Princess Ashraf Pahlavi 

Death of Reza Shah’s Controversial Child

Ashraf Pahlavi, twin of Mohammad Reza Shah, the last king of Iran, died on Thursday 1 January 2016; the same day when eighty years ago, a woman from the Iranian royal family took off her Islamic veil and appeared in European style dress and hat in public. Reza Shah, her father, had already started the period of modernization in Iran. Her mother and sister also followed wearing the European dress. She always remembered that day during all the years until the royal system was toppled by Islamists; she continued the idea of freedom and indiscrimination against women by chairing an organization she established for this purpose.

Princess Ashraf, whose life was very similar to controversial and contentious life of Princess Margaret, Queen Elizabeth's sister, was in fact a friend of hers. According to different sources she had close relations with Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the famous Pakistani President, Prince Hussein, king of Jordan and many other political and artistic figures. She had even used her coquetry, when she was twenty seven, to entertain Joseph Stalin for three hours. Pictures of her with fur coats, gifted to her by Kremlin rulers, were all over the yellow newspapers.

The most adventurous child of Reza Shah died 71 years after her father and 34 years after her twin brother, the last Shah of Iran. She, like those two, died in exile and in a hopeless situation. In her 96 years life, the world media described her with all sorts of labels: most powerful child of Reza Shah, richest and most corrupt member of the Pahlavi Dynasty, guardian of the crown, inherited from her father, bon vivant, grateful and ambitious, all said and written about her.

Ashraf was born on 26 October 1920, minutes after Mohammad, the first child of Reza Khan Mirpanj, in Tehran, Sangelaj neighbourhood. Nobody was waiting for her; neither her father, nor her mother who had wished Tajolmoluk Ayromlu to give birth to a son; not even the midwife of Sangelaj Neighbourhood had any idea that Mirpanj's wife might have a twin inside her.

Her biorth marked the dawn of Reza Khan's rise to power. The 3 Esfand coup took place when the twin were two years old, after which their father was named as Sardar Sepah. They were four when their father became the prime minister and were seven when he was crowned. But the people who celebrated the 4 Aban [26 October] nor her mother who donated to poor people on that day, ever mentioned Ashraf and this was because of the long shadow of Mohammad Reza.

Ashraf stayed in the shadow of her brother from the day she was born. She had accepted this discrimination but did nothing more that. Unlike her brother, she chose to fight and defy and get what she wanted. She said: "I was weak. Life made me fight. First in the family and after that with my father, whose slap still rings in my ear, and after that with the whole world. I promised myself to not fight with one person and he was my oldest friend. I loved him before birth. I was ready to get killed for him."

In a tape, she proudly says: "I was the only child who was slapped by Reza Shah."

When Ashraf saw her father, on the evening of 16 September 1942 in Esfahan, after he had resigned and afraid of being caught by Allied Forces, in the middle of crowded and sparse family, and realised the failure of his powerful father, it was as if she defined a mission for herself. Absence of her dictator father gave her an opportunity to come out of her shell. The next morning she decided to go to Tehran, despite British objection, accompanied by her smaller brother.

When Ashraf returned to Tehran, divorced from a husband imposed on her when she was sixteen, opened the doors of her palace to foreign envoys, politicians and businessmen and became the centre of influence and distribution of high ranking positions. From that period on, she intervened with every cabinet formation and selections of prime minister and ministers and parliament MPs and other officials in the country. This method, sometimes implemented without his brother's awareness, turned her into a power centre in Tehran in her twenties. Prime ministers like Soheili, Hajir, Razmara and Dr Eqbal came to power with her support.

In spring of 1947, she went to Moscow, to visit hospitals and health care centres in Russia, and managed to visit Stalin for three hours, a visit originally scheduled for 15 minutes.

Mohammad Ghavam, nephew of Ghavam –Ol Saltaneh and his office chief, says in his diaries that one of the ministers had asked why did they permit Shah's sister to travel abroad, because she could plot against the government. The politician had answered that she is a real man and will not be satisfied with the rule in the south of the country; she may act against my government but will not act against the territorial integrity of the country.

After the war and in the middle of conflicts which had exhausted the government, several politicians claimed that the idea of putting the government in the hands of Dr Mosaddeq, leader of the nationalisation of oil in Iran, was in fact an idea coming out of Ashraf's palace and that she had convinced the Shah. As a result one of people close to Ashraf and the head of royal family faction in parliament, suddenly brought up the proposal of Mosaddeq and it was accepted.

