The Shah

by Abbas Milani

  A few weeks later, the Shah was ready to make his final move. His twin sister, Princess Ashraf, was an active partner in this effort. It had taken the Shah a few months to line up the votes in the Majlis and convince Qavam’s once-powerful allies, and even members of his cabinet, to move against him. To solicit the crucial help of the parliament and its powerful speaker, Sardar Fakher Hekmat, the Shah had, according to the British Embassy, helped pay off the Speaker’s hefty gambling debts.89

  On December 4, 1947, to Qavam’s utter surprise, all but one member of his cabinet suddenly resigned. He had become particularly vulnerable a few weeks earlier when his proposed bill to offer concessions to the Soviet Union was defeated in the parliament. Even then, he had tried in vain to delay the vote on the proposed concessions. The Shah and the Speaker, showing what the American Embassy called “statesman-like behavior” and patriotism, had worked behind the scenes and away from the watchful eyes of Qavam and his allies to defeat the bill and reject the proposed delay. The American Embassy helped the process by promising protection to Iran in case of a Soviet attack. The fact that Qavam had used his powers as prime minister to ensure that a majority of the Majlis were from his newly established Democratic Party of Iran—a party much in the tradition of populist organizations, with their uniforms, party songs, and mass demonstrations as a sign of their invincible power—turned out to be of no help. Many of Qavam’s acolytes had changed their minds by the time of the vote, particularly after the insistent intervention of Princess Ashraf.90

  The oil concession bill’s defeat could have led to a crisis, particularly between Iran and the Soviet Union, making it impossible to dismiss Qavam. Much to the Shah’s relief, the Russians were not keen on creating such a crisis. He believed that Stalin showed no reaction to this major setback because “the Berlin question needed all of his attention” and victories by Mao Zedong’s forces offered the hope of even bigger Soviet gains in China.91

  Qavam had a hard time accepting defeat. In a gesture that bordered between defiance and quixotic delusions of grandeur, even after the massive resignation of his cabinet, he showed up in the Majlis the next day, to be met with the further humiliation of a vote of no confidence. In his farewell speech, he declared that history would absolve him and reveal his many patriotic services to the country. Before long, fearing for his safety, he left Iran for Paris, where he waited for the next round in his shadowboxing match with the Shah. It took something of a miracle that there even was such a next round.

  Qavam and Azerbaijan, Soviet encroachments, and Queen Fawzia must have all seemed paltry to the Shah as he sat bleeding, very slowly, in the back of his limousine, around 1:30 in the afternoon of a cold, rainy day on February 4, 1949. Dr. Manouchehr Egbal, once a protégé of Qavam’s and a key player in the Shah’s successfully orchestrated mass resignation of Qavam’s ministers, was in the car, attending to the wound. Dr. Egbal had been at Tehran University as the minister of health and as a part of the Shah’s official welcoming committee.

  The Shah had arrived at the university around one o’clock in the afternoon. Earlier that day he had gone skiing—a lifelong passion he had developed while studying in Switzerland—and he was now visiting Tehran University’s Faculty of Law and Political Science. The establishment of this school had been, according to Ayatollah Khomeini, a near-mortal blow to the power and prestige of the clergy in Iran. It deprived them of their lucrative monopoly control of the judiciary and of the courts. “We should have opposed the school’s establishment,” Ayatollah Khomeini would say more than once in his life. The Shah was in fact coming to the university to celebrate the anniversary of the law school’s foundation. But that February afternoon, as the Shah, dressed in his military uniform and wearing a heavy overcoat, stepped out of his car—“a black Rolls Royce”92 that day—a man whose thoughts and ideas were not dissimilar to those of Ayatollah Khomeini was waiting in the area set aside for journalists and photographers. His name was Nasser Fakhrarai, and the camera case he carried gave him the appearance of a photographer. But what he had come to shoot that day was not a photograph.

