“love me and will never forsake me”: Alam (1991), p. 177.
“A real king in Iran”: “It Began with the King of Kings,” Kayhan International, October 14, 1971.
“I am not Suharto”: Author interview with Parviz Sabeti, May 10, 2014. This catchphrase was the Shah’s mantra during the year of revolution.
“a lamb in lion’s clothing”: Author interview with Dr. Parviz Mina, September 11, 2014.
“In the afternoon His Imperial Majesty”: Alam (1991), p. 511.
“95 percent of the population”: Charles Douglas-Hume, “State Intent on Staying in Power Despite Violence,” Times (London), November 23, 1978.
“You can see by the look in their eyes”: Eric Pace, “Shah Courting Popular Support,” New York Times, May 13, 1975.
“This is not a new idea”: “Shahanshah Ponders Abdication,” Kayhan International, October 19, 1971. In 1976 the Shah explained similar plans to abdicate to the author Margaret Laing. See Laing (1977), p. 184. He suggested he needed another dozen years in power to consolidate his achievements.
“The time of Reza”: Author interview with Fereydoun Djavadi, July 13, 2013.
“nothing can threaten it”: Oakes, “Shah Is Offering New Plan to Aid Developing Nations.”
kalleh pacheh or boiled mutton’s head and foot: Gholam Reza Afkhami, The Life and Times of the Shah (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), p. 43.
in a special drawer: Author interview with Amir Pourshaja, March 16, 2013.
2. CROWN AND KINGDOM
“I wish you life and long prosperity”: Abolqasem Ferdowsi, Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, trans. Dick Davis (New York: Penguin, 2006), p. 332.
“I found myself plunged into a sea of trouble”: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Mission for My Country (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), p. 75.
ranking brigadier: Reza Khan commanded the Hamadan Brigade. Gholam Reza Afkhami, The Life and Times of the Shah (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), p. 16.
stood smoking … anxiously awaiting: Ashraf Pahlavi, Faces in a Mirror: Memoirs from Exile (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980), p. 1.
“It’s a boy!”: Ibid.
“There is another child”: Ibid.
“O God, I place my son in your care”: Afkhami (2009), p. 10.
“To say that I was unwanted might be harsh”: A. Pahlavi (1980), p. 1.
Land of the Lion and the Sun: To learn more about the history of pre-Islamic Persia the following titles are helpful: Michael Axworthy, Empire of the Mind: A History of Iran (New York: Basic Books, 2008); Gene R. Garthwaite, The Persians (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007); Gene Gurney, Kingdoms of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Ruling Monarchs from Ancient Times to the Present (New York: Crown, 1986); Homa Katouzian, The Persians: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Iran (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009); and A. T. Olmstead, History of the Persian Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948).
“first sole superpower”: Arnold Toynbee, “The First Iranian Empire,” Kayhan International, October 14, 1971.
“The establishment of the largest empire”: Touraj Daryaee, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Iranian History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 3.
“all men the freedom to worship”: “Cyrus: The Anointed One,” Kayhan International, October 14, 1971.
“the camp of the Persians”: Ibid.
“storm from the east”: Daryaee (2012), p. 243.
“as a child”: Amir Taheri, The Unknown Life of the Shah (London: Hutchinson, 1991), p. 218.
The Pahlavi Dynasty emerged: To learn more about the decline of Qajar rule in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the rise of Reza Khan and the Pahlavis, the following titles are recommended: Ervand Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Homa Katouzian, State and Society in Iran: The Eclipse of the Qajars and the Emergence of the Pahlavis (London: I. B. Taurus, 2006); and Nikkie R. Keddie, Qajar Iran and the Rise of Reza Khan, 1796–1925 (Costa Mesta, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1999).
The Constitutional Revolution: To read more on Iran’s Constitutional Revolution see Abrahamian (2008), 34–62; Said Amir Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 34–58; Katouzian (2006), pp. 25–87; and Keddie (1999), pp. 44–64.
“was gentle, reserved, and almost painfully shy”: A. Pahlavi (1980), p. 15.
“must have gotten”: Ibid.
“a straightforward kind of man”: E. A. Bayne, Persian Kingship in Transition (New York: American Universities Field Staff, 1968), p. 58.
“physical presence”: A. Pahlavi (1980), p. 9.
