I had actually tried to resign several times during the ten or twelve years at NIRT. Sometimes it was because I was not happy with what I was doing or wasn’t satisfied with myself. Once, when the government changed, and mostly, on account of the pressures put on me by the administration/government, so I tried to resign especially as this type of work was not actually what I had planned to do. I had always wanted to be a teacher, a mathematician or an engineer, not the administrator of a governmental organization.

None of the earlier resignations were accepted, but this last time in late Mordad, probably mid or late August 1978, I was fully determined to quit once and for all. I called the prime minister (PM) Jamshid Amouzegar to tell him I was leaving. He told me that he couldn’t accept my resignation as he had been asked to resign himself and that the next PM would be Mr. Sharif Emami. I told Mr. Amouzegar that my mind was made up and even if he didn’t accept my resignation, I would not stay on for more than two weeks.  The same day or the next, I wrote him a long letter thanking him because he had been a very good boss from the government. He was an honest man, very transparent in his decisions, at least the ones that concerned NIRT and I told him at the end of the letter that with the changes in the country, it was best to choose another person to replace me. I may have even written or orally told him that Mr. Jafarian, who at the time was deputy director of NIRT would be a good choice as managing director. He replied that he had to ask His Majesty for permission to accept my resignation. I reminded him that it was not absolutely necessary as I was not appointed by His Majesty but rather by the board of NIRT, though technically I’d initially been appointed directly by the PM as the Board hadn’t been fully appointed yet. It’s true that the farman, (decree to make me executive director) was signed by the Shah but I was not technically an appointee of His Majesty. In any case, the next day he called to say that he presented my resignation to the Shah. I think he gave my letter to His Majesty because my text was rather laudatory about him. He told me that His Majesty accepted my resignation but wanted me to present it to the new PM.

A couple of days later the new government was announced, and I was all the more glad to have resigned because the way the new PM portrayed himself as the grandson of clerics was completely out of line, as far as I was concerned. It showed that he wanted to pander to the clerical movement at that time. The same day or the day after, the new PM invited the cabinet and some other directors of governmental agencies, like me, to a meeting. It’s probably because there were some shoolooghi/demonstrations and the times demanded some sort of PR from the government, and to provide some guidance on how to handle those against the government. My impression of the meeting was that the objective was merely to appease the crowds. As I recall, the discussions didn’t really focus on the root cause of why there were demonstrations, just looking for ways to appease them.

At that time the opposition was not only from the religious groups. Much or most of it was probably set up by the left or even the far left. In any case, I was part of that meeting and late in the evening, I told the new PM that my resignation had been accepted but that I had been asked to now present it to him. He asked me to go up to his office on the 2nd floor. At that time, he had a very big telephone with at least twenty buttons for direct access to different ministers and administrative offices in the PM’s building. Several of these buttons were lit. He said “look, I don’t even know which one to push and before I get settled in, you’re leaving. Stay with me at least one month.” I said that I had told the outgoing PM that it’s normal/common that I stay some two weeks from my original resignation date but that’s as long as I will stay. He accepted and I gave him the name of several candidates from inside the organization, such as Mr. Jaffarian (the Deputy Director for News and Political Affairs), who could replace me. He agreed and I left. I thought that since it was four or five days since my resignation that I would only stay on ten or twelve more days. 

The NIRT was first a governmental organization somehow like the BBC in the UK or ORTF in France but somewhat independent from the actual ministries. Its Board was composed of the Ministers of Arts & Culture, Post & Telegraph, Information, Finance, and Education. There were also some chosen members of the Senate and Majless/ parliament as well as a number of personalities in the arts and culture. The NIRT Board would choose a nominee as its Director General and present it to the government who would usually accept the nomination. The nominee would be confirmed by the government and have what we call a farman (decree) issued by the King as the head of state. So, each time I gave my resignation it was to the PM.

Actually, the first time I resigned was in 1970. To give you some background, back in 1966 or so, I was the television’s first project manager before becoming its sarparast or caretaker. I was assigned at The Plan Organization to build the buildings, install the electronics of the television and then give it to the Ministry of Information to run. Then somehow, I was forced to accept to run the organization for one year; the Prime Minister Hoveyda personally told me that it would be for just one year. Meanwhile I found that the very idea of a Ministry of Information was wrong. It had a taste of propaganda that I didn’t like. We already had a Ministry of Culture and probably someone in the PM’s office could try to coordinate things between different Ministries.

At that time, I pushed for the idea of creating an independent organization like the BBC or ORTF. I became the caretaker of an organization with engineers who for the most part were as young or even younger than me. Somehow, they would ask for my permission and decision for just about everything. We would decide everything together. One day, some five years after I had become the Managing Director, one of our engineers or architects called me from Tabriz asking me what color paint he should use for inside the local director’s office. I answered something like “off-white”. But it suddenly struck me that there was something wrong here. I shouldn’t be the one making such decisions. We had a director of radio and television sitting in Tabriz and the architect was calling me from there to find out what color paint I wanted for someone else’s office. After that incident I went to the PM and said you know this kind of thing happens when one stays too long at the head of an organization. People ask you to decide things they should decide by themselves and what is worse is that I reacted as if it was normal to be asked. I think that after five years one has to change the head of any organization. He funnily said in French “vas y pour toi; j’y suis, j’y reste” (you go ahead, I’m staying) as he’d been PM for longer than five years at that time. So that was my first resignation attempt.

To go back to your question, to whom did I present my resignations, it was always to the PM except for once where I sent my resignation to His Majesty through the Minister of the Court. It was in 1972 or 1973.  From the beginning, the National Iranian Television had an education and training center. It was first called Markazeh Amouzesh then Madresse-ye Āli-ye Television va Cinema. It became some sort of a two-year technical school and then the Higher College of Television and Cinema. Its aim was to educate and train college-age students to become film producers, TV directors, sound or lighting engineers for example. There had apparently been a plot, fomented within this school, to kidnap the Crown Prince and the Queen at either the Shiraz Arts Festival or one of our artistic events. So it was a plot on my watch. When I found that out, I sent my resignation directly to the King. My resignation was not accepted.

Iran was not a liberal democracy like you have it in Western Europe, neither legally nor culturally. There was an office of censorship in the Ministry of Culture, probably under some euphemistic name, and another oxymoronic office at the Ministry of Information. But self-censorship was also everywhere. At NIRT, we had less problems with official censorship than we had with pressure groups or interest groups like the clerics, religious groups, medical associations, the Chamber of Commerce, etc. They would try to suppress any criticism. Some even tried to suppress foreign movies or television series if and when the villain was a doctor, or merchant or someone resembling someone in their group or profession.

Bear in mind that NIRT was a public organization, not a private one. At its head, I had total autonomy to do as I pleased, and I did. I just happened to be 100% for the institution of monarchy. Also, there was no official opposition to the regime, no “republican” party.

To give you some background, there were two political parties at the time: Hezb-e Mardom (the majority party that was led by Mr Alam) and Hezb-e Mellioune (led by Dr Eghbal). Later came the Hezb-e Iran Novine (led by Mr Hoveyda). Then one day the Shah said that most government figures, lawyers, etc., were from the Iran Novine party and too few were from the Mardom party. He thought that instead of having two parties it would be better to launch an overarching national movement, like the one de Gaulle started, to be called Renaissance or Rastakhiz. In the end though, it got turned into a political party instead, which wasn’t the right thing to do; it messed up the system, and Iran ended up with just this one political party. The idea of a movement got turned into a single party. That was the state of affairs from about three years before the revolution.

To go back to NIRT, I tried to put in the by-laws that employees could not belong to a political party, so they’d be independent and we’d avoid the risk of anyone, especially the journalists, playing party politics at work. However, I was told that it wasn’t legal to do so. But in effect, it was understood that I didn’t like it, so our employees weren’t officially members of any party. That’s until Rastakhiz was created which was the only party and no one then knew who was or wasn’t a party member.

I have to tell you a story, so you understand how things were those days. I told my senior news team several times that our news program was not good. We started all news bulletins with stories directly that began with the Shah, followed by the queen and the princes and only then did we follow with important local and international news. The sequencing order was based solely on the ranking and importance of the person it involved not how relevant or important the news actually was. For example, if war was waging in Vietnam but the Shah happened to be attending an event, the latter would be mentioned first. Somehow my comments always fell on deaf ears. 

Interestingly, one day, I was having lunch with the Shah at the court. He was listening to the news on the radio. It started with a long list of things the royal family had just done. He turned to me in the middle of it and said: “isn’t there anything else of importance that’s happening in the world?” That was the perfect opening for me to go back to my senior news team and get them to change their ways. When I shared this with the Head of the Radio, Touraj Farazmand, who was one of the best journalists in the country (he was far better that the French journalist Yves Mourousi who he looked up to), he turned back and said: if tomorrow we broadcast the news and don’t mention the Shah first, people will assume there was a coup d’état! Basically, no one listened to me and things remained unchanged. People followed tradition. What I’m trying to say is that there was a certain culture of reverence for the monarchy, or a bias, so even when the suggestion not to over-focus on news royalty came from the Shah himself, people preferred to uphold the status quo. I wouldn’t call it censorship.

Censorship existed in certain instances, like issues related to the military or news of labor strikes.

Absolutely not.

They would write reports about what news was aired, but after the fact. Once, for example, it was when Takhti, an Olympic wrestling champion who was somewhat opposed to the regime, died. We decided to put together and air a really nice documentary about his life. SAVAK reported that to the Court. The Shah’s chief of staff inquired about it, and we wrote back explaining that he was a very popular figure, had won medals for the country and that we thought it was the right thing to do to honor him in that way. End of story.

Another time, sometime around 1969/70, SAVAK wrote a long and very critical report saying that the NIRT is in the hands of many who are in the opposition, and they gave many examples of things that had been said on television and films that had been aired, to justify their case. It was too many years ago now so I really don’t remember any specifics but there are details of it in Gholam Reza Afkhami’s book (The Life and Times of the Shah). I remembered more at the time he’d asked me about it. The Shah commented on the report with “Ghotbi to respond”. We put together a long rebuttal explaining our thinking and methods. My philosophy was that we had a regime and a system that was good and could be defended. If we didn’t allow certain voices to be heard and didn’t share the real news, people would lose trust in the NIRT. Besides there was a radio station backed by the Tudeh Communist Party and the Soviet Union called Peyk-e Iran. If we didn’t refer to and counter some of what they aired, it would imply that we agreed with them and couldn’t defend our cause. The Shah seemed to agree with the case we’d made. He responded by saying that the SAVAK report must not have been accurate and that those who put it together should be punished. I told Moinian (the Shah’s Chief of Staff) and others that if SAVAK is punished they’ll come after us and make things really difficult for us so, to please just forget about it.

