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Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, (26 October 1919 � 27 July 1980), was the emperor of Iran from 16 September 1941, until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979. He was the second and last monarch of the House of Pahlavi of the Iranian monarchy. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi held several titles: His Imperial Majesty, Shahanshah (King of Kings, Emperor), Aryamehr (Light of the Aryans) and Bozorg Arteshtārān (Head of the Warriors).

Overview

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi came to power during World War II after an Anglo-Soviet invasion forced the abdication of his father Reza Shah. His rule oversaw the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry under the prime ministership of Mohammad Mosaddeq. During the Shah's reign, Iran marked the anniversary of 2,500 years of continuous monarchy since the founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great. His White Revolution � a series of economic and social reforms intended to transform Iran into a global power � succeeded in modernizing the nation, nationalizing many natural resources and extending suffrage to women, among other things. However, the decline of the traditional power of the Shi'a clergy due to parts of the reforms increased opposition, eventually leading to his overthrow.

Although a Muslim himself, the Shah gradually lost support from the Shi'a clergy of Iran, particularly due to his strong policy of modernization, secularization and conflict with the traditional class of merchants known as bazaari, and recognition of Israel. Clashes with the Islamists, increased communist activity and a 1953 period of political disagreements with Mohammad Mosaddeq � eventually leading to Mosaddeq's ousting � caused what the Shah's opponents believe to have been an increasingly autocratic rule.

Various controversial policies were enacted, including the banning of the communist Tudeh Party and a general suppression of political dissent by Iran's intelligence agency, SAVAK. Amnesty International reported that Iran had as many as 2,200 political prisoners in 1978. By 1979, political unrest had transformed into a revolution which, on 16 January, forced the Shah to leave Iran. Soon thereafter, the revolutionary forces transformed the government into an Islamic republic.

Early life

Born in Tehran to Reza Pahlavi and his second wife, Tadj ol-Molouk, Mohammad Reza was the eldest son of the first Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty, and the third of his eleven children. He was born with a twin sister, Ashraf Pahlavi. However, Mohammad Reza, Ashraf, Ali Reza, and their older half-sister, Fatemeh, were born as non-royals, as their father did not become Shah until 1925. Yet Reza Shah was always convinced that his sudden quirk of good fortune had commenced in 1919 with the birth of his son who was dubbed khoshghadam (bird of good omen).

On 21 February 1921, Reza Shah together with Seyyed Zia'eddin Tabatabaee staged a successful coup d'�tat against the reigning Qajar dynasty of Persia. Years later, on 12 December 1925, Reza Shah was declared Shah by the country's National Assembly, the Majlis of Iran. He was crowned in a ceremony on 25 April 1926; at the same time, his son Mohammad Reza was proclaimed Crown Prince of Iran. After the coronation ceremony, a new private school was established on the grounds of the Royal Palace to instruct the Crown Prince and several children selected by the Monarch. The Crown Prince's first close friendships were developed with children permitted to enroll at the school and would consist of Majid A'lam, Mehrpour Teymourtash and Hossein Fardoust. In addition, a Governess by the name of Madam Arfa was hired to provide the Crown Prince private French lessons.

By the time the Crown Prince attained 11 years of age, his father deferred to the recommendation of Abdolhossein Teymourtash to dispatch his son to Institut Le Rosey, a Swiss boarding school for further studies. Mohammad Reza Shah would be represent the first Iranian prince in line for the throne to be sent abroad to attain a foreign education and remained there for the next four years before returning to obtain his high school diploma in Iran in 1936. After returning to the country, the Crown Prince was registered at the local military academy in Tehran where he remained enrolled until 1938.

Early reign

Deposition of his father

In the midst of World War II in 1941, Nazi Germany began Operation Barbarossa and invaded the Soviet Union, breaking the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This had a major impact on Iran, which had declared neutrality in the conflict.

That year British and Soviet forces invaded and occupied Iran, forcing Reza Shah to abdicate. His son, Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, replaced his father on the throne on 16 September 1941. Subsequent to his succession as Shah, Iran became a major conduit for British and, later, American aid to the USSR during the war. This massive supply effort became known as the Persian Corridor, an involvement that would continue to grow until the successful revolution against the Iranian monarchy in 1979.

