by Abbas Milani
From the first weeks of his rule, the Shah had talked about the necessity of a “revolution from above” as the only way to abort the otherwise inevitable “revolution from below.” As early as 1943, he had told a new session of the Majlis that “we must make every effort to ensure that every citizen of the country, particularly those from the working and farming classes, and the poor in general, have as much free housing, free food, education and health as is common around the modern world.”41
But the 1959 land reform bill met with fierce resistance from two groups. The landlords—whose tentacles reached deep into every institution of power in Iran and who had been one of the Shah’s pillars of support—organized “stiff opposition” to any program that would deprive them of their properties. They formed a union, the Agricultural Union of Iran, to join forces in fighting the proposed land reform.42 Any time talk of land reform became serious, the landowners’ resistance also stiffened.
In their effort to block these reforms, the landowners were joined by the bulk of the Shiite clergy. Ayatollah Boroujerdi issued a stern warning to the Shah, threatening to issue a fatwa declaring land received through a land reform as haram, or unclean. Private property, the Ayatollah declared, is protected in Islam and is not to be taken away under any pretense. For the religiously conservative peasantry it would have been unfathomable to live, work, and pray on land declared haram by a cleric of Boroujerdi’s stature.
During the same period, Boroujerdi issued another fatwa banning pious families from purchasing radios, arguing that such families courted the danger of “moral turpitude.”43 He also issued fatwas against television and Pepsi-Cola. In both cases, he was driven as much by the fact that Pepsi and television had both been brought to Iran by the Baha’i Sabet family as by any intrinsic Islamic opposition to them. He also tried to block the launch of the first private university in Iran, which was a pet project of the Shah. The temptations of radio and television, and the novelty of Pepsi proved more powerful to the people than even Boroujerdi’s fatwas, and the Shah was too enamored of the idea of a private university to succumb to the Ayatollah’s pressure. But the Shah did not want to challenge the clergy on the land reform issue as well—at least not yet.
Another issue that roused the ire of the clergy, as well as that of many of the radical leaders of the Arab world, was the Shah’s July 24, 1959, announcement that Iran had extended de facto recognition to the state of Israel. The surprising announcement was made in the course of a press conference when the Shah was visiting India, with no advance warning. Even the Iranian Foreign Ministry had received no early warning. The announcement was made only after some Arab papers “exposed” Iran’s close ties to Israel, but as the Shah pointed out, Iran had recognized Israel virtually from the moment the Jewish state was created. Iran and Turkey were the only Muslim states that had afforded Israel de facto diplomatic recognition. Iran and Israel had by then established close and elaborate intelligence, military, propaganda, and economic ties. SAVAK and Mossad worked closely on a wide range of issues.44
From the moment the Shah made Iran’s de facto relations with Israel public, he came under pressure from opposite sides of the political spectrum. On the one hand, Israel and its allies inside Iran pressured the Shah to elevate the level of diplomatic ties to de jure recognition allowing the two countries to officially exchange ambassadors. The Israeli Ambassador in Iran was treated as a fully accredited ambassador, but in strict diplomatic terms he was called not an ambassador but a “trade officer.” At the same time, some in the Shah’s regime, like Ardeshir Zahedi, were in favor of a more discreet relationship with Israel and friendlier relations with Arab states such as Egypt.45
The Shiite clergy too began an orchestrated campaign against the Shah and Israel. Nasser of Egypt spared no effort to criticize the Shah for “stabbing” the Muslims in the back in their fight against Israel. For the next decade, a proxy war of attrition using propaganda and disinformation raged on between Iran and Egypt, and the Shah became all but obsessed with Nasser. He saw Nasser’s hands in everything from the 1958 coup in Iraq to disturbances in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. In particular, the Shah was convinced that the “Arab separatist” movement that had appeared in the Khuzestan province of Iran was Nasser’s first ploy for eventually claiming “Southwest Iran as an Arab land.”46 By 1966, a group called “the Arabistan Liberation Front,” established in Cairo, issued a statement claiming that, “Arabistan was determined to recover its lands.”47 In the next few years, in nearly every meeting with Western leaders, the Shah would raise the specter of Nasser. Every hint of rapprochement between a Western country and Egypt worried the Shah and usually led him to raise the issue with the leaders of that country.
