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Seeking Gandhi, finding Khomeini: How America

failed to understand the nature of the religious
opposition of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the
Iranian Revolution

George L. Simpson

To cite this article: George L. Simpson (2017) Seeking Gandhi, finding Khomeini: How America
failed to understand the nature of the religious opposition of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
in the Iranian Revolution, The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, 8:3, 233-255, DOI:
10.1080/21520844.2017.1368825

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 THE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
2017, VOL. 8, NO. 3, 233–255
https://doi.org/10.1080/21520844.2017.1368825

Seeking Gandhi, finding Khomeini: How America failed to

understand the nature of the religious opposition of
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in the Iranian Revolution
George L. Simpson
High Point University

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article examines how Americans perceived the Iranian Anti-Americanism; Iran;
Jimmy Carter; Mohammad
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Revolution, and seeks to understand how many influential

individuals failed to understand or acknowledge the true nat- Reza Shah; Ruhollah
ure of the Shi‘i opposition led by Ruhollah Khomeini. The Khomeini; Shi‘i Islam
author finds the answer to these questions in the antipathy
that many Americans had for the authoritarian rule of the
Shah, as well as a number of preconceived notions. Finally,
this study then turns to crucial decisions made by Jimmy Carter
to demonstrate how the president sought to make a virtue of
necessity but, in doing so, unwittingly abetted the Ayatollah as
he ascended to power.

Introduction
As the third week of January 1979 began, Americans were extremely anxious
concerning the future of Iran. Just five days earlier, Mohammad Reza Shah
Pahlavi had fled the Peacock Throne, and President Jimmy Carter had
thrown the support of his administration behind a newly established and
exceedingly fragile coalition led by the Shah’s long-time opponent, Shahpour
Bakhtiar. Meanwhile, in a Parisian suburb, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a
Shi‘i religious cleric little known to Americans until just months before, was
denouncing the fledgling government, seeking its downfall, and planning his
return to Iran after fifteen years in exile. Those who wished to be reassured
could find solace in the soothing words of Andrew Young, the U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations, who declared, “Khomeini will be some-
what of a saint when we get over the panic.” The well-known civil rights
leader further predicted “that it would be ‘impossible to have a fundamen-
talist Islamic state’ in Iran because ‘too much Western idealism has infiltrated
that movement.’”1
It would not take long before the vacuity of Young’s prognostication
would be clear to all who possessed even a modicum of understanding

CONTACT George L. Simpson lsimpson@highpoint.edu 11 Carmalt Street, Thomasville, NC 27360, USA.

1
“Young Praises Islam as ‘Vibrant’ and Calls the Ayatollah ‘A Saint,’” New York Times, January 21, 1979, 4;
Andrew J. Derouche, Andrew Young, Civil Rights Ambassador (Wilmington, DE: Scholary Resources, 2003), 106.
© 2017 Taylor & Francis
 234 G. L. SIMPSON

concerning the catastrophe that was occurring in Iran. Yet, what proved most
unfortunate was that the ambassador was far from being alone. As this article
will demonstrate, significant segments of those who influence and those who
make American foreign policy utterly failed to comprehend the nature of the
revolutionary events that were taking place half a world away. Whether it was
because of the ideological blinders that these members of the intelligentsia
wore or their misplaced self-interest or the result simply of politicians acting
out of expediency, United States policy vis-à-vis Iran suffered a devastating
setback, the repercussions of which continue to convulse the Middle East to
this day.
The ambition of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the dark shadow lurking
behind the revolution, is a central focus of this article. The Imam to his
followers was a man who would rule the Islamic Republic of Iran until his
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death in 1989 as well as reshape the politics of the Middle East and the world.
He had publically expressed opposition to the Pahlavi dynasty at least as early
as 1941, and had been in open confrontation with the Shah of Iran since
1962. His strident opposition to the Shah had enhanced his stature among
religious students and bazaar merchants, but ultimately led to his exile in
November 1964.2 In Iraq, where he soon came to stay, Khomeini did not
withdraw from politics, but instead developed his idea of the velayat-e faqih,
or the guardianship of the jurist, which Shaul Bakhash describes as “a blue-
print for the reorganization of society” and “a handbook for revolution.”3
Khomeini made no secret of his desire for an Islamic state, at least until the
eve of his return to his homeland.
Much of Khomeini’s political thought while in this banishment became
available in Arabic and Farsi through the publication of notes taken from a
series of lectures he gave in Najaf in the early 1970s in a tract titled Islam and
Revolution. In July 1970, U.S. Ambassador Douglas MacArthur, II, commen-
ted that, “His [Khomeini’s] picture is being displayed in the bazaar and south
Tehran and some Mullahs have begun reading the daily prayers in his name
—an honor reserved for the leader of the Shilites.”4 In the mid-1970s, his
influence grew. Mosques played cassette tapes of Khoemini’s khutab, or
sermons, in which he “would rail away at the evil ways of the West,” and
these diatribes became ubiquitous in the bazaars of Iran.5 Yet Jack
Shellenberger, the United States Information Service Public Affairs Officer
in Tehran from 1977 to 1979, later recalled learning of the Ayatollah only

2
Hamid Algar, trans., Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini (1941–1980) (North Haledon,
NJ: Mizan Press, 1981), 15.
3
Shaul Barkash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1984), 38.
4
Airgram 217 From the Embassy in Iran to the Department of State, July 7, 1970, Foreign Relations of the United
States, 1969–1976, Volume E–4, Documents on Iran and Iraq, 1969–1972, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocu
ments/frus1969-76ve04/d76 (accessed July 9, 2017).
5
Archie M. Bolster, Deputy Head of Political Section, Tehran (1974–1976), 606, Iran Country Reader, http://adst.org/
wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Iran.pdf.
 THE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 235

through an inquiry made by a Washington Post correspondent, Jonathan

Randal. In an oral interview made years later, Shellenberger revealed the
disturbing dearth of knowledge concerning the Ayatollah among American
diplomats who served in Iran on the eve of the Revolution.6 Michael
Metrinko, another American diplomatic official, recalled, “The name
Khomeini did not really become prominent in public, out loud, [in Iran]
until the year 1978.” Metrinko explained that he first heard the Ayatollah’s
name when he heard crowds shouting “long live Khomeini!” during riots in
Tabriz in February of that year.7
An essential part of Khomeini’s Weltanschauung was his anti-
Americanism. Thus, in a speech that had helped launch him to prominence
in Iran, which he made in Qom in June 1963, the Ayatollah denounced the
United States for having joined the British and Soviets in invading and
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occupying his country during the Second World War.8 He went on to

abuse Lyndon Johnson as “the most repulsive member of the human race
today” for getting the Iranian government to accept a treaty granting extra-
territoriality to U.S. citizens.9 In Islam and Revolution, Khomeini decried
Americans as “the new imperialists” who had replaced the British and who
were abetting the Israelis, even as they were allegedly destroying Islam.10
Americans would soon become familiar with the Ayatollah’s demonization of
the United States as the “Great Satan” and popular chants of “Death to
America,” but this was not so obvious in February 1979 when tumultuous
crowds cheered his arrival in the Iranian capital.
With respect to Khomeini’s benighted views of Jews, these were likewise
consistent in his writings and utterances. At the time of his confrontation
with the Shah in 1963, he grouped them with the “enemies of Islam.” Eight
years later, he sent a message from Najaf to Muslim pilgrims warning them
of “a handful of Jews who are the servants of imperialism.” Khomeini clearly
expressed anti-Semitism in Islam and Revolution, calling the Jews “satanic”
and labeling them “agents of America, Britain, and other foreign powers.” In
February 1978, while commemorating “martyrs” who had died in Qom, he
berated the Shah for recognizing Israel, which had “a government of unbelie-
vers—of Jews, at that—thereby affronting Islam.”11 Again, only in the final
months before his triumphant homecoming did Khomeini obscure this
chauvinistic outlook towards America, Israel, and Jews, not to mention his