It’s not like the Shah agreed with every report that was sent to him. Many years later, probably in 1976, there was a government program for ministers and various organisations to gather together and report on what they thought was wrong with particular ministers’ works or parts of governmental agencies. It was conducted in a large roundtable format where targeted individuals were grilled in public. I didn’t want to air it. It reminded me of Stalinist purges. I felt that the people who were denounced so openly couldn’t go back to their governmental organisation and get anything done; they’d lose all respect from their colleagues; their own office assistants would be embarrassed to greet them. I thought it wasn’t good for the country. General Hasheminejad, head of the Imperial Guards, called me. He apologized profusely but said he had to convey verbatim what the Shah had said: “Tell Ghotbi, are you a Marxist-Leninist that you don’t air this program and do not follow our recommendation?” I wrote back something very short along the lines of, it’s precisely because Marxist-Leninists had carried out these types of purges that we didn’t want to do that. Eventually, though, we had to concede, and it was a very bad thing.

Not really. At the time, things were quite advanced in terms of social matters in Iran. It’s true that when I was asked once in a meeting what the salary policy should be I said people should be paid based on their needs and not their title but I was half joking.

We were liberal in the content we broadcasted at NIRT and did things many newspapers, for example, wouldn’t. But then again, (some) information was censored just like at most other organizations. If there was a strike somewhere for example, I wouldn’t even find out about it until much later. Journalists would do their own self-censorship and not report it.

 I have to give you some background information here. My last day of work coincided with a Friday in September 1978 called Black Friday, the day a curfew and martial law was in place. The evening before, on Thursday, there was a meeting with the prime minister, the cabinet, and the army, police, and security chiefs.  As head of NIRT, I ordinarily had to attend as well, but since I was leaving my position for good the next day, I asked my deputy director Mr. Jafarian to attend instead.  When he returned, he called me late at night and told me that it had been decided to put a curfew in place in Tehran from 6 or 7am the next day, and that the radio should announce it at midnight. He added that if we announce tomorrow’s curfew this evening, all who agitate to protest will hit the streets and we’ll have one million people across the city by the morning, and it will be very dangerous. He proposed to announce the curfew the next morning instead of at midnight so that provocateurs wouldn’t get the chance to pack the streets that night. I told him that I could not decide for him and that it would be best if he shared his thoughts with the PM. I don’t know if he made the decision on his own or in consultation with others, but the final decision was to announce the curfew the next morning. What happened, though, is that many people learned about the curfew and tens of thousands went into the streets that same night. The next day, Friday, Jafarian called me and said that as deputy director he lacked the authority to do many of the things he needed to do. He said, “I need you to come in and help”; you know the organization better than anyone and people will listen to you more than to me. So that day, 18 Shahrivar (9 Sept 1978), I reluctantly agreed and went to my old office. It was probably technically even illegal as I had resigned and was no longer in the employ of NIRT.   

People had been killed in Meydan-e Jaleh (Jaleh Square) earlier in the day. Some wondered if it was true that the first shots had been fired not by the security services but rather by the provocateurs. I’d heard that version of the story too. We sent helicopters to the area, and journalists to morgues, hospitals, and police precincts to find out what was happening. They assessed from their findings that less than 100 people had been killed and many wounded. The propaganda from the other side was that thousands, or even tens of thousands had been killed. It was revealed later, even officially via the Khomeini regime, that this was not true.

In any case, I remained in the office and called the PM to tell him that legally I shouldn’t be there and that he should officially appoint Jafarian, or anyone else he preferred, as director general. He called me back, I think the next day, Saturday, and said that he had talked to His Majesty and that I could resign. I reminded him that I had already resigned, but he asked that I please do it again in writing, which I did. He also said that he didn’t want Jafarian as a replacement and would decide who to put in place later. I told him that he couldn’t decide later as I was leaving immediately and someone had to be in charge. I guess it was presumptuous of me to write my resignation and immediately designate my successor, but I knew that it was important to do so. I also presumed that people in our organization would accept whoever I nominated as my temporary successor. So, I nominated Cyrus Hedayat who was then the deputy director of technical operations. He was accepted and stayed on for a very short time.

The Minister of Information in Sharif Emami’s government, Mohammadreza Ameli, was a good old friend of mine. We had both been very active in the nationalistic Pan-Iranist movement. He was older than me and the second most senior leader in the movement. As a hardcore nationalist, he was most likely strongly against the clerics during the revolution and was later executed by the Khomeini regime.

He was really a good person, very intelligent, honest, and patriotic. I called and told him that a person that I’ll probably be naming later would be a good candidate to replace me permanently. He was a cousin of the most influential minister in the cabinet of Sharif Emami and as a former SAVAK, would very probably keep an eye on NIRT. So, the cousin of Dr Azmoun (Dr Shah-Hosseini), a very nice person, a university professor who was a member of our advisory board and a cultural affairs advisor was ultimately named. I had nominated him years before.  He was a professor and not a politician. So, he served as the head of NIRT for a month or so until the end of the Sharif Emami government.

A week or so after I left, there were strikes in many government agencies including at NIRT. Touraj Farazmand, who was one of the best directors ever and had a great understanding of both the media and the public, told me that I shouldn’t have resigned. He said you have been here long enough for many people to feel loyalty towards you personally, not to just any director. So, in a way, he somehow scolded me for having resigned. Some others said the same thing.

I also heard that when appointed prime minister, Mr. Sharif Emami had claimed, “I got permission to replace Ghotbi!” (as if he had fired me). I didn’t know this story at the time; I learnt it years later from those around him. I actually wish his version were true because some of my friends thought that my resignation when everything was in turmoil was not the wisest/best decision for NIRT, so my dismissal was a better story! In reality, when I called Sharif Emami to tell him that it was time for me to leave and he should appoint my successor, all he said was, “Write another resignation letter because I don’t have the original one”,  which was probably true because I had submitted my resignation letter earlier to his predecessor, Mr. Amouzegar.

Some people thought that my very brief resignation letter after the Black Friday event was a protest. No. It was not. I was not in favour of the curfew and I was certainly against killing people, but my resignation was not a protest against the regime or the government. I simply just felt that I wouldn’t be of any help in my former position though in hindsight I may have been wrong. Either way, I certainly didn’t feel that I could have worked with someone like Sharif Emami and his new cabinet.

Having been the NIRT director for some twelve years since its founding, many were not aware that I had recently resigned. I also wasn’t a public figure so most of the population hadn’t heard the name Reza Ghotbi. People in the higher ranks of the government knew me and knew that I had resigned but most people in the country did not.

Change didn’t come from my resignation or the organization’s new leadership. Change came from a transformation within Iran. There was a change of mood in the country.  At NIRT, many liberals within the organization were radicalized and became leaders of a strike. Others were religious and backed Khomeini. And others leaned left, so they joined leftists’ movements.

The demonstrations in 1977 were not that significant but there was a very large demonstration in Qom in late 1976/early 1977. Several people were killed. In accordance with Iranian Islamic traditions, forty days after their death—or martyrdom—vast protests were organized in Tabriz in February 1978, not only by the religious sector but in fact mainly by leftist/communist groups. Then in late March or early April, another large demonstration was held in Yazd, and yet others occurred in different cities. It’s important to know that the demonstrations and strikes originally involved mostly students and bazaar merchants, followed a little later by government employees. It’s only after that, in the early autumn of 1978, that the labor force joined the strikes. Farmers and the rural population hardly ever participated in the movement.

In August 1978, after Eid-e Fetr, which is an important religious holiday after Ramadan, a large demonstration was held in Tehran. Because of the timing it had a religious identity but in fact included numerous leftists, communists and secular people. Even secular women wore a veil just to mix with the religious groups. Those demonstrations were very peaceful. The organizers had learnt from other communist and leftist movements to offer flowers to the security forces, policemen, gendarmes, and the military and say things like “the army is our friend” or that “our soldiers are our brothers”, so as to influence them.

Amongst their slogans were Esteghlal, Azadi, Hokoumat-e Eslami! (Independence, Freedom, Islamic Government!)

What was interesting is that people from a higher income class, often even the very westernized and secular individuals who had prospered during Mohammad Reza Shah’s regime, also had sympathies with the revolutionaries, or for the movement. One night we were with people who were mostly educated in Europe or the US. They were sipping expensive good wine and other kinds of alcoholic drinks and we were shocked to hear some murmur revolutionary slogans like “rahbareh azedeganast Ayatollah Khomeini” (Ayatollah Khomeini is the leader of free-spirited people). It was a very widespread movement as it was supposedly against corruption, against imperialism, against colonialism, and basically against anything that was wrong with the world. For example, one of our leading thinkers, Dariush Shayegan, said at the time that Khomeini was going to be the Gandhi of Iran. So, even intelligent people turned somewhat ahmagh (stupid). They were thinking only with their hearts and not with their minds!

Oh yes. I went to observe almost all the major demonstrations in Tehran, some of them with your mom. At one point, I think in the fall, was the first time “marg bar Shah” (Death to the Shah) was shouted in the streets. That slogan was common in demonstrations within the confined environment of the universities but almost never outside, and not in such large numbers. That was the first time I heard it. There were a massive crowd, maybe a couple of a hundred thousand, moving from Meydan-e Ferdowsi to Shahyiad-e Aryamehr (now called Meydan-e Azadi). I went with your mom to Ferdowsi square which was close to her dad’s house, to see what was happening. Because we didn’t want to partake in the demonstration itself we stayed on the sidewalk moving from west to east while the demonstrators moved east to west.

I also saw a demonstration in Qom but most were in Tehran. At some point I decided to go ‘inside’ and join the marchers to better understand what was happening. I would put on a fatigue similar to what others wore. I even grew a beard so as not to be recognized. Anyway, as I told you, I did not have a public presence so most people wouldn’t recognize me but this way; I looked like everyone else.

Most of the demonstrators were extremely peaceful. The leaders and handlers were very polite. They would for example come to your door and ask permission to sit in the shade of your wall. The marches were extremely well-organized, well-planned. On the inside howerver, it was a very violent movement; they wanted to destroy anyone who was not like them. On the outside, they were very careful not to show the violent side at the time.

Initially, their slogans were middle class, liberal, and religious slogans, never leftist or communist (i.e. food for one and all, ending poverty, and work for everyone); they called for independence: esteqlal, azadi, hokoomateh eslami (independence, freedom, Islamic government). That’s why many thought it was an anti-corruption and anti-imperialist movement and why many liberals, and even some conservatives, joined up, and it spread so wide. There was never any talk of forcing veils on women. Then little by little, the slogans changed: “Islamic Government” turned into “Islamic Republic.” One of the new slogans was, ya roussari, ya toussari (either a head cover or a head bash).

