The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; The Shah Departs

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Overwhelmed by the hostility of his countrymen, the Shah of Iran departed today, reportedly with tears in his eyes and a box of Iranian soil under his arm. With the Empress Farah he flew to Aswan, Egypt, where he received a warm and friendly welcome from President Sadat. This is the first stop on a journey towards the United States and what the Shah calls a vacation but many believe will be permanent exile. Other members of the family -- three of his children and his mother-in-law -- arrived by Iranian Air Force jet in Texas today to join the Crown Prince. Publisher Walter Annenberg has invited them to stay at his 900-acre estate in Palm Springs, California.

When Tehran Radio announced that he`d gone, the capital exploded in joyous demonstrations, some of them joined by soldiers of the Shah`s army. The nine-member regency council, set up to take over the Shah`s functions, immediately began to operate, alongside the ten-day-old government of Shahpur Bakhtiar. That government, selected by the Shah, got final constitutional authority from the lower house of the Iranian parliament today. But opposition politicians continued to oppose it. Karim Sanjabi, leader of the National Front, said the Shah`s departure was only a preparatory step towards transition.And many awaited the next move from Ayatollah Khomeini, the exiled religious leader who`s guided the recent rebellion. In a statement Khomeini said the Shah`s departure was the first step towards the abolition of fifty years of Pahlevi dictatorship.

Tonight, what`s next for Iran? Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, the choice was the Shah or chaos. That was the position expressed repeatedly in past months by American officials and others, the thesis being that the Shah`s opponents were only temporarily united by their opposition to the Shah and once he left, their natural division over politics, tactics and religion would make agreement, governing and order impossible. Representatives of the various opposition forces, of course, repeatedly denied the Shah-or-chaos theory. Well, now the whole world is about to see who was right. The elements are now in place. The Shah has gone. He left behind that civilian government headed by Bakhtiar, a long- time political opponent of the Shah`s from the left. But Iran`s principal Moslem religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, from his exile in Paris, has declared the Bakhtiar government illegal. He says he will appoint his own provisional government to take over the country and will return to Iran himself when the time is right, to supervise and guide the new government. The third element in the mix is the army, apparently loyal thus far to the Bakhtiar government but apparently susceptible to internal disruption or to trying to take over the government on its own. In short, it`s clear something has got to give. The questions are: who or what, and when? Robin?

MacNEIL: By simply flying out of the country he`d ruled in almost absolute terms for thirty-seven years, the Shah was changing the lives of thousands of people. Here`s one of those personal stories: Morteza Talieh, senior counselor with the Iranian delegation to the United Nations. Last year Mr. Talieh was chairman of the Administration and Finance Committee of the U.N. General Assembly. This afternoon he issued a statement. What did that statement say, Mr. Talieh?

MORTEZA TALIEH: Well, I must tell that this statement was issued by all the members of the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, not only by me; I must correct that. May I read the statement?

MacNEIL: Please.

TALIEH: "The officers of the Permanent Mission of Iran to the United Nations have decided to close the mission today as a token of solidarity with the Iranian people on this jubilant occasion. Two, the officers declare that they do not recognize Ashraf Pahlevi as head of the Iranian delegation to the General Assembly, as well as representative of Iran to the Commission on Human Rights and any other organ of the United Nations. Three, they further declare that Mr. Mansur Rafizadeh and Mokhtar Said, who had been introduced as diplomatic officers of the mission, are in fact Savak agents and have no connection whatsoever with this office."

MacNEIL: Savak is the Iranian secret police.

TALIEH: Exactly.

MacNEIL: How many members of the delegation joined you in doing this?

TALIEH: Almost everyone; fourteen members.

MacNEIL: How many did not?

TALIEH: None that I know. Everyone joined.

MacNEIL: I see. Why did you wait so long to make your views known?

TALIEH: Well, we among ourselves, among the colleagues, we always associated ourselves with the aspirations of the people in Iran and the revolution of Iran. But being abroad we couldn`t actively participate in what was going on in Tehran or other cities.

MacNEIL: But you take the Shah`s departure today as a sufficient signal to do that.

