Word: shahs
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...Teheran, le grand Charles was welcomed by Iran's Shahanshah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, and his lovely Empress, Farah Diba-who share dulcet memories of France, since the Shah first met his young Queen-to-be while she was an architecture student in Paris. Through flag-bedecked streets rode De Gaulle in a gilded state carriage. Along the route, crowds chanted "Zindehbad [long live] De Gaulle," which turned out to be a particularly poetic cheer, since the visitor's name sounds like "Two Flowers" in Farsi, the Persian tongue. Ignoring Draconian security measures, Two Flowers moved right into...
...became apparent last May when he paid a triumphal visit to Greece, De Gaulle has visions of rebuilding France's influence in the Middle and Near East. At a banquet in Golestan Palace, in private talks with the Shah and his able Premier, Assadollah Alam, the guest repeated his pitch: Iran enjoys a friend in France, which has had treaty relations with the country since Louis XIV. In an address to Parliament, De Gaulle hailed the Shah's reforms, added that Iran, like France, has preserved dignified independence despite the cold war. He wound up with a grand...
Ousted from the Majlis (parliament) were the landlords who systematically gutted the Shah's attempts to modernize Iran's feudal way of life. Swept into office was a group of new men - land reformers, labor representatives and economic experts- almost all of whom had never been elected to anything before. Among the new faces: six women, including the wife of the mayor of Teheran. All were hand-picked by the Shah's National Union, which won 171 of the Majlis' 200 seats, according to nearly complete returns from an estimated 3,000,000 voters...
...stuffed into the ballot boxes by the thousands. No longer did landlords transport villagers to the polls in trucks, with their prepaid votes in hand. For the first time in a parliamentary election, veiled women in wrap-around chadors lined up with the menfolk at polling booths. Although the Shah put anti-reform Moslem mullahs (priests) under house arrest, barred political rallies, and closed up 75 Teheran dailies and weeklies, his most vociferous critics agreed that the crackdown was unnecessary...
...Shah's land reforms have given new luster to the Peacock Throne. Massive U.S. aid ($1.5 billion since 1948) and record oil revenues of nearly $400 million this year have restored financial stability to the country. Even if the election campaign had been wide open, the Shah would have won by a landslide. Jubilant over the results, the Shah flew off to the remote region of Luristan in western Iran. There, as natives pounded big sheepskin drums in noisy greeting, he handed out land deeds to 6,000 more peasant families...