or resurrection party was formed at the shars instance, all legal parties and trade unions had to be merged into it. soon after, membership in the party became mandatory. in one of his speeches, the shah noted, all people are required to join the party if they want to show their good faith to the throne, otherwise they have to leave the country, and if they don't leave the country, they will be sent to prison. the regime announced that passports would be issued for those not interested in the party. mahmoud jafaryan, the vice president of rasaaki's party, who was once involved in communist activities, said it doesn't make any difference to be leftist or rightest if you're going to be disloyal to your country. shah seemed to be reasonably in control. he had started new political system there called the is a resurgence party. the idea was you have one party, but different views could be. in the

party, the revolution was still in its early stages and the authorities attacked religious and secular opponents on every occasion, but taking down the opposition groups got the regime really in trouble, it all was mentally unpopular within. um the iranian uh within iran uh he was sick, he was dying of cancer, he wasn't at the end of he didn't have perhaps all his faculties, the way he governed was flaught with everything centralized control, so if anything happened to him the government was paralyzed to do anything uh, i think i think he was he had serious problems no matter what happened, his his son was uh was in no shape to take over after him, nor did the iranian people really in want that, i think i think it was a... revolt

uh, i've read professor zonas's book and i, i think it's a fascinating psychological portrait, uh, but i've also talked to number of people who dealt with the shaw, iranians and american government officials, and their experience was of a an extremely arrogant figure who uh simply did not brook any kind of opposition uh whatsoever uh and was in control of uh every meeting that he walked into. uh and so um, i don't have to reconcile these images and it's certainly possible that this uh forceful uh proud uh presentation might have crumbled in the face of unprecedented popular unrest in the face of his own illness of course having been diagnosed with cancer. in november 1977,

the shah made made a visit to the united states. the police had to use tear gas to disperse anti-shah protesters during president carter speech in front of the white house. the media captured the shah and the president shedding tears, a scene many revolutionary groups liked. during the visit, carter fully supported. the shah and the shah announced his agreement on fixing the price of oil to make decisions himself based on no knowledge of anything uh how serious he was uh and what would that have actually happened have happened it's hard to say it's clear that he uh he was not friendly toward the shah in fact we refused him in mission to the united states even to seek medical treatment.

uh, and whether the us would have ceased arm sales to any dictatorship, probably would not have happened since there are so many, and they depend down the us. depends heavily on arm sales uh, but who knows?insky, well that will be, we have to announce it on the air so it doesn't look peculiar. your majesty, are you being sold weapons in the united states in part so that you can uh defend our point of view? well, i can't uh really uh... see what that means, but if you say that we are allies, i can say, yes, we are allies. in his official visit to iran, president carter of the united states said, the military alliance

between iran and america is indestructible. just a week later, it newspaper published insult to ayatollah komeini an article by ahmed. the article hurt public feelings and rocked the country. the epicenter was the city of comum. one of the most staggering things to me about

the revolution and the american attitude to the revolution was the failure of american policymakers to understand just how weak the shar of iran was. i'm... not talking about weak militarily or weak in the sense of not having a good police force, i'm talking about weak in terms of a character structure. let me give you an example, so jimmy carter is the president of the united states and jimmy carter thinks that the shavaran is really tough guy, and so how are we going to deal with this really tough guy? i mean, how do you deal with guy who walking around these medals, right? how do you deal with tough guy? well, the united states has this ambassador. the philippines, and this ambassador in the philippines, william sullavan, he's been dealing with marcos and he's been doing a great job and everybody knows marcos is really tough dude, so let's send sullivan from the philippines to tehron, because he knows how to handle tough guys, we

don't have anybody else who's as good with tough guys, so sullivan, who doesn't know anything about the middle east, who does know anything about iran, and he admits this, he wrote a book, then he says this in his book, didn't know anything about iran, he had never... served in the middle east, he had always been out there in asia, he shows up in terron. now, what was the style with which american ambassadors dealt with the shaw? this was the style, american ambassador would go to see the show once a week, there was always a fixed time for meeting, and the shaw would welcome him and the show, and they'd chat a little bit of small talk, and then the shah would say, i have come up with this brilliant plan for the future of my country, we are going to build a super highway from tehran to mashad all the way across northern tehen. and it's going to cost us such and such and it'll take so long to build this and that's what's going to happen and the american ambassador would say something like your majesty this is a brilliant plan, only you could have thought up the strategy for prosp making your country prosperous, it's going to be great, but i have one slight suggestion, maybe instead of building the

