C01259322 mm PPROVED FOR RELEASED DATE 17-Aug-2010 bxs Analysis of Performance 0n Iran s Domestic Crisis Mid-1977 - 7 November 1978 c01259322 l C01259322 Analysis of Performance on Iran's Domestic Crisis mid-1977 - 7 November 1978 U John F Devlin Robert L Jervis 15 June 1979 C01259322 u' Ll- It has been explained to me that it would have been impossible for the Mullahs to have obtained this power to lead a large and successful protest movement had it not been for the general discontent which pre- vails throughout Persia which has led the people to hope that by following their advice some remedy may be found for the grievances from which they undoubtedly suffer It is evident that a severe blow has been dealt at English influe in Persia British Ambassador to Iran 1892 fifi Either we are doing something wrong or else the protesters are all crazy But there are so many of them Can so many all Shah of Iran Tehran 4355 r 8 May 1978 C01259322 Note The purpose of this report is to address NFAC's performance in treating the Iranian situation from the summer of 1977 to November 1978 when it became clear that the Shah's regime might not survive we have therefore examined only the information that was avail- able to NFAC at the time and discussed the inferences that were or could have been drawn from it We have not analyzed the quality of that information or dis- cussed what might have been done to improve it I We have ended our study in early November because by that time NFAC had concluded that the Shah might fall Attempts to split the opposition had failed strikes especially in the oilfields were endangering the economy and major rioting had led to the installa- tion of a military government a step the Shah had been trying to avoid Thus on 9 November the CIA appended the following comments to a DIA paper considers that the Shah has delayed so long in taking decisive action that he has reduced substantially his earlier good chance of preserving the Pahlavi dynasty with powers like those of the past We believe that the military government appointed by the Shah on 6 November may succeed in the near term in restoring economic activity and a modicum of public security but that this will not form the basis for a negotiated settle- ment of Iran's political crisis citation on p C01259322 LL I -- I -- Summary 0 Table of Contents Intelligence Production Systems The Analytical Issues Introduction Inherent Problems Information Available PIOCGBB Introduction Nature of the Production System The Daily Production Other Vehicles for Intelligence Production Selection of Issues to be Treated Correctives Evidence Alternative Explanations Predictions as an Analytical Tool simplistic Terms Discussion and Review The Estimative Mechanism Reporting and Analysis - General cements White Revolution A Politico-Economic Problem The Shah's Liberalization Program Field Reporting NFAC Analysis Conclusions and Evaluation ween-C01259322 The Issue of the Shah's Willingness to Use Force Missed warning Signs Events That Changed Minds Conclusions and Evaluation Splits in the Opposition Field Reporting and NFAC Analysis Spring and Summer Late August - mid Septembe Late September Mid-OCtObBr Conclusions and Evaluation The Religious Opposition Information Available Underestimated Factors Attacks on the Shah for the Hay He was Modernizing Second Element Third Element Fourth Element Conclusions and Evaluation The Shah's Position and How It Was Perceived Reports From the Field Conclusions and Evaluation Intensity of Anti-Shah Feeling Iran's Domestic Economic Situation Conclusions and Evaluation Contacts Utility of Contacts with the Opposition Utility of Contacts in the Wider Society C01259322 L- L 1 In Conclusion Annex A Annex - Perception and Evidence Annex - Chronology 131 134 135 141 149 C01259322 I- 1- I I - I -- SUMMARY 1 In the case of Iran there was an obvious intel- ligence failure in that NFAC did not anticipate the course of events There was also an intelligence failure in a second sense--bits of information were available during summer 1978 that indicated that the Shah was in serious trouble but they were not recognized nor were any warnings conveyed However it is much harder to tell whether there was an intelligence failure in a third sense of the termr-i e given the information available did NFAC ignore or misinterpret events in ways and to an extent that consumers can legitimately expect should not and will not occur No short answer to this is possible but much of the discussion below addresses this pointn 2 What went wrong First of all the events in Iran were very unusual Second in this case as in most other examples of intelligence failure the problem lay less in the incorrect interpretation of specific bits of information than in a misleading analysis of the general situation which pre-dated the crisis Like all pre-exist- ing beliefs these had to strongly color the perception of events especially when the information from the field was thin and ambiguous Most NFAC started with the belief that the Shah and his regime were strong - and the opposition weak and divided Given these con- ditions it is not likely that NFAC could have realized the situation was extremely dangerous much before some time in September and it is not surprising that recogni - tion did not come until early November Even so examina- tion of this case reveals serious deficiencies in the system under which analysis is carried out in NFAC Had better methods of analysis been employed the chances of discovering inconsistencies between beliefs and certain items of evidence would have been greater thereby increas ing the odds that NFAC would have concluded earlier than November that the Shah was in deep trouble C01259322 wen-Be i 1' 1 The information that came in-from the field was limited by the fact that Iranian domestic politics had had a low priority in the intelligence community for several years Furthermore what was needed was not in formation about views of members of the elite but the opinion and intensity of feeling among wider segments of society This was not available NFAC added to these handicaps by not being in touch with hon-governmental experts on Iran some of whom had views that differed with those dominant in the government and possessed information about the opposition and hon-elite segments that NFAC did not have Intelligence Production System 4 Many of the problems in this case can be traced to the way in which NFAC produces intelligence Finished intelligence generally did a good jobiof summarizing and the field reporting used the data that was available although scattered items of informa- tion--some fragmentary and ambiguous-rwhich we can now see were significant were ignored There is no instance where NFAC overlooked any substantial body of data On the whole NFAC's political reporting had a more pessimis- tic tone than that of the Embassy in Eehran 5 What was needed in the Iranian situation how- ever was sustained and thorough evaluation of the most important questions--e g the Shah's ability and willing ness to follow a coherent course thesnature and depth of the opposition and the ability of the opposition groups to work together Such analysis should have examined alternative interpretations of events and mustered all the evidence that could be found ' Instead the format of NFAC production and the norms of the intelligence community led to intelligence that focused on the latest events and reports that presented one view and that adduced little evidence I 6 The problems are greatest with the RID which concentrates on telling what has happened and only rarely contains analysis or forecasts of political trends and developments NID items on Iran ofteh drew conclusions i 'i l IEII hill 1 13 23 l ll e- 513' 3 3 231' a 1 -9 C01259322 I i L L- I-- I-- 1 - but did not explain how the conclusion was reached or what alternatives have been rejected Almost all arti else are short since no more than two longer and more analytical articles were run in each issue Most NID items that are more than a few paragraphs long cover several topics The result is not only that none of the topics receive in-dep treatment but often that the items lack emphasis 1 7 In addition because the system requires that political NID items be tied directly to reporting and because items normally must be coordinated with INR State and DIA analysis often stops short of stating the full implications of the information presented For example several stories in the NID in mid-September 1978 implied that the Shah's efforts to win over the religious mode erates would not succeed This is especially true if one takes all the stories together rather than reading just one of them But of course they did come to readers one at a time and the pessimistic inferences had to be drawn from the stories rather than being presented as the key messages 8 This type of intelligence production is necessary for tracking a rapidly changing situation If the premises on which the discussion is based are correct and remain so throughout the period this mode of analysis will serve the community and the consumers well But given how fragile observers' understanding is of most other countries it is rarely wise to assume that discussing the most recent developments without reflecting on the more basic questions will be sufficient 9 It seems to us that there was a failure at man- agement levels to see that proper attention was paid to those topics which bore most directly on whether the shah would survive Indeed it is striking that throughout the period no papers were produced which had as their main_focus the question of whether the regime could be overthrown we think it is not only hindsight that leads to the conclusion that as the protests grew and managers should have sat down and tried to locate the important questions many of which were not pegged to the C01259322 quF SW v- 'r - latest events In retrospect it is obvious that it would have been extremely valuable to have had discussions of such topics as when and whether the Shah would crack down the conditions under which the ooposition would split the depth of the feelings against the Shah and _the sensibilities and dangers of political liberalization 10 From reading most NFAC documents one cannot tell how the reached their juigments and what evidence they thought was particularly important At any number of points in the draft NIE and other NFAC products one can find unqualified assertions without supporting evidence presented Space limitations explain the paucity of evidence in the N10 and reader impatience is an important factor in the minds of those preparing other publications but the result is unfortunate Here as in other areas we recognize that available resources set limits to what can be done and that other equities have claims on those resources But time spent on a systematic exposition of the evidence for and against a particular belief may well be more valuable than an equal amount spent on reporting the latest eventsi ll _ In addition to producing evidence or rather as part of the same process of demonstrating why a con- clusion is valid discussions will often be of_greatest value when they include explicit consideration of alterna- tive interpretations Most NFAC analysis on Iran did not do this At times it admitted puazlement But usually it gave a single quite coherent explanation What is most important is not that many of those explana- tions turned out to be incorrect -since the evidence was often skimpy and ambiguous- but that a range of interpreta- tions was not presented we think this should be done on a regular basis With evidence presented for and against each of the alternatives 12 The number of questions on wtich this can be done and the number of alternatives that could be developed are theoretically limitless but it is often possible to find a relatively small number of crucial ones which if answered differently would most alter one's understanding of the situation and the predictions one would make Feed back from policymakers would help in choosing the alterna- tives to be treated iv ii in $3 HI SEI - il C i 55r1- Im-rl 7 1-1 C01259322 I -- l- I Li L- 13 The point of this exercise is threefold First it would encourage the to be more explicit about their reasoning processes by making them contrast their views with the ones they have rejected Second it would lead them to marshall their evidence in a systematic way Third the process of working through the alternatives and the evidence should encourage the to think more thoroughly about some of their important beliefs Some of the problems we located in the dominant interpretations could have been addressed if the had proceeded in the manner we are suggesting 14 One obvious difficulty is that seeing things from a different perspective or discussing possibilities that others have not seen or have rejected is not likely to occur unless it is rewarded by the organization This would involve a recognition that in many cases the effort will not have direct benefits Usually the dominant view is correct or at least closer to the truth than many of the alternatives It is now easy to see that alterna tives should have been raised about Iran but the case must not rest on the claim that the dominant view was wrong but on the argument that examinin several alterna- tives will lead to better 15 'The case of Iran reveals a need for to make sharp and explicit predictions The point of this is not to exaggerate how much we know or to develop a scorecard but to help the understand the full implications of their beliefs Explicit predictions would have been especially helpful in the Iranian case because as we discussed in other sections much of the discrepant information arrived bit by bit over an extended period of time Under these conditions it is very easy to fail to notice that sorts of events are occurring which would have been unthinkable a year before Systematic procedures are needed identifying the gaps that may be developing getgeen the events and the implications of their basic e1 efs 16 A related problem with the process by which finished intelligence was produced in the case of Iran was that there was little sharp and critical discussion C01259322 among the NFAC does not haVe any institutions that provide the functions of both eva uating and stimulatw ing the that are performed in'the academic world by peer review In practice coordinaaion of finished intelligence rarely leads to discussion of fundamental judgmentss are then nor challenged and confronted with conflicting views and counter arguments as much as they could be Generalists not directly concerned with a particular issue may be of help in this they usually find it easier to take a fresh view Peer review is certainly no panacea but it can both help evaluate the quality of work in instances where consumers are not experts and can help the anlaysts by leading them to see where their arguments might be altered or strengthened It is hard to do good work in the absence of mechanisms for performing these functions NFAC has all the require ments for peer review except appreciation of its value Many and managers_sppear to consider it threatening rather than helping l 17 The lack of a community of dealing with this problem is noteworthy The division of NFAC and its predecessor by discipline contributes to the absence of community So does the traEition in ORPA's predecessor office of working on their country building a that others'won't cross In the view of one of us probably more important is the absence' r In instit f onal competition and the supportive criticism it can prcvide The mechanism that once existed where a current offite and an estimative office looked at issues from their different perspectives was not a cure-all but it did offer on a regular basis opportunity for different approaches tc surface No such opportunity exists DD did it during the period we are reviewing 18 The size of the relevant community was further reduced by the isolation of the ORPA They had few close contacts with academics or other informed experts outside the government they had few conversations with people in State or NSC even durinq the fall they were not involved in any of the inter-agency meetings that considered the Iranian problem except for ones involving at 2% 22 13 ll 2'5 am dial J gt 3 3 fl C01259322 - I I i I the NIE NFAC was represented by the N10 or his deputy The problem is not only in the lack of discussions between 5 NFAC and those from other agenciesw-ORPA and OER rarelv had thorough talks about what was happening in Iran 19 When the number of NFAC working in an area is small as it was in Iran the danger that alterna- tive views will not get raised is especially great and - so it is particularly important that all the resources of the community be employed This is primarily a matter of informal relations and depends to a large degree upon ad hoc arrangements and the compatibility of the in- dividual personalities 20 We also think it is important for to have as extensive contacts as possible with outside experts from a variety of fields Without this the may not come to grips with the range of pos sible interpretations of events and may even end up presenting facts and interpretations that are far removed from what other knowledgeable observers believe In our judgment NFAC should make strenuous efforts to assure that its understanding of various countries the crucial background beliefs against which the interpreta tion of specific events is done is as deep as possible As with employing alternative arguments above the I_r Ira activity that can build such understanding must be valued I and rewarded by NFAC results 1 a ear in the long-term i not in immediate production 21 The estimative mechanism as it functioned during 1 the period under review did not much help to compensate for the problems we have located in the process Drafting of the prospective NIE on Iran did not lead to a fruitful I discussion of important issues By and large the sections written by the several drafters were stapled together The ideas of the drafters were not challenged by one i another Judging from the changes in the successive I drafts of the abortive NIE most of the energy of this process went into subtle wording changes that would be apparent only to someone who had seen several versions I 22 In retrospect it is apparent that the government would have been better served by a paper that did address the shorter-term questions To have asked for such a I vii C01259322 paper however would have required a recognition that the Shah was in serious trouble and given the prevailing beliefs that could not have occurred uhtil the end of August at the very earliest Indeed called for such a paper on 12 September But it took a week for NFAC to decide that such a paper should be produced and another 10 days for the State Department to draft it Apparently influenced by the mid-September lull the paper concluded that The Shah no longer appears to be in immediate danger of being overthrown There is considerable question however of his ability to_survive in power over the next 18 to 24 months Whether this paper would have served a useful purpose is difficult to determine In any event decided not to pursue it but to write a shorter NIE that dealt with both short and long-term problems Such a draft was prepared by the NIO's office at the end_of_octobera_but by this time it was no longer relevant 23 It is obvious that a lot of time and energy was expanded in these efforts We think that managers could have done a better job of focusing NFAC resources on the timely analysis of the most important questions The analytical deficiencies in NFAC's handling of some of those que cussed in the following paragraphs The Analytical Issues 24 Two of the beliefs that underpinned the expecta- tion the regime would survive were that the opposition would split and that the Shah would use force if things became really serious One problem is that almost no events short of those which actually shook the founda tions of the regime could bring these beliefs into question Just because the opposition was united today did not mean that it would not split tomorrow the Shah's refusal to use force today did not prove he would refrain from repressing the next demonstration Indeed the Shah's refusal to use force reinforced the conclusion that the situation was not that serious This meant that unrest could grow quite large without leading to reexamine the basic beliefs which supported their optimism I 51 3 551 '3 all at 22 so 531 4 1 RI 1 C01259322 L It I 25 It was generally agreed that The government of Iran has the ability to use as much force as it needs to control violence and the chances that the recently widespread urban riots will grow out of con- trol is sic relatively small Draft NIB 6 Sep- tember 1978 This view was supported by logic and past history But because it was impervious to a great deal of evidence the Shah's previous hesitation to use force did not show that he wouldn't act if the situation deteriorated NFAC should have made especially strenuous efforts to probe the available evidenpe and should have alerted consumers to the danger that informa- tion that disproved the belief was not likely to come available until the situation became extremely serious Furthermore NFAC could have indicated that this problem put an inherent limit in the confidence that should have been placed in this expectation 26 There were important signs that the Shah would not crack down--through 1978 he had vacillated he said his commitment to liberalization precluded extensive repression and the United States was urging the Shah to maintain this commitment and use as little force as necessary The events in late September and October finally undermined the belief that the Shah would clamp down Some people became convinced that the Shah lacked the will Others came to believe that it was now too ate and that even extensive force might not work i 27 NFAC produced no papers that focused on whether the Shah would crack do While the Shah s moods were commented on the possible implications for his decidinc t9 HEB farce mam Il 'l' we think the primary a plahation of'these failings was two-fold First the incentives to challenge this belief were slight be- cause it was shared by all NFAC was very plau- sible and fitted with the pro-existing view of the Shah Most observers outside the government also shared this view and even in retrospect it is hard to say why he did not crack down Second this belief did not need to figure in the reporting or analysis of most day-to-day events When the Shah cracked down it would be news 11- C01259322 until then the possibility still remained open Only when the unrest grew to enormous proportions did his restraint seem important in explaining what was happening So the main task of dealing with the latest events did not them look more carefully at this crucial belief 28 Another belief subject to the same problem as the expectation that the Shah would eXercise control if things really got serious was that the opposition would split Furthermore this belief did not sit too well with the companion belief that the Shah could clamp down when he needed-to Repression would presumably unite the opposition and the longer the Shah waited for the opposition to split the harder it would be for hi repress because the unrest was growing stronger 29 The belief that the opposition would split was widespread throughout the period under consideration It can be found at all levels of NFAC While there were many ways in which the opposition might have split the key issue became the division that the Shah wanted to bring about in the religious leadership and consequently in its following 30 We do not think this issue was treated well in the finished intelligence In the spring it received little attention because the production concentrated on explaining the general causes of the unrest reporting disturbances as they occurred and discussing the danger that the Shah might use excessive force in controlling it After late August with the appointment of a new Prime Minister one of whose major tasks it was to strike an accommodation with the religious leaders finished intel- ligence not only summarized the latest reports but was more pessimistic and accurate than most other reporters Nevertheless problems remained The articles left important parts of their messages implicit They did not point out that much of their reasoning undercut the common optimistic assessments conclude that an agreement between the government and the clergy was unlikely or point out that the Shah might soon face the choice of repression or abdication This was perhaps a matter of style and have been conditioned over the years to keep as close as possible to the facts and reports 1 Iii 33 i'ifri%3l iddl i l I ll ih l C01259322 1 - L- I -- l- l I- 49% rather than draw out the im lications which consumers can do for themselves 31 Furthermore NFAC did not clarify the lines of argument highlight inconsistencies or pull together the existing evidence which here as on so many other points was not extensive This was particularly true in respect to the question of whether the moderates could afford to reach an agreement that Khomeini would de nounce Several field reports indicated that they could not Finished intelligence summarized some of these re- ports and did not challenge their validity but neither did it explain how if they were true conciliation was possible It did not take hindsight to see that what was crucial was both the desires and the capacity for inde- pendent action of the religious moderates Neither point was singled out for special attention No definitive answers were possible but a more thorough weighing of the evidence and a more penetrating analysis of the prob- lems were Here as at other points the felt need to re- port daily events seems to have distracted NFAC from analyzing the fundamental problems 32 The analysis of the difficulties of staging a white revolution'I was a bit superficial and over-optimis- tic Perhaps NFAC was misled by the Shah's many suc- cesses--real and apparent--and so lost sight of how hard it is to modernize liberalize and yet maintain control The impact of the huge influx of oil money on Iran was not analyzed well On this point as on others NFAC's product suffered badly from the separation of economic and political analysis Little was said about the crucial political impact of rapid economic change e g inflation deterioration of life in the cities the growing income gap the bazaaris'loss of economic power to newer people or the unemployment produced the slowdown of the economy after mid 1977 33 NFAC were alert to the general problems posed by liberalization quite early and they generally did a good job of summarizing the reports from the field adopting in the process a more pessimistic--and more accurate--view than the Embassy But intelligence C01259322 WT I production stayed too much on the surface of events and did not come to grips with the basic problem of whether the Shah's dictatorial regime could safely per- mit a high level of political freedom In the fall many in NFAC accepted the optimistic report that the com bination of martial law and free political debate was directing dissent off the streets and into political channels This view made some sense tut was not subject to careful scrutiny The possibilities that liberaliza tion was being taken by Iranians as a sign of the Shah's weakness that the Shah's commitment tt liberalization showed that his pattern in previous years of using force and liberalization undercut rather that reinforced each other were barely mentioned 34 Among the factors accounting for the deficiency are inadequate information Reporting from the field was not particularly good nor was non-governmental reporting In addition some of the dilemmas of liberalization were not unique to Iran and could have been illuminated if persons familiar with other countries' attempts to lib- eralize had been called in but the use of such general- ists has not been customary in NFAC Finally there was an operative belief that the limited freedoms the Shah was willing to permit would be acceptatle to the opposi- tion because it was reasonable enough to see that the con- siderable gains would only be endangered by pushing for more In effect it made eminent senseifor a comprom to be struck on the major program of 35 The issue of the nature and strength of the religious opposition itself presents a different sort of problem Some in NFAC were atuned to the importance of religion in Iranian life The senior political analyst was especially so He felt strongly about the deficiencies in information and had cotsistently called for increased collection on this subject Lack of information was an important part of the problem NFAC did not know the extent to which Khomeini had established a network did not know his power as compared to that of the moderates and did not even know what he was saying in the recorded messages that were available within the countrf or how widespread the circulation of those tapes were xii a a 31i l Ea QED Ila-u- C01259322 Ii L l 1' IQ 36 Nonetheless there were four aspects of the religious opposition movement that contributed to its appeal and that were not well covered in finished intel- ligence First NFAC saw Khomeini's appeal as almost entirely rooted in his argument that modernization was undermining the hold of Islam on the people In fact much of his fire was aimed at the Shah s politics-economic program and the degree to which it aided the rich over the poor Second NFAC did not see that nationalism was an important part of Khomeini's appeal and attracted many who disagreed with him on other issues Many in Iran saw the Shah not only as a tyrant but as a foreign tyrant Khomeini stressed this theme Third NFAC said little about the populist tradition of Shi'ism Since the Shi'ites do not have an established hierarchy religious leaders gain their authority by becoming recognized by their followers as men of wisdom and piety This encourages them to articulate what they think are the desires and grievances of their people and gives them incentives to be on the forefront of popular movements A fourth factor the illegitimacy of governments in the eyes of Shi'ites was explained by finished but perhaps not given sufficient stress 37 NFAC's outlook did not give credence to the links between religious leaders and the grievances of a wide range of the general population This outlook powerfully influenced the interpretation of incoming information and led the to be insensitive to the possibility that the Opposition could unite behind Khomeini We wish to stress that it could not have been clear at the time that the position was in- correct Data was skimpY several lines of analysis were possible But we think it is more than hindsight to sug- gest that an alternative view could have been discussed in the finished intelligence 38 In the course of 1978 a number of reports on the Shah's mood as events unfolded in his country were received In retrospect they assume considerable importance because when removed from the background noise of other voluminous data they begin to show a pattern There are two themes Over a period of several months persons who saw the Shah found him more often than not behaving differently than usual Instead of being forceful C01259322 and authoritarian he was depressed dispirited and un- certain Second his efforts to liberalize the political system without surrendering his essential authority sowed confusion in the minds of his supporters who were accustomed to firm direction His overall behavior led them and other Iranians to believe that he was losing his grip 39 NFAC production beginning in late August re- flected the reporting on the Shah's mood which seemed rove in September and October in the view of the Ambassadors who saw him frequently It did not how- ever discuss what his untypical failure to exercise leadership might do to the morale of his supporters which we should note stayed remarkably high until well into the fall or to the opposition we are not sure why the issue did not receive more prominence but the belief that the Shah was strong and able to crack down if he judged it necessary the format of publications that militated against speculation and the press of events in the fall are among the likely reasons 40 Iran's domestic economic situation received relatively little attention in finished intelligence until mid-1978 It is clear that political protest grew in some part_out of societal dislocation caused by a develop- ment program and we think it not unfair to suggest that managers and should have been alert to the inter- action between the two There was no assessment of the political effects of the economic slodeWn instituted by the government in mid-1977 we are aware that management now recognizes the absence of political economy as a problem and that solutions to it are being pursued They are not easy to come by but in our View the lack of a systematic method of relating politics tp economics both terms used in the broadest sense contributed to NFAC's failure to assess correctly the course of develop- ments in Iran 41 Until the fall of 1978 the direct contacts between members of the opposition and US officials were very few Thereafter information improved only This meant that NFAC did not know about the extent to which the opposition was organized and coordimated and had only limited information on what goals it sought and what appeals it was making But even more of a handicap 1 El E1 ii Ell 3H i l l l E l Hm ml I I C01259322 i 1 -- was the lack of contact with all segments of Iranian society outside of the elite In this case those were the important arenas and we were ignorant of them In the absence of information were forced to make assumptions about how groups and classes would respond and these seem to have been largely based on the belief that most people appreciated the benefits of the Shah's modernization program 42 We found no evidence that distorted what should be objective judgments to support official policy Intelligence production generally was consistent with US policy but this does not mean that the latter was influencing the former If such an influence were present the were not aware of it But we can not completely rule out the possibility that the subtle influence of US policy may have made it a bit harder for the to realize that the Sh 's position was becoming precarious a 43 To conclude NFAC did not anticipate the course of developments in Iran The belief that the Shah was in a strong position helped to blind to the implications of discrepant information that came in to NFAC from mid summer on The system under which NPAC produces finished intelligence diverted analytical attention to current reporting and away from consideration of the important questions which bore at on whether the Shah would survive I 1 C01259322 - lg Ill INTRODUCTION 1 NFAC failed to anticipate the course of events in Iran from late 1977 to late 1978 It was not alone It was no further off the mark than its main source of the Embassy in Tehran Indeed few observers expected the protest movement to be able to bring down the Shah Some academics and journalists thought the Shah was weak but we have seen no published articles indicating that they expected him to fall by early 1979 By the end of August 1978 some countries were becoming more pessimistic than HE but the difiersnsel wars mainlr of shading and_tone The State Department 'and particularly the Tranian Country Director had a more accurate view than did NFAC but little of his view was passed on to the Agency For a furtherldiscussion of this point see pp 34-35 68 2 There was also an-intelligence failure in a second sense--there was evidence available at the time which pointed to the Shah's vulnerability With hindsight much of it stands out and is reported below Because this information was scattered and ambiguous and because there were good reasons to expect the Shah to survive these are discussed below it is much harder to say whether there was an intelligence failure in the third sense of the term--i e given the information available at the time was NFAC's judgment unreasonable Did NFAC ignore or misinterpret events in ways and to an extent that consumers can legitimately expect should not and will not occur Although we cannot give a short and precise answer to this question much of the discussion below addresses this point In addition we will try to explain why the went wrong note the ways in which the intelligence production processes inhibit good analysis and discuss ways in which NFAC might do better in the future comparison to academics and journalists is appropriate because in this case unlike many others little of the important information was secret and available only to governmental C01259322 3 By looking only at a single cash many questions cannot be answered These deal with how common some of the problems we have detected are and the importance of factors which can only be examined in a comparative con text For example if one wanted to look with care at the question of the degree to which analysis was hampered by lack of information derived from contacts with opposi- tion forces one would have to compare the evidence avail- able from Iran and other cases in which intelligence collection was similarly restricted with that available in countries which are roughly similar but in which in- telligence did have extensive contacts 'In the same way if one wanted to explore the subtle aspects of the question of whether intelligence was infiuenced by policy one would have to look at the analyses made by people or governments who had different policy preferences or com- pare Nic's analysis of Iran with its treatment of unrest in a country that was not supported by the United States Similarly one reason for the error in Iran may be that NFAC tends to overestimate the staying power of right-wing regimes But this question could only be explored by com paring its analyses of these regimes with those it makes of radical ones To take an issue touched bn in the body of this report if one wanted to explore the problems created by the lack of disagreement among the on Iran a comparison between this case and one in which there were aior dijfutes within the community would be in order 4 Comparisons could also shed light on defects in intelligence if we did post-mortems on successful cases and also examined false alarms As it is the rare post- that are undertaken concern failures to predict untoward events Useful as they-are these may give a skewed view By focusing on cases where intelligence failed to