Posted on 12/30/2009 6:53:10 AM PST by nuconvert
Britain despatched an undercover diplomat on a covert mission to the Bahamas to convince the deposed Shah of Iran not to seek to settle in the UK.
The revelation comes in official archive documents made public 30 years after they were written.
The 1979 papers reveal that the British government was very concerned that Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, then in exile, would seek to live in England.
But Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was upset she could not help the Shah.
Mrs Thatcher told her foreign minister she was "deeply unhappy" not to be able to offer refuge to the Shah whom she said had been a "firm and helpful friend to the UK".
She somewhat unwillingly accepted the advice of the foreign office that to allow the Shah to settle on his estate in the countryside just outside London would generate security problems and put the staff at the British embassy in Tehran at risk.
Prime Minister James Callaghan, who wa defeated by Mrs Thatcher at elections in 1979, made the decision while still in office, writing: "He is an immensely controversial figure in Iran and we must consider our future with that country. He will need to make interim arrangements".
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
pong
Meanwhile, our worthless excuse for a President, sold the Shah down the river and set up the extremism and death we see over there today.
Let us not forget that Iran was our best Arab friend over there at the time.
Interesting... The Shah was reported to have been deeply disappointed when informed that Thatcher, who previously spoke out in favor of giving him refuge, wouldn't make good on her promise.
This sheds some more light to the matter.
One of the real culprits for the disaster in Iran was not to a small part the reporting of the BBC, which was going to great lengths to push the agenda for Khomeini and other enemies of the Shah.
The MSM hasn't changed much I guess.
You certainly mean our best friend in the Middle Eastern/Islamic world. Iran is not Arab, but Iranian (Persians and related people) which are linguistically and racially indo-germanic people, unlike the semitic Arabs.
The Shah and his family also lived here in the Republic of Panama for a while. I can look it up (but not right now) what caused the Shah and family to move out of Panama.
Oh wait...now I remember. (No lie). The Panamanian crooked government wanted a big bribe. (Kind of like our U.S. of A. crooks.) How awful. From here, I believe he went to Egypt where he died of cancer. (He was ill with cancer much before his move to Egypt.)
By the way, under the new Panamanian President, Martinelli, all these crooks are on their way to jail no matter to what political party they belong...just like Sarah Palin did in Alaska when governor.
He probably is the first honest president Panama has ever had. I love this man…he, Cheney, and Sarah.
Thank you for the ping.
Indeed. Omar Torrijos, the crook-in-chief of Panama (Carter’s leftist buddy) extorted the Shah and ripped off his family during their short exile, before he was preparing to sell him to Khomeini’s thugs.
Fortunately the Pahlavis got out in the last second.
Carter was a total POS (Reagan called him out on that) in his treatment of the Shah (wait... Carter is a POS in every respect). He had his minions make the Shah’s stay in the US for cancer treatment as uncomfortable as possible, harassing him at every turn to get him out.
Iran is not Arab.
This is true. Thatcher was in favor of allowing the Shah settle in the UK.
But, "security problems and put staff at British Embassy in Tehran at risk" were not the only reasons. Other, perhaps more important, reasons were the British gov't feared IRI would retalitate in commercial and economic ways e.g. Oil.
Actually, trade and economics were also the other main obstacles (or risks) for many other governments, who refused to provide a refuge or permit the Shah from settling in their country.
I venture to say that these (trade & economics) remain the risks which many gov'ts are still unwilling to take, despite IRI's track record of terrorism by proxy and atrocious Human Rights violations in Iran.
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