The movement had a liberal, conservative, somewhat religious, peaceful, and polite façade, but the rhetoric inside various cells or in mosques was fiery—against the Shah, against the government, against the West, and against secular values.

Yes, I went inside the mosques as well.  Two of them were very close to our house.  Things were extremely fiery (incendiary) inside. I didn’t know this at the time but one of our journalist colleagues went to interview people coming out of the mosque and he said that many had certainly drank alcohol before going to the mosque because he could smell it on their breath when they talked.

Somehow seculars, leftists, anyone who was not happy with his life, his mother, his wife or anything else would join the movement for different reasons. But the core groups were 1) leftist and communist revolutionaries, 2) the religious revolutionaries (Mujahedin) and 3) the purely religious groups, which dominated all the others.

During my stewardship at NIRT I really was not involved in politics at all. I was a sort of technocrat taking care also of managing the organization. But in the few months before the Revolution I became really very worried for my country and what was happening, so I contacted many politicians, religious people at different levels from hojatolleslams to the most important ayatollahs like ayatollah Shariatmadari. I also had many contacts/discussions with the liberal left like the National Front (Jebhe-ye Melli), those who were pro-Mossadegh though not so much with the radical left. I didn’t know many of them and they probably wouldn’t want to talk with me. I thought we may somehow arrive at some kind of compromise.

One common denominator among the different factions was their grievance against corruption, which they perceived at the helm of the regime, in princes and princesses who were presumably involved in business, and in government. All of them also objected to Iran being too close to the U.S. There was also common ground in thinking that the Shah should reign, not rule: Shah bayad padeshahi bokoneh, na hokoumat. They thought governing was the responsibility of the government and that the Shah, as head of state, should not be involved in politics. We must also become independent from imperialists, mostly the U.S.

For people who considered religion fundamental, there was also concern about morality in general, and extreme westernization. It was important for them that the society respect the essence of religion—not Sharia law per se—that the place of religious leaders be recognized, that the government listen to religious leaders as required by the Constitution, and that the people be more modest and behave morally. I never heard any of the principal ayatollahs like Shariatmadari or Kani say, for example, that women have to wear a veil. Their point was, don’t force girls/students to wear non-religious attire; don’t force them to take off their veil. The religious figures were also weary of the influence of Baha’is in the state.  They would say that such and such a general or minister belongs to that fergheh (sect) and should not be involved in government.

Officially, Iran had a state religion. It was not a liberal democracy, even on paper.  So, per the Constitution, all cabinet members had to be followers of Twelver Shiism. By the way, that’s the case in England, too, where the queen is the head of the Anglican Church. Same for Sweden where until 1999, not only the King but all Swedes had to identify as Lutheran and couldn’t convert to another faith without the government’s permission. Even then, they were only allowed to choose between five other Christian denominations.

So, yes, there were some Bahai’s and presumed Bahai’s in the Iranian government. Prime Minister Hoveyda’s father became a Baha’i for a short period and some of his uncles did as well. He himself was probably agnostic; he certainly wasn’t a practicing Baha’i. There was also a general for example, Ayadi, who was the Shah’s personal physician. His whole family were Baha’i although he wasn’t practicing himself.  An important four star general, Sanaii, I think, was also Baha’i. So, yes, the Baha’is were officially segregated as you had to have a certain religious pedigree to be in the government, but since Reza Shah, that rule was not in effect fully implemented.

At NIRT for example, everyone had to fill out a governmental form, a sort of a security form that also included a question about one’s religion. There was no box for Baha’i. The form only listed official denominations, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, and “other”. The Baha’i faith wasn’t considered a religion, so it didn’t even appear on the form. I asked my Baha’i colleagues not to indicate their faith on paper because otherwise I was not officially allowed to hire them. Some did anyway because it was important for them to openly declare their faith. What I did in those cases was not to submit their forms to the government. Each time I was asked for a missing form of such and such a person I would just say that I forgot to get the form and promised to send it later hoping they’d forget the case and let it go.

Secular liberals, for example, were not at all interested in a religious government. What they wanted was for the Shah not to be involved in governing; to just be a head of state, a figurehead.

To give you some background, the Iranian Constitution was inspired by the constitutions of Belgium and other European kingdoms, but in our country, the head of the state had much more power than the King of Sweden, for example. The Constitution and its amendments were framed in 1906 but a few years later, during WWI, Iran was occupied by Great Britain and Russia and became a de facto colony of foreign powers, although it officially remained independent.  The colonialists were so influential that the Constitution was not in fact executed.  Then Reza Khan led a coup d’état and after becoming king, ruled as an autocrat. He didn’t play by the rules. We had a parliament and a prime minister but everything was under his influence. After he was forced to resign during WWII and the British pushed for a Qajar prince to gain the throne, many of our politicians, including and especially Zoka ol-Molk Foroughi, managed to deflect British influence and helped present the young crown prince Mohammad Reza in parliament and installed him as king.  For a few years, the government was really independent of the royal court but after what happened during Mosaddeq’s time, the new king took more and more interest, and played a bigger role, in politics. He became both head of state and the leader of the executive branch of the government in Iran.

That’s what the liberal seculars didn’t want. They wanted a real democracy. They wanted a prime minister from their own ranks—or someone like Bazargan who had been close to the National Front. They also wanted a separation between the Shah and the armed forces. They wanted the minister of war, or -defense, to be nominated by the head of the government and not the Shah. They wanted the PM to nominate the Shah’s chief of staff, and for the Shah to merely sign the paperwork. That issue had been one of the most important points of contention between Mosaddeq and the Shah. Mossadegh wanted to be PM and head of the army and for the Shah to be merely a decorative symbolic figure. That’s why, for instance, in playing my very small part, I talked with National Front people, mainly with Bagha’i and Bakhtiar, and a little bit with Sanjabi; these were the old guard from the Mosaddeq era. Unfortunately, those talks didn’t lead anywhere. It was far too late.

The religious groups wanted approximately the same thing regarding the role of the Shah but they had other concerns as well. For example, in the 1906 Constitution, there was a clause (the 2nd amendment?) that a committee of five high-ranking religious clerics had to review all the laws passed by the parliament and approve them in accordance with Islamic law. That protocol was never implemented, and they wanted it reinstated. I once asked Ayatollah Shariatmadari what he thought of that clause. He was an open-minded cleric. He said we should restore that clause but should of course select clerics who understand modern times. He didn’t want to relinquish core religious laws but was OK with modernizing them. At one point, it was interesting, he told me—and I never understood exactly how that could be--that he had asked Khomeini what he meant by Hokoumat-e Eslami; that was before Jomhouriy-e Eslami was established. Khomeini had said he didn’t mean that ayatollahs had to be in charge of everything but that they should apply the rules of the 1906 Constitution, with just some changes. Khomeini wanted the government to be run by someone like Musa Sadr. Musa Sadr was an Iranian citizen who led the Shi’ite Amal movement in Lebanon, which later became Hezbollah.

I first met Sadr in Iran; we later spoke in Lebanon and over the telephone as well. A cousin of his who worked at NIRT arranged it. Sadr told me the Shah had promised to help him build a hospital [in Lebanon] but that the person who was supposed to transmit the funds never did that and thus caused a rift between them. Months later, because it was difficult to speak over the phone, he communicated with me via the Egyptian or Jordanian ambassador.

Musa Sadr was a rather modern, charismatic cleric. I later heard that Khomeini turned against him. I don’t know exactly what happened but it’s very probable that Musa Sadr had decided to distance himself from Khomeini. When Sadr tried to contact the Shah in Iran, Khomeini became angry; there were even rumors that he had him kidnapped and killed.  Sadr then disappeared in Libya.

I can share my discussions with chief members of the opposition but can’t tell you which part came from whom. I mainly shared my findings with the Shah himself and sometime the queen, as that’s the only period she was involved in politics. Before that she focused on social affairs and if social affairs somehow tangentially became political, then yes she got involved. For example, if an artist was imprisoned because of what he had said or written, or officials deemed their behaviour problematic, the queen would intervene, not to defend their politics but because the artist was jailed or harassed by the government. One such case I remember was the painter Zenderoudi.

I asked the Shah for his permission to contact and talk to leaders of the opposition, such as Ayatollah Shariatmadari, so that I could share their suggestions and ideas with His Majesty.  Another person I often talked to was Mr. Hoveyda even after he left his post as Minister of Court. I also spoke to some other former ministers who had remained in the country and could have had influence on events, like Dr Majidi who led The Plan Organization. He was also the head of the Farah Pahlavi Foundation. I also talked to Mr. Asfiya who, though not that involved in politics, was well respected. He was a university professor, so he had friendly relations with them, and I thought he could be influential. Occasionally, I also spoke with Mr. Shahrestani who was the mayor of Tehran. He had good relations with the bazaar both through family ties and official links. Others were the wise old politicians of Iran, most of whom were retired, such as General Saffari and the Imam Jom’eh of Tehran, Dr Zahir ol-Eslam. Sometime later, I read that someone had said that in those discussions Ghotbi was always present; hespoke very little but took lots of notes. I wasn’t a politician; I wouldn’t enter into those kinds of discussions with those people; I just took notes and informed His Majesty and other people I spoke with.

Some discussions were private and will remain so.

I shared with the Shah what the top religious leaders wanted. They were really not politicians. What they wanted wouldn’t change the course of the revolution. For example, Iran was rather open then and there were casinos, dance clubs and music halls. They wanted these places closed. This really wouldn’t have changed anything. In fact, Mr. Sharif Emami did close the casinos; that was probably too little, too late.

I had important discussions with Dr Bagha’i. He was a politician in the Mosaddeq era who became a member of the opposition as head of the Kargaran/Zahmatkeshan Party (Workers’ Party). His idea was to put away all the religious leaders and all the heads of the different factions not in jail, but exile them all to Kish Island, for example and treat them well. He also thought that all those who had been involved in killings and crime had to be harshly punished, which probably meant executed. He had this idea that Great Britain was behind much of the turmoil and that we had to find a way to protect Iran from them and that if he became PM he’d resolve everything. I shared that with the Shah but he didn’t consider it of any importance. I later heard that Dr Bagha’i, through Ardeshir Zahedi, got an audience with His Majesty. It didn’t lead to anything.

I also shared my conversations with Shapour Bakhtiar. He was my mother’s nephew through a much older sister of hers. But despite being cousins we had never met. I only knew his son, Yves. One night, a friend of Mr. Bakhtiar, Senator Khajenouri, told me that the only member of Jebh-e Melli with a backbone was Bakhtiar and that he had some solutions for the country, so it would be a good idea if I met him. I didn’t want to meet Bakhtiar without the Shah’s knowledge so I asked him and he said yes, especially because the queen had either met him or was going to meet him; I can’t remember which of the two he mentioned at the time. Her Majesty wrote in her book that she met Bakhtiar in my mother’s house and reported their conversation to the Shah.

