The Shah's Iran - Rise and Fall

Conversations with an Insider

Abdolreza Ansari, Katayoon Ansari-Biglari, Katayoon Ansari-Biglari

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781786721648
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Biografías políticas

A chance encounter diverted Abdolreza Ansari from completing his PHD in the US, and set him on a professional journey which mirrored the prolific rise and the precipitous fall of the regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran. Ansari's government career took off when he became Iran's Treasurer General at the age of 32. In this role he restructured the fiscal management of the country and revamped its social security system. He was appointed Minister of Labor and Social Affairs at 34, where he created the Workers' Welfare Bank to support the labour force of the country. As Iran was about to enter a period of rapid development, Ansari was called upon to take charge of the largest development project of the time, the construction of the Dez Dam in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan. Subsequently, Ansari was appointed Minister of Interior where he conducted national parliamentary and city council elections in a single day for the first time in Iran's history. His plan for the urban rehabilitation of towns and population centres continues to be the basis for municipal governance to this day. Ansari's political career was derailed following a cabinet reshuffle.
However, he was hand-picked by the Shah to manage the many charitable organizations headed by the monarch's twin sister, Princess Ashraf Pahlavi. When the Iranian government began preparations for the commemoration of Iran's 2500 years of continued monarchical rule, he was appointed deputy head of the celebration's organizing committee. Prior to the 1979 Revolution, he initiated, introduced and implemented the programmes of Protection of Families and the National Movement for Philanthropy. Ansari's proximity to the Iranian royal court including the Shah and Princess Ashraf and his encounters with a multitude of well-known personalities make these conversations a unique and valuable historical source for the pre-revolutionary period in Iran."

1

From Birth to Employment

What is the background of your family life, education and youth? And then, your trajectory into government service?

Abdolreza Ansari: My father, Colonel Mohammad-Hossein Ansari, was killed in Bojnourd (north-east Iran near the Turkmenistan border) in 1925, before I was born. My mother was the daughter of Brigadier General Ahmad Khan Shirloo, the army commander in Kermanshah (north-west Iran on the Iraq border). My father, also, lost his father at a young age and was placed under the care of his uncle, Major General Mahmood Ansari, titled Amir Eghtedar.1 He went to school with his cousins, entered the military, rose up the ranks to lieutenant colonel, and was sent to Khorasan Province (north-east Iran) on a mission. Preparations for his wedding were made in Tehran, while the groom was in Mashhad (principal city of Khorasan) and the bride’s father was in Kermanshah. The bride was sent to her husband by a carriage escorted with several armed guards. My parents lived together for seven months before my father was sent on another mission to Bojnourd, where he lost his life during a clash with Turkmen rebels. Subsequently, my mother returned to her father’s home in Tehran.

I have to mention that all the men in my family were in the military: my father, grandfather, many relatives on both sides, and nearly all the people that I knew. The reason was that my ancestors had emigrated from the Caucasus region. They were Iranians who, prior to the Russo-Persian wars of the early nineteenth century, were chieftains in the tribes residing in Karabagh, Yerevan and Nakhchivan. Following the capture of 17 towns in the South Caucasus by the Russians, these chieftains refused to submit to the occupiers’ flag; they crossed the Aras River and settled on the Iranian side. Because they were warriors and spoke Russian, they entered the Iranian military’s Cossack units called ‘Ghazzagh-Khaneh’ and quickly rose through the ranks. After the establishment of the modern Iranian military, Reza Shah, who was familiar with their background and abilities, placed them in key military and government posts. For example, in 1921, a few months after the military coup (the 3rd of Esfand coup), when Reza Khan (then known as Commander of the Army Sardar Sepah) removed Tehran’s military commander, Colonel Kazem Khan Sayyah, he replaced him with my uncle, Brigadier General Mahmood Khan Ansari, who later became Reza Khan’s Minister of Post and Telegraph and the Minister of the Interior.

