Volume 40, Number 7 · April 8, 1993
Secrets of the Shah's Court
By Shaul Bakhash
The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1969-1977
by Asadollah Alam, introduced and edited by Alinaghi Alikhani, translated by Alinaghi Alikhani, by Nicholas Vincent
St. Martin's, 568 pp., $27.95
In 1975 Asadollah Alam, the minister of the imperial court and an intimate of the Shah of Iran, noted in his diary that Iran was everywhere triumphant. Oil revenues were pouring in. The economy was booming. The Shah was firmly in control. The powerful industrial states, from Germany to Japan, were falling over themselves to court the Shah's favor. But within two years, everything changed. The economy was in difficulty, there were rumblings on the streets, tremors of revolution. By February 1979, the Shah's regime lay in ruins, and Khomeini and his followers had taken power in Tehran.
Review, 4652 words
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