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Asian Affairs, October,
1987
by Denis Wright
"... Future historians will find in it more of value about the ways of the Shah and those around him during the critical months of the Revolution than in any other book so far written by an Iranian...Dr. Ghani includes intriguing tit-bits of information in some of his commentaries. . . In short, this is a very useful contribution to Persian studies."
The New York Review of Books, March
3, 1988
by William Shawcross
The Duke of Wellington observed, "Persia has been much
exposed to authors." During the nine years since the Iranian revolution,
over one hundred new books on Iran have been published in English alone and
there are hundreds more in French, Iranian, and other languages. Not all
of them are reliable. Persia, or Iran, arouses passions. Not quite as Vietnam
did, but for a much longer period. For students of Iranian affairs Dr. Ghani's
long book is, and will be, invaluable.
Before the fall of the Shah, Cyrus Ghani was a well-known Tehran lawyer,
bibliophile, and connoisseur of movies. He was not part of the court but
he knew everyone in the Pahlavi entourage. He was also a contact of the
US Embassy, and a profile of him was found and later published, among
many thousands
of documents, by the militants who occupied the embassy in November 1979.
(These documents, one of the most important collections of confidential
US government papers ever to be made public, are available in more
than fifty
volumes. Some of them were shredded by embassy staff before the takeover
of the mission was complete and have been painstakingly reconstituted,
shred by shred.)
It was the habit of embassy officials, as in other capitals, to leave their
successors lists of the best and worst contacts they had in Tehran.
Some of the profiles found in the embassy are highly damaging to their subjects,
who tend to be described as bores, sycophants, or crooks. Cyrus Ghani
comes
out well. Martin Herz, an astute US political counselor during the
late Sixties, describes him as a most useful contact and good friend, but
not
without his
blind spots:
He is "pro-American" in the sense that he shares our values and has a deep and truly encyclopaedic knowledge and interest In the US. But he is also a liberal nationalist and would not mind seeing the US humbled, not just in Iran but also in the Middle East. Cyrus Is a true conversationalist In the best sense of the word, and has a vast storehouse of knowledge about Iran. He is also a kind of intelligence exchange-he always seeks inside information and undoubtedly passes it along, so he cannot really be trusted beyond a certain point. On the other hand, he quickly tires of people who "just give me the line."
If this comment seems unexceptional, compare it with what Herz wrote
of Jamshid Kabir, against whose name he considered it necessary to
issue a "WARNING
NOTICE":
Useless to try to discuss serious subjects with Jamshid, who is a courtier first and last. His wife, Marina, is a caricature. Great party goers, but it has never been clear why anyone would want to cultivate them. Their famous party in 1967 was distinguished by the fact that half the guests came down with acute poisoning, apparently because a devout Moslem on their household staff disapproved of merrymaking on a mourning day. Too bad Mrs. Kabir seems to have escaped unscathed.
I recall meeting Dr. Ghani In a beach house on Long Island In the fall
of 1978; it was quite clear that he knew a revolution was coming
to Iran. And
so he had arranged for most of his library to be shipped out of Tehran
to London and New York. Even so, he lost some 2,500 books. His Iran
and the
West, an alphabetically arranged critical bibliography of published
works on Iran, is based on the many books, journals, and articles
that are
left.
It is therefore a somewhat eclectic work; it cannot and does not
pretend to be exhaustive. It is nonetheless fairly comprehensive.
Its sections-and
Ghani's library-embrace history, politics, and travel; literature,
religion, science, language, and "Western Fiction with an Eastern Setting";
arts, archaeology, books of illustrations, photograph albums, and
art-sale catalogs; pamphlets, articles,
journals, occasional papers, museum catalogs, newspaper and news
magazine articles.
That is a lot of subjects to cover, and although some subjects are
merely mentioned, Ghani uses many of his entries as occasions to
expound, and
digress on, the turbulent history of Iran's relations with the
countries to its west.
One reviewer has described the book as "a very high quality
junk shop:' This Is true insofar as it is much less predictable
than an ordinary bibliography.