6
Jack Shellenberger, Public Affairs Officer, USIS, Tehran (1977–1979), 863, Iran Country Reader, http://adst.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/09/Iran.pdf.
7
Michael Metrinko, Visa Officer, Tehran (1977–1978), Consular Officer, Tabriz (1978–1979), and Iran—Evacuation,
Tehran (1981–1983), 887, Iran Country Reader, http://adst.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Iran.pdf.
8
As one might guess, the mojtahed, or Islamic jurist, said nothing about America’s important role in getting Iran’s
long nemeses to quit Iran or the crisis that had ensued between Washington and Moscow over the issue in 1946.
9
Algar, Islam and Revolution, 178–79.
10
Ibid., 139, 142.
11
Ibid., 175, 196, 27, 47, 214.
 236 G. L. SIMPSON

bigoted ideas concerning women and Iran’s religious minorities, such as the
Baha’i. Most Westerners and other outsiders understood little of Islam, let
alone the concepts of taqiyya, or precautionary dissimulation, and kitman, or
dissimulation by silence or omission, which permit hiding one’s intentions and
which the Ayatollah employed so skillfully on dupes and others who were
guilty of willful blindness. Perhaps they might have learned from the tradition
which says, “He who keeps secrets shall soon attain his objectives.”12
Who were these observers so easily taken in by the Shi‘i cleric? As this
article will show, they came from a host of important and influential seg-
ments of American elite society. Some were well-known scholars, others
represented human rights organizations; many had their voices heard or
words printed in the media. Also important in forming American public
opinion and directing policy were politicians in Congress. Those who got it
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wrong came from the foreign policy establishment stationed in Tehran, as

well as in the State Department. Finally, the buck stopped, as Harry Truman
once said, in the Oval Office. This is not to declare that everybody got it
wrong or did so all the time, nor did they always come from the same side of
the political spectrum. Nevertheless, those who erred did so to the lasting
detriment of American interests in the Middle East, not to mention the
people of Iran, who still suffer under the onerous regime created by the
Imam. After briefly treating some of these individuals who underestimated
Khomeini, this study will examine more closely the fateful days in January
and February 1979 when President Jimmy Carter also misgauged the
Ayatollah. It will argue that by desperately trying to maintain some kind of
amiable relationship with whoever would gain power in Iran, the idealistic
president allowed himself to be duped by the more subtle and deceptive
Khomeini.

Academics and human rights groups

As others have observed, many academics “overestimated the power of the
National Front [liberal opposition to the Shah], underestimated the role that
the Shi‘a mullahs were playing in the revolution, and ignored Khomeini’s
earlier writings and utterances on the revolution.”13 One of these was
Richard W. Cottam, a political scientist and Iran specialist at the
University of Pittsburgh, who wrote the celebrated 1964 monograph,
Nationalism in Iran. Professor Cottam was a former CIA official who served
as a political officer in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in the mid-1950s.14 He
came to identify with the National Front, and was highly critical of the 1953
12
Quoted in Fereydoun Hoveyda, The Broken Crescent: The “Threat” of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism, (Westport,
CT: Praeger, 1998), 40.
13
Gary Sick, All Fall Down: America’s Tragic Encounter with Iran (New York, NY: Random House, 1985), 113.
14
Richard Cottam, “Encyclopaedia Iranica,” http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/cottam-richard-1.
 THE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 237

coup that ousted Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, whom he lionized

as “Iran’s first truly popular leader.”15 Cottam supported liberal opposition to
the Shah, and was censorious of U.S. foreign policy towards Iran.
Cottam’s reputation as an Iran expert was such that the media and policy-
makers turned to him for his views. Thus, he testified before a hearing of a
House of Representatives subcommittee on international organizations con-
cerning human rights in Iran in October 1977. When he met with Khomeini
in Nauphle-le Chateau near Paris the following August, Cottam was one of
only a few scholars and one of the first Americans to do so. In October 1978,
he wrote a letter to the editor, published by the Washington Post, in which he
explained to readers unfamiliar with Khomeini that the Ayatollah was essen-
tially a “moderate and centrist” reformer.16
On January 1, 1979, Cottam met in Tehran with John Stempel, a political
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officer at the U.S. Embassy, after having seen Khomeini again in France
four days earlier. The political scientist sanguinely informed the American
official that the radical mojtahed, or leading jurist, did not feel the need for
the Shi‘i ‘ulama to assume power and that Khomeini was prepared to accept
the government then being organized under Bakhtiar’s leadership. Cottam
conceded that eventually the Islamists would put together “a political party to
draw on Khomeini[‘s] charisma” that would come to dominate Iranian
politics. Nevertheless, the reputed Iran expert expressed himself struck by
how little Khomeini’s ego appeared to be involved in revolutionary move-
ment. He further commented on what he averred was the unusual “absence
of deference patterns” among those who constituted the entourage surround-
ing the Ayatollah, which he considered “probably reflects egalitarian dom-
inance of Islamic Socialist ideology expounded by Ali Shariati, which is
dominant intellectual current in Khomeini movement.” Cottam rejected the
prevailing view among his contacts with the Iranian intelligentsia who
considered Khomeini a reactionary, and thought him “much more
liberal.”17 A few days afterwards he “asserted that Khomeini circles and the
opposition in Teheran were ‘ready to think in sophisticated terms about
future relations with the U.S.’”18 The professor would go on to explain to

15
Richard W. Cottam, “American Policy and the Iranian Crisis,” Iranian Studies 13, no. 1/4 (1980): 283.
16
Robert C. de Camara, “The Shah as Tyrant: A Look at the Record,” Washington Post, March 23, 1980; and Ofira
Seliktar, Failing the Crystal Ball Test (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000), 121–22.
17
Cottam on Khomeini, Liberation Movement (LMI) and National Front (INF), William Sullivan to Cyrus Vance,
January 2, 1979, Confidential Telegram, “The Carter Administration and the ‘Arc of Crisis’: Iran, Afghanistan and
the Cold War in Southwest Asia, 1977–1981,” Declassified Documents Prepared for A Critical Oral History
Conference, The Woodrow Wilson Center, July 25–26, 2005, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/
the_carter_administration_and_the_arc_of_crisis_1977-1981.pdf. One might note that a White House memor-
andum contradicted Cottam’s remarks about the egalitarian nature of the Ayatollah’s relationship with his
entourage, declaring that they were the opposite of “several other visitors who were struck by the fact that
deference to Khomeini was comparable to what would be expected around the Shah.” Memorandum for
Zbigniew Brzezinski, January 4, 1979, Top Secret Codeword, NSA-1, Brzezinski Material, President’s Daily Report
File, Box 9, JCL.
18
Seliktar, Failing the Crystal Ball Test, 132.
 238 G. L. SIMPSON

readers of Foreign Policy that the Ayatollah was “a man who, unlike most
Iranians, had opposed the regime consistently, courageously, and with simple
dignity,” and that his “movement reflect[ed] a widely shared Islamic, huma-
nist ideology.”19
Another important Iran scholar at the time was James A. Bill, who was a
political science professor on the faculty of the University of Texas. Bill
would write The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iran
Relations (1989), as well as nine other books and numerous articles on the
Middle East and become a doyen in his field. As the movement against the
Shah neared its apogee, Bill published an influential, yet seriously flawed,
article in Foreign Affairs. He distinguished between the mojtaheds and the
rest of the Shi‘i mullahs, as well as between these jurists and Iranian politi-
cians. Bill argued that corruption and support for socially regressive policies
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came principally from the rank-and-file mullahs rather than the mojtaheds
and characterized the latter as “the guardians of social justice and morality in
society” rather than as political actors.20 Bill contemplated what Iran would
look like in a post-Shah era, and advanced what he thought the four most
likely scenarios would be—with none of these being an Islamist government.
He remained optimistic that, “Even at this late date, the United States need
not fear that a future government in Iran will necessarily be antithetical to
American interests,” and thought that the Carter administration’s policies
could “clearly influence the future shape of this important relationship.”21
Bill opined that it would be the secular intelligentsia and “middle-level
bureaucrats, the respected provincial leaders and especially the middle-
ranking army officers… who will lead Iran in the future.”22 Shortly after
Khomeini came to power, Bill argued in the popular magazine Newseek that,
“Khomeini is not a mad mujtahid” but rather a “man of impeccable integrity
and honesty.” He prognosticated that the Ayatollah’s influence would prove
transitory. To be sure, there remained “a large reservoir of good will toward
America, despite ‘universal animosity of Iranians towards our govern-
ment.’” 23
A third prominent academic at the time of the Iranian Revolution was
Richard Falk, a professor of international law at Princeton University and a
left-wing activist. He, too, made a pilgrimage to the Ayatollah in December,
along with a delegation led by former attorney general Ramsey Clark. As
Ofira Seliktar has noted in her insightful work on U.S. policy during the
Revolution, Failing the Crystal Ball Test, Falk and Clark attacked the allegedly
militaristic U.S. Iran policy and “extoll[ed] the virtues of a Khomeini-led

