Word: newness
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Much of the Shah's wealth was funneled into the Pahlavi Foundation and several others, established ostensibly to fund charitable activities, like aid to the handicapped. The New York lawsuit asserts that the Iranian state budget "provided annually a subsidy of approximately $10 million" to the foundations. In addition, it says, "plaintiff [the Khomeini government] is unable to account for several billion dollars of revenues earned by the National Iranian Oil Co. between 1973 and 1978." In 1976 alone, it asserts, Nice's receipts as published by the company were $1 billion less than the NIOC earnings reported...
Though the foundations did do some charitable work, the Shah invested most of their money in income-producing assets. In a new book, Iran: The Illusion of Power, British Journalist Robert Graham published a 3½-page list of holdings of the Pahlavi Foundation that he was able to track down as of the end of 1977 and that he estimated to be worth $2.8 billion to $3.2 billion. They included total ownership of Bank Omran, one of Iran's largest banks; 80% ownership of Bimeh Melli, the nation's third largest insurance company; and full or partial...
...government (as are the famous crown jewels). But the Shah could easily have transferred cash income from them to banks abroad before his downfall, though stories of such transfers have so far proved unverifiable. Information on the Shah's holdings outside Iran ranges from sketchy to nonexistent. The New York lawsuit lists only four in the U.S. The most prominent is a 36-story Manhattan skyscraper owned by an American branch of the Pahlavi Foundation...
...almost five months before coming to the U.S. for medical treatment, he occupied a rented four-building compound with spacious gardens set inside a twelve-foot wall. He can afford a personal security force and a staff of servants-and he pays the $975-a-day bill for his New York hospital suite promptly. But the Shah last week whiled away much of his time in the unregal pastime that many hospital patients are reduced to: watching television. Said one of doctors: "He watches some real crap. Westerns. Detective movies. Bad romances...
Harsh words, and they drew harsh words in reply. The Chicago Tribune accused Kissinger of "Machiavellian self-promotion" and of making "use of the crisis for political purposes." The New York Times termed Kissinger's speechmaking "reckless" and "repellent." On NBC'S Meet the Press, former Under Secretary of State George Ball claimed that the pressure on the Administration to permit the Shah to enter the U.S. had come from "Mr. Kissinger and a few others" and had been "enormously obnoxious...