Much of the credit for orchestrating a smooth transition from Reza Shah to his son was due to the efforts of Mohammad Ali Foroughi. Suffering from angina pectoris, a frail Foroughi was summoned to the Palace and appointed Prime Minister when Reza Shah feared the end of the Pahlavi dynasty once the allies invaded Iran in 1941. When Reza Shah sought his assistance to ensure that the Allies would not put an end to the Pahlavi dynasty, Foroughi put aside his adverse personal sentiments for having been politically sidelined since 1935. The Crown Prince confided in amazement to the British Minister that Foroughi �hardly expected any son of Reza Shah to be a civilized human being� but Foroughi successfully derailed thoughts by the Allies to undertake a more drastic change in the political infrastructure of Iran.

A general amnesty was issued two days after Mohammad Reza Shah's accession to the throne on September 19, 1941. All political personalities who had suffered disgrace during his father�s reign were rehabilitated, and the forced unveiling policy inaugurated by his father in 1935 was overturned. Despite the young Shah's enlightened decisions, the British Minister in Tehran reported to London that "the young Shah received a fairly spontaneous welcome on his first public experience, possibly rather to relief at the disappearance of his father than to public affection for himself.� Reza Shah's years of terror, from the start, would mar the new Shah's prospects of success.

Despite his public professions of admiration in later years, the young Shah had serious misgivings about not only the coarse and roughshod political means adopted by his father, but also his unsophisticated approach to the affairs of the state. As one of Mohammad Reza Shah�s more discerning biographers has recently noted, the young Shah possessed a decidedly more refined temperament, and among the unsavoury developments that �would haunt him when he was king� were the fates visited on Teymourtash; the dismissal of Foroughi by the mid-1930s; and Ali Akbar Davar�s decision to commit suicide in 1937. An even more significant decision that cast a long shadow was the disastrous and one-sided agreement his father had negotiated with APOC in 1933, one which compromised the country's ability to receive more favourable returns from oil extracted from the country.

Oil nationalization and the 1953 coup

By the early 1950s, the political crisis brewing in Iran commanded the attention of British and American policy leaders. In 1951 Dr. Mosaddeq was appointed Prime Minister and committed to nationalizing the Iranian petroleum industry controlled by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. Under the leadership of the nationalist movement of Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq, the Iranian parliament unanimously voted to nationalize the oil industry � thus shutting out the immensely profitable Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), which was a pillar of Britain's economy and provided it political clout in the region.

At the start of the confrontation, American political sympathy was fortcoming from the Truman Administration. In particular, Mossadegh was buoyed by the advice and counsel he was receiving from American Ambassador in Tehran, Henry Grady. However, eventually American decision-makers lost their patience, and by the time a Republican Administration came to office fears that the Communists were poised to overthrow the government became an all consuming concern. Shortly prior to the 1952 presidential elections in the US, the British government invited Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., of the CIA to London to propose collaboration on a secret code named "Operation Ajax" to force Mosaddeq from office.

Under the direction of Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., a senior Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer and grandson of former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, the American CIA and British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) funded and led a covert operation to depose Mosaddeq with the help of military forces loyal to the Shah. Referred to as Operation Ajax. The plot hinged on orders signed by the Shah to dismiss Mosaddeq as prime minister and replace him with General Fazlollah Zahedi � a choice agreed on by the British and Americans.

Despite the high-level coordination and planning, the coup initially failed, causing the Shah to flee to Baghdad, then Rome. As was his inclination in his later political life, the Shah was riddled with indecision when confronted by a political crisis. After a brief exile in Italy, the Shah returned to Iran, this time through a successful second attempt at a coup. A deposed Mosaddeq was arrested, subjected to a show trial, and sentenced to three years of solitary confinement in a military prison, followed by house arrest for life. Zahedi was installed to succeed Prime Minister Mosaddeq.

Before the first attempted coup, the American Embassy in Tehran reported that Mosaddeq's popular support remained robust. The Prime Minister requested direct control of the army from the Majlis to give him direct control of the army. Given the situation, alongside the strong personal support of Eden and Churchill for covert action, the American government gave the go-ahead to a committee, attended by the Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles, Kermit Roosevelt, Ambassador Henderson, and Secretary of Defense Charles Erwin Wilson. Kermit Roosevelt returned to Iran on 13 July 1953, and again on 1 August 1953, in his first meeting with the Shah. A car picked him up at midnight and drove him to the palace. He lay down on the seat and covered himself with a blanket as guards waved his driver through the gates. The Shah got into the car and Roosevelt explained the mission. The CIA provided $1 million in Iranian currency, which Roosevelt had stored in a large safe � a bulky cache, given the exchange rate at the time of 1000 rial to 15 dollars.