19
Cottam, “Goodbye to America’s Shah,” 5, 11.
20
James A. Bill, “Iran and the Crisis of ’78,” Foreign Affairs 57, no. 2 (Winter, 1978): 332.
21
Ibid., 340–41.
22
Ibid., 342.
23
Seliktar, Failing the Crystal Ball Test, 133, 152.
 THE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 239

government,” declaring that Iran “may yet provide us with a desperately

needed model of a humane government.”24 Using the leftist Institute for
Policy Studies as a platform just as Khomeini came to power, Falk argued for
the pacific and moderate nature of Shi‘i Islamic culture as well as its lack of
dogmatism. Falk likewise thought Khomeini would leave Tehran for the holy
city of Qom and absent himself from the diurnal concerns of politics.25 In the
Spring 1979 issue of Foreign Policy, he went on to aver that the nascent
Islamic Republic “need not necessarily be inherently anti-American,” and
assured his readers that minorities would retain their rights under the new
Iranian constitution. Finally, he excused the summary executions then occur-
ring at the hands of revolutionary komitehs as comparable to the punish-
ments accorded to Nazi and Japanese war criminals at the hands of tribunals
shortly after the Second World War.26
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A fourth academic whose influence was not so great as the others, but who
voiced his opinion in the last days of the Shah in December 1978, was Ira
Klein. Then an associate professor of history at American University whose
research and writing had focused on British imperialism and nationalism in
South and Southeast Asia, Klein compared Khomeini’s role in Iran with that
of Mahatma Gandhi in India. As this study will show, he would not be the
last to do so. In an article published by the Washington Post, Klein explained,
“Iran is hardly prone to turn toward Islamic revival… or to reject an
alignment with the West—unless American policy blunders make it do so.”
The “archetypical Cold War mistake” that Washington could make would be
to intervene in Iranian politics and to try to save the Shah. Klein used
historical models in his analysis, and totally failed to recognize the unique
nature of events then occurring in Iran. Basing his views on modernization
theory, the professor declared, “The Iranian revolution is one with other
long-ongoing revolutions which affected the great cultures and political
societies of Asia and the Near East in the 20th century.” Indeed, he asserted,
“The battle of secularization was fought out decades ago, and lost by the
religious and anti-modernizing forces when they were much stronger than
now.” He went on to assure his readers that, “The Ayatollah Khomeini can
expect no better from his secular followers than was achieved by the
Mahatma.” Consequently, America needed to exercise restraint so as to
“allow the slow emergence of a democracy and help revive an almost
forgotten Iranian belief about this country.”27
Of course, not everyone in academia was so credulous concerning
Khomeini and the movement he led. One who was much more perceptive
was Bernard Lewis, who was also a professor at Princeton University at the
24
Ibid., 121–122.
25
Ibid., 133.
26
Ibid., 151.
27
Ira Klein, “The 70-Year Roots of Iran’s Turmoil,” Washington Post, December 24, 1978, D1.
 240 G. L. SIMPSON

time of the Iranian Revolution. Lewis would later confess that he had not
foreseen the great upheaval in Iran and was unfamiliar with Khomeini when
the Ayatollah suddenly rose to global prominence. The learned historian was
a quick study, however, and retrieved copies of Khomeini’s The Islamic State
in Farsi and Arabic from Princeton’s library. As Lewis’s student, Martin
Kramer, would recall, the Ivy League doyen “circulated copies on campus
and to journalists. From the manifesto, as he later said, ‘it became perfectly
clear who [Khomeini] was and what his aims were. And that all of this talk at
the time about [his] being a step forward and a move toward greater freedom
was absolute nonsense.’”28
Like these academics, the role of Amnesty International in undermining
the Shah’s legitimacy and grossly exaggerating the repressive nature of his
admittedly authoritarian regime was significant in influencing American
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perceptions of Iran. In 1976, the organization castigated Iran for having the
“highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of civilian
courts and a history of torture that is beyond belief.” The secretary-general of
the organization, apparently unmindful of Pol Pot’s Kampuchea, went on to
contend, “No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than
Iran.”29 To whit, Amnesty International in 1980 would claim that the Shah
had carried out “considerably in excess of 300” political executions. Yet,
according to the respected Iranian historian Ervand Abrahamian, that num-
ber actually was “less than 100” for the period between 1971 and 1979.30 One
might note that academics were likewise guilty of uncritically repeating
revolutionary propaganda concerning those killed during the Revolution.
Thus, Cottam accepted the number offered by the opposition for those killed
on September 8, 1978, or “Black Friday” as it came to be known, putting the
number “conservatively at 4,500,” while Michel Foucault, the French post-
modernist, claimed 4,000 had perished. After the Revolution, the Iranian
Martyrs Foundation put the number at a considerably more modest eighty-
four.31

The media
American news sources also had an enormous impact in shaping perceptions
of the Shah as well as of Khomeini, particularly as the public and Washington
28
Martin Kramer, “The Return of Bernard Lewis,” Mosaic, June 1, 2016, http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2016/06/
the-return-of-bernard-lewis/.
29
Amnesty International Briefing: Iran, November 1976, https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/001/1976/
en/; William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II (London, England: Zed Books,
2003), 72; and H.W. Brands, Into the Labyrinth: The United States and the Middle East, 1945–1993 (New York, NY:
McGraw Hill, 1994), 155–56.
30
Robert de Camera, “The Shah as Tyrant” and “Ervand Abrahamian,” Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public
Recantations in Modern Iran (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999), 169.
31
Richard W. Cottam, “American Policy and the Iranian Crisis,” Iranian Studies 13, no. 1/4 (1980): 299; and Ervand
Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 160–61.
 THE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 241

decision makers first became aware of the leader of the Shi‘i extremist
opposition. While examples abound of the distorted treatment of the two
Iranian leaders bruited by the media, this article will underscore how two
major U.S. newspapers and several influential magazines portrayed both
figures at the time of the Iranian Revolution.32
One could find such a slant in the pages of the Washington Post. The
newspaper ran a syndicated column by the muckraking journalist Jack
Anderson, who certainly was no friend of the Iranian government. In
July 1975, Anderson published excerpts from a leaked CIA report that
characterized the Shah as “a brilliant but dangerous megalomaniac, who is
likely to pursue his own aims in disregard of U.S. interests.”33 As the Iranian
Revolution gathered steam in May 1978, readers of the newspaper were
cautioned about “the shah’s propaganda [that] depict[ed] the Shia leadership
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as hopelessly retrograde and reactionary.”34 Months later, in the Post, one

learned that Khomeini was “the man of the hour, a holy man in waiting.”
Truly the Ayatollah had been a remarkable and selfless leader, for when he
was in exile, “In the heat of Najaf, Khomeini [had] refused air conditioning
and lived in a poor house, explaining, ‘The poor in Iran don’t have air
conditioning, why should I?’”35 One could also discover that the CIA had
“50 to 75 agents” in the country from the Washington daily, so that it was
not particularly remarkable that Iranians considered the American Embassy a
nest of espionage. In fact, there were only three from this veritable horde of
intelligence officers at the diplomatic center in Tehran when militants over-
ran it less than a year later.36
The New York Times also carried articles and opinion pieces presenting
the Shah in a very uncomplimentary light, while some of its reporters
credulously repeated the line that Khomeini and those who joined him at
Neauphle-le-Château cooked up for their consumption. For example, on the
eve of the Shah’s flight from Iran, Seymour Hersh echoed Anderson, and
quoted former CIA officer Jesse J. Leaf, who called the Iranian leader a
“megalomaniac” and a “hollow man.” Hersh went on to inform his readers
that Leaf avowed that SAVAK “torture rooms were… all paid for by the U.
S.A.”37 Earlier, as the Revolution was reaching its apogee, Flora Lewis
32
It is also worth briefly mentioning that such tendentious reporting was not confined to American journalists.
Thus, the BBC Persian service played a leading role in undermining the Shah’s government and extolling the
Ayatollah, as did the Parisian daily Le Monde and the center-left Manchester newspaper The Guardian. Ibid., 483;
Seliktar, Failing the Crystal Ball Test, 100; and Gholam R. Afkhami, The Life and Times of the Shah (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 2009), 484.
33
Jack Anderson, “CIA Profile: Shah of Iran a Dangerous Megalomaniac,” Washington Post, July 11, 1975, D15 and
“Press Material,” Wikileaks, https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1975STATE163771_b.html (accessed March 7,
2017).
34
Jonathan Randal, “Even Time Varies In Holy City of Qom,” Washington Post, May 26, 1978, 23.
35
Dorothy Gilliam, “The Optimism of a Holy Man in Waiting,” Washington Post, November 15, 1978, D1.
36
Cf. Jim Hoagland, “CIA-Shah Ties Cloud Iran Data,” Washington Post, December 17, 1978, 21; and Mark Bowden,
Guests of the Ayatollah (New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006), 20.
37
Seymour M. Hersh, “Ex-Analyst Says C.I.A. Rejected Warning on Shah,” New York Times, January 7, 1979, 3.
 242 G. L. SIMPSON