The aborted land reform, the establishment of the Pahlavi Foundation, the “Whence Your Fortune Law?” and limits on the royal family’s financial activities were part of economic changes the Shah brought about under pressure from a concerned Eisenhower administration. But the Shah also promised American officials that he would “limit his participation in government” and that the next election would “be free.”48
In spite of this promise, repeated more than once in private and in public, the next election to the twentieth session of the Majlis “was a fiasco,” even more openly corrupt than usual. The Shah was forced to “take steps to void it” even before it was complete. But after announcing his intention on August 25, 1960, he found himself in a double bind. On the one hand, he wanted to show his democratic authenticity by canceling a flawed election; on the other hand, canceling elections by royal fiat would not be perceived as a democratic gesture. His solution was politically clever but constitutionally untenable. In his August 27 press conference, the Shah declared that, though he was not constitutionally “entitled to cancel elections, but could only dissolve” the Majlis, in this instance, “if the people, but genuinely the people and not a few agitators . . . should give me to understand that they sincerely desire” the annulment of the current election, “I will take action, in accordance with their demand, even if it is outside the law.”49
Political groups in the country like the loyal “opposition” Mardom Party, as well as governors and government officials began, on cue, an orchestrated show of disgust by sending telegrams to the Shah requesting the annulment of the election. Genuine opposition groups, as well as “independent” figures like Ali Amini, who had run in the election, were also loudly complaining about the rigged election. On September 1, 1960, the last act of the carefully choreographed drama took place. By then the Shah had come up with a clever new way of annulling the election without going “outside the law.” He issued a statement pointing “to the unsatisfactory nature” of the election and asked for “the collective resignation of deputies”50 elected in the contested election, thus paving the way for a new election.
But the Shah also needed someone to blame for the flawed election. On August 28, 1960, he forced Prime Minister Manouchehr Egbal to resign. Many in Iran, including foreign diplomats, believed that by “operating constantly in the name of the Shah,” Egbal had done him a disservice, creating a situation where disgruntled citizens blamed “the government and the sovereign together.”51 But now that a scapegoat was needed, Egbal obliged by resigning and quietly bearing the occasionally vicious attacks. Though he was the subject of constant attacks for rigging the election, it was clear that Egbal was by no means the “only agent of electoral fraud”—everyone from the Shah to General Bakhtiyar, Alam, and Egbal had participated. But Egbal was picked to take the fall. The choice was particularly ironic, some would say poetic justice. Egbal had turned sycophancy into an art and became infamous for signing his letters to the Shah as “Your House-born Slave”—Golame Khane Zad. According to one seasoned British diplomat, Egbal had become a “laughing stock because of his vanity, coupled with sycophancy and determination to be photographed as often as possible with the Shah.”52 He eventually even managed to have one of his two daughters married off to Mahmoud, one of
the Shah’s half-brothers.
Egbal’s tenure as prime minister had lasted over three years. He did more than any other prime minister before him to ease, indeed invite, the Shah’s domination of every facet of the Iranian government, and in return, all he seemed to expect was to be retained as prime minister. But he was first forced to resign and then flee the country, fearing for his life.
A few months before his forced resignation, Egbal had complained about the Shah to the British and American ambassadors in Tehran, who found him “profoundly depressed.” The Shah, Egbal lamented, “has no confidence in him” and cavorted with what he called “louche characters.” What had particularly hurt Egbal was that the Shah had “summoned a meeting of ministers . . . and told them that he was the fountain head of all authority.” To the surprise of both the British and the American ambassadors, Egbal ended by saying he had no intention of resigning. Now he was forced to resign53 and faced the real possibility of going to prison. The Shah valued loyalty, and Egbal’s readiness to play his assigned role was amply rewarded as soon as the political climate allowed it.