TALIEH: Exactly, and also we take it that this is the beginning of an era that we can form a sort of government which will be agreeable to everybody in Iran.

MacNEIL: Where do you put your allegiance now?

TALIEH: Personally speaking? Because...

MacNEIL: Personally speaking, yes.

TALIEH: Yes. Question of communique released to members of mission But my personal view is that I hope that the kind of government will be formed in Iran which is blessed by Ayatollah Khomeini and has active participation of the National Front leaders.

MacNEIL: What have you done with the mission`s papers? If you charge two alleged diplomats as being -- or purported diplomats -- as being members of Savak, presumably there might be papers incriminating them. What have you done with the papers of the mission?

TALIEH: Which papers?

MacNEIL: Just all the files and things that the mission... TALIEH: No, they didn`t have anything to do in the mission. They had their own offices.

MacNEIL: I see. Who do you report to now? Who pays your salary?

TALIEH: Well, the question of salary is not of primary importance. For this we are ready not even to receive our salary or forego all our titles and all that. But that is automatically paid every three months, and I`m sure that it will be paid, because we are speaking the terms that everybody in Iran is speaking.

MacNEIL: As you have been employed by the Iranian government during the Shah`s regime and the governments that he led, do you expect to be allowed to serve any new government?

TALIEH: Of course I expect...

MacNEIL: You don`t think you will be disqualified for having been an employee or a servant of the previous administration.

TALIEH: That is not the case; that is definitely not the case. There are people who have gone beyond their duties to do something which is against the interests of the people or the country, but we have been professionals with all honesty and accuracy, which is expected from us. We have done only what we were supposed to do.

MacNEIL: What does this day mean to you personally?

TALIEH: To me this is a day that I hope is the end of bloodshed in Iran and the beginning of a very, very rosy era.

MacNEIL: Do you expect the Shah ever to return?

TALIEH: I do not expect him to return.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: The Shah`s departure and Iran`s uncertain future also changes things for the U.S. government. Today a State Department spokesman said the U.S. still considers the Shah the monarch of Iran. In the past few weeks the job of formulating U.S. policy toward Iran and the crisis has fallen to a special interagency task force headed by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs David Newsom. Secretary Newsom is a career foreign service officer who was the Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs and held ambassadorships to three different countries before assuming his present job. Mr. Secretary, in general terms, what are the prospects tonight of a return of peace and stability to Iran and the end of bloodshed?

DAVID D. NEWSOM: Well, we naturally hope that the events will proceed to a point where the bloodshed ends and a stable and peaceful and independent Iran continues its course.

LEHRER: Is it just a hope, or is it a belief based on your reading of the facts in Iran right now?

NEWSOM: Well, the policy which the President and his principal advisors have been following through this period has been designed to use such influence as we have, even though it is limited, to ensuring that this is the outcome. We have supported the constitutional authority, recognizing that political change is taking place and seeking to do what we can to bring the parties together in an appropriate way to restore peace and order to this country.

LEHRER: Are we -- meaning the United States -- actively trying to work out an accommodation between the Bakhtiar government and the elements of the Khomeini opposition on the other side?

NEWSOM: We are supporting the civilian government led by Prime Minister Bakhtiar; to the extent that outsiders -- in a situation where it is the people of the country and its leaders who are making the decisions to the extent that we can be helpful, we seek to be so.

LEHRER: I take that as a yes, then. We are trying to get the folks together, in other words, to put it ...

NEWSOM: As I say, we are limited in what we can do in that way, but we are trying.

LEHRER: Is it possible for the Bakhtiar government to survive without some kind of accommodation with Khomeini or vice-versa?

NEWSOM: Well, I think that`s something for the people in Iran to decide.

LEHRER: Are the 11,000 or so Americans still left in Iran considered safe tonight?

NEWSOM: We have been making a special effort to ensure, as much as we can in a country where we have had a very large number of people and they`ve been relatively widely scattered, to afford the opportunity to people to leave; the population has been reduced from about 45,000 down to about 10,000, and we`re reasonably sure that those people are generally safe.