The Communists staged massive demonstrations to hijack the Prime Minister�s initiatives. The United States had announced its total lack of confidence in him; and his followers were drifting into indifference. On 16 August 1953, the right wing of the Army reacted. Armed with an order by the Shah, it appointed General Fazlollah Zahedi as prime minister. A coalition of mobs and retired officers close to the Palace attempted what could be described as a coup d��tat. They failed dismally and the Shah fled the country in humiliating haste. Even Ettelaat, the nation�s largest daily newspaper, and its pro-Shah publisher, Abbas Masudi, published negative commentaries on him.

During the following two days, the Communists turned against Mosaddeq. They roamed Tehran raising red flags and pulling down statues of Reza Shah. This frightened the conservative clerics like Kashani and National Front leaders like Makki, who sided with the Shah. On 18 August 1953, Mosaddeq hit back. Tudeh Partisans were clubbed and dispersed.

Tudeh had no choice but to accept defeat. In the meantime, according to the CIA plot, Zahedi appealed to the military, and claimed to be the legitimate prime minister and charged Mosaddeq with staging a coup by ignoring the Shah�s decree. Zahedi�s son Ardeshir acted as the contact between the CIA and his father. On 19 August 1953, pro-Shah partisans - organized with $100,000 in CIA funds - finally appeared and marched out of south Tehran into the city center, where others joined in. Gangs with clubs, knives, and rocks controlled the streets, overturning Tudeh trucks and beating up anti-Shah activists. As Roosevelt was congratulating Zahedi in the basement of his hiding place, the new Prime Minister�s mobs burst in and carried him upstairs on their shoulders. That evening, Ambassador Henderson suggested to Ardashir that Mosaddeq not be harmed. Roosevelt gave Zahedi US$900,000 left from Operation Ajax funds.

To many, U.S. actions further solidified sentiments that the West was a meddlesome influence in Iranian politics. In the year 2000, reflecting on this notion, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright stated:

"In 1953 the United States played a significant role in orchestrating the overthrow of Iran's popular Prime Minister, Mohammed Massadegh. The Eisenhower Administration believed its actions were justified for strategic reasons; but the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs."

The Shah returned to power, but never extended the elite status of the court to the technocrats and intellectuals who emerged from Iranian and Western universities. Indeed, his system irritated the new classes, for they were barred from partaking in real power.

The Shah was a strong supporter and patron of the Iran Scout Organization. A stamp showing the Shah in Scout's uniform was issued in 1956. In 1960 during a state visit the Shah was awarded the highest award of Pfadfinder �sterreichs (Silberner Steinbock am rot-wei�-rotten Band), the National Scout Organisation of Austria.

Assassination attempts

The Shah was the target of two unsuccessful assassination attempts. On 4 February 1949, the Shah attended an annual ceremony to commemorate the founding of Tehran University. At the ceremony, Fakhr-Arai fired five shots at the Shah at a range of ten feet. Only one of the shots hit the Shah and his cheek was grazed. Fakhr-Arai was instantly shot by nearby officers. After an investigation, it was determined that Fakhr-Arai was a member of the Tudeh Party, which was subsequently banned. However, there is evidence that the would-be assassin was not a Tudeh member but a religious fundamentalist member of Fada'iyan-e Islam. The Tudeh was nonetheless blamed and persecuted.

The second attempt on the Shah's life occurred on 10 April 1965. A soldier shot his way through the Marble Palace. The assassin was killed before he reached the Shah's quarters. Two civilian guards died protecting the Shah.

According to Vladimir Kuzichkin � a former KGB officer who defected to the SIS � the Shah was also allegedly targeted by the Soviet Union, who tried to use a TV remote control to detonate a bomb-laden Volkswagen Beetle. The TV remote failed to function. A high-ranking Romanian defector Ion Mihai Pacepa also supported this claim, asserting that he had been the target of various assassination attempts by Soviet agents for many years.

Later years

Foreign relations

The Shah supported the Yemeni royalists against republican forces in the Yemen Civil War (1962�70) and assisted the sultan of Oman in putting down a rebellion in Dhofar (1971). Concerning the fate of Bahrain (which Britain had controlled since the 19th century, but which Iran claimed as its own territory) and three small Persian Gulf islands, the Shah negotiated an agreement with the British, which, by means of a public consensus, ultimately led to the independence of Bahrain (against the wishes of Iranian nationalists). In return, Iran took full control of Greater and Lesser Tunbs and Abu Musa in the Strait of Hormuz , three strategically sensitive islands which were claimed by the United Arab Emirates.