  As the Shah neared the steps leading to the law school building, Fakhrarai, standing near the steps, pulled out a revolver he had hidden inside the camera case and began to shoot at the Shah, point-blank. He was nervous. His hands shook. He had been planning for this moment for at least three years. The fact that the Shah was left with no protection after the first shot afforded Fakhrarai no help. Upon hearing the first shot, the head of the Shah’s security detail hit the pavement and crawled to safety under the Rolls-Royce. Members of the welcoming team all took refuge inside the building. The assassin’s first three bullets only grazed the Shah’s hat. The fourth bullet entered his cheek and exited from his upper lip. Several of his front teeth were knocked out. A set of false teeth to replace the damaged ones was quickly made for him. The fact that he used them became henceforth something of a state secret.93 Only a few trusted members of his immediate family knew of their existence. An occasional, slightly audible hiss was the only hint of the false teeth’s existence.

  By the time the fourth bullet pierced the Shah’s lip, the assassin had only two left in his revolver’s chamber. There is something cinematic in the Shah’s description of what happened next. “There we stood, facing each other,” he writes, “with no one between us. I knew there was no reason why the next bullet won’t hit me. I fully remember my reaction in those split seconds. I thought maybe I should jump him, but then realized that such a move will make me an easier target, and if I tried to escape, I figured, he will shoot me in the back.”

  Left with no good alternatives, the Shah decided on what he called “a series of acrobatic moves, employing a military tactic to confound the shooter.” He describes how he moved to the right and then to the left, and how he swayed forward and backward, all in a few split seconds. His description is like watching a film where the bullet’s motion has been slowed to a crawl. “The next bullet,” the Shah writes, “wounded my shoulders.” There was now only one bullet left. So far the assassin’s failure of marksmanship, or the Shah’s agility of movement, had saved him. What would save him now? “The last bullet jammed in the chamber,” the Shah writes.94

  The assassin angrily threw his revolver at the Shah and ran toward the grassy knoll a few steps away. There is a photo of the Shah moments after the failed assassination attempt. He is still on his feet and has pulled out a handkerchief and is using it to stop and wipe away the blood. A few feet from the grass were the campus walls, a gate, and a throng of curious, frightened observers. Fakhrarai was headed in that direction. But before he could reach the gate, soldiers jumped on him. Some say he had fallen, allowing the soldiers to catch up with him easily. “Kill the son of bitch,” cried General Murteza Khan Yazdanpanah, a trusted military aide to the Shah. By then, the assassin was no longer armed, save for a small knife, shown in published pictures with a caption indicating it was hidden inside his sock. Within minutes of the failed attempt on the Shah’s life, rifle butts and bullets fired point-blank had killed Fakhrarai. In his pocket the guards found his identity card showing he had gained access to the area as a staff photographer for a paper called Parcham-e Islam (Flag of Islam).

  In the paranoid world of Iranian politics, the questionable decision of the Shah’s guards to kill the assassin led to a plethora of conspiracy theories, including one that implicated those at the scene. They were complicit in the act, people whispered, and lest the assassin talk and reveal their secrets, they killed him. Another theory pointed an accusing finger at General Razmara. Like a ghost haunting the halls of power, his hand was seen behind every major event in the country in those days, and few things were as “major” as an attempt on the life of the Shah. Razmara was by then one of the most powerful generals in the Iranian military. His political ambition was an open secret. His ties to the Soviet Union and to the Tudeh Party were grist to many rumor mills. His romantic ties to Princess Ashraf afforded him special access to th
e Court and the Shah.95 These factors, and the fact that he was conspicuously absent from the ranks of dignitaries gathered at the university to welcome the Shah, combined to make him a suspect.

  The Shah’s own description of the assassin’s connections exemplifies his proclivity for conspiracy theories. “It became clear later,” he wrote, “that he had connections to some religious zealots, and also there was some evidence of his connection to the dissolved Tudeh Party. It is also interesting that the assassin’s girlfriend was the daughter of the gardener at the British Embassy.”96 As it turned out, the assassin had, some months earlier, taken up with a woman called Mahin Eslami, and her father did indeed work at the embassy. But Fakhrarai had also been trying to kill the Shah long before the romance began.