It is the sum of Ghani's prejudices, passions, and learning. He
seems to know everything about Iran-and to have strong views on
most questions.
His book, like a good junk shop, is a wonderful place to browse
in and linger.
He is particularly informative about the tortured relations between
Britain and Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Many Iranians
believe, with some good reason, that Britain sacrificed the interests
of Iran to its
overwhelming concern to protect India, to which Iran was considered
entirely sUbsidiary. Today Iranians are still obsessed with the
British role in
the continuing melodrama of their country. There are many who consider
Khomeinl
a British agent. There is a well-known saying in Iran, "Lift a mullah's
beard and you'll see 'Made in Britain' on his chino" It Is
commonly believed, particularly by those around the late Shah,
that the British
inspired the Shah's overthrow and the Ayatollah's return. Why?
First to humiliate
the United States, which had arrogated far too much (previously
British) influence to itself during the time of the Shah. The British
like shahs
to be British not American puppets. Secondly, to create a crisis
in the Middle
East and thus inflate the price of North Sea oil, which was coming
on stream in 1979. The Shah's fall certainly had that effect, although
no one has
supplied any evidence of a British conspiracy to bring It about.
Ghani has more than forty pages on the various editions of the
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which, while far from the most important
Persian
poem in Persia,
is easily the most Important to foreigners. (That was a fact recognized
by the Shah's regime and among the scores of sumptuous illustrated
books the
court produced were many lavish editions of the Rubaiyat carefully
designed to appeal to Western romanticism.) The Rubaiyat magnificent
translation
by Edward Fitzgerald was first published in 1859. It came to the
attention of
a number of writers, including Richard Burton, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
and John Ruskin, who praised it very highly. It led Tennyson to
become Interested
in Persian poetry, and he considered translating Hafez. But Ghani
tells us that his wife thought that the funny writing was harmful
to his
eyes, particularly
when she learned that it had to be read backward. So she hid all
his Persian texts and made him take up badminton instead.
Ghani's prejudices are splendidly evident throughout. One book,
An American Family In Persia, is dismissed as a "commonplace and useless work:" He
describes the memoirs of the Shah's second wife, Soraya, as "the best
autobiography ever written by any half-German, half-Persian former Queen
who later became an actress and made one film:' Poor Soraya. Life at the
Shah's court in the Fifties does sound dismal. She hated the palace built
by the Shah's father, she hated the food, she hated traveling to the remoter
provinces of Iran, and she hated the Shah's scheming family. Above all, she
hated Mohammad Mossadeq, "an aged tribal prince who was elected to parliament
in 1950" and who seemed set on ruining her life. After the coup of 1953
in which she and the Shah first fled to Rome and then were restored with
British and American help, things improved—until the Shah
divorced her in 1958 for her failure to bear him children.
In discussing one of the Shah's own memoirs, Mission For My Country(1961),
Ghani draws on his own knowledge of court life in the Sixties and
Seventies to give a portrait of the Shah that is both critical
and sympathetic.
Those who knew him as a young man often remarked on his "kindness";
he was also nervous and unconfident, while at the same time believing
in his
own divine mission. After the British removed his father and installed
him as shah in 1941,
He was popular and had genuine support in almost all strata of Persian society. At his own initiative, he established a weekly informal meeting with some six or seven of the foremost scholars of the day where, In effect, he was to be educated...He was moved by poetry, amazed at tales of misrule by former monarchs, and saddened by Incidents of cruelty in Persian history.
Before the uprising by Mossadeq in 1953 the wise men were all
very impressed by their young king.
Ghani
believes the CIA-MI6 coup, which overthrew Mossadeq and restored the
Shah to the throne, transformed him. From then
on he demanded
absolute and
unquestioning support from a claque of "people of often dubious character
and reputation:' Still, there were "golden years" in the Sixties
when the reforms, encouraged by Kennedy and called by the Shah his "White
Revolution," began to improve the conditions of Iranians.
