Amir-Abbas Hoveyda

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Amir-Abbas Hoveyda
Ali Gholi Ardalan
Personal details
Born	(1919-02-18)18 February 1919 Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery
Political party	New Iran Party (1964–1975) Rastakhiz (1975–1978)
Spouse	Leila Emami ​ ​ (m. 1967; div. 1973)​
Parent(s)	Habibollah Eynolmolk Ashraf Molok Sardari
Alma mater	Université libre de Bruxelles
Signature

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda (

Born in

Hoveyda's desire to attend a French university in 1938 made the young student jump the gun by entering the country of his dreams without completing specific high school prerequisites required for entry. Cited as being the main reason behind Hoveyda's organizational miscalculation was the possibility of military action by an ostensibly belligerent

Upon his return to Iran in 1942, Hoveyda rested for a few months before enlisting as a soldier in Iran's national army. His plan at the time was to use his experience as a conscript to supplement his seniority at the foreign ministry where he applied for employment prior to being drafted. Because of his higher education, Hoveyda was able to bypass boot camp and directly enter the Officer's Academy. Iran's modern

The Foreign Ministry dispatched a message eight months later confirming Hoveyda's appointment. To some, the quick application process is evidence enough to suggest that there were influential forces that helped expedite Hoveyda's subsequent employment. These claims, however, are often based on hearsay rather than substantiated facts. During his time in the Ministry, Hoveyda befriended many elements of Iranian high society, including the likes of

In 1950, Hoveyda returned to an ever-changing Iran once again. This time, he would be caught in one of the most tumultuous periods of Iran's modern period. As Hoveyda toiled away at a notably boring job as assistant director of the public relations office at the Foreign Ministry,

Leaving Iran once again in 1952, Hoveyda was able to secure a position with the

The Iranian embassy in Turkey would serve to be Hoveyda's final official position outside Iran's frontiers. Assistant to the ambassador, who so happened to be the father of his good friend, Hassan-Ali Mansour, Hoveyda would make a quick exit after Mansour's father was replaced by an authoritarian army general in 1957.

Rise to power

Hoveyda's rise to power involved many years of service within the ministry of foreign affairs, but this path took on a whole new approach once he joined the board of directors of the

When the Progressive Circle soon became a political entity in the form of the Iran Novin (New Iran) Party in 1963, Hoveyda would be thrust into the national scene. Flanking Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansour as his Minister of Finance in 1964, the now well seasoned Hoveyda would make his mark by acting as the cabinet's intellectual centre. Many observers, both within and without Iran, would take note of Hoveyda's prudent behaviour and shrewdness. To many, he embodied the archetypical statesman. Hoveyda's positive attributes would again be shrouded by scandal and gossip. During the early months of Mansour's premiership, the government was attacked for ratifying a bill which allowed foreigners extraterritorial rights. More specifically, those who benefited from the law were U.S. military personnel and their dependents. These "capitulation rights" would have a negative impact on the way government at the time was seen by the populace. Because the actions of the government were, by law, reflective of the sitting cabinet at the time, disregarding individual ministerial involvement, Hoveida was also blamed for the bill's implementation even though he was not directly involved in its drafting.