“Despite all the independence”: Her Imperial Highness Princess Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiary, in collaboration with Louis Valentin, Palace of Solitude, trans. Hubert Gibbs (London: Quartet Books, 1992), p. 70.
“I was never afraid”: Author interview with Fereydoun Djavadi, July 13, 2013. See also Afkhami (2009), p. 24.
“his father’s love”: Afkhami (2009), p. 24.
climb on his father’s back: Author interview with Fereydoun Djavadi, July 13, 2013.
“Oh! yes”: R. K. Karanjia, The Mind of a Monarch (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1977), p. 32.
instructed his other children: A. Pahlavi (1980), p. 12.
“a very dictatorial woman”: James O. Jackson, “Shah: Dedicated, Dominant, Distrustful,” Chicago Tribune, January 8, 1978.
“In his early days as Shah”: Directorate of Intelligence, Intelligence Report: “Centers of Power in Iran,” May 1972, No. 2035/72, U.S. State Department Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations of the United States RUS 1969–76, vol. E-4.
“woman of the harem”: Bakhtiary (1992), p. 71.
“Although polygamy was commonly practiced”: A. Pahlavi (1980), p. 10.
agreed to live separate lives: Ibid.
“No, I was not considered strong at all”: Karanjia (1977), p. 44.
“manly education”: M. R. Pahlavi (1961), p. 52.
enthralled her young charge: Afkhami (2009), p. 29.
“the virtues of democracy”: Ibid.
“To her I owe the advantage”: M. R. Pahlavi (1961), p. 52.
“Water is the chief concern”: F. L. Bird, “Modern Persia and Its Capital: And an Account of an Ascent of Mount Demavend, the Persian Olympus,” National Geographic 39, no. 4 (April 1921): 357.
“magnificent plateau”: The Baroness Ravensdale, “Old and New in Persia: In This Ancient Land Now Called Iran a Modern Sugar Factory Rears Its Head Near the Palace of Darius the Great,” National Geographic 76, no. 3 (September 1939): 325.
“the great lifeless desert”: Bird, “Modern Persia,” p. 361.
a shepherd and his flock of sheep: Edward J. Linehan, “Old-New Iran, Next Door to Russia,” National Geographic 199, no. 1 (January 1961): 59.
“Some sections in their utter bleakness”: George W. Long, “Journey into Troubled Iran,” National Geographic, vol. C, no. 4 (October 1951): p. 441.
“an oasis situated on a high plateau”: Parisa Parsi, “Shiraz: All Love and Poetry,” Kayhan International, October 12, 1971.
trebled Iran’s oil production: Gregory Lima, “Crowding the Persian Gulf,” Kayhan International, October 14, 1971.
“Iran’s entry into the Persian Gulf would affect”: Amir Taheri, “We Stand on Our Own Feet,” Kayhan International, October 19, 1971.
“Iran is a country of walls and mirrors”: Frances Fitzgerald, “Giving the Shah Everything He Wants,” Harper’s 249, no. 1494 (November 1974): 55.
typhoid: M. R. Pahlavi (1961), p. 55.
While he drifted into and out: Karanjia (1977), p. 174.
After the Crown Prince fell: Ibid., p. 54.
“a man with a halo”: Ibid.
“the vehicle for expressing public opinion”: Amir Taheri, “Return of the Mosque,” Kayhan International, October 21, 1978.
“A
fine system of mutual checks and balances”: Ibid.
“the social and political conditions”: Ibid.
“did not particularly like Fardust”: Afkhami (2009), p. 28.
“His entourage consisted of a chauffeur”: Frederick Jacobi Jr., “New Boy,” New Yorker, February 26, 1949, pp. 52–53.
“I was determined that later when”: M. R. Pahlavi (1961), p. 62.
prayed five times a day: Afkhami (2009), p. 33.
“public complaints” box: M. R. Pahlavi (1961), p. 63.
The Shah nursed the ambitions: To learn more about Reza Shah’s efforts to reform Iran in the 1930s the following texts provide a wealth of detail: Abrahamian (2008), pp. 63–96; Ervand Abrahamian, Iran: Between Two Revolutions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 118–168; Afkhami (2009), pp. 1–41; Arjomand (1986), pp. 59–68; Amin Saikal, The Rise and Fall of the Shah: Iran from Autocracy to Religious Rule (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 19–24.