introduced her readers to Khomeini as an “exiled holy man.” She managed to

get the great man to respond to written questions she submitted to him, and
learned that the Ayatollah was willing to treat the United States like any other
country so long as, he cautioned, it stayed out of Iranian internal affairs.
Likewise, Khomeini assured her that, in the future Islamic Republic that he
hoped to create, “religious minorities, including Christians and Jews, would
be ‘protected by Islamic justice and be free to practice their religions.’” While
Khomeini was short on details, his interlocutor Ebrahim Yazdi, who had
lived in Houston and been a research assistant at Baylor College of Medicine,
insouciantly explained that these would be left “up to the people.”38 It is
noteworthy, too, that details of the Shah’s private discussions with Sullivan
found their way onto the front page of the New York Times based on
unidentified, but clearly inside, sources.39
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The exception to this could be found in Judith Miller’s work for the
newspaper. Nearly two months after Lewis had introduced readers to the
Ayatollah, Miller did some serious reporting. The journalist became aware of
Islamic Government and some of Khomeini’s other writings. She ran a piece
in the New York Times that revealed the extremist leader’s Islamist author-
itarianism as well as his real view of democracy, not to mention his anti-
Semitism. When Miller confronted Yazdi with Khomeini’s writings, he
claimed it was a falsification, declaring, “The book cannot be the authentic
version… because the views expressed are totally inconsistent with what the
Ayatollah believes and has stated in frequent interviews with the press.”
Likewise, Ali Agah, another member of Khomeini’s entourage in France,
told her, “the Ayatollah had never written a book in Arabic and that even a
Persian version of the book might not have been verified by him.” Agah went
on to deny that Khomeini would ever make anti-Jewish or anti-Christian
statements.40
Broadcasts by CBS News reflected similar conceits. In a remarkable inter-
view with the Shah aired on 60 Minutes on October 24, 1976, veteran
reporter Mike Wallace threw the aforementioned highly uncomplimentary
CIA profile into the face of the Shah after facetiously getting Mohammad
Reza to promise not to send him to the SAVAK.41 Khomeini, too, appeared
on CBS’s Face the Nation on January 14, 1979. With Yazdi translating, the
great leader told more respectful reporters arrayed on a rug on the floor
before him that, “If the United States ceased the policies that they have had
and do not support the Shah… then according to all Islamic teaching, there is

38
Flora Lewis, “Exiled Holy Man Hints He’ll Call for War in Iran: Lives in Paris,” New York Times, November 7, 1978, 1,
13.
39
A classic instance of this can be found in Bernard Gwertzman, “US Tries to Decide on Advice to Shah,” New York
Times, January 4, 1979, 1.
40
Judith Miller, “Shah’s Foe Said to Have Denounced Non-Moslems,” New York Times, December 30, 1978, 4.
41
Shah of Iran on 60 Minutes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCMftp2bdJA.
 THE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 243

no reason for us to be in animosity with them.” The Ayatollah modestly

claimed that he would not hold the position of head of state in any future
government, but would supervise the government’s activities and he would
point out how these would accord with Islam, offering merely “general
guidance.”42
Some popular magazines gave grossly distorted pictures of Khomeini as well.
He would become Time magazine’s “man of the year” for 1979, although, to be
fair, that did not necessarily mean any kind of approbation on the part of the
editors.43 More in tune with the naivety of many journalists was an article in Life
that called the Ayatollah “a prophet of change.”44 Newsweek proved itself parti-
cularly gullible when it came to opposition propaganda. In September 1978, as
violence in Iran escalated, its reporters enlightened readers by telling them that
Khomeini had circulated a tract in Tehran suggesting “that violence had become a
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poor tactic.” They went on to aver, “One gets a sense that the Shah is causing all
the trouble and the mullahs want peace.”45 Articles appearing in early November
presented the Ayatollah as a man of humility who lacked political ambition. One
explained that, “while Khomeini calls for an ‘Islamic republic’ in Iran, he rejects
the idea of heading it himself.” Indeed, the “Muslim holy man” was a man of the
people who confided, “the Iranian people consider me a symbol. I talk their
language, I listen to their needs, I cry for them.”46
In case the reader gets the impression that this study assigns all of the blame
for mischaracterizing Khomeini to the political left, it is worth noting a couple of
journalists on the right who offered problematic interpretations of the Shi‘i
extremist leader. Arnaud de Borchrave, a conservative who wrote for
Newsweek and went on to become editor-in-chief of the Washington Times,
compared Khomeini to Pope Jean Paul II, declaring that the Ayatollah was
“shepherd of the Shiite Muslims just as the Pope is the shepherd of Roman
Catholics.” Despite this unfortunate appraisal, Borchgrave was not taken in by
Khomeini, and described him as a kind of radical Marxist-Islamist who would
destabilize the Middle East, should he gain power.47 Another was Georgie Anne
Geyer. John Sutesman, a political officer with experience in Tehran, recalled her
saying, “The wise foreign correspondent… [was] astonished that Khomeini
would tell her things that he would contradict completely in an interview with
another correspondent shortly after.”48

42
“Throwback Thursday: Iran, Israel, and the US in 1979,” CBS News, September 10, 2015, http://www.cbsnews.com/
videos/throwback-thursday-iran-israel-and-the-u-s-in-1979/.
43
“The Mystic Who Lit the Fires of Hatred,” Time, January 7, 1980, 9–21.
44
Life, March 1979, 141.
45
Steven Strasser and Paul Martin, “Iran: Carrot and Stick,” Newsweek, September 25, 1978, 48.
46
Steven Strasser and Elaine Sciolino, “Crusader in Exile,” Newsweek, November 6, 1978, 31–32; and Elaine Sciolino,
“I Cry for Them,” Newsweek, November 6, 1978, 80.
47
Arnaud de Borchrave, “Tea with the Shah,” Newsweek, November 20, 1978, 65.
48
John H. Stutesman, Consular/Political Officer Tehran (1946–1949) and Officer in Charge, Iranian Affairs
Washington, DC (1949–1952), 20, Iran Country Reader, http://adst.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Iran.pdf.
 244 G. L. SIMPSON

Politicians and diplomats

Many politicians in Washington not surprisingly had a very negative view of
the Iranian government, and this arose for a host of reasons. Iran’s human
rights record particularly brought criticism from the left, which excoriated
the realpolitik global strategy pursued by Richard Nixon and Henry
Kissinger. Thus, for example, the long-time Democratic Chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Arkansas senator J. William Fulbright,
blasted Iran as “a ‘dissolute’ country that ‘ought to have a revolution.’”49
Gerry Studds, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, characterized
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as “one of the most absolute, total, and brutal
dictators,” and castigated a Washington establishment that had helped keep
him in power for more than three decades.50 Another voice from the left was
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that of Tom Harkin, who was then a Democratic congressman from Iowa. As
the Revolution slowly gathered pace in April 1978, the future senator
excoriated the Shah for his “flagrant disregard of human rights,” and rebuked
the Iranian police for its “serious escalation of violence… against peaceful
demonstrations and gatherings in Iran.”51
An additional reason for political condemnation of the Shah concerned oil.
While it was Libya’s Mu‘ammar al-Qaddafi who had taken the lead in drama-
tically hiking oil prices in 1971 and helping to create a global energy crisis by
fueling inflation, the Shah took his cut of the windfall profits that came to
petroleum-exporting countries. Indeed, in 1973, shortly after the Yom Kippur
War, he announced a major price increase in Iranian oil that had a deleterious
effect on the world economy and hurt Americans in the pocketbook. Hence, it
is not surprising that Richard Nixon’s Secretary of the Treasury, William E.
Simon, blasted the Iranian leader, tersely pronouncing that, “The Shah is a
nut.” While he and Nixon administration officials claimed that the quote was
taken out of context, their denials proved unpersuasive.52
Another contentious issue in bilateral relations with Iran revolved around
U.S. arms sales to a country that Nixon sought to make a pillar of American
foreign policy in the strategic Persian Gulf region. One such prominent critic
was Hubert Humphrey, the former vice president and Democratic presiden-
tial opponent of Nixon, who opposed U.S. weapons transfers to Iran and
doubted their strategic value, proclaiming, “That Army isn’t going to fight
the Russians. It’s planning to fight the Iranian people.”53 Opposition to