Mansour's assassination on 21 January 1965, by a seventeen-year-old devotee of the Fada'yan-e Islam, would completely alter Hoveyda's future. As he personally reported the news to an obviously distraught shah, he was ordered to formulate a cabinet. Hoveyda would replace the deceased Mansour as the longest running premier in Iran's modern history. The sense of autonomy seen among past prime ministers such as Ali Amini, Haj Ali Razmara, and Mohammad Mosaddegh, had been systematically marginalized by the autocratic Mohammad Reza Shah. In his rather successful campaign at consolidating power, the king maintained his international image as a constitutional monarch, but Hoveida's tenure as PM attests to how this portrayal was not an objective reflection of circumstances. Hoveyda's premiership would be the pivot behind his resistance to such powerlessness. Hoveyda became a household name in Iran through the constant character assassination he received by Towfigh Magazine, Iran's most popular political satire magazine. Hoveyda was largely unknown among the population of Iran before Towfigh publicized him. He was caricatured in Towfigh's weekly magazine carrying a cane (caused by a traffic accident in which he was involved), wearing one carnation in his suit jacket pocket, and smoking a pipe. Towfigh Magazine referred to him as "The Caned One" and even devoted an entire book dedicated to exposing his flaws as a premier entitled "Assa-Nameh". The magazine (and Iranian media in general) frequently criticized and lampooned Hoveyda, primarily because they intended to criticize the Shah himself, but were unable to directly do so due to censorship. Eventually Hoveyda, by order of the Shah, forever shut down Towfigh Magazine in 1971 due to Towfigh Magazine's heavy criticism of the Shah's corruption and policies. This was despite the fact that Hoveyda publicly claimed that criticism of the government was to be encouraged, and whereby any restriction of press freedoms had to be by court order through the judiciary and not by unilateral orders of the government.^[9]

The first half of Hoveyda's premiership is marked by a sense of optimism. As already mentioned, in 1966, Hoveyda attempted to allure many elements of the intellectual community, as well as the opposition, into an informal agreement with the regime. Although talks between the two sides eventually broke down, Hoveyda never lost sight of what a partnership between the two could have accomplished. His pragmatic approach to politics allowed him to envision an incremental reform process that can be carried out through action. This is contrary to the path assumed by many Iranian intellectuals at the time, which involved quixotic solutions to problems such as electoral corruption and media censorship. Hoveyda resumed many of the reform initiatives set out by the Mansour administration. In particular, reform plans that were laid out by the Shah in the

Hoveyda's plan to crack down on

On 2 March 1975, the shah dissolved the Iran Novin Party and its opposition elements in creating a single party system headed by the Rastakhiz (Resurgence/Resurrection) Party. In relation to Hoveyda, it is believed that the shah was being threatened by the growing influence wielded by party officials, Hoveyda being the most notable. The growth of an independent apparatus was contrary to the Shah's contrivance involving the consolidation of all power. Hoveyda's inability to garner any type of power base in government allowed him to concentrate much of his energy on developing the Iran Novin Party^{[clarification needed]}. The networks he had slowly developed over the years came to trouble the monarch. Although Hoveyda would be coerced into relinquishing his position as prime minister, he accepted a temporary intermediary role as secretary general of Rastakhiz before a new Prime Minister can be appointed. Nevertheless, the Shah still saw Hovedya as a trusted (if not pliable) figure, and he was appointed to be minister of court. In her memoirs, Queen Farah wrote that asking Hoveyda to leave the post of prime minister was as painful as "giving birth to a baby".

Hoveida would serve as minister of court within Jamshid Amouzegar's government in 1977. With this role, he would come to discover the pervasiveness of internal corruption, once concealed by Asadollah Alam and the team he had surrounded himself with. Nevertheless, he continued to tolerate the practice as well, while simultaneously remaining a trusted advisor to the Shah.

Hoveyda was alleged to have been the author of an article which attacked the opposition figure the

In an effort to slow down the momentum of the revolution, the Shah was advised by many of his surrounding advisors to arrest Hoveida, using him as a scapegoat for the past-ills of the crumbling regime. Since Hoveyda was widely seen as a major cause of the revolution due to much of the bad press he had generated throughout the years by newspapers that wanted to indirectly attack the Shah's policies, they reasoned that the public would be appeased. In September, Hoveyda was forced to resign his position of Minister of Court. On 7 November 1978, Hoveyda was arrested together with other 60 former officials.[10] He would be held under house arrest in an upper-Tehran residence often affiliated with SAVAK activity, and the Shah assumed that he would be put on trial, and freed after publicly vindicating himself.

However, once the Shah fled the country, the SAVAK (Iranian state security) agents assigned with the task of guarding Hoveyda, absconded from their posts, leaving Hoveida open to arrest by revolutionary forces. Hoveyda refused requests by friends and relatives to flee Iran before it was too late, and instead turned himself over to the new authorities. Hoveyda believed that as the trial would be before an Islamic court, and that he personally had done nothing wrong, he would be acquitted.