When I met Bakhtiar, he hadn’t told me that he’d met, or was going to meet the queen. Everything in those days was a little bit shrouded in secrecy. He was right, there was no reason for him to tell me he had met with the queen, or for all I know, maybe that meeting took place later. In any case, Bakhtiar talked about his grievances against the Shah and Reza Shah. His father was killed by Reza Shah, and he himself had been imprisoned. But he added that he had come to the conclusion that there was no other solution for Iran than a real constitutional monarchy. In fact, he said that he’d resolved this equation in his head: that Iran was not ready to be a republic yet, maybe in 50 years, and if we could have a real constitutional monarchy, why change the system? “Monarchy is the best system for Iran” he said a few times, and always emphasized he meant a constitutional monarchy. I brought back this conversation to the Shah. He said I know Bakhtiar may be right about some of his grievances, but he may not be really loyal to the Constitution. He and his party wanted to change everything and one day they may again, through a Majles-e Moassessan (constitutional assembly). “Are you sure that he is sincere,” he asked? I said that I couldn’t be sure of course, but that he seemed to think that way and wasn’t just saying it in front of me but had said the same things to others. I offered to have follow-up discussions with Bakhtiar.

At that time the Shah had another person in mind as prime minister: Dr Sadiqi. He was one of the most beloved professors at Tehran University. He had been minister of the interior during the Mosaddeq era and though he was one of Mosaddeq’s most open critics, he always remained loyal to him. So, he would have been one of the best solutions. From the very beginning, however, Sadiqi told the Shah he needed more time to think about it. He said he couldn’t come on board in the shadow of a military government and martial law. He preferred to wait until things became a bit calmer. But things didn’t get better, they got worse, so he said he couldn’t become PM.

I later read in Her Majesty’s book that two generals had urged her not to wait any longer. They had said if Sadiqi doesn’t accept, take Bakhtiar because things are really getting out of hand. One other interesting point is that one of Sadiqi’s conditions for accepting the premiership was for the Shah to remain in Iran, while most other candidates had said he should leave so that they would have a free hand.

Speaking of which, and going back to Bakhtiar, he told me that what he’d asked His Majesty was to stay in Iran and at most, maybe say he’s taking a vacation in Kish or somewhere else in Iran. This was so the opposition would feel that he wouldn’t be involved in everything and that would be enough. I took this back to the Shah. He said OK, he can come and talk to me. I can’t remember if it was the Shah or Bakhtiar who asked me to act as an intermediary, maybe Bakhtiar. I declined, saying that I was not a politician and could not enter into discussions of that kind. I said it was best to choose someone else to mediate. Bakhtiar asked if I could propose a name. I asked who he had contacts with? He said with Mr. Amouzegar, months earlier, but that he might not be the right person as he no longer had formal contacts with the Shah. He then thought of General Moqaddam who became the head of SAVAK. From then on, everything went through him. 

Now back to Mr. Amouzegar.  Around mid-September 1978, shortly after I resigned from NIRT, I went to see Mr. Amouzegar who’d left the prime minister’s office a few days earlier. It’s proper practice that when a person leaves his post, especially one in the government, one visits them to show that they still matter even though they no longer have any official power. I was with Mr Shahrestani, the mayor of Tehran, who had also wanted to see Mr. Amouzegar. When we were about to leave the meeting, Mr. Amouzegar asked if I could stay on a few moments.  He said that he didn’t know what to do because people from Jebhe-ye Melli (National Front), Bakhtiar’s group, had contacted him and wanted him to deliver a message to His Majesty. I said that he’d been a minister for twelve years and the prime minister for a year, so he could simply call the Shah and ask for an audience. He seemed reluctant to do that. His house wasn’t far from the Summer Palace, so I went from there to see the queen and relate that story. I learned later that Mr. Amouzegar was invited to have lunch at the Summer Palace so he could deliver his message from Bakhtiar. At the time, I didn’t know the content of that message. I learned later that two professors from Daneshgah-e Melli (National University) who knew Mr. Amouzegar brought the message that things were not going well and that the best solution for the country was that His Majesty accept that Dr Sanjabi, head of the Jebhe-ye Melli, be appointed prime minister.

Mr. Amouzegar later wrote about the rest in Rahavard magazine. The story goes that the Shah agreed for Sanjabi to contact him. But when Amouzegar contacted Bakhtiar’s people, they said that Sanjabi had left for Europe or Canada and was not involved. So, both the Shah and Amouzegar became impatient. Amouzegar said that he’d heard that the queen was not in favor of Bakhtiar. What I learned later is that when Amouzegar went to talk to the Shah, the queen told the king “Why don’t you choose someone we know, like Nahavandi, rather than Bakhtiar?” This point is important. Somehow, because the queen had met Bakhtiar months later at my mother’s house, Nahavandi wrongly assumed that she was the one who brought Bakhtiar to the forefront. That was actually completely false.  The queen didn’t know Bakhtiar, nor had any contact with him before that first meeting. In fact, it’s Bakhtiar who reached out to her and asked that they meet. He had insisted it not be at the court, so she suggested her aunt’s place (my mother’s home). In September, when the first contact was made by Amouzegar, the queen had in fact specifically proposed Nahavandi as prime minister, and not Bakhtiar.

I wouldn’t know what others may have been directly telling His Majesty.

What I do know is that from February 1978 onwards, I talked to the Shah about what was not going well, about unsavory things going on beneath the surface. At one point, we had a conversation in Kish. It must have been sometime around March 22-24 because he always had a big Norouz audience at the palace in Tehran on March 21 and would then go to Kish. I was there as a non-official guest of Their Majesties. I had a long private talk with the Shah and told him that given what had happened in Qom and Tabriz, things seemed really serious to me and appeared to be worsening since.

There seemed to be a collusion of the left and the right, the religious and the in-between. I said that I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was exactly wrong but that something was really not right. I said, “If I may be so bold as to tell you as your obedient servant, it seems that the information Your Majesty is getting doesn’t reflect everything that’s really going on, the turmoil, the ideas driving it.” My observation was that the turmoil didn’t seem to be fomented from the outside. Even if there was some outside influence, there was something very basically local behind it. “What you say is not corroborated by other information I have received,” he said, “so you and your intellectual friends probably see things a little bit differently.” It’s not that he didn’t like what I said or wasn’t happy with the bad news I was bringing, it’s that he thought it didn’t correspond with other information he had been provided. He said, “You’re the only one saying this.”

I hadn’t personally witnessed the very first demonstrations, but I’d based my thinking on information brought back by our NIRT journalists who’d been there. I had seen scenes of how youngsters had been brainwashed in religious schools, of how the left had espoused the clergy’s slogans. It felt that the left was somehow lining up behind the religious camp. Later on, they joined Khomeini and the clergy, but in the beginning, it seemed to me that strategically, they wanted to use the same slogans as moderate and religious groups as cover so as not to be flagged as communists in cahoots with the KGB and Stalinists.

Back in Tehran, after the events of Yazd that had somewhat confirmed my fears, I asked for another audience with the Shah. His Majesty was evidently dissatisfied with what I was doing then, or saying, so I was not granted an audience until much later. At some point I reached out to Dr Etemad, who was then in charge of the Atomic Energy Center and had regular meetings with the Shah. His Majesty often used to ask, “khob, o’za chetoreh?” or What’s new?  He didn’t mean to ask about one’s family, he meant the country. So, I told Etemad if the Shah asks you, ask him how he thinks things are going. What the Shah told Dr Etemad was very important for me. He said, “The Americans want to remove me. They are mistaken, because if I’m not here, the country will fall into chaos and at least part of it will be absorbed by the Soviet Union.”

The significance of the Shah’s answer hit me much later. Someone told me that Dr Nahavandi, in his memoir, wrote that I was with the Shah alone in an airplane or somewhere; that they brought him some whiskey; that he had taken a sip and said ‘these turmoils are not critical and that the Americans will never abandon me,’ or something along those lines. Dr Nahavandi had his problems, of course; he was ambitious and wanted to become prime minster, but he was always loyal to His Majesty, always correct. I therefore wondered then, and still do, why he wrote something that simply wasn’t true. In my opinion that was a lie.

Why mention that the Shah drank whiskey while the country was experiencing religious turmoil? The fact that he may have had a drink is not important. What is important is that Nahavandi made a point of mentioning it. The fact is that in early April 1978, the Shah had said the exact opposite of what Nahavandi wrote. The Shah was adamant, and he was right, that the Americans—and by that he meant oil companies and all the politico-oil combination/collusion with the right and left and everybody else, somehow fomented by CIA/MI6, basically foreigners who were not happy with his independent oil policies—didn’t want him to be powerful.  Did they want to go as far as toppling him? Probably not. But they wanted to create turmoil to reduce his ability to hold out against the policies of the oil companies. That was the important thing I wanted to say about the Shah’s discussion with Dr Etemad.

I don’t know what other people may have reported to the Shah exactly. What I know is that there were probably two main groups. One thought that we must somehow appease the opposition, and the other thought it best to kill it off. I knew people from both groups. Early on, I realized that the Shah didn’t want to crush the opposition. He wanted to find a solution, but not to order killings. Let me give you an example. Sometime around October 14, 1978, the queen’s birthday, there was an earthquake that killed many people in Khorasan. Her Majesty had gone to visit the site, so the usual small family gathering in her honor wasn’t taking place. It was around that time that I went to see Mr. Azmoun, who was a minister under Sharif Emami and one of his close advisers.  He told me somewhat indirectly that if the Shah were to leave the country for a while, it would make it easier for the government to take action and resolve the turmoil. It was put rather diplomatically but my takeaway was that an influential minister in the government of His Majesty, thought that the Shah should leave the country.

I went directly to Niavaran Palace without asking for an audience, and sent a message that I would like to see His Majesty at his earliest convenience. It was probably early afternoon. The Shah sent someone to get me. I went to a small office in the private section of the palace, the mezzanine level. I told His Majesty what I had just heard, though without mentioning the name of Dr Azmoun. I added that in my humble opinion I thought that if he left the country it would lead to chaos. I said that if you stay, people like me who are not soldiers or combatants would be ready to pick up a rifle and go fight for you at the palace gate, but if you’re not there, we won’t put up a fight just to save brick and mortar and furniture! He said it’s interesting because Azhari, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said exactly the same thing as you did just now. “If you leave, everything will fall apart.”