“The hallmark of the era”: Abrahamian (2008), p. 65.
In a letter dated February 1, 1936: Letter From Reza Shah to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, February 1, 1936, shared with the author by Farah Pahlavi.
“standing alone, watching”: Afkhami (2009), p. 34.
shook hands, exchanged a hug: Ibid.
“happy and healthy”: A. Pahlavi (1980), p. 22.
“a different country. I recognized nothing”: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Answer to History (New York: Stein & Day, 1980), p. 65.
“as an Iranian version of the south of France”: Ravensdale, “Old and New in Persia.”
Dodge motorcars: Ibid.
“huge new hotels pushing their heads into the air”: The April 1921 edition of National Geographic was devoted in its entirety to Persia. It included a colorful account of travel into and around the Kingdom of Persia. See. Bird, “Modern Persia and Its Capital.”
travel to Tehran: Ibid.
“the superb Chalus road”: Ibid.
“elaborate wayside hotels”: Ibid.
tossing flowers and bouquets: M. R. Pahlavi (1980), p. 65.
“so much in awe”: M. R. Pahlavi (1961), p. 64.
“I advanced my views”: Ibid., pp. 64–65.
“he concentrated buying”: M. R. Pahlavi (1980), p. 65.
would live to regret: Afkhami (2009), p. 113.
“So I was married”: M. R. Pahlavi (1980), p. 30.
“With his characteristic forthrightness”: M. R. Pahlavi (1961), p. 218.
“For reasons still obscure to medical science”: Ibid., p. 219.
“The Allies have invaded”: A. Pahlavi (1980), p. 40.
“Ashraf, keep this gun with you”: Ibid., p. 41.
“I would love to have you with me”: Ibid., p. 43.
“You might say that Reza Shah”: M. R. Pahlavi (1961), p. 75.
“it seemed a curious situation”: Ibid., p. 79.
“plunged into a sea of trouble”: Ibid., p. 75.
“no solid power base and no political machine”: Malcolm Byrne, ed., “The Battle for Iran,” National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 476.
“I inherited a crown”: Franc Shor, “Iran’s Shah Crowns Himself and His Empress,” National Geographic, 133, no. 3 (March 1968): 302.
“I told them that we must establish”: “Reformer in Sako,” Time, September 12, 1960, p. 31.
“People must not remain silent”: Abbas Milani, The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution (Washington, DC: Mage, 2004), p. 85.
3. THE OLD LION
“I will never start anything against [him]”: Her Imperial Highness Princess Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiary, in collaboration with Louis Valentin, Palace of Solitude, trans. Hubert Gibbs (London: Quartet Books, 1992).
“Has there ever been a monarch”: Ibid., p. 96.
“passed through my military cap”: Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Mission for My Country (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), p. 57.
“We had to make a forced landing”: Ibid., p. 56.
“Iran’s chief city”: George W. Long, “Journey into Troubled Iran,” National Geographic, vol. C, no. 4 (October 1951): 432.
“It was a sort of rupture”: Bakhtiary (1992), p. 9.
“If he doesn’t like me”: Ibid., p. 31.
celluloid dreams: Ibid.
“imposing, magnificent”: Ibid., p. 38.
Soraya’s legs gave out: Ibid., p. 61.
“In spite of a first marriage”: Ibid., p. 45.
“He can put his bed over there!”: Author interview with Maryam Ansary, March 13, 2014.
by picking up a vase: Ibid.
“the German woman”: Ibid.
During a state visit to India: Habib Ladjevardi, ed., Memoirs of Fatemeh Pakravan, Iranian Oral History Project, Center for Middle Eastern Studies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1998), pp. 82–83.
“Well, I’m very lucky”: Ibid., p. 84.
“threw an embarrassing temper tantrum”: Abbas Milani, The Shah (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), p. 200.
“wasn’t very kind to [the princess]”: Ladjevardi (1998), p. 85.
Ayatollah Abul-Qasem Kashani: For a short biography see Abbas Milani, Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran 1941–79, vol. 1 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2008), 343–349.
“I will never forget”: Bakhtiary (1992), p. 96.
Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq: To learn more about Mossadeq see Christopher de Bellaigue, Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic Anglo-American Coup (New York: HarperCollins, 2012).