49
Stephen McGlinchey, US Arms Policies Towards the Shah’s Iran (New York, NY: Routledge, 2014), 49.
50
Trenta Luca, Risk and Presidential Decision-Making: The Emergence of Foreign Policy Crises (New York, NY:
Routledge, 2016), 140.
51
Congressman Harkin, speaking on Coalition for Human Rights and Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy,
95th Cong., 2nd sess., Congressional Record 124 (April 5, 1978) H 8895 and H 8898.
52
“Simon Quoted as Calling the Shah of Iran ‘a Nut,’” New York Times, July 16, 1974, 4.
53
William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II (Montreal, Canada: Black Rose
Books, 2000), 72.
 THE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 245

supplying Iran with military hardware also came from some Republicans. In
October 1978, Illinois congressman Paul Finley targeted the alleged hypocrisy
of the Carter administration in selling Iran navy frigates, declaring that its
“arms sales policy [had] ‘put our government in the worst of all worlds.’”54
Finally, one might also note the criticism leveled at the Shah by the
influential Democratic senator from Washington, Henry “Scoop” Jackson.
Considered a foreign policy hawk, Jackson and the neoconservatives who
backed him believed that the Shah had proved an unreliable ally after he
had abandoned his support for Iraqi Kurds and left them at the mercy of
the Ba‘athists in 1975. On the other hand, it should be emphasized that
Jackson, influenced by Judith Miller’s reportage as well as that of some
others, was quick to suspect Khomeini, and certainly was no bolster of the
Iranian revolutionaries.55 In any event, Jackson did not represent the
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majority in Congress. Thus, when President Carter’s National Security

Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, met with CIA Director Stansfield Turner in
October 1978, the intelligence chief warned of the “real problems with the
Congress” upholding the Iranian monarchy because some of the liberals
there “would not tolerate a program to help keep him [the Shah] in
power.”56
Disapproval of the Shah’s policies came not only from Capitol Hill, but
also from the U.S. Ambassador to Iran, William H. Sullivan, a seasoned
diplomat who had the reputation of being “tough minded” and a “hard-liner”
from the time of the Vietnam War, when he served as ambassador to Laos.57
While the ambassador’s relations with Mohammad Reza were generally
supportive and he was a realist when considering the difficulties that the
Shah faced with often fanatical opponents, he articulated serious misgivings
about human rights violations when communicating with Washington. For
example, in April 1978, Sullivan expressed himself “increasingly concerned”
by the Iranian government’s “resort to Brownshirt [sic] tactics” in suppres-
sing the opposition in his messages to Deputy Secretary of State Warren
Christopher, who was handling Iran while Cyrus Vance focused on other
issues.58 Sullivan consistently advocated that the Shah liberalize and make
concessions in the face of the opposition. Indeed, one might say that the

54
George C. Wilson, “Carter’s Arms Policy Is Assailed,” Washington Post, October 6, 1978, 2.
55
Christian Emery, US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 31–32;
and Babak Ganji, The Politics of Confrontation: The Foreign Policy of the USA and Revolutionary Iran (New York, NY:
Tauris, 2006), 91.
56
Meeting with Dr. Brzezinski, 27 October 1978, Director of Central Intelligence [Stansfield Turner] to Deputy
Director of the National Foreign Assessment [Bruce C. Clarke], October 30, 1978, Secret, “The Carter
Administration and the ‘Arc of Crisis.’”
57
“The Iranian Revolution: An Oral History With Henry Precht,” http://iranian.com/Opinion/2004/February/HP/
Images/hp.pdf; and Richard W. Cottam, “American Policy and the Iranian Crisis,” 298.
58
GOI Discouragement of Dissident Political Action, William Sullivan to Warren Christopher, April 25, 1978, Secret/
Nodis, Telegram, “The Carter Administration and the ‘Arc of Crisis.’”
 246 G. L. SIMPSON

ambassador was long on the carrot and short on the stick in his advice to the
Iranian monarch.59
When it came to Khomeini and the extremist Shi‘i movement he led,
Sullivan’s position was inconsistent. His cables to Washington alternated
between misguided optimism about what Khomeini might do should he
assume a position of leadership in Iran and scathing characterizations of
the Ayatollah. Thus, in July 1977, months before Iran began its descent into
chaos, he broached prescient fears to State Department officials in
Washington that “despite their right-wing fanaticism,” the religious opposi-
tion might form an alliance of convenience with the pro-Soviet left.60 Early in
the Revolution, while noting the spread of anti-American propaganda put
out by the religious right, Sullivan nevertheless imagined that the exigencies
of governing might induce the Shi‘i mojtaheds “to produce something more
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closely approaching Westernized democratic processes than might at first be

apparent.”61 On the other hand, he referred to Khomeini’s followers as an
“extremist coalition of fanatic Moslems.”62
Sullivan’s recommendations of how to deal with the opposition went
beyond inconsistency as the Iranian Revolution gathered steam. During a
private meeting with the Shah in September 1978, Mohammad Reza told the
ambassador that he was considering allowing Khomeini to return to Iran.
Sullivan replied that “he thought the shah would be out of his mind to issue
an unconditional invitation.”63 At the end of the following month, Sullivan
could find no acceptable alternative to the monarchy as “our destiny is to
work with the shah.’”64 Hence, Sullivan advised his superiors in Washington
that, “I would strongly oppose any overture to Khomeini.’”65 Nonetheless,
less than two weeks later, judging by his famous “Thinking the Unthinkable”
telegram to the State Department, the Cold Warrior apparently had had an
epiphany. He stressed the Khomeini movement’s anti-Communist and anti-
Soviet orientation while, at the same time, eliding on its anti-Americanism.
Sullivan then imagined that Khomeini would need to accommodate younger
Iranian military officers who had “a genuine pro-West orientation.” Indeed,

59
Sullivan was not alone in this thinking. Without discussing how the Shah might suppress radicals arrayed against
him, CIA Director Stansfield Turner urged that the Shah “be encouraged to take a series of actions which will
dramatize the fact that he has changed priorities and recognized the need for reforms.” Strategy for the Shah,
Director of Central Intelligence to Deputy Director for National Foreign Assessment [Bruce C. Clarke], November 6,
1978, Secret, “The Carter Administration and the ‘Arc of Crisis.’”
60
Straws in the Wind: Intellectual and Religious Opposition in Iran, William Sullivan to State Department, July 25,
1977, Confidential Airgram, 6, “The Carter Administration and the ‘Arc of Crisis.’”
61
The Iranian Opposition, William Sullivan to State Department, February 1, 1978, Secret/Noforn Airgram, 8; and
Iran: Understanding the Shi‘ite Islamic Movement, American Embassy [William Sullivan] to State Department,
February 3, 1978, Confidential Cable, “The Carter Administration and the ‘Arc of Crisis.’”
62
Iran and the Shah: A Rocky Road Ahead, William Sullivan to State Department, September 21, 1978, Confidential
Telegram, 3, “The Carter Administration and the ‘Arc of Crisis.’”
63
Sick, All Fall Down, 56.
64
Ibid., 60.
65
Quoted in Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York, NY: Bantam, 1982), 439.
 THE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 247

Sullivan’s sanguinity became absurd when he prophesied that the Ayatollah

was likely to assume “some sort of Gandhi-like position in the political
constellation” upon his return to Iran.66