By then, some people had passed on the message to the Shah that it would be a good idea for him to leave. A few days later, there were strikes all over the country, even at NIRT. I went to see the Shah privately. Those days I went to the court every day to see if I could be of help or do anything. I told the Shah that everything was going dangerously downhill. We had soldiers who got up every day and pledged allegiance to the flag and the Shah yet had to then go to the streets and stand by passively while hearing opponents shout slogans that defamed everything they held most sacred; that must have created a big problem in their minds. I think the Shah misunderstood what I was trying to say and thought that I, like some others, was of the opinion that he should crush the demonstrators. He said, “Many tell me that I should strike,” but Man Suharto nistam. Yek padeshah mellateshro nemikosheh – I’m not Suharto. A king cannot kill his people.” In all the conversations I had with the Shah, I felt that he was not ready to go full force against the opposition and allow mass killings. 

Before I answer this let me go back to our discussion about the two conflicting factions. One group was for “appeasement”, which in retrospect was naïve as an uncompromising opposition cannot simply be talked into changing its mind/position; the other group were the sakthgeer (hardliners). At the time I used to think it was possible to somehow mend and reduce the differences between the two and bring them closer. Not sure we could get along with people who wanted to destroy the system, especially the religious revolutionaries but there were groups in the middle like Jebhe-ye Melli that one could get along with and expore a compromise.

One such person I was in contact with then was Mr. Beheshti. He had been living in Germany but had come back to Iran. He was known as Ayatollah Beheshti but I knew him as Hojatoleslam Beheshti. I also spoke with Mr. Monaghah who was also an akhund (cleric) though he later became a revolutionary. Beheshti was killed in an explosion after the revolution. However, once these people felt they were on the winning side, once they were in talks with the Americans and other international groups, they lost interest in compromises and discussions. They said that basically we’ve said everything there there is to say so no need to continue talking.

To answer your question, in the last days of Sharif Emami, in October 1978, he asked to see me and said that it seems that the only person who can calm down people in the television is you, so please go back there. At the time NIRT was on strike and only a very small group were still working. There were also demonstrations throughout the country. It seemed that even the army couldn’t bring things under control. There were rumors that Sharif Emami had told the Shah that he could no longer function as prime minister, although I didn’t hear that directly. The only solution seemed to be for martial law to be implemented and for the army to take full control. That had happened only on a small scale in a couple of cities like Esfahan.

One day, the Shah called for me at home. I was very surprised because he had never called me directly. I had on occasion called him in the past. His aide would forward my questions and he would always respond, very briefly, but he had certainly never contacted me directly like that. So, the Shah came on the phone and said that he would like to broadcast a speech the next day but that the TV had said the organization could not be involved. I reminded the Shah that I had quit NIRT some two months earlier as I assumed he may have forgotten, but I added that I knew people who were still loyal to him in the organization and would do whatever he asked of them. The Shah asked me to contact them. I called Mr. Amir Mechanic who was responsible for mobile broadcasting units and for dispatching cameramen to any site as needed. He was a patriot and a monarchist. As soon as he heard the Shah’s request, he said right away: “What time and where?” I realized that someone had misinformed the Shah and it wasn’t that none of the TV personnel were willing to heed his request.  Maybe someone had simply assumed that because NIRT was on strike no one would go tape the Shah’s speech. I then called the Shah’s security guard to inform him that a TV crew would arrive and to please let the security officers know to let them in.

A few minutes later, the Shah called me back to say that he planned to announce a new form of government and said he would like me to help draft his speech.  He said I want to form a melli government but that in light of the current state of turmoil/affairs, he would first have to install a military government. 

In Persian, when you say melli, it means national, nationalist, or patriotic. There is no exact equivalent in English or French for that term, at least not with the depth of meaning it bears in Persian. I asked the Shah, “But isn’t a military government technically nationalist and patriotic?” He said, “No. When I say melli, I mean democratic.” I realized at that moment that whenever he had said melli in the past, we had all assumed he meant something different. I tried to explain that I’d never written such a kind of speech before, that I didn’t really know how to do that, that I lacked the competence, and that people like Mr Shafa or Dr Nahavandi would be much better suited to the task. He responded that he’d seen my writings before and thought that I’d do well.

I was really reluctant and kept pushing back until I noticed a hint of sadness in the Shah’s voice so I stopped fighting it. I said, “This is really not my forte, but if you’d really like, I can take down some notes and work with Dr Nahavandi or Dr Nasr and we will write a draft together.” He replied, “Talk to Nasr as I have already provided him with some notes. I‘ll also have some notes sent to you.” Soon after that, a guard arrived with a briefcase containing some typewritten sheets of paper for me to read and return. They appeared to be a collection of thoughts that different individuals had presumably suggested to the Shah, though none of them were signed. One section had a hand-written note in the margin that was starred and read: “Man sedayeh enghelabro shenidam” (I have heard the voice of the revolution). I assumed it was starred because the Shah had liked it. I also assumed that it had been written by Dr Nahavandi. Later, some people identified Shahin Fatemi as the author. Actually, I still don’t know who initially wrote those words. I took down some notes from the original writings and jotted down some of my own. By then it was early evening, and the curfew was on, so I called Dr Nasr to let him know what I was up to. He said that the Shah had sent him the same request some days earlier and suggested we meet the next morning to compare notes. 

A couple of days earlier, I had seen Dr Nasr at the court—as I said earlier, I used to go there every day, ready to serve. He asked me to join him in a meeting with the Shah. I later found out that he had often suggested to the Shah that he should address the nation, and was therefore asked to join that occasion. He was there with a legal pad and some typewritten notes.

When I met Dr Nasr the morning after the Shah’s call, I brought along two sets of draft notes. One was for a very short speech and basically stated that the country was in such a state that we must first reestablish calm and then find a way to discuss issues and solve the problems together. I had also copied the phrase “I’ve heard the voice of the revolution” assuming that the Shah specifically wanted it in his speech.  The next set was for a longer speech that contained many other comments I had copied from the notes the guard had brought me from the Shah. I had also listed many of the people’s grievances in the form of ‘I have heard you’—specifically on this and that point. For example, You say there is a dearth of democracy; I will attend to that in the future. You say there is corruption; I have always fought corruption but will do so even more . . . I also wrote down some comments to the effect that the Shah will act more like a constitutional monarch in the future. Dr Nasr preferred the longer version and wanted to add some sections that touched on religion and religious leaders. I didn’t fully agree with those additions but we somehow produced a joint draft that I hand-wrote.

I suggested that instead of wasting the Shah’s time to go over each and every point, we should first meet with the queen as she would best know his exact intentions and thoughts. Dr Nasr agreed. We went to the private palace at Niavaran to see her. The queen came out saying she really didn’t feel well. She was having trouble sleeping, so she had taken a sleeping pill. She said she couldn’t quite focus and read the text properly and suggested we take it directly to the Shah. The back and forth took some time, so we reached the Shah later than hoped, and he’d been waiting for us. I later read that the Chief of Protocol, Mr. Aslan Afshar, a very noble and respectable person whom the Shah trusted, related that the Shah had asked where we were and why we hadn’t arrived yet. Upon finding out that we had gone to see the queen with the text first he had reacted, ‘Why, is the Queen supposed to make the speech or I?’ We finally arrived and the Shah read the text. He liked some parts, but not others. Dr Nasr had a more senior rank than me, so it was he who mostly discussed the details with the Shah. There were many other people in the room, including Mr. Afshar, Kambiz Atabai, and the TV crew that was waiting to record the Shah’s speech.

The Shah questioned one section, saying he was concerned that it sounded like it came from a position of weakness. We responded that the Shah’s position should be close to the people. That’s the feeling we had taken away from the notes sent to us. The idea was that the Shah was a father-figure for all Iranians, that he genuinely loved them, but that it was time for the father to show “tough love” to his children who were fighting and causing unrest. The position was that he had heard their grievances, many of which he agreed with, but that the society must first regain calm before change could be implemented, and that such an outcome entailed a period of toughness and military rule. I’d taken that to mean General Oveissi was going to be put in charge to bring back order and that a more democratic monarchy would then ensue.

The Shah was tired and was having a hard time reading and deciphering the different handwritten notes. The Islamic Republic later published the entire text online, which clearly shows for example which parts I had handwritten and which ones were struck through and rewritten by Dr Nasr per the Shah’s request.

In those days, we didn’t have modern teleprompters like you now have today, so texts used to be simply be typed in a large font size so the Shah could read them easily while still looking out to the camera. That night, however, there was not enough time to prepare that so he had to look down to read off the notes. The original handwriting was quite small so a lady from the TV and I started copying the text in larger, more legible letters so the Shah could read it more easily.

NOTE: for more, click here to watch a short video of Dr Nasr describing the speech (from minute 9:24) and read his notes by clicking here.

Some really liked the Shah’s speech but not those who believed the opposition should be severely quashed.

Among the speech’s proponents were the lawyer, Dr Lahiji, head of a human rights group, who’d called the court to say he’d really liked the speech. A few people from groups like The National Front that we’d been in touch with thought the speech would help calm people down. I reached Ayatollah Shariatmadari by phone through his son-in-law to get his feedback. He said he liked the speech and that it brought tears to his eyes; he hoped it would have a positive result. I asked if he would share his personal thoughts with the nation, but he did not agree to that.

Those who were against appeasement, many of whom were in my own social circle, thought the speech sounded like it came from a position of weakness. I later heard that after the fact, unfortunately the Shah, too, thought the speech was bad. So, a lot of people around me, monarchists and many who didn’t even hear or read the full speech, were left with the impression that it was a bad speech.

I feel responsible because although the speech contained thoughts that the Shah himself had offered at the time, I should have been more cautious and known that some of what he said could be misinterpreted as weakness by the opposition.  The objective was that the Shah would give a talk like a benevolent father; a military government would follow to quell the unrest, and once calm had returned, a more democratic monarchy would follow. But that’s not the message everyone got out of it.

The day after the speech was broadcast, however, Dr Nasr told me that the Shah had called to say he was pleased and had thanked him. Dr Nasr in fact had shared a funny story at the time. Whenever the queen had called him, his housekeeper would run in to say malekeh (the queen) is on the line, and he would correct her and tell her she should say “oliyahazrat” (Her Majesty). That time she ran in and said “aalahazrat” (His Majesty) was on the line. He scolded her and said, “Why can’t you get Her Majesty’s name right?” He was very surprised to pick up the phone and hear the Shah’s voice! He’d called to thank him for the speech.  So, at the time, the Shah liked the speech overall.

My analysis is that if things had happened as they were supposed to and the Shah’s broadcast was followed by the installation of a strong military government, then the overall idea conveyed by the speech was good, though some parts of it probably were not. On the positive side, it certainly showed, for example, that the Shah was not the bloodthirsty dictator some claimed him to be—and many continue to do decades later.

