Word: shahs
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...seven roaring days and seven joyous nights, it will celebrate the coronation of the man responsible for it all: Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, 47, Shahanshah (King of Kings), Aryamehr (Light of the Aryans), and absolute ruler of his nation. It will be history's most belated crowning, for the Shah has already occupied Iran's throne for 26 years. Until now, however, he had steadfastly rejected the idea of a formal coronation. "It is not a source of pride," he often explained, "to become king of a poor people...
...Shah has worked hard to alleviate his country's poverty. While his Arab neighbors feuded, fussed and fought with each other, he was busy building, investing most of his oil earnings in development instead of armaments, plants instead of planes. He decreed a radical land reform, gave women equal rights and promoted education at every level. By creating a climate of stability, he has induced private foreign investors to pour $1.3 billion into Iran. Having visited 57 countries, he has used personal diplomacy to put Iran on good terms with most of the world. Although a Moslem...
Although basically pro-West, the Shah has also refrained from taking sides in Viet Nam. In fact, he has so improved his once-strained relations with Russia that the Soviet bloc in the past year has negotiated to build for him more than a billion dollars worth of heavy industry, including Iran's first full-fledged steel mill, in return for surplus natural gas and oil. The deals have not changed the Shah's pro-Western views. Iran, he says, is "importing iron but not ideology...
Thousand Families. The Shah has not always been so enlightened. Installed by occupying British and Russian troops in 1941 to replace his pro-Nazi father-an illiterate foot soldier who rose to the rank of general and then seized the throne-the Shah came to the palace as a spoiled young man interested mainly in pretty girls and flashy cars. He had plenty of oil money to spend, and the unqualified cold-war backing of Washington, which saw him mainly as an anti-Communist with a long border with Russia. For ten unremarkable years, he lived in luxurious disdain...
...Shah has also been tampering with male superiority. In 1963, he gave Iranian women, traditionally regarded as creatures with "more hair than brains," equal rights with men. By Shahvian decree, women can now vote, run for public office, hold government jobs (the under secretaries of three government ministries are now women), and even divorce their husbands. Their husbands, on the other hand, can no longer be married to more than one wife at a time, unless the first wife gives her consent. Since the matrimonial reform was put into effect, Iranian courts have consented to only one ménage...