept the room,” he told Weisman. “So. Are we walking into a trap?”

  Weiseman had been waiting for the question for the last half hour as his boss had asked him about his reports. Trevor had only arrived in the country that morning, but, as ever, his focus was on the unknown contingencies he and the president might encounter on their visit to Tehran.

  Weiseman said, “There were protests at Tehran University after the Shah’s visit to the White House last winter. SAVAK cracked down. There was systematic intimidation…”

  Trevor looked up. “Because of the tear gas incident on the White House lawn?”

  Weiseman remembered the day of the Shah’s visit to the Carter White House only a few months before. Tear gas fired by DC police against protestors in Lafayette Park floated across to the White House south lawn and caused the two leaders to choke on their exchange of greetings, ruining the arrival ceremony. “The students figured it had to be on our orders,” he told Trevor. “They thought it was a signal we were abandoning the Shah.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Trevor snapped. “We rolled out the red carpet for the Shah, gave him all the reassurances in the world.”

  Weiseman thought Trevor looked tight as a drum. His eyes seemed red from lack of sleep; his temper was short.

  “Yes, yes, of course we did,” he told Trevor. “But the Iranians assume statements of support are camouflage. That’s the way it’s done in their culture, so they assume we do it, too.”

  Trevor tugged at his cuff links. “By the way,” Weiseman said, “I saw Hanif. He’s very suspicious about my mission, and why you sent me here.”

  Trevor rolled his eyes. “He should be,” he exclaimed. “They want us to get out of the way and they want us to get rid of the Shah. Both things. Of course, they blame their troubles on us wanting to control their oil. They blame the US for backing the Shah. They blame the CIA for overthrowing Mossadeq and restoring the Shah to the throne. They blame us for everything.”

  Trevor got up and stood at the window. Weiseman stared out, too, at the panorama of modern office buildings, at roads jammed with cars, and at crowded sidewalks—all under a layer of smog and soot that obscured the summit of Mount Damavand. But both men could see the parade of demonstrators beneath them waving signs at the hotel: CARTER GO HOME! DOWN WITH PAHLAVI!

  “You know Carter would like to do just that,” Trevor said. “Get out of this stinking pit. Cut our losses. He hates being caught in the middle between a tyrant and religious fanatics. He’s convinced we lose either way. There’s a White House political advisor, Beauford, who is egging him on to dump the Shah.”

  “He’s wrong,” Weiseman said, and recalled Johann preaching to him on their Illinois farm—after their last minute, miraculous escape from Berlin—about the costs of America abandoning its global responsibilities. It would be like an orchestra horribly out of tune, dissonant, Johann the German violinist had explained—like a medical organism dying from the failure of bodily functions. If America the liberator of Hitler’s Europe and the postwar international stabilizer retreated, who would step forward to prevent a similar seizure of world peace? No one, Johann had insisted, and Weiseman knew that his father was right.

  Johann had given him a book by Santayana with a bookmark on the page of the Spanish-American philosopher’s famous quote: “He who forgets the past is condemned to repeat it.” It was a lesson he hoped America would never forget.

  “Yes, Iran is messy, worse than that,” Weiseman conceded. “But you told me Iran was vital to keeping the peace in the Mideast, and you sent me here to get it right, or to try to. Give me time to do the job, Justin. You know I’m right. Keep Carter on track, or he’ll regret the consequences as much as we do.”

  Trevor took it all in, his eyes drilling into Weiseman’s, calculating the policy he knew was right and the politics of managing his president. “This is the hardest job I’ve given you. Gramont means to undermine our position, to ease out the Shah, America’s ally, and to play footsie instead with the ayatollahs, so when the Shah goes, France can step in to displace us in Iran. Are you up to this, David? Tell me now. I need to know you won’t be distracted.”

  He’s talking about Françoise.

  “I get it,” Weiseman replied, deflecting the warning and asking, “Does Carter?”

  Trevor’s eyes looked toward the ceiling. “The president can’t abide SAVAK’s methods. He thinks the ayatollahs, as religious men, may respect religious diversity and human rights.”

  “Justin, is that you speaking? You’re my mentor; you know what we’re dealing with—the collapse of this society and its takeover by medieval mullahs determined to take this country back to an autocratic, premodern epoch. When that happens human rights will not belong in their vocabulary.”

  Sirens sounded. Both men returned their attention to the street below to see policemen leaping out of black vehicles and charging at the orderly demonstrators. Trevor flinched as cops with batons pummeled the protestors. Weiseman saw the paradox clearly: the regime the United States couldn’t afford to abandon was holding on to power by beating up peaceful demonstrators—students and kids. But the question remained: Could the United States afford to hand power over to the Ayatollah Khomeini?

