The Dawn of a New Era

Bayandor, Darioush

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-96119-4_16

Darioush Bayandor²

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Abstract

The new civilian prime minister, Shapour Bakhtiar, whom the Shah appointed from the opposition ranks ahead of his exile in mid-January, became Washington’s best hope to prevent the collapse of the regime. The four-star General Robert Huyser was rushed to Tehran to maintain the cohesion of the armed forces behind the new prime minister. Bakhtiar showed courage and grit but his multifaceted strategy was undercut by Sullivan with the unwitting help of Huyser. Sullivan plotted to shorten the Bakhtiar interlude in favor of Mehdi Bazargan in an upcoming political setting that he likened to the Gandhi–Nehru model of governance in India. The ambassador set out to shift the loyalty of the military leaders to the pro-Khomeini camp. The departure of the Shah on January 16 deepened the rift within the military and paved the way for the eventual success of that strategy.

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Notes

1.
“The Shah’s Plans”, cable 00009, from Sullivan to Vance, January 1, 1979, DSWL; Nicholas Gage, New York Times, January 2, 1979.
2.
Full list of US Embassy contacts with opposition figures in cable TEHRAN00936, 19 January 1979, DSWL. The list does not include contacts from the third week of January onward.
3.
Sullivan to DOS, 12735, 29 December, and 12,753, 30 December 1978, DSWL.
4.
Sullivan to DOS, 00019, January 2, 1979, DSWL.
5.
Sullivan to DOS, 12768, 31 December 1978, DSWL.
6.
As a vivid illustration of state of opinion, see US Embassy SITREP, 12735, 30 December 1978, DSWL; see also, Sullivan to Vance, 00088, January 3, 1979.
7.
Sullivan to Vance, 0088, January 3, 1979, DSWL.
8.
Fardoust memoir: 1.582, 1.612–13.
9.
Sullivan to DOS, cable 000183, January 4, 1979, DSWL.
10.
U.S. Embassy SITREPS, 00029, January 2, 1979, and STATE000789, 3 January 1979, DSWL.
11.
Gage, New York Times, January 2, 1979.
12.
Vance, Hard Choices, 336.
13.
The anecdote was attributed to Ali Amini who had bumped into Oveissi returning from his last audience, citied in Tavakoli-Neyshapouri, Akharin soqut Aryaha…:640.
14.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 89; Stemple, Inside the Iranian Revolution, 159.
15.
Queen Farah, An Enduring Love, 293; Gharabaghi, La Vérité sur la Crise iranienne, 122–3.
16.
Bakhtiar’s biography in Agheli, sharh’e hal’e rejal.., 1.282ff; Milani, Eminent Persians, 1.103ff; Bakhtiar, Ma Fidélité: 23.
17.
Sullivan, Mission to Iran: 235.
18.
Bakhtiar, Ma Fidélité, 32–33; Shokat, parvaz dar zolmat, 135–6; Milani, Eminent Persians: 103–11.
19.
Paul Valéry (1871–1945), renowned poet-philosopher; Henri-Louis Bergson (1859–1941) was an influential French philosopher; Georges Scelle (1878–1961) was a world-renowned international jurist.
20.
Bakhtiar, si’o haft rooz, 6–7.
21.
Report of Bakhtiar conversation with John Stemple, cable 12,753, December 30, 1978, DSWL.
22.
Bakhtiar, sy’o haft rooz, 8–9.
23.
In his, Réponse à l’histoire, the Shah confirms that, 242.
24.
Report of Bakhtiar-Stemple conversation, 12,753, December 30, 1978, DSWL.
25.
Bakhtiar, si’o haft rooz, 9–10; Bakhtiar, Ma Fidélité, 129; Shokat, parvaz dar zolmat, 355–8.
26.
Majles proceedings, Thursday, 21 Day 1357/January 11, 1979; Agheli, Roozshoma, 2.387.
27.
Sullivan, Mission to Iran, 236.
28.
Participants other than Sanjabi and the host, Engineer Haqshenas, were Allahyar Saleh, Eng. Ahmad Zirakzadeh and Dr. Ezuddin Kazemi, see, Bakhtiar in Harvard oral history interview with Lajvardi, seq. 67, p. 19; Sanjabi (memoir, p. 344) mentioned also Ali Ardalan and Eng. Kazem Hassibi.
29.
Bakhtiar had been pressured by his peers to transfer the mandate proposed to him by the Shah to Sanjabi who would then seek Khomeini’s approval to form a National Front government; if Bakhtiar had made some such concession at the meeting, he must have reneged it immediately after.
30.
Agheli, Roozshoma, 2.384.
31.
Shokat, Parvaz dar zolmat, 361.
32.
