The Shah and I

Asadollah Alam (1919-1978) served as Prime Minister of Iran from 1962 to 1964 and then was appointed Chancellor of Shiraz University. From that post he got bumped upstairs, so to speak, to serve as Minister of Court until ill health forced his retirement in 1977.

Alam was a member of an aristocratic Iranian family whose wealth and titles predated the upstart Pahlavis. He befriended Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who went on to succeed his father, Reza, as Shah of Iran when the British and Americans forced Reza to abdicate. As a trusted friend and political advisor, with connections to Parliament, the diplomatic community, the university, and world leaders on every continent, Alam was the Shah's conduit for nearly all the daily affairs of Iran, not to mention those of the Pahlavi family and their personal circle.

A diligent diarist (the best kind) Alam covers the years 1969 to 1977 with near daily entries, some quite detailed and candid. Each volumes was deposited by Alam annually in a Swiss bank. After his death, his wife and children retrieved the diaries and eventually arranged for their translation and publication. It must have been difficult for the Alam family to share these diaries, given the frequency with which Asadollah mentions spending time with his lover (never named) and other more casual encounters with young women often during those times he and the Shah got away from the confines of the palaces.

According to the introductory notes, the diaries were edited only to remove repetitive details of court life and in a few cases to suppress the names of individuals who were still living in Iran when the book was publishes. The end result is an unusually comprehensive document covering the last years of the Shah's reign representing personal and official perspectives. Chief among the virtues of this book are the diarist's less than diplomatic private reactions to the oil company executives, diplomats, military leaders, politicians, the rich and the famous, in office or out, who made Tehran a regular stop on jet-set itineraries and junkets.

Alam sincerely admired the Shah's accomplishments as a political leader. What's more he considered him to be the personification of the nation of Iran in much the same way the Russian Tsar or the Emperor of Japan were once held to be in their respective homelands. It's amusing to read about Alam and the Shah's efforts to predict the outcomes of party nominations and presidential elections and their resultant dealings with all the new people each successive president would appoint.

As the years go by Alam becomes increasingly careful how and when he presents new approaches to old problem. The result is that just when flexibility and speed are critical, the government slows down, awaiting one person to be deemed to be in a receptive mood. It's impossible to say how much Alam actually succeeded in moderating the Shah's opinions and ideas which grew increasingly conservative as the years passed. OTOH, it's fair so say he helped lower the Shah's blood pressure and ease those final years on the throne somewhat.

By the mid 1970's Alam's growing awareness of unrest that went much deeper than complaints about profiteering by local businesses or efforts to pin the "blame" on a few "leftists" aping the student demonstrations of American and Western European students of the previous decade. From this point on entries express increasing frustration with his inability to get the Shah to take steps to solve the problems, to share governance with elected officials, to curb the activities of the SAVAK or to allow a more representative government.

Alas, despite his sense that a storm was developing, he never accurately judged where it was coming from. It's pointless to speculate what his reactions would have bee had he lived 2 or 3 more years but a reader unfamiliar with the overthrow of the Shah and the establishment of a theocratic form of government in Iran could be excused if he or she were dumbfounded that the Pahlavi dynasty fell as a result of a growing Islamic fundamentalism. As described in the diaries Alam and the Shah were of one opinion --that Iran had successfully transitioned to a secular nation and with religious leaders united in support of the Pahlavi regime.

For a 2010 look at the situation in Tehran, take a look at this: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/16/100816fa_fact_anderson

I think Alam would have been pleased to learn that people are still hiking (and perhaps still riding horseback) in his beloved Alborz Mountains.