Then came the election of Richard Nixon, whom the Shah knew
and liked, the Anglo-American decision to make the Shah "policeman of the Gulf' after
the British withdrew from "east of Suez," and Nixon and Kissinger's "fateful" decision
In May 1972 to give the Shah all the arms he wanted. At the end of 1972,
there was a marked change in the Shah. He grew more aloof and became more imperial and imperious. His arrogant treatment of his ministers became intolerable. The tone of his "talks" to the people became more remote…Corruption increased. Nothing could be done without the help of a contact in high places.
After the huge oil price rises of 1973-1974,
Some five or six super agents (together with some 25-30 sub agents) began to manage the economy…One of the key ministers devoted his entire time and energy towards fulfilling the wishes and financial interests of the Royal Family…There was a growing sense of injustice among the people and especially among the emerging middle classes. Violence and armed insurrection increased and was met by increased brutality and savagery. Large numbers of the young turned towards Islam for an answer.
In 1976 came the election of Jimmy Carter and the Shah's
decision to liberalize the regime—to try to transform
himself into an Eastern Juan Carlos. Catastrophe followed.
Ghani notes that it is still hard to arrive at a just
appraisal of the Shah. Iranians initially viewed him
as a tyrant, then as a saint, and now as a weak, vacillating nonentity who was a mere toy in the hands of others. He cannot be dismissed or ignored In these simple terms. The Iran of the last forty odd years, and in many ways the Iran of today, is his legacy.
Still, it is now nine years since the Shah departed.
Nine years of the Ayatollah's rule have also left
ineradicable marks upon
Iranian
society.
Ghani is an
Iranian patriot who does not wish to see an Iraqi
victory in the interminable brutal war of the Gulf.
Yet his
dislike for
the methods
of the revolution
is abundant and clear. He writes disparagingly
of a collection of lectures by Abol Hasan Bani-Sadr,
the
first president
of the Islamic
Republic.
He calls his attempt
to identify Islam with the interests of the working class...a mixture of Marxism and Shi'ite fundamentalism in turgid prose and often Incomprehensible. Author...considered himself the "spiritual son" of Khomeini. He had the good fortune of escaping Iran before the wrath of his spiritual father had descended upon him.
Of another collection of essays, Iran Erupts
(1978), edited by Ali Reza Nobari, Ghani is
equally scathing.
Among the
contributors were
Banl-Sadr,
the French
journalist Eric Rouleau, and Khomeini himself.
The book's self-proclaimed purpose was "to
try to demystify the treatment of the anti-Shah
movement In the Western media:' Ghani writes
that
the editor later became president of the Central Bank of Iran and was one of the principal financial geniuses behind Bani-Sadr who gave Iran the early Islamic-Marxist laws which probably are the most unworkable ever devised. The author and Bani-Sadr later fled their Islamic haven; M. Rouleau has since been appointed as French ambassador to Tunisia, and Ayatollah Khomeini has created exactly the kind of state which the present author accuses the Western media of Inventing.
Volume 1
PREFACE x
SECTION A. History, Politics and Travel 1
SECTION B. Literature, Religion, Science, Language and Western Fiction with
an Eastern Setting. 438
SECTION C. Arts, Archaeology, Books of Illustrations, and Photograph Albums.
613
INDEX For Volumes 1 and 2 xxx
Volume 2
SECTION D. Illustrated Art Sale Catalogues, Pamphlets, Articles, Journals,
Occasional Papers,
Museum Catalogues, Newspaper and News Magazine Articles. 715
INDEX For Volumes 1 and 2 xxx
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Cyrus Ghani is a lawyer and scholar specializing in Iranian studies. He is the author of Iran and the Rise of Reza Shah; Iran and the West: A Critical Bibliography, as well as My Favorite Films.
He was born in Iran and has lived in Tehran, Los Angeles, London, and New
York City, where he now
resides.
Mage has published his books Iran
and the West; Man
of Many Worlds: The Diaries and
Memoirs of Dr. Ghasem Ghani; and My
Favorite Films.
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