  A few hours after the assassination attempt, the royal Court and the government both issued communiqués describing the incident. As expected, keen on using the occasion to the Shah’s political benefit, the Court communiqué quoted what it suggested were the Shah’s first words after surgery: “To serve the country and the beloved nation, a few bullets count for naught, and my resolve in reaching our goals remains intact.”97

  The government communiqué talked of a widening conspiracy of “traitors” keen on “undermining the foundations of the nation’s security.” In recent months, it said, these traitors had been emboldened in their treachery; they commenced by spreading vicious rumors against the Shah, that most “sacred official of the country,” and finally their audacity reached a level wherein one of the traitors took aim “at the most sacred of all sacred authorities in the country,” a person who “embodies Iran’s national identity and is the foundation of the country’s independence.”98

  Around seven in the evening, the Shah delivered a short message on the radio. His picture, in a checkered hospital gown, with a bandage around his mouth, became iconic, and the Shah’s supporters praised it for capturing his stoic heroism. In his radio message, the Shah first thanked the “infinite grace and goodness of the Good Lord,” who saved him from the assassination attempt, and then went on to thank the people for their profuse show of support. He ended by promising to “give life and limb” in the service of safeguarding the nation and securing the welfare of the people.99

  Though the assassin had been a religious zealot, active with Islamic radicals opposed to the Shah, the Tudeh Party was blamed for masterminding the assassination attempt. In reality, Fakhrarai, a confused young man, angry at the world and at the Shah, had been a childhood friend of a member of the party—a nondescript young man called Abdullah Arghani. For several years, Fakhrarai had been talking to Arghani about his plans to kill the Shah. In 1946, three years before the day he nearly succeeded, he had forged for himself an identity card that showed him to be a photojournalist for Parcham-e Islam.

  Fakhrarai had made his first attempt to kill the Shah in 1946 when the latter had traveled to the city of Isfahan. Fakhrarai apparently never came close enough to take a shot. On that trip, the Shah was accompanied by Parvin Ghafari, in those days rumored to be his favorite paramour.100 The affair was hardly a well-kept secret. A few years later, one of Iran’s most prolific writers of popular romance novels serialized a story he called “Our Town’s Blonde.” It was something of a roman à clef, particularly in its early parts, chronicling the blonde’s affair with a character who bore an unmistakable resemblance to the Shah.101 During Fawzia’s absence from the country, the Shah was often seen with her—including the 1946 journey to Isfahan.

  Fakhrarai’s second failed attempt was made a few months later when the Shah was watching a tennis match in Amjadiye—the city’s only stadium at the time. Once again, the assailant did not get close enough to shoot. From his days in Switzerland, tennis had been one of the Shah’s favorite pastimes, and he had built a tennis court in one of his palaces. Tehran papers at the time marveled at the fact that the tennis court was sufficiently lit that it allowed the Shah to play a game at night if he wanted to. They wrote of his regular matches with some of the country’s top players.102

  On each of these two failed assassination attempts, Fakhrarai had shared his plans with his childhood friend Abdullah Arghani, who was by then a member of the Tudeh Party. Arghani had shared his information with Noural-din Kianouri, one of the Tudeh Party’s top leaders. As soon as Kianouri learned of Fakhrarai’s plans, he discussed the matter with the party politburo. The committee summarily dismissed the idea as “adventurism” and “terrorism” and ordered Kianuouri to cease all contacts with the assassin. But Kianouri considered himself one of the true revolutionaries in a party otherwise dominated by reformists, and thus he refused to follow the party leaders’ decision, continuing the contacts with Fakhrarai, even going so far as helping to provide him with a revolver.103 As a result, when the assassination attempt at Tehran University took place, the Shah and the police, keen on blaming the Communists, and planning to use the charge of complicity in the attack to declare the party illegal, had just enough threads to connect the Communists to the assassination attempt.

