Shapour Bakhtiar

The History of the Islamic Revolution
Shapour Bakhtiar

For the first time in Iranian history in February 1979, there were two governments in the ‎country within a week: one provisional government to Prime Minister Mahdi Bazargan introduced ‎by Ayatollah Khomeini on 4 February and the other the 37-day government of Mohammad ‎Reza Pahlavi to Prime Minister Bakhtiar.‎

 

Shapour Bakhtiar (26 June 1914-6 August 1991) was an Iranian politician who served as ‎the last Prime Minister of Iran under the Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi. He and his ‎secretary were murdered in his home in Suresnes, near Paris.‎

 

Bakhtiar was born on 26 June 1914 in southwestern Iran into a family of Iranian tribal ‎nobility, the family of the paramount chieftains of the then powerful Bakhtiari clan. His ‎father was Mohammad-Reza Khan (Sardar-e Fateh), his mother Naz-Baygom, both Lurs and ‎Bakhtiaris. Bakhtiar’s maternal grandfather, Najafgholi Khan Samsam al-Saltaneh, had ‎been appointed prime minister twice, in 1912 and 1918.‎

 

He attended elementary school in Shahr-e Kord and then secondary school, first in Esfahan ‎and later in Beirut, where he received his high school diploma from a French school. He ‎attended Beirut University for two years.‎

 

Bakhtiar’s mother died when he was a child of seven. Having intended to begin his ‎university studies in France in 1934, Bakhtiar set off to France by ship. But during the ‎journey, he was informed that the father and four other members of his family were executed ‎because of disputes between the Bakhtiari tribes and Reza Shah. Therefore he returned to ‎Iran.‎

 

In 1937, Bakhtiar with his cousin, Teymour, went to Paris for additional university ‎education. There, he attended the College of Political Science. Being a firm opponent of ‎totalitarian rule, he was active in the Spanish Civil War for the Second Spanish Republic ‎against General Francisco Franco’s fascism. In 1940, he volunteered for the French army – ‎rather than the French Foreign Legion – and fought in the 30th Artillerie Regiment of ‎Orleans. Bakhtiar did 18 months’ military service. In 1945, he received his Ph.D. in political ‎science as well as degrees in law and philosophy from the Sorbonne.‎

 

Bakhtiar returned to Iran in 1946 and joined the social democratic Iran Party in 1949 and ‎led its youth organization. In 1951 he was appointed director of the labour department in Esfahan province by the ministry of labour. He later held the same position in Khuzestan, ‎the centre of the Iran oil industry. In 1951 Mohammad Mosaddeq had come to power in ‎Iran.

Under his premiership, Bakhtiar was appointed deputy minister of labour in 1953. After ‎the Shah was reinstated by a British-American-sponsored coup d’état, Bakhtiar established a ‎private law practice. He remained a firm critic of the Shah’s administration and was ‎subsequently imprisoned for a total of nearly six years and banned from leaving Iran for a ‎period of ten years. ‎

 

In the mid-1950s, he was involved in underground activity against the Shah’s regime, ‎calling for 1954 parliamentary elections to be free and fair and attempting to revive the ‎nationalist movement. In 1960, the Second National Front was formed and Bakhtiar played a ‎crucial role in the new organization’s activities as the head of the student activist body of ‎the Front. He and his colleagues differed from most other government opponents in that ‎they were very moderate, restricting their activity to peaceful protest and calling only for ‎the restoration of democratic rights within the framework of a constitutional monarchy. The ‎Shah refused to co-operate and outlawed the Front and imprisoned the most prominent ‎liberals. From 1964 to 1977, the imperial regime refused to permit any form of opposition ‎activity, even from moderate liberals like Bakhtiar. In the following years, Bakhtiar was ‎imprisoned repeatedly for his opposition to the Shah. He was also one of the prominent ‎members of the central council of the illegal Fourth National Front in late 1977 when the ‎group was reconstituted as the Union of National Front

Forces with Bakhtiar as head of the ‎Iran Party (the largest group in the National Front).‎