However, things didn’t happen as planned, so the speech’s effectiveness was totally compromised. Instead of Oveissi, General Azhari was appointed prime minister. He was a good, intelligent, calm person who’d chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the past, I had noticed him several times attending concerts, sitting in the back in civilian attire, so he was quite cultured too. However, he proved not to be what was needed at the time: a sound politician and a tough military officer. He should have come across as a sword not as an appeaser. Instead of threatening strong action to quell turmoil, his first speech stated that he was not the type to take violent, junta-like steps as in Latin America. In the face of sedition with people wanting to topple the regime, he kept declaring that he understood people’s concerns and focused on totally unrelated economic issues like promising to reduce the price of bread!

I think that if the military government had been strong, if it had arrested the opposition leaders and imprisoned them, for instance in Kish, then things could have calmed down and improved from there. Unfortunately, things happened differently, so people ultimately read the speech as a sign of weakness, but that’s because the military government didn’t do its job.

Until the day of the Shah’s speech I thought that General Oveissi would be named as the head of the military government. I wasn’t privy to such decision-making of course, but it was commonly understood that he would be the one. Yet when I stepped out of the room where the speech was being broadcast, I saw General Azhari sitting there with his head sunken to one side. He said: “What a mess I’m in! --deedi chi beh sare man amad?” I had no idea what he was referring to. He explained that he’d been named prime minister. I realized at that very moment that the situation was dire. If the person assigned to bring order and act as a sword looked that distressed and burdened by the task, then he wouldn’t be able to live up to his responsibility.

Was Oveissi’s nomination wishful thinking on behalf of some, and had the Shah never intended to put him in charge? I don’t know. Did international pressure or domestic lobbies sway the Shah’s choice saying Oveissi would be too violent and sharp? I don’t know. But until then, at least in the court circles I was involved with, and among former politicians like Hoveyda, all eyes were on Oveissi. So, I really don’t know why Azhari became head of the military government instead.

No.

A daughter may assume her father is a very important figure, but I was not. I was just the head of radio and television. It’s true that because of my family ties to the queen I could speak more privately to the Shah and with more ease, but political decision-making was well over my pay grade as they say, and I did not get involved.

There was only one instance when I somehow got involved in politics, but it was not about the Shah’s choice of Oveissi over Azhari. Sometime in September 1978 when Sharif Emami was to become prime minister and I was still the head of NIRT, I submitted a report on the current state of affairs to the Shah. I told him that Sharif Emami didn’t have a good reputation and that there were many other possibly more qualified candidates for the job. I have to admit that I was apprehensive as I felt I was getting involved in something that was neither any of my business nor a type of issue I liked getting involved with.  Nevertheless, I felt compelled to suggest Dr Nahavandi as I thought he would be a better fit. Besides, the Shah liked him and I thought would accept him. He was an intellectual and a politician who was then the queen’s chief of staff. The Shah answered,  “But he lacks gravitas,” oun keh vazni nadareh.

So, I then suggested Mr. Entezam, a former prime minister, and Dr Amini, both of whom were on good terms with religious groups. These were seasoned politicians who understood the people better than the politicians in our generation who were more western-style technocrats. I was aware that the Shah had talked to them in the recent past, though I wasn’t in those meetings and not privy to their conversations. I think that it was unfortunately too little, too late, as they say. At the time, people like Entezam and Amini could be good advisors but not much more. They didn’t have the necessary network anymore and the country was no longer in a state to be easily governable. The opposition appeared strong. Some foreign nations were in touch with various groups and when it looked like the regime may swing, everyone wanted to align with the strongest among them. For example, from early on, the Americans tried to connect with Bazargan and the contingent close to Khomeini. They even tried to get the military to align with Khomeini so they could preserve U.S. interests in Iran.

In that last month between Azhari leaving as prime minister and Bakhtiar taking over, things were getting progressively worse. There are people who jump ship as soon as they see it sinking: the mice first and the others later. Many at the top echelons of the country left Iran. Some used poor health or family needs as excuses to justify going abroad. Many who were already away didn’t come back. Others, including some of the ayatollahs I was in talks with, tried to play a sort of double game with one foot resting with the government and the other with the opposition.  Had we won, they would have joined our side, but for the time being, they were hedging their bets. General Azhari got sick. He was surrounded by some good people, but by then not much could be done.

The whole country was on strike. The tipping point was when the army couldn’t fill up its tanks and military vehicles when the oil company went on strike. When Azhari came on board, his ministers were a mix of civilians and military men. One military figure told me he felt safer putting on his civilian clothes when he headed out to go to a meeting. That was a sign that everything was going downhill.

That’s when I asked your mom to please take you and your brother to Europe. She refused, saying that we will share the same fate, sarnevesht, as all Iranians. I insisted and said that if she stayed, I wouldn’t be able to get anything done as safeguarding my family would have to be my first priority. If she left, I could act more freely and somehow help prevent the pillars of the country from crumbling. I felt it my duty to stay on and defend my country, and that if things got dangerous, I could keep safe.

All this to say that you could feel the growing chaos. Electricity was turned off every night, mostly so that people couldn’t watch the evening news. The protesters would go on the roofs of their houses and shout slogans.

The army was ordered not to react. The situation was particularly dire in the army. Back in August 1978, I heard through Ayatollah Shariatmadari that during Ramezan some royal guards had asked whether it was a sin for them to look at “nude” women, zan-e lokht. They were referring to the queen and her entourage, including kids like you, wearing swimsuits at the beach in Noshahr. I thought to myself that when even the royal guard is having such qualms, things were in a bad shape. Maybe they felt such concerns before then as well and I simply didn’t know about it, but anyway, the situation was growing critical. Shariatmadari also said that many in the military agreed with Khomeini’s sermons. They may not act on it now, he said, but maybe one day if asked to shoot the opposition they’ll turn their guns on you and shoot you instead!  Those were difficult times.

We thought that Sadiqi may be able to galvanize those troops who had turned against the regime but who believed in a constitutional monarchy.  But Sadiqi wanted martial law rescinded as the condition for his premiership, and he took too long to make a final decision. As the queen wrote in her book, things got so dire that Generals Moqaddam and Badi’i went to her and said that time had run out and Bakhtiar was the last hope.

Bakhtiar didn’t enjoy Dr. Sadiqi’s prestige but he’d shown that he had strength. I asked Badi’i—who sadly was later executed by the revolutionaries—whether he thought Bakhtiar could manage the task. He said Bakhtiar had told him, “I’ll fight to the end. Even if blood rises to my elbows, I’ll fight on.” After Bakhtiar agreed to meet with the Shah at the palace, he asked if I could go see him. He sat there in a grey blazer and seemed really pleased with his talks with the Shah. He shared some of their exchange and said that the Shah had asked him to lead the government. It found it interesting to hear that when he got up to leave when the meeting was over, the Shah asked when he should leave the country. Bakhtiar asked why should he want to leave? The Shah answered that everyone was recommending it. Bakhtiar told me he had suggested that the Shah stay on and follow the regular parliamentary procedure of nominating him as prime minister. He had then added that if the Shah still wanted to leave after that, he should go way for only a short time, either to one of Iran’s islands in the south, or if he wanted to go aboard, to make sure to say he was leaving for a short rest only and would be back. My take from this and earlier talks with Bakhtiar was that he was against the Shah leaving the country for good, the same as Dr Sadighi who was even against the Shah leaving the country at all.

That night or the next day, Bakhtiar said he had talked to Sanjabi, Forouhar and the rest of his team and told them that the Shah was planning to leave after his nomination became official. Now, politicians sometimes add their own nuance. I don’t know whether Bakhtiar had told them he’d asked the Shah to leave or not. On hearing of the Shah’s departure, Bakhtiar told me that Sanjabi said, “Well, had I known he’d leave the country, I too would have agreed to the PM post.”  It shows that Bakhtiar had assumed everyone would unite around him on learning of the Shah’s departure, but that wasn’t to be. So, Bakhtiar came on board from a position of weakness. His man morgheh toofanam speech was very sound and strong, but it wasn’t enough; he didn’t have the full support of his own team.

I didn’t have much contact with Bakhtiar after that. It was around then that your mom took you and your brother to Paris. She had plans to come back to Tehran herself, but thankfully, she had to stay away as the Tehran airport shut down. 

One time when I had sent over some questions to the Shah, the responses that came back looked rather different; they weren’t as specific and direct as usual. I wondered if it was because during those difficult and chaotic times, whoever received my questions had not even bothered to ask the Shah but responded with their personal opinion. So, I asked the Shah directly who I should send my questions or comments to in the future—if there were important. He immediately answered Aslan Afshar. It showed how much he truly trusted him. He was a real top-notch diplomat but until then I didn’t know to what extent the Shah trusted him. There weren’t too many occasions for me to deal with him directly after that but at least I knew whose hands I could trust to get reliable answers.

Yes, several times.

It was the queen’s birthday, mid-October 1978. She’d gone to Khorasan in the aftermath of an earthquake there. The Shah was alone. I had spoken with Dr. Azmoun in the prime minister’s office that morning where he mentioned indirectly that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if the Shah left the country. He may not have meant permanent exile but rather a temporary absence to allow the government longer reins to do their job and take responsibility for their action. I don’t want to hint at any conspiracy.

In time, the subject of the Shah’s departure was being heard more openly and written about. Even foreigners were transmitting such thoughts. It was understood for example that the American and British ambassadors were saying that the Iranian government might be in a better position to get things done were the Shah to depart. I knew the Shah was hearing such talks also because I had a deep-held conviction that if he left, the entire political and military structure holding up the country would collapse. I made it my mission to keep warning him against such a departure. I turned into a kind of parrot that keeps repeating itself. I’d find any occasion, even very casual social ones, two to three times a week, to stress my point to the Shah that hope remained only for as long as he stayed in the country.

The only time I didn’t voice that opinion was the night before the Shah’s departure. His mind was made up and his personal affairs were packed. I felt that repeating my point at that very moment would be nothing more than pouring salt on an open wound. The important thing wasn’t for me to have voiced my opinion then; it was whether stating it would have made a difference and at that moment I knew that it would not. The next day, many people accompanied the Shah to the plane to bid him farewell but it was too much for me; I simply couldn’t bear to see him leave. I never saw him again.

I always thought, and still do, that if the Shah had stayed on, some things could have turned out differently. Bakhtiar wanted to appoint a minister of defense that the Shah might have gotten along with, so he thought of Sepahbod Fereydoun Jam. He’d been chief of staff and at one point the husband of the Shah’s sister Princess Shams, so the Shah had known him for a very long time. Jam went to see the Shah. He was not accepted in that role. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know exactly what happened. I’ve heard different versions of the story. One was that Jam had asked to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff and control every aspect of the military, and that’s why the Shah had turned him down.