After Dr Mosaddeq was appointed as Prime Minister, Ashraf tried to tame this old man. When confronted by his stubbornness, she turned against him and convinced everyone that Mosaddeq was about to put an end to the rule of Pahlavi royal dynasty and to transfer the rule to his mother's dynasty. She convince the Shah as well as her smaller brother, Alireza, to fight Mosaddeq. It was said that she had several meetings with Russian ambassador to Tehran as well.

Following the above actions, Dr Mosaddeq, in his second year if office, asked the Shah to expel his mother and sister, who were plotting against the government. He stood for this position and was successful. But the impossible happened. Ashraf met Ghavam Ol-Saltaneh, her ancient foe, in a casino in Monte Carlo and made friends with him. The past discords were cleared and she proposed him to position of prime minister. Through this path, Mosaddeq's government was toppled in 1953 and Ghavam came to power. But in 30 Tir, with the resistance of the people, there was a revolution which pushed the Shah to retreat and brought Mosaddeq back to power.

Ashraf did not stop there. She went on to visit anybody she knew in London, Paris, Swiss and Mont Carlo. Her villa in Juan-les-Pins became a political centre and resulted in an agreement, with the presence of CIA. She returned to Tehran, despite Dr Mossadeq's order, with a fake passport and met Mostafa Moghaddam and Rashidian and Mohammad Ali Massoudi. As her presence in Tehran was revealed, she was taken to the airport by Mossadeq's threats and sent to exile.

It has been said and written that Ashraf's actions was instrumental in the success of the 1953 coup d'état. After the victory in returning the Shah and the fall of Dr Mossadeq's government, nothing else could hinder Ashraf from climbing to the top. The poor financial situation of Shah and his family, which became more evident during the period of exile, lead the royal family to show a great deal of temptation towards gaining wealth; nobody was more successful in this matter than Ashraf Pahlavi.

She saw herself as the second person in the country, after her brother. Therefore she had no tolerance with Shah's three wives and considered nobody as close and having a goodwill than herself to the Shah. But in Shah's final days, there is no mention of hostile behaviour between her and Queen Farah and Amir Abbas Hoveyda, with whom she been close as well; until the time when she was in exile again and the revolution had toppled the Shah.

Ashraf had reasons in crisis years to believe that Dr Mossadeq and Soraya Esfandiari, the Queen of the time, had a close familial relationship. When Shapur Bakhtiar was chosen as the prime minister by her brother, she thought this leader of the opposition [Bakhtiar] and a close family member to Queen Farah, had a reason to say farewell to Shah in the airport, while he was leaving the country for good.

In their latest exile, the Shah and Ashraf were rich and more experienced. It has been said that the Shah of Iran considered her sister's extravagance as a reason why people turned their back against him. He had once asked his Royal Minister to tell Princess Ashraf that one cannot be a hero for the women in the country and be active on the international scene and also seeking to be the General Secretary of the UN and also engage in all sorts of immoral activities, all at the same time. But not even the closest advisor to the king could not tell such things to Ashraf Pahlavi.

When during the revolution, the people shouted "After the Shah, it is America's turn" and after the students occupied the US embassy in Tehran and created the deepest crisis of the past cold war period, Ashraf Pahlavi turned her back against Hamilton Jordan, President Carter's envoy to Tehran and said that she is not going to shake hands with any American official.

In her last days, Ashraf Pahlavi took another action which will remain as her legacy; she was the only member of the royal family who helped high ranking officials, who were driven to exile by the revolution, to live in Europe and America. She became the only child of Reza Shah who showed respect for officials and was grateful.

On the first day of January, when she stopped breathing and her life support systems were cut off, it was quite a while that she could not feel anything. Before Alzheimer swept her memory, she insisted on the fact that the British had toppled her father and the Americans had toppled her brother. She was so persistent in her thought that once she told a reporter that the slogans people shouted in the streets, "Death to America" is the response to the betrayal of Americans against her father and brother.

Her wealth has been described as legendry and big numbers has been mentioned for it. This is result of two things. She had well educated people around her who helped her invest in the right places. She got every lesson from her father's life and did not deposit her money in foreign banks. Instead she invested in property and stock exchange. The second reason was her extravagant life style.