During this period, the Shah maintained cordial relations with the Persian Gulf states and established close diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia. Relations with Iraq, however, were often difficult due to political instability in the latter country. The Shah was distrustful of both the Socialist government of Abd al-Karim Qasim and the Arab nationalist Baath party. He financed Kurdish separatist rebels, and to cover his tracks, armed them with Soviet weapons which Israel had seized from Soviet-backed Arab regimes, and then handed over to Iran at the Shah's behest. The initial operation was a disaster, but the Shah continued attempts to support the rebels and weaken Iraq. Then in 1975, the countries signed the Algiers Accord, which granted Iraq equal navigation rights in the Shatt al-Arab river, while the Shah agreed to end his support for Iraqi Kurdish rebels.

The Shah also maintained close relations with King Hussein of Jordan, Anwar Sadat of Egypt, and King Hassan II of Morocco.

On July 1964, Shah Pahlavi, Turkish President Cemal G�rsel and Pakistani President Ayub Khan announced in Istanbul the establishment of the Regional Cooperation for Development (RCD) organization to promote joint transportation and economic projects. It also envisioned Afghanistan's joining some time in the future.

The Shah maintained close relations with Pakistan also. During the Second Indian-Pakistani war of 1965 between Pakistan and India, the Shah provided free fuel to the Pakistani planes, which landed on Iranian soil, refueled and then took flight.

The Shah of Iran was the first Muslim leader to recognize the State of Israel, although when interviewed on CBS 60 Minutes by reporter Mike Wallace, he criticized American Jews for their presumed control over US media and finance.

In 1982, however, the New York Times reported that during the Shah's reign, half of the arms supplied to Iran were "being supplied or arranged by Israel".

Modernization and autocracy

With Iran's great oil wealth, Mohammad Reza Shah became the pre-eminent leader of the Middle East, and self-styled "Guardian" of the Persian Gulf. In 1961 he defended his autocractic rule, saying `When the when iranians learn to behave like swedes, I will behave like the King of Sweden.

During the last years of his regime he became increasingly despotic. In the words of a US Embassy dispatch, �The Shah�s picture is everywhere. The beginning of all film showings in public theaters presents the Shah in various regal poses accompanied by the strains of the National anthem... The monarch also actively extends his influence to all phases of social affairs...there is hardly any activity or vocation which the Shah or members of his family or his closest friends do not have a direct or at least a symbolic involvement. In the past, he had claimed to take a two party-system seriously and declared �If I were a dictator rather than a constitutional monarch, then I might be tempted to sponsor a single dominant party such as Hitler organized�.

However, by 1975, he abolished the multi-party system of government so that he could rule through a one-party state under the Rastakhiz (Resurrection) Party in autocratic fashion. All Iranians were pressured to join in. The Shah�s own words on its justification was; �We must straighten out Iranians� ranks. To do so, we divide them into two categories: those who believe in Monarchy, the constitution and the Six Bahman Revolution and those who don�t.... A person who does not enter the new political party and does not believe in the three cardinal principles will have only two choices. He is either an individual who belongs to an illegal organization, or is related to the outlawed Tudeh Party, or in other words a traitor. Such an individual belongs to an Iranian prison, or if he desires he can leave the country tomorrow, without even paying exit fees; he can go anywhere he likes, because he is not Iranian, he has no nation, and his activities are illegal and punishable according to the law�. In addition, the Shah had decreed that all Iranian citizens and the few remaining political parties must become part of Rastakhiz.

Achievements

The Shah made major changes to curb the power of certain ancient elite factions by expropriating large and medium-sized estates for the benefit of more than four million small farmers. In the White Revolution, he took a number of major modernization measures, including extending suffrage to women, much to the discontent and opposition of the Islamic clergy, the participation of workers in factories through shares and other measures, the improvement of the educational system through new elementary schools and literacy courses set up in remote villages by the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces. The latter step was called "Sepāh e Dānesh", "Army of Knowledge". As part of the White Revolution, the Armed Forces were engaged in infrastructural and other educational projects throughout the country ("Sepāh e Tarvij va �bādāni") as well as in health education and promotion ("Sepāh e Behdāsht"). Moreover, he instituted exams for Islamic theologians to become established clerics. As a further step, in the seventies the governmental program of a free of charge nourishment for children at school ("Taghzieh e Rāigān") was implemented. Under the Shah's reign, the national Iranian income showed an unprecedented rise.