85 percent of its fuel: Ervand Abrahamian, The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern-Iranian Relations (New York: New Press, 2013), p. 12.
faced national bankruptcy: Telegram, Secretary of State to the Department of State, November 10, 1951, U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, Foreign Relations of the United States 1952–1954, vol. X, Iran, 1951–1954, document 129.
“The cardinal policy”: Ibid.
“But Mossadeq was frail”: Author interview with Reza Ghotbi, May 9, 2013.
he probably knew in advance of the plot: De Bellaigue (2012), p. 152.
“saved the National Front in its infancy”: Ibid., p. 153.
“Had the British sent in the paratroops”: Malcolm Byrne, ed., “The Battle for Iran,” National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book 476.
“make political friends”: Ashraf Pahlavi, Faces in a Mirror: Memoirs from Exile (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980), p. 76.
“I have lost my status”: Bakhtiary (1992), p. 92.
“feared complete nervous breakdown”: Milani (2008), p. 164.
have emergency surgery: Ibid., p. 157.
“wild with anxiety”: Bakhtiary (1992), p. 82.
succumbed to anorexia: Ibid.
dispatched an intermediary: Ibid., p. 83.
“I promise you that I will stay in Tehran!”: Ibid., p. 94.
“take leadership in overthrowing Mossadeq”: Byrne, ed., “The Battle for Iran.”
“If the Shah fails to go along”: Darioush Bayandor, Iran and the CIA: The Fall of Mossadeq Revisited (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 93.
“unless extreme pressure was exerted”: Byrne, ed., “The Battle for Iran.”
“I could no longer bear”: Bakhtiary (1992), p. 96.
“Only a coup against Mossadeq”: Ibid.
on August 3, 1953: Byrne, ed., “The Battle for Iran.”
“When can I act?”: Bakhtiary (1992), p. 98.
“Don’t do anything against Mossadeq”: Ibid.
“I will sign a decree”: Ibid.
changed beds and rooms: Ibid., p. 99.
“I found the Shah worn”: Byrne, ed., “The Battle for Iran.”
“He just took off”: Ibid.
“O traitor Shah, you shameless person”: Ibid.
“tearing down statues”: Ibid.
200 tomans ($26.65): Ibid.
“Sensing that the
army was with them”: Ibid.
forty-three deaths: Ibid.
“MOSSADEQ OVERTHROWN”: Bakhtiary (1992), p. 107.
“Can it be true?”: Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2003), p. 184.
“How exciting”: Ibid.
“I hope the well-augured return”: Bayandor (2010), p. 154.
“counterrevolution had been scheduled”: E. A. Bayne, Persian Kingship in Transition (New York: American Universities Field Staff, Inc., 1968), p. 163.
“Ah, but the people called for me to return”: Asadollah Alam, The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran’s Royal Court, 1969–77, introduced and edited by Alinaghi Alikhani (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991), p. 177.
eighty Iranian Army soldiers: “The Shah of Iran—Will His Land Have a Revolution from Above?,” Newsweek, June 26, 1961, p. 46.
“the boy”: Author interview with Maryam Ansary, January 7, 2014.
“So when are you going to give my son a boy?”: Bakhtiary (1992), p. 71.
“Nobody was entitled to forget”: Ibid.
“It is good that we are going”: Ardeshir Zahedi as told to Ahmad Ahrar, English translation by Farhang Jahanpour, The Memoirs of Ardeshir Zahedi, vol. 1: From Childhood to the End of My Father’s Premiership (1928–1954) (Bethesda, MD: Ibex, 2012), p. 258.
“Why did you kick me?!”: Ibid.
“If you are directly involved in the talks”: Ibid., p. 272.
“Rule, your country needs it!”: Bayne (1968), p. 149.
“You know, there is no more lonely”: Ibid.
“was afraid of General Zahedi’s huge popularity”: Bakhtiary (1992), p. 131.
“If I have a son”: Ardeshir Zahedi, English translation by Farhang Jahanpour, The Memoirs of Ardeshir Zahedi, vol. 2: Love, Marriage, Ambassador to the U.S. and the U.K. (1955–1966) (Bethesda, MD: Ibex, 2014), p. 122.
Princess Ashraf was likely behind: Ibid., p. 114. Zahedi told the author in an interview that he and Ashraf were sworn enemies, to the point he suspected she wanted him dead. He emphasized that they had since patched up their differences. Author interview, October 27, 2012.
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