It was plastic Paradise, except that the infernal desert climate deterred vacationers six months of the year, and some Arabs felt uncomfortable gambling and whoring under the watchful eye of the SAVAK. Locals still resented that the Shah had torn down their bazaar to use the site for his development. An army of workers and attendants had been assembled and brought in to build it and service the guests, who required copious service indeed. I could imagine the lurid stories the help told of what they’d witnessed, when they returned to their towns and villages during the six months when the place shut down.
Flying back to Tehran, the Princess told me more about herself. She’d been exiled to Paris by Prime Minister Mossadegh in the 1950s. “I was practically broke then, a fine thing for a Royal Princess. Things got much better when the CIA and the British MI6 helped my brother overthrow him. I’d inherited some land from my father, Reza Shah, and that increased in value. And things improved when Mohammad Reza returned to rule Iran. But the real change happened when the oil money started coming into Iran with the 1973 embargoes. My brother embarked on his industrializing and modernizing programs. Every business must have a government license to operate, or import, or export, or to deal with the government. So Mohammad solicited all those contracts, and my son and I helped the contractors get their licenses, and all we asked was 10% in stock to carefully vet them and make sure that it happened quickly—we could only let a few operate in each area, otherwise there would have been chaos. It wasn’t like we were taking bribes or anything. Some others were taking bribes, I know that. But the Royal Family was not. What Americans do not understand that it is the custom in this part of the world to bestow gifts on people with whom one does business? We do not see that as bribery. People in Iran attack me about financial misconduct because I engage in various enterprises, but it just arises from envy and resentment.”
“Were many of your family procuring licenses for contractors in that way?”
“Yes, I suppose so. There were a lot of businesses starting up, or coming in and setting up operations, and they were in a hurry. So we were just helping them along. Some in the family started their own business as well, but that could be a lot of trouble. One of my sisters had to throw a foreign contractor in jail when he was deficient in his work. Well, also he was cheating her out of a million dollars. He paid up, and she let him out.”
“One thing that puzzles me. Princess. I get the impression that Iranians distrust one another. People in your country seem to work against each other, rather than pulling together.”
“Have you heard the fable about the frog and the scorpion? Let me tell you that story. It seems a frog was sitting by the river, and a scorpion came to him and said, ‘I want to go the other side. Can you take me on your back?’ The frog said, ‘No, that would be foolish. You are a scorpion. You would sting me and I would die.’ The scorpion said, ‘But I would be on your back, so if you died I would drown. Trust me, I will not sting you.’ So the frog set off across the river with the scorpion on his back, and halfway across, the scorpion stung him. As he died the frog said, ‘Now you will die too. Why did you sting me?’ The scorpion said, ‘Because we are in the Middle East.’ “
“And the point is?”
“The point is, Gianni, that Iran is in the Middle East.”
7 | Isfahan
My holiday in Kish showed me one issue firing up the Fundamentalists. American expatriates doing billions of dollars of contract work for the government scandalized them as well. It was time I reconned Iranian affairs outside the main city. Isfahan was a trouble spot, and as it was a major carpet center it fit my cover story. Bell Helicopter and Grumman Aircraft ran big operations down there, giving me a good look at the American presence in Iran. They’d established a “Little America,” which according to the buzz around Tehran was a major sore point. I called Lou Scannon, got a name at Bell and set up a meeting with “Jack Armstrong.” I’ll call him.
I cabled my plans to Ben Millstein and asked for some factory names in Isfahan. He sent several where he’d done business. He also mentioned that he could use some medium quality Isfahans in sizes 7’ by 10’ and larger. If I spotted any real gems I could put up to two dozen on his account. I mentioned to Razi Q’ereshi my trip to Isfahan. “Keep your eyes open, Mr. Fonko. I think you may find a buyers’ market developing. The word circulates that if things come to a head, carpet shipments out of Iran will be curtailed for a time. It’s bad enough now, with the transportation workers’ strikes and the riots.” He paused, then added, “Mr. Fonko, I have been observing you, and I cannot fathom your game.”
