The coalition would make reforms but maintain the monarchy. Sanjabi would win Khomeini’s blessing for a coalition government. The gossip in Teheran was that a compromise deal was in the works. I pointed out that the leader of the lay opposition, Karim Sanjabi, was due to go to Paris to see the most intransigent of the religious leaders, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. “Possibly,” the Shah said, shrugging his shoulders in an elaborate show of disbelief. Surely, I said, the factions could be played off against each other. Moreover, the opposition was headed by the Moslem clergy, and they were clearly divided. There had been demonstrations in many parts of the country, and strikes, but Teheran, apart from the university, seemed calm, and the Army was in thorough control.
I expressed surprise at-and, indeed, felt some suspicion about-this show of gloom. “As if there were anything to be cheerful about.” The American and British Ambassadors had been in to see him. He wore a double-breasted suit whose blackness suggested mourning. He looked pale, spoke in subdued tones, and seemed dwarfed by the vast expanse of the room, with its huge, ornate chandeliers and heavy Empire furniture. He received me, as he had on several of my previous visits, in a ballroom on the second floor of the Niavaran Palace, on the northern outskirts of Teheran.
At that point, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi wasn’t anybody’s kind of Shah. I was reminded of that story when I saw the Shah a few weeks ago here in Teheran. “Well,” Powers said, “he’s our kind of Shah.” Subsequently, he was asked how he liked His Imperial Majesty. A story from the Kennedy years which has the rare quality of being true is that once, when the President was otherwise engaged, Dave Powers, his original guide to the poor Irish of Boston and later a combined companion and jester at the White House, was delegated to kill a few minutes with the Shah of Iran.
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