super highway you should pay some roads from the villages to the main road so that farmers could get their crops out to market and that would increase. looks at him and he says, your majesty, you're the shah, whatever you think is right, that's what you should do. the shah was stunned. what do you think the shah heard when ambassador sellivan said, you're the shah, whatever you want to do is you should do. sullivan was being honest, he didn't know

what the hell to do in iran cuz he hadn't didn't know anything about iran, and he figured the shah's a tough guy, he had been there for a long time, if that's what shot was right, that's what he should do, the shah didn't hear that, what the shot. heard was you should do whatever you want to do, meaning the government of the united states doesn't care what you do, we don't give a damn what, you do whatever you want to do, meaning we don't care about you anymore, opinion is divided as to whether the shah was conscious of his illness, but one thing is for sure, during the last years of his reign, the shah was always in

in gas prison went a hunger strike. as the newer reigning year of 1357 came in, ayatullah khumeini issued a proclamation paying tribute to tabris martters and attacking the united states of america. he said, the us is the root cause of the hardship we're suffering, because it supports the despotic shah. the shah had kept his cancer secret even from his nearest and dearest, but the symptoms of the disease. were undeniable, the shah's inability to make decisions was one. the shah was ill, we did

not know the shaw was ill, uh, in fact i've got a a thing going with gary sick, uh, i, i learned from very good source um, that the the americans didn't learn about it until october, now sick, who was the white house national security council person, says that no, they never didn't hear about it. till then they didn't hear about it till almost six months later. clearly if we had known the shaw was ill, we would have seen the problem not as one of political adjustment, but of regime survival, and we would have everybody would have behaved differently in that case. there were rumors that the shaw was not well, but even after he left the country, he, he had pictures of him playing tennis, he he was a man who was very fit uh, and uh, he gave the impression of being in perfectly good health, and truly uh, we didn't know about

it, and uh, there are lots of people who say, oh, you must have known, well we didn't, it actually would have made huge difference, and the fact is the shaw fully understood that if people knew that he had cancer, they would change their policy toward iran, because they would know that he wasn't going to be there a few years, so they would change... policy and they and it's true, but in fact this the cia formally concluded in august of 1978 that the shaw of iran was in no serious trouble and that he would be around for many years to come for the next 5 to 10 years. if we had known something about his condition, we could have gone to him and said, look, we're talking about regime survival here, do you want your son to be? in the streets after you're gone, well then maybe we better, so i told charlie, i could even write that, set of

talking points, but nobody, nobody thought the unthinkable until it was too late, absolutely committed to the show, at least through the gel square riots, either in my book or in one of the other stories about the times that the jolly, the shaw before the shaw moved against. shally square riders, you want to know if it was all right with the american, if it was okay with the americans, and brizinski told him on the telephone, it's a it's a problem of order, of course we would be behind you if you do that, and then i learned from my iranian friends later something, well lashad didn't really believe and he says, yeah, yeah, we'll go around and kill him and then we'll take the heat later, but marvin zonas says, he had no balls, on april 14th, 1978, asadullah alam died from cancer in new york city, the shah lost his

chief advisor. remember that the pillar of the regime, the really tough guy who really helped the shot to be strong and as tough as he needed to be, and i think we have to be very sympathetic here. it was not easy to be the shah of iran, and the shah was a weak character, found it especially difficult to be the shavaran, which is what's wrong with hereditary monarchies, i mean his. father was a real tough guy, the show wasn't a tough guy, so who was the guy that made him tough? asadola alam, his boy at friend, the guy was prime minister when i first arrived in iran and homani was arrested. and the shahs didn't know what to do and alam said to the shah go out and shoot these guys and you'll stay in power and he did it. alam died of cancer before just before the iranian revolution began, so the shah lost a tremendously important advisor. as the revolution gained