  Not long after the two official communiqués following the shooting at the university, the government declared martial law; a special session of the Majlis was convened that night, and the Tudeh Party was declared illegal—a decision the government proved unable or unwilling to implement. Before midnight on the day of the failed assassination attempt, twenty-eight of the party’s top leaders were arrested. But, for the next four years, in spite of the government decrees banning and dissolving the party, it continued to operate, even thrive, through its many front organizations.

  While “divine intervention” and acrobatic military tactics were, in the Shah’s mind, what had saved him from the assassin’s bullets, a few months earlier he had almost lost his life in a flying accident. In those years, his political and emotional life was fraught with bleak realities, but a bright spot had come in September of 1946 when he officially received his pilot’s license. Ever since Wendell Willkie, the Republican candidate in the 1940 U.S. presidential election, had come to Tehran in 1942 and given the Shah a ride over the capital in his private jet, flying had become a passion in the Shah’s life.104 Going up in the air with Willkie gave the Shah such pleasure that he “wanted to stay up indefinitely.” Only when Willkie “insisted that landing at night might be difficult did he agree to land.”105

  In a strange twist of fate, the Shah almost decided to avoid the meeting. Willkie, who suffered from athlete’s foot, had, in his earlier meeting with Qavam, taken off his shoes to scratch his toes. Qavam also suspected that Willkie had allowed himself the luxury and liberty of freeing himself, noisily, of superfluous bodily gases while discussing urgent matters of state with the Prime Minister.106 Lest he repeat his audacity of noisy shoelessness in a formal royal audience, Qavam had suggested, rather cryptically, that the Shah must cancel his meeting with Willkie. The Shah ignored the warning as he distrusted Qavam’s motives. The meeting took place with no incident, and one result was the Shah’s exposure to piloting and planes. In spite of his demure and invariably cautious public demeanor, the Shah had a lifelong passion for the reckless abandon of a speeding car, a fast motorcycle, or an airplane.

  After the flyover with Wendell Willkie, the Shah hired an American TWA captain by the name of Dick Collbarn to teach him how to fly. The American State Department had only one piece of advice for Collbarn as he set out for his new duties: “The Shah was not to get killed.”107 Arriving at the Court, the Captain was particularly surprised by the fact that “the shah must have twenty-five custom-built cars . . . Buicks, Cadillacs, six Rolls-Royces, a Mercedes.”108 The Shah, the Captain concluded, was “an apt flying student.” He taught the Shah how to fly British model planes, like the Anson and Hurricane, and American models like Beechcraft. Eventually the Shah fell in love with a B-17 plane he had seen in Tehran. He “started to bicker for it” and eventually bought it sometime in early 1947. The price is not known.109

  The Shah’s passion for flying and for speed alm
ost cost him his life many times. In 1944, for example, he was flying his “small single-engine plane to a place called Kuhrang, near Isfahan.” A general was the only passenger. Hardly ten minutes into the flight, “without any rhyme or reason, the engine went dead,” forcing the Shah to make an emergency landing “in a narrow zigzag ravine full of rocks and cliffs.”110 The maneuvers forced the plane into a somersault, and it came to a halt upside down, with both the Shah and his passenger “hanging upside down from their seats.”111

  While the plane accident had no impact on the nation’s public mood toward the Shah, the failed assassination attempt afforded him a flood of sympathy and became a useful tool for realizing one of his main goals in the first decade of his rule. From his first days in office, he was, in the words of the British Embassy, “hankering after more power,” telling anyone who would listen, particularly the British and American ambassadors more than once that “the only solution [to Iran’s problems] was for him to have more power.” More specifically, he wanted the power to dissolve “an unsatisfactory parliament.”112 But these attempts were repeatedly met with either the stiff resistance of Iranian political forces, or push-back from the British and American Embassies. Both embassies believed an increase in the Shah’s constitutional power would lead to a system of “one man rule,” and they had both concluded that the Shah’s past behavior did not “inspire confidence” in such a rule.113 In explaining their opposition to the Shah’s proposal, they told him that, “no European monarch has constitutional power to initiate dissolution of parliament, except Sweden where such power has not been used in past twenty five years.”114