detect danger when it was preshnt they imply that this is the most common and important problem But it may be that there are lots of errors bf the opposite type cases where NFAC expected a government to fall and it survived or instances in which it expected another state to take a hostile action and the state refrained from doing so Intelligence may not systematically err on the side of being too complacent It would both be useful to know whether or not this is true and to learn what factors are responsible for the false alarms For an an in i3 53 no 4 3 ha C01259322 r example does intelligence systematically underestimate the staying power of certain kinds of regimes Do the problems in the analysis that we have detected in the Iranian case crop up in the false alarm canes or are i the difficulties there quite different I d-n 5 It might also be to look at some cases where the Agency was right The obvious point 3 would be to try to see if there were differences in the information available or the process of analysis employed that distinguish these cases The most useful finding would be that better intelligence is associated with certain procedures and ways of treating evidence which can be applied to a wide range of cases But al most anything that was found to discriminate cases in which the Agency did well from those in which it did badly would be useful even if it only reminded us of the large role played by luck skill and the particu- larities of the individual cases i 6 In a post-mortem one obviously focuses on what went wrong This produces an unbalanced account even if one tries to distinguish between what only could have been clear from hindsight and what people might reasonably have been expected to see given the information available at the time we wish to at least partially redress that imbalance by noting that several potential problems were i correctly downgraded by the Little attention was 5 paid to the role of the Tudeh Party and although terrorist activities were constantly tracked this concern did not overshadow the more important one of general political unrest The easily could have been distracted i by these topics but were not Furthermore the analysis of the unity and morale of the armed forces- a particularly it important topic--was proven to be essentially correct The armed forces stayed loyal to the Shah and remained willing to execute his internal security orders until very late in the year they began to waver and defect only when he appeared to be close to quitting 1- l- anon - _If 7 The extent to which a restrospective examination distorts the situation is hard to determine The conditions under which peeple worked fade and become obscure even in - their minds and can never be known by the reviewer Such a person knows what the outcome of the events is and he cannot fail to be influenced-by that knowledge Moreover C01259322 the material that he reads in order to determine what happened what peeple knew and what they wrote about it comes to him in a form much different from the way it comes to the intelligence analyst The reviewer has the opportunity to read material through in a coherent order For the analyst working on events as they happened ma- terial or information must be absorbed as it comes in-- sometimes in fragments often not in a timely fashion The necessity of meeting publication deadlines can and frequently does force the intelligence analyst to commit himself to paper with substantially less than the Optimum amount of information 8 At many points in this report we will note which were closer to being correct than others Here we should stress that those who were more accurate in this case are not necessarily better than those who continued to believe that the Shah would survive One can be right for the wrong reasons and one can carefully examine all the relevant evidence and still reach the wrong conclusion A further discussion of this point is provided in Annex B In this case it seems that what distinguishes those in and outside of the govern- ment who as events unfolded thought that the Shah was in serious trouble from those who thought he would sur- vive were general beliefs about Iran which long predated the recent protests As a generalization those who thought the Shah was weak and had not been a good ruler took the unrest very seriously whereas those who believed he was strong and on balance had done a great deal to benefit Iran thought he would have little trouble riding out the disturbances Members of the former group were correct this time but we suspect that if we looked at their previous predictions we would find a number of occasions in which they incorrectly expected the Shah to fall or at least to suffer significant diminutions of power It can be argued that even if these people were wrong on important questions of timing at least they had a better understanding of the underlying situation than did others But even this may not be right The underlying situation may have changed especially as a result of the oil boom and so the valid grounds for pessimism may hays appeared only more recently than the pessimism I' u Eml 5 3 i a 31 31 sea a an C01259322 L L I - L-- I -- C- I- I - L - L L - I -- Ir 9 If what distinguished optimists from pessimists was their longstanding views of the regime would it have been useful for these differences to have been discussed at an early date Perhaps but the main pessimist in the government was the State Department Country Director for Iran who was not a member of the intelligence community The other l'pessimists were outside of the government Even had such discussions taken place it is far from certain that the participants would have learned a great deal Judging from the differences of opinion outside the govern ment it appears that beliefs about the strength of the regime were related to although not totally determined by whether the person is liberal or conservative When dis- agreements are discussion often proves unenlightening 10 In this case as in most examples of intelligence failure the problem lay less in the incorrect interpretation of specific bits of information than in a misleading analysis of the general situation which pre-dated the crisis and strongly influenced perceptions of the events Almost every- one in the government overestimated the stability of the regime They overestimated the Shah's strength and under- estimated the number of groups and individuals who apposed him and the intensity of their feelings The Weekly Summary of 18 November 1977 lsaid there is no serious domestic threat or political Opposition to the Shah's rule At 58 he is in good health and protected by an elaborate security apparatus he would seem to have an excellent chance to rule into the next decade I Similar judgments were ex- pressed in the RID of 14 November 1977 and in a memo- zen um cf 12 cteher 3977 The Political ituation in Iran The Embassy in Tehran which held a judgment 11s ed several two of which were that the Shah is widely recognized as probably the only viable governor of Iran today even by many of his opponents and that he is firmly in control Tehran 11408 27 December 1977 As the draft NIE put it Because the Shah still 3 the reins of power most of what Iran does how it feelee er sees is her the Shah wants it 5 1 11 At bottom most observers official and unofficial found it hard to imagine that the Shah would fall Although there were many specific reasons for this belief- and they are analyzed below it is hard to escape the feeling that if C01259322 those reasons had not influenced beliefs others that supported the same conclusion would have The idea that one of the world's most powerful monarchs could be over- thrown by an unarmed mob of religiously-inspired fanatics was simply incredible Furthermore it probably would have been incredible even had observers grasped the depth of popular discontent in Iran 12 other general beliefs some of them probably held more implicitly and explicitly may-have also been that serious menaces to'mmerican supported regimes always come from the left and that religion is not an important motivating factor Some more specific biases or predisposition are discussed in the chapters that deal with the events in Iran and how they were per- ceived 13 Anyone holding these preexisting beliefs would inevitably miss or misinterpret many events that we now see as evidence that the Shah was in serfous trouble and that were so interpreted by those contemporary observers who started with different mind-set In-this study we can- not analyze how and why this belief formed but it seems sufficient to note that_it was almost universal within the government and widespread outside it and that even in restrospect it was far from unreasonable But given this belief it was inevitable that observers would be slow to grasp the situation The specific problems discussed be- low delayed recognition even further but only those who were convinced from the start that the Shah's position was weak could have conclud h ore 1ate August that the shah might not survive 14 Lack of time and of expertise prevent us from providing a full evaluation of the validity of the general beliefs about Iran held by the at the start of the crisis We think that their beliefs fall within the Another belief erplalns what to some observers might seem like an add distribution of attention people thought the main problem would come in the mid-19803 when oil production started to drop difficulties caused by in- dustrtalisation accumulated social divisions sharpened and the Shah began implementing a transition for his son Thus several long NFAC papers laid the ground work for a the expected trials of the regime in this period $33 I d3 as s I ah C01259322 1- a 1- 1 broad parameters of belief held by non-governmental students of Iranian affairs but we want to note that as non-experts we have to take a number of important points at face value This influences to a degree what we can say here C01259322 INHERENT PROBLEMS A number of common explanations for intelligence failures do not apply in this case Indeed there were many factors here which mil at in favor of an under- standing of the situation 2 First intelligence was dealing with a country with which the United States had had prolonged and close contact Although Iran's importance to the United States has increased since the rise of oil pricesI the US interest dates bash to world War II f-and many Iranian officials travel this country giving further opportunities for gleaning an understanding of the situation Business contacts were also extensive 3 Second most of the NFAC had been work- ing on Iran for a few years The senior political analyst knew the language and culture of the country extremely well l 4 Third and linked to the previous point although ethnocentricism is always a danger the experience reduced this problem The leading political analyst was steeped in the culture of the area and without becoming captured by it seems to have had as good a eneral feel for the country as can possibly be 5 Fourth prior to the late summer of 1978 the pressure for current intelligence was not so great as to squeeze out time for broader and longer-run considerations Indeed NFAC produced several long papers on such topics of general importance as Elites and the Distribution of Power in Iran and Iran in the 1935s Although we Have not made a thorough canvass our impression is that on few other countries of comparable importance was there as much of this kind of in-depth analysis C01259322 6 Fifth the developments NFAC was trying to anticipate were not sudden ones which adversaries were trying to hide from us A number of the problems that come up in trying to foresee coups or surprise attacks did not arise here There was time in which to assess developments and to re-evaluate assumptions--indeed an NIE was in process during many of the months in which the crucial events were unfolding Although the way in which NIEs are written may not provide the best possible forum for addressing important questions it still gave NFAC an opportunity often absent in cases of intelligence failures Furthermore analysis did not have to contend with possible concealment and deception 7 0n the other hand the nature of the case pre- sented some special problems First andamost important the Iranian revolution was a major discontinuity Indeed we believe that it was unprecedented And no one does a good job of understanding and predicting unprecedented events we can think of no other case in-recent times in which a mass uprising overthrew an entrenched regime that had the support of large functioning and united security forces Similarly we cannot think of a single other case in which very large numbers of unarmed men and women were willing to repeatedly Stage mass demon- strations with the knowledge that many of them might be killed The common pattern of unrest is that once one or two mass rallies have been broken up by gunfire pepple refuse to continue this kind of protest and large unarmed demonstrations cease The other side of this coin was also unusual if not unprecedented- the Shah did not use all the force at his disposal to quell the unrest for a further discussion of this point see below Force Section Hog dictators would have done so the Shah himself did in 19 8 A second problem was that of correctly estimating the intensity of the opposition to the Shah In retrospect it seems clear that millions of Iranians hated the Shah yet the word hate never appears in official documents-- except for the report that Ayatollah Shariat-Madari hated Khomeini Tehran Airgram A-105 1 August 1978 Intensity of feeling however is difficult to determine w 3 A c01259322 I ll If- L- IL- I 4ses4 wauaq leaving aside the point that no concerted efforts were made to assess it What NFAC needed to know was the people would go to overthrow the regime what costs they would hear It is very hard to estimate this short of the actual test Indeed the individuals them- selves often do not known how far they are willing to go On pages 115 119 below we will discuss the evi- dence that was available on this subject and the in ferences that were drawn f 9 A third problem is linked to the second Much of the opposition was based on religion and it is difficult for most people living in a secular culture to empathize with and fully understand religious beliefs--especially when the religion is foreign to them Most modern tend to downplay the importance of religion and to give credence to other explanations for behavior Moreover Shi'ism is an unusual religion being a variant of Islam and therefore presenting a double challenge to understand- ing We cannot generalize about how peeple in NFAC con- cerned with Iran managers and the role of religion in this situation NFAC's senior Iranian analyst was sensitive to the importance of religion as a political factor But we suspect that many others were not so sensitized and that had the Opposition been purely secular observers would hays been quicker to detect its depth and breadth 10 Fourth and related to the previous problems an understanding of this case called for the sort of po- litical and even sociological analysis that NPAC does not usually do NFAC had to gauge many segments of societ not just a few familiar individuals and 11 A fifth inherent difficulty was that the opposition develOped gradually from the fall of 1977 on Studies from and examinations of previous cases have shown that people are almost always too slow to take account of the new information under these circumstances Sudden and dramatic events have more impact on peoples' beliefs than do those that unfold more slowly In the latter case people can assimilate each small bit of in- formation to their beliefs without being forced to reconsider C01259322 the validity of their basic premises They become accustomed to a certain amount of information which conflicts with their beliefs without appreciating the degree to which it really clashes with what they think If an analyst had gone into a coma in the fall of 1977 and awakened the next summer he would have been amazed by the success of the opposition and the inability of the Shah to maintain order The discrepancy between his earlier belief in the stability of the Shah's rule and the evidence of strong and sustained opposition probably would have_been enough to make him Question his basic assumptions j But the exposure to a steady stream of events few terribly startling when taken one at a time had much less impact If the had been able to step back and re-read the information that had come in over the previous six months the cumulative impact of the discrepant information might have been greater But the pressure to keep up with the latest events militated against this Furthermore the growth at the opposition was not entirely steady Lulls were common And many ex- pected and perhaps planned demonstrations failed to occur As a result could always believe that a curr peak of opposition would subside as earlier ones 12 A sixth obstacle to understanding was the history of 15 years of unbroken royal success As ORRA's senior political analyst pointed out in early 1936 The Shah of Iran has been on his throne 34 years far longer than any other leader in the Middle East He has not only outlived most of these rulers but has outlasted the many official and unofficial observers who two decades ago were confi- dently predicting his imminent downfall Elites and the 'Distribution of Power in Iran February IE7B age that e knowledge that the Sh had succeeded in the past against all odds and contrary to most analyses made observers especially hesitant to believe that he would fall this time The past challenges seemed greater the Shah had seemed weaker Indeed the NIEs of the late 19503 and early 1960s had said that the Shah probably could not survive Intelligence underestimated the Shah many times before it was not likely to do so again' il ii ed as C01259322 1- l_ l l- 13 A seventh factor that inhibited an appreciation of the danger to the regime was that riots were not uncommon in Iran Student demonstrations were frequent and so no cause for alarm Demonstrations by other segments of the population and linked to religion were less common but still not unprecedented The important opposition of this kind occurred in 1963 and forced the Shah to resort to brutal but short and effective repression Information Available 14 The information that came into NFAC was not all that could have been available on Iran but it was what the had to work with The subject of collection is beyond the scope of our investigation but an understanding of the problems facing the requires at least a brief mention of several deficiencies in the information available First partly because of decisions made in the 1970s NFAC received little information about the opposition or indeed_about anyone outside the elite Further discussion of this point can be found on pp 127-129 below This meant that NFAC not only lacked current information during the crisis but also had not had important background information on the earlier trends in popular attitudes that set the stage for the revolution Second domestic politics were _deliberatsly given a low_priorityl lContacts with opposition elements by official LAmericans were limited in view of other important US in- terests in Iran such contacts were considered to be not _yorth risking the if exposed C01259322 There was an obvious circularity here As long as domestic politics were believed to be stableIr they would be given a low priority And as long as NFAC knew little about what anyone outside of governmental and elite circles was saying and doing there would be little reason to question the prevailing faith in the stability of the regime 15 On Iran as in most countries the Embassy provided the bulk of the political reporting The FOCUS Iran memorandum of 4 November 1976'said that Generally speaking reporting from the Mission on most topics is very satisfactory page 2 S An update of 10 August 1978 stated that political nGErn3_ has been 'first rate 3 - i l i l 1 ll THE 11 ll s l s mrk w - C01259322 lie I_e Ii he MGR-ET This subject is beyond our concerns here but lwe sho l note that the Embassy had contacts on1y with a narrow segment of society Furthermore if there were biases or inadequacies in Embassy accounts of what was rhappeningI they would greatly hamper the job 19 Fifth the only had limited opportunity to debrief Embassy and station personnel who returned from the field For example they did not see the Ambassador when he was in the US in the summer of 1978 They had more contact with lower-level officials but even this was _14_ C01259322 chancy It depended on the hearing of returning travellers through the grapevine The economic I seem to have done somewhat better than_their political counterparts in talking to returnees 20 Sixth only limited isiurmstisn r s sysilable 1 from Embassies_ _If the m assy exchanged views with others on Fthe scsne the were not told what was learned 233 iv rii -15- I I - 5 11 C01259322 L I- 23 Finally the sources of material on Iran in 1977 and 1978 show considerable bias Public material to a very large degree tended to be polemica1--either strongly against the Shah or putting the best face possible on the government of Iran's activities This is of course a normal problem of evidence in analytical writing but it is worth mentioning because some of those in the government structure who read raw intelligence are not knowledgeable enough to assess the validity of the evidence and may at some point in the process have had an effect on what-appears in the formal printed record The Government of Iran itself put out highly inaccurate reports of its policies and events so did various opposi- tion spokesmen 24 Four general observations about the information available to NFAC are in order First the feel they have little influence over the information they re- ceive Although they participated in the FOCUS review and have some input into the determination of collection priorities this does not have great impact on the depth or breadth of reporting that results Of course the de cisions on what information to collect must involve many factors but it seems to us that the should have a stronger'voice 25 Second the availability of some information from other agencies is strongly influenced by informal arrangements Information obtained or perceptions formed by persons in agencies outside the intelligence community may not reach Nic For further discussion see pp 34-35 i 26 Third with the exception of a few reports from the consulates which were in'touch in their districts with a broader slice of Iranian society official sources yielded no information about non elite segments Of the population an 'occasiOnal newspaper report provided a scrap of information but by and large the could only rely on their C01259322 a priori assumptions of how various kinds of people would react to the situation This meant for example that there was no information about the organizhtion and make up of the protest demonstrations no one talked to a single rank-and file dissident to try to find out what his grievances were what leaders he respected and what his hopes were Of course given the Shah's sensitivities and beliefs about American instigation of the opposition gathering such might have been prohibitively risky But without it the were at a major disadvantage Even when Embassy and Agency personnel met opponents of the Shah these people almost always were members of the Westernized elite Many of them shared the western views about the role of religion in society They did not share and could not convey the feelings of those who went into the streets to bring down the regime The general topic of information derived_frgm_ccnfacts with the Opposition is discussed below 27 Fourth there were some untapped sources that could have led to a better understanding of the opposition One was the Opposition press published in this country and France Of course this would have been mining low- grade ore Before the summer of 1978 it might have seemed not worth the effort because the opposition was unimportant after then the no extra time It might have been more efficient to have been in contact with those Americans who had good relations with the Opposition Of course only that information which the opposition wanted the Us Government to know would have been available through these channels There were a number of Americans often academics who had good relations with theiopoogitign 28 Fifth although it would have been difficult the might have tried to probe the differences in views on the domestic situation theg_knew to exist among members of the Us Mission in Iran - 17 a i sin and 33' C01259322 related question is the level of attention I paid to domestic Iranian politics as opposed to the other areas of concern and whether this balance should have i been altered The treatment of Iran's domestic politics i in finished intelli Hm nrioritv it had in In retrospect more resources should have been devoted to domestic politics but given all the other Us interests in Iran it is not easy to say when the balance should have shifted or what should have received less attention We do think however that the question of priorities for both collection and analysis i should receive more explicit attention The domestic sta- bility of a country of great importance to the United States should it would seem merit a high priority 3 0 1 3 I i But two points can be made First I the allocation of resources seems to have evolved rather than - being the product of reasoning Second when the number of 1 in any areas is very low the quality of analysis is likely to be suboptimal because of the lack of presentation of alternative perspectives and opportunities for J2 share their ideas will critical and informed colleagues I i C01259322 21 7-1 I 5 C01259322 1' d L- Jess seem n PROCESS Introduction 1 Many of the problems in this case can be traced to the ways in which finished intelligence is produced urns tracked specific events and the flow of field reports quite well Given the preexisting beliefs about Iran the Shah and the opposition given_the paucity and ambiguity of the information from the field given the normal NFAC procedure and given the inherent difficulty of predicting a very unusual series of events it is not surprising that the full dimensions 0 roblem were not recognized un- til early November 2 In the case of Iran the system produced a steady stream of summaries of recent events with a minimal degree of commentary analysis and prediction This mode of analysis may work adequately in ordinary situations it cannot cope with the unusual It seems to work when the information from the field is good It cannot do as well when much of the information is in'unofficial channels through nongovernment experts and more importantly when what is needed is a real reworking of the information a stepping back_from the flow of day-to day events an in- depth analysis of selected important questions a presen- tation of alternative interpretations and an attempt to go beyond the specific information that is coming in This is not what the system appears to have been designed done the working level cannot be expected to take the initiative in shifting from the normal mode of analysis to one that is more appropriate to the situation Indeed when events come most rapidly the greatest pressures are for short reports--i e HID items If more than reporting and superficial analysis is to be done NFAC management must take the burden of reordering the priorities and ordering that selected in-depth studies be undertaken Of course this is a gamble since it is difficult to determine at a given time which questions are most important and what alternatives need to be examined Furthermore there will have to be a cost in terms of NFAC's ability to follow in detail more recent events These problems and costs need more careful examination than we can give them here But it is our impression that at least in this case no one would have greatly suffered if fewer NID items had been produced 1 C01259322 Nature of the Production System 3 What was needed was sustained and thorough evalua- tion of the most important the Shah's ability and willingness to follow a coherent course the nature and depth of the opposition the ability of the opposition groups to work together Such analysis should have examined alter- native interpretations of events and mustered all the evi dence that could be found Instead the format of NFAC production and the informal norms of the intelligence com munity led to intelligence that focused on the latest events and reports that one'view and that adduced little evidence i 4 The NFAC product can rarely be faulted for failure to convey the information in the latest field reports But there was much less discussion of the forces that were affecting events and that would influence whether the latest lull was merely a temporary respite orascmething more lasting whether the latest cable saying that the moderates were afraid that the protests were getting out of control indicated that an agreement with the government was likely The pre-existing belief that the regime was very strong and that the opposition was weak and divided did not prevent them from seeing and passing on the disturbing reports from the Embassy and the station But the belief may have been re inforced by the requirements of current intelligence and made it more difficult for them to get beyond the specific events and see what patterns were emerging 5 The Daily Publication The problems are greatest with the NID which concentrates on telling what has happened and only rarely contains analysis or farecasts of political trends and developments This publication absorbs a great deal of the time accounts for a high proportion of the intelligence that NFAC produces and is considered by most ORPA to be the most important NFAC publication after the PDB OER are rewarded not so much for items as for publishing in the EIWR Even on days when HID items are not being prepared must take quite a bit of time to be ready to write for it in case they are asked to do so Almost all articles are short since no more than two longer and more analytical articles are run in each issue the two part feature carried on 12 and 14 November 1977 on the occasion of the Shah's visit C01259322 I - L 1 washington l Most NID items that are more than a couple of paragraphs long cover several topics The result is not only that none of the topics can receive in depth treatment but often that the items lack emphasis For example a long NID article on 14_September 1978 Iran Prospects for the Shah covered the following subjects one summary paragraph two general introductory paragraphs three paragraphs on the Shah's mood four paragraphs on the loyalty and morale of the armed forces and five paragraphs on the opposition Each paragraph is about two or three sentences long This format is not compatible with any but the most superficial analysis Furthermore stories in the NID like those in the news papers which the NID so strongly resembles generally do not assume that the reader has been closely following events They therefore do not build on what the have said before steadily producing a better understand- ing of the underlying forces or the dynamics that are be- lieved to be at work Thus none of the subjects that are touched on in ve NID items are ever examined in much detail 6 This type of intelligence production is necessary for tracking a rapidly changing situation If the premises on which the discussion is based are correct and remain so throughout the period this mode of analysis will serve the community and the consumers well But given the fragility of observers' understanding of most other countries it is rarely wise to assume that discussing the most recent de- velopments without reflecting on the more basic questions will be sufficient questions that do not lend themselves to treatment in terms of the latest demonstration the latest lull or the most recent-event 7 HID items often draw conclusions but do not explain how the conclusion was reached or what alterna tives have been rejected In addition because the system requires that political NID items be tied directly to reportin analysis often stops short of stating the full implications of the information presented For example several stories in the RID in mid-September 1978 implied that the Shah's efforts to win over the moderates would not succeed This is especially true if one takes all the stories together rather than reading just one of them -22 C01259322 But of course they did come to readers one at a time and the pessimistic inferences had to be drawn from the stories rather than being presented bluntly Similarly in late September and October there were frequent articles about the strikes and continuing unrest But each event was treated in relative isolation and explicit judgments about whether the re ime could survive these strains were es chewed 8 Other Vehicles for Intelligence Production The incentives for to write for are stronger than for producing articles for the Middle East and South Asia Review a weekly ORPA publication _hlthough the format of the latter is better suited to good ahalysis This pub- lication includes pieces that can be loneer and less tied to the latest cables thus permitting the treatment of im- portant tepics and questions with a good deal of evidence and alternative interpretations But this was not done in the case of Iran Part of the reason may be the desire to keep the treatment as short as possible and part may be a belief that this publication does not have much impact 9 From September 1977 through October 1978 23 articles dealing with domestic politics in Iran appeared in the Middle East South Asia Review or other periodicals In addition eight memos were issued In length these were much like those in the Review The were a mix of office-initiated items_and responses to pacific requests the memo format being used when timely publication is required Of the reviews and-memos written in 1978 five were like HID items in that they reported recent events and had only the briefest analysis issued on 7 April 14 April 2 June 9 August 20 September Three others were interesting but dealt with subjects that were not relevant to the political unrest 3 March 7 April 9 May Only four of the Review and memorandum group were of a type in terms of subiect examined ind depth of analysis that could have probed the subgect in any depthI ll I It i l til I C01259322 L in - One of these treated the religious bases of opposition and we have discussed it at several places in this report The others were The Situation in Iran an evaluation of the first ten days of Sharif-Emami's government 7 September The Prospects of Responsible Government the outlook in late October 20 October 1978 and Iran Roots of Discontent the underlying ca particularly rapid modernization 20 October The Situation in Iran and Iran The Prospects of Responsible Government were like NIB stories in their approach of summarizing recent events and looking into the immediate future They were valuable in telling their readers what was happening but did little to develop evi- dence and arguments about the central issues Only two articles fit this description I'El' ran Some Observations on the Bases of Religious Opposition 10 February 1978 and Iran Roots of Discontent The former was an cellent start but was not followed up and the latter would have been more useful had it appeared earlier and been more thorough 19 NFAC produces some longer analytical papers Two on Iran appeared during the riod under review One _Iran in the 1980s August its executive summary October 1977 are scusse at several places in thi1 rsugrt The other Iran After the Shah August 1978 was an assessment of the prospects for an orderly suscession to the Shah under certain specified assumptions Completed in early summer it was not designed to deal with the developments of 1978 Three sentences in its preface said Iran is not in a revolutionary or even a 'prerevolutionary' situation There are substantial prob- lems in all phases of Iranian life but the economy is not stagnant and social mobility is a fact of life There is dissatisfaction with the Shah's tight control of the political process but this does not at present threaten the government These were widely quoted in the press and attributed to the prospective NIB Apparently there was no questioning at any level as to whether it was appropriate as of late August to issue this paper 11 These papers and an earlier one on Elites and the Distribution of Power in Iran February 1973 are more descriptive than analytIcal They pulled toge er - 24 'c01259322 I - a large amount of data that was not known to most readers Elites was particularly successful in this regard They may Have served their purposes but they did not train either or consumers to think barefully about the sorts of issues that arose in 1978 12 - Selection of Issues to be Treated It seems to us that there was a failure at managemhnt_levels to see that proper attention was paid to those topics which bore most directly on whether the Shah would survive Indeed it is striking that throughout the period no papers were produced which had as their main focus the question of whether the regime could be overthrown Part of the ex- planation may be that opinions shifted fairly suddenly until mid-October almost everyone thought the Shah would survive and by early November almost eVeryone thought he was in very serious trouble -and part way be the lack of a suitable procedure and format But whatever the cause we think it is not only hindsight that leads to the con- clusion that as the protests grew the and managers should have sat down and tried to locate and analyze the important questions many of which were not pegged to the latest events In retrospect it is obvious that it would have been extremely valuable to have had discussions of such tepics as when and whether the Shah would crack down the conditions under which the opposition would split the depth of the feelings against the Sh possi bilities and dangers of liberalization i 13 Such questions deserved special attention because the answers to them were closely linked to predictions about the future of the regime As it was these topics were mentioned in passing but never were examined in depth Presumably this could not have been done without either adding or diverting some of their efforts away from the current reporting The obvious question is whether it is so important for NFAC to provide as much coverage of the latest events and this subject is beyond the scope of this report In the