Telephone conversation Lambrakis, Derakhshesh, cable 00295, January 7,1979, DSWL.
33.
Minatchi, in conversation with John Stemple, cable 00183, January 4, 1979, DSWL.
34.
Ibid.
35.
Mohammad Tavassoli (FMI activist) in conversation with John Stemple, cable 00295, January 7, 1979, DSWL.
36.
General Fereydoun Djam, in Harvard Iran Oral History interview with Habib Lajvardi, London, March 1983, transcript 4, seq. 63; also in Morteza Moshir, Khaterat arteshbod jam Memoirs of General Djam] (Los Angeles, CA: Sherkat Ketan, 2008), 224.
37.
Excerpts in Agheli, Roozshomar, 2.388; Sullivan to DOS, cable 00368, January 8, 1979; DOS cable STATE005388, January 9, 1979.
38.
On January 6 in his first meeting with Rabii the latter confirmed to Huyser the existence of the “Board” and the fact the members had “discussed a military takeover” but Rabii had not given any precision or date and was not identified as the tipster. Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 36.
39.
The New York Times, January 9, 1979.
40.
Passage in the Shah’s memoirs reads, “As soon as the presence of General Huyser in Teheran was divulged Moscow declared he [Huyser] had come to foment a coup; but the Herald Tribune [the New York Times’ Paris edition] reassured [the Western] chancelleries that the contrary was the case [i.e. Huyser had come to prevent rather than foment a coup], ” (author’s own translation) Réponse à l’Histoire, 246.
41.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 16.
42.
Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 377; Sick, All Fall Down, 131 Vance, Hard Choices, 335.
43.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 1, 15.
44.
Ibid., 19.
45.
The New York Times, January 5,1979; other news outlets like BBC, Kayhan and journal de Téhéran followed suit, Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 54.
46.
While in active deputy, Haig was appointed Nixon’s Chief of Staff in the aftermath of Watergate scandal. For his views on the Carter administration’s policies on Iran, see Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 14.
47.
Sullivan, Mission to Iran, 227–8.
48.
Vance, Hard Choices, 336.
49.
Stemple, Inside the Iranian Revolution, 160; Yazdi memoirs, 3.391.
50.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 2–3, 196, 108, 203, 213; Pahlavi, Réponse à l’histoire, 246.
51.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 17.
52.
Ibid., 17–18.
53.
Vance to Sullivan, secret, STATE000120, January 2, 1979, DAWL.
54.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 23.
55.
Vance to Sullivan, STATE002590, January 5, 1979, DAWL.
56.
Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 379.
57.
Brzezinski diary entry, January 4, 1979, carried over to his memoirs: Power and Principle, 380.
58.
Carter, White House Diary, entry January 4, 1979, p. 272.
59.
Vance, Hard Choices, 336; Carter, White House Diary, January 5, 1979, p. 273.
60.
Sullivan to Vance, cable 00252, January 6, 1979, DSWL.
61.
“Huyser Mission and Shah’s Entry to the US”, Department of State White Paper, January 28, 1980, Iran: Making of US Foreign Policy, 1977–1980, DNSA.
62.
Vance, Hard Choices, 336.
63.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 64.
64.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 27.
65.
Ibid., 31–34, 68.
66.
James Reston, “Carter’s Moves in Iran”, January 5, 1979; Apple, “US Shifts from Shah to Bolster Bakhtiar”, January 9,1979.
67.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 31–32, 35, 61.
68.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 38.
69.
Ibid., 69.
70.
Ibid., 33.
71.
Gharabaghi, Vérités, 105.
72.
Sullivan, Mission to Iran, 229–30; Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 76.
73.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 290–1.
74.
Ibid., 290.
75.
Ibid., 24, 64.
76.
Ibid., 24.
77.
Ibid., 30.
78.
Sullivan to Vance (secret), cable 00514, January 10, 1979, DSWL.
79.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 93, discussion with Gen Rabii; 95, with Gen Tufanian; 46, with Gen. Gharabaghi on January 7, 1979.