  It was a Hobson’s choice.

  The sound of the muezzin’s call over tinny loudspeakers pierced the late afternoon silence, startling them both. Weiseman checked his watch. “It’s 5:00 p.m.,” he said. “The call to prayers.”

  “Yes, of course,”
Trevor said.

  “It comes down to this, Justin. It’s better not to deal with dictators, but we needn’t commit suicide by exchanging the Shah for the Islamists. Centrist democrats would be better than the Shah or Ayatollah, but Iran is no democracy. They can’t win. Unless…”

  “Yes?” Trevor said. He was fully attentive now.

  “Unless we can find a way to help them do so. A businessman, perhaps another general.”

  “Exactly,” Trevor said. “That’s what we should do. That’s why I sent you here.”

  Trevor poured himself a glass of the champagne cooling in an ice bucket provided for the Shah’s honored guests. “Of course, if the Islamists take over…”

  “Then we deal with the mullahs,” Weiseman said. “I’m going to contact them.”

  He knew he was moving on to entirely new ground and that Trevor wouldn’t respond. He’d be entirely on his own.

  He pointed at the savage scene below. “Tell the Shah it’s unacceptable.”

  “Of course it is,” Trevor said, “but he won’t be there forever.”

  Weiseman had almost forgotten his illness. “How long?”

  Trevor shrugged. “His doctors are hedging.”

  So are you, Justin, Weiseman thought.

  But he’d have to go carefully. He hadn’t forgotten Hanif’s warning. Without Trevor’s support, he’d be on a high wire without a net.

  “You were right, Justin. The Shah is going to go, so we should be talking to everyone. But we shouldn’t be the ones to push him out—until we’re ready.”

  * * *

  —

  TREVOR WAS TRANSFORMED by the sweatshirt, blue jeans, and rough worker’s cap that Weiseman had gotten for him. Weiseman had urged him to come out onto the streets of Tehran and see for himself what they were confronting. To his surprise, Trevor had immediately agreed to do so even though it was completely out of character.

  On the street the remaining protestors came into focus. They were middle-class professionals in coats and ties and dresses, kids in blue jeans, even the odd major or colonel or noncommissioned officer, probably caught up in the protest and sympathetic to the cause.

  They stopped in a café and ordered lemonades. No wines or champagne here.

  A young man approached. Selim Nasir.

  “Françoise is back, sir. To cover the dinner for Le Figaro. She’ll see you there.”

  “Your father, Selim. Is he all right?”

  “All right?” he said curiously. “He was out here, during the demo. He wanted to understand me, and now he’s coming around. It’s going to happen.”

  Selim turned to go, but Trevor called him back. “I’m John. Tell me—what is it you wanted your father to understand?”

  Selim stared at Weiseman, who nodded, Yes, tell him.

  “We’re going to take over, Mister John. We’ll force Pahlavi out, then the mullahs will lead us. We’ll clean out the stables, all the corruption. We’ll hang Hanif in Azadi Square.”

  Trevor got up, abruptly said, “Thank you, Selim,” then turned to Weiseman. “What else did you want me to see,” he asked, as an apparently earlier-scheduled car drove up.

  Weiseman had the driver take them through the two Tehrans, rich and poor. Down in the valley, cops carrying billy clubs watched by the roadside as a dozen men dragged a mock coffin under a white cloth banner, mourning the absence of freedom. Back up the mountain, near the palace, Weiseman saw men and women dressed for a formal affair. “They’re getting ready for the dinner,” Trevor said quietly.

  First his curt dismissal of Selim, now his reflectiveness—as they drove on in silence. Weiseman, unable to read his chief, thought of the first time he met Trevor, when he was the ambassador in Weiseman’s first posting as a diplomat. He had been wandering in the garden behind the Prague embassy when he came upon a man in a straw hat with an ascot around his neck, reading Macbeth. There’s a lot to learn from this play about human nature, Trevor had explained, and when Weiseman had offered his own thoughts about how human beings could go wrong, Trevor had taken an instant liking for him, as if he might be the son he and Clarissa never had. He had made Weiseman his personal aide, assigned him to duties well above his grade. They had clashed repeatedly, the cynical veteran diplomat and the young idealist. But the bond between them had never torn. And Clarissa was always there for him, too, as his champion, to ensure Justin’s backing when things got hot.

  The car swerved to avoid a pothole, breaking into Weiseman’s reverie. “This place is going to blow,” he told Trevor, “and it will take only a single spark. We’re hostage to the Shah; he’s hostage to us. This whole country is a powder keg.”