absence of such an increase or diversion of resources however most finished intelgiss gs on Iran was strongly driven by the latest events 14 As NFAC operated in this case we wonder if papers like these would have been produced even had the had more time First they would have required someone to determine what subjects needed close examination -25- ad E l 35' mil EE- in C01259322 I -- L - I -- L- IL- I - I- I - 1 The of course can and should have a hand in this but they are likely to be too close to the daily events to do this on their own Furthermore the selection of topics must be guided in part by the problems that are of concern to decisionmakers and the chains of reasoning that decisionmakers are employing People who are aware of what - these people are thinking must be involved in the process Second the may lack the training and experience in this kind of work because most of what they are called on to do in the normal course of events is largely descrip tion and summarization When peeple are not used to writing analytical papers one cannot expect them to be able to do so'when the need arises Frequent experience is necessary to develop the needed skills Third such papers would probably not have been as good as they could have unless there was a community of Iranian experts and good political generalists--to provide suggestions and criticisms As we will discuss below pp 33- in the case of Iran there was no such community 15 In the case of Iran there was also a failure of what can be called intellectual or analytical management in the absence of substantive review of what the were writing Others in NFAC did not go over the political arguments with them probing for weak spots and searchin for alternative interpretations that needed to be_ aired i - Correctives 16 Evidence From reading most NFAC documents one cannot tell How the reached their judgments or what evidence they thought was particularly important One does not get a sense for why the thought as they did or what chains of reasoning or evidence might lead one to a different conclusion At any number of points in NFAC products one can find unqualified assertions without supporting evidence presented Space limitations explain the paucity of evidence in the RID and reader im- patience is an important factor in preparing the other publications as well but the result is unfortunate IFor part 0 tFe explanation see subsection Discussion' and Review pp 32-37 below C01259322 'l 17 To put this point a different way if one started with the belief that the Shah's position was weak there was almost nothing in the finished intelligence that would have or should have led one to change one's mind Reading NFAC production would show that other people had a different view but not why this view was valid Most often one finds assertions not arguments supported by evidence Often it is only their inherent plausibility that would lead one to accept the conclusions 18 Of course the consumers do not have time to read a full account of the evidence on which judgments are based -But such a development and presentation'would still serve important functions within the intelligence community In- dividual may not fully realize how much--or how little--evidence supports a given positidn unless they work through it systematically And doing so can yield new in- sights in other agencies can read fuller versions and so both be better informed and he in a better position to offer criticisms and conflicting views middle-level NFAC managers could also work with papers that had fuller evidence and would be able to see what judgments seemed questionable where the arguments were weak and where alternative explana- tions needed presentation and exploration Here as in other areas we recognize that available resources set limits to what can be done and that other equities have claims on those resources But time spent on a systematic exposition of the evidence for and against a particular belief may well be more valuable than an equal amount spent on reporting the latest events 19 Alternative Explanations In addition to producing evidence or rather as part of the same process of demon- strating why a conclusion is valid discussions will often be of greatest value when they include explicit consideration of alternative interpretations Most NFRC analysis on Iran did not do this At times it admitted puzzlement But usually it gave a single quite coherent explanation What is most important is not that many of these explanations turned out to be incorrect- since the evidence was often skimpy and ambiguous -but that a range of interpretations was not presented notes that the single coherent smplanation has any sen preferred analytical style in NFAC and its predecessors Alternative explanations have been employed from time to time usually at the erpendtcure of great effort and with senior management support 27 gal E r'l C01259322 IL- - I -- I n-nn l -- We think this should be done on a regular basis with evidence present for and against each of the alternatives U 20 The number of questions on which this can be done and the number of alternatives that could be developed are theoretically limitless but it is often possible to find a relatively small number of crucial ones which if answered differently would most alter one's understanding of the situation and the predictions one would make The avail ability of feedback from policymakers would help in choosing the questions 21 The point of this exercise is three-fold First it would encourage the to be more explicit about their reasoning processes by making them contrast their views with the ones they have rejected Second it would lead them to marshall their evidence in a systematic way Third the process of working through the alternatives should encourage the to think more thoroughly about some Of their important beliefs Some of the problems we located in the dominant interpretations could have been addressed at the time if the had proceeded in the manner we are sug- gesting For example it might have become clear that the belief that the Shah would crack down if the situation became very serious was impervious to almost all evidence short of that which would appear at the last minute Similarly a thorough analysis of what was believed and why might have shown the importance of what Khomeini stood for and thus led to systematic efforts to gather more evidence on this question or at least to a more detailed examination of the information NFAC had and the inferences that were being made about him 22 One obvious difficulty is that seeing things from a different perspective or discussing possibilities that others have not seen or have rejected is not likely to occur unless it is rewarded by the organization This would involve a recognition that in many cases the effort will not have direct benefits Usually the dominant view is correct or at least closer to the truth than many of the alternatives It is now easy to see that alternatives should have been raised about Iran but the case must rest not on the claim that the dominant view was wrong but on the argument that examining several alternatives will lead to better analysis But unless this mode of argumentation is valued and rewarded by NFAC it-is not likely to thrive because it asks to discuss positions that they disagree with and which they know are not likely to be accepted - 23 C01259322 mi 23 Predictions as an Analytical Tool As Richards Heuer has pointed out studies in show that people tend to maintain their beliefs and images in the face of what in retrospect is an impressively large amount of discrepant information we all tend to see the world as we expect to see it and so are slow to change our minds As the open literature has discussed at ength this tendency is not always pathological since much evidence is so ambiguous that we could not make any sense out of our world unless we allowed our interpretations to be strongly guided by ex pectations But there is an ever-present danger that the analyst will fail to properly interpret or even detect evidence that contradicts his beliefs and so will maintain his views perhaps even failing to see the alternatiy9--in the face of mounting evidence that is incorrect 24 The case of Iran reveals a need for to make sharp and explicit predictions as a partial corrective for this danger The point of this is not to exaggerate how much we know or to develop a scorecard but to encourage the to think about the implication of their beliefs and to have them set up some indicators of what events should not occur if their views are correct This can sensitize them to discrepant information which they would otherwise ignore Of course having a prediction disconfirmed does not mean that one should automatically alter the most basic elements of one's beliefs The fact that demonstrations grew larger than most thought they would does not mean that they should have jumped to the conclusion that the Shah was about to fall But since most p eop1e correct their beliefs too little rather than too much as new information appears paying special heed to events that do not turn out as expected can be a useful corrective 25 Explicit predictions would have been especially helpful in the Iranian case because as we discussed in other sections much of the discrepant information arrived bit by bit over an extended period of time Under these conditions it is very easy to fail to notice that eyents are occurring which would have been unthinkable a year before Systematic procedures are needed to make reflect on the gaps that may be developing between the events and the implications Btases tn the Evaluation of Intelltgence Estimates Analytical Methods Review October 1978 FI bbert Jervis Perception and in International Politics Chapter C01259322 l- l I m - of their basic beliefs Thus it might have been useful if shortly after Sharif-Emami was appointed Prime Minister and made significant concessions to the opposition the had made explicit predictions about their impact Without this it was too easy to overlook the degree to which the developing events did not fit easily with an optimistic assessment Similarly could have tried to clarify what level of intimidation they thought would be effective in discouraging the opposition and the size of protest marches and demonstrations that they thought the dissidents could muster We think that one reason why the did not see the full significance of the number intensity and nature of the demonstrations was that they became too accustomed to them The size of the demonstrations and the number of casualties were implicitly compared to what had occurred in the last weeks or months rather than being matched against expectations generated by beliefs about how serious the situation was Thus as the scope of protests increased the amount of unrest that the implicitly accepted as being consistent with their belief that the Shah could survive also increased Had they made explicit predictions at-various points in the spring and summer might have been quicker to reevaluate their position 26 The belief that the Shah would crack down if it became necessary might also have been subject to great doubt if explicit predictions had been made about the level of dis- order they thought the Shah would permit Since the initial statements about a possible crackdown occurred in December 1977 it appears that when the unrest started many observers thought that this level was fairly low Throughout 1978 NFAC received and occasionally made similar statements No one noted that they had been made before when the protests had been much milder If had been pushed to say not only that a crackdown would occur if things got serious enough _but how much protest would be required to trigger repression their predictions would have been disconfirmed and they would have been mere likely to re-examine their underlying beliefs 7 he Embassy came close to doing this when it noted that the reaction to the Tabris riots is surprising and somewhat cheering GOI has not gone into as many feared Tehran 1879 23 February 1978 But be- cause everyone was focused on the possibility of th 'Shah's overreacting and the possibility that things might get out of control was the dieconfirming of a prediction had little impact - 3o C01259322 27 Not only predictions but some ways of reminding people of them are necessary To use an example from the Embassy it argued that the moderates might be satisfied if Prime Minister Amuzegar and some of his leading cabinet members were replaced and if a serious anti-corruption cam- paign were undertaken Concessions of this nature might at least bring the moderates into the political process and permit the G01 to direct its police and intelligence efforts against Tehran 7882 17 August 1978 Within a few weeks the new cabinet of Sharif-Emami had gone much further than this and yet the moderates remained un- appeased Recalling the earlier analysis might have stim- ulated a closer examination of the belief that the moderates could be conciliated thus separating them from the extremists and permitting a compromise that the bulk of the politically relevant groups could accept 28 These predictions need not be made in official papers and would not be for the purpose of attempting to foresee the future Rather the process of making the predic- tions would help the understand the full implica- tions of their beliefs and the predictiohs themselves could serve as benchmarks which could help the avoid the common trap of seeing too many events as consistent with their beliefs 1 29 Simplistic Terms Intelligence-publications have a long history of using shorthand terms They have the advantages of brevity and of conveying understanding to a readership not necessarily familiar with the country or subject being discussed But there are traps in such usage Shorthand terms such as left-wing or right-wing derived from Western political processes are usually not applicable to authoritarian LDCs Extremist and moderate are 'troublesome in that they may reflect more of the attitude of the user than of the person or institution described very often such an outmoded or incorrect term is so deeply embedded in the lexicon that only heroic efforts by strong- minded people will root it out Usually it is succee ed by a new term that becomes equally resistant to change 30 Happily NFAC production on Iran did not err griev- ously in this area In describing the religious opposition to the Shah NFAC publications used fundamentalist l'con'-- servative and occasionally dissident as adjectives When -31 h l d l t l Immanuel as 33' 33' H 1' ii ic01259322 _1m lie ll -qus eraesa an analyst was not constricted by length requirements he has attempted to define the terms he used 5 HOneEheIess E if were utharities the 'moderate'Ir religious opposition would have been more preperly characterized as a group prepared to acknowledge a role albeit limited for the Shah and desiring greatly enhanced powers of their own 31 The possibilities fer conveying misleading in- formation to consumers through the use of shorthand terms are many we think that all those involved in the production process--managers and editors--need constantly to keep in mind the prospective readership of the document they are working on and to question whether a given term will give a reader a correct and not just a brief understanding of the phenomenon it purports to characterize 32 Discussion and Review A basic problem with the process by which finished InteIligence was produced in the case of Iran was that there was little sharp and critical discussion among the NFAC does not have any institutions that provide the functions of both evaluating and stimulating the that are performed in the academic world by peer review are then not chal lenged and confronted with conflicting views and counter- arguments as much as they could be In practice coordina- tion of finished intelligence rarely leads to discussion of fundamental judgments Peer review is certainly no panacea but it can both help evaluate the quality of work instances where consumers are not experts and can help the by leading them to see where their arguments might be altered or strengthened It is hard to do good work in the absence of mechanisms for performing these func- tions NFAC has all the requirements for peer review except appreciation of its value Most and managers ap- pear to consider it threatening rather than helping The reception of NPAC's long papers on Iran is an illustration of the problem Although the State Department's Country Director for Iran said that Elites and the Distribution of Power in Iran should he required reading for newcomers to ran an scene'I the Iranian analyst in INR and a senior Pentagon official were equally laudatory almost no one offered substantive comments and criticisms Without claiming that criticism automatically leads to better analysis we' -32 C01259322 mess think that its absence renders learning and improvement very difficult The analyst is operating in something of a vacuum He cannot easily see alternatives to his own perspective He does not have colleagues to point out informati he may have missed or interpretations he should consider 33 The lack of a community of dealing with a problem a subject or a country is noteworthy The division of NFAC and its predecessor by discipline contributes to this So do the small number of and fragments elsewhere and the infrequent communica- ross disciplinary lines An additional factor is the tradition in ORPA's predecessor office working on their countr building a fence that others won' cross 34 The effective size of the community was even smaller than these numbers indicate Within the senior politi- cal analyst was generally deferred to because of his long experience in and deep knowledge of Iran The consequence was not only that one voice carried great weight but that this analyst did not have the opportunity to test out his ideas on others who might disagree with his conclusions or make him ft 1 articulate his assumptions and reasoning processes 35a' who has seen finished intelligence produced by a variety of organizational forms notes the importance of the current absence of institutional competition and the supportive criticism it can provide The mechanism that once existed where a current office and an_estimate of fice looked at issues from their different perspectives was not a cure-all but it did offer on a regular basis opportunity for different approaches to surface The exchange involved sharpened argument and caused people to examine assumptions No such opportunity existed during the nariod we are reviewing Its demise is a considerable loss 36 The size of the relevant community was further reduced by the isolation of the ORPA They had few close 35KB were not as isolated because OER is the largest and probably the most important of the government groups work- ing on other countries' economies and is plugged into a network of economic in other agencies The establishment of the Iran Analytic Center mid-November may have alleviated some of the problems of isolation which are discussed below - 33 - TiiP-S t kf'1qu -l E l C01259322 contacts with academics or other informed experts outside the government they had few conversations with people in State or even during the fall they were not involved in any of the inter agency meetings that considered the Iranian problem except for ones involving the NIE NFAC was represented by the N10 or his deputy The problem is not only in the lack of discussions between NFAC and those from other agencies- ORPA and OER rarely had thorough talks about what was happening in Iran 37 The senior political analyst knew several outside experts fairly well but not so well as to be in close touch with them during the crisis This is especially striking because many of his concerns were l'academic But until only a few years ago close contacts were encouraged by only a few offices in the D01 NFAC's predecessor most were not urged to meet outside experts or given travel money to go to meet them- and old attitudes die hard Many people outside the government are of course hesitant to talk to anyone from the CIA and the expectation of being ffed further inhibits trying to develop such contacts 38 Relations with people at State were not close Several years ago the Iranian desk officer had weekly meet- ings of Iranian specialists throughout the government con- cerned with policy and with intelligence but when a new desk officer was appointed this pattern was broken Once broken it was hard to re-establish The NFAC felt they could not re establish it in part because of the obvious difficulty of getting people to come out to Langley in part because meetings sponsored by NFAC would be of limited interest to many potential participants-because they would not deal with US policy The OER frequently talked to their opposite number on the Iran desk in State and they have told us that these exchanges were very bene- ficial both for the information and the ideas that were gained There were few conversations between the ORPA and the desk officer however This was especially unfortunate because the latter was probably the most pessi- mistic official in the government The had fairly frequent discussions with George Griffin Chief of South Asia Division but these almost always concerned specific pressing questions and did not lead to a general exchange of views on such topics'as whether the opposition would split or whether the Shah would act decisively Furthermore most I r- C01259322 439W conversations were carried out via regular te1ephone lines offices do not have securedphones at hand and so had to he very restrained 39 Thus the differences between ORPA and INR were never argued out Griffin and presumablv Precht read the NID and several long NID itens in the fall of 1978 were concurred in by INR NFAC anal read INR's dissenting footnote of 11 its pessimistic IIM of 29 September Bu ey never sat to learn exactly where they differed and why 40 There was no contact between the and people from the NSC Again the felt they could not take the initiative and since they almost never saw the rel- evant NSC staffer there was no opportuniti for them to de- velop habits of exchanging views i 41 As the crisis develOped inter-agency meetings were devoted to Iran As noted above NFAC was represented by the N10 or his deputy and the working level were not present Furthermore the N10 did not tell the of what was said at these meetings what people in other agencies were thinking where the arguments they were making in the RID might be revised in 11 ht of other opinions or what assump tions others held 42 As the N10 became more pessimistic during October he understandably lost faith in the political judgment As a result he did not engage in full exchanges of opinion with them The suffeied by missing the knowledge that others in NFAC and outside disagreed with them and losing opportunities to have their arguments chal- lenged and rebutted the N10 suffered by losing some of the information and insights held by the and by not being able to develop his ar ents by testing them out on an expert who disagreed 43 Several NPAC mentioned that throughout most of the period of growing unrest they reinforced each other in their beliefs that the Shah could survive They were not wrong to draw added confidence from the fact that there was a high degree of consensus but given the fairly small number of involved and the difficulties in predicting what would happen it might have been helpful to have sought wider -H l 3 1 s eh- 1EI S mww 35 It 0 C01259322 ll 1 views There was one such meeting with outside experts in late October 1978 sponsored by State and several of the later remarked on the range of information and contacts which the academics had and were struck by the latter's general pessimism Without resorting to the arti ficial device of devil's advocates the bringing in of a wider circle of might serve the function of chal- lenging assumptions and increasing the sensitivity to informa- tion that does not fit the prevailing views 44 Because so much of the time and attention must be focused on summarizing and simplifying the confusion and complexity in the area of their specialization so that it can be understood by harried generalists there are few in centives and opportunities for the to develop more fully their views in as much sophistication and depth as they are able In calm times the kinds of papers we think were needed in the summer and fall of 1978 probably will be of little use to consumers The audience will have to be others in the intelligence community and perhaps FSO's on the country desk in the State Department But without greater incentives for the to write for their colleagues as well as for their superiors we wonder if they can be prepared to foresee crises and deal with them when they arise For a related point see above p 27 45 Especially when the number of NFAC working in an area is small we think it is important for them to have as extensive contacts as possible with outside experts With- out this the may not come to grips with the range of possible interpretations of events and may end up presenting facts and interpretations that are far removed from what other knowledgeable observers believe This problem is especially great when one deals with countries which consumers know relatively little about Any number of important facts could be mis-stated or omitted and very questionable interpretations could be asserted as though they were universally agreed-to without consumers being able to detect the problem For example Iran in the 19803 August 1977 reaches quite favOrable judgments about the 601's programs in such areas as family planning education and the economy It Other participants detected no substantial difference between government and outside disaussants -36 l_ C01259322 claims that Iran will probably come close to the Shah's goal of a per capita GNP equal to that of Western Europe by th - 30 Iran nfter the Shah August 1978 states that There Is little in the Shah's overall reform program that would be objectionable-except to the most reactionary and conservative The reforms have generally been a success because the Shah has had enough authority to push them in the face of the usual bureaucratic inefficiency and lethargy 21 21 also see NIB draft of 6 September 1978Ir p 1-14 These judgments may be correct and may even he shares by all experts in the field But without drawing on a wider circle of experts there is no way of assuring that this is the case in our judgment NFAC should make strenuous efforts to assure that its understanding of various countries i e the crucial background beliefs against which the interpretation of specific events is done is as deep as possible As with employing alternative argu- ments above the activity that can build such understanding must be valued and rewarded by NFAC results will appear in the long-term not in immediate production 46 Although centacts with outside experts may be of some assistance if made during a crisis they will be most fruitful if the have develoPed working relations with them over an extended period of time Of course this is difficult when the turnover of is high and in any event requires NFAC management support for travel an conferences and a milieu which encourages such contacts T 47 In addition to maintaining close contacts with outside experts NFAC could have involved some people within the Agency who had not been deeply involved with Iran Such persons even if they shared the basic predisposition that the Shah was strong and the opposition weak and divided might have been quicker to notice the discrepancy between their views and the evidence of growing demonstrations Having no stake in the previous predictions they could have found it logically easier to take a new look at things And because they would not have been experts on Iran they would have been more likely to focus on some of the basic questions which the more experienced by now took for granted It may have been no accident that by early October the an was relatively pessimistic and he was new to his job -37 VF I all rs i ll v l ll 33' 31 E l as 1' - 435-3 C01259322 J IL- L- see mew The Estimative Mechanism 48 While unrest was building in Iran a proposed NIE on the future of that country was being drafted The process had started early in 1978 because it had been several years since the last NIE was completed it was not a response to specific events 49 The drafting of the NIE did not lead to a fruitful discussion of important issues perhaps because there was a great deal of agreement among the participants The last draft of the paper does not reveal tighter arguments more and sharper alternative perspectives or more carefully de- veloped evidence than does the first draft The-scheme of organization changed some topics were added and some were IIRE was more pessimistic as is most clearly shown by its footnote of 11 September 1978 differences ap parently first surfaced at the at coordination meeting of 38 July but not in strong enough form to have an impact on the NIE are repeated more vigorously at the 30 August meeting _33u C01259322 deleted and minor alterations allowed individual positions to become community-wide ones But by and large all that happened was that separate parts of the drafts were paper clipped together rather than integrated ne g the political and the economic sections The NIH suf ers from a rambling style which lacks tight organization and yell crafted argu- ments In many places the paragraphs ofuen seem to be placed at random even paragraphs themselves ladk any clear line of march The document is hard to read and murder to remember Partly for these reasons the HIE did not focus the reader's attention on major judgments 50 The reports of the confirm the impression produced by reading the drafts they did not learn much from putting the paper together Their ideasiwere not challenged by others in the community they did not have to probe their own pro-existing beliefs or the evidencezthey had felt was significant no flaws in what they had thought were brought to the surface no one made critical and penetrating comments on anyone else's anal sis no one was led to see things in a dif ferent light d 51 Judging from the changes in the successive drafts of the abortive HIE most of the energy of this process went into subtle wording changes that would be apparent only to someone who had seen several versions To show this we have reproduced a paragraph from the 21 July and 6 September drafts underscoring the changes The Shah is supported sometimes without great enthusiasm by all significant elements of the cur- rent power structure The cabinet parliament the bureaucracy the security forces and most of the busi- ness and commercial community are all on his side Although many might abstractly prefer a more dem ocratic system even those who are lukewarm about the monarchy the Pahlavi dynasty or both are uneasy when they consider the uncertainties about - ester of a government without a strong Shah The Shah is supported often without great enthusiasm by most significant elements of the cur- rent power structure Influential persons in the cabinet parliament the bureaucracy the security forces and the business and commercial community -39 331' i EE- - au-b6 UHFu-D-i-I- I m i l SE 1 us - l i I i i C01259322 Ii- hi I - IL are generally on his side Although many would prefer a more democratic system even those who are lukewarm about the monarchy the Pahlavi dynasty or both are uneasy when they consider the uncertainties about a government without a strong monarch 52 Part of the reason why the important issues of who supported the Shah and with what intensity did not get ana- lytical treatment in this forum may have been that the partic ipants do not see the NIE and especially the body of the paper as opposed to its principal judgments as particularly important because they doubt whether it would be read let alone absorbed by the policy-makers 53 In retrospect it is apparent that the government would have been better served by a paper that did address the shorter-term questions To have asked for such a paper how ever would have required a recognition that the Shah was in serious trouble and given the prevailing beliefs that could not have occurred_until the end of August at the very earliest Indeed INR called for such a paper on 12 September But it took a week for NFAC to decide that such a paper should be produced and another ten days for the State Department to draft it Apparently influenced by the mid-September lull the paper concluded that The Shah no longer appears to be in immediate danger of being overthrown There is considerable question however of his abilit to survive in power over the next 18 to 24 months The paper was much more sharply focused than the NIE till failed to address several of the questions mentioned in other sections of this report which-would strongly influence the Shah's fate Whether- this IIM would have served a useful purpose is difficult to determine In any event decided not to pursue it on the grounds that it considers too immediate a time frame what is needed is a new draft NIB both near and long-term problems Chronology of Iran HIE page 4 'enclosure 2 to memo to Dc I r 17 November 1978 TS such a draft was prepared by the NIO's office at end of October but by this time it was no longer relevant 54 It is obvious that a lot of time and energy was ex- pended in these efforts with little to show in terms of re- sults We think that managers could have done a better job of focusing NFAC resources on the timely analysis of the most important questions -4D- w C01259322 55 At the risk of annearinc rochial one of the authors of this reportl wishes to point out that the intelligence community once had an estimative mechanism which could and did produce analytical papers SNIEs on issues such as that of the Shah's position and short-term prospects in a few days or a week Such produc- tion forced analytical attention on what anagement and policy-makers if they asked for a paper onsidered to be the important issues The present lack of an institution with such capacities have contributed-to the diffi culties in this case -41 Ed I HMI 1H C01259322 L- tap q- L- I w I - I - I -- I - I - REPORTING AND ANALYSIS - GENERAL 1 This section presents a general survey of the way in which NFAC intelligence production used the information available to it on Iran Issues which are discussed at length in separate sections below are noted only briefly here Most of those issues relate to the 1978 period and because so much happened in 1978 we have provided Annex C a chro nology of events official reporting NFAC coverage and public commentary for 1 January - November 1978 2 During July-September 1977 reporting on domestic political affairs focused on several events a The Embassy reported 7086 10 August 1977 and 3-124 25 July 1977 three petitions by men 6f letters lawyers and members of the dormant National Front was a general assessment of intellectual and religious opposition as of mid summer we refer to it below in the Religious-based Opposition b The appointment of a new prime minister and changes in the cabinet were anticipated by Embassy re- porting although the Embassy did not identify the winning candidate for prime minister The Embassy reported that the change in prime ministers was a response to criticism of electricity shortages and that it emphasized the role of the sole legal which was headed by the new prime minister 3 The potential for terrorist activity was discussed and assessed by the station Embassy and Defense Attache All three were concerned with whether year long lull in such activity might be broken 4 Embassy reporting Te an 6991 7 August 1977 Tehra 74 10 August 19773 gjand Tehran 7494 22 August reasons or the changes in certain cabinet minis They indicated the Shah's awareness that Iranian agriculture was in trouble and that the extensive outages of electrical power had begun to have a serious effect on the population in Tehran and other cities The Shah's speech to Parliament in September stressed that agriculture must be developed and laid blame on the planning organization for many of the problems in the development process and resulting stresses that were becbming apparent in Iranian society C01259322 W- 5 The reporting conveys a general sense of business as usual that the Shah is in control and that he continues as he has for years to make all major and most minor deci- sions There is some expression of concern over the possibility of student demonstrations after the universities opened in late September There is clear evidence of concern over a resur gence of terrori which had taken six American lives some years earlier I 6 The NFAC then DDI publications fall into four categories a A major study about a year an the making Iran in the 19803 was published in august It was suEstantIaIIy completed in May though minor updates were made in July b The NID carried ten items on political matters relating to Iran of which eight weretbn Iranian inter- national relations one was a short piece on the appoint- ment of the new prime minister and another reported the attempt to assassinate the Shah's sieter in France c There were 11 items in the ORPA periodical for regional specialists on the Middle East and South Asia -six were on international affairs and five on demestic affairs ' d Miscellaneous publications included a mention Fin the Human Rights Weekly Review for 15-21 July of an anti-discrimination making its way through the Iranian Parliament There was also a typescript memorandum s The Terrorist Threat Against Americans in Iran - which concluded that terrorist organizations do not at this time pose a threat to the stability of the Shah'a regime but they do remain a major security problem gThe threat of ter- rorist attacks against US citizens and Iranian officials remains high in spite of the lull a 30 September 1977 7 The five articles in the ORPA periodical which dis cussed demestic political developments draw on field reporting to discuss the Shah's liberalization progaam the limits to criticism of his policies that would be permitted and the problems posed for the Shah if criticism were to exceed established bounds The analysis notes that over the previous 45 I i il iml EII L5 as Esll eel ii ha In fill - as C01259322 I l_l I j- 1 year or so official Iranian attitudes toward public criticism of the regime had softened lJuly 1977 reported the emergence in pu lic after an absence of more than a dozen years of National Front politicians Iran More Dissident Activity August 1977' analyzes the three petitions of criticism making the jud n hat the demands of