Shapour Bakhtiar
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Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar (Shapour Bakhtiar ) (also Shapur Bakhtiar) (Persian: شاپور بختیار Shāpūr Bakhtīār) (born 1914 or 1915 - August 6, 1991) was an Iranian politician and the last Prime Minister of Iran under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. After the Iranian Revolution, he soon went into exile and was assassinated in Paris in 1991.
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[edit] Early life
Shapour Bakhtiar was born in 1914 or 1915 in southwestern Iran to Mohammad Reza (Sardar-e-Fateh) and Naz-Baygom, both Bakhtiaris. Bakhtiar's maternal grandfather, Najaf-Gholi Samsam ol-Saltaneh, was appointed prime minister twice, in 1912 and 1918. Bakhtiar's mother died when he was seven years old. He attended elementary school in Shahr-e Kord and then secondary school, first in Isfahan and later in Beirut, Lebanon where he received his high school diploma from a French school.
[edit] His Time in France
In 1936 he left for France. He received a PhD in political science from Sorbonne in 1939 as well as degrees in law and philosophy. As a firm opponent of all totalitarian rule, he volunteered for the French Foreign Legion and then fought with the resistance against the occupation by Germany in the Orleans battalion.
[edit] Political Career in Iran
Shapour Bakhtiar returned to Iran in 1946. In 1951 he was appointed by the Ministry of Labor, first as director of the Labor Department in the Province of Isfahan, then he even headed up the Labor Department in Khuzestan, center of the oil industry. In 1953 Mohammad Mosaddeq was briefly in power in Iran, before being deposed. Under his premiership Bakhtiar was deputy minister of labor. After the Shah was reinstated by a British-American sponsored coup d'etat, Bakhtiar remained a critic of his rule. In the following years he was imprisoned repeatedly, a total of 6 years, for his opposition to the Shah. He even rose to the position of deputy chief of the illegal National Front.
At the end of 1978, as the Shah's power was crumbling; because Bakhtiar had been a leader in the resistance, he was chosen to help in the creation of a civilian government in place of the military one, which had existed up to this point. He was appointed to the position of Prime Minister by the Shah, as a concession to his opponents, especially the followers of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Although this caused him to be expelled from the National Front, he accepted the appointment, as he feared a revolution, in which communists and mullahs would take over the country, because he thought this would ruin Iran. Bakhtiar made some key mistakes during his premiership including allowing Khomeini to re-enter Iran. The opposition was not willing to compromise and the Shah was forced to leave the country in January of 1979; Bakhtiar left Iran again for France in April of the same year.
[edit] French Exile
Out of Paris, Shapour Bakhtiar led the National Resistance Movement of Iran, which fought the Islamic republic in his homeland. In July 1980 he escaped an assassination attempt in his home in the Parisian suburb, Suresnes, which killed a policeman and a neighbor. But on August 7, 1991, Bakhtiar was murdered by three assassins along with his secretary, Soroush Katibeh, in his home. The inquest found him being stabbed by a knife matching that of a nearby blood stained bread knife. One of the assassins was later arrested in Switzerland and extradited to France. During his trial in 1994, he admitted to having been sent by the Iranian government to kill Bakhtiar.
It is interesting that hours after the assassination of Shapour Bakhtiar, a French and British hostage were released from Lebanon, presumably held by Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon. Some Iranian critics have suggested that the French government allowed the assassination to occur in exchange for the release of the French hostage in Lebanon.[citation needed] At the the time Dr Bakhtiar was under armed guard provided by the French government. In the inquest, it was found that he was killed by a knife wound in a major artery. That much blood would be thought to have been seen by his guard who manned the entrance to his house, who saw the murderers exit. However nothing can be proven.
[edit] External links
- Harvard University, Iranian oral history project: Interview with Dr. Shapour Bakhtiar
- Iran Chamber Society--Historic Personalities: Shapour Bakhtiar
- Persian Iran page about Bakhtiar
- A list of human rights violations committed by Iran including the assassination and assassination attempt on Bakhtiar
- Article about Bakhtiar's role in the Islamic Revolution
[edit] Published works
- Memoirs of Shapour Bakhtiar, Harvard University Press, 1996 (edited by Habib Ladjevardi)
| Preceded by Gholam Reza Azhari |
Prime Minister of Iran 1979 |
Succeeded by Mehdi Bazargan |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bakhtiar, Shapour |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bakthiar, Shapur |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Iranian politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1914 or 1915 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 6, 1991 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Suresnes, France |