The Shah’s first choice as Egbal’s replacement was his trusted minister of Court, Hussein Ala. But Ala was nothing if not cautious and aware of his own limits. The ongoing crisis, he sensed, was more than he could manage, and thus he “excused himself.”54 The Shah then decided to appoint Ja’far Sharif-Emami as prime minister.
Sharif-Emami had already served as a minister in several cabinets. During World War II, he had been amongst the group of about 200 Iranians arrested by the British on the charge of being Nazi sympathizers. By 1960 he was known as the Grand Master of Masonic Lodges in Iran; in the dominant political discourse of the time, membership in the Freemasonic Lodges was tantamount to treason and to subservience to the interests of the British Empire. He was also one of only three men who refused to kiss the Shah’s hands in official ceremonies, a mandatory gesture for Iranian politicians at the time. Sharif-Emami also had a badly tarnished reputation for financial corruption, but he did have one thing in his favor. He was the son of a mullah and was by marriage related to the Moazzami family, faithful allies of Mossadeq and close friends of important figures in the National Front. However, the family connection failed to provide any tangible political advantages. No one from the National Front agreed to join the Sharif-Emami cabinet. Moreover, Sharif-Emami’s response to the socioeconomic crisis was to simply offer higher wages to everyone—something neither the government nor the recession-enfeebled private sector employers could afford.
Sharif-Emami was also adamantly opposed to the “stabilization program” developed by the United States to solve Iran’s economic ills. He placed his brother-in-law Ahmad Aramesh in charge of the Plan Organization—the heart and soul of the “stabilization program” and of Iran’s development plans. In short order, Aramesh dismantled nearly all that Abolhassan Ebtehaj had put in place at the Plan Organization.55 Why the Shah imagined that someone with Sharif-Emami’s background, reputation, and qualifications could solve the country’s chronic and serious problems in those heady days is a mystery. One may wonder if the appointment of a Freemason was the Shah’s way to use Britain to counter American pressures on his regime. But the short-lived Sharif-Emami tenure only exacerbated the crisis he was supposed to resolve.
In order to mollify the increasingly vocal opposition, the Shah repeated his promise of a free and fair election in a radio address. A handful of opposition figures, including Alahyar Saleh, the revered leader of the National Front, were allowed to run. In private, however, the Shah told the British and American ambassadors that his intention was something less than an actual “free election.” He told these officials that he would “select the candidates himself, at least two for each”56 seat, and then allow the people of each district to actually choose between the two. This was in fact the way Reza Shah had held “free elections” during his time. After August 1953, the Shah insisted on “electing” all the representatives himself. Only during the two-year tenure of General Zahedi (1953– 1955) did the Shah agree to “allow the Prime Minister [to] ‘select’ half of the members [of the Majlis].”
Though the Shah’s new proposed style of “election” was far from democratic, it was a big step forward for him. Only a few months earlier he had told the American Ambassador that it was “too early to have free elections, even from pre-chosen candidates.”57 Now he was planning to have just such pre-chosen candidates and then wanted to order local officials “not to stuff ballots.” But as he soon learned, old habits die hard, and entrenched interest in each district, particularly the “rotten boroughs” of the landed gentry, were all but impossible to peacefully dislodge.