the NatiOnal Front are completely unacceptable to the Shah This publication notes that many of the National Front leaders accept as an unchallengeable fact that the etely controlled by the Another article in 17 August 1977 ' assessed the Shah's effort tioning political party established noting the prevailing view in Iran will cynically assume that this is just the latest of a long series of artificial creations to give the Appearance but not the reality of glitical freedom Finally 14 September 1977 iscussed the petitions of protest noting that the Sha objectives ap- peared to be either to let people criticize to force critics into his tame political party or to suppress all objectionable criticism The paper judged that he would take this last course if criticism exceeded permissible limits and attacked the institution of the monarchy on a regular and systematic basis 8 Reporting on domestic matters in Iran in the fourth quarter of 1977 focused extensively on demonstrations by uni- versity students changes in Iranian planning for economic development the potential for terrorist violence and they relate in the period the potential for anti-Carter mani-' festations The last was in preparation for tre President's brief visit to Iran 31 December 1977 - 9 In October there was a flurry of reporting about demonstrations by university students demanding that female students be segregated on university campuses The Embassy noting that l University demonstrations are old hat in- Iran stressed a genuine congruence of government policy and feelings of most students that the demonstrations were tionary Tehran 9082 _13 October 197 28 October 1977 commented that disturb- ances served to remind the Shah that conservative religious opposition is still a force to be reckoned with An unreported event was the death of Ayatollah Khomeini's son in Qom under what the Ayatollah considered mysterious circumstances -44 C01259322 10 More violent larger and decidedly anti government demonstrations took place for several days beginning in mid-November Demonstrations in severalhuniversities in Tehran and in the provinces were large and violent but not out of the ordinary by Iranian standards Early reports that students had shot policemen turned out to be false These demonstrations took place at the same time as the Shah's visit to the United States during which violent demonstrations involving thousands took place here in washington NID 18 November 1977A Student disturbances quieted down by early December and despite concern that 7 December a traditional anniversary for Iranian student demonstrations would prove violent the day was fairly peaceful 11 As of October 1977 the Shah's policy of allowing some discussion and criticism of government policy and action usually referred to in field reporting under the shorthand of liberalization had been in effect for about a year There were indications at the beginning of the quarter that the tolerance of dissidentsiwas continuing Tehran 9623 1 November 1977 More letters and peti- tions criticizing government a and policy were reported Tehran 10064 14 November 1977 nd particularly Tehran 10216 18 November 1977 The atter contained a list of ten demands by 56 opposition figures The demands- inc1uding freedom of press and publications free elections freedom for political association--went far beyond what in the Embassy's opinion the Shah wduld be willing to permit Around the end of November the government took steps indicating that the limits of criticism had been reached A SAVAK goon squad broke up a meeting of National Front people held on _private property on 22 November 1 jcommented that this showed how _much the qovernment_ ggre the National Front I noted the decision to use force was effective in the short run but would be counter-productive over the long term it would worh to encourage ple to turn to viobence against the regime 12 6 reported that the Nattonel Liberation Front as of early November had gotten the agreement of all major elements of the nationalist dissident movement and ill it 5' II rs WEI 23 FE tl em as C01259322 - 1 I -- L- I- - I I Isa - JpeP ssessi i most of the terrorist organizations to work against the regime by peaceful means and that it was working with svmnathetic_rsliqious figures2 A later reportl noted that SAVAK violence against the National Trent on I 22 November might turn extremist elements away the path of swaying the regime by peaceful means 13 In the area of the potential for terrorist activity messages originating from US military installations in Iran carried considerable information The also reported on the minutiae of some demonstrations l noted a slight upturnrin tar rorist activity but nothing of an alarmist nature _ 14 A year-end wrapup on recent student and dissident disturbances noted that university disturbances had become an annual fall occurrence although repression in the period 1972-74 resulted in fewer such disturbances in 1975 and particularly 1976 This fall all signs indicate students were encouraged to demonstrate by Shah's visit to US and well advertised liberalizations of local regime controls which preceded it The cable further noted that the lack of reaction by the government to various petitions during the summer and fall encouraged both their signers and many old oppositionists to hold the meeting on 22 November which incurred governmentesponsored violence The cable also said obscure and puzzling have been the circumstances sur- rounding demonstrations by religious persons or in the name of religion two of which called for the return of Ayatollah Khomeini Khomeini circulated a letter in December blaming the regime for his son's death an event which most Western observers did not notice and which is not reported in the Emitefifl we reviewed Tehran 11408 27 December 1977 1 5 I Tno t d' that 1Tsupport for the idea of a constitutional monarchy and a general cleanup of corruption in government is strong In the provinces dissatisfaction with the overnment centers around economic and religious issues ' that middle-level government officials ieve The Shah is concerned but not gravely concerned about the present situation He also is reported to believe that anv religious oriented dissent represents a serious threat C01259322 16 NFAC coverage of Iranian affairs included a sum- mary of the memorandum Iran in the 19805 which had been issued in August Cayerage in the NID consisted of a two- part assessment 12 and 14 November 1977' of the Shah as a ruler timed to appear when he visite washington In addition to an article on 18 November 1977 the RID on 30 December also contained a brie item on a bomb explosion in ranian American Society building washroom in December 17 The analysis essentially says that the Shah is in control and is likely to stay in control there is no serious domestic threat to the Shah's rule At 58 he is in good health and protected by an elaborate security apparatus has an excellent chance to rule well into the next decade NID 14 November 1977 The analysis does mention the fears and concerns of Mus conservatives It recognized that the middle and lower classes are very dubious about what the Shah's drive toward modernisation istdoing to traditional values It as early analysis had done rrecognizes that problems will over time be created It judges that the Shah is able to cape but that his successors will undoubtedly be hard-pressed to meet mounting pressures within the system 'mentl there is a clear I 18 November In this and in earlier docu- ion that there are stresses that they are severe but that it will be some time before they get unmanageable These judgments do not differ from those held by the Embassy as reported in Tehran 11408 27 December 1977 - 18 The events which ultimately brought down the Shah began with demonstrations in com on a January 1978 which re- sulted in-a number of dead The government's initial explanation was that rioters had attacked a police station Later information indicated that the police had panicked and fired into a crowd nowhere near a police'station The Embassy described this event as the wor of its kind in years Tehran 11 January 1978 and Tehran 0548 16 January 19784 NPAC covered this nt on 20 January noting that there been greater loss pf life than the government had indicated and judging that religious dis sidents would be considered a more serious threat if they were thought to be allied with other opposition elements The item notes that such an alliance is possible but that information is scarce NIB 20 Januarn 1978 -47Eill E l 3 I 35' Ali-Iv in C01259322 4 mew i 19 As is now well known demonstrations and rioting followed a 40 day cycle during 1978 Prior to the first repetition at Tabriz on 18 February ORPA's periodical publication carried an analytical piece explaining the bases of_religious Opposition to the monarchy It noted the dilemma i that the Shah faced if he permitted his basic programs i to be challenged demonstrations would continue and probably intensify if he crushed demonstrations he would be accused of suppressing liberties After explaining the antipathy between government and Shia clergy and referring to a decision by Khomeini in 1975 that participation by Muslims in the Shah's newly formed Resurgence Party was evil and therefore forbidden the article concluded by saying it seems likely that tension will continue between secular authority and the religious community with violence breaking out from time to time Neither side will side can afford to canitulate 10 February 1978 20 Rioting in Tabriz on 18 February was extensive Tehran 1710 18 February 1978 lsaid that the level of violence is surprising The Consul in Tabriz took a par- ticularly gloomy view of the situation saying that the door that had swung open for religious and social forces would not be easily closed The Embassy believes situation-not that difficult Tehran 1879 23 February 1973' 1The Tabriz events were reported in the NID 21 Februar I378 and the possibility that they might Azerbaijani nationalism was explored in 3 March 1978H I 21 Some disturbances occurred at the end of March and early April and a divergence in field resortina an them 1 mticeahlL - give an impression'that the violence in a large number of Iranian cities and towns was fairly serious Embassy reporting Tehran 3146 3 April 1978 C gives a more reassuring picture of low level violence with small groups attacking banks public buildings movie houses etc NFAC covered these events reporting that they grew from widespread dissatisfaction on the part of conservative reli- gious elements It judged that the riots demonstrations and sabotage in many cities and towns in recent weeks are no 1 threat to government stability 7 April 1978 ' In this judgment it was in agreeme w1 the Financial Times u 43 c01259322 of 14 May and was not far ifierent iron an gal-916'- 11 the New Yorh gimes of_18 gay Both the I the Human Rights Review 0 4 May i_ - 'noten that the Shah was going to take a hard line with dissidentd and troublemakers 22 In anticipation of a new outburstnon the 40th day the early May troubles the N1n_ June noted that the Shah was trying to Improve rela- ons the religious leadership but hat near ghgtagles on the way to a_durable compronise l I I As it happened events quieted down in Iran after mid May The 40th day commemorations in June were peaceful stay at-home events and it was not until late July that matters began to heat up ageing the occasion being the death in a road accident of a Shia clergyman There was no HID coverage from mid June until earl August when the Shah's promise of free elections was ana yzed The analysis noted that this promise was part of his timetable for develop ing the Iran he wanted that there never had been free elec- tions and that the Shah would have continuing problems with the National Front and the religious opposition His success would depend greatly on IIthe willingnesstof a generally ir- responsible 0pposition to politics HID 10 August 1978 23 After some two months of relative quiet the Iranian scene had begun to heat up in late July and early August dis- turbances individually were not very serious save in Isfahan which was put under martial law on 11 August but they came to occur on a daily basis as the month went on The anti- regime repercussions from a movie theater fire in Abadan a few days later which killed some 400 petple were stron The regime tried to pin blame on elements al ied with relig ous opposition the latter with considerable success in the public 49-r 5 ea EEO v l i ll C01259322 IL 1 - I - I - mind put the blame on the regime The repercussions showed the Shah that religious elements needed to be placated His decision was to appoint an elder politician with reputedly good connection with religious leader Sharif-Emami NFAC noted that this appointment showed how seriously the Shah viewed the situation but also that the appointment might be take by Muslim leaders as a capitulation NID 28 August There is reason to believe that some of them did At any event religious leaders organized a massive peaceful protest on 4 September a religious holiday and in defiance of government orders forbidding such demonstrations a second on 7 September These demonstrations led to_the imposition of martial law in Tehran and 11 other cities on 8 September and the killing of a large number to le demonstrators in Tehran by troops later that day 24 The events of late August and early September as we now know constituted a major turning point The pos- sibility of a compromise was probably lost then although there was no way of knowing it at the time Just prior to the imposition of martial law the Embassy summing up the situation in Tehran 8485 6 September 1978 noted the very streng anti-regime stands of the religious'leadership and the less important National Front which reject - promise or negotiation The NID 30 August 1978 reported the new cabinet stressing that it was try ng reach accommodation with religiOus leaders Political af- fairs in Iran were given fuller treatment in Iran Prospects for the Shah I N10 14 September 1978 which laid out the difficulties that the Shah and associates would have in trying to cape with various opposition pressures It made the point that given the limitations on how far the Shah was willing to liberalize opposition leaders would need to show a greater willingness to cooPerate if a resolu- tion of Iranls problems were to be reached It noted that such cooperation was alien to the society and would net come easily This element was repeated in other intelligence publications in the next couple of months carrying the implication that such cooperation will not in fact be forthcoming They do not however go on and draw the con- clusion that efforts to effect a compromise acceptable to _the_ hah and his opponents would almost certainly fail megs C01259322 Comments 25 The conventional wisdom concerning the staying power of the Shah's regime is mentioned elsewhere in this report and need not be repeated here in detail The reasons for holding it were his proven record of survival the loyalty of armed forces weakness of political secular forces belief that the Shah was ready and willing to use the force necessary to suppress oppositidh The Shah in- tended as part of his plan to secure a nasty to con struct a political edifice that would fudgtion after his demise He had not however let anyone know when and how he intended to do this and his actions of loosening and tightening the political reins confused 'articipants and observers and led some of them to conclu_e that he was losing his grip 26 The demonstrations and deaths in January and February were not in themselves cause for alarm The con tinuance of the cycle in late March and early May was and concern was reflected in the RID article of 17 June when 40th day violence was due to take place _ But the commemora- tion was peaceful when trouble began again in the latter part of July it happened piecemeal and has not well reported according to the documents we have During August anti- regime momentum built up coming to a head on 8 September with the imposition gg_m rtia1 law and the killing of some 300 protesters 27 One can argue that those observing Iran should have taken a good hard look at the way events were shaping up as of early September 1978 and reached a judgment that the Shah was in serious trouble perhap' in danger of being overthrown The HIE then in progress ozfered such an op- portunity and State INK did express a dissenting view even though it was fairly mild Within people did consider the situation and no doubt influenced their judgment of the army s loyalty and by the he's down he's up but he's more up than down tenor of field reports on the Shah's moods considered that he would stay injpower The relative peace that prevailed for a month after 8 September helped in maintaining this optimistic outlook and so did_the raler - Itive paucity oi arguments to the contrarygl emit hell sent ihlr as oil EH 1 C01259322 law In lie Inc l c Pahlavi dynasty with power like those of the past h 28 The language used in NFAC publications however is different than that of a few months earlier Both the political and economic intelligence talk of problems and difficulties There is no sense that the Shah will have everything his-way But the overall impression is still that he will probably be able to outmaneuver his Opposition Only with the definitive failure of the regime's efforts to publicly divide Khomeini from the less extreme ayatollahs at the end of October and the subsequent establishment of a military government does NFAC conclude that the Shah has delayed so long in taking decisive action that he has reduced substantially his earlier good chance of preserving the I 52 C0125 I In L 9322 WHITE REVOLUTION 1 In retrospect the analysis of the difficulties of staging a white revolution was a bit superficial and over- optimistic Perhaps the like many non-governmental observers were misled by the Shah's many successes- real and apparent--and so lost sight of how hard it was to mod ernize liberalize and yet maintain control History pro vides few examples of leaders who have been able to do this over an extended period of time That the Shah was able to do as much as he did is a testimony to his resourcefulness Without suggesting that one could have predicted with cer tainty_that he would eventually fail we think that the problem was serious enough to merit more careful and sus- tained analysis of the situation he was in and the problems he faced Our conclusions and evaluation are on pp 65-67 A Politico-Economic Problem 2 Three aspects of the issue are apparent and we do not think that it is only hindsight that makes them stand out One is the impact of the huge influx of oil money on the coun- try On this point NFAC's product suffered badly from the separation of political from economic analysis a subject to which we will return The deficiency is a common one and exists outside of government as well as in it are trained in either politics or economics and institutional barriers inhibit joint work with the result that topics that combine both subjects do not receive sufficient attention Thus_it is disturbing but not surprising that NFAC papers gave the facts and figures on economic growth and change talked about the rates of inflation and the bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the economy but never explained what this was doing to the political system More specifically little was said about the changes in power that were occurring and the resulting grievances among those who were losing out economi- cally -at least in relative terms and losing political in- fluence- even in absolute terms Brief mentions are sometimes made Thus a short part of the economics section of the draft NIE of 6 September 1978 was headed Basis for Popular Unrest and began - 53 l sj C01259322 1 Most Iranians have gained little in terms of stan- dards of living from the oil and construction booms and discontent with the Shah's economic and military priorities could add to labor unrest in the years ahead The gap between rich and poor has wid ened and the poor have been particularly hard hit by inflation The small-scale artisans re tailers and providers of services and simple manu- factured products that constitute the private sector have languished for lack of credit and because of high taxes As in the past programs to expand housing and social welfare will be carried out slowly The Shah's development program seems likely to lead to growing discontent among the urban poor no similar analyses are presented in_c1h 331 Some of Ihis analysis also appears in the RID for 18 September a 4 Eentemhnr 1315 lthough a bit bland this analysis was better than 'that'found in the section of the NIE dealing with the Power Structure The Shah has deliberately aimed his program at the common man hoping to build mass support make easier the building of Iran into a modern industrial state and assure a peaceful transition and reign for his son At this point however it is not clear whether the Shah has achieved positive mass support or simply avoided mass discontent 3 Further analyses were needed especially of the polit- ical implications of these economic changes Not only did in telligence need to try to find out whether the Shah's support was eroding among the working classes which were generally thought to have benefitted from his rule but there was a need for analysis of the changing position and attitudes of -54 55' 1 I C01259322 WJ bazaaris and other segments of the middle class The political impact of the cooling off of the economy after mid-1977 should have been examined The common belief mentioned in many NFAC publications that-the greatest dangers would arise in the mid-19803 when oil revenues decreased social problems accu- mulated and the Shah tried to arrange the transition to his son's rule helped to distract attention from the present problems Had this belief been borne out NFAC would undoubt- edly have been congratulated on its foresight That it was not does not mean that such attempts to see problems long be- fore they arise should be discouraged i 4 'These economic changes produced several effects In First the quality of life was actually lowered for some people especially those who were hard hit by inflation Second many important groups lost power and influence as new entrepreneurs made their fortunes often through connections with the regime Thus it is not surprising that the bazaaris strongly supported the opposition Third foreigners had a large role in the I economic changes--and were probably seen as even more important than they actually were--th_us increasing nationalism Further- more since the Shah was closely identified with foreign in I terests he was the target of much of this feeling Fourth i the dislocations and rapid changes led in Iran as they usually do to a resurgence of traditional values in this case reli- gious values Hindsight makes these patterns clearer but they are coman ones in societies undergoing rapid economic growth and we think that both and management in NFAC should have known that they called for close attention 4 5 The second aspect was the peculiar nature of the oil boom which posed special problems Not only was the increase ue both terribly rapid and terribly large but the government did not have to develop efficient state machinery for mobilizing or extracting resources from the general public This enabled the government to avoid un popular measures but it also had two unfortunate side-effects P 3 4 3 3 which were not treated in the NFAC papers First the govern- ment could avoid heavily taxing the rich While this had some political benefits it allowed the income disparities to in- crease markedly and fed resentment among the rest of the society Second it allowed the government to forgo ties to the grassroots either repressive or mobilizing It was i thus easy for the government to lose touch with mass opinion C01259322 It lacked the organizations and cadres w ich could have channeled demands transmitted informatign and cOOpted local leaders and exerted control through mea 3 less intrusive than SAVAK These efforts are difficultiand often fail but in most cases states that do not have some success along ameliorate some of the problems and channbl and control the dissent The 601 apparently realized this and tried to de- velop the official political party and seteral auxiliary organs Tehran Air_rams A-124 23 July 19 7 and 19 September AME 77-054 14 sapt but these efforts he led The governmentswas then more rag- ile than it seemed The Shah's Liberalization Program received insufficient NFAC analysis was problem of liber- alizing a repressive regime This probl was mentioned with some frequency but there was no detailediand careful discus- sion of how great the problem was or how the Shah might cope with it This question was of obvious in rtance after the fall of 1977 when the Shah started to 11 ralize and when the USG had to decide how much to push th Shah to liberalize but at no time in the succeeding year wasithere an NFAC dis cussion that was more than a few sentences long In early August 1978 when the Shah pledged that the forthcoming Majles election would be completely free and when Sharif-Emami in- troduced a number of wide-ranging reforms month later the question of the ability of the government to carry out this policy without losing control of the country should have been sharply raised These measures and this problem were of course overtaken by events but since this was - known at the time we do find it surprising that they did no receive more atten- tion By early September the new politics parties were al- lowed to form the government sponsored urgence Party was allowed to collapse free debate was permi ted in the Majles and the press was allowed to print what it wanted These were enormous changes 6 The third aspect of the dilemma that 56 Fe a l' - new a l I well imil 31 - av-Hymn mum-II C01259322 a 7 Field re rtin was skimpy on these questions The Embassy's reporging 31d not express concern that the Shah was moving too fast or unleasing forces he could not control and it provided little information on which the opportunities and dangers of the program could be evaluated It occasionally worried that the Shah's inexperience with this kind of endeavor would lead him to commit tactical errors and appear indecisive Tehran 4836 21 May 1978 and as the unrest and reforms picked up speed in mid Sap ember it felt the Critical question is how fast 601 can move to implement Sharif-Emami's program and convince fence-sitters and oppositionists that GUI is serious about political free- dom and social justice Tehran 8659Ir 11 chamber 1278 also see Tehran 9157 21 September 1978 A Thus Embassy felt both that the way out of the difficulties lay in the Shah's pushing ahead and that halting the liber- alization would incur high domestic and foreign costs But partly because of its lack of contacts with non-elite groups it could say little about how the program would be received It seemed to assume that the Shah had broad support throughout the country and that many of those who had doubts about the regime would be won over by a degree of liberalization which H hld ahnu them the Shah was moving in the right direction l1977 Embassy reporting had been skeptical about how much the Shah would liberalize because it thought this could only be done if it is perceived that greater opposi- tion is safely manageable in security terms and that the system is stable enough to afford what the Shah calls the IL- Ill a0n 1 June the Embassy noted that There is little reason for us to doubt the Shah's commitment to liberalisation It is obvious however that he is having trouble keeping Pan dora's boa only partly open Tehran 1 June 1978 5 Similarly in mid-August the Embassy pointed out that The - Shah is on a tight rope- trying to minimise violence while channeling political conflict into electoral realm Tehran I 7882 17 August 1978 While this set the general problem well the rest of the cable which offered acute comments on a number of'topice which are quoted in other sections of this reJIhzaortL did add much information or analysis C01259322 '1uxury of dissent ' Tehran Airgram 25 July 1977 C As the Shah moved much further and much faster than anyone had expected no one returned to this common- sense analysis The Shah had previously felt that much milder reforms were incompatible with the security of his regime Why would they not be terribly dangerous now How could the Shah reconcile a high degree of liberty with the maintenance of much of his power The Embassy's reports did not address the Question of whether the Shah could win out in a free political struggle although the sections quoted above imply an affirmative answer Similarly the Embassy reported former Prime Minister Hoveyda's prediction that nearly two-thirds of current Majles of 268 members could be - an honestly free electign Tehran 9689 5 October 19731f 9 View s emea a hitsles sanguine if the_June 1979 elections are substantially free - the opposition probably will do relatively well The Shah's power will be further eroded Footndte to Iran NIB submitted by Statel 11 September 1978 Thus elections cOEId'hand him a defeat no matter how they went NFAC did not address the issue of the Shah's ability to with stand free elections the elections were scheduled for June 1979 and NFAQ's analysis was directed at the immediate future 10 The Shah's basic dilemma was illustrated by one_ minor incident that the Embassy reported In late Septem ber Sharif-Emami's government proposed to grant to univer- sities a degree of autonomy much more than they had enjoyed in the past and more than anyone would have dreamed possible six months earlier But this did not bring calm to the campuses Initial reaction of some sal at 13 it Mg F l eel EE- lall all I C01259322 L - L- 1- I- C -- I - 1 - - faculty has been fairly stiff criticism and a deter- mination to push for real autonomy Contrary to earlier expressed GOI hope that if bill were being reviewed when school opens this would help quiet things down it now appears that unless GOI is willing to make real concession on autonomy now it will have left major issue on table which can be easily seized upon by those who wish to provoke demonstrations Tehran 9366 27 September 1978 A month later the government was forced to promise reforms so extensive that the Embassy noted that if they were carried out I'Iranian universities will be more independent than American universities or those of most other democratic countries Tehran 10384 24 October 1978 JThe obvious question was whether th case was going to appear in many other contexts 11 The Station provided only two reports on the liberalization issue but they are ouito information ones In one I said that the combination of martial law and political liberalization had been very effective in shifting the venue of dissent away from the streets and into normal channels The willingness of the government to permit dissent in the Majles and mass media has done much to prove the government's sincerity and acts as an important 'saftey valve ' MJuch of the sense of crisis built up over the past months has abated There is a valid prospect for a stable but generally orderly society movin toward significant political and economic reform ' The secon report T has much more pEIsImIEtIc ' hereas the first lsaw martial law and liberalization as working togernor to curb violence and promote legitimate dissent the second saw them as posing an intricate dilemma which would bring down the government To proceed further with the anti corruption program for example would be to implicate many high officials But to curb it would ba to 1 show that the reforms were hollow- milder versi n of this argument was voiced by the Embassy during an earlier period that tried to combine liberalisation with a firm hand--see Tehran 452 12 May 197a -_ and Tehran 4533 14 May 1973 if -59- C01259322 12 NFAC anal sis was alert to the general problems posed by lIEeraIIsaEIon quite early and generally not only did a good job of summarizing the reports from the field but also adopted a more pessimistic--and more accurate--view than the Embassy But NFAC production was not thorough penetrating or sustained It stayed too much on the surface of events in part because of the pressure to report the latest developments and did not come to grips with the basic problem of whether the Shah's dictatorial regime could safely permit a high level of political freedom Part of the explanation is that the pace of liberalization was fastest after late August and by this time so many things were happening that the had to carefully ration their attention The demonstrations strikes and riots were mere pressing and had to be reported 13 As early as 10 February 1978 noted an aspect of the problem when he analyzed the protests of the month before Such demonstrations'have been encouraged by the recent worldwide interest in human rights and by the somewhat more lenient policies the government has been attempting to follow as a result of foreign criticism The government--and therefore the Shah--is in something of a dilemma If it permits its most basic programs to be challenged demonstrations will continue and probably intensify if it meets such demonstra- tions with force it can be accused of suppression of civil and religious liberties Short of capitulation there is probably little that the government an co 9 if most of its 0 nents 10 February 1978 ampaign 'Hundred Flow Septembhr 1977 14 When the Shah continued the new policy of allow- ing public criticism of his regime and tried to cope with the winter and spring riots with as little bloodshed as possible Oney noted that The new line of tolerance of dissent adopted by the Shah presents the security forces with the problem of how to control public disorder without 14 -60- a I a $1 9 Er inf up i Ell til i l an c01259322 1 L- I -- I - _1 resort to the harsh measures of suppression that hav been common--and effective--for the last 15 years EC ant 7 April 1978 After the announc that the Majles elections wou free Oney pointed out that The Shah is taking a calculated risk Just as his more liberal approach to dissent in the last two years has resulted in violent demonstra- tions by those hoping to force more concessions from him so the promise of free elections is likely to produce new political ferment His success will ultimately depend on the willingness of a generally irresponsible opposition to forego violence in exchange for a legal political role The next year in Iran could like 1906 1941 and 1953 be a turning point in Iranian history Sinbad the Persian who let the genie out of the bottleIr was never the same afterwards - 9 August 1978 A shortened version or this memo which ran in the NID the next day omitted the last two sentences 15 But after this NFAC production said little about the consequences of liberalization On 11 September 1978 the RID reported that the imposition of martial law had not weakened the Shah's commitment to liberaliza- tion and on 14 September the made the important po nt that The radicals are portraying both the Shah's liberalization program and his recent concessions to the religious community as a reflection of his weakness 61 C01259322 They argue that they must now exploit this demanding further and more extensive concessions 15 September 1978 This paralleled the observation in the NID two weeks earlier that The Shah's appointment of a new cabinet headed by Sharif-Emami could be interpreted by some Muslim clergymen as a capitulation to their de- mands This could encourage Muslim leaders to push for further political concessions such as the right of the Muslim clergy to veto Parliamentary legislation -some- thing the Shah is certain to reject '_ 28 August Il978d These articles pointed to a dynamic process which the Shah would not be able to control and indicated why limited liberalization was not likely to succeed But this was never stressed or treated in more detail and depth The strength bf these forces was not compared with those that were conducive to a peaceful solution and the potential clash between the Shah's desire to liberalize and his willingness to use force if the protests got out of hand see below pp 72-74 was not noted f 16 On 16 September the NID argued that the com- bination of martial law and political liberalization might be effective when it presented a cautious version of the first of the two station reports niscussed above and included the important reservation that the clergy still showed no wil to negotiate l Eentemhe l l l n_ 17 In this same period INR's proposed footnote to the draft HIE put the problem more sharply The conflict between the liberalisation program and the need to limit violent opposition raises serious questions about the Shah's ability to share power and to maintain a steady course in his drive to modernise Iran 11 Septem- ber 1978 53 I hi it a E l SEE at 35 I i y 3 3 C01259322 WL id II in d i- -- U mi Hui 53 C01259322 18 Little attention was paid to the ability of the radical opposition to create sufficient unrest to make it difficult for the Shah to avoid halting liberalization and establishing a military government as he eventually did in early November The desire to prevent this out- come was mentioned in a field report as one reason why the moderates opposed large demonstrations during Muharram the especially religious month beginning in early December nd an Embassy cable in octaner noted the danger that even if the religious groupsjreached an agreement with the government other elements might continue the unrest The government would then have to face up to continuing disturbances whdse forceful repression might involve bloodshed--and thus force the religious leaders back on the warpath to preserve their Tehran 10061 16 October 1978 19 When NFAC returned to the dilemmas of liberalization in late October they sounded the same themes they had a month earlier The political liberaliza- tion the Shah once thought would mark the final stage of his labor now seems instead ts signaltthe beginning of a greater task _20 October The Shah believes he must demonstrate to moderate 0p ts and politically aware Iranians that he has abandoned one-man rule and intends to build a liberalized government based on consent At the same time hisicritics must be persuaded that the Shah has no intention of stepping down and that further civil disturbances woul serve no useful purpose NID 23 October 1978 The problem with these statements is not that they are wrong but that they should have been made earlier and formed the beginning of the analysis not its end The question of whether