Mansur Rafizadeh Was SAVAK‟S Chief Operative in the United States

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Mansur Rafizadeh was SAVAK‟s chief operative in the United States. He arrived in New York in 1959, first under the guise of a student and then as an attaché to Iran‟s mission to the United Nations. It appears, initially, that U.S. officials were unaware of Rafizadeh‟s affiliation with SAVAK. In a 1962 internal memorandum, a political officer at the American embassy in Tehran described Rafizadeh as a doctoral student in economics at NYU and a leader of a student organization in the United States sympathetic to Mozaffar Baqai‟s Toilers‟ Party. Nevertheless, Rafizadeh unquestionably worked for SAVAK, a fact that the FBI most likely uncovered in an April 1964 investigation. In that capacity, Rafizadeh monitored oppositionists and recruited student informants for two decades before the collapse of the Pahlavi regime. “With the passage of time,” Rafizadeh recalled, “the regime exerted increasing pressure on SAVAK agents for firsthand reports on anti-shah activists in the United States.”103 U.S. government officials became aware of these activities by the mid-1960s. In 1966 the Los Angeles field office of the State Department‟s Office of Security reported that five Iranians were “hand-picked by the Shah‟s security chief” to monitor the activities of dissident Iranians. They also formed a pro-shah organization known as the Taj Sports Club to counter the vocal Southern California branch of the Iranian Student Association. These pro-shah students, according to State Department security officers in SAVAK‟s full-time personnel, devoted its attention to national security, and was the most repressive arm of the Pahlavi state. 103 Franklin J. Crawford to the Counselor for Political Affairs at American Embassy Tehran (Harry Schwartz), “Conversation with Mansur RAFIZADEH, Leader of Baqai Student Group in the U.S.” June 5, 1962, RG 59, RIAD, 1958-1963, box 7, folder: Student Activities, NARA; Department of State Reference Slip, May 25, 1964, RG 59, RRI 1964-66, box 1, folder: Office Memoranda, NARA; Rafizadeh, Witness, 97-112, quote on p. 108. 282 .

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