President Jimmy Carter

In any event, the collapse of the Shah’s power forced U.S. officials to try to come
to grips with the new reality that had arisen in Iran. As early as December 1978,
President Carter spoke to reporters and began to distance himself for the first
time from the man who so long had sat on the Peacock Throne. Carter publicly
pondered the Shah’s future, replying to reporters’ questions that he did not know
if the Iranian monarch would survive and that the matter was “in the hands of
the people of Iran.” The president also sharply criticized the Iranian govern-
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ment’s human rights record.67 Yet, he seems to have stayed with the Shah as late
as the first day of the Guadeloupe Economic Conference (January 4–7, 1979),
when Carter met with Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Helmut Schmidt, and James
Callaghan on the island of Martinique. The President would later recall that he
had directed Vance “to take action to retain our relationships with the Shah and
with the military—our only two ties to future sound relationships with Iran,
since we didn’t know the form of government it might take if the military was
eliminated as a major factor.”68 The three European leaders saw matters differ-
ently however, and presented a united front, declaring that the Shah had to go.
Vance, too, urged that the United States should get behind Bakhtiar. Carter tried
to perpetuate the fiction that the Shah, his new prime minister, and the military
were working in concert, and explained that Mohammad Reza told him he
planned to leave Iran.69 Consequently, Washington instructed Sullivan to gain
an audience with the Shah, and “inform him that the United States government
felt it was in his best interests and in Iran’s for him to leave the country.”70 The
U.S. ambassador meanwhile fancied that “we might even gain some credit with
66
Thinking the Unthinkable, William Sullivan, Telegram, November 9, 1978, “The Carter Administration and the ‘Arc
of Crisis.’” National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski referred to the expression as a “quaint description of the
Ayatollah Khomeini.” Gary Sick, who was Brzezinski’s deputy responsible for the Persian Gulf, considered
Sullivan’s conclusion “more the product of wishful thinking than of dispassionate analysis.” Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981 (New York, NY: Farrar,
Straus, Giroux, 1983), 394; and Sick, All Fall Down, 85.
67
Jim Hoagland, “Carter Hints Shah Could Fall,”, Washington Post, December 8, 1978, 1.
68
Carter, Keeping Faith, 445. Kambiz Fattahi puts the date of Carter’s decision to abandon the Shah as January 3,
based upon a memorandum he found in the archives, which this author did not come upon. See Fattahi, “Two
Weeks in January: The America’s Secret Engagement with Khomeini,” June 3, 2016, BBC Persian Service, http://
www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36431160.
69
Ibid.
70
Sullivan, Mission to Iran, 230; and Bernard Gwertzman, “U.S. in New Stand, Advises Shah to Leave Iran for Good of
Country: Stresses a Trip Would Be Temporary, but Return Is Viewed as Difficult,” New York Times, January 9, 1979,
1. During a two-hour audience with the Shah on January 11, Sullivan and General Robert Huyser disagreed when
asked by the Shah when he should leave the country. Sullivan pressed for him to go immediately, but Huyser,
who appears to have been in the dark about much of what was going on in Washington, wanted him to wait a
few days to get the military on board. Robert E. Huyser, Mission to Tehran, (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1986),
77.
 248 G. L. SIMPSON

the ayatollah for making the shah’s orderly departure feasible.”71 While the
former never happened, Mohammed Reza was gone on January 16, to the joy
of tumultuous crowds across Iran. The question of whether the fledgling
Bakhtiar government could survive now took center stage.
The Carter administration initially tried to support the National Front
leader in his unsteady position of power, and put its energies into getting
military backing for the new prime minister. General Robert “Dutch”
Huyser, Deputy Commander of the Supreme Allied Command in Europe,
who had been in Tehran since the first week of the new year attempting “to
stabilize the Iranian armed forces,” worked to prevent the military from
taking power, and tried to get its commanders to support the Bakhtiar
government.72 Unfortunately, Husyer had been sent on a fool’s errand. The
U.S. Air Force general himself memorably and accurately described his
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mission as “one that started with desperation and disunity and ended in
disaster.”73 Indeed, Carter had vacillated over whether to dispatch Huyser in
the first place. Huyser, who knew little of Iranian politics but was not without
acumen, received written instructions only at his insistence. Immediately
upon checking in at the American Embassy, Huyser got orders from Vance
not to meet with Iranian military and to ignore all previous directives until
he got further word.74 While the general did work with top military leaders
and explored the option of a coup should circumstances deteriorate and
dictate such a move, and even made plans for a military takeover, the
Carter administration was never willing to unleash the Iranian generals for
fear of the massive bloodshed that would follow. What Huyser unwittingly
ended up doing was keeping an eye on the Iranian army and security forces,
and reporting back to superiors, who ultimately ensured that such an even-
tuality never occurred.75
Meanwhile, Shahpour Bakhtiar had more to worry about than simply the
generals. Just before the Shah’s departure, Bakhtiar had tried to mollify the
religious opposition by claiming that he “hoped” that Khomeini would return
to Iran “and take a Gandhi-like role.”76 Once more, someone had invoked
the Mahatma’s name, but alas, this too would be in vain. In fact, Khomeini

71
Sullivan, Mission to Iran, 231–232.
72
Ibid., 227; and Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 99.
73
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 1. The Iranian ambassador to the United States, Ardeshir Zahedi, later averred that he
had “urged the Shah to have Huyser arrested and deported.” The ambassador further commented that Iranian
“generals came to me and offered to shoot Huyser.” Zahedi claimed that, “The fear was that the Americans were
about to repeat their involvement in the 1967 coup in Greece against King Constantine.” Andrew Scott Cooper,
“Declassified Diplomacy: Washington’s Hesitant Plans for a Military Coup in Pre-Revolution Iran,” Guardian,
February 11, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2015/feb/11/us-general-huysers-secret-iran-
mission-declassified.
74
Ibid., 15–18, 23. A frustrated Huyser finally had to clarify his instructions with the Secretary of Defense and the
Chair of the Joint Chiefs. General Huyser to Harold Brown and General Jones, January 12, 1979, Top Secret/Eyes
Only/Flash, NSA-6, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Iran, Box 29, JCL.
75
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 54, 91.
76
Nicholas Gage, “Shah Said to Plan to Leave Iran Today for Egypt and U.S.,” New York Times, January 16, 1979, 1.
 THE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 249

had already castigated the Bakhtiar cabinet as “a plot against the people,” and
had instructed followers that “obedience to this administration is obedience
to Satan.”77 The Ayatollah held all of the cards, and his position did not
waver.
Sullivan meanwhile reached a different conclusion than Carter and offi-
cials at the State Department. The ambassador recognized the futility of
supporting a leader who lacked any real base of support. Unfortunately, as
Huyser recollected, “Mr. Sullivan actually thought a Khomeini Islamic
Republic would be preferable to a military takeover… and thought we should
work directly towards a Khomeini government.”78 To that end, the ambas-
sador had the effrontery to blast the president for making a “gross and
perhaps irretrievable mistake” when Carter had reversed himself on an earlier
decision and had opted not to dispatch Ambassador Theodore Eliot to meet
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with Ruhollah Khomeini in France.79

In his memoirs, Keeping Faith, President Carter excoriated his rogue and
presumptuous ambassador for the inaccuracy and tendentiousness of his
reporting and complained that Sullivan “had been carrying out some of my
directives halfheartedly, if at all.”80 Carter wrote, “our forming any relation-
ship with Khomeini would indicate a lack of support for the struggling new
government in Iran.”81 It is unfortunate to state, but this is exactly what the
Carter administration would do.
While American intelligence had proved woefully unsatisfactory to this
point, this is not to say that it was purblind to the threat that Khomeini
represented. A National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) from September of the
previous years had warned, “Ayatollah Khomeini, has for years called for the
overthrow of the Shah and the establishment of a theocracy; thus there is
virtually no chance that the Shah or any secular government can reach a
settlement with him.”82 A January 10, 1979, CIA report further linked the
Ayatollah to terrorism, stating that his close confidant, Mohammad Beheshti,
acted “as Khomeini’s conduit for distributing funds to the terrorist group the
Mujahidin-e Khalq, or Peoples’ Strugglers, which targeted Americans for

