Richard Nixon, the Shah, and Continuity

Abstract

In April 1969, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, visited the United States to attend the funeral of President Dwight Eisenhower and to meet the new American president, Richard Nixon. Nixon was pleased the see the Shah again, having first met him in Tehran as Eisenhower’s vice president shortly after the coup in 1953 that restored the Shah to the Peacock Throne. Nixon later recalled that first meeting fondly, writing that he “sensed an inner strength in him, and…felt that in the years ahead he would become a strong leader.”¹ With characteristic bluntness, Nixon once told colleagues, “I like him, I like him, and I like the country. And some of those other bastards out there I don’t like, right?”² He was, in his own words, “stronger than a horseradish” for the Shah.³ The Shah was pleased to see the new president again and particularly delighted that their meeting overran by an hour.⁴ Buoyed by the meeting, he spoke of the United States and Iran as “natural allies” and his own country as a “bastion of stability and progress in an increasingly unstable area.”⁵ For his part, Nixon would often speak of their strong bond, citing “the personal friendship that we have had the opportunity to enjoy, going back over so many years.”⁶