the Shah could survive let alone prevail in a relatively free political climate was never addressed Indeed it was never even posed sharply enough to alert 54 re a i as 3 1th as f Eraa l' C01259322 In ll I I m ll _of force others to its importance Similarly the possibility that the Shah's commitment to continued liberalization might either make it harder for him to crack down or indicate a frame of mind which would not turn to repression was not noted Conclusions and Evaluation 30 It seems in retrospect that had the situation not developed into a crisis in October and November the attempts to carry out the announced liberalisation would have led to the development of greater domestic opposition For the Shah to have cracked down would have become in- creasingly difficult and costly for him to have allowed the process to continue would have undermined his power to rule and even to reign Even without hindsight the problem was great enough to have called for much more attention and analysis The 1961 HIE Prospects for Iran The proposed HIE did not help much One of the princi- pal dudgments of the final draft of the long version was that Popular reaction to the Shah s liberalization policies will provoke greater dissident activity and attacks on him Its five page section on The Shah's Liberalisation can be faulted less for its optimistic conclusion His program of liberalisation is not likely to be derailed by the protestors as or its lack of-sustained argument 6 September The IIM pointed out that in order to survive the Shah must expand public participation in the political process and ewercise sufficient authority to discourage those who attempt to challenge the regime and noted that The dilemma facing the Shah is that these two courses of action conflict to a great srtent but drew no conclusions 29 September 78 The thrust of the draft of a shorter HIE was similar 23 October 1978 In another section the IIM stated that Iranians a generally negative attitude toward government and tend to yield to the political will of others only when greater authority is manifested Thus lenience by the government can be more destabilizing in Iran than a show -55- C01259322 31 Five factors seem to account for the deficiency First information from the field was not particularly good The had little to go on Second there was great pressure to report the latest-events and especially in the fall many things were happening that had nothing to do with this issue From mid-year on the had to deal with a steadily growing volume of traffic and increasing demands for articles for the RID Ifcr memoranda and for briefings Further mors the felt that it would serve no purpose to discuss a problem that would not demand the consumers' immediate attention for several months In their view a month or two before the elections wouhd have been the time to treat the issues Third many of the dilemmas of liberalisation were not unique to Iran but could have been well approached by an appreciation of the process as it was attempted in other autocratic states The however were not experts in such general problems Their expertise was on Iran and similar countries Yet there was little in the detailed facts of what was happening to provide adequate guidance or scholars who were familiar with other countries' attempts to liberalize might have been able to help identify the crucial issues and note indicators that would show whether the Shah was succeeding but they were not called in because this was seen as an Iranian problem and because such consultae tions were not customer See further discussion in Process p 27 32 Those working on Iran may have shared the broadly held American view of liberalisation as desirable It is possible that this had an influence on analysis If there was such an influence it was a subtle and unconscious one 33 The final and probably most important factor is highlighted by the reception of the optimistic station report of mid-September This led not only to a report in the NIH but also and was reflected in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 37 September 1978 in which he argued that - 55 - Duh-I Hi- Lil -nzvrarr r- eI E l El 'E l h l J 1- or -v 4 44 qua-w r mrm 9-1 ei-B' avg-13 499- C01259322 much of the explanation for the apparent abatement of the crisis was the combinatio artial law and new freedom of press and parliament This argument was not only plausible it was also consistent with the belief that most politically relevant Iranians wanted to modify the system not overthrow it It made sense against the back- ground belief that the differences within the country were not so great as to preclude compromise Part of the reason for the empectation that the opposition would split discussed on pp 79ff was the belief that important actors wanted to preserve the Shah as a bulwark against radicalism A similar consideration seems to have been at work here The Shah most Western observers felt had done a lot of good for his country and many of his recognised this Thus as late as 25 October the Embassy was referring to the silent majority that favored his retention albeit ape with reduced powers Tehran 10421 26 October 1978 Since it was clear that the Shah was willing to grant many of the protestars' demands it made eminent sense for a compromise to be struck on a major program of liberalisation This was we think a typically American view The authors differ on the extent to which such ethnaaentr sm may have affected intelligence production 24 There is another possible explanation and it hinges on the premise that Iranians do not compromise in the give-and take sense but rather that they compromise by submitting to superior power Given the belief that the Shah was strong and that he retained the support of the military and security services may have reasoned that enough opposition figures feared that the Shah's superior power would be loosed on them so that they would opt to accept what they had already won With hindsight it is fairly clear that many Iranians saw power flowing away from the once all powerful Shah and that they were more heavily influenced than observers knew than by the ultimate noncompromiser Ayatollah Khomeini ii I - l THE ISSUE OF THE WILLINGNESS TO USE FORCE 1 One of the crucial beliefs that underpinned the optimistic analysis of developments in Iran was the view--from which there were few dissents --that the Shah would be able to exercise control of the situation In 1977 Oney noted that opponents of the regime placed undue faith in student and religious protest because they looked back to relatively successful protests in the early 19603 without realizing that the Shah was now in a much stronger position 27 July 1977 C The events of most of the next year did not shake this confidence The Embassy and the thought that if there were a real and immediate danger to the Shah's regime he would clamp down effectively even though doing so would have been costly This view was shared by many newsman-- Most diplomatic observers and dissidents agree that the Shah has more than enough resources to crush any serious challenge to his regime William Branigan in the washington Post 7 April 1978 even'Lthe Shah's political foes agree that he still has the power to crush any major threat to his rule An-Nahar Arab Repgrt 17 April 1978 Even a Marxist Opponent reg agreed he argued in a recent book that the Iranian terrorists I'underestimate the degree to which the repression and post-1963 boom have placed new weapons in the hands of the regime Fred Hallidav Irgpi Dictatorship and DevelopmentIr p 2 As the final draft of the proposed NIE put it The government has the ability to use as much force as it needs to control violence and the chances that the Henry Precht the State Department Country Director for Iran apparently disagreed But his views reached the only in September and were not directly expressed to the other A HThe inherent 0 this view was reinforced in the minds of at least some of the by the analogy _to 1963 when the Shah put down protest demonstrations by force C01259322 recently widespread urban riots will grow out of control is sic relatively small The limiting factors are the Shah's expressed desire to permit some liberalization and the possible fallout abroad from harsh measures These limitations may encourage further demonstrations but the threat of the force that the Shah has available if he is pushed too far will deter all but the most virulent opposition 6 September 1978 pp This merely formalized and restated w EE' ad been said often over the past year As early as December 1977 the Embassy said that if student protests continued we have no doubt the authorities are prepared ts reimpose order forcefully Tehran 1077 6 December 1977 'hfter the Tabriz riots the Embassy explained that it did share the gloomy views of the US Consul because has until now refrained from usin full range of social controls Tehran 1879 23 Feb 0n 8 August 1978 the Embassy argued that the Shah is thus far unwilling to wield a heavy hand unless there is no other way to proceed This does not mean that he will not or cannot put the lid on again because he can do so although he would he faced with_even greater than in 1963 i Ten says later 11 argues that At some point be forced to repress an outbreak with the iron fist and not the velvet glove if Iran is to'retain any order at all We have no doubt that he will do so if that becomes essential He is mindful of what vacillation brought Ayub Khan and Bhutto in Pakistan ' Tehran 7832 17 August 1978 Even the relatively pessimistic draft Interagency e1 ligence Memorandum drafted by INR in late September declared Possessing a monopoly of coercive force in the country the armed and security forces have the ultimate say about whether the Shah stays_in power 29 Sept p 9 3 NFAC took a similar position On 11 May 1978 the RID concluded that The Shah is gambling that his program of modernization has enough political support to allow him to take stern measures if necessary against the conservative Muslims repeated Sss section The Shah's Position pp 103-114 --69-l C01259322 in the NID for 17 June On 14 September 1978 HERO reported that Th 3 not minimizing the current challenge to his rule in Iran but he seems determined to weather the storm and to keep a firm hand i on the levers of power i i 4 Those further removed from day to day events shared this assumption The and his assistant reported that until well into the crisis they expected the Shah to be willing and able to use as much force as was necessary to re-establish his control The DC noted in retrospect persisted personally in believing well into October that the Shah had the horsepower to take care of the opposition At the right time before it got out of control thought he would step in with enough power to handle it Los Angeles Times 17 March 1979 5 The problem with this line of argument is not that it turned out to be incorrect but that almost no evidence short of the most massive and disruptive of protests could have disconfirmed it And by the time such protests occurred they might signal the end of the Shah's regime The Shah's failure to crack down at one point did not show that he would not use force in the near future Thus the first nine months of 1978 did not show that the Shah could be forced out and indeed it is hard to see what events could have shown this given the basic belief in the Shah's as-yet unused power Furthermore this view fed an underestimate of the significance of the protests of the spring and summer since the corollary to the belief that if matters were really serious the Shah would clamp down was the inference that if the Shah had not clamped down matters could not be that serious Indeed this inference may have supported the belief that liberalization would I strengthen rather than weaken the regime 6 Just because a belief is impervious to a great deal of evidence does not mean that it is wrong This belief furthermore was not only inherently plausible but had been supported both by the Shah's general history of behavior i and his use of force to break up a dissident meeting in November 1977 But if an analyst does hold such a belief i' i i ii C01259322 l' mouse special precautions should be taken Not only should especially strenuous efforts be made to probe whatever evidence is available but consumers should be alerted to the danger that information that could'disprove the belief is not likely to become available until the situation has gravely deteriorated Furthermore and consumers who are aware of these problems might reduce the confidence with which they held their belief No matter how plausible it seemed the fact that the belief could not be readily disconfirmed provided an inherent limit to confidence that should have been placed in it Missed warning Signs 7 There were at least a few signs that the Shah was extremely hesitant to crack down that could have been noted They stand out only in retrospect and even had the singled them out for attEntion at the time it would have been impossible to have said exactly how significant they were But we think that they could have been noted if the had been fully aware that their important belief that the Shah would use force when he needed to was not amenable to much direct evidence Throughout the crisis the Shah vacillated and used less force than most people expected In early November 1977 the Embassy noted that peaceful protests had not incurred the crackdown expected by many Tehran 9692 4 November 1977 At the end of the month the Shah signaled the lim of dissent by sending a goon squad to break up a large but peaceful protest meeting But restrictions were soon put on SAVAK again Similarly in the spring the Shah first exercised restraint then launched private violence against the dissident leaders much to the dismay of US officials and then halted the campaign even though the unrest did not diminish Again later in the summer the Shah showed that he was very hesitant to use force He had to be persuaded by his generals to institute martial law in a dozen cities in September -71- 13 we Edl 4 EW- 11 _ul c01259322 I I_i Ill None of this proved that he would not i crack down at a later sta ould have been seen as a warning sign 8 Vacillation not only cast some doubt on the expectation that the Shah would crack down but may have been an important cause of the growing unrest 0n the one hand the repressive incidents further alienated large segments of Iranian society and probably made people even more skeptical of the Shah's professed desires to liberalize On the other hand the concessions to the protesters and the restraints on SAVAK weakened one of the main pillars supporting the regime and more importantly led people to see the Shah as vulnerable Finished intel- ligence noted the Shah's swings from repression to conces- sions but did not point out that they might have the effect of greatly increasing the strength of the Opposition Here as on other subjects discussed elsewhere in this report NFAC did a better job of reporting event of analyzing their probable causes and effects 9 Similarly tension between the Shah's sustained commitment to liberalization and his ability and will to crack down could have been noted The two are not completely contradictory since the Shah could have planned on liberalization as his first line of defense and repression as his instrument of last resort but in many ways the two policies did not sit well together The Shah's willing- ness to continue liberalization and indeed speed up its pace in the face of increasing unrest might have thrown doubt on his willingness to use massive force I 10 Another kind of evidence might have disturbed the belief that the Shah would crack down The knew that it was the policy of the US Government to c01259322 I I strengly urge the Shah not to resort to repression This theme appeared at the beginning of the unrest in the fall of 1977 and remained and indeed was strongest in late October 1978 even as NFAC were concluding that the Shah's survival was problematical Threughout the period of this study the United States had believed it possible and necessary for the Shah to liberalize In late 1977 and early 1978 this meant a curbing of abuses by the security forces in the middle of 1978 it meant a continua- tion of the trend toward more political freedom which it was expected would culminate in free elections in the fall this meant urging the Shah to view martial law as only a temporary set-back on the road to a more open regime and strongly opposing the imposition of a military government Although a firm hand with the violent demonstrators might have been compatible with aspects of the liberalization program and this was often the Embassy's analysis e g lTehran 4526 14 May 1978 nd Tehran 4583 15 May 1978 jthere was always tens on etween these two policies recognized in Tehran 7882 17 August 1978 I a tension that increased with the size of'the' rest By the late summer it is hard to see how a crack down widespread enough to have been effective could have co-existed with liberalization This view was not universally shared as can be seen the reports discussed in White Revolution above 11 In the earlier periods it could be argued that while the United States was urging restraint this did not contradict the belief that the Shah would crack down if he needed to because the situation was not that serious and the main danger was that the Shah would overreact But this was not true in September and October Although it was still believed that the Shah could survive his margin was seen as quite thin If he were ever to crack down it would have to be now 12 Of course second-guess the policy-makers But the knowledge of the policy should have led them to question whether the Shah would crack down He might not take the American advice Indeed may have oome'to believe over the years that the Shah was not by what American ambassadors told him about Iranian domestic affairs and US representations did not seem to have much impact in the late winter and early spring c01259322 t nu ll l Ill in a HLesea si given the vehemence of the American the an annals navs'nctsa two things First there was strong pressure on the Shah to avoid repression even when the situation became extremly tense Of course the Shah might crack down anyway But everyone agreed that the Shah shared the Iranian view that nothing of signif icance happened in his country that the US was not involved with The Embassy noted his frequent claims that some people thought the United States was behind the protests The presumably understood that much of the American role in the 1953 coup was to give the Shah courage by stressing how much we supported him The obvious danger then was that the strong American representations would interact with the Shah's distorted outlook and lead him to entertain real doubts as to whether the United States was still wholeheartedly on his side and fear that he would be deserted if he used force Second the Ambassador and the State Department seemed to have a very different view than that held by the NFAC former seem to have thought that a crack down would be neither effective nor necessary The belief that it would not be effective contradicted the basic assumption of NFAC The belief that is wasn't necessary indicated that NFAC's assumption was irrelevant because the contingency it assumed would not arise NFAC could have tried to find out why the State Department disagreed with them and weighed the evidence and_arguments that led to a contrary conclusion i I Events That Changed Minds 13 Two streams of events finally undermined the belief that the Shah would reassert control if and when he had to First the unrest grew to such proportions that TThe ORPA have explained to as that although they did not pay much attention to this aspect of US policy they would mention this factor in finished intelligence only in the contact of reports concerning the Shah s reaction to American pressure 1 74 a 001259322 -qanssenas the came to doubt whether repression would be possible This did not appear in finished intelligence until November but it seems to have been developing in people's minds from mid-October with different people coming to this conclusion at different dates For some the strikes which started in early October and soon spread to the oil workers were most important Force might be used to scatter demonstrators but it could not produce oil For others the continued un rest throughout the country was at least as important for it indicated that peeple would go into the streets in larger numbers and over a longer period of time than had been true before and sharply raised the question of whether the amount of force needed might be more than the Army could supply 14 The second stream of events contradicted the belief that the Shah would crack down Hp have dis cussed this at greater length in our treatment of NFAC's analysis of the Shah's changing moods but here should note that for some events were taken as show- ing that the Shah lacked the will to use what power he had In early October the Shah was giving in to almost all the economic demands of the various striking groups and later martial law was being widely disregarded For these the crucial evidence came in a bit before that which showed that they could hot reassert control even if he tried but this still' as relatively late On 11 Septmber 1978 INR submitted a footnote to the draft NIH which said in part We are dubious that the Shah in the near term can suppress urban violence without substantial use of force That in turn would further aggravate his difficulties by euharging the circle of opposition against him and possibly cdfling into question the to city of the armed forces and security services But this position does not seem to have been stressed or deqeloped at least not in material which reached NFAG L- -rs 13 run-- uno- Ell in 1 3 ll II - H - Sall v-v-n wquIA-m c01259322 the Shah which told them he would not crack down For unless something in the Shah's past behavior told them that he would not be firm and decisive they had to await direct evidence of a failure of will in his handling of the current crisis Field reports had paid attention to the Shah's moods from the late spring on and many of them appeared in the finished intel- ligence but they were read against the background of the basic belief in the Shah's strength of character - and decisiveness Although these reports indicated that the Shah was frequently depressed but not wildly beyond reason given the situation he was facing they did not unambiguously point to the conclusion that I - he would not ask decisively if he had to who started with the view that the Shah was weak on i the other hand did not need the direct evidence of a his unwillingness to move against the strikes and pro- tests of October to conclude that he would not meet the test The N10 remembers a meeting at which the a State Department desk officer said llyou've got to remember the Shah is a coward He ran away in 1953 ' This the N10 reports was an unusual perception and once he was convinced of its validity he no longer Ii expected the Shah to survive But if one started from the more common perception of the Shah as all the - I CIA did one could not be expected to change one's mind until sometime in October T is statement is pithy but probably not accurate In a retrospect it appears more likely that the Shah's fundamental lack of self-confidence noted in vsral NFAC papers I came to the surface againc01259322 a I 22 Conclusions-and Evaluation 1 17 In conclusion while the belief that the Shah would rsassert control if he had to was certainly plausible at least until the fall of 1978 NFAC dii not_do as good a job as it could have in carefully analysing the evidence' or in alerting consumers to the fact that clearly dis confirming information would not arrive in time to give I them warning that the Shah was in deep trouble NFAC produced no papers which dealt with this question While - c01259322 inst 53m it the Shah's moods were commented on the possible im plications for his deciding to use force were not drawn The Shah's swings from leniency to repression and back I again were not probed for patterns and clues to the future Although much attention was given to whether the Shah could use force the analyses of the army's morale little was said about his willingness to do so NFAC did not explore either the impact of US policy which may have been magnified by the Shah's exaggera- tion of American power or the apparent discrepancy II between and that of the State Department and Embassy 18 he think the primary explanation for these failings was two-fold First the belief was shared by all HFAC at least until the early fall was 'i very plausible fitted with the pre-existing view of the Shah and so became an article of faith Most observers outside the government also shared this view and even in retrospect it is hard crack down The incentives to challenge this belief were slight Second it did not need to figure in the report- ing or analysis of most day to-day events When the Shah cracked down it would be news until then the possibility still remained open Only when the unrest grew to enormous proportions did his restraint seem _r important in explaining what was happening So the main task of dealing with the latest events did not mak more carefully at this crucial belief -- L- I - -73 i C01259322 ll_ 1 ll Ill It- SPLITS IN THE OPPOSITION 1 Another crucial belief was that the opposition would split Before examining the evidence that was available and the inferences that were drawn we should note that this be lief was subject to the same problem as the expectation that the Shah would exercise control if things got really seriousn definitive negative evidence could not appear until the Shah was on his last legs At any previous point all that could be known was that the split had not yet occurred Given the obvious tensions within the opposition one could never be sure that it would continue to hold together Indeed expec tations of such a bargain were very high in the last days of October The point is not that these beliefs were silly or automatically wrong Even in retrospect we cannot tell how close the oppositon came to splitting But NFAC should have realized that the belief that a split was possible was not eas- ily disconfirmable and alerted the consumers to the problem ' 2 Furthermore the belief that the opposition would split did not sit too well with the companion belief that the Shah could clamp down when he needed to Granted that one reason the moderates might split from the more extreme opposi- tion was fear that if they did not strike a bargain with the Shah he would resort to force this was noted in several of October's cables but in other ways the two beliefs pulled in different directions Repression would presumably unite the opposition and the longer the Shah waited for the opposi- tion to split the harder it would be for him to repress be- cause the unrest was growing stronger If the Shah were torn between these two possible solutions he might well and up with the worst of both worlds While one could believe that the Shah would first try to split the opposition and then crack down if he could not do so this assumes that the failure would become obvious before the Shah lost too much power or nerve 3 The belief that the opposition would split was wide- spread throughout the period under consideration As the pro posed NIE put it The Iranian Freedom Seekers Liberation MOve- ment would like to become the spokesman for all oppositionists but the disparity in basic views and personalities among the several groups makes this difficult and unlikely Any cooperation 79 - c01259322 probably will be limited to paper pronounce ments and minimal joint activity There is virtually no chance that the opposition can develop a joint program that is meaningful and capable of attracting popular support 1-15 23 August 1978 The 11 drafted by the State Department on 29 September on The Near Term Political Prospects for Iran which generally had a more pessimistic tone than the draft NEE took a different view Far from a disciplined coalition nevertheless provides a modicum of co- ordination among the opponents of the regime There is a perceived need on the part of each faction in the coali- tion to cooperate with the others I 1 4s Ihi Ei H Has Hh r h the Emba sr an all lsfels of NFAC Jthe common'nsirsf E a t e opposition would split stressed the heterogeneous nature of the opposition in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on 27 September 1978 Briefing Notes Situation in Iran and the DCI has said that he did not think the oppositi could remain united CLA Times 18 rchil979 Director's Notes No 39 7 February 5 There were several ways in whichethe opposition might have among factions in umbrella group for all 'political' opposition between political and religious opposition between moderates and extremists in the religious establishment While the first two are unimportant- one major opposition political figure became HM in December 1978-- the 'political' Opposition did not have the numbers or the strength to affect the Shah's position oniits own The fol- lowing discussion concentrates on what bedame the key issue the split that the Shah wanted to bring about in the religious leadership and consequently id its following Such splits were as we understand it not uncommon in modern Iranian history 6 The Embassy's basic rationale for the expectation of a split was put in a cable of late May I ass i 31' fill 33 31% E5 Ni 5 EDI c01259322 Ji 1 mi I_i 1 - 1 t w The majority of religious leaders have found it useful or necessary to join the ex- tremists managed by Ayatollah Khomeini but their motivation is different from his Unlike Khomeini who makes no secret that his intention is to overthrow the Shah these leaders have more limited aims in mind Chiefly they wish to call attention to their grievances As long as the government was paying little attention to them they had no reason to withhold support for Khomeini Now there are indications that the government is beginning to listen Since many of these religious leaders see the monarchy as a necessary institution which helps protect Islam against communist challenges and no alter- native to the Shah is apparent to anyone they probably are prepared to be reasonable and settle for a rational responsible attitude on the part of the government without any major changes in institutions Rather they hope for a more under- standing application of laws and regulations and a greater more public recognition of the continuing importance of reli ion in Iranian life Tehran 5131 20 May 1973 An airgram of 1 June made a similar point The Embassy's soundings among religious leaders su gest an underlying basis of loyalty to the Monarc and to the independence of Iran as the Shah envisions it but increasing unhappiness at the breakdown of communications between the religious leadership and the Shah He is attempt- ing therefore to open better channels to the re- ligious leadership and will doubtless act on some of their complaints If done deftly this should go a long way to assuage them and lead to a break- opposition unity Tehran 1 June 1978 L Slight variants of this analysis were to be central to the Embassy's views until the end of October This view was certainly plausible and probably contained a large measure of truth but because of the scarcity of contacts with the religious-based opposition it had to strongly rest on indirect inferences and second-hand reports and so should have limited the confidence that was placed in the con clusions l' c01259322 7 NFAC's basic analysis of the religious community conducted before the current crisis is compatible with the Embassy's perception but put much more emphasis on their opposition stressing that ''the Moslem clergy are among some of the Shah's fiercest critics Elites February 1976 - p 43 Probably no more than 10 percent of the clergy can be counted as outright supporters of the Shah They are probably the least in- fluential of the clergy Probably 50 percent are in outright opposition of the government and are wholly dependent on their popular following for support this includes nearly every religious leader of any stature The remaining 40 percent qualify as fence sitters maintaining a popular following but avoiding overt attacks on the government The religious leaders have their roots in traditional Islam and their constituency and support are found in the lower classes the traditional middle classes and portions of the modern middle class They represent the din e-mellat the religion of the people as contrasted with the din e-aowlat the religion of the government Iran in the 198 s ugus 1977 s 35 8 For the sake of convenience field reports and fin- ished intelligence on the question of whether the opposition would split can be divided into four periods spring and summer late August to'mid September the Sharif-Emami re- forms and the reactions to the imposition of martial law late September October the final attempt to split the op- position Readers who wish to skip the detailed treatment of these materials can turn to page 93 for our conclusions Field Reporting and NFAC Analysis Spring and Summer 9 In the spring and summer of 1978 some'evidence ap- peared that supported the view that the opposition coalition was fragile It seemed generally agreedgtnat_5hnriat-Hadari- personally oppgsed violence an at times he and his followers -33C01259322 IL I_m l_l in It I opposed demonstrations that were likely to become violent for an example see the report in Tehran 7890 17 August 1978 report that Shariat-Madari and his supporters have increased their dislike for Khomeini until it borders on hate because pro-Khomeini groups are blackmailing Shariat-Madari supporters by threatening to shut down or burn their sho in the Bazaar Tehran Airgram 1 August Furthermore a confidant of the moderates said that The has been 'reluctantly' impressed by the regent liberalizing l'l'l'lrul n'E th Eh hg'll' see Tehran 961 26 January There was a 10 But in the period there were even more discouraging signs Even though Shariat-Madari had a souration for hav- lins supported the government in the past r_ i he sent an open letter to the snan _protesting the dam killings that started the cycle of unrest I gave an interview to foreign correspondents in which he made an 1''open and unprecedented public refutation of government statements Tehran 961 26 January 1978 5 and was said to have rejected the government prOposaI at he cease supporting Khomeini in return for which the government would be prepared to go to considerable to meet the demands of the religious leadership i and did not oppose Khomeini's calI'for a poli- cized celebration of the 12th Imam's birthday on 21 July Tehran hirgram Arlos 1 August 1978 On 4 March the Economist noted that because Shariat adari was thought by many to he so moderate and apolitical that he was counted as a tacit_government supporter and everyone was surprised when he teck a stance highly critical of the government 11 Perhaps what should have been more disturbing were the references not to Shariat Madari's immoderate actions but to his lack of power One report noted that while he opposed violent demonstrations bs dosa not have a personal following of any significance I While this is clearly'an said that Khomeini retains an almost mystic respect of mass of illiterate population and Shariat- Madari feels that he cannot differ to a significant degree with Khomeini in public Tehran Airgram 39105 1 August 1978 1 33 - c01259322 I At this point the Embassy connented we are not sure just how independent Shariat-Madar actually is In the same vein on 14 August 1978 the Embassy reported that the Shah said extremists were able by their threats and harassment to create a sense of fear and uncertainty among the majority of religious leaders who then remain silent or at worst go along with extremists for Half-protection Tehran 7700 14 August ISTBJ 12 As early as 25 May the Embassy noted that Shariat Madari had disputed a BBC report that he and his followers had entered into talks with the government and issued letter denying that he has met with government representatives stressing the complete sympathy of the Iranian people with their clergy and noting that there are ho policy differences among the Moslem ulema The Embassy cohcluded that sensi- tivity with which both sides have viewed BBC leak sug- gests that both ar 9 subject seriously Tehran 4988 25 May 197m lt also ccixld have suggested that Shariat Madar was aware of unpopular the Shah was and how dangerous it would be for him to appear to be less adamant than Khomeini We do not want tb argue that the evidence at the time proved that the latter interpretation was correct but that it represented an alternative view which was most accessible if one startedifrom the' ive outlined on pp 94-95 that should have hben 13 The occasional warnings culminated in an Embassy cable of mid-August which deserves to beiquoted at length Moderates such as Ayatollah Shhriatmadari do not at this time feel capable oflopposing Khomeini openly though they reportedly still work for moderation within the religious move- ment and would doubtlessly welcome a chance to participate in an electoral process whioh might not leave them wholly subservient to Khomeini who remains outside the country In Shia Islam there is no institutionalized hierarchy A re- ligious leader attains his prominente by con- sensus within his parish Some of the violence we are witnessing here results from a fervid competition for eminence by the ayatollahs moderation apparently does not beget followers -34ESII ll 1H 553' - lm - a 3 as i l an i l c01259322 tau- - - quLsseass% from the workers small shop keepers and artisans at this time A tradition of throne Opposition dialogue does not exist in Iran and neither temperment nor tradition favor western concepts of political conciliation and brokerageThe earlier efforts to establish a dialogue with the more moderate leaders were not pursued with much vigor and the objective of splitting the religious leadership has simply not worked so far Part of the reason for this latter failure has been the threats and harassment of the moderates by the well-organized Khomeini fanatics also as noted earlier no ayatollah wishes to lose his followers by appearing soft Furthermore the Amouzegar government as op- posed to the Shah and the court has proved sur- prisingly inept at dealing with religious elements on anything other than a take it or leave it basis If our general assessment is valid the Shah has to find a way to open serious give and take with the so called