“Just a humble seeker after truth.”
“There is an old saying, Speak the truth and get your head bashed in.”
“Can’t the same thing happen if you lie?”
“Yes, but lying may postpone it for a time. Well, you do not seem to be working against my interests, so all I can say is, be careful, my friend. Iran is becoming dangerous, especially for Americans.”
Choppers were the best way to travel long distances quickly in Iran, as long as you didn’t mind dodging ground fire from trigger-happy tribesmen with AK-47s. For my Isfahan trip, as Jake Fonko, buyer of fine Persian carpets, I engaged Bristow Helicopters. Bristow, a British company, ran chopper service to oil fields all over Iran, but they were available for charter to anywhere you wanted to go that you could pay for. Tehran to Isfahan was a regular route, and the Shah was paying for it. They turned out to be good guys to know, as we will see presently.
Isfahan was a much smaller, more attractive city than Tehran, renowned for beautiful architecture, pleasant climate and welcoming gardens. A Persian adage holds that: “Isfahan is a paradise full of luxuries; there ought, however, to be no Isfahanis in it.” Guidebooks said the bazaar—smaller than Tehran’s—was worth a visit. However, with the city overrun by Americans it would be hard to score a bargain there, and in any case no professional carpet buyer would waste his time haggling with battle-hardened bazaaris over tourist-grade carpets. My appointment with Jack Armstrong at Bell Helicopters was the next day, so after getting settled in a suite in the exotically ornate but nearly empty Shah Abbas Hotel, I visited one of the carpet factories on my list. There was nothing exotic about it. Women in tribal dress sat before vertical looms deftly tying knots on the long warp threads. They worked from designs posted before them, and their fingers flew. Isfahan carpets are known for their colorful floral designs, usually connected by vines, trees and serrated leaves. The finest are woven on a silk base, yielding close to 1000 knots per square inch, and may take years to complete. At prevailing wage rates a weaver might earn a couple hundred dollars per year. Not all Isfahan carpets were of that quality, of course.
The manager recognized Q’ereshi’s name, as well as Ben Millstein’s, and as we sipped tea he cordially showed me some of his stock. I remarked on the troubles in Tehran. He told me of some troubles in Isfahan. Whereupon I conjectured on the possibility that, with strikes on the increase, it may soon be difficult to ship merchandise out of Iran. I made no move to buy any carpets, but did say I might return. I did the same at two other carpet factories, and then it was the end of the business day. I took dinner at a restaurant popular with Americans, and it was lively when I arrived. We’d reached the final days of Ramazan: the Faithful were spiritedly breaking their fasts at other restaurants, as eating among Americans where alcohol was served would be unseemly, not to mention uncomfortable for all concerned. Americans overseas are always delighted to find other Americans to talk to. A table of them asked me over when they saw me eating alone. Old hands at expatriate life, they filled me in on the American scene. Over the course of the evening I compiled a list:
Defense contractors
Grumman trained pilots on the F-14s Tomcats it sold to the Air Force
Rockwell International and Northrop also serviced the Air Force
Bell Helicopter was training pilots for th
e choppers they sold to the Shah
Honeywell was developing computer programs for the Air Force
Non-defense contractors
Kaiser Engineers were building a steel plant
Morrison-Knudson was constructing highways
Brown and Root constructed naval bases
General Motors was doing automobile and locomotive assembly
Westinghouse was putting up power plants
GTE set up Iranian Telecoms and was training Iranians to take it over
And that only scratched the surface of the American presence. More than 200 US companies did business here, and 44% of the contracts were defense related. Of the 50,000 or so American workers and dependents, about 11,000 were located around Isfahan, a sizeable addition to the population, not to mention a big influx of money. Their numbers had grown greatly in the last couple years. The ones I met had been having a fine time of it. Wages and perks were lavish, the work was challenging, and the living was easy. But they were starting to get antsy. A few weeks previously troops had met demonstrations in Isfahan with gunfire. The horrendous theater fire in Abadan had made the news. Anti-American sentiments, always simmering, had ramped up lately in everyday occurrences. The Iranian-American Chamber of Commerce blared reassurance: Troubles were not serious, all would work out for the best. Still…
The next morning a car from Bell Helicopters came by the hotel. The Bell facility on the plain outside of town was quite a spread; they had the largest number of employees of any American firm in Iran. Jack Armstrong greeted me and took me into his office to brief me on their operations. “Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy” was the hero of a kid’s afternoon radio program into the 40s. Now, I don’t intend “All American Boy” in a sarcastic way. The man at Bell was your typical American expat manager—fit and healthy, well-educated, practical, personable and dedicated to doing his job (in his case, flight logistics) to the best of his ability. A corporate up-and-comer. He’d originated in the Midwest, got an engineering degree at U Wisc, then went to Texas for the job at Bell. He was starting to acquire the accent.
