Interview with Reza Pahlavi: 'Iran Is My True and Only Home'

Reza Pahlavi, son of the late shah of Iran, has lived in exile in the United States since 1979. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he reveals how he has aided the recent opposition protests, why he believes Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has lost his legitimacy as supreme leader and his hopes of returning home.

Pahlavi: I have been politically active in opposition to the clerical regime in Iran for the past 29 years. Throughout these years, I have maintained broad-based contact with a variety of Iranian groups

Pahlavi: Yes, I am. I spend most of my time communicating with people in Iran -- not just reformers and protestors, but also with ordinary Iranians who suffer quietly under injustice, social and economic decline. Their concerns are of utmost importance to me.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are you directly and personally involved in anything that's going on in Iran right now? After all, they're trying to overthrow a regime which toppled your father.

Pahlavi: The movement born on June 12 has generated an unprecedented and broadest support of Iranians of all walks of life. I have done my share to support this movement of the people and to help them voice their cry for freedom.

It was written originally by Wilber, but of course contributed to by others, chiefly Roosevelt.

If you did indeed read it then you know how difficult it was for them to get reza to act

Why do you take the "report" at face value, when even President Eisenhower (the addressate of the report) didn't give too much credence to it?

Especially Roosevelt's account is more a work of selfserving fiction than fact... and quite transparently so.

they did resort to using his sister to shame him into action

You again cling to the CIA report as if it's the one true account.

To give some detail:

Wilber (CIA) claims that he met Ashraf Pahlavi at the Riviera and persuaded her to give the Shah a letter noting that Schwarzkopf would give further instructions.

That's false.

According to Woodhouse (Britain) she was approached in Switzerland.

According to Ashraf herself, it was in Paris. And she never reached the Shah.

Indeed she was send out of Iran by both the Shah and Mosaddeq. The letter was passed on to the Shah's younger brother Hamid Reza.

It is apparent that Wilber's account is challenged from multiple sides, and that the evidence shows that Ashraf wasn't able "to shame her brother" at all.

Regardless of that, I fail to see why it would be "shameful" had she indeed played that role.

Ashraf was a very intelligent and strong-willed woman who did everything in her power to help her country and her brother. She negotiated forcefully with Stalin (she was 27 years old), who was mightily impressed by her, over the Soviet occupied North of Iran, had a key role in promoting women rights in Iran and was a forceful diplomat for Iran internationally. That her brother would trust her advice and input is somehow shameful?

they did in fact describe him as "pathologically afraid".

I never disputed that they indeed called him that. But as shown from his record he wasn't a coward, and the reliability of the CIA report, is as shown, dubious at best. The motive was clear: inflating the clout of the CIA to impress upon Eisenhower.

iow, believe SW instead of an actual de-classified document written by the men who were there. I think not.

IOW you take at face value a document written by men who had a motive in promoting themselves. Do you take everything with "CIA" on it as gospel truth? Please...

The CIA report was challenged by other men and women who were there.

Some of the claims made in it, almost the whole part written by Roosevelt, is disproven. If you want I can delve into the details.

Lastly, if even Eisenhower mistrusted the report, why do you trust it blindly?

P.S.:

Wilber's "CIA report" was not only scrutinized by Eisenhower and challenged by the account of Ardeshir Zahedi (along with Roosevelt's even more adventurous work of fiction: "Countercoup" )and Ashraf Pahlavi, but is also at odds with the accounts of the British agents involved (Cavendish, Verrier and Woodhouse from the MI6).

There is no way to get around it... the CIA agents involved wanted to milk the successful coup to the maximum extent and after the fait accompli exaggerated it's own limited contribution, downplaying and grossly distorting both the part of the British and Iranians involved. Much of what Wilber wrote in his "secret report" was what the CIA planned or wanted to do, but not what it actually did.

Ironically enough, while the CIA was internally and after 1979 (Roosevelts book) painting the Shah as a weak puppet, the Shah in his Memoirs (1979) respectfully called Kermit Roosevelt a good friend and neither denies, nor exaggerates his actual role.

wtc911, I enjoy discussing with you the facts and accounts of the events... I am giving counter-accounts by those involved to a report you unwarrantedly take 100% at face value, without even questioning it's context or purpose.

However you seem to be more interested in snarky phrases as in post #22.

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