Trial and execution

Hoveyda was taken to the Refah School, a temporary headquarters for the revolution's vanguard. Because of the departure of the Shah and much of the now former ruling class, Hoveyda had become the most prized prisoner of the old government. On 15 March 1979, he would face the newly established Revolutionary Court for the first time. During this time he attempted to create his legal arguments for the court. He was interviewed by Belgian journalist Christine Ockrent, a now infamous interview in which Hoveyda was subject to near accusatory questions by the interviewer.^[11][12]

The clerical judge appointed by Khomeini,

1. Spreading corruption on earth.
2. Fighting God, God's creatures and the Viceroy of Imam Zaman
   .
3. Acts of sedition detrimental to national security and independence, through forming cabinets that were puppets of the United States and England and defending the interests of
   colonialists
   .
4. Plotting against national sovereignty by interference in elections to Majlis, appointing and dismissing ministers at the behest of foreign embassies.
5. Turning over underground resources: oil, copper and uranium, to foreigners.
6. Expansion of the influence of
   American Imperialism
   , and its European allies, in Iran by destroying internal resources and turning Iran into a market for foreign commodities.
7. Paying national revenues from oil to the Shah and
   Western countries
   .
8. Ruining agriculture and destroying forests.
9. Direct participation in acts of espionage for the West and Zionism.
10. Complicity with conspirators from
    CENTO and NATO for the oppression of the peoples of Palestine, Vietnam
    and Iran.
11. Active member of Freemasonry in the Foroughi Lodge according to existing documents and the confessions of the accused.
12. Participation in terrorizing and frightening the justice seeking people including their death and injury and limiting their freedom by closing down newspapers and exercising censorship on the print media and books.
13. Founder and first secretary of the despotic "Rastakhiz of the Iranian People" party.
14. Spreading cultural and ethical corruption and direct participation in consolidating the pillars of colonialism and granting capitulatory rights to Americans.
15. Direct participation in smuggling
    Hassan Ali Mansour
    .
16. False reporting through the publication of puppet papers and appointing puppet editors to head the media.
17. According to minutes of cabinet meetings and of the Supreme Economic Council, and the claims of private plaintiffs, including Ali Sayyed Javadi, and taking into account documents found in SAVAK and the office of the prime minister, and the confessions of Manouchehr Azmoun, Mahmoud Jafarian, Parviz Nick-khah, and the confessions of the accused, since the commission of the crimes is certain, the prosecutor of the Islamic Revolutionary Court asks the court to issue the judgment of the death penalty and the confiscation of all your [Hoveyda's] property.

The composition of the trial's proceedings reflected the style in which the indictment was designed and promulgated. Many of the charges were never substantiated and often reflected uninvestigated rumours of the day. Abbas Milani agrees with this notion when he described the essence of the court's ambience:

It became clear that rules of evidence, notions of innocence until proven guilty, and a dispassionate judge, dispensing impartial judgments based on incontrovertible evidence, were all alien to this court … Gossip had the authority of fact, as evident in article fifteen of the indictment, and unsubstantiated rumours were taken as proof of guilt.

On 7 April 1979, Hoveyda was transported to

Khalkhali repeatedly yelled at and insulted Hoveyda during much of the trial, calling him "a corrupter of the earth" and a "Western criminal puppet", refusing to allow him to make a testimony in his defense. In defiance, Hoveyda denounced Khalkhali and informed him that he had no intention of defending himself any longer in front of a sham court. Immediately, Khalkhali announced his sentence, death by

Minutes later, the former Prime Minister was taken into the prison's yard. Before reaching the area designated for firing squad executions,

Hoveyda's corpse was held in Tehran's morgue for several months after his execution, before it was secretly released to his immediate family and buried in Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran as an unknown deceased.