80.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 87–89. The lengthy cable which was read by Brown over secure line was Department of State to Sullivan, cable 282,348, December 28, 1978, DSWL.
81.
Huyser, 88.
82.
Ibid.
83.
Full text of Huyser’s dispatch to Secretary Brown and JCS chairman General David Jones, dated January 13, 1979, was among declassified Pentagon files, partially cited by author Andrew Scott Cooper, see The Guardian online, February 15, 2015; see also Sick, All Fall Down, 139; Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 97–98.
84.
Vance to Sullivan, (secret), STATE10735, January 14, 1979, DSWL.
85.
Sullivan to Vance, (secret), 00713, January 15, 1979, DSWL.
86.
Sullivan to Vance (secret) 00645, January 14, 1979, DSWL.
87.
Decision by Washington to inform Bakhtiar was taken only on January 23. It was not greeted by enthusiasm; see Sullivan’s dispatch to Washington, 01119, January 23, 1979, DAWL.
88.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 108–9.
89.
Gharabaghi, Vérités, 113–14.
90.
Pahlavi, Réponse à l’Histoire, 246.
91.
Vance to Sullivan, (secret), STATE10735, January 14, 1979, DAWL.
92.
Sullivan to DOS, (Secret), 00660, January 14, 1979, DAWL.
93.
Sullivan to DOS, (Secret) cable, 00941, January 19, 1979, DAWL.
94.
Sullivan reporting his talks with Bakhtiar, cable 01118, January 23, 1979, DSWL.
95.
Réponse à l’Histoire, p. 246.
96.
Parsons, The Pride and the Fall, 124; Buchan, Days of God, 212.
97.
In June 2001, Princess Leila was found dead in a hotel in London, having consumed five times the lethal dose of barbiturates used for treatment of insomnia along with a nonlethal amount of cocaine; Prince Ali-Reza shot himself in Boston in January 2011.
98.
Ex officio members were the prime minister, heads of the two houses of the parliament, the minister of the court and chief of the supreme commander’s staff.
99.
Sullivan to DOS, 0670, January 14,1979, DAWL.
100.
Amini intended to leave the country while Sadighi invoked his opposition to the Shah’s departure abroad, see Amini’s diary, p. 574 entry for January 11.
101.
They were Seyyed Djalal Tehrani; ex-Senator Mohammad-Ali Varasteh; and Prof. Abdolhossein Aliabadi; Bazargan’s associate Abbas Amir-Entezam the U.S. embassy that his party (FMI) had no problem with the composition of the Regency Council, Sullivan to DOS, 00670, January 14, 1979, DAWL.
102.
Parsons, The Pride and the Fall, 124; see also, Sullivan to DOS cable no. 12768, December 31,1978, DAWL.
103.
The Senate voted 38 to 1, while in Majles the vote count was 149 in favor, 43 against and 13 abstentions.
104.
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 130.
105.
Gharabaghi, Vérité, 131, 141; Bakhtiar, Sy’o haft root, 37–8.
106.
Ibid.,105; Gharabaghi recorded the Shah’s statement, saying, “As the result of events we are very tired and need rest. Already for health reasons we should have left. Now that a government has been formed in conformity with the Constitution, we shall travel abroad […]. It has become therefore necessary that I issued my orders to the armed forces in presence of the Prime Minister….”
107.
Ibid., 141.
108.
Sullivan to DOS, cable, 00497, January 10, 1979, DSWL; Bakhtiar, Ma Fidélité, 140.
109.
Milani, The Shah, 407–8.
110.
Queen Farah, An Enduring Love, 4–5.
111.
Parsons, The Pride and the Fall, 126; Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 130.
112.
Nahavani and Botami, le Dernier Shah, 423.
113.
Frank J. Prial, New York Times, “Bani-Sadr Says He’ll Stay in Paris until Iran Takes Democratic Path,” July 30, 1981.

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Darioush Bayandor

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Bayandor, D. (2019). The Dawn of a New Era. In: The Shah, the Islamic Revolution and the United States. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96119-4_16

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96119-4_16
Published: 03 December 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-96118-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-96119-4
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