Word: shahs
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...facts about the Shah's alleged corruption are also difficult to pin down, especially because in Iran, as in other Middle Eastern monarchies, there traditionally has been little distinction drawn between the treasures of the ruler and those of the nation. A lawsuit filed in New York last week on behalf of the revolutionary government accuses the Shah of diverting $20 billion in national assets to his own use, and charges Empress Farah with taking $5 billion. But it offers no evidence and indeed admits that the sums are pretty much a guess. The Shah's own figure...
Khomeini's demagoguery notwithstanding, even after that slaughter, the total number of the Shah's victims simply cannot be compared to the millions killed by Hitler and Stalin; nor can the tenor of his regime be likened to that of Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union. Even among contemporary despots, the Shah is not the worst. One prominent member of the International Commission of Jurists classifies the Shah as in a "second league" of tyrants, below Uganda's Idi Amin, Cambodia's Pol Pot and Central African Emperor Jean Bokassa...
Even in this grim area, rational distinctions must be made. Is there justification for calling the Shah a criminal and treating him as one? If so, the same would have to apply to scores of other rulers, rightist or leftist. Moreover, Iran, like many developing countries, has never known any really free institutions. And cruelty, by whatever regime, has always been a fact of life there and in many other countries the U.S. must live with. These considerations do not exonerate the Shah, but they must be kept in mind by the U.S. as it tries to cope with...
Much of the Shah's wealth was funneled into the Pahlavi Foundation and several others, established ostensibly to fund charitable activities, like aid to the handicapped. The New York lawsuit asserts that the Iranian state budget "provided annually a subsidy of approximately $10 million" to the foundations. In addition, it says, "plaintiff [the Khomeini government] is unable to account for several billion dollars of revenues earned by the National Iranian Oil Co. between 1973 and 1978." In 1976 alone, it asserts, Nice's receipts as published by the company were $1 billion less than the NIOC earnings reported...
Though the foundations did do some charitable work, the Shah invested most of their money in income-producing assets. In a new book, Iran: The Illusion of Power, British Journalist Robert Graham published a 3½-page list of holdings of the Pahlavi Foundation that he was able to track down as of the end of 1977 and that he estimated to be worth $2.8 billion to $3.2 billion. They included total ownership of Bank Omran, one of Iran's largest banks; 80% ownership of Bimeh Melli, the nation's third largest insurance company; and full or partial...