Word: iranians
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...corrupt government from first to last. Foreign companies frequently had to pay "commissions" to government officials or members of the royal family to get any kind of contract in Iran. One example: between 1973 and 1975 the Bell Helicopter division of Textron Inc., which was selling choppers to the Iranian air force, paid a $3 million commission to a company that turned out to be secretly owned in part by a brother-in-law of the Shah. The Shah indirectly acknowledged the corruption by periodically announcing drives to root it out, but he never succeeded in doing...
Author Graham believes that the Shah's motives in tolerating the corruption, and in guiding the network of investments of the Pahlavi Foundation, were less personal aggrandizement than a desire to retain tight control of the Iranian economy and win the loyalty of subordinates by lavish financial favors. Nonetheless, the Shah in power lived very well, to put it mildly. He shuttled among five palaces in Iran. Journalist Fallaci, interviewing the Shah in 1973 in one of them, noted that "almost everything in the place was gold: the ashtray that you didn't dare dirty, the box inlaid...
...Administration struggled to extricate the hostages-and the U.S. -from the Iranian blackmail abroad, a bitter, backbiting controversy arose at home. It revolved around three questions: 1) Had the deposed Shah's two most prominent American friends, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman David Rockefeller, exerted excessive pressure to get the Shah into the U.S.? 2) After long advocating that the Shah be given sanctuary in the U.S., had Kissinger then tried to score political points by publicly criticizing the Administration for appearing weak in a crisis that he had helped to create...
...Americans, suddenly in the U.S. for "medical" treatment. The guy is reportedly dying of cancer, yet he receives Kissinger and talks to him for 1 ½ hours. Then our government politely demands that if that's the case, well, for our public opinion, be nice enough and allow Iranian physicians to go check. That request was refused by the U.S. Government. Then we realize that the U.S. Government doesn't give a damn about public opinion in our country and by accepting the Shah, deliberately and openly tries to insult our people, our revolution and our ideals. That...
...before he was appointed Iran's new Foreign Minister last week, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh (pronounced Goht-zah-deh) was being interviewed by TIME Middle East Bureau Chief Bruce van Voorst when he received a telephone call that normally would have gone to the Foreign Ministry. It was the Iranian charge d'affaires in Washington asking if he should attend the prospective U.N. Security Council meeting. "You will not attend, [Acting Foreign Minister] Banisadr will not attend, Iran will not be represented unless they postpone the session," Ghotbzadeh said brusquely, then added: "They can do what the hell they want...