religious and some political moderates this will be hard to swallow because of his utter disdain for the priests we should realize at the outset that this may ulti- mately prove impossible because of their ultimate demands as opposed to what they might accept as a part of an on-going process would mean religious control of the government and reduction of the Shah to a constitutional monarch The Shah would never accept the first and would see the latter emerging only in the context of rule passing to his son Tehran 7882 17 August 19784 These comments both on the moderates' goals and on their power were never refuted by later Embassy reporting of course and later evidence provided was not conclusive events might lead the moderates to be play a more independent role But by not done so and there appeared to be would be very cautious about breaking -35- willing or able mid-August they good reasons wh The to had- they with Khomeini 001259322 mew l4 Throughout this period NFAC anal sis made few comments on these questions Although paper on the religious based opposition on 10 Febru ed of the dif- ferences within the religious community the government at that time was not working to divide the religious leaders and so it did not address the one ibility later envisaged by the Embassy In early June briefly returned to this subject implying that a split was possible Too little is known of factionalism among the clergy to be certain but it is likely that a considerable number of them while unenthusiastic about the regime would prefer not to confront it and risk greater losses in sition and power than has already been the case I 2 June 1978 The Embassy and station reports summer 2 the last aphs were not covered in finished intelligence and there was no discussion of whether the oppo- sition could be split what_the moderates' goal were and how independent they could afford to be With the exceptions cited above NFAC products in the spring and summer referred to the religious community as though it were united In some cases this may have been done_in the need to keep the analysis brief NID 10 Aug jalthough eten a longer HID re- port on 17 June Iran increase in Religious Dissidence does not mention any18p1it between Shariat-Madari and Khomeini Late August - mid-September 15 When Sharif-Emami took office as the Prime Minister in late August he made a number of concessions to the reli gious groups returning to the Moslem calendar closing gambling casinos removing Bahais from pdsitions of power But instead of being conciliated the religious leaders Ironioally part of the closing paragraph of this report proved more accurate than later analyses Emissaries of the Shah are in contact with religious leaders and they may reach some understanding on the need to curb further violence There are however many obstacles in the may of a durable political compromise between the Shah and his conservative Muslim opponents who believe that reforms instituted by the ick and his father threaten the future of Islam in Iran Similarly on 10 May the RID said that There appears to be little room for compromise between Shah and his conservative Muslim opponents neither on these occassions nor later was i ear whether the bulk of the oneosition was seen as falling into that category -35- am r l I an r l 1 33- i l EEII c01259322 it 1-- Ir 443 1 i issued a string of demands The Embassy's comment was the clergy have been slow to react positively but historical background of their ties with 601 would not encourage opti- mism under best of circumstances Competition among local religious leaders is not conducive to erative posture with 601 Tehran 8351 31 August 1978 Other list religious demands are in Tehran 8548 7 September 1978 _and Tehran 8485 6 September 1978 This how ever not really address the question 0 her the earlier expectation that the opposition would eventually split still held 16 Events in early September before the imposition of martial law continued to provide both encouraging and discouraging signs although at least in retrospect the latter predominated The report that the moderates could not exercise restraint partly because the Shah had made so many concessions as the result of mob terrorist activity was con sistent with the refusal of Shariat Madari to negotiate with the new Sharif Emami government Tehran 8485 6 September 1978 But both these reports also carried some optimistic news Te ran 8485 noted that while Shariat-Madari publicly said he and Khomeini were in complete agreement in other contacts Shariat-Madari is much more cautious and leaves room for eventual differences of opinion And the source which said that the moderates could not now exercise restraint also noted that Moderate opposition leaders are afraid that the temper of the country is such that further violence threatens the entire course of the movement toward representa- tive government 17 At this point finished intelligence began referring to the religious moderates and implied that the Shah's strat- egy was to separate them from the extremists by able concessions l See the NID for 28 August 1978 nd 30 August and the Weekly Summary of 1 Sept But it also po ed out that previous attempts to do so a failed HID 30 Aug nd concluded that while some moderates may be sat sfied wit the Shah's recoqnition of their importance the more militant of his religious critics will be mollified bv nothing short of his abdication Weekly Summary 1 Septn few days later Oney argued that although the new prime minister is optimistic about his main task--to try to find a modus vivendi with the clergy - the only clerical reaction has been to demand more -87- c01259322 W concessions September 197st The implications 0 this perceptive remark were not noted and the moderates ability to break with Khomeini if they wanted to was not discussed a serious omission in view of the fact that the purpose of the Shah's appointing Sharif- '5 re- form cabinet was to strike a bargain with them 18 The imposition of martial law and the killings of 8 September turned attention away from relations within the Opposition although when Sharif Emami announced his program to the Majles the Embassy implied that while the moderates had not yet been won over this remained a real possibility if the GOI carried out an effective liberalization program Tehran 8659 11 September 1978 This seemed to be the view at every stage As we not arlier almost no evidence could disconfirm it Furthermore neither the Embassy nor the noted that the government concessions although not sufficient to win over any of the opposition were massive by standards of only a few months earlier In the spring no one would have thought that the Shah would have gone as far as he did and more importantly most observers probably would have predicted that the sort of concessions which were made in August and September would have satisfied a large segment of the opposition and brought about the split which observers were anticipating Thus the relatively Inks-warm response to the concessions should have suggested either that the moder- ates would not be won over by anything the Shah could be ex pected to do or that they had little power and could not afford to be seen as_opposed to Khomeini a conclusion sug gested by the reports quoted earlier In'either case doubt would_he cast on the belief that the oposition would split 19 In this period the finished intelligence had more to say on the issue than it had previously But the analysis was a bit thin in both quantity and quality On 14 September the NID discussed the issue more fully than it had in the past and for that reason we shall quote all the relevant sections Responsible opposition leaders religious and political will have to show a greater willingness than they have thus far if they are to accommodate the Shah's efforts to reconcile critics who want a greater voice in setting the pace and direction of -33n1 m a C01259322 4 is In L- L- weasel national policies The bloody events in Tehran on Friday will make it more difficult for moderate op- position figures to rein in demonstrators and fore- stall radicals who call for the Shah's ouster The divisions within the religious and politi cal factions of the opposition will hamper the ef- forts of Prime Minister Sharif-Emami to begin nego- tiations with more responsible critics of the gov- ernment Moderate opponents who may be inclined to open a dialogue with the Prime Minister will be anxious not to be outflanked by radicals who will denounce their capitulation' to the Shah The Weekly Review added that cooperation from the moderates would be extremely that thus far the moderates have refused to provide 15 September 1978 Similarly the RID of 16 September pointed out a mus clergyman still show no sign of interest in negotiating a political compromise that would give the Muslim leadership a greater voice in government policy af- fecting religion but would leave the Shah's ultimate authority intact Two days later the RID noted that leading religious figure who has been urging the people to avoid violence vowed that he will not cunnerate with Sherif- Emami who he said is 'unfit to govern i 20 In late September the relations between the moder- ates and the extremists received more attention from the field In a relatively pessimistic cable the Embassy reiterated that in the past months the Shariatmadari clergy did not dare to let itself be outflanked on the left and lose mass supporters to the extremists but also stressed that the nature of the opposition is not as unified as it might appear Tehran 9158 21 Sept The Embassy did not however explain why the ame pressures which forced the moderates to keep up with the extremists would cease operating But a week later station reports came in which indicated that the Embassy might have been correct Shariatmadari and other moderates - 89 - C01259322 Have privately stated that they are very con- cerned by the increasingly radicalrnature of oppo sition to the Shah and his government These re ligious leaders fear that this might result in 'political chaos and complete disorder which could prompt a Communist takeover dr a military dictatorship As a result of these concerns these Ayatollahs are urging moderation on their followers and are actively seeking to enter into effectiue _negotiationa rith the Hhah r I- Another report ran parallel But both these reports also struck pessi- mistic notes The first said that Negotiations have so far been hampered by the religious leaders' lack of confidence in emissaries who have already come to them from the Shah A field comment in the second underscored the moderates' mis- trust not only of the emissaries but also of the Shah him- self noted the power of Khomeini over the moderates and concluded that I'Some of the moderate religious leaders' de _ mands are in all probability unacceptable to the Shah Ilt is uncertain what actions by the government would con- stituts an-acceptable program for the religious leadership 21 These reports were summarized in NIDI of 29 September which partly because of the order in which the paragraphs were placed emphasized the optimism The hold-faced lead paragraph in the N10 stated Important religious leaders in Iran are anxious for an accommodation with the government in order to solve the political crisis Later on cams some t n tdnn va_n i11 _eeart J 1 Of course it had without emphasis or elaboration in the RID of 14 September quoted above but since these reports if true would remove many of the grounds for optimism they deserved more thorough analysis At minimum the consumers should have been warned that the mod- erates' desires for a settlement might be'irrelevant Given the paucity of the information av 1e perhaps this was all that could have been done ffijj cal nun-sup - C01259322 Id IL I i- 22 In mid October hope for reconciliation between the government and the moderates increased It rested on three not entirely consistent considerations First National Front leaders were reported to be increasingly anxious for a settlement and offered to try to bring religious leaders in- lgluding Khomeini alone if the Shah made suitable concessions _ Second there were some indications that Khomeini might sanction the moderates' at tempts to deal with the government although the Embassy noted that our reading of the Khomeini published interviews out of Paris does not lead us to fully share National Front source's Optimism that Khomeini may be willing to go alone with local leaders '_ Tehran 10281 22 October 1978 Third shortly after the Embassy reported that Source close to moderates had told us'there would probably be public evidence of break between Shariat-Madari nd Khomeini within next week Tehran 10059 16 October 1978 complex talks between Khomeini and the'moderates and the moderates and the govern- ment seemed to be starting On 22 October the Embassy made the important point that the moderates have begun to lower their apparent ambitious While two or three weeks ago many of these politicians were openly calling for the dismissal of the Shah most of them now quietly state that they accept the need for the Shah's continued leadership albeit within the framework of a democratic constitutional society These same figures have also begun discreetly to disassociate them selves from Khomeini and to urge restraint upon the mullahs The reasons were the growing fear that a military government would take power if the unrest continued and the greater sense of self-confidence on the part of the religious modern ates who are in the process of negotiating an understanding with the government which would entail their allegiance to the Shah Furthermore the moderates had more room to ma- neuver because the Khomeini star seems to be waning - Tehran 1026 22 October 1978 _ This report was consistent with the earlier conversation with a representative of Shariat Madari in which he confirmed what we had been told previously by others moderate religious leadership respects Sharif-Emami and appears ready to work with him despite prob lems engendered_by martial law We have somewhat more doubts about moderate leaders' ability to bring Khomeini aboard - but suspect merely muted opposition which would give moderates a breathing spa would be satisfactory Tehran 9904 11 October 1978 This seemed also to be Sherif Emami's view since he as he was close to a deal with the moderates and that Khomeini was going to remain quiet CTehran 9990 15 October 1978 - 91 - c01259322 23 The one discouraging note was supplied by a SAVAK official who stressed that the negotiations cannot reach a successful conclusion as long as religious leaders fear the adverse reaction of Ayatollah Khomeini to any agreement which permits the retention of the Pahlevi dynasty SAVAK is convinced that moderate Ayatollahs desire an accommodation with the government which will defuse the present tense situ- ation However these Ayatollahs know that they will be deserted by their followers if after an agreement in ed _A atollah hnmeini condemns it IOctober also see Hashinqton Post 24 The N10 1genera11y mirrored these reports On 14 October Tnaid that Sharif-Emami was making some progress 1h' is negotiations with moderate religious leaders- The moderate Opponents now realize that the radical actions to which they had contributed rd ht tri er a comp governmental authorit ialso see 20 October A week later NID re por lme Minister seems confident that he can reach a modus vivendi with moderate clergymen that will isolate extremists led by Ayatollah Khomeini an etpectation it neither endorsed nor contradicted 21 October A few days later the NID told of a tentatiue agreemen ween Sharif-Emami and the moderates althoughLit pointed out that a number of pitfalls could wreck chances for restoring stability The report concluded cautiously Emissaries of the moderate opposition are trying to persuade extremist rem ligious leader Khomeini to drop his demand for the Shah's overthrow and accede to the accord The rhances seem bleak in View of Khomeini's implacable opposition to any compromise with the Shah The moderate opponents therefore will prob ably be forced either to formalize a split with the extreme ists or to re udiat the fragile accord With the government ur 26 October On 31 October the that the lat er co se of action had been chosen il E ss- EQII I EEII I wu- C01259322 4% Conclusions and Evaluation 35 We do not think this issue was treated well in the finished intelligence At best it summarised the reports from the field and did so -to its credit- often with a pessimistic tone But until mid-September it did not even do this very well As early as May the belief that the Shah could split the opposition was one of the main pillars supporting the conclusion that he could weather the storm Yet NFAC finished intelligence said almost nothing about this until September The Embassy cable of August which questions the ability of the moderates to break with Khomeini did not make its way into finished intelligence 26 In the spring this subject received little atten- tion because the concentrated on emplaining the general causes of the unrest reporting_the disturbances as they occurred and discussing the danger that the Shah might use excessive brutality in an overreaction Furthermore no finished political intelligence was produced in July al- though worh continued on the proposed HIE To the extent that relations among opposition groups seemed important drew attention to the improbable alliance of con venience between the moderate left National Front and the religious ri ht HID 17 June 1978 'The ques- tion of whet er the latter community itself would'split took on most significance only after it became clear first of all that it was supplying the bulk of the support for the pro- tests and second that the Shah felt the situation serious enough to require concessions to the religious moderates Nevertheless NFAC was a bit slow to see the importance of this question The have explained to us that they wrote the items as they did because the moderates and Khomeini were in fact working together during this period This strikes us as an example of the unfortunate tendency noted in the Process section for NFAC product to report on specific events at the expense of in-depth and analytical treatment of the questions which are believed likely to strongly influ ence future developments After late August finished intelligence not only sum- marised the latest reports but was more pessimistic and more accurate than most other observers nevertheless problems remained The-articles left important parts of their mes- sages implicit They did not point out that much of their g3 - C01259322 i reasoning undercut the common optimistic assessments con clude that an agreement between the gove nment and the clergy was unlikely or point out that the Shah night soon face the choice of repression or abdication This was perhaps a matter of style and havenbeen conditioned over the years to keep as close as possible to the facts rather than draw out the implications which consumers can do for themselves Furthermore the were aware of the relatively optimistic reports from the field and understandw ably felt restrained by the possibility that the field was correct NFAC products can be faulted for not clarifying the lines of argument noting any inconsistencies or pulling together the existing evidence which hens as on so many other points was not extensive The issues were not posed sharply enough or treated in sufficient depth It did not take hindsight to see that what was crucial was both the de- sires and the independence of the moderates Neither point was singled out for special attention Ear example the re- ports that the moderates had responded td the Shah's conces- sions by making greater demands were noted but their sig nificance was not probed The validity cf the reports that the moderates felt that they could not agree to anything that Khomeini opposed were never denied but neither did the explain how if they were true tconciliation was possible These reports seem to have had little impagt Ireports had been received since midLIugus and even in muted tones in the spring This is not to say that the evidence was so overwhelming that the ehauld have automati- cally accepted it But there should have been a probing of the reports that the moderates could notqmove on their own and a discussion of why and under what cdnditions the moder- ates might break with they could main- tain their power if they did I 28 Furthermore there was no analysis to support the implicit assumption that if the moderates did break with the extremists the latter would not be willing and able to con- tinue violent protests thus probably making the government Similar 12TE EHI 1H PHI ma c01259322 i n l' 4aneseesq - I respond with force and putting the moderates in an untenable position A variant of this danger is noted in Tehran 10081 16 October 1978 JIndeed little was said to substantiate the belief that Ehe moderates were numerous enough to be an important force on their own In the spring and early summer this view seemed quite plausible but by late summer and early fall as the protest grew in size and intensity a good deal more evidence should have been required before the accepted the conclusion that an agreement with the moderates even if possible could have saved the situation implictly questioned this belief in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of 27 September when he noted that the religious moderates were much less numerous than the extremists But the NID item of 29 Sept and much of the discussion of the negotiations between TIE moderates and the Shah in mid and late October implied that the actions of the moderates could be decisive 29 It was also unfortunate that finished intelligence did not address the question of whether the Shah could sur- vive if the opposition remained united 1f the answer had been that he could not have more attention might have been focused on the relations within the opposition An addi- tional benefit would have been to illuminate the relationship between the expectation that the opposition would split the belief that the Shah would crack down if he had to 30 No definitive answers were possible but a more thorough weighing of the evidence and a more penetrating analysis of the problems were Here as at other points the felt need to report daily events seems to have distracted NFAC from analysing the fundamental problems -95 c01259322 L- I - mi'Wm THE RELIGIOUS OPPOSITION 1 It is ironic that a misreading of the appeal of the religious opposition was one of the major prob- lems with analysis The person who placed the greatest stress on the importance of the religious groups was NFAC's senior Iranian political analyst He had an extensive knowledge of Islam had included analysis of the influence of religion and religious leaders in his writings and consistently called for more informa tion His efforts over the years to stimulate the data were strenuousl and his awareness of the information degicienci recorded most recently in Elites in Iran p Without this background of concern he could not ave produced the paper Iran So Uhaervationa on the Bases of Religious Opposition 10 Feb ruary 1978 C which set forth the importance of the religious movement which we shall draw on later Information Available 2 Despite these efforts the amounts of informa- tion available to NFAC on the religious establishment was slight Non-governmental experts who may have had information were not sought out by HFAC and it is not certain that these people would have responded More importantly until late summer 1978 the field paid little attention to this subject nor had it for many years Thus although it was known that Khomeini was one of the most important opposition religious leaders until February 1978 the US did not know that tha_nrevious Octoberl 1 and not until May that he 'hlamah the regime tor the death Manchester Guardian 21 May 1978 and that he had decided-to make his opposition more strident'and urgent Only after the Shah fell was it reported in public sources that the Shah had heavily cut the subsidies to the religious groups Similarly it was 2 1 2 weeks before field 95 c01259322 reporting attributed the Dem riots toia newspaper attach on Khomeini published at the instance of the 3 NFAC had a pretty clear idea of what it knew and where data was 1acking- specifically information on the relative influence of the religious leaders See Elites 1976 pp 43-47 75 Little if anything was added in the succeeding two years NEAC knew that Khomeini and other ayatollahs receivEd financial support from bazaaris and that he supported one ter- rorist group financially But his powEr and influence relative to other religious leaders- dade progressively apparent from late summer 1978 and abundantly clear in January 1979--was not well understood by NFAC in the early stages of the crisis Indeed in retrospect we still don't know how or when he achieued dominance or whether the other ayatollahs followed axis lead because they agreed with him or because they feared that to do otherwise would be to lose their followings Khomeini had been exiled in 1964 for opposing dertain of the Shah's reforms had lived in the Shia-center of Najaf lecturing in theology and jurisprudende and had attracted a following Khomeini consistently advocated the over- throw of the Pahlavis the other leaders did not go so far 4 It can also be argued that Khomeini had achieved a position of dominance over his fellow ayatollahs long before 1978 This has been asserted in one scholarly article published in 1972 and is suggested in an Embas Airgram as far back as 1963 A-708 of217 June 1964 3The first E bassy report apparently derived from the official news agency said that the incident occurred on anniversary of land reform leaislat on passed in 1963 Tehran 389 11 January 1978 week later the Embassy said the occasion had been the anniv of banning of veil Tehran 548 17 January Even when the Embassy received a copy of the newspanor ar tale it did not know enough about the context to properly appreciate the depth of the insults that it contained Tehran Atr- gram 13 February The Washington Post story on 11 January 1978 repor the nause accurately HHamid Algar The Oppositional Role of the Ulama in Twentieth Century Iran in N Keddie Scholars Saintsy and Sufts U of California Press 192 -97 ii 31 23 ml a 3st il we i l 82m i c01259322 5 before Khomeini was exiled But information about him and about religion in general virtually ceased from the mid-1960s on had no way given the paucity of data to estimate the amount of his support relative to other religious leaders Khomeini was mentioned in the field reporting no more often than his fellow ayatollah Shariat-Madari A number of scholars believed that Khomeini was politically the most important of the religious leaders we have not ii tried to determine whether their belief was supported by significant evidence that academics but not NFAC 5 The field reported little about the articu- lated beliefs of the religious protesters NPAC had little to rely on in trying to determine the strength of religious protest there was no data that indicated the extent to which tapes and pamphlets containing Khomeini's speeches were circulating in - Iran didn't have any information on what religious leaders were saying to their congregations One of the cassettes Khomeini sent into Iran was ob- tained and transcribed and a few of the opposition leaflets were translated but this was not nearly enough to provide a full picture of what Khomeini and I other-religious leaders were advocating Of course i such information would not have told us how the leaders would behave or how many people would follow them but without it it was even more difficult to i understand the motives beliefs and values of these people This was especially important because as we noted earlier the religious movement was inherently difficult for wastern observers to understand 6 Similarly although the field had noted the growth of the religious opposition long before the riots occurred Tehran Airgram 3-124 Straws in the Wind Intellectual and Religious Opposition in Iran 25 July 1977 the information it provided was not detailed i Occasionally an observation such as we have heard that religious leaders in Qom have been coordinating much religious dissident activity by anger and telephone Tehran 4583 14 May 197m appears in the a es - ic01259322 a HLsEea ai reporting But NFAC did not know--and still does not know--what sort of structure and organization it had How did people get the word of whether to demonstrate whether to be belligerent or to treatithe soldiers as brothers When riots ensued were the targets picked in advance What were the_relations between the religious leaders and the bazaaris 7 The paucity of field reporting is consistent with the basic predisposition sharediby almost every one in and outside of government that the religious groups were no longer central to Iranian society and politics In part this grew out of an optimistic view of modernization discussed in a later section of this report and in part was probably the product of the general western secular bias Even those outside the government who saw the Shah as weakertthan NFAC did not believe that the religious Enuld be instrumental in bringing him down Underestimated Factors 8a In retrospect we can identify four elements in the religious-based opposition movement that contri- buted to its appeal to a wide range of the public and that were not well covered in finished intelligence These were a attacks on the Shah for the_way he was changing Iran ignoring the mullahs flouting many Islamic customs denying important parts of Iran's past and aiding the rich more than the poor b1 nationalism attacks on the Shah for being a foreign US puppet c the l'populist tradition of Shi'ism whereby religious leaders gain and retain their authority by becoming recognized by followers as men of wisdom and piety a circumstance that encourages them to articulate the desires of their peeple a 1 or example 7ames Bill Monarchy in Crisis a paper done for a State Department seminar on 10 March 1978 forecast serious trouble for the Shah but did not men- tion religion And two books completed in 1978 Robert Graham Iran The Illusion of Power and Fred Iran Dictatorship and Development oh toe religious opposition no more than two pages -99 Iii - 5 sen 3 f ll 13% I an i QM as c01259322 1 I I-- I -- d the traditional role of the Shi'i as spokesmen for political protests 9 Attacks on the Shah for the we he was moderniz- in appeaIed to a wide segment of the population This eIement was described in the analysis as deriving from the view of religious leaders that modernization was under- mining the hold of Islam on the peeple In fact it was more directed at how he was changing Iran Under the Shah and especially since the start of the I oil boom I in 1973 the income gap had increased significantly the quality of life in Tehran had deteriorated corruption and government favors had boosted the power and income of new groups as opposed to small merchants and bazaaris For a further discussion see pp 53-56 How much the failure to make this distinction stems from institutional pressures to use short-hand terms see pp 31-32 and how much from the not understanding it is unclear Certainlv thav not no help from reporting sources thel Embassy idn't make it either 10 This view of the religious leaders played a large role in the belief that the Shah could weather the storm since it was felt that many important sectors of society found their views repellent Under this belief even those who like the students and the National Front opposed the Shah would find it difficult to join with Khomeini because they differed so much in their basic political orientation In fact Iranians could favor modernization and still strongly Oppose the Shah as many of Rhomeini's followers did Students and many members of the middle class without endorsing all that he stood for could find important elements in common with Khomeini Shared opposition to the perceived gains of the newly-rich and the impoverishment of the lower ranks of society formed an important common bond between Khomeini and the political left and between Khomeini and a wider constituency This was noted by Professor Richard Cottam in a letter to the editor of the washington Post on 3 October 1978 and men- tioned by the Embassy in Tehran 9157 20 September 1978 Given the prevailing view and paucity of data it is not surprising that even after the Embassy had mentioned that the Qom riots had been sparked by a news- paper attack on Khomeini finished intelligence continued - 100 - C01259322 to report that the demonstrators hadubeen protesting against the lgg land reform and theI1936 ban of the veil 10 February 1978 C or more generiIIF agEI sf the hah's modernization program NID 21 February 1978 11 Although we think the view presented here has been borne out by hindsight -and indeed partly derived from it--there is still room for disagreement We do not fault the for not having accepted this view at the time when the evidence was even more ambiguous But we do think they should have indicated the existence of an alternative perception of whatithe religious leaders stood for Even Khomeini and his followers were not claiming to be totally opposed to modernization and while their statements need not have3been accepted at face value they at least showed what this group thought was popular and more importantly bedieved by large numbers of Iranians Khomeini had for fifteen years centered his attacks on the Pahlavi dynasty and its evil ways If this view was widely bEIieved the stress on the religious Opposition ad anti-modern greatly exaggerated the degree to whith it would be cut 'off from the wider society 12 The second element is the possible role of nationalism THIs factor Is not mentioned in any of the official reporting or NFAC analysis and only received -occasiona1 mention in the mass media It could be that this was not a motivating force But we suspect other- wise Some of the slogans painted on'walls called for the death of the American Shah A leaflet distributed during the Tabriz riots spoke of the fanti-Islamic regime Di the Ehah and the usurning American overlords Khomeini's recorded speeches which circulated in Iran strongly attacked the United States in nationalist terms The text of the one NFAC had said llThe Americans have helped impose upon the Iranian ptople a ruler who has turned Iran into an official colony of the United States In ridiculing the Shah's claim that he --101- a 153 a 31% EN 1 I El 153' El I l Mu- um c01259322 aw LsEease4 ii had brought Iran 'into the ranks of the most advanced industrial countries by saying In large areas of the capital people live in hovels and dungeons and have to go a long way to get a bucket of water from some public tap People know that Iran is a potentially rich country with a huge variety of natural resources But they see that foreigners have installed an agent at the top of the government to make sure that this wealth does not go to the our masses Tehran Airgram A-ao 17 April 13 The American role_in the 1953 coup was known - probably in-an exaggerated version--by all Iranians and American support for the regime has been prominent especially in the past several years The Embassy fre guently pointed out that all circles in Iran saw an American hand in everything that happened Supporters and opponents of the regime alike greatly exaggerated US influence Thus it is reasonable to believe that a wide segment of the populace saw the Shah as an American puppet To many he was not only a despised leader but a foreign one This handicap was compounded by the pro- cess of rapid social mobilization which almost inevitably increases nationalism we think it likely that Khomeini was seen as a nationalist leader He frequently criticized the United States and repeatedly called for a greatly reduced role of foreigners in Iran 14 If this argument is correct _it would account for a good deal of the support Khomeini received from the secular parts of Iranian society Of course we cannot be sure we-are correct but the complete absence of any mention_of nationalism in NFAC analysis still strikes us as unfortunate While the knew that everyone in Iran believed that the United States was largely responsible for most events in that countryIr neither this fact nor the implications of it were discussed in 1978's finished intelligence Part of the explanation may be the under- standable hesitancy to engage in discussion which would have had to have been speculative Second nationalism was associated in the minds with terrorist attacks on Americans which were rare until October 1978 Third J t lmeh data on Khomeini's anti-foreign statements became available in late little appears in official or other reporting prior to say November - 102 - quLsEeai C01259322 the knew that the United States did not in fact dominate Iran and that the Shah was very much his own man It was hard to empathize with people who had what mo felt was a distorted view of the world 15 The third element involves the sparse comment on the populist tradition of Shi'ism growing in part out o the fact that the Shi'ites do net have a recog- nized hierarchy within the sect Instead of being ap- pointed by a superior mullahs and ayatollahs gain their authority by becoming recognized by followers as men of wisdom and piety This encourages current and as- piring leaders to articulate what they think are the grievances and desires of their people It gives them incentives to be in the forefront of popular move- ments The Embassy noted this on 17 August In Shia Islam there is no institutionalized hierarchy a religious leader attains his prominence by consensus within his parish Some of the violence we are witnessing here results from a fervid competition for eminence by the Ayatollahs moderation apparently dbes not beget followers from the workers small shop kee ers and artisans at this time Tehran 7882 bviously they will not always lead especially - ese movements conflict with their basic values and interests But these incentives mean that there is a greater chance that the religious leaders will try to articulate popular demands Furthermore the fact that this has often occurred in the past means that large segments of the population--even those who are not deeply relisious--1qok to the religious leaders to play this role I 16 The propensity for religious leaders to act as spokesmen for wider groups and to voice general political concerns was reinforced by the Shah's suppression of most other forms of opposition Given the support they had from their committed followers the religious leaders