momentum in iran, the shah blamed the u.s. for withdrawing its support, having no idea how influential the clurgy were in leading the revolution. meanwhile, henry kissinger, the u.s. secretary of state, came to iran to meet with the shah, but neither the americans nor the shah's men had finger on the pulse of the revolution. barking on the wrong tree, they had been focusing their attention just on lefttest. forces for several years,

there is no doubt that was successful in extending his influence of the whole middle east, and not just iran. as an iranian religious scholar and political leader, he managed to make his country, the world's first islamic republic. being an outspoken critic of the regime, ayatollah komeini used to denounce the shar's programs. in a proclamation issued by him and undersigned by eight senior islamic scholars, the ayatollah specified the shar's violations of the iranian constitution and condemned him for corrupting public. on the dawn of november 4th, 1964, the shah's commandos surrounded. they arrested him and took him directly to mehrabad airport in tehran. soon after he was flown out of iran to turkey, out of sight,

out of mind, that was the rational behind his exile. the stay in turkey was not. genial, for turkish law didn't allow ayat komeini to wear the cloak and turbin of the muslim scholar. on september 5th, 1965, he left turkey for najaf in iraq, where he would stay for 13 years. on october 23rd, 1977, mustafa komeini, the ayatullah's son, passed away in najaf, defending. national independence, ayatullah khumeini chastised the shas regime, saying, we witnessed that while muslims were in war with israeli forces, iran's government recognized the israeli state on the shar's orders. in 1978, mass protests were organized to support ayatollah komeini. the regime, as

usual, responded with iron fist. alarm bells had started. ring, i don't think on the part of official washington there ever was much understanding of the ayatollah, there were some few academics who had tracked his sermons, were aware of his his views from for those years, he he was in exile in iraq, and then that sudden appearance in the... paris suburbs, it didn't really penetrate official thinking in washington, who he was, what, what he was, i mean the shah knew him as an enemy, and that was i think that was it, black and white enemy. ayat komeini was in the neighboring country of iraq and it was too close for comfort. at the shah instance,

the iraqi regime asked the ayatollah to give up his political. activities, otherwise he had to leave the country. in october 1978, ayatollah khumeini flew from iraq to new exile in a suburb of paris. by that time, the ayatullah had developed an international reputation as the spiritual and political leader of the iranian revolution. being thousands of kilometers away from his homeland, ayatullah komeini set the course of the revolution, urging iranians not to compromise. and ordering work stoppages against the regime. during the last few months of his exile, the ayatullah received a constant stream of reporters, supporters and notable personalities. all eager to hear the leader of the revolution speak,

i was a journalist during the revolution, they said, oh, the ayatollah homani is coming to paris. "it's a very old story. 41 years ago i arrived here, he just told me like a grandfather. you know, the the the interesting part of the story is not me. i'm not the one important, what is important is to continue what you have done in iran. someone called me telling me, you should come to paris quickly, because the imam komaini is going back to terran and we want you to be in the place." the imam khumeni during the flight was sleeping upstairs, when the imam arrived from paris with a special plane, the

first stop he made was here and it was a way to say, now i am in charge, it's finished, the time of of the show is over. it speaks with me, the saint of the soil, from the blood and the ashes, it speaks with

me the sound of the rain, from the battle, and the victory, victory, victory. palestine, i free you, oh palestine, i free you, oh palestine, i free you, my every

prayer is a cry to my enemy, and i cry out, cry out, cry out to the evil enemy. the flame within my heart will burn you, i cry out, and the thunder in my voice will deafhen you, i cry out, and the tornado within my soul, will, will you away. my bleeding wonn once felt, those on forgotten, but aking

sorrow in me never gone, i raise it will, my anger and love, love of my. anger at your deeds, raise it with my anger and love, love of my land, anger at your dead, wounded by hatred. i'm breathing, breathing, breathing, the magic perfume of my own land palestine,

wondered in love. my hands turn around the branches of the olive tree, seeking peace, seeking peace, but as long as the pillows of our children are drenching blood, as long as you have the thone brown of evil force, i'm a flaming thunder. tornado, and i cry out, i cry out, i pray you, i missed you, oh my son, i pray you,

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