77
Nicholas Gage, “Bakhtiar Installed and Shah Declares He’ll Take a Rest,” New York Times, January 7, 1979, 1.
78
Huyser, Mission to Tehran, 99; and Ghotbzadeh Visit to the U.S., William Sullivan to Cyrus Vance, January 21, 1979,
Secret/Nodis Telegram, “The Carter Administration and the ‘Arc of Crisis.’” See also “The Iranian Revolution: An
Oral History With Henry Precht,” http://iranian.com/Opinion/2004/February/HP/Images/hp.pdf.
Huyser, who was staying at the ambassador’s residence, also concluded that American “national interests
demand that we attempt to structure a modus vivendi between the military and the religious, in order to
preempt the Tudeh.” Yet, unlike Sullivan, Huyser regarded a military coup as preferable to a Khomeini-led Islamist
regime. Huyser, Mission to Iran, 233; and General Huyser to Harold Brown and General Jones.
79
USG Policy Guidance, William Sullivan to Cyrus Vance, Secret/Eyes Only for the Secretary Telegram, January 10,
1979, “The Carter Administration and the ‘Arc of Crisis.’” Emphasis in original.
80
Carter, Keeping Faith, 444, 446.
81
Author’s emphasis. Ibid., 446.
82
Draft of National Intelligence Estimate, “Iran NIE,” Secret/Noforn, September 1978, 8, “The Carter Administration
and the ‘Arc of Crisis.’”
 250 G. L. SIMPSON

assassination in the early 1970s. Khomeini has long been linked to this
extremist group.”83
Carter must surely have read the NIE and, even if he did not see the latter
estimate, it is hard to imagine that Brzezinski, who supported an Iranian
coup, did not inform him of its contents. Perhaps the president was swayed
by another CIA report dated two days after the last one, which dissociated
the Khomeini of the early 1970s from recent events and proffered a kinder,
gentler Ayatollah, declaring that, “Some of the recent demonstrations in
Tehran and other cities probably have been led by forces outside
Khomeini’s influence. For example, on 11 January, Khomeini urged his
followers publicly not to take justice into their own hands and to avoid
attacks on agents of the old regime.”84
On the same day as the CIA report, Deputy National Security Advisor
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David Aaron chaired a mini-Special Coordinating Committee (SCC) meeting

within the National Security Council that remarkably concluded, “There is
no overriding ideological incompatibility between the civilian opposition
([Mehdi] Bazargan and [Abbas Emir-] Entezam) with Khomeini nor, with
the Shah… [and] the orientation of any government containing those ele-
ments is likely to be neutralist and anti-communist.” Donning Cold War
lenses, what the SCC feared most was “the emergence of a Qadhafi or even
worse of a Mengistu who might invite Soviet intervention.”85 What one
might infer from this memorandum is that, should the leader of the religious
opposition come to power, it was not necessarily the worst outcome. Maybe
Ambassador Sullivan was not so far off the reservation as had been supposed;
perhaps one could establish some kind of modus vivendi with the Ayatollah
after all.
Indeed, that is what Carter’s special envoy to Iran, George Ball, had
advised back in December, when he proposed, “We need to open a disavow-
able [sic] channel of communications with him [Khomeini] or his
entourage.”86 On January 14, Vance sent a cable to Paris advising officials
at the American Embassy “to establish a direct American channel to
Khomeini’s entourage.”87 Washington charged Warren Zimmermann, a
political counselor with nearly twenty years of service as a diplomat and
who earlier had been responsible for trying to arrange Eliot’s meeting with

83
Khomeini’s Lieutenants in Iran, National Foreign Assessment Center, Central Intelligence Agency, January 10,
1979, Secret, NSA-6, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Iran, Box 29, JCL.
84
Iran: The Radicals in the Opposition, Intelligence Memorandum, Central Intelligence Agency National Foreign
Assessment Center, January 12, 1979, Secret/Noforn/Nocontract/Orcon, “The Carter Administration and the ‘Arc of
Crisis.’”
85
Memorandum for Zbigniew Brzezinski, January 12, 1979, Secret, NSA-1, Brzezinski Material, President’s Daily
Report File, Box 9, JCL.
86
Issues and Implications of the Iranian Crisis, George Ball, December 12, 1978, Secret, 9, “The Carter Administration
and the ‘Arc of Crisis.’”
87
Fattahi, “Two Weeks in January.” See also “Opening a Channel to Khomeini’s Entourage,” Wikileaks, https://
wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1979STATE010736_e.html (accessed March 7, 2017).
 THE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 251

Khomeini, with establishing contact with the Ayatollah and his associates.
Zimmermann used a private car without diplomatic plates to remain incog-
nito, and travelled to the French village where the Ayatollah was staying. He
later remembered:

I ended up being the first American intermediary between the Khomeini people
and the United States government. It was a chilling experience. This all happened
in the two weeks before Khomeini flew back to Iran. As I recall, I think I had seven
meetings. They were all with Ibrahim Yazdi who when Khomeini went back to
Iran became the first foreign minister of the Khomeini regime.88

According to BBC correspondent Kambiz Fattahi, these contacts began on

January 15.89
What makes this remarkable is, that same day, Carter held a news con-
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ference in Washington during which a reporter asked him if he was “in touch
with Khomeini,” and the president responded, “No, we have not commu-
nicated directly with Mr. Khomeini.” The disingenuous answer allowed
Carter publically to appear that he was backing the Bakhtiar government
while he sought to ascertain exactly what Khomeini wanted and what his
attitude was towards the United States.90 Indeed, the contacts were not
“direct” as Zimmermann recollected:

I go in and there was this large dining room empty except for this one guy sitting
at a table, and that was Yazdi. I had a set of questions I had been instructed to ask
about Khomeini’s views on one thing or another. I would ask Yazdi the questions;
he would not attempt to answer any of them. He would say I will take these and
call me tomorrow or call me in two days and we will arrange another meeting and
I will have answers for you. That was how it worked. What happened was
obviously he would take the questions to Khomeini.91

When it came to what the foreign policy of a Khomeini-led Iran might be, we
now have the answers that Yazdi passed to Zimmermann. The responses
appeared benign—at least with respect to bilateral American-Iranian rela-
tions. The future Iranian foreign minister informed his interlocuter that Iran
would “turn inward” and its policies would be based on “positive non-
alignment.” Khomeini intended Iran to be non-aligned also with respect to
88
Warren Zimmermann Oral History, December 10, 1996, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training
Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, http://www.adst.org/OH%20TOCs/Zimmerman,%20Warren.toc.pdf.
89
Fattahi, “Two Weeks in January.” See also a document dated the following day, urging that the American go-
between “see Yazdi again without delay.” “Channel to Khomeini’s Entourage,” Wikileaks, https://wikileaks.org/
plusd/cables/1979STATE011826_e.html (accessed March 7, 2017). It is worth noting that many of the relevant
documents remain classified, so that one still can only partially tell the story of what transpired in the secret
meetings.
90
“The President’s News Conference,” January 17, 1979, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=32324.
91
Warren Zimmermann Oral History. Zimmermann notes that the United States spoke to Yazdi and not another
member of the entourage, Sadegh Ghotbezadeh, because the latter was considered too radical. One might also
note Gary Sick’s comment that “Ghotbezadeh may not be aware of our on-going contacts with Khomeini.”
Memorandum on UPI story on Khomeini, January 18, 1979, NSA-6, Brzezinski Material, Country File, Iran, Box 29,
JCL.
 252 G. L. SIMPSON

the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, although,
because of the Communists’ atheism, the religious opposition found “it easier
to be closer to you than to the Russians.” Moreover, an Islamic Iran would
not appear to affect Washington’s strategic interests in the region. Khomeini
pledged “not to act as policeman of the Gulf… nor… [to] act as an exporter
of revolution to other countries in the region.” Yazdi explained, “Iran needs
the help of other countries, ‘in particular the Americans.’”92
One should stress that Khomeini put the onus for future friendly relations
on American behavior. Yazdi advised Zimmermann that “if the USG [United
States government]… decides to change its policy, as President Carter and
other officials have indicated, and stops interfering in Iran’s internal affairs,
then ‘we see a friendly future relationship.’” Again, he explained, “That
means a complete shift from supporting the establishment, corrupt military
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officers, and a corrupt and incapable ruling class (either military or civilian):
it means showing interest in cooperating with the Islamic movement and the
new government.”93
Even while Khomeini was presenting his position vis-à-vis the Americans in
the most agreeable manner, he was more forthright when it came to Israel.
Zimmermann noted that an Islamic Iran was willing to “sell our oil to whoever
will purchase it at a just price,” but he made the pointed exceptions of Israel as
well as South Africa.94 The American diplomat recalled that Yazdi also told
him, “Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth.”95 On the other hand, the
religious opposition claimed to make a distinction between the Jewish state
and Iranian Jews who had nothing to fear should Khomeini take power.
With all this, the question remains why the Ayatollah was so willing to talk to
the Americans and why he was masking his deep antipathy towards the “Great
Satan.” Carter actually understood this from the beginning. His diary entry of
January 14, the day before the talks got underway, makes this clear. It reads simply
and directly, “Khomeini is afraid he might lose his life if he goes to Iran.”96 What
the Ayatollah wanted to know more than anything else was where the Iranian
military stood and whether Washington would back it, should it move against
him. As Fattahi recently uncovered, the United States tipped its hand and that of
the generals when it informed Yazdi, “If the integrity of the army can be preserved,
we believe there is every prospect the [military] leadership will support whatever
political form is selected for Iran in the future.”97 Learning this, Khomeini felt safe