Jam then went to see the queen and asked her why she was still in the country. Did she want the same fate as Marie Antoinette and have her head chopped off?  Even people who’d come to serve and risk their lives for the Shah and the queen were telling them it was best to leave so as to save themselves. Who knows, maybe Jam was right. Maybe if the Shah had stayed on it would have been like in the French Revolution and Iran would have committed regicide. But somehow I still think that had the Shah stayed, the army wouldn’t have collapsed like it did and things wouldn’t have fallen apart from there on.

At no point did I think the regime would sink, not even when the Shah left, which was a pivot point because the country became leaderless. Bakhtiar seemed serious, though he’d made some big mistakes that I didn’t know about at the time. Even when I heard the army announce they wouldn’t interfere with the protests, I thought what that meant was that they were planning a coup d’état. In retrospect, the reality should have been obvious. When the top brass in the military has conflicting opinions and the soldiers aren’t listening to the higher-ups, the army is in tatters.

Some were traitors, others thought they could somehow save the country. 

The day the revolutionaries succeeded was when the military got together and concluded they couldn’t control the situation anymore and announced that they would retrieve their troops from the city and would no longer interfere.

As I mentioned earlier, since sometime around the fall of 1978, I’d been meeting with different opposition groups like Jebhe-ye Melli and religious leaders, but never the far left, to try and establish some dialogue and find a common path. I also participated in bi-weekly meetings with different people who like me believed in keeping a form of monarchy in place. Shahin Fatemi was one of the attendees in these meetings. Many were held at Dr Gholamreza Afkhami’s home (Mahnaz was abroad at the time), and sometimes at ours.

The last time a meeting was to be held at our home, I got a call from Mr. Mobasher, one of my old colleague at the TV and one of the few loyal people still working there. He said that the military had asked NIRT to make an announcement at 2pm, signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the police, and the gendarmerie, that the army would retreat and not interfere in political affairs. He said this is basically like an invitation to the revolutionaries to take over the streets and do as they please; so, what can we do? He was merely asking for advice as I was no longer at NIRT and had no influence in such matters. Nevertheless, I asked him to wait until I reached the prime minister, to see what the government thought should be done. I tried calling Bakhtiar many times but wasn’t able to reach him, so I called Mobasher back and asked him to try and delay broadcasting the announcement for as long as he could.

Secret defense plans had been set up years back in case a foreign power attacked the country. One plan entailed destroying all the critical logistical items that could be of use to the invaders. NIRT, for example, had a plan to explode key communications components such as the transmitter, and the main antenna and the microwave system, to prevent hostile forces, Russians or whoever, from taking control of the TV and radio. Mobasher said the technicians who know how to handle that are not around any longer and the military has said that if we don’t make the broadcast, they will invade and take over the building. Given that I hadn’t managed to reach the prime minister and the army’s ultimatum, there was no way out of broadcasting the news of the military retreat.

I informed those gathered in my house for the bi-weekly meeting about the situation. I said that I didn’t know if the military’s departure will mean a victory for the revolutionaries or that the army is retreating only temporarily to prepare a coup d’état. I suggested everyone leave to go take care of their families. Fereydoun Djavadi stayed on so that we could contact the head of the Guards and find out what was going on. He called and spoke to Timsar Neshat who answered kheyr dar pisheh—The future is auspicious. We didn’t know what he meant by that, but hoped he was saying the army was in effect preparing a coup against the current government, but not against the Shah. Things turned out differently. The revolutionaries ended up executing Neshat, Badre’I, and many others.

Having told everyone at my house to leave, I suddenly realized that I too should probably not stay at home that night. The revolutionaries had marked the front of my house some time earlier, as they had the houses of many monarchy sympathizers. I also called others to give them a heads up about an hour or so before the military retreat was to be broadcast, and suggested they seek safety and not stay home. I spent the next few days staying in various places. I wasn’t a recognizable public figure so I thought I could safely go out and about as long as I didn’t stay in my own home. When news came that people less senior or less involved than me were being arrested left and right, I realized I could easily be next. Nevertheless, I thought it best to stay in the country to try and somehow help out by communicating with this and that person, like for example the chief of the Bakhtiari tribe. I had grown a beard to blend in more and have even less of a chance of being recognized by anyone.

One day I went to see one of the religious leaders whom I thought might still hold some influence. He said, “Let’s go talk in the backyard; I can’t be seen talking to you, for my own family has turned pro-Khomeini.” I realized that nearly everyone I knew who may have wanted to do something to stop the revolution no longer had the strength or the power to act. Yet others were opportunistic and were waiting to see which way the wind blew. It finally dawned on me that I was no longer in a position to do much more.

When I then heard that even the sitting prime minister, Bakhtiar, left for France, I realized I was totally powerless. Anyone I knew who may have been able to help had either left the country or if they had stayed was either in prison or had been executed. That’s when I decided it was finally time for me to leave too. So Fereydoun Djavadi and I made handy plans. I didn’t reach Paris until around late May 1979.

Dr Majidi later told me that he in turn decided it was time to leave Iran when he heard that I’d left. In reality, I left the country long after rumors had spread that I’d gone abroad, so in effect I left after he did. Fereydoun Djavadi and I helped spread the rumor that we’d left so the revolutionaries wouldn’t be actively looking for us in Iran and we wouldn’t be putting those who hosted us in safe houses at risk.

There was a time after which the Shah could no longer stay in the country really, especially not after he clearly stated that he was no Suharto and was not willing to give the order to kill his people. He didn’t want to keep his throne through blood.

In hindsight, Bashar al-Assad stayed in Syria and fought his way by killing his people and is welcomed again in regional political circles. He’s still in power, but at what cost? Look at what state Syria is in now! (Note: this interview took place prior to the overthrow of the Assad regime in late 2024).

Ultimately, it’s for history to judge whether more Iranians would have died had the Shah ordered a violent suppression compared to the number of people that the Islamic regime has killed over time.

Interestingly, just some months ago—around December 2023—a brave young woman stood unveiled before a large audience at Sharif University and asked the mayor of Tehran Alireza Zakani why unlike the Shah, the Islamic government was incapable of hearing the voice of the people. 

I never heard that rumor before the revolution. It’s a court story someone cooked up later, I don’t know who. I later either read the story somewhere, or heard that some people thought the queen intended to replace the Shah. It may have started because of some misconstrued incidents. 

As I may have mentioned earlier, the Shah asked Dr Nasr and me to draft a speech for him based on specific pointers; it’s the one that contained the words “I heard your voice”. We thought we ought to get the queen’s feedback before submitting the final draft to the Shah. We were wondering for example if she thought the Shah would like to mention the Olama (clerics) in the speech or not. When Dr Nasr went to meet the queen, she said she had just taken a sleeping pill and was not in a condition to review the speech. Meantime, the Shah was apparently in a rush to see what we’d put together, and when he inquired about its whereabouts and was told we’d gone to show it to the queen, he was upset, or at least that’s what Mr Aslan Afshar has written. He says the Shah replied, I’m the one who’s supposed to read the speech, not her! Could it be that he or others who read or heard about this incident misinterpreted our intent in having the queen review the speech first?

There was also an incident with General Jam, who at the time had retired abroad. Bakhtiar wanted to appoint him minster of war, I think. He came back and spoke to the Shah and told him he refused to be Bakhtiar’s minister. He may have also suggested that the Shah leave the country as it wasn’t safe for him to stay. He then went to see the queen. She asked him if it was safe for the Shah to leave but for her to stay. He answered, “You want to stay and get your head chopped off like Marie Antoinette?” She had meant it only as a suggestion to safeguard the country and the monarchy. She was willing to take a risk and sacrifice herself. She thought that if her husband and children left the country temporarily and she stayed on, things may calm down and people would know that the monarchy was still stable. It’s possible though, that some people who heard about it totally misunderstood her intent and thought she wanted to sit on the throne herself. 

Her Majesty was not remotely involved or even interested in politics. What she enjoyed and focused her attention on were social and cultural matters, areas where she felt she could help the people of her country.  Towards the end she thought of her role as a shield where she could jump in to save the Shah if there was an attempt on his life.  Knowing her well, when I heard the story about her supposed desire to take over the throne I found it totally absurd and unfathomable. I figured that anyone who knew her even remotely couldn’t possibly believe that tale.

The royal family had to earn a living, like everybody else.  Reza Shah had provided for a certain stipend for his children, but it was quite a modest sum, so they all needed to find a way to make money. The problem is that in a system where you have an elite that is close to power, it can become a magnet for corruption on the part of people seeking influence.

I don’t know how much the Shah knew about the details, but he may have been quite indulgent towards his siblings.

Whenever friends and I get together to debate what happened, we still can’t come to definitive conclusions. There were lots of conspiracy theories back then blaming foreign powers. I would ask those who blamed the Americans for inciting the revolution what would have been their motive, how would it benefit them? Some would then turn out and say it must have been the KGB! No one really has an answer.

Many books have been written on the subject. They usually focus on a number of nationwide grievances: the dictatorial, or autocratic, nature of the government; corruption; and the speed of change and westernization. I find that last rationale offensive, for it implies Iranians weren’t capable of modernizing. In fact, I think had Iran modernized even earlier, the revolution may have been avoided. By modernizing I don’t mean building cars and highways alone, but rather gaining more individual and social rights.

I don’t agree that the main culprit was the regime being too autocratic either. At the time, most states in the region were invariably in much worse shape than Iran, and more dictatorial. Look at Pakistan, Iraq, and so many others. None of those regimes collapsed like ours did.  Why?

Why did Iran have a revolution while other countries in the region did not? I think it was due to a confluence of circumstances. In the Theory of Complexity there is an interesting example that if a butterfly flaps its wings in China, the effects could be felt all the way in Boston and cause a storm—Boston, because an MIT professor came up with the notion. 

There were many complexities that caused the revolution.

When a government loosens its grip on power and introduces some forms of democracy, it can lessen pressure points. That way, if there is a catastrophe, dissent will not focus all its attention on one point—a sole pillar upholding the system that on exploding will cause everything to collapse. Of course, even that doesn’t always happen either. Sometimes when an autocratic regime is removed, things become more chaotic. Look at Saddam Hussein’s removal and what difficulties Iraq has faced since. Maybe the Spanish model would have been good. Franco, who was much more dictatorial than our Shah ever was, had the foresight of planning who would succeed him and how. The Shah was also thinking of doing that. He repeatedly said that the Iran of twenty years from now had to be run differently. He even considered stepping down and leaving the throne to his son.