 

On June 22, 1977, Bakhtiar together with Karim Sanjabi and Dariush Forouhar wrote an ‎open letter to the Shah, criticizing the situation in the country. About a year and a half later, ‎with the height of the events of the Islamic Revolution in January 1979, the military ‎government of General Azhari was forced to resign.‎

 

Fearing the million people demonstration, the Shah was about to leave the country. He ‎sought a prime minister who had not been a part of the government in previous years. The ‎Shah offered prime ministers such as Karim Sanjabi, Gholamhoseyn Sadeqi and Ali Amini, ‎but they refused. Finally, Lieutenant General Moqaddam (Chief of SAVAK) proposed Shapour ‎Bakhtiar to the Shah. ‎

 

Having been a leading member of the opposition to the Shah for over twenty-five years on ‎constitutional and democratic grounds, Dr. Bakhtiar accepted the position only on two ‎conditions.

 

At first, the Shah temporarily exit the country, and the second was that the prime ‎minister and his plans get a total vote of confidence in the parliament. The Shah agreed to ‎take an open-ended vacation abroad – a genteel form of abdication – and Mr. Bakhtiar took ‎over as Prime Minister on January 4, 1979. Indeed, he was chosen to help in the creation of the ‎almost impossible task of forming a civilian government to replace the existing military one, ‎and also as a concession to the Shah’s opponents, especially the followers of Ayatollah ‎Khomeini.‎

 

It should be noted, although that caused Bakhtiar to be expelled from the National Front, ‎he accepted the appointment, as he feared a revolution in which communists and the ‎ayatollahs would take over the country, which he thought would ruin Iran.‎

 

In one of his speeches, Bakhtiar referred to himself as a thunderbird in the face of current ‎events in the country, reading a poem quote from a contemporary Iranian poet at the end of ‎his message:‎

“I am a thunderbird, not afraid of the storm.‎

A wave am I, not which escapes from the ocean”‎

 

The revolutionary people, who made slogans on every issue, chanted in their ‎demonstrations condemning the Bakhtiar government:‎

“Bakhtiar Bakhtiar, don’t talk about your goodness, everybody knows you, neither a ‎thunderbird nor sea wave, you are a ruthless wolf, a servant of the Shah.”‎

 

In his 37 days as premier of Iran, Bakhtiar ordered all political prisoners to be freed, lifted ‎censorship of newspapers (whose staff had until then been on strike), relaxed martial law ‎ordered the dissolving of SAVAK and requested for the opposition to give him three months ‎to hold elections for a constituent assembly that would decide the fate of the monarchy and ‎determine the future form of government for Iran. Despite the conciliatory gestures, ‎Khomeini refused to collaborate with him, denouncing the premier as a traitor for siding ‎with the Shah, labelling his government “illegitimate” and “illegal” and calling for the ‎overthrow of the monarchy.‎

 

Bakhtiar’s only chance for long-term success would have been to abolish the monarchy, ‎but he did not have the time. Moreover, the army was the only threat Bakhtiar had against ‎Khomeini’s simply setting up an alternative government. The army leadership was ‎presumed to be a royalist.‎

January 19 was Arba’in, and Ayatollah Khomeini called for a massive march against ‎Bakhtiar. Over a million people marched in Tehran, half a million in Mashhad, two hundred ‎thousand in Qom.‎

 

Bakhtiar had sought unsuccessfully to persuade Khomeini to postpone his return to Iran. ‎He refused to negotiate with the Bakhtiar administration and refused to receive a member of ‎the regency council Bakhtiar sent as an emissary to Paris. He also rejected Bakhtiar’s offer ‎to come to Paris personally for consultations.‎

 

Negotiations proceeded between the army, Bakhtiar, Bazargan, and Khomeini. Ayatollah ‎Khomeini announced his intention of returning to Iran on January 26. ‎

 