This wealth and the inheritance and tax disputes about her wealth, distanced her from her favourite apartment in Beckman in Manhattan and made her leave the US. She could not even live in Seychelles or southern France. She went to Mont Carlo and died there, before the legal meetings about her wealth came to an end. She had one son from her first husband, Shahram Ghavam (Pahlavi-nia). After Ashraf, the only living child of Reza Shah is Gholam Reza Pahlavi.

From; BBC Persian

Death of a prominent person,

Khodadad Farmanfarmaian

Five years ago, when Mehdi Sameii – prominent Iranian banking and planning figure who served as the Head of the Planning Organization and Chief of the Central Bank and a candidate for Prime Minister in Shah’s period – died in Los Angeles, Khodadad Farmanfarmayan, who was his deputy and a close friend wrote: “Mehdi Sameii was unique and a director whose signature worked like the credit of national money; he belonged to a short unprecedented period in Iranian history which was never repeated again.”

The period referred to in this remark is the politically tranquil years in the history of Iran; between 1955 and 1975, when the Royal Government of the country, hand in hand with the West, was going through a prosperous economic growth. This was an exception in the history of this ancient nation. The driving force of this period was a group of Iranians educated in world’s best universities, who were on the brink of being absorbed by the US and European labour market, but were recruited just in time by the Iranian government. One can name a group of fifty graduated Iranians who loved their country and returned to Iran, happy of the tranquil atmosphere of the country. Enthusiastic about their country, they came to have an impact on the process of their country’s development. But many of them were in their mid-ages and were driven out of the scene in the fifties and this marked the beginning of the end to those happy dreams, as many analysts believe.

Khodadad Farmanfarmayan, who died of cancer in a London hospital on 16^th December 2015, aged 87, did not mention his own name when he talked about Mehdi Sameii. He was one of the few outstanding figures in Iranian technocracy who abandoned his Princeton and Harvard University positions, to return to Iran in the tranquil atmosphere of the second half of the thirties, when he was in his twenties. It was believed the country was in a golden era and was filling the gap with the industrial countries.

Khodadad was one of the smallest children of Abdolhossein Farmanfarma, famous Qajar Prince and the first prime minister after the Constitution. When he entered into public services he thought working in an economic research centre such as the Plan and Budget Organization will not turn him into a “subject of the State”. The Qajar Prince prohibited his children from working for the state. But Khodadad left his position in Princeton and flew to Tehran.

At that time the Americans had proposed economic and development aid to Iran and requested an organization to take care of and coordinate the development process in the country and to elaborate six year development plans. Abolhassan Ebtahaj, neglecting the ruling power and the temporary government, established a data bank in the Plan and Budget Organization and created a specialist team, aware of the global changes, to manage the elaboration of developments plans, confirmed by the international and Western centres to be the key to the progress of underdeveloped countries.

When Khodadad Farmanfarmayan worked in the economic research centre, one of his relatives, Ali Amini, economist and economic minister during Mosaddeq period, became the Prime Minister. In a row between Amini and Ebtehaj, both trusted by the Americans, Ebtehaj had to quit the Plan and Budget Organization; but his legacy remained: educated Iranians aware of global situation who were each appointed to be in contact with domestic and foreign clients.

Mehdi Sameii became the third chief of the Plan and Budget Organization; same as Ebtehaj in Central Bank. Khodadad Farmanfarmayan replaced Sameii in both cases.

One thing that all those in the Plan and Budget Organization and the government after the 60s had in common was that they all were in ages similar to the last Shah of Iran. What they saw in Mohammad Reza Shah was a democrat who loves the development of the country and to pull out the country from poverty. They realised that he, unlike traditional ruler, was keen to listen and learn and wants to list Iran under the industrialized countries.

Khodadad Farmanfarmayan, even before he became the deputy of the Plan and Budget Organization, had the opportunity to talk to Shah in economic council, when he served in the economic centre of the organization. As he described in his memoire, he was delighted to talk to Shah and sometimes criticized the programmes relentlessly. The elder politicians of the time recommended him to keep his distance with the Shah. But Khodadad Farmanfarmayan was a technocrat, planner and researcher. He had a simple life and was committed to what he had learned and could not but speak frankly and to the point. Along with the Land Reform programme, Shah invited Mehdi Sameii to become the chief of the central bank and to develop the bank, just like its global counterpart, as an institute independent from the government and other fluctuations. Sameii responded to Shah by saying that he is an accountant and knows nothing about banking and told him he can only accept the job if Khodadad Farmanfarmayan becomes the deputy chief of the bank. Shah said Khodadad Farmanfarmayan is a supporter of Mosaddeq. And this was a serious allegation at that time. Shah was pointing to the 1953 coup in which Dr Mossadeq, relative of Khodadad Farmanfarmayan, was toppled during Winston Churchill government and the help of the CIA. Dr Mossadeq was the nephew of Farmanfarma’s children. Despite this, Sameii persistence lead to Khodadad Farmanfarmayan going to the Central Bank.