In Tehran, I grew up in the neighbourhoods of Amiriyeh, Shahpour Avenue, Agha Sheik Hadi Bazaar, and the Hassanabad area. Nearly all my relatives lived in those parts of the city, and because we lived in close proximity with each other, we socialised constantly among ourselves. Two characteristics define the environment in which I was raised: first, a deep sense of patriotism, and second, the humility and simplicity of a soldier’s life. My family was intensely patriotic and nationalistic, and indifferent to the formalities and luxuries of life. I have to say that this environment left a deep impression on me, for which I am grateful to this day. Anyway, my childhood was spent in my grandfather’s home, and I attended Sharaf Elementary School. One of my schoolmates was Manouchehr Nikpour, with whom, as we were the two smallest boys of our grade, I shared a desk in the front row. For my high school education, I attended Firouz Bahram Secondary School, where I graduated and then attended Alborz College to prepare for entrance to the University of Tehran. After one year, I received my diploma in science. Manouchehr Kalali, who later became a Cabinet Minister and Secretary General of the Iran Novin (New Iran) Party, was a classmate of mine at Alborz. We both received similar final grades in the national final exam (GPA of 15/17) and shared second place in the Tehran school district. I mention this because, after 24 years, our relationship had a profound effect on my career, on which I will elaborate later.

Was Dr Mohammad Ali Mojtahedi the school principal at Alborz at the time?

A.A.: Dr Mojtahedi was our algebra teacher; the principal was Dr Lotfali Sooratgar. Dr Mojtahedi became the principal later. After high school, I wanted to go to the Engineering College at the University of Tehran, but for some reason changed my mind, to study medicine, but my mother objected. Because my family owned land which included a village, I was encouraged to choose the College of Agriculture.

Your relatives were generally in the military. Didn’t you have any desire to enter the army?

A.A.: Not at all. Military life had no attraction for me. Since childhood I was drawn to books and preferred to spend my time reading. Most of the children in our family who were in my generation ended up attending the Military College, but I finally went to the College of Agriculture.

So you graduated from the College of Agriculture of the University of Tehran?

A.A.: Yes, at the time they would award an engineering degree to the graduates of the College of Agriculture, and that is why some people still address me by that title, Engineer (Mohandes) Ansari. Once I finished my studies, I realised that it was not the foundation on which I wanted to build my future. Therefore, I entered the Law School at the same time I entered public service. Graduates of the College of Agriculture who wanted to start a government career would seek employment in the Ministry of Agriculture. For example, my college friend Amir Hossein Amir Parviz entered the Ministry of Agriculture and moved up the ranks and finally became the Minister in the Cabinet of Jafar Sharif-Emami.2 However, I decided to go to the Ministry of Labour. It had just been created and was referred to as the Ministry of Labour and Propaganda. There, I found a job in the Propaganda Division.

My first assignment was in an office that was next to the lavatories and was supervised by a very nice man who had a ninth-grade education, and I was the only staff worker. His job was to read the mail that was received and file some of that mail as ‘confidential’. I was curious about this folder that he so zealously guarded. One day, the folder accidentally fell to the ground, and as I helped pick up the contents, I realised they were nothing but newspaper clippings. This was around 1945–6, when Ahmad Ghavam was Prime Minister.

My assignment changed after a few months, and I became a reporter for Radio Tehran, which was part of the propaganda bureau that was located in Arg Square. Further up the street were the Chancellery and the Ministry of Justice. I had to visit these institutions every day to gather news. The Prime Minister had located his office in the nearby Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and I would stop by there as well. It was a very interesting and eventful period. It was a tumultuous time in Azerbaijan:3 the Tudeh Party4 was very powerful, and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan5 had been formed. The government would issue daily pronouncements, and for a young man fresh out of college, being in contact with high government officials was very exciting and educational. My contact at the Interior Ministry was the director in charge of the administration.

What was his name?

A.A.: A Mr Malekzadeh. His office was the hangout of well-known high officials of the Interior Ministry. Whenever I would go to get the latest news, he would often invite me to sit down and have some tea. I learned a lot by listening to their conversations. The news I had to report for the radio was often bland and without much content. It usually stated that a commission had been set up by such and such a department and attended by so and so and some important matter was discussed. The objective was to report the names of some officials on the radio, not the content of the discussions. The same was true for the Ministry of Justice. An interesting recollection from this time is the trial of Seyed Mohammad Taddayon, the former Minister of the Interior. He was being tried at the Supreme Court on accusations brought against him at the National Assembly. Being quite an orator, he fervently defended himself. His defence was fascinating for me as I witnessed that the mistakes of a minister, regardless of his authority and the power of his political backers, could have harsh consequences.