In the field of diplomacy, Iran realized and maintained friendly relations with Western and East European countries as well as the state of Israel and China and became, especially through the close friendship with the United States, more and more a hegemonial power in the Persian Gulf region and the Middle East. The suppression of the communist guerilla movement in the region of Dhofar in Oman with the help of the Iranian army after a formal request by Sultan Qaboos was widely regarded in this context. As to infrastructural and technological progress, the Shah continued and developed further the policies introduced by his father. As part of his programs, projects in several technologies, such as steel, telecommunications, petrochemical facilities, power plants, dams and the automobile industry may be named.

In terms of cultural activities, international cooperations were encouraged and organized, such as the Shiraz Arts Festival. Many Iranian students were sent to and supported in foreign, especially Western countries and the Indian subcontinent. The Aryamehr University of Technology was established as a major new academic institution.

Revolution

The overthrow of the Shah came as a surprise to almost all observers. The first militant anti-Shah demonstrations of a few hundred started in October 1977, after the death of Khomeini's son Mostafa. A year later strikes were paralyzing the country, and in early December a "total of 6 to 9 million" � more than 10% of the country � marched against the Shah throughout Iran.

On 16 January 1979, he and his wife left Iran at the behest of Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar (a long time opposition leader himself), who sought to calm the situation. Spontaneous attacks by members of the public on statues of the Pahlavis followed, and "within hours, almost every sign of the Pahlavi dynasty" was destroyed. Bakhtiar dissolved SAVAK, freed all political prisoners, and allowed the Ayatollah Khomeini to return to Iran after years in exile. He asked Khomeini to create a Vatican-like state in Qom, promised free elections and called upon the opposition to help preserve the constitution, proposing a 'national unity' government including Khomeini's followers. Khomeini fiercely rejected Dr. Bakhtiar's demands and appointed his own interim government, with Mehdi Bazargan as prime minister, demanding "since I have appointed him he must be obeyed." In February, pro-Khomeini Revolutionary guerrilla and rebel soldiers gained the upper hand in street fighting and the military announced their neutrality. On the evening of 11 February the dissolution of the monarchy was complete.

Exile and death

During his second exile, the Shah traveled from country to country seeking what he hoped would be temporary residence. initially, he stayed in Egypt, where he received a warm and gracious welcome from President Anwar El-Sadat. He later lived in Morocco as a guest of King Hassan II, as well as in the Bahamas, and in Cuernavaca in Mexico near Mexico City, as a guest of Jose Lopez Portillo but he suffered from stones in his gallbladder and common bile duct that would require prompt surgery. He was offered treatment in Switzerland but insisted on treatment in the United States.

On 22 October 1979, at the request of David Rockefeller, President Jimmy Carter reluctantly allowed the Shah into the United States to undergo surgical treatment at the New York�Weill Cornell Medical Hospital. The Shah was taken later by U.S. Air Force jet to Kelly Air Force Base in Texas and from there to Wilford Hall Medical Centre in Lackland Air Force Base. It was anticipated that his stay in the U.S. would be short; however, surgical complications ensued which required six weeks of confinement in the hospital before he recovered. His prolonged stay in the U.S. was extremely unpopular with the revolutionary movement in Iran, which still resented the United States' overthrow of Prime Minister Mosaddeq and the years of support for the Shah's rule. The Iranian government demanded his return to Iran to stand trial but Shah had to leave U.S. before he would get turned over.

There are claims that this resulted in the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, and the kidnapping of American diplomats, military personnel and intelligence officers, which soon became known as the Iran hostage crisis. According to the Shah's book, Answer to History, in the end the USA never provided the Shah any kind of health care and asked him to leave the country.

He left the United States on 15 December 1979, and lived for a short time in the Isla Contadora in Panama. The new government in Iran still demanded his and his wife's immediate extradition to Tehran. A short time after the Shah's arrival, an Iranian ambassador was dispatched to the Central American nation carrying a 450 page extradition request. That official appeal greatly alarmed both the Shah and his advisors. Whether the Panamanian government would have complied is a matter of speculation among historians.

After that event, the Shah again sought the support of Egyptian president Anwar El-Sadat, who renewed his offer of permanent asylum in Egypt to the ailing monarch. The Shah returned to Egypt in March 1980, where he received urgent medical treatment but nevertheless died from complications of non-Hodgkin lymphoma on 27 July 1980, aged 60. Egyptian President Sadat gave the Shah a state funeral.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is buried in the Al Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo, a mosque of great symbolic importance. The last royal rulers of two monarchies are buried there, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran and King Farouk of Egypt, his former brother-in-law. The tombs lie off to the left of the entrance. Years earlier, his father and predecessor, Reza Shah Pahlavi had also initially been buried at the Al Rifa'i Mosque.