Khodadad Farmanfarmayan says in his autobiography in a long interview with his colleagues in the Plan and Budget Organization, before going to the central bank, that they even challenged Shah’s decision to weapon purchases. They even once wrote a letter in this regard, signed by him, Reza Moghaddam and Cyrus Sameii and sent to Shah’s office; a move that had severe consequences years after when he was dismissed.

After the Royal Celebrations, which the Shah called a big victory and a sign of the exceptional progress, the rise in oil prices brought the queue of ships waiting in Iranian ports, bringing all sorts of commodities from around the world. The inflation was high and popular demands from the government was on the rise. Rural immigrants settled around large cities. This situation was partly anticipated by the new generation managers before.

Khodadad Farmanfarmayan, who had written about the land reform and modification in agricultural system years ago and had discussed this with Hassan Arsanjani (becoming the next Agriculture Minister and executive of the land reform), like many of his colleagues, criticized some points in the “Revolution of Shah and the people.”

In the 50s, the younger managers such as Alinaqi Alikhani, Ardeshir Zahedi, Mehdi Sameii and Khodadad Farmanfarmayan, were driven off the ruling body one by one, which lead them to work in the private sector. Rumours in the political circles attributed this to the competition by Amir Abbass Hoveyda, the obedient prime minister. But, as mentioned a few times in the years to come, Shah’s eagerness to progress the country was so intense that he could not accept any criticism or challenge. He mocked the intellectuals and technocrats saying they do whatever he says.

Their first dispute with Shah rose when the oil prices increased. Economists and the educated people warned him about the coming crisis. They recommended to save the oil revenue for infrastructural works. They often warned Shah in public and private meetings of the coming inflation and recession.

The second pint which distanced Shah from them was his view about reaching the peak in a short time – as turning in one of the five top industrial countries in five years. No economist deemed that feasible.

Twenty eight years after the fall of the royal rule in Iran, once again the rise in oil prices made the country susceptible to yet another crisis, which the international system tried to prevent by the sanctions upon Ahmadinezhad’s government. People like Alinaqi Alikhani and Khodadad Farmanfarmayan were to witness the history repeat itself.

A review of 87 years of life of Khodadad Farmanfarmayan is an occasion to review a special period in Iranian history and the missed opportunity of a generation of Iranian, who came to participate in the progress of their country but was faced by a modern and reformist dictatorship who blocked the way for any progress. Eight years after Khodadad Farmanfarmayan quit the governmental roles to join the private sector, the Shah was faced with a popular uprising which toppled him and gave way to a middle ages type of rule and all those technocrats were either executed or forced to leave the country. Khodadad Farmanfarmayan managed to flee after a short time after the revolution and went to Britain and stayed there until the end of his life. He used his expertise in international banking and educational institutions.

He established two academic institutions in Iran which were related to Harvard University and European academic centres. He was proud of his educational endeavours, much more than his high ranking and managerial roles.

Where did he come from?

Khodadad Farmanfarmayan was eleven years old when his father died. When he was born Farmanfarma had no more power because all the power concentrated in the hands of Reza Khan Pahlavi who even turned their house into his personal palace. After the WWII he went to Beirut, like many of Farmanfarma’s children and then to the US to study.

He was studying in Stanford when due to the process of the nationalisation of oil industries he could not receive money from Iran. For the first time after eleven years he came to Iran by a university loan and travelled to many parts of the country.

His article Social change and economic approach in Iran, was published in prominent Harvard publications by the help of Professor Cole. This put him in the centre of interest. Many of the things which occurred in the management system of the country was what he mentioned as the main infrastructural framework needed for the country.

He was twenty when he defended his PHD thesis and married Joanna. She was with him for 67 years. They had three children. Khodadad Farmanfarmayan had no arrogance of a prince and no failure or success ever changed his course. He had a well intention and a freedom lover and remained so until his last days.

 from: BBC Persian