Also, typically American, he wasn’t much interested in foreigners, foreign countries or foreign languages. Especially in the case of Iran, which puzzled and frustrated him. “There’s a reason why so many Americans are here,” he told me. “Good Iranian workers are hard to find. Most Iranians don’t speak English and are illiterate in their own language. The educated ones are full of themselves and have overblown expectations. We offer the locals wages commensurate with what their work is worth, and it just outrages them. They think they should get what the Americans get. And not the Americans doing the same kind of work, the American managers. Because they think it’s their country and we’re horning in. But, here’s the thing. Or things. Holidays—there are almost as many holidays as working days here, and that isn’t even counting Fridays, which they take off for services at the mosque, whether they go or not. And also Sunday, because we do. There’s prayer breaks during the day, besides lunch and smoking breaks. Clocks and working hours are suggestive only. If most of a crew is assembled within an hour after they’re supposed to be here, the working day is off to a good start. Honesty is another issue: no way of knowing who you can trust, when. A lot of sneaking around. They probably have their own rules about fudging facts and walking off with company property, but they aren’t the rules Americans are used to.
“But the real kicker is, most don’t care whether they do a good job or not. Whatever the job is, they go through the motions. You have to double-check their work, especially if it’s something critical. The close supervision eats up money they could make if they were just normally conscientious. If you correct them or complain they get all huffy. ‘I work harder than Farrokh,’ they’ll say. Farrokh, whose uncle owns the land we’re sitting on and stipulated in the lease that we give Farrokh a management job, is the biggest goldbrick in the shop, of course. They aren’t stupid, I’ll give them that. They just don’t have an American work ethic. The Shah did right to bring us in for his modernization programs. If he’d relied on his own people, the oil-rich would still be driving their Beamers and Mercs on goat tracks.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you really think?” I quipped.
He laughed. “Oh, some of the locals are okay. We’re getting it done, but in the face of resistance and resentment. Even the pilots we’re training. Iranians aren’t naturally mechanically minded, so these machines intimidate them. They fly stiff, can’t get the rhythm of it. It takes more application than they’re used to. Some eventually get it, but it’s hard won, and it pisses them off how much easier it seems for Americans. Who aren’t always very patient instructors when confronted with slothfulness. I can see that all this is new for these people, and not easy, so we try to be patient. But it impedes the job we’re here to do.”
“Do your people socialize with them much?”
“Hardly at all. Everything has to be on their terms, or it’s a no go. Food has to be strictly halal. Dogs kept out of sight. Our women have to put on long dresses and long sleeves. No alcohol. We can’t have them in our homes, they resent how much better we live than they do. We tried it, but everybody was walking on eggs. They were as uncomfortable as we were. We didn’t want to offend, and they didn’t want to be offended. By mutual agreement, we gave up on anything on a personal level after hours. There are exceptions, of course.” he added.
In the afternoon he took me to Eagle City, the compound Bell built 20 miles north of Isfahan. It comprised housing, schools, stores, offices, a club house and recreation facilities, grassed playing fields, very extensive, fenced and well-guarded. It had been thrown up in a hurry, functional but plain. With that many Americans flooding the area, that quickly, where else could they live? The city couldn’t offer enough housing, and how could American families live in the local housing anyhow—upstairs walk-ups with small rooms, cheek by jowl with people whose language they didn’t speak, and—horrors—no air-conditioning?