The period of my reporting for Radio Tehran was about one year. At that time I had a friend named Engineer Saeed Fozouni who wrote poetry, which was published in a weekly newspaper called Baba Shamal. It was a satirical and political publication, and my friend would sign under the pseudonym Mohandess-o-Shoara. In 1947, Ahmad Ghavam’s government collapsed; Hakim-el-Molk took over, and Dr Mohammad Sajadi was appointed Minister of the Economy. My friend Fozouni was chosen as Director General in charge of the Secretariat of the Ministry, and he took me as his assistant. This job had a profound impact on my career. The office of the Director General had two assistants: me and a Mr Yazdani, who had 20 years of work experience and was extremely knowledgeable about bureaucratic procedures. Being a novice and interested in learning, I used this opportunity to educate myself. Mr Yazdani would have me read reports that were sent to the office by Iranian economic representatives abroad. For example, the reports of the late Hassan Shahid Nourai, the economic attaché in Paris, were extremely interesting in content and discourse and quite educational. Meanwhile I was pursuing my education by attending law school.

Did this Mr Yazdani give you these reports to read for a special purpose, or was his objective to increase your knowledge and understanding of the inner workings of the department?

A.A.: Not much action was taken in our office about these reports. The principal mission of the office was to handle the correspondence of the Minister and relay the orders and decisions to the relevant department. If Mr Yazdani placed some report in a folder without showing it to me and sent it to the archives, I would not question it. He was a decent man and would treat me as a younger brother, and his objective was to teach me the ropes. I am indebted to him.

Another experienced and well-intentioned individual in the Ministry was Gholamreza Kian, the Deputy Minister. The decisions that he made on different subjects and instructions that he gave were a testament to his vast knowledge of the Iranian economy and the working mechanism of the Iranian government. I learned a lot from him. Twelve years later, when I became Minister of Labour in the Cabinet of Dr Manouchehr Eghbal, Dr Kian was Minister of State, and we became good friends. I served in that post as Mr Yazdani’s assistant for about a year, and then the preparations for my departure for the United States were finalised. By taking extended, unpaid leave, I left for the United States to pursue my studies.

The period that you have just discussed was politically volatile, and several parties were active in the Iranian political arena. What was the situation of the young people of your age and generation in relation to these groups, in particular to the Tudeh Party, which was very powerful? What was your view and which way were you leaning?

A.A.: At the College of Agriculture, classmates who were mesmerised by the Tudeh Party far outnumbered those who weren’t. A group of them joined the Tudeh Party, and some of them reached high positions in the Party. Those of us who for one reason or another were not attracted to the Tudeh Party and its platform and objectives were in the minority. My lack of interest, and probably that of some other students, stemmed from the association of the Tudeh Party with occupying foreign forces. On our way to and from college, we had to pass through checkpoints manned by Russian soldiers. The campus of the College of Agriculture was in Karaj. Students living in dormitories would take the bus on weekends to and from Tehran. The Russians had set up a checkpoint at Karvansara Sangi. The bus had to stop there. Russian soldiers would board the bus and conduct a search, and only if they did not find anything suspicious would they allow the bus to continue on its way.

Experiencing this situation on our own soil behind Tehran’s Old Gate – foreign soldiers controlling and deciding our fate – was disgraceful and extremely painful for a young Iranian student. Apart from that, the area that had been designated for the construction of a steel mill during the reign of Reza Shah had been taken over by the Russians, who set up camp in the dilapidated buildings. Our college was on the way to these buildings, and the Russians would pass through the campus in their comings and goings. They would also use college facilities to show movies or whatever. We were constantly rubbing shoulders with them. They had even formed a soccer team that would play against our school soccer team. During this time, we were subject to their crude and rough ways. While some of our classmates were rabid supporters of the Soviet Union and were attracted to the Tudeh Party’s propaganda, I was agonised by what was taking place before my eyes.

Back to your studies: in what year did you go to the United States?

A.A.: In 1948. Accompanied by a friend and classmate, Houshang Amery, I set out for the United States with plans to attend the University of California at Berkeley. But after our arrival in New York, Mr Amery’s uncle, who had been living the United States for about 30 years, discouraged us from going to California. He recommended that, because the president of Utah State University had served in Iran as an adviser for several years and had a positive disposition toward Iranians, we should pursue our studies in Utah. Since w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Map of Iran
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Publishers’ Foreword
• Note
• Foreword by Gholamreza Afkhami
• 1: From Birth to Employment
• 2: The Americans in Iran
• 3: The Treasury
• 4: From the New Iran Group to the Nationalist Party
• 5: At the Ministry of Labour
• 6: Establishment of the Khuzestan Water and Power Authority
• 7: Governorship in Khuzestan
• 8: At the Ministry of the Interior
• 9: The Period after the Ministry
• 10: Collaboration with Princess Ashraf
• 11: Celebration at Persepolis
• Postscript
• Plate Section