could speak out more freely than others because they knew it would have been very costly for the Shah to silence them They became salient rallying points People would follow them because they were the only identifiable source of opposition and they gained strength as they became the symbol for opposition This was noted by Ambassador Robert Neumann in his comments on the draft It seems to have been the case that many people who disagreed with Khomeini on many points joined his movement because it was the only vehicle for trying to bring down the govern- 'ment The NID pointed to this phenomenon in the spring when - 103 - I i 3 I1I 13 T l fail at assumes-I EH EH -au1- I C01259322 - I it said politicized clergy who oppose the Shah on religious grounds have been able to exploit other pOpular grievances--inf1ation poor housing and the inadequate distribution of basic commodities -that are in urban working class areas 17 June 1978 lAlso see Tehran 9157 21 September 1978 d lthough the separation of political and secular grounds may be a bit artificial the basic point was important Unfortunately this are active did not reappear in finished intelligence 17 The fourth element that could feed the power of the religious based opposition received more attention a from the although here there was a problem of - emphasis and follow-up ' As the for the Shi'ites every governme illegitimate 78-006 10 February 1978 also see Tehran nirqram A-19 1 Februar 1978 and Elites February 19764 p 4 an there is a fusion between what western ought would call the secular and the a religious realms For the Shi'ites it was perfectly natural for the clergy to become the spokesmen for political protests and indeed they would hardly recog- nize the line between politics and religion that is so clear to us In the most thorough discussion of the religious-based opposition that NFAC produced the leading analyst made the following point Since re- Il ligious social political and economic affairs are considered inseparable the mujtahed religious scholar can dispense guidance on political matters and oppose the will he state becoming a leader of the opposi- tion Unfortunately this theme and others in the paper on the religious-based opposition were not elaborated or built on in the spring and sum- mer If the consumers had been fully aware of the Shi'ite tradition stress and elaboration'would not have 1 been necessary But given the problems for non-experts i in understanding the strange people the United States was dealing with a fuller treatment was called for 5 These factors were not mentioned in most papers- perhaps ii because they do not change and the assume the consumers remember them--and did not appear in the NIE that was being drafted in the summer of 1978 104 - c01259322 Conclusions and Evaluation 18 In summary although NFAC was alert to the ins portance of the religious groups for years before the start of the current crisis retrospect has allowed us to detect aspects of the religious-based opposition that strongly contributed to its powerful role in the overthrow of the Shah and that were not adequately covered in NFAC produc- tion The problem was not the missing of one or two vital clues to the nature of the religious groups rather it appears to have been a general outlook which did not give credence to the links between the reiigious leaders and the grievance of wide ranges of the general population This outlook powerfully influenced the interpretation of incoming information as any established belief will do and specifically led the to-be insensitive to the possibility that the opposition would unite behind Khomeini 19 The factors and the relates argument we have discussed in paragraphs 9-18 can of course be disputed This treatment benefits from hindsight and at the time NFAC certainly could have rejected these ele- ments Data was skimpy several lines of analysis-were possible But what is disturbing is that they were not refuted but ignored At least some of these factors figured in the thinking of several arademic_emperts Of course cannot comment on every possible view but these factors should have been asamined with care because if they were present there would be greater sup- port for the religious groups greater unity of opposition and greater problems for the Shah 20 Had this general outlook noted above been held by some of the they would have been more sensi tive to a number of indicators that were in fact glossed over First many of the students and student groups supported Khomeini's protests Field reports sometimes noticed the seemly odd facts that students were making _Wultr -conservative demands that they were cooperatingjei h the religious leaders In June the HID noted that Militant students added their weight to religious demonstrations this year 17 June 1978 but by and large these joint efforts received little attention They deserved more not so much because the students were powerful but because many of them did not favor a re- actionary program Their support far Khomeini indicated #105i l $ll EEII ' ml - - C0l259322 ln n- u l- L- I- 1 1 1 either that what he stood for was not as repugnant to the students as most US officials thought or that the students were willing to back someone with whom they disagreed on many issues in order to bolster the strongest opponent of the Shah Similarly there were scattered reports that Khomeini is widely respected among diverse opponents of the Shah who do not neces- sarily share his religious beliefs specifically leftist students Among the devout bazaar merchants of the country large sums of money are still collected in his name These collections are poluntary not by duress This was consistent with the reports that many women had begun wearing the chador not because they had suddenly adopted conservative religious views but because adopting tr_ itional dress was a way of joining the protests 21 In the same vein the could have ewplored although it was late in the game--the im- plications of the report which were never disputed that Shariat-Madari and Khomeini were above arrest Tehran 9157 39 September 1978 and that Khomeini's return wOuld pose grave i culties for the GOI 0n 3 October the Embassy reported Sharif- Emami's_belief that if Khomeini were to return 001 would be faced with grim alternatives of A arresting him immediately and precipitating 'civil war al la Lebanon' or B letting him run loose and becoming the head of the anti-Shah forces Tehran 9555 3 October 1978 If this were so it indicated severe and lasting res raints on the Shah's power and implied a depth and breadth of support for Khomeini which was not easil reconciled with much of the i - 22 Finally the reports that many people in Iran believed that SAVHK not religious extremists set the disastrous fire in Abadan movie theater Washin ton Post 26 August 1978 indicated both that the latter groups were ruthless and inhumane and that the Shah was see the New York Times 17 May 1978 and Morton Kondraks Iran's ModernIzation New Re ublic 18 June 1978 p 22 This apparently started In mIs-Ig77 See Tehran 25 July 1977 c01259322 33 To conclude the view expressed in NFAC pro- duction that the religious appositi n to the Shah was essentially driven by dislike of modernisation made insensitive to the bits and-pieces of evidence indicating that the bases of opposition were far wider This evidence made most sense when viewed from the per spective that Khomeini was or was seen by Iranians as a nationalist populist leader whe opposed the Shah in large part because his regime was-serving foreign and rich interests But unless one usedzthat perspective iba anidanse would not stand out as especially significant -107- 3 i l 533' ll 1% I N Ivrg I up - a C01259322 IL- 1 w I_i In- THE POSITION AND HOW IT WAS PERCEIVED 1 In the course of 1978 a number of reports on the Shah's mood as events unfolded in his country were received Home of these were personal observations by the American and Ambassadors and others who met him some reflected how Iranians saw the Shah and interpreted his behavior In retro spect they assume considerable importance because when removed from the background noise of other voluminous data they begin to show a pattern Reports From the Field -- The Economist of 4 March 1978 in a generally good article said that foreigners were reporting that the Shah was troubled and disillusioned by events Ambassador Sullivan on 8 May Tehran reported that in a conversation the Shah he seems tired and depressed almost listless He had con- sidered that perhaps something was wrong with his system and his game plan The Ambassador noted that this was the first occasion in the ten months he had been there that he had seen the Shah in such a mood but he stressed that he found it striking -- in mid-May just after some very serious demonstra tions the Shah held a meeting with representatives of the Iranian media In commenting on this and other events Tehran 4742 17 May 1978 said that People including many in the establishment are trying to figure out exactly what GOI policy is to- ward demonstrators Tehran 4836 21 May 1978 reported that people are concerned by what is seen as the Shah's display of indecisiveness nervous- ness and imprecision in the way he conducted the above-mentioned interview The normal conclusion that many Iranians draw is that he is losing his touch The Embassy noted that some of the Shah's imprecision derived from his efforts to follow an unfamiliar policy -liberalization--and that he gets insufficient feedback to be an re that this is the image he is projecting recalls that the Shah had_given the same sort of impression to the press when he announced the formation of the Resurgence Party in 1975 - 108 C01259322 -- Many of those in the establishment found that the Shah was not sending a consistent signal as to whether they should take a hard or soft line Tehran 4836 21 May 1978 Instructions to the police on handling of demonstrations and to the Min- istry of Information on press guidance concernin demonstrations causedeimilar The US Embassy in Pakistan reported Islamabad 5380 1 June 1978 ithat senior Pakistani officers who had seen the Shah on 26 May said that he appeared 'frightened and upset' and 'no longer exuded confi- dence The Shah was described as unable to under- stand why people were turning against him The Embassy reported Tehran 6557 10 July 1978 that the Shah had told the Ambassador that he had no choice but to cbntinue liberaliza- tion The latter noted that the Shah appeared to be over his earlier indecision -- US News and World Re ort of 7 August 1978 in an article which was generally bullish on the Shah's prospects but acknowledged problems of lack of busi- ness confidence and flight of money abroad also said that his experiment with democracy worries many Iranians Three items received around the end of the second week of August pull together scattered earlier evi- dence of popular concerns at corruption of the be- lief that the Shah is losing hisTgrip and of a sense of uncertainty among the pedple in_tha country Tehran Airgram 1 August 1978 quotes a well connected source who advised he Embassy to start thinking about the Shah's leaving Iran saying that he was down mentally as of 22 July although he was physically fit The Embassy commented that The actual situation is apt as_bad as pessimists 31 1 i the 'single oat important concern Is that many Iranians believe that the Shah may be losing control and his present uncertain behavior could lea to chaos It is worth noting that ii a 335rm Eh Jail th- I i 5 aka-up - at c01259322 - sLeseR T 1 reported on 15 September that he thought the Shah was out of dan er see p 113 Tehran 7882 17 August 1978 noted that many Iranians of the middle and wealthy classes believe that the Shah is not acting forcefully enough that he is weak and indecisive The charge d'affairs met with the Shah on 13 August Tehran 7700 14 August 197841and reported that he looked very fit Ambassador ullivan who returned from leave at the end of the month reported finding the Shah tense and dispirited on 28 August Tehran 8187 i -- By September the press was beginning to concern itself with the Shah's appearance and attitude Newsweek of i 4 September reported that the Shah had been early - in July and disappeared from view for six weeks There is no other reporting that substantiates an imperial illness he had been seen by US Undersecre- tary Newsom on 9 July and by Iranians in late July i Tehran A 105 and spoke publicly on 5 August Tehran 8607 9 September 1978 I reports 'a Time correspondent as saying that the Shah I'looked is awful as if he were on the brink of a nervous col- lapse and that his entire tone was very negative -- The Ambassador met the Shah on 10 September and found him tired and unhappy but _considerably more spirited than he was a week ago The Shah in 1' the past few weeks has played a Hamlet-like role is without asserting his influence in either direction He seems as of today to have recovered some of his I former confidence Tehran 8614 10 September a 1978 2 The Shah's attitude continued to be a subject of _i interest up tO the _tim_e of t_he e_st_ablishment o_f th_e military governmentc01259322 jThe American' hbassy reported that the Ehah was down in the dumps again on 3 October Tehran 9743 5 October 19784 Ambassador Sullivan portrayed him as drawn-lccr1ng and tense but animated in conversation on 10 October in a meeting which had the purpose of trying to snap him out of his current funk and to focus his attentinn en roblems requiring his leadership Tehran 9872A The Shah was fsober but not depressed in a meeting with the Ambassadors 24 October gTehran 10383r I 3 4 These reports contain two themes First over a period of several months persons who saw the Shah found him more often than not behaving differently than usual Instead of being forceful authoritarian and taking charge he was depressed nervous dispirited uncertain Second his ef- forts to liberalize the political system without surrendering his essential authority discussed on-pp 56-65 sowed confusion in the minds of his supporters who were accustomed to firm direction In addition his behavior led them and many other Iranians to believe that he was losing his grip With the image of imperial power diminishing people would be more in- clined to take the risks of open opposition -111 9 33' 53ml Ill-- 1 rl 001259322 M 1- I quLsEeass 5 We do not intend to analyze the Shah's personality in this report It is sufficient to note that the vacillation and indecisiveness which he displayed during the first third of his reign Elites p been replaced by growing confid- ence after tEe overthrow of Mossadeq in 1953 The indications of indecisiveness in 1978 came after a quarter century of vigor- ous exercise of authority A long NID article 12 November 1977 S assessed his position as very'strong but did note that Al though he appears extremel self-confident he has underlying doubts about his worth 6 NFAC production took note of the Shah's changed mood at the end of the summer Thus The Shah described by the US Ambassador a dinnirited by recent events NID 30 August 1978 The Shah was described by the Am- bassador yesterday as 'tired and unhappy but considerably more spirited' than he had been a week earlier NIB 11 September 1978 the Shah displayed some of his former resilience un er pressure and appeared to have recovered his self confidence which was evidently badly shaken last month when he seemed unsure about the clarity of his vision as to how Iran should develop politically NIB 14 September 1978 p and Foreign observers who have met with the Shah n the last month agree that thin year's cycle of violence rhas visibly shaken him 20 September 1978 7 NFAC's treatment of the Shah's mood and attitude in the fall reflected field reporting about his ups and downs and tended toward the optimistic In a generally gloomy assessment of the situation in-Iran the RID wrote The Shah has brief episodes of depression but these have not materially ffected his leadership capabilities 23 October an article Ir the Prospects ponsible Government 20 October 1978 put it this way The Shah has had periods of depression as he contemplates the ruins of his carefully constructed if ineptly handled programs which he once hoped would produce by the end of the 1980s a country that would compare favorably with Western Europe These moods have alternated with periods when he has appeared con- fident and prepared to tackle his many problems - 112 - c01259322 8 The second theme that many Iranians perceived the Shah as losing his rip1 first received NFMC attention in the NID on 16 September There are signs of cautious optimism among in- fluential Iranians in government business and press circles that the Shah may have_pulled'the country back rgm the brink 9f chaos noted a marked shift in opinion since early Eugust when there was widespread concern that the Shah's inability to put an end to rioting meant he was losing his grip I The judgment was part of a general appreciation that martial law and political concessions had stabilized the situation Not until 23 October was the sub- ject touched on again Among the Shah's supporters especially the mili- tary his initial indecisive response to civil disorders and his opposition has produced an uneasy sense that he is losing his grip Some of his supporters have begun for the first time to contemplate an Iran without the Shah HID Conclusions and Evaluation 9 In retrospect there were enough signs over a suffi- cient period of time for NFAC to have raised a warning flag Not that it could have known what was wrong with him but the reasons for his behavior were less important than the conse- quences of it NFAC production beginning in late August re- flected the reporting on the Shah's mood which seemed to im- prove in September and October in the view of the two Ambassadors who saw him frequently It did not however discuss what his untypioal failure to exercise leadership might do to the morale of his supporters which we should note stayed remarkably high until well into the fall or to the oppositidn I - 113 - _4anssenini - il WEI in ED vmun-Av mg '1 mm c01259322 5 10 One mi ht speculate that as the summer wore on the opposition was eginning to smell success because of his ap- pearance of indecisiveness while the Shah himself stubbornly determined to liberalize and arrange a transition to his son i may not have been able to crack down on the opposition as the Embassy and NFAC production Judged he could do successfully if he chose to do so But the issue is not what was the right '1 assessment Rather as on other questions it is that the subject was not raised analytically _ Readers of NFAC publica- tions would have learned in September that the Shah was show- ing signs of indecisiveness and in late October that some of his a supporters were losing faith They did not receive any assess- ments of what his indecisiveness might mean for political de- velopments in Iran for the perseverance of his supporters or for the attitudes of his opposition We are not sure why the issue did not receive more prominence but the belief that the Shah was strong and able to crack down if he judged it i necessary the format of publications that militated against speculation and of events in the fall are among the likely reasonsc01259322 INTENSITY or FEELING 1 Judging the breadth and depth of sentiment support- ing and Opposing the Shah was extremely difficult In the period we are concerned with almost no direct information was available Neither the Embassy nor the station nor the media reported on the one kind of obvious objective infor- mation that might have been useful- the size and composition of the protest demonstrations were there 10 000 or 100 000 people in the streets were the demonstrations growing were they so large that the amount of force required to dis perse them probably would be very great What sorts of people were participating Were new groups being drawn in Field reporting did not address these questions Thus all NFAC had from the field were occasional impressions such as the Embassy's assessment that the I'silent majority supported retention of the Shah although per pa with reduced powers Tehran 10421 25 October 1978 iand its view that I'we assume vast majority of middle class generally pleased by the imposition of martial law Tehran 8563 9 September 1978 although the next day it spoke of a sullen population 0 afing at the imposition of martial law Tehran 8614 10 September 1968 The Consuls were more pessimistic although aga not pro- vide a great deal of information Consul Shiraz observed that Anti-Shah sentiment runs deep and broad in Iranian society Airgram A-15 14 May 1978 and Consul Isfahan reported that public discon remains strong and widespread and that members of the middle and upper classes had begun pub1_icly criticizing the Shah Airgram A-007 3 August 1978 But mostly the had to rely on inferences very little was known about many important groups--e g the bazaaris the oil workers factory workers even the professional middle classes but we think that there _were some_possible bases for inference that remained untapped 2 First the could have commented on the government's unsuccessful attempts to stage pro-Shah rallies see the washington Post 20 August 1978 As early as 27 J111mm general impressions of this topic befbre the grisjs see INR's The Future of Iran 28 January p 3 and Iran in the 19803 August 1977 Section V 115 c01259322 December 1977 the Embassy recognized that there is a con- certed effort to get out the 'silent majority' with the as sistance of the Rastakhiz party militants so that government and party workers professors students parents and other identifiable groups may be led into positive demonstrations and other shows of loyalty to overwhelm the dissenters Tehran 11408 This could have alerted the Embassy and to thE'utllity of tracing the fate of these at- tempts since they were seen as important to the 601 and pre- sumably would be pursued with some energy It is our under standing that over the years Iranians had shown no great en- thusiasm for demonstrating in support of the government Nonetheless the failure of government efforts in 1978 to generate manifestations of support would-therefore indicate some problems with the existence or intensity of feeling of the ''silent majority Similarly the Embassy's report a month later that Initial soundings indicate that 601 has not been able to mobilize middle class around slogans depict- ing religious demonstrators at Qom as hopeless reactionaries was worthy of greater attention and of attempts to gather more information As the Embassy noted workers and pea- sants plus businessmen government employees students and some intellectuals turned out dutifully for government demon- strations but this has not bound middle class more closely to government Tehran 961 26 January 1978 Simi- larly after the Tabriz riots the Embassy noted that Some professors and businessmen of our acquaintance feel things reached the point where their own important values are beginning to be threatened Many who have thus far tacitly supported moderate oppositionist heckling of may be hav ing second thoughts Tehran 18l4 21 February 1978 also see Tehran 4455 10 May 19784 But these people did not seem to_ra11y to the Shah even though the opposition grew 9 in a way that should have challenged their values and inter ests even more 3 In retrospect the intensity of feeling in the op- position can be seen as one of the critical factors in the overthrow of the regime At the time it should have been report of a fairly successful pro government rally see Tehran 665 18 January 1978 thmeini noted the contrasting sises of the pro- and demon- strations Tehran Airgram A-60 1 Apri 1978 While he is of course biased his basic point was correctuni-wunma- n gw 3H3 as is' - nag-gun 1- 001259322 lie 1-- Ill I I -q nhssearsV seen that intensity would be important because it would play a large role in determining how people would react to the Shah's attempts to maintain order If people were not willing to run considerable risks of being shot the demonstrations could be put down with an amount of force that was easily within the regime's capabilities If fairly large numbers were willing to sacrifice themselves on the other hand the Army would be forced to engage in quite extensive killing and as many reports and papers 'noted this could severely strain morale perhaps to the point where it could not be relied on Unfortunately the Iintensity question was rarely addressed A consultant lmade a passing reference to it in his com- ments 1 on the 21 July 1978 draft of the pro- posed NIE but that was about all 4 Two other categories of events might have yielded information on the strength of the opposition to the gov- ernment First the frequent and closures of the bazaars could have been more closely monitored in NFAC Even if many merchants were coerced into closing their shops this was asserted by the Embassy and certainly is plausible although little evidence was produced to sub stantiate the claim the closures were a warning sign They showed that the Opponents of the regime had quite a bit of power and the regime was either unwilling or unable to thwart them Assuming that keeping the bazaars closed was an important part of the protest movement and that the Iranian Government for this reason if for no other wanted to keep them open the government's failure was noteworthy If the closures were a genuine gesture of support for the Opposition and if the bazaaris were paying a price for their actions this was an indication of the intensity of feeling involved Furthermore if those inconvenienced by the closing did not blame the protesters--there were no signs that they did this was an indication of the degree to which at least potential support for the opposition was widespread The reports from the field were not full and detailed but the frequent mentions of shops and bazaars closing could have been collected and analyzed as a group For some of these reports see Tehran 5 3 lE Januarv an 13 may the HID did mention that Before th s_year the 'basaare had not been closed in over a decade but this indicator was not mentioned again 117 - Jessaessese c01259322 5 Second even if the field could not talk to any demonstrators and thereby provide some information on their motives and strength of commitment the very fact of repeated protests with significant casualties told us pgmething about the intensitg of opposition to the Shah This should have been apparent both and ob- servers a good deal earlier The draft NIE argued that the threat of the force that the Shah has available if he is pushed too far will deter all but the most virulent opposition 6 September 1978 r pp 1-14 A 1-15 This might have been turned arou Because the demon strators continued their activities in the face of the Shah's credible threat the intensity of feeling that was firing them must have been great indeed As we noted earlier Iran was a rare and perhaps unique case in which unarmed people were willing to repeatedly take to the streets in the face of a united Army that frequently in- flicted significant casualties Of course the fact that people come into the streets five times under these con- ditions does not automatically mean they will come back the sixth time All people and groups have their break- ing points and these are sometimes reached without much prior warning Even with hindsight we cannot be sure what would have happened if the Shah had been less re- strained and ordered the Army to shoot-more people But the should have derived more information about the intensity of feeling from the unusual willingness of demonstrators to run high risks 6 Reports based on observations of demonstrations also supported this conclusion According to dissidents with whom the journalist has spoken the police are trying every means possible to control crowds before firing on them These less drastic means include tear gas fire hoses and firing over the heads - 118 - i mi ui of the crowd The rioters however appear to be almost in a frenzy and dl these measures sometimes have little effect on them Even when the firing starts they have been seen to char directly at the police guns i a Before the soldiers fired into the crowd on 8 September i they gave a warning and then fired into the air But the prot would not disperse Tehran 8563 9 September 19783 fziPart of the explanation for the lack of discus-_ sion 0 is point may have been that after the first couple of incidents the became used to the fact that the dissidents were willing to risk their lives 2 But such behavior is rare and indicates an intensity of opposition that would not be easy for any regime to cope th Tile is not to say that warning shots never succeeded in dispersing crowds Sometimes'they did a the Embass re- ported in Tehran 10338 23 October 1978 i - 119 - c01259322 ll - I I -- I -- L- DOMESTIC ECONOMIC SITUATION 1977 1978 1 Because the Shah's full steam-ahead development program and its consequences of inflation corruption un- equal income distribution social dislocation and the like clearly affected the domestic political climate we think that some treatment of intelligence production on Iranian domestic economic matters is called for we survey that production in this section discuss how it was related to political intelligence and also treat the matter of joint _politica1 economic analysis _ One should note here that 2 The volume of finished intelligence on Iran's domestic economic situation was not large 1977 had three items The first responding to a request from State INR analyzed the impact of Iran's projected defense spending The memorandum 7 January 1977 judged that while Iran could a ford to spend the SIG Billion it planned to on military equipment defense spending at that level would have an adverse effect on the economy because it would siphon off skilled and semi skilled manpower and that military spending was already helping to boost inflation Although Iran can financially afford the military program the economy is by no means ready for it Most of its current economic problems would be far less severe without a mammoth military effort Military demands for construction--estimated at $2 2 We have not attempted to assess the quality of all NFAC's economic analysis on Iran we judge that to be outside the terms of our charter It_gave extensive attention to rantan oil matters and to Iran's external economic relations - 12 o_ - C01259322 billion in 1976--aggravate material and manpower shortages elsewhere in the economy Military imports which share top priority with foodstuffs in port off-loading have added considerably to port and road congestion And the boom in military spending certainly has been a major factor in the current 20% rate of inflation The paper concluded that l'the economic impact of the de- fense program is not likely to_pose serious political problems for the Shah 3 Iran in the 19803 contains two sections on the economy The one on agriculture judged that agricultural performance was the key element in Iran's future develop- ment and that the country must be able to feed its popula- tion with minimum reliance on expensive imports or that other elements of the Shah's development program would be meaningless Describing both the success and the extensive deficiencies of the land reform program the section ends with the following judgment In sum the planned agriculthral develop- ment which has been under the same sort of forced draft as the more spectacular indus- trial development is lagging The problems are likely to continue for a long period Of time and become more urgent as Iran finds it necessary to import more and increasingly ex- pensive food The pressure for agricultural production will rise and tension between the bureaucracy and the farmers is likely to mount A second section on the economy in general describes planned development in reasonably optimistic terms It notes some problems but does not highlight them as ex- tensive and judges that Iran will probably come close to the Shah's goal of a per capita GNP equal to that of Western Europe by the 19803 although there will be a serious maldistribution of income In sum this economic section is descriptive rather than analytical and what little analysis there is is not particularly incisive 121 - '33 315% i is I a I ma Hg Ell WWI 3 I run we 001259322 a s%sLseea a% This paper was an early effort to carry out integrated political-economic analysis it was not a success in that regard a fact for which one of the authors of this report JD bears some responsibility 4 In September 1977 replying to a request from the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advis OER 28 September 1977 he paper noted a series of pro- nouncements accompany ng the appointment of a new cabi- net under Prime Minister Amuzegar that the Shah was being forced to abandon his I'go for broke development policy that the regime was adopting a policy of growth which the economy can digest that project schedules would be stretched out and that efforts would be made control to inflation The paper estimated that two billion dollars in private capital had fled Iran in the 16 months up to the end of 1976 It noted that by the end of the Five- Year Plan in March 1978 operating expenditures and de- fense spending would be far over planned levels and development spending would be well under that projected in the Five-Year Plan The paper judged that implemen tation of the new program would-give the Iranian economy the pause that it needed and that a stretched out development program would be more in step with an ex- pected slow growth in oil production and the difficul- ties in increasing the pool of skilled labor assessed Iran's ejfneZEc development policy 5 From then until early summer of 1978 economic coverage on Iran focused on the international economic aspects and on petroleum and related matters The latter were frequently mentioned in the periodical Interna- tional Ener Bi-weekly Review and a brief assessment of Tran's futnra is contained in The Oil Market Through 1985 EAngust 54 June the economic contribution to NIB 34 l-78I Idescribed the Iranian economic situation noting the problems deriving from a foreign exchange outflow which was estimated to be running at two to three billion dollars a year in 1975 77 It also described the problems of inflation transportation bottlenecks and the like brought on by trying to do too much too soon and the great slowdown in growth in - 122 - W- 1377 It took special note that Iran which has been self-sufficient in food in the late 19608 was now only 75 percent self-sufficient and that this could drop as low as 50 percent by 1985 if observed trends continued In later drafts of the estimates this was raised to 60 percent 7 The contribution noted that most Iranians have gained little from the oil and construction booms 'l that the Iranian emphasis on military spending and on large industrial and nuclear energy projects would leave little in the way of funding fer programs directly beneficial to the Iranian consumer in the next several years and that the government's efforts would likely be confined to necessary food imports and to price subsidies which were costing an estimated $1 billion annually l All valid points but not_further explored in the prospective NIB 8 The N10 of 30 August ssessed the eco- nomic program announced by the'hewly appqinted Sherif- Emami It judged that the cabinet change was not likely to convince either the Iran consumer or investor that the economy was going to improve It judged that solutions to Iran's deep-seated economic problems will require more than a new management team I 9 As the dimensions of the Iranian crisis began to become apparent economic intelligence production grew in volume September brought three_publihations bearing on Iran's economic situation 5 5 Septem- ber 1978 U was a respectable wrap up of Iranian agri- culture It judged that the land reform has accomplished most of'the regime's political goals the majority of peasants now own the land they farm and the once-power- ful absentee land owners have lost their 'olitical base The effects of the land reform on econom and social development were positive though not spectacular It went on to note that agriculture had been the stepchild of the government's development efforts Despite lip- service of food self-sufficiency food imports were four times what they had been in and were'costing about two billion dollars annuallymun H 4- 2 mgr- PW- ran I sci nan-ch- - i C01259322 10 Iran New Government Maintains Low Economic Profile September C is a good descrip- tion of Iran's economic problems especially as they faced the new government It noted that unhappiness with the Shah's development priorities has added to political and religious unrest and judged that the need to placate cer- tain elements of society might lead to shifts in govern ment policy away from industrial and nuclear development and toward the agricultural sector The main message of this paper was repeated in the HID of 18 September ll Iran's problems is feeding itself already flagged in the contribution to the NIE and in the unclassified memorandum of 5 September were discussed at same lsnuth in Iran Massive Rise 1 Import Needs 21 September 1978 It noted that food imports runn at $2 billion a year and expected to rise at a 15 to 17 percent rate annually could easily triple by 1985 to more than $6 billion at today's exchange rates It concluded I'Given a food import bill of this magni- tude in the early to mid 19803 the Shah may be forced into some difficult decisions con- cering import priorities Unless oil prices rise substantially declining oil export volume will produce a sizeable current account deficit by 1981 At that time the Shah may be required to moderate either politically sensi- tive food imports or imports of capital military goods to avoid a quick rundown in foreign assets which now total about $18 billion The main messages of this item were repeated in the NID 14 October 12 Coverage in current intelligence publications during the fall dealt primarily with cuts in oil produc tion and strikes in the oil fields The industry began to be hit in late September but had little immediate impact because supervisory personnel could keep facilities oper- ating HID 29 September 1978 The government respOnded to strikes in many sectors by gran ng most strikers' de- mands it saw the hand of the Shah's religious and politi- cal opposition acting behind the scenes to manipulate workers' - 124 - c01259322 economic grievances into mass political protest I NIB 7 October 1978 _ A few days la itical- economic article TNID II October 1978 reported that ''the Iranian