Following his execution, his residence in A.S.P. Towers was looted by revolutionaries. According to some witnesses he rarely had any items of luxury nature. His prized possessions were a rocking chair and a library of a few hundred books.

Personal life

On 19 July 1966, Hoveyda married Laila Emami (1932–2018)^[15] in a small ceremony. Only a small number of guests were invited to attend, including the Shah, Queen Farah, Laila's parents, Hoveyda's mother, and his friend Manouchehr Shahgholi, and his wife. The marriage ended five years later in 1971, but the two would remain friends, often traveling together. Hoveyda had no children.

Legacy

In 2000, Hoveyda's biography,

Further reading

• Halliday, Fred (2001). "Death of a flaneur". Times Literary Supplement (5102): 1.
  ISSN 0307-661X
  .
• "Economic situation of Iran during the reign of Prime Minister Hoveyda (1973-1978)". Contemporary Dilemmas: Education, Politics and Values. 6 (2): 1–18. 2019.
  ISSN 2007-7890
  .
• "Hoveyda and Ardeshir Zahedi: A Curious Cohabitation". Rahavard Persian Journal (132/133): 11–36. 2020.
  ISSN 0742-8014
  .

Notes

1. ^ Current Biography Yearbook. H. W. Wilson Company. 1980.
2. ^ "Centers of Power in Iran" (PDF). CIA. May 1972. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
3. ISBN 978-0-203-00280-3
4. ^ "History of Iran: Amir Abbas Hoveida". Iran Chamber Society.
5. ISBN 978-9-644-07189-8
   .
6. ^ Kadivar, Cyrus (23 December 1999). "Hoveyda's Tragic Fate". hoveyda.org.
7. ISBN 1-85043-704-1
   .
8. ^ Was Hoveida Baháʼí?. Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 8 December 2009.
9. ^ "ویژه برنامه تونل زمان - گفت و گو با امیر عباس هویدا". YouTube.
10. JSTOR 4310346
    .
11. ^ ENDURING GUILT: French Journalist who interviewed Hoveyda
12. ^ "EX‐PREMIER HOVEIDA IS EXECUTED IN IRAN AFTER CLOSED TRIAL". The New York Times. 8 April 1979.
13. ^ "Law And Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran" (PDF). Amnesty International. 13 March 1980. Archived from the original (Report) on 6 March 2016. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
14. ^ C. Kadivar, Farewell Shiraz: An Iranian Memoirs of Revolution and Exile, 362.
15. ^ بهنود, مسعود (11 July 2018). "درگذشت لیلا امامی، همسر امیرعباس هویدا". BBC News فارسی.
16. ISBN 1933823038
    .
17. JSTOR 26198294
    .

External References

• ISBN 978-1-85043-328-6 (Excerpt from Chapter One
  )
• Amir Abbas Hoveyda's Execution case
• Encyclopædia Iranica: Amir-Abbas Hoveyda at Brill Publishers
• Amir-Abbas Hoveyda IMDb
• How the Shah of Iran eliminated his dissidentsS
• ISBN 978-0-81560-907-0
  .
• Biographies: Amir-Abbas Hoveyda in Encyclopædia Britannica
• One Person's Story: Amir-Abbas Hoveyda at Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Amir-Abbas Hoveida.

Political offices
Preceded by Kamal Hassani	Minister of Finance 1964–1965	Succeeded by Jamshid Amouzegar
Preceded by Jafar Sharif-Emami	Deputy Prime Minister of Iran 1964–1965	Succeeded by Ardeshir Zahedi
Preceded by Hassan Ali Mansour	Prime Minister of Iran 1965–1977	Succeeded by Jamshid Amouzegar
Preceded by Asadollah Alam	Minister of Royal Court 1977–1978	Succeeded by Position abolished
Party political offices
Preceded by Manouchehr Kalali	Secretary-General of the New Iran Party 1974–1975	Succeeded by Party Dissolved
Preceded by None	Secretary-General of the Rastakhiz Party 1975–1976	Succeeded by Jamshid Amouzegar