LEHRER: Have we taken any steps to protect sophisticated weaponry and intelligence-gathering hardware that we have on the ground in Iran?

NEWSOM: We have taken normal precautionary steps, yes.

LEHRER: In what capacity will the Shah be received here in the United States when he comes?

NEWSOM: Constitutionally the Shah remains the monarch of Iran, even though he has appointed a regency council upon his departure, and he will be received in that capacity.

LEHRER: As a head of state.

NEWSOM: As a head of state.

LEHRER: Does he plan to settle here permanently?

NEWSOM: We do not at this moment know what his plans are.

LEHRER: If he should, and if that were to happen, do you as a professional diplomat see that as possibly jeopardizing the United States` relations with any future government of Iran, particularly one that might be controlled by Khomeini?

NEWSOM: We`ve had no indication of that up to this point.

LEHRER: All right; thank you. What the Ayatollah Khomeini decides to do is of course crucial to what happens next in Iran. Khomeini`s closest associate here in the United States is Shahriar Rouhani. Mr. Rouhani has been in telephone contact with Khomeini`s headquarters outside Paris today since the Shah left Iran. Mr. Rouhani, does the Ayatollah still intend to appoint his own provisional government?

SHAHRIAR ROUHANI: Certainly. I mean, that is the program which was declared.

LEHRER: All right; what`s the timetable? When will it be announced, when does he expect it to take over, et cetera?

ROUHANI: But we have to make one clarification: Ayatollah Khomeini himself does not intend to take over.

LEHRER: The provisional government.

ROUHANI: The provisional government, or the revolutionary or interim council will be announced in a matter of a few days, and the committee itself is going to take charge of the affairs of the country.

LEHRER: First of all, how many members would there be on this council? I read in the paper ten; is that right?

ROUHANI: It is so indicated, but I don`t think it is definite.

LEHRER: Are these people who are in Iran now?

ROUHANI: I do not know, but naturally the absolute majority of them must be within Iran.

LEHRER: All right. What`s the criterion for selection to be on...

ROUHANI: There are a number of criteria, actually. The first condition is that within the past twenty-five years they should not have been participating in any part of the government actively -- Shah`s government, that is. Two, that both in the theoretical and practical ground they must have exercised as a political opponent of the Shah; that is, within the realm of the opposition to the Shah. And the third...

LEHRER: In an overt political act in opposition to the Shah, not just done quietly in their home.

ROUHANI: Exactly. And the third is the respect and belief in the Islamic principles, not only in words and theory but rather in theory any practice. The fourth and fifth and so on conditions follow, too, one of them, for example, being that no clergy will be a member of it.

LEHRER: No Moslem clergy.

ROUHANI: Clergy. And the reason being that the clergy -- that is, the religious leaders -- all of them, without exception, including Ayatollah Khomeini, together in perfect agreement have decided not to participate in the interim council because if one institutionalized in a position, later on it will just be hurt. So the Islamic government will be set, but the clergy and so on will be participating in the legislative body, not executive.

LEHRER: Mr. Rouhani, what if the regency council and the government headed by Bakhtiar do not agree to step aside and let this provisional government take over?

ROUHANI: I strongly doubt that they`re going to be very persistent. Nonetheless, if they do persist they are going to have the same fate as Shah has had.

LEHRER: Disruption, demonstrations, violence, run out of the country?

ROUHANI: It`s far more than that, because the Bakhtiar government does not have even the support and the roots that Shah so viciously had implemented and imposed on Iran. He doesn`t have. He has no support whatsoever, except unfortunately nowadays from the American government. And he doesn`t have any. Even the army doesn`t count much on him. Yes, quite certainly.

LEHRER: Are you concerned about what the army might do?

ROUHANI: Certainly we are concerned. But we don`t think the army could do anything more than what they have been doing. In fact, we hav`t been under the complete military rule. How much could they kill us? I mean, kill more people of us? It is definite that the army cannot provide all the oil workers, all the sewage system workers, et cetera, et cetera. So the army, the 230,000 or 400,000, whatever the number is, cannot and will not be able to run the country and is bound to get defeated, and its power shall subside. That`s one side of the story, and the other one is that the Shah, as a despotic tyrant who continues to just hold to the army, is gone now and his image is shattered. So the army automatically will not have the unity and the strength that it had in the past, anyway.