Government is being 0 ce 0 reorder its economic priorities in light of continuing political unrest It put a finger on the limited effects of this priority shift Although a high level decision appar- ently has been made to free military and nuclear program funds for rural development infrastructure and social welfare projects most of the cutbacks will not impact on the current or next year's budget Therqovern- ment will have to find other means to cover increased payments to public sectorlworkers I Government capitulation to su stantial wage and benefit demands is settling widespread strikes in government and industry 'The effect on the economy cannot be determined newed inflation seems almost certain 13 A series of items reported the growing diffi- culties in the oil fields with production dropping to a fourth of normal by the end of October JNID 31 October 1978 C The N10 on the day following the Shah's appoint- ment of a military government noted that fa major test of the new government s effectiveness will be its ability to convince strikers to return to work In the vital oil industry the strike has widened to include support workersc' HID 7 November 19784 14 EIWR 045 of 9 November wrapped up the Iranian economic situation as being in upheaval the effects of which would be felt for years It noted that capital flight although not subject to accurate measurement had been generally estimated at three to five billion since the beginning of 1978 and that once a measure of political stability was established government would find it very complex and pressing problems to cet_the economy back on the tracks 001259322 l'i Conclusions and Evaluation 15 The record indicates that Iran s domestic eco- nomic situation received relatively little attention in finished intelligence until mid-197B It is clear that political protest grew in some part out of societal dis- location caused by a development program and we think it not unfair to suggest that managers and should have been alert to the interaction between the two While some of the publications mentioned do refer to the political implications of economic problems there does not seem to have been much effort put into integrating political and economic analysis For example no attention was paid to the political consequences of the policy of the Amusegar government to cool of the economy thus increasing unemployment we recognise that there is a lack of politi- cal economy in this organisation It is not unlike univer- sity campuses where different disciplines are carried out by different departments We are aware that management new recognises this as a problem and that solutions to it are being pursued They are not easy to come by but in our view the lack of some systematic method of relating politics - i to economics both terms used in the broadest sense helped to prevent NFAG from appreciating the political consquences of socio esonomic problems in Iran As we noted above mal- distribution of wealth inflation and accompanying strains I were among the elements which caused ordinary Iranians to demonstrate and riot against the Shah 125- c01259322 In ll Inn 1 - If CONTACTS 1 Contacts between official Americans and Opposi- tionists were few those that existed were with the modernized political opposition The obvious problem was noted in the FOCUS review although its conclusion was not exactly helpful While it is a politically difficult and sensitive matter for Embassy officials to meet with identified opponents of the Shah the Mission should have'the dest possible range of contacts 4 November 1976 Tp 4 Utility of Contacts with the Opposition 2 Information on the thinking and planning of the various opposition groups would not of itself have been sufficient to understand the temper of the opposi- tion to the Shah but it would have been of substantial benefit in four ways First the would have been able to compare the size and strength of various demonstrations that occur with the expectations that were held by the opposition leaders On the occasions when demonstrations were small or non-existent it would have been of some benefit to have known whether none had been planned or whether an attempt to stage one had failed For example the interpretation of the frequent lulls would vary depending on whether the opposition was trying to get people into the streets or not 3 Second benefit would have been gained if NFAC had known more about the kind and degree of organization that characterized the opposition since this was one element in the opposition's strength Contacts with the opposition either overt or by penetrations-might have given information about how disciplined it was what communication networks existed how the leaders were able to keep in touch with the views of their followers what kinds of resources they had at their disposal and what kinds of constraints they felt would have had a better sense of the and weaknesses of the opposition of their depth of commitment and of their ability to wage a sustained campaign which involved risks and sacrifices of money and lives But this information of course would have not been unambiguous and as long as the beliefs discussed on pp 131-133 were held it is hard to tell_whether it would have led to a very different estimate of the Shah's staying power 4 Third greater contacts with the opposition--again through either open conversations or penetration--would have 127- c01259322 -q sLsseas I shed some light it is hard to tell how much on the important question of the relations among-the diverse Opposition groups we have elsewhere discussed what was known about this and the inferences the drew Greater contact might have revealed something about the discussions that presumably occurred among the top leaders of the group and it might have given NPAC a sense of how the cooperation was wcrking out the kinds of frictions that were arising and the de- gree of the commitment on all sides to continue a functioning alliance Furthermore might have learned more about the distribution of power between moderates and extremists and derived a better sense of whether the former could_sfford to strike a bargain that the latter opposed 5 Fourth and perhaps most important greater con- tacts might have produced information conducive to a fuller and better understanding of the beliefs and motives of the religious-based opposition On pp 105-107 we have discussed what we see as the problems in this regard More first- ehand reports of what the religious leaders -and their followers--were saying the grievances they felt and their attitudes toward modernization might have modified the characterization of the the knew was based on limited data Utility of Contacts in the Wider Society 6 These benefits would have been significant but they still would not have gone to the heart of the matter which was how much support the opposition would have out- side its own circle As in most other protests this is a point on which the leaders of the opposition themselves could only guess Indeed the National Front was reported as surprised as everyone else about violence in Tabriz and at a loss to explain tit except in terms of repressed peoples taking up cudgels of freedom andlsimilar boiler- plate Tehran 1879 23 February 1978 L In retrospect it seems that the boilerplate had a large Element of truth and that large numbers of people hated the Shah and viewed the religious movement opposition as_the symbol of and carrier for opposition to the regime Here contacts with the opposition presumably would have revealed that it was attracting large numbers of adherents adherents who further- more had diverse views on many issues But more important -123 - Fril ll ms as- - 77'C01259322 l- would have been contacts with a wide variety of people who were not in_the elite of either the government or the op- position Knowledge about the views of something like a cross-section of the general population would have been extremely valuable although it would not have yielded a clear prediction In the absence of such evidence the were forced to make assumptions about how groups and classes would respond and these seem to have been largely based on the belief that most people appreciated the benefits the Shah's modernization program was bringing 7 In this regard it is interesting to note that the reports from the consulates in Iran were generally more pessimistic than those from the Embassy Indeed the Embassy noted this at one point and explained that it did not share the alarming views of the Consul in Tabriz Tehran 1879 23 February 1978 One possible explanation for this is that the consuiar officials unlike those in the Embassy had direct contact with people from a wide range of Iranian society Their day to day activities involved dealing with many people outside the elite There are other possible explanations for their greater pessimism pro-existing views their being stationed in cities that were more revolutionary than Tehran and the decreased in- fluence of policy considerations 8 The concentration on the elite in the reporting and in NFAC production seems to have been partly a matter of choice and partly a matter of necessity Choice because it was believed that interactions among the elite would strongly influence the future of the country especially when the Shah died or relinquished power Concentrating on the elite was also a necessity since there was little infor- mation available about other segments of society This is not to imply that reliable and useful information about the elites was easy to come by Given the reporting of the Embassy station and the information from open sources little was known about groups like the bazaaris and oil workers which we now realize were so important Even less aTie draft HIE argues that Most Iranians have gained little in terms of standards of living from the oil and construction booms and concludes that The Shah's development program seems likely to lead to growin discontent among the urban poor 6 September II 15 II But this perspective was not fully eve oped and does not appear to have strongly influenced most of the political analysis -1291 c01259322 Wi 1 information was available about less organized segments of society Even now we do not know the make up of the anti- Shah demonstrations Thus the could not say much about the groups beyond the elite The most they could have done was to have pointed out thatdvital information was lacking and to have asked for a change in the priori- ties of information collection in the field To determine such priorities would have involved a more thorough treat- ment of general Iranian politics to try to determine how much intra-elite maneuverings would set Iran's course and the extent to which other segments had to be considered as active participants This sort of analysis is difficult and there are no general guidelines onithis point But no attempts to deal with the problem were made perhaps because of resource limitations or because of the belief that even if information about non-elite groups were use- ful it could not have been obtained Fa i a ck 35 1d c01259322 tad - - POLICY BIASES 1 It is often claimed that distort what should be objective judgments to support official policy but unambiguous evidence on this point is usually hard to come by The case of Iran fits this pattern Intelli- gence generally was consistent with Us policy but this does not mean that the latter was influencing the former If such an influence were present the were not aware of it 2 In some cases one finds that commitment to a policy -on the part of as well as pelicy-makers-- increases as more information indicating that the policy would fail becomes available This was not the case here In some cases the political climate was such that who warned that the policy was failing had good reason to fear that they would be unished Again that does not seem to be true here 3 If it were'the case that the policy had a strong and direct impact on analysis one would expect that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research being more closely tied to Us policy would be more affected than NFAC The former however in fact displayed more doubt about the Shah's ability to maintain his power than did the latter The opposite side of this coin is that if policy were strongly influencing evaluations one would expect news reporters who had no stakes in the Shah's survival to have been much more pessimistic the ffi cial accounts But this also was not the case 4 But it is at least possible that the belief that there was no alternative to existing policy--either be- cause the realities in Iran would not permit an alterna- tive or because the US Government was committed to sup- porting the Shah and his policy of liberalization--inhib ited from recognizing how precarious the situa- tion was If one believes that issuing a warning is use less then one is less likely to believe that a warning is needed We cannot be sure that this influence was at work When it operates it does so on a subconscious level --131- c012 9322 s anEes H j It is possible however that there was some tempering of NFAC's analysis of the negative effects of the adminis- tration's human rights policy in response to signals that intelligence had already fully covered this topic 5 The problem of determining whether analysis was influenced by policy is especially difficult because the generally agreed with the policy Looking over the range of beliefs held by peOple in and out of govern- ment it is clear that as a generalization those peeple who thought that the Shah's regime was on balance good for the citizens of Iran and thought that supporting him was in the American interest also thought that his government was quite strong Those who thought he was evil also be- lieved that it was bad for the United States to aid him and saw his regime as relatively vulnerable Presumably the judgments about whether the Shah was good or bad for Iran influenced interpretations of the potency of dissent Those journalists and academic who opposed the Shah were more pessimistic about his chances of survival than were those in and out of government who had a more benign view of the regime To a degree this was logical Support for the Shah only made sense if one believed that he could survive And if one believed that the Shah was generally acting in the interests of most of his then one would be likel to think that he had a lot of domestic support 6 Even if analysis was not directly influenced by policy these three inter-locking beliefs supported each other and made the especially slow to give full credit to information indicating that the Shah was in very serious trouble It is probably impossible to say which of the three beliefs came first either in time or in impor- tance As the Shah survived over perilous years people became more convinced both that the United States should support him and that he was helping lots of Iranians and earning their support or else he would not have survived And as they came to believe that he was a good ruler they - 132 - 33001259322- 1 I L increasingly expected him to be able to survive Further- more the fact that those outside the government who thought in the early autumn that the Shah might fall were people who opposed his rule gave the an easy way to downgrade these warnings for they could seem to be- and perhaps were-- the product of wishful thinking 7 A related problem was that the observers' appa- rent lack of sympathy with the protestors was reflected in their choice of words They talked of I'rnobs'f which rampaged throPnh the streets 10 February 1978 vandalism' Tehran 5131 3n me 1973 mullahs agitating Tehran 8353 31 august 19785 an irresponsible opposition HID 10 August 1978 Field reporting used more highly colored terms than did finished intelligence but we think it is fair to say that a reader of the latter could also tell what outcomes the writers wanted and which they feared It is pgsgible that this indicated or created a subtle bias 8 The unprecedented nature of the revolution and the Shah's record of survival made it hard enough to see that past might not'be-a good guide to the future To believe that the unrest would succeed was to expect the kind of sudden and dramatic change in affairs that strains our imaginations The analytic task would have been ex- tremely difficult if the United States had been neutral or even anti Shah But we cannot completely rule out the possibility that the subtle influence of US policy may have made it a bit harder for the to realize_that the Shah's position was becoming precarious - 133 c01259322 I In Conclusion It will be clear to readers who have stayed with us this far that there is no one reason for NFAC's failure to assess the deterioration of the Shah's position during 1978 Life is never that simple We have cited a number of reason- inadeiuate information pre-eaisting beliefs mind sets a sma and isolated community of Iranian and a production system that emphasises reporting events rather than underlying causes We conclude with a dual appeal re examine your assumptions and beliefs managers create an environment conducive to analysing foreign affairs not Just reporting them --134-- c01259322 lw I - I a-va 1 c01259322 arm me ag I It I If Fm mm mm In I -l36- c01259322 l 1-- -137- 001259322 - 13'8 - 001259322 5 a in i- id in xi -l39- c01259322 -140f- 001259322 i Annex Perception and Evidence Robert Jervis Per ce tion and M18 erce tion it International FO'I i tI cs FrInceton Ungversity Press 1973 pp 173-151 -141- C01259322 I'M Processes of Perception Scholars often have been with pepple whom history has proven wrong implying that only a person unreasonably wedded to his views could have warded off the correct informa on But in most cases those who were right showed no more openness to new information nor willingness to modify their images than did those who were wrong Rob- ert Vansittart the British Permanent Undersecretpry in the Foreign 0f- ce who earned a reputation for courage and foraight by his opposition to appeasement keenly noted all indication of German aggressiveness But he was convinced that Hitler was aggressive adieu the latter had been in o ce only a few months and did not open-mindedly view each Nazi actiOn to see if the explanations provided by the appeasers accounted for the data better than did his own beliefs Instead like Chamberlain he tted each bit of ambiguous information into his low hypotheses Simi- larly Robert Coulondre the French ambassadorito Berlin in 1939 who appreciated the Nazi threat was painfully sensitive to the threat of a Berlin-Moscow agreement He noted with foreboding that Hitler had not attacked Russia in his Reichstag address of April 28 So it went all spring and summer the ambassador relaying each new evidence of an impending diplomatic revolution and adding to ht admonitions his pleas for decisive counteraction m His hypothesis was correct but it is dif - cult to detect between his methods of noting and interpreting information and those used by ambassadors such as Nevile Henderson who were wrong When evidence gradually accumulates that a view is wrong those who hold the view often seem willfully stubborn as they refuse to recognize that while their beliefs may have been tenable in the past they are now clearly incorrect But those who are wrong my seem more stubborn because they receive more discrepant information Those who are right may appear more open-minded only because their initial views were correct If large amounts of discrepant information had later appeared 1 Ian Calvin in 097 London Golancs I965 p 23 Martin Gil- bert and Richard Out The Appeasers London Weidei eld and Nicolson 1963 p 34 1 Ford and Schorske Voice in the Wilderness pp 57344 In In an esrlier article Hypotheses on World Politics 20 April 1968 460-61 1 applied this to ilL While it is dif cult to show that he did modify his beliefs more quickly Chamberlain one bit bf evidence does point in this direction In the 1920 Churchill argued strongly for appeasing Gennany relaxing the economic clauses of the Treaty of Versailles and heating her as a member in good standing of the ifamily of nations This is especially impressive in light of the fact that before the First World War Churchill had been quite suspicious of Germany's intentions For the contrary argument that Churchill mattered from an inability to envisage dtanged situations see Robert RhodesJames Churchill A Study in Failure New Yak World 1970 P- 381 0 Similarly Cantril's analysis of why people believed Welles s broadcast of War of the World is badly awed by the failure to distinguish the person s critiuse 5-09 39 ii if' 3'13 3 c01259322 Cognitive Consisteney 17 a they too might have assimilated it to their images In other words instead of a person s being wrong because he is stubborn he may be stubborn because he is wrong For our purposes even more signi cant than the proposition that those who are later shown to have been wrong are not necessarily more closed-minded than those who were right is the argument that it is cult to specify when a person is being too closed-minded here is no i way to draw a neat sharp line between that degree of holding to existing beliefs and disparaging oi discrepant inlonnation that is necessary tor the d' intelligent comprehension of the environment and that degree that leads i to the maintenance oi beliefs that should be relected by all fair-n nded men For example although several authors have examined the seem- ingly pathological maintenance of the horse cavalry well into the twen- tieth century It is debatable which is the more extraordinary the un- warranted faith in this weapons system or the fact that the lance and sword managed to hold their own as respectable weapons 450 years after i the first serious use of gunpowder in war-3 As we saw in our discussion 5 of science sometimes the stubborn man is vindicated One reason for the lack of systematic di erenoes between those meth- I otaparticnlarMat indicating 3 catastrophe Hadley Cantril The invasion From More Princeton Princeton Uni- versity Press 1947 I f It case studies do not reveal general di 'erences between the way people who were right and those who were wrong handled information experimental evi- dence is available but not totally relevant Personality variables of dogmatinn - persuasibillty and have been located and it has been found that people with low tolerance for ambiguity maintain images in the face of more contradic- tory inlormation than do those who are not disturbed by ambiguity Else Freehol- - Brunswik him of Ambiguity as an Emotional and Perceptual Personality 1 Variable Journal of Per-manila 18 1249 108-83 Milton Rakench The Open and Closed Mind Irving Janis et al Personality and New Haven Ill Yale University Press 1959 David Shaifer and Clyde Hendrick Donation and Tolerance for Ambiguity as Determinants of Di esentiei Reactions to Cog- nitive inconsistency Journal of Formally and Social 29 i 601-608 More directly relevant is the nding that lhoee individuals scoring i something di erent trom what they expected Don Smith Radio Moscow's 1 North American Broadcaatn Public Opinion Quarterly 34 Winter 1970-71 549- - selected group of decision-makers i heterogeneity of beliefs within the decision-making community Di erent people put-m diluent lines of inquiry and so an intellectual discipline as a whole hedges '1 its bets reduced force 'Bernard and Fawn Brodie From Cmarbow to HoBomb Bloomington Indi- ann University Press rev 1973 P 42 -l43- C01259322 l78 Processes of Perception ads of drawing inferences that lead to correct conclusions and those that lead to error is that the correct explanation often is not supported by the built of the evidence This point is well illustrated by a scientist s discus sion of the eighteenth-century debate between the prefotmationists who argued that a miniature homunculus inhabited the ovum and grew after it was fertilized and the epigenesists who argued that are egg began as a simple and undifferentiated cell and became more complex as it devel- oped That the latter view is correct should not blind us to the fact that it is highly implausible-and for a long time did not render the best ac- count of the available data What could be more fantastic than the claim that an egg contains thousands of instructions written on molecules that substanmthat regulate the speed of chemical processes The notion of preformed parts sounds far less contrived to me The only thing going foi'r coded instrum- tions is that they seem to be there In politics it is even more frequent- ly the case that an incorrect belief makes most sense enact the available data Watergate is only a recent reminder that the actual facts and cor- rect explanations may be highly implausible Only after access to most of the behind-theseenes dealings has permitted the reconstruction of the ow of events and decisions are we able to understand what has hap- pened Even then we may lack con dence in our explanations or feel that they are not totally satisiying So when the evidence is much less com- plete it is not surprising that the known facts are often best accounted for by an incorrect explanation For this reason those who have reached the right couclusion may be less reasonable and may be treating the information in less justi able ways than those who are wrong Hunches luck and an accurate general analysis of the other and his situation often explain why a person is able to predict correctly what others would do Those who disagree far from being blind to the facts are often truer to them A piece of black cloth in the bright sun re ects more light than a white cloth at dusk yet we see the former as darker than the latter Because context In heavily in u- ences the perception of each single bit of information a correct appreci- ation of the general situation often leads to doing injustice to particular facts For maple in three cases Churchill was correct but most rea- sonable men would probably have said that alternative conclusions were better supported by the evidence at hand When the attentpt to force'the Dardanellea tattered because of an uncharted string of shines Churchill wanted to push ahead We now know that a renewed attack probably would have succeeded but as most omcials argued at the time most of the information indicated that it would fail To take a larger case it 1 'Stephen Gould 0n Heroes and Fools in Science Natural History 33 August-September 1974 32 144- I '31 HI I ill 4- 53- iC01259322 i L 1-- I- l- I - I - Cognitive Consistemy l 9 would be hard to argue that Churchill's view best explained the available evidence about German foreign policy in the mid- and even late 1930 Similarly Churchill was right to see that Hitler would launch a surprise attack against Russia in the spring of 1941 but alternative hypotheses were at least as well suppomd by data distinguished from those who are wrong by their superior ability to judge speci c bits of information The prelormationists were no less careful and accurate in their empirical observations as the Rather the expec- tations and predispositions of those who are right have provided a closer arewrong '11th of the people who interpreted early bits of information about Watergate as indicating that President Nixon was implicated drew correct inferences because they had previously distrusted the man The very fact that they weresoquicktocomiderhiniguilty pointstothe importance oitheir previous views and the relatively slight role played by close observation of the immediate events Those who tool the opposite position were wrong not because of their'taulty reading of the direct evidence until near the end their reading was at least as plausible as was that of those who were correct but because of their basic misunderstanding of the president This line ct argument is supported by ndings concerning children's perceptions of their parents' political activities which because the investigator did not hold the view set forth here were unanticipated it was originally hypothesized that student reports of parents' political diameteristics would be more accurate among highly politicized families In the case of turnout the data lend no support to the hypothesis Among parents who voted there are practically no variations at all in the rate of student accuracy Sizable variations do occur in reporting nonvoting but surprisingly the lowest rates of accuracy are among the most politicized lamiliesl Students strong expectations that their parents will vote or a greater sensitivity about reporting nonvoting apparently overshadow any perceptual gain from the highly politicized environ ment The same ellect appears when we look at data on students' per- ceptions of their parents interest in politics As the parertts educatiOn increases their children judged their interest in politics to be higher it is more be tting less-educated parents to be uninterested in public - aflairs and consequently more are reported to lack interest When par- ents own reports coincide with these expectations students' reports are correct When they con ict with student expectations however students have 'guessed' wrong Our earlier discussion of cognitive biases and schemas is relevant here People learn and remember relatively newt-ate ly when the schema they apply tits the arrangement of the stimuli Thus ma pp 30-31 -145- C01259322 lea Processes of Perception a study showing that cognitively simple people are more prone to per- ceive balance notes that complexity is not always functional nor lack of complexity always dysfuncrlonal Noncemplex subjects made fewer errors than complex ones when their simplilymg hypotheses matched the social structure they were facing m One implication of this analysis is that-successiul detection of military and diplomatic surprises is less likely to be explained by the skill of the intelligence service in piecing together arcane bits of information than by the degreete which the service'spredisposldons and expectations lit theactionsthattheetheris planningtoundertakc This alsomeansthat an nd em whattheother bettertotalteadvan- tape of the fact that people assimilate discrepant inbrmation to their pro-existingbeliciathanitis elaborate and sophisticated weption campaigns the Allied effort to convince the Germans that they would land near 01th rather than at Normandy-probably would not have succeeded had Hitler not already believed that Calais would be the target This analysisofeourse raisesthequestlon of when will the person s expectations be likely to mirror the stimuli that he is presented with Luckiaoneanswerandperhaps appliesin morecasesthan we likete think This may be the best explanation for example of why the pre- dispositions of many of the anti-appeascrs were appropriate in the 19305 apowerl'ulposi- tion in Europe but she would not have been willing to run very high risks in order to dominate and so she could have been appeased Had Hitler not come to power many of the Englishmen who now seem wise would have been dangerous warmongers A second possibility is that the person's predispositions t the environment in which he is acting A statesman likelyto mmacedApersonwhocorrectly many cases These observers who doubted that deshocracy could be maintained in the underdeveloped states often provided the best interpre- tation oi the ambiguous evidence about politics in the third world The - Richard Nicmi How Family Members Perceivc Each Other New Haven YaleUnlvenityPress tame pp 5169-50 perception see the research summarized in Mark Cook Interpersonal Perception Baltimore Pinyin 1971 pp 10846 and Hasterf and Pelc ta Perm Perception pp 30-34 -146- it its C01259322 a t- l l C - Cognitive Consistency 181 creation of appropriate predispositions is the rationale for job training programs that alter perceptual thresholds a subject we will touch on in the appendix to Chapter 6 Furthermore people select and are selected for Jobs in the expectations of a match between predispositions and en- vironment but this is no guarantee that there will be such a match Those who are predisposed to see foreign threats for example may ll positions of responsibility in relatively secure as well as in relatively insecure states A third and related cause of match comes into play when the person's previous experiences provide a good guide to the current situation This will be treated at length in Chapter 6 An aside here is that when self-ful lling prophecies operate shared predispositions make more accurate the perceptions of those who hold the dominant view Unless we realize that the di erences between those whose perceptions have been accurate and those whose have been mug are not likely to lie in differences in ability to examine speci c facts we will have unwar ranted faith that those who were right will continue to perceive accurate- ly- under changed circumstances We will be likely to assume quickly that superior intellectual virtues are possessed by those who perceived ac- curately to promote those peeple to positions of greater responsibility and to adopt their views in the future - 147 c01259322 L- I- - I -- L- In Annch 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Shahmul mldull'ho mu Nib Had a 3mm rel mend i it lint E ND - c01259322 L I - u i Amxcmon md Due Bmtornmlapmt Mamn o 'u purge 2 3 Jul 21-22 ayatollah 24 Namath nmonundu - nay-ability 155 - C01259322 Annex Continued Data Event-31' mm ailing Othgr Reporting NFAC Cavern Otllg_0bmatio_n_ Aunt l' l3 cilia past two weekends Ale-r Isfahan manna mist 3w 'FUn'in that nuatioumrtinamina u two month of quiet much um voice the Shah should tantalum much in china 5 9m WE - NY mH dJorJtacunl l979 1 mumm-mm mm notes prevalant belief that article mm lran'a Shah's unnatural to- problem that many fear from US his mun cltas ight otcapltal but i smut-ally Initial on Shah and his laadenhip tuna not fund It is put ot'hi timetable Nona- thatch In ated risk am will Banal to a lame extent on the willinm of a morally tion to mm for poll- tia 1'hemnuroould boa turning point in Iranian listen-y Shah hulattheueniomofthe bottle mo'mtauymm' If above but replacing turning point idea with one that ma a on rumba Dictation would be dif cult and perhaps dangerous u warm 11M gait 13 5 'm'ism'muim' IlthJol- rimtodoatlg-ol'clorm lowing no days smaller demon- led by unidentin follow atratlona ed danman Biotin in Shiraz 'nBEabi ni eai-An restaurant m- 1 5 6 - 99 ED ll ms 19 all m i m lial ii q1Jb r19- In qt- quay C01259322 l' L- I- - t lg AnnexC Con nned Date Worm HIM l4 Bmwmorepquh mat-am dhmowimMthohm than minunphcaulinS Tehran adminddmufonmdon hummus inpuiodofpdili lw Coma uodm bua n omlmt mhwtomvhlutqp- whimwithfwoo la inl953 19 Cinema nlnm 2 20 - 2 - Hmong-M 76m Munichndamn mfor Abldan m 21 amumm humus 2i - 23 Whitman summons MWIJNIM Front - 15' - I Womb Punrcporumt - Wuhrandvumomicm- mfowummunmtehu- WMSm-romuwhhin mehommnhahundahu dMerpaophk lodinm mofdminMuhhnd Chalfmdefendlu hahmd swan C01259322 Annex Continued Date 5 13 31th 24 25 '25 28 30 ll 5me be rminkhi anl vma'arm m7 tloaainhhadan I Antenna cabinet vellum _- I Sham-Eaten appointed Prime Minister - -New government t-annmneeam - calendar charm eaalao closings attack on corruption iaruea aweeplu list of religious demands Sharia-Medal calla for return to mutation Demmtlona in Tehran and other cidea - Emhel l mm sin minutiae Sul- livan audience with thin lento Shah Embtel 833 Embtel 848$ Embtel 8299 Butbtel 848$ Embtel 8353 -158 NFAC Cover rte NID Swarm romeo readying for gullible violence on 2446 Am Civlldiaorden have watt-med sister I I August impoaltion ol' martial law Nil Changing PMajust before ea Koo reef visit indicator how eeriouly the Shah vim the situation NH New PM new do much for ee'momy he ia working on vellum grievances NID Item I Sememlm reports riots 3 mug u Managua ll Wm Pmi h o kna ran-n - - New Statermrr attach Chalfom article and mines In this great epeetmm ofdlnem the vale lined by religious fa- naticism it a minor one What Err-rt 26 Aim reports event marb Part appointment en- likely to stem the rising tlde of Violent prowl PM likely to be replaced next year mil '1 ia'j we at 14 ti L C01259322 1 l- AnnexC Contlmed Duo Benton-Mm Mumm- RM E 0M 8M 4 Manlypuoafoldomomm unnumnuformumof Khomdni 1 ammumhdonmeor mama Scam Ea'u'N ibi aw-1m Minnelli - calm hdalhuwbmwoath'l'ehm muwdadamd mh Tehranundllothuddu JuIahSquamTehrm Othoa magnum mmn wiummum army lo Deanna- 5011 In Tchun Sham-Munchkin - mummuw 2 me v0 when NID Mia lacuwitllin Mn imfudamulbtm' man on WIMGMM summeamnm Bantams mmumnn slnh' i sh umholdhb Irannoaoulingtohhm Idea Embtel Emmanuonl ws is timbre-1m ma a-11W fumnittmandoppommh thatGOIIlnm -159 - 339i J9 C01259322 Ann C Con lmod Dim m- t-orsudw w Rwy WW um- - l2 l2_ - g-I-uD-I-n - l5 - - -I- 16 NID Tehm calm msiaa' -- NFAC Camus but cities momma-pom Emilia h NID Smoofominlnum Shahtl nltoreuinini atln istpolitidman hauu an s llsuuwm station NID Country rilnivdy quid no One attack fenSamba 5 as - at am ml 4-4 ml 31 NID Aid-us incidents nix minus 21 annual 9151A wrap-uponha Slum mblumdoawt mini- mlu hut doesn't mu Not dissimilar to 14 Septuabu NID El Food imam Irwinmania thin Wb limmlvulJOOdadan-- -- no alumina ml 1-3 C01259322 i l L1 1 l Annex C Con nned 29 Worm -161- l m NID Wilden strikes not pn vlously mentioned in niahed intellisme lava reached oil industry man when striking Nil Important religious laud- no anxious for accommoda- tion with the mat Two dd C01259322 Annex C Con noed I W - up mhnlanmm m u- 3-4 om 63 8 no Trooudhponoau'lmin l ch- Dalmatian in metal tows strihu multiply very gloomy-u uu -1 - Wu ime m5 Emasszil FEM imam - 1 62 - i aia'iuii'om N16 50m diaudo 'i i EhTm'B'ow w HID eunuch tbu mm an univenity lam might focus dit- cootont Sodom com um on campus Wain mhm GMT-cat hu mum Work Post 9 Oocohet virtually all thihus'dounuds in public worming NID I minim Ma a do and _Was'fros7 ' Snore C01259322 l I -- TSP 1 Annucwon med Duo Mariam Manna-M 6533mm mm 2 NIDmporhfoodimput but 22 madam MW 23 Domm mtn nmdan nndothartom manna mulhofammtim ambulloa mm ou m 0nwholon ecu m- 24 metol10378 clmuofgw- tawny-mutuall- MW 25 Khomdnimjemm on withothmuutilShahlum - provinces 26 withu sloulmm 29 mummyunea Emmanuel Sig nmmo mam so Embtd10559 m wanmanim 31 NIEM-Madulremmw mummaf Wumm - 163 - I C01259322 164- 'Nlb am am Inuwilld venp-ilpdcu NID Shah helium mm with opposition tin be reached album - Entanmtofomucaah oa' mamas-poli- ou mnudliasuhdmod- 11anth From mmummntadm Macmillan Hammadmdwim mummy-admin meta limb 6 Shahlofomuil anmn- Wuhad d imeMin islet 33 g3 153 45 5 n1 A u r This document is from the holdings of The National Security Archive Suite 701 Gelman Library The George Washington University 2130 H Street NW Washington D C 20037 Phone 202 994-7000 Fax 202 994-7005 nsarchiv@gwu edu