Word: shahs
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Mossadegh was a master of the divide-and-conquer technique, uniting one day with a fanatic mullah to oust a rival Premier, allying himself with the Reds the next to break the mullah. He got rid of the ablest of the Shah's advisers like Court Minister Hussein Ala; he usurped the royal prerogative of dissolving the Majlis. The outlawed Communists, for supporting him, were left untouched and grew in strength...
...succession of British and U.S. ambassadors tried to encourage the Shah to be firm. Though they could reach his heart, they could not stiffen his spine. And at each stage of Mossadegh's usurpation of power, loyal army commanders pleaded: "Say the word, O Shahinshah, say the word." The Shah increasingly resorted to barbiturates to sleep; his temples greyed, his hands trembled. One night last week, in his 34th year, his twelfth as Shah, his third in the era of Mossadegh, the Shah gave the long-awaited word. It was much too late...
Forewarned. The machinery of power had long ago passed to Mossadegh; almost all the Shah's allies and strongpoints had been enveloped and destroyed. At the end, only 700 of the Imperial Guard and one brigade were loyal to the palace. Shortly before midnight they donned helmets and took up arms against Mossadegh. They arrested three Cabinet members, including Foreign Minister Hussein Fatemi. With a few truckloads of troops, a colonel of the Imperial Guard set off for Mossadegh's house, with royal orders for the Premier's dismissal. Mossadegh's forces had been tipped...
Troops "loyal to Mossadegh surrounded the Palace and Parliament building. By 5 a.m. it was all over, not a shot fired. In the face of Mossadegh's overwhelming control, the Shah's belated assertion of his constitutional prerogative was made to seem like an attempted coup, and Mossadegh, the usurper, to personify law & order. Belatedly, from a hideout in the mountains, a brave follower of the Shah's, General Fazlollah Zahedi, onetime Senator, proclaimed himself Premier. He had royal decrees from the Shah, he said, dismissing Mossadegh. As recently as a year ago, Teheran would have rung...
...northern Iran, at Ramsar on the Caspian Sea, where he and his pretty Queen were vacationing, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi heard the news of the failure. With Queen Soraya,* he boarded his private twin-engine plane and flew to safety in Bagdad (where he landed unrecognized, asking the name ' of a good hotel). In Teheran, Mossadegh, confined to his iron cot and closely guarded, counted one more obstacle out of his way. Now, though his unhappy country has lost one more source of stability, there was little left to challenge him except the Communist-led mobs, who now sing...