Who lost Iran? How and why did a country, never richer, never more
educated, its women never more liberated erupt in a fundamentalist
revolution? the answer can be found in the enthralling life and
tragic death of one man.Amir Abbas Hoveyda was a central figure in
the historic struggle between modernity and tradition in Iran -- a
struggle pitting Western cosmopolitanism against Persian
isolationism, secularism against religious fundamentalism, and
ultimately civil society and democracy against
authoritarianism.Born in Tehran in 1919 to a family of solid middle
class comforts and faded aristocratic roots, Hoveyda was an
elegant, cultivated, well-read, and witty man, educated in Beirut,
London, and Brussels.After entering the Iranian foreign service in
1942, he served in France, Germany, and Turkey, then returned to
Iran in 1956 to join the National Iranian Oil Company. In 1965, the
shah appointed him the country's prime minister. Hoveyda would
serve faithfully in that post for thirteen years.Amir Abbas Hoveyda
embodied the aspirations, the accomplishments and also the failures
of a whole generation of Iranian technocrats -- mostly
Western-trained -- who sought to free Iran from the travails of
poverty and repression and guide it into the modern age. Hoveyda
would be both a leader and a victim of that effort. On the eve of
the Islamic Revolution, the shah, attempting to turn the rising
tide of revolt by offering a scapegoat, ordered the prime
minister's arrest. When the Pahlavi regime fell, Hoveyda chose not
to flee, voluntarily surrendering to the new Islamic authorities.
His hope was for a public trial; instead the infamous "Hanging
Judge" presided over a secret and summary trial.In telling the
story of Hoveyda's life, the author has not only laid bare the
development of Iranian society during a pivotal period (1919 1978)
but has also unearthed important new material on U.S.-Iranian
relations. From 1957 onward, Amir Abbas Hoveyda played critical
roles in dealing with U.S. foreign policy and fundamentalist
Islamic opposition in Iran. Through careful use of
hitherto-unexamined archival materials, unpublished letters, and
personal journals, along with extensive interviews with more than a
hundred of Hoveyda's relatives, friends, and foes, the author has
brilliantly caught the pathos and passion of Hoveyda's life and
times.
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