LEHRER: Finally, a personal question on behalf of Mr. Talieh: under the criteria you just laid out in what Mr. Talieh, as a professional. diplomat for Iran for all these years, would he be disqualified from working in the government under Khomeini?

ROUHANI: You ask me concerning the council.

LEHRER: Right.

ROUHANI: All of those -- it has to be reviewed. The people who were under oppression and did not have the courage to speak against or fight against Shah, of course the case is going to be studied. But there are certain ones who definitely, willingly, in spite of the warnings, did support Shah. They are out. Not only out; they`re going to be punished.

LEHRER: Going to be punished by death?

ROUHANI: This is something that the courts shall review. Not all of them are punishable by death, indeed.

LEHRER: All right, thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Now another view of what the future holds. Richard Cottam is a professor of political science at the University of Pittsburgh and a long- time student of Iran. He was last in Iran earlier this month and on the same trip had a long interview with Ayatollah Khomeini outside Paris. Professor Cottam is with us this evening in the studios of Public Television Station WQED in Pittsburgh. Professor Cottam, what do you think the chances are for Khomeini`s plans, as we`ve just heard outlined, succeeding?

RICHARD COTTAM: Well, I think that they`re quite good. His popularity is so enormous that I believe that sooner or later a government that he sanctions is going to come into power. Just exactly how it`ll come into power is more of a question.

MacNEIL: Do you see Mr. Bakhtiar, now having received sort of a constitutional blessing as the setup is in Iran at the moment and with the regency council cooperating with him, do you see them just stepping aside for yet another provisional government or interim government to be set up by the Ayatollah?

COTTAM: No. I believe that the Shah, as a passing gesture, in fact made a lot of trouble, made a transition, an easy transition, virtually impossible in Iran. And he has set it up in such a way that Bakhtiar is bound to be, I believe, humiliated. Whether he will step aside, I think, depends a great deal on the extent to which the Khomeini followers are now negotiating with the National Front and will deal with Bakhtiar through his close associates in the National Front. If it is apparent to Bakhtiar that the only way Iran can have stability is for him to resign, and if his close associates of the past years tell him that, it`s my belief that he would step down.

MacNEIL: Could you see Khomeini`s people and his followers in Iran cooperating with members of Bakhtiar`s present government?

COTTAM: Well, many of those people are technocrats and people without very strong positions in the past. I believe that they`re not discredited by this brief sojourn in the cabinet. The real question is the army; and I believe that the Khomeini people want to integrate the army back into the nation. I believe that`s an intention of theirs. And I would hope and I believe that in these days before the Islamic council is announced that they must be negotiating with some officers -- many officers they`re in contact with; and I would hope that before the Islamic council is announced and a counter government is proposed that they will have a very good reading on the army and some sound expectations that the army will accept a change.

MacNEIL: Looking at it from the American perspective, do you believe from your knowledge that six months from now or so we will have in place a government cooperating with us, selling oil, behaving in a manner we`d like -- or something else?

COTTAM: I believe that the possibility of having such a government is much better than we deserve, as a matter of fact.

MacNEIL: What does that mean?

COTTAM: That means that Khomeini is so popular; he is a charismatic figure; and if he stands by what he said -- and I expect him to -- he could play very much of a stabilizing role in Iran. In fact, I believe he is now the only person who could produce real stability in Iran. If he plays a positive role of bringing people together, not polarizing the opposition but rather bringing them together, if he allows the army to return to the nation -- if he does this, I believe that it`s quite possible that you may have a stable regime. With his popularity and with his spiritual leadership, if he sanctions a government, an opposition group would think twice before it would try to overthrow such a government. And from everything he said it sounds as if he sees that Iran`s self-interest does require that oil be sold to the West and that there be commercial relations with the West and the kind of relations that you described.