The closure of Mehrabad Airport in the Iranian capital and some other airports across Iran ‎was the last move from the half-dead regime in order to prevent Khomeini from flying to ‎Tehran. Bakhtiar had ordered the military occupation of the airports which took place on ‎January 24 to prevent the return of Khomeini.‎

 

On 26 January, massive rallies and marches were held in support of Ayatollah Khomeini. ‎Thousands of people had come from all cities and towns to Tehran. There were huge ‎demonstrations of a hundred thousand on Friday and half a million on Saturday, with slogans “Death to Bakhtiar” and “Neither Shah nor Shapour” (a pun: “Shahpour” means “son of ‎Shah”); On Friday there were several clashes, but on Saturday, military troops kept away. ‎The whole cycle of violence threatened to break out anew. At the last minute, Khomeini’s ‎aides convinced Shapour to change his mind. Bakhtiar reopened the airports.‎

 

On 1 February Ayatollah Khomeini flew to Iran in a chartered Air France plane, ‎accompanied by supporters as well as 120 international journalists. The presence of ‎journalists was in part to ensure the safety of the plane from being attacked. When “Imam ‎Khomeini” arrived in Iran, the tumultuous welcome that he received pointed to the likely ‎outcome of the events. After delivering a speech at the Mehrabad International Airport, he ‎travelled to the Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery, where many people killed during the revolution ‎were buried. Millions of supporters line on the path cheering Khomeini’s name, and ‎hundreds of thousands gather at the cemetery to listen to his speech. Ayatollah Khomeini ‎declared that Shapour Bakhtiar’s cabinet was illegal and he said he would appoint his own.‎

 

Bakhtiar asked Khomeini to create a Vatican-like state in Qom, promised free elections, ‎and called upon the opposition to help preserve the constitution, proposing a “national ‎unity” government including Khomeini’s followers.

 

Ayatollah Khomeini rejected Bakhtiar’s ‎demands and appointed his own interim government, with Mahdi Bazargan as prime ‎minister, stating that “I will appoint the government! I will strike the present government on ‎the mouth! With the nation’s support, I will appoint the government! I will do this, because ‎the people approved me.”

 

Bakhtiar had hoped that with the support of the army he would ‎be able to ride the revolutionary tiger, but, following an armed uprising in February 1979, ‎the army withdrew to their barracks, the revolution succeeded.‎

 

Bakhtiar’s government was overwhelmingly rejected by the masses except for a quite small ‎number of pro-Shah loyalists and a few moderate pro-democratic elements. The opposition ‎was not willing to compromise. Consequently, he went into hiding, and after six months of ‎secretly living by April had reached France.‎

 

In November 1979 Bakhtiar seized the moment and stepped forward from his hideout in ‎Paris as a leader of the opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran. He declared himself a ‎constitutional monarchist and launched his National Resistance Movement in exile with ‎financial help from Iraq, where his supporters ran a Persian broadcast service directed into ‎Iran.‎

 

Between 9 and 10 July 1980, Bakhtiar helped organize a coup attempt known as the Nojeh ‎coup plot, prompting the Islamic Republic to issue a death sentence on him. As a result of ‎his measures, an attempt was made on his life on 18 July 1980 in his home in Neuilly-sur-‎Seine, a suburb of Paris, in which a policeman and a neighbour were killed. It was foiled by French ‎police, under whose protection he lived until his assassination on 6 August 1991 when he ‎was murdered along with his secretary, Soroush Katibeh, by three assassins in his home. ‎Both men were killed with kitchen knives.‎

 

He published a memoir in addition to many articles. Bakhtiar’s books include Ma Fidélité ‎‎(in French) and 37 Days after 37 Years (in Persian), his biography (highlighting his political ‎career and his beliefs, up to the Iranian Revolution). His writings are of special interest ‎regarding society and politics in the Pahlavi era and the period of riots and turbulence just ‎before the fall of Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi.‎

 

Bakhtiar was first married to a French woman with whom he had three children, a son, ‎and two daughters. His second wife was an Iranian, and they had a son.‎

 

Bakhtiar is buried in Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris.‎

 

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