Word: reza
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...hurry to build roads, dams and schools (and on the upkeep of his regime), Iran's handsome Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi has spent all the $265 million a year his country gets from oil revenues and quite a bit more. Now Iran faces a balance of payments deficit of $130 million over the next two years. Until recently, the Shah has ignored the unpopular advice of Western economic advisers, who told him the deficit could have been avoided by vigorously curbing domestic inflation, and by clamping down on the import of luxury items that use up the hard currencies...
Straight from Persepolis. The man who stands between the West and such an alarming prospect is one of the few remaining monarchs who is more than merely decorative. At 41, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, Shahanshah (King of Kings) of Iran, is undisputed boss of his nation. "His Imperial Majesty is above everything," a Teheran newspaper recently explained to its readers. "Constitutionally. he can appoint or dismiss a Premier as he sees fit. He can also dissolve parliament if he so chooses. He decides on which projects his country needs, bills that should be presented for passage by the legislature...
Everyone Rises. The Shah's father, known to his subjects as Reza Shah, was an old-style, absolute monarch who rose from noncom to colonel to King, overthrowing Iran's slack-chinned, 130-year-old Qajar dynasty by force of arms. A wiry, hot-tempered martinet, the old Shah set out to manhandle Iran into the mod ern world, and he did not mind machine-gunning obstreperous peasants to do it. He abolished the veil, and when a Moslem imam criticized the Queen for not wearing one, roared up to the mosque in a convoy of armored cars...
...prepare young Mohammed for power, Reza Shah relentlessly pushed him into the "manly sports," in 1931 abruptly packed him off (aboard a Russian cruiser) to La Rosee school in Switzerland. A U.S. schoolmate recalls that the experience was something of a shock all around. Striding into the school lounge, the young prince announced: "When I enter a room, everyone rises." His fellow students merely stared at him in polite amazement. In time, Mohammed won a kind of plebiscite from them by getting himself elected captain of the school soccer team...
Back to Barracks. When Mohammed finally returned home, an attractive, smiling young man smartly clad in European clothes, Reza Shah took one disgusted look and slapped him back in uniform at the local military academy. His smiles gone, Mohammed went back to following Reza Shah to reviews and parades, and in 1939 just as obediently trekked off to Egypt and brought back the bride his father had selected, the pretty Princess Faw-zia, sister of King Farouk...