Adding to these mounting domestic problems was the election of John Kennedy in America. More than once in his Daily Journals, Alam claims that the Shah made illegal contributions to the Nixon presidential campaign in 1960 and did so again in 1968. Other sources have claimed that through an emissary, the Shah informed the newly elected President Kennedy that “[a] mistake had been made” and that he had been acting “on the advice of ill-meaning individuals.”58
In fact, Nixon’s 1953 visit to Iran as vice president had begun what would become a close lifelong friendship between him and the Shah, often laced with gifts of caviar and rugs from the Shah, notes of profuse gratitude, and on at least one occasion a book from Nixon. On January 27, 1955, Nixon wrote to the Shah, “it was most thoughtful of you to remember Mrs. Nixon and me, as you did, during the holiday season with the caviar. This delicacy happens to be a particular favorite of Mrs. Nixon.”59
In 1956, one of these gifts almost derailed Nixon’s political career when allegations of financial malfeasance almost led to his removal from the Republican ticket. One of the charges against Nixon at the time was that he had accepted a rug as a gift from the Shah. Nixon had neither reported the expensive gift nor turned it over to the government, as the law required. Nixon claimed that the gift had been not for him but for his wife, who was not required by law to report any gift she received. As Nixon was giving a speech to exonerate himself, the rug his chair was sitting on was in fact the one given to him by the Shah.
The Shah’s trepidations about what the Kennedy administration had in store for him were evident in a one-hundred-line letter he wrote to the new president on January 26, 1961, just six days after the inauguration. On February 6, the Shah received a six-line response.
The Shah’s letter, as much a plea for instant American aid as a lesson in his version of Iranian history, began by his declaration of joy “at the prospects of a young and vigorous personality taking into his hands the reins of government.” He then waxed eloquent about Iran’s “ancient Zoroastrian creed” that “teaches us that in the eternal struggle between the power of good and the genius of evil,” the good wins. He praised Kennedy’s inaugural address for its positive disposition and its willingness to emphasize the promises of the future instead of doggedly dwelling on the problems of the past. Iran, too, he said, “can look forward to a brilliant future.”60
His optimism grew out of his relentless desire to make Iran a modern nation, comparable to the West; such a desire had been an essential part of his vision from his earliest days on the throne. Knowing full well that Kennedy had criticized his authoritarian rule during the presidential campaign, and hoping to preempt any pressure on him to democratize, the Shah wrote in his January letter that “in all humility, it can be safely asserted that within the compass of the several hundred million people who struggle for existence in our neighborhood . . . Iran is the one country that enjoys a democratic regime with all the freedoms except the freedom to commit treason.”61
Finally, lest the Kennedy administration be tempted to increase pressure on him to bring the National Front back to power, the Shah, in a thinly disguised attack on Mossadeq, criticized those who “tried to govern by instituting martial law throughout its tenure of power, by intimidation, by blackmail, by mob rule, and finally by surrender to the domina
tion of communism.”
Iran, the Shah told Kennedy, is “the key to a vast region in which actually 260 million tons of oil are extracted annually, all of which flows to the Western or non-communist countries.” Iran was, according to the Shah, also the key “to Asia; it will also be the key to Africa in near future.”62 The Shah ended the surprisingly long letter by declaring that “to maintain stability and security,” Iran is “in need of assistance which only America can furnish.”63 Kennedy’s response to the Shah’s impassioned letter was a terse, formal note, bereft of any promise of help.
The response expectedly added to the Shah’s anxiety. Less than a month later, he took the unusual step of sending yet another personal letter to Kennedy, this time using General Bakhtiyar as his personal emissary. The American Embassy in Tehran tried to dissuade the Shah from sending the second note, but their effort was for naught. Long before Bakhtiyar arrived in Washington, the contents of the confidential letter he was carrying “had fortuitously come into” the possession of the United States! On February 28, days before his meeting with Bakhtiyar, President Kennedy received a memo divulging the contents of the letter and offering some “talking points” he might use in his meeting with the General.
In the letter, the Shah articulated several key concerns. He was, he said, concerned that “in the case of a détente with the USSR,” the United States would “abandon Iran to the Soviets.” He also feared that because of the perceived undemocratic nature of his own rule, “the US may encourage the activities of the opposition.” Kennedy was advised to emphasize “his admiration for recent progress” in Iran and reassure the Shah that the United States would never abandon “free nations to Soviet Imperialism.”64 The letter also included an urgent plea for more U.S. assistance. Here too Kennedy was advised to make a vague but encouraging promise.