There were thousands of issues that came together in a confluence. Someone unique like Khomeini happened to come along and a religious movement took hold. It was the first of a string of such occurrences in the region. I remember an old Algerian friend of mine who used to be a liberal socialist and in time became religious under Arab influence. He said, ‘All the systems that Western countries had brought us eventually collapsed. We first thought that if we sought independence from France, it would solve all our problems. Then we hoped socialism would be the solution, but that wasn’t the right answer for us either. Like Eastern Europe, all the countries that veered toward socialism suffered a lot. We thought democracy would be it, but even then, wealth and foreign influence found ways to corrupt the system, so that although we got rid of French colonial power, it’s now a number of large foreign corporations that really run things. So, national identity and religion became our only salvation.’ Socialism and communism never fully took hold in Iran; none of the very active movements in the country had all the answers. What seemingly did was a search for a traditionalist ethical position; religion seemed to hold the answer for people.

It is often said that older generations were more ethical and moral than their offspring.  In Iran however, I remember that in many cases the children of the elite were more ethical than their parents. In fact, they’d criticize their parents for being corrupt. With the influx of the religious movement in the public domain people who weren’t at all political until then felt that there was suddenly a more ethical option. Even those who may not have joined the demonstrations in the streets, felt sympathy for that movement deep inside.  To give you an example, there was a woman colleague of ours at NIRT who was responsible for auditing new projects, such as investing in new buildings or making big purchasing decisions. She was a very good employee so we sponsored her to study abroad. When she came back I told her several times that we didn’t send you off to come back and just handle balance sheets; the idea was for you to learn to think strategically and do cost-benefit analyses and to let me know if certain key decisions make sense economically.  Should we for example invest in putting up this new telecom building or is the money better spent on some other project? In time this lady went from being a yes-yes underling to even surpassing what I had asked of her, to the point where she even questioned why a country like Iran needed television! I’m slightly exaggerating to make my point, but she meant why should we spend the country’s money on anything that is not absolutely essential? That’s how far the political sphere had developed in Iran.

Could anything have been done to prevent the revolution? I can’t say. Hindsight is not a  good standard. It’s not like I can see things today that I missed before, as I am no longer the person I was then. My opinions have changed, so knowing then what I know now would not necessarily suffice. In general, though, I would say that an open democratic system is always better than a closed authoritarian one, even if the closed one does good things for its people. Compare China to India, for example. China is a closed dictatorial system that has managed to take hundreds of millions out of poverty and turned the country into a highly developed modern nation in a rather short time span. India by contrast is an open democracy but has not been as successful in reducing poverty or developing the country.

India may have been able to achieve success through a more autocratic regime, and that’s what the Shah believed. He thought and often said that before Iran could have political democracy it must obtain economic democracy, meaning the creation of a middle-class and a wider sharing of wealth. He thought we needed to first become a more independently developed nation so the country wouldn’t be under the influence of foreign nations or powerful international corporations. Maybe if there had been a better balance between these two models, things would have been different in the end. Overall, I think the essential ideas the Shah held in his heart and wanted to undertake for the nation were great.  If there hadn’t been a confluence of complexities in that specific period of time and things had progressed for a couple of more years, including the Shah’s idea to create an open political space, things would have been different.

Some even look into psychology for an explanation. Look back at the last Ashkani king. In those days when a king felt threatened by another group, they might for instance invite the leader’s son as a house guest, but in effect hold them hostage to deflect the threat. So, one night, the last Ashkani king Ardavan V who has given his daughter in marriage to Babak—or Ardeshir—a Sassanian that he’d made head of the royal stables earlier, has a dream. In the dream, his daughter gives birth to a tree that rises to fill the whole space. On waking up, the king asks for council to interpret the dream. He’s told that his daughter will give birth to a boy who will conquer his throne. He orders his daughter imprisoned and her husband killed, but the two manage to escape. The king rides out in search and comes upon a shepherd who when asked if he’s seen a man and a pregnant woman on horseback, answers that he remembers them well because as soon as they rode by, one of his own lambs jumped on their horse’s back and the couple drove off. Upon hearing that, the Ashkani king decides to return home. The story goes on to explain that the lamb represents Divine Glory, farreh-ye izadi, meaning Ardeshir was fated to gain stewardship of the country.

For as long as people believed in the king, the farreh-ye izadi was with him. If it abandoned him, nothing could sustain him in power.

French kings similarly believed they were anointed by God. I think the Shah believed he had a mission, a metaphysical mission to be accomplished through the will and love of the people. My psychological take on this is that when the Shah heard that “Death to the Shah” had become a slogan on the streets in Iran, he felt he had lost his mission and the love of the people. And love he certainly had had. When in 1941 he went to the parliament to take an oath to become king, people in the streets were so enthralled they lifted his car on their arms. When his son was born, the streets were so packed with rejoicing crowds he couldn’t even get to the hospital. So, when he saw that this relationship with his people had strained to that point, he felt it was time to go and not pull out the guns.  I see that loss of mission and not the fact that he knew he had terminal cancer, as an explanation of his mindset. Many feel that because the Shah knew he was sick and had little time left, he did not have much to lose and could have cracked down on dissent harshly and ended it, but that was not how he felt. 

I realize many expect one to form a simple intellectualized explanation [for the revolution]. The reality is that there were lots of reasons; a single one, or even a few, do not explain it sufficiently.

That accusation is probably from greatly uninformed right-wingers after the revolution, not knowing who was what.

From my early youth, when I was just eleven years old, I joined the opposite camp, the Pan-Iranist youth movement. Their aim was to restore Iran to its old glory and ancient frontiers, which meant integrating large parts of the territories lost to Russia in the early 19th century. My opposition to communism wasn’t ideological as I hadn’t read Marx, Engels or Lenin at age 11. Communism was just a Soviet propaganda tool to help create a separatist movement in Iran aimed at the Soviet Empire’s eventual annexation of the country. In my anti-communist activities, I even got stabbed by a member of the Tudeh Communist Party in a fight.

Now, it is possible that I may be considered a leftist because as the general director of National Iranian Radio and Television (NIRT) I gave voice to many liberal-minded artists, writers and thinkers.

You see, in a monarchy, the king is the king of the whole nation, not just of the monarchists among them. That’s why, the Shah, in his own way, often tried to help the opposition—socialist or communist sympathizers—as long as they were not deemed traitors to their country. For example, after the Mosaddeq events of 1953, he ensured through his court minister that quite a few of those involved find employment and a means to survive. Take Shapour Bakhtiar: he was imprisoned for his involvement, but they found him a good position at a bank once he was released. Another was Fereydoun Mahdavi who even became one of the Shah’s favorite ministers.

To go back to your question, by the very nature of its work, NIRT tended to hire a lot of writers and intellectuals, many of whom simply tended to be liberal or leaned left. I didn’t think it was in the country’s interest to build an organization of only right-leaning monarchists. Importantly, the Shah hadn’t intended for NIRT to be like that either.

I hired whoever I thought was most competent and only twice did I think it necessary to ask permission from above. 

The first time was to hire my deputy director.  In the late 60s, there was a well-regarded sociology professor called Ehsan Naraqi.  I confided in him that most of the people around me were of a certain social milieu, had studied abroad, were somewhat westernized and didn’t know Iran deeply enough. I asked if he could recommend any individuals I could bring to NIRT who were really “of the people,” if you know what I mean.  He mentioned Mr. Mahmoud Jafarian, a former police officer who had at one point been a communist sympathizer and who after serving time, had worked for SAVAK in the Persian Gulf. Since then, he had worked with his brother in the bazaar for over a dozen years and was now ready for a new experience.  I happened to be looking for a director of human resources and thought he would be a good fit. He did such excellent work for us over the years that he moved up the ranks to become the head of the news department. At some point I thought he would make a good deputy director but that was a very high-ranking position so I decided it was best to ask for permission to promote him—I had never asked permission to hire him in the first place.  It was granted immediately.

The second and only other time I asked for such a permission was for Parviz Nikkhah. Many years back he had been imprisoned by SAVAK on the suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack against the Shah. The Shah said he looked him in the eye and felt he was not a terrorist. Once released, they found him a position in the Ministry of Information. He had the reputation of doing brilliant work. Some friends approached me to let me know that he wasn’t so happy in his job and would like to join NIRT. He was indeed very smart, and we brought him in to eventually become the director of our policy and political research center and he stayed with NIRT till the very end.  He had also become a pillar of the Rastakhiz Party. The Shah was so satisfied with Nikkhah’s work that he honored him with Neshan-e Taj, the Crown Medal.

It reminds me of another interesting case. There was a gentleman called Iraj Gorgin who worked at Radio Iran even before I started NITV. He produced really high quality intellectual programs and I was looking to hire talented people for the organization, so we invited him to join the TV. He was quite popular—he was handsome, so had even more success on TV that on the radio—and worked very well so he moved up the ranks and became the head of one of our TV stations. It so happened that his sister had been married to a certain Mr Golesorkhi, a member of the Fadaiyan-e Khalq who had attempted to take the crown prince hostage.

At some point we had organized a program called Cinema-ye Azad where we gave students and amateur filmmakers the tools to make programs of their choice. SAVAK viewed their films and disapproved of their content.  I stood my ground saying that our country and the government stand on solid ground and a handful of 8mm films will not topple the state. My position was that if someone said the Shah’s brothers and sisters were corrupt, they should not be censored. If what they said was calumnious, they should be prosecuted, but if proven true, the Shah could then put a stop to the problem.

Going back to Mr Gorgin, we sent him to do a TV interview with some student strikers who had grievances. He listened to them and he said on camera, “I hear what you’re saying.” SAVAK was very upset again and that became a political problem. But I think it was important to air those students’ voices and let them give off steam. Those are important safety valves in any regime.  You know, if you think your system is just, you have to let those who may not agree with you speak their mind and simply do a better job defending your position using words, not censorship.

Let me give you just two more examples of how people thought in different ways than you may expect these days. We had a committee to discuss literary programs. Mr. Saqafi was an outside counsel, who happened to be Khomeini’s brother-in-law. It was customary for TV and radio not to air music, dance or comedy for three days during Moharram, as a show of respect for that religious mourning tradition. I asked Mr. Saqafi if he would like to create a religious program specifically for that time period; he declined, thinking it was totally unnecessary.  On the other hand, I heard that Mr. Aslan Afshar, the Shah’s Chief of Protocol, a true gentleman who I happen to respect a lot, had complained that NIRT aired a movie showing Mexicans toppling their leader, as if that movie--I think it was Vera Cruz—might precipitate a revolution.

History can’t be censored.

You know, if the Shah wasn’t born to reign, he likely would have been a member of a social democratic party.  Just look at the direction of many of the reforms he implemented during his reign, especially those of the White Revolution—land redistribution, profit-sharing for factory workers, etc. These are all liberal, and in fact, left-leaning ideas.

I am sure we made mistakes but overall, I thought and still think our system was the right one for the country. If you think you are doing the right thing you must give a voice to those who don’t agree with you. Challenge them by providing counter arguments, not by shutting them down. In hindsight, if anything, I wish I had given even more voice to the people.