Then it was dinner time, which we had at Jack’s and Peggy’s place, along with two other American couples, “Barbie and Ken,” both of them. Jack staged a Texas barbeque featuring baby back ribs imported by the Bell PX, and everybody popped open beers and relaxed, being home among their own tribe. Their quarters were decent enough, maybe a little short of Levittown, but it was temporary. They were raking in dough, and house maids were cheap. They could put up with it. The wives had their own frustrations with Iran.
“Pardon the topic, Jake,” Peggy said, “but at least we have American toilets in these houses. Going into town, everywhere they have those holes in the floor. You feel like some kind of animal. You can’t buy toilet paper in their shops, they think it’s unsanitary. So the company imports it for us and sells it in the PX. I’ve taken to carrying some in my purse when I go into town. It’s a lovely town, and that bazaar is just the most fascinating place. But then you forget and offer your money with your left hand, and you get these dirty looks.”
“And schooling,” another chimed in. “They bus the American kids in here from all over. It can be a long ride in the morning and evening, and the kids can tell that the locals along the road don’t like them.”
“You can’t find even the most basic stuff in the shops in town. You have to order special through the company stores, and they do their best for us, but it takes forever.”
“They don’t like our churches. They call us infidels. We tolerate them back home. You’d think they’d extend us the same courtesy.”
“Shopping for food in Isfahan is impossible. The stores are small, and the bazaar is just crazy. You can’t find what you want, and you have to bargain for every onion. They chop the meat off carcasses right in front of you. It’s disgusting. We can’t send our maids to get things in town, it’s twenty miles away. We do most of our shopping here on base, but it’s limited. Oh for a good old Piggly Wiggly!”
&nbs
p; “The way those gardeners stare at you on the tennis court! Practically drooling down their fronts.”
“These guys are hornier than freshmen at an all boys’ school,” Ken added.
“Horny as hoot owls!” his wife agreed. “The creeps!” The other two ladies rolled their eyes.
“And there’s no jobs for women outside of Eagle City. It can get really boring around here.”
And on, and on. But they all agreed they liked the money they were making. They all agreed it was a life-expanding experience. And they all agreed they’d sure be glad to get back home when their contracts were up.
One of the Kens said, “We’re starting to get the feeling we may have to vamoose, despite what the Chamber is telling us. That would be a financial disaster. If we break our contracts, we have to pay our own way home. And we’d lose our investments in these carpets we’ve been buying. One of our neighbors has $20,000 tied up in rugs. How could we pack them out on a plane if we had to scoot on short notice?” Looking at the carpets in the room, it seemed to me they’d already lost. I could imagine how badly they’d been skinned in the bazaar, haggling their way to 20% discounts.
Well, an earful for sure. Jack drove me back into town before sundown and dropped me off at the hotel. “Sorry we had to cut it short, but driving at night in these parts is getting chancy. People throw things at American cars after dark. Ken took a rock through a rear window. Our school busses get pelted from behind bushes.”
“I very much appreciate the tour and knocking back some brews with home folks,” I assured him. “I hope all this works out for you.”
“So far, so good,” he replied. “Sorry about that gripe session. Everybody’s on edge right now. A couple weeks ago there was a big riot in town, torching banks, movie houses, police cars—the army opened up with automatic weapons, killed a bunch of demonstrators. Some of our folks were in town that day: it was ugly. I didn’t mean to imply all Iranians are bad people. And I can see their side. We’re guests in their country, and not always the best of guests. Some of the American technicians, the pilots, line supervisors, they’re Nam vets, good old boys. Unwinding with a six-pack or two after a frustrating week, they get on their motorcycles, they get in fights, they can be obnoxious. It’s a clash of cultures, that’s the problem.”
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 1 - 3 Page 36