  “I know,” Trevor said. “Now take me back. There’s someone who’s asked to see you.”

  * * *

  —

  THE RECEPTION WAS in the apartment of an American oil company executive, no doubt a contributor to the last presidential campaign. It was in one of those scarred buildings Weiseman had spotted from Trevor’s hotel suite. The reception appeared to be little more than a happy hour with US businessmen and their wives preparing to attend the palace dinner hosted by the Shah.

  Weiseman arrived alone. A young woman, Caitlin, who worked in the White House, led him to a private room. There a slim, athletic looking man with corn-yellow hair was regaling a half dozen guests with his war stories from Washington.

  Caitlin announced him. “Mr. Beauford, David’s here.”

  Beauford kept up his patter, radiating the confident air of a White House aide. Two embassy wives came in, Peggy and Allison. After air-kisses, Bobby Beauford got an embrazo from one of the husbands, accepted a glass of whiskey from the bar. There were plenty of smiles, chatter between Beauford and the man about their Oxford days. Keats and cats.

  Weiseman stood back, listening as they shared memories. In a lull, he extended his hand. Beauford took it, fixed his deep blue pupils on Weiseman and said, “So, Trevor’s prodigal son.”

  Weiseman had met these White House types before: inflated; self-aggrandizing; completely dedicated to the president as their channel to power, no matter their private views. Trevor’s earlier message about him was, The guy’s a knife: out to get me, out to get you.

  “Actually, I work for Mr. Carter,” Weiseman said. “Like you, I work for the president.”

  “Do tell us about Jimmy, Bobby,” Peggy slipped in diplomatically, knowing that White House staffers don’t need to be asked twice to expound on their own importance. Weiseman winked his thanks and smoothed a bit of salmon pâté on a baguette, accepted a glass of port. Let Beauford showboat, he thought, he’ll get around to me in due course. And indeed, after explaining how Carter was altering the world by insisting on respect for human rights and after voicing his dedication to Carter’s political visions, Bobby Beauford did exactly as Weiseman predicted.

  “Case in point, Weiseman, you’re backing the Shah of Iran!”

  “Never met him, Mr. Beauford,” he said, finishing off the port.

  Beauford frowned. “Best not do so. My job is to protect the chief. This Pahlavi is a dictator. Our base would tar and feather us if we backed him, say we’re hypocrites.”

  Weiseman smiled at the sanctimony, the situational ethics adopted by pols like Beauford. “I simply take soundings of the Iranians,” he said. “It’s undramatic. You folks set policy.”

  Beauford wasn’t buying it. “You’re Trevor’s man,” he said with finality. “Trevor backs the Shah.”

  “Actually, I don’t know what Trevor thinks about Iran. As for the Shah—”

  “But don’t you see?” one of the embassy wives—Allison—interjected. “We’re so lucky to have Jimmy after those horrid Nixon years.” She extended her glass and a waiter did the honors, then she was telling them where things stood. “America can’t back the Shah and Mrs. Shah with all her diamonds. Everyone knows SAVAK staged the New Year’s Eve murders, and the Sorbonne killing, that nice young woman…” She sipped. “It would be a mockery!”


  “You’ve got that right,” Beauford said. He swallowed his whiskey, then stepped away. From the pantry, he could be heard asking the international operator to dial the White House, barking out orders to whomever was on the other side of the Atlantic. Then he was back.

  “So,” he said, an index finger tapping onto Weiseman’s chest. “Take that as your guidance. The Shah is on his own.”

  So am I, Weiseman thought, realizing that Trevor had brought him together with Bobby Beauford so he’d see what even Trevor was up against.

  The oil company executive suddenly materialized. “Got it?” Beauford demanded.

  “Got it,” Weiseman said. “Now have the State Department send me that instruction in writing.”

  * * *

  —

  THE PALACE WAS resplendent, like a Persian Versailles. Weiseman, wearing white tie and tails, spotted Françoise, whose blond hair fell off bare shoulders onto a lilac evening gown, a vision of loveliness. He had no doubt what the mullahs would think about the outfits they were wearing, nor about what they would regard a decadent scene.

  Françoise joined him, and together they walked up the marble steps, just behind Justin and Clarissa Trevor and a tall man with iron-gray hair and a frozen face: Lyman Palmer, the American ambassador.

  At the top of the steps, Trevor gestured to Weiseman and Françoise to join him next to a marble balustrade. And then he was Justin the cavalier, embracing Françoise, telling her how Laurent Gramont had told him she was his most valued colleague. A kiss on the cheek, a wink to his wife, and Clarissa escorted Françoise a few meters ahead of the men, telling her how her own daughter, Regina, had had her eye on David…