MacNEIL: Do you see any way in which the Shah could return to Iran or play any future role there?

COTTAM: I would certainly not expect it. The terrible scenario in which I think it could happen would be a military coup, a bloodbath, in which they would try to return the Shah, believing that he would provide a certain amount of legitimacy for their regime, a military regime.

MacNEIL: Thank you. Jim?

LEHRER: Secretary Newsom, do you agree with Mr. Cottam that the Ayatollah Khomeini is the only stabilizing force in Iran right now?

NEWSOM:` Well, sir, I think you have to realize that throughout a crisis like this, in which political change is taking place in a country where we have substantial interests, the mere fact of comment by the United States government on a future situation is an act of considerable importance. And this is why I say that while we are not unaware of the changes and of the elements that Mr. Cottam has referred to, we have to leave the decisions and the outcome to the people of Iran.

LEHRER: All right. Mr. Rouhani, another point Mr. Cottam made is that the Ayatollah can make things work if he will throw out a leaf or a limb or something to the army. Has that in fact been done, and will that be done?

ROUHANI: Well, one thing which has to be known is this: that there is a rather substantial portion of the army which is loyal to Khomeini. They`re under a tremendous strain; they have been kept si lent. And they`re definitely, you know, not only negotiating but rather they`re just supplying us information. So we have a very good picture of the army. What bothers us the most is the foreign interference, in mainly the American dimension; that is, Americans may commit once again this mistake of creating a coup d`etat, which undoubtedly will result in a situation which will be bad for the Iranian people and for the people of the world as a whole, including American people.

LEHRER: Secretary Newsom, is the United States going to trigger a coup d`etat in Iran?

NEWSOM: No; I can assure Mr. Rouhani on that basis.

ROUHANI: Yeah; I think Mr. Newsom is right, because it would not be really profitable. The United States finally understood that the Iranian people are determined to set a government of their own -- a free government, an independent government, and an Islamic republic. And that is the very biggest step toward creation of good friendship for tomorrow. I think it`s very important.

LEHRER: Could the fact of the Shah`s coming to the United States and possibly staying in the United States be a factor toward good relations later between the United States and a Khomeini-controlled government?

ROUHANI: Well, I think Shah has thought of it, too. He has purchased a palace in Acapulco; he knows how to run away. Nonetheless, if he comes to America, legally we are going to pursue the matter. It`s against immigration laws to permit a criminal to enter the United States, and we can provide sufficient documents concerning that when our government is set. So he has to be sent to Iran and to be tried, with all the people of the world watching the trial, not in a closed trial like the type the Shah did and killed thousands of people, but an open one.

LEHRER: Mr. Cottam, back to you, finally. You have heard what Secretary Newsom and Mr. Rouhani have said. Are you optimistic, sitting here tonight, that this thing is going to be settled without further bloodshed, without more Iranians dying?

COTTAM: No, I`m apprehensive about what`s going to happen right now. I`m apprehensive about the problem of bringing into power a new government and eliminating the government that exists. As I said, the fact that the Shah set up a regency council which there was no way the opposition could accept was a very unhappy parting present he gave to Iran. And I believe that the transition is going to be difficult and I think there will b e bloodshed during it.

LEHRER: All right; thank you. Robin?

MacNEIL: Finally, a footnote. The Shah last came to the United States fourteen months ago and was met by thousands of hostile demonstrators. It was the beginning of the year of opposition that finally swept him from power. The Shah appeared on this program and confidently dismissed those who opposed him. His attitude then underlines how greatly things have changed in just over a year.

(November 14, 1977.)

SHAH of IRAN:I can`t say that I am disturbed, because I think that if you go and inquire about the nature of those who demonstrated against, you would find that they are mostly Marxists, anarchists, wearing masks; and I would be very much interested to see how many Iranians are behind those masks. The fact that they don`t hide at all that they are Marxists is, I think, a very good sign why the Marxists are against what I am and what I represent. And also you could go and compare how many they are and how many those who are for their country and, eventually, their king -- how many they are.

MacNEIL: The Shah, fourteen months ago. That`s all for tonight. We`ll be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.