92
[Arthur A.] Hartman to Cyrus Vance, Yazdi’s response to USG questions, January 19, 1979, Secret/Immediate, NLC-
16-62-1-19-5 [NSA16 Cables File, Iran], JCL.
93
Ibid.
94
Ibid.
95
Zimmermann added, “He didn’t have much nice to say about the Arab countries either, particularly Egypt and
some of the others.” Warren Zimmermann Oral History.
96
Carter, Keeping Faith, 447.
97
Fattahi, “Two Weeks in January.” See also “January 18 Meeting with Dr. Yazdi,” Wikileaks, https://wikileaks.org/
plusd/cables/1979STATE013302_e.html (accessed March 7, 2017).
 THE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 253

in flying to Tehran. To be sure, he advanced the opportunistic line that the Iranian
people should “cooperate with the army in restoring calm in Iran.”98
Finally, it is worth underscoring that Khomeini was speaking out of both
sides of his mouth while the talks were still in progress. When interviewed by
a left-wing Lebanese newspaper, he declared, “the President is the vilest man
on earth because of the crimes and injustices he has committed against that
people.” Khomeini went on to warn of “the possibility of the United States
committing the folly of organizing a military coup in Iran.”99
On January 24, Khomeini was still covering his bets to assure his safety
when he returned to Iran and maintaining plausible deniability with concern
to his contacts with the Carter administration. Two businessmen delivered a
message that was “apparently from Khomeini” that read:
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I give my word to President Carter that if he uses his influence to quiet down the
military and if they allow me to land safely and there are no demonstrations of
violence, I will personally negotiate with the Iranian generals and will solve the
differences to the best interest of Iran and the U.S. government.100

Carter penned a note to Brzezinski in the margin of the memorandum, saying,

“ok—but no reply is needed.” Yazdi further communicated to Zimmermann,
“the Iranian people would view any move by the military against the Islamic
movement as actions by the U.S. against the movement.” With the Ayatollah’s
return imminent, the Khomeini confidant “also expressed the hope that we [the
United States] will cease to support the Bakhtiar government.”101

Conclusion
When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini landed in Tehran on February 1, 1979,
he could do so with confidence that neither the Americans nor the Iranian
military would oppose him. He would continue to manipulate the United
States government to employ its efforts to ensure that there would be no
coup while he and his followers worked to infiltrate the Iranian armed forces
and to coopt whatever leaders they could. Amazingly, as Khomeini learned
how far the military had deteriorated and the lack of initiative on the part of
the by-now demoralized generals, he would use one of his supporters, retired
general Mohammad Vali Gharani, as a go-between with the embassy to try to
get the Americans to be his instrument in “telling them what to do.”102 The
98
Paris: Khomeyni to Return to Iran, Comments on Carter, January 20, 1979, NSA-2, Brzezinski Material, President’s
Daily CIA Brief File, Box 16, JCL.
99
Ibid.
100
Memorandum, The White House, Secret NoDis, January 25, 1979, NSA-2, Brzezinski Material, President’s Daily CIA
Brief File, Box 16, JCL.
101
Ibid.
102
Memorandum for Dr. Brzezinski, February 7, 1979, Secret, NSA-1, Brzezinski Material, President’s Daily Report
File, Box 9, JCL; and Peter Tarnoff, Memorandum for Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, February 12, 1979, Secret, White
House Central Files Subject File, Countries, CO 71, Box CO-31, JCL.
 254 G. L. SIMPSON

future chief-of-staff explained almost apologetically that the Ayatollah

wanted “good relations with the U.S., but for tactical reasons his leadership
role require[d] anti-U.S. slogans.” Gharani meanwhile warned of carnage if
Washington did not help Khomeini, declaring, “If civil war starts now,
hundreds of thousands of people will fight the army… and relations with
the U.S. will deteriorate to the point that even [he] could not talk” to an
embassy official.103
Once the Iranian military collapsed altogether, as it did within a fortnight,
it was no longer necessary for Khomeini and his minions to retain their
mask. Mohammad Reza, who had gone to Egypt and, grasping at straws, had
imagined he might somehow return to his throne, felt “offended and bitter at
the treatment he had received from the U.S.,” as his host Anwar as-Sadat had
told U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Hermann Eilts. When, at the end of January,
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the Egyptian president had urged that Carter “allow the Shah to keep all his
options open, and ‘not slam the door in his face,’” it was long since too
late.104 Likewise, Bakhtiar, upon whom Washington had placed a fleeting bet,
would be out of office and in hiding shortly after Khomeini’s triumphal
return to his homeland.
So, how did so many influential Americans and, ultimately, Jimmy Carter so
fundamentally fail to understand the nature of the Khomeini-led religious
opposition to the Shah? Part of the answer concerned the fact that the Shi‘i
movement was a new historical phenomenon. Yes, religious opposition to
secular authority did have historical antecedents, as the history of the late
Qajar period bears evidence with the mass mobilization of large segments of
the population against concessions to British commercial interests and as part of
the 1906 Constitutional Revolution. Yet no religious leader assumed the stature
of Khomeini at that time, and none advanced such a radical agenda as the
velayat-e faqih. Likewise, the influence of modernization theory left a blind spot
when it came to the persistence of religion as an important part of a developing
society. With the exception of a few scholars, most Americans knew almost
nothing about Shi‘i Islam, and thus could easily accept romanticized notions
about a religious holy man leading a selfless opposition to an admittedly
authoritarian Shah. As for the Iranian monarch and the regime he led, there
was also a tendency to exaggerate its brutality towards its opponents and to
accept propaganda from revolutionaries who told Americans what they wanted
to hear. Since many on the American left wished to bring an end to what they
perceived as an imperial presidency that exploited the Cold War to its advantage,
there existed a predisposition to judge harshly leaders around the world who
acted as strategic surrogates to the United States. On the other hand, Cold

103
“Meeting with Opposition General Qarani,” Confidential, Sullivan to Vance, February 6, 1979, https://aad.archives.
gov/aad/createpdf?rid=82734&dt=2776&dl=2169 (accessed March 9, 2017).
104
Memorandum, The White House, Secret NoDis, January 25, 1979, NSA-2, Brzezinski Material, President’s Daily CIA
Brief File, Box 16, JCL.
 THE JOURNAL OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA 255

Warriors who looked at the world through the lenses of realpolitik were similarly
all too willing to abandon or jettison those whose objectives brought them into
conflict with American interests. Such was the case with Mohammad Reza, who
took his cut of the windfall profits that came from the oil shock of the 1970s and
who proved an inconsistent ally when it came to supporting the Kurds in Iraq.
Finally, there was an attempt by some to find virtue in necessity. As it
became apparent that there was no way to continue supporting a Shah who
had not only lost the support of his people, but also confidence in himself and
those around him, the Carter administration found itself with nowhere to turn
except the Ayatollah. Reasoning that the alternative was a bloodbath, a word
that repeatedly appears in many of the memoirs and accounts of diplomatic and
executive officials, President Carter was willing to accept the reassurances of a
man whose anti-Americanism had clearly and consistently been articulated for
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decades and was echoed in the slogans that his followers chanted in the streets
of Iran’s cities. Lamentably, interest, idealism, and desperation led to the
triumph of misguided hope over misunderstood experience.

Funding
The author was a recipient of a 2016 ASMEA Research Grant to support work that resulted in
this article.

Notes on contributor
George L. Simpson, Jr., is Professor of History at High Point University, where he teaches the
history of the Middle East and Africa. He has published journal articles and book chapters on
the colonial history of Africa as well as the history of the United States’ involvement in the
Middle East. He is a former Fulbright Hays scholar to Kenya.