Word: shahs
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Despite his fear of the Russians, the Shah receives extensive aid from the U.S.S.R. By Soviet count, 134 projects have been launched with Moscow's help, among them metallurgical plants, engineering facilities and a trans-Iranian trunk gas pipeline. Last March the Soviets built a new blast furnace at Isfahan; new smelting and rolling mills will follow soon. All told, these projects are claimed to account for the production of 90% of all coal in Iran, almost 90% of the iron ore and 70% of the steel...
...Moscow is also the enemy, and in recognition of this and his pivotal role as the guardian of the Persian Gulf oil lanes, the Shah has become commander in chief of one of the mightiest military machines in the Middle East. In 20 years, he has bought $36 billion in arms?half from the U.S. He has submarines from West Germany, tanks from Britain, frigates from Holland. His air force flies 141 F-4Es, 64 F-14As, 20 F-14s; and 180 more jets are on order. He has spent $500 million on 491 Bell helicopters, and will...
...immense investment in military hardware has left the Shah open to charges that some of that money - which has helped him hold the allegiance of the military - should have been spent to improve civilian living conditions. Though a booming city, Tehran suffers a severe water shortage. Housing costs have shot up. The drop in oil income in the past three years (because of the fall of the dollar), though only 3%, found Iran financially overextended. As a result, many development projects simply came to a halt. Inflation leaped to 50% a year, profiteering became widespread, and the confluence of troubles...
Explaining why she joined the National Front, a coalition of leftist parties opposed to the Shah, Dr. Homa Darabi Keyhani, 38, a New York City-trained pediatrician and child psychiatrist, recalls her experiences as a doctor in a small Iranian village ten years ago. The people had a saying that the first child belonged to the crows - because of the likelihood that it would not survive. "That is bitter and terrible to hear," she says. "Millions were spent to build big gambling casinos. Corruption thrived around us while kids died because they drank contaminated water, and there was no vaccine...
Belatedly, and at great cost, the Shah himself has begun to comprehend the real nature of Iran's malaise and his role in its creation (see Interview page 43). In other societies run by strong rulers - Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, Leopold Senghor's Senegal, Tito's Yugoslavia - literate and cultivated populations have succeeded in matching political progress with economic and cultural development. But Iran's unique society, so influenced by its religious structure and rooted for centuries in a different world, simply could not adjust to such radical change. The Shah failed to realize that the dramatic alterations...