Authority, but at a Price. the Shah Effectively Broke the Power of Iran

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authority, but at a price. The shah effectively broke the power of Iran‟s “thousand families” without going far enough to substantially improve the lot of the peasantry. The ulama objected to land reforms that infringed on religious holdings and, more important, the entrance of women into Iran‟s political life. The shah offered no political liberalization, however, to placate the middle class, intelligentsia, and disaffected students. In Washington, the White Revolution offered modernizers their “reform” program. The shah‟s initiative effectively erased the sense of urgency among the likes of Komer that empowered free speech modernists during 1961 and 1962. In the words of one historian, “The White Revolution had coopted the New Frontier.”114 While the National Front rejected the politics behind the White Revolution, it was not, in principle, against all aspects of the reform program. The Organization of Tehran University Students labeled the six points of the White Revolution “propaganda stunts” which aimed “to mask its [the shah‟s] oppressive regime with a reformist new look.” In an effort to make clear that not all opponents of the White Revolution were feudal landholders or religious conservatives, as many in the West claimed, the students in Tehran emphasized that the shah failed to address “the thorny question of freedom and democracy and the safeguarding of the constitution.”115 A group of Iranian students in Southern California highlighted the White Revolution‟s contradictions. They asserted that 114 Goode, “Reforming Iran during the Kennedy Years,” 25. The shah describes his reform program in Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, The White Revolution, 2nd ed. (Tehran: Kayhan Press, 1967). Scholarly treatments of the White Revolution include: Ansari, “The Myth of the White Revolution”; Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, 82-92; April R. Summitt, “For a White Revolution: John F. Kennedy and the Shah of Iran,” Middle East Journal 58:4 (Autumn 2004): 560-75. 115 OTUS Statement, April 20, 1963, PWOD, box 1719, folder 3. OTUS submitted its statement to the special representative of the International Student Conference, and the CISNU reprinted the documents and distributed them to the press. Fariborz Fatemi delivered this statement and others to Douglas‟ office on May 17, 1963. See also OTUS, “Iranian Students and the Shah‟s Land Reform: Tehran Students Say No to Dictatorship,” and CIS, “An Appeal on Behalf of Arrested Students,” The Student 7:4 (1963): 5-8, located in USNSA box 22, HI. 111 .

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