NEW YORK ARTICLE 'THE SHAH'S SECRET POLICE ARE HERE'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R000600050015-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 15, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 24, 2004
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: September 18, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

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NEW YORK
ON PAGE 18 September 1978
By Gregory F. Rose'.
"...SAVAK agents operate with impunity in America, watching
and harassing Iranian dissidents and opponents of the regime...
.The sidewalk in front of the Iranian
Embassy looked like a cops' conven-
tion:. people from District of Columbia
Metropolitan Police, United States Park
Police, Federal Protection Service, Se-
cret Service-one moment talking, jok-
ing, the next glancing nervously down
Massachusetts. Avenue to the line of
Washington cops, three men deep, be-
tween them and the Iranian student
demonstrators. A SWAT team, in their
blue fatigues, lolled beside their van
across from the building that is Brazil's
consular annex.
"Shah is a U.S. puppet. Down with
the shah," 60 demonstrators chanted
with a rhythmic monotony. Less fierce
than weary from. their trek from La-
fayette Park to the. police line 500 feet
from the embassy, the only danger
afforded the massed officers was, per-
haps, sunstroke.
As the demonstration ended, the stu-
dents rolling up their banners for
another time and making their way in
Gregory F. Rose has written for Politics
Today and National Review. His novel,
Neither Fear Nor Courage. will be pub-
lished next year.
small clusters for home, the embassy - and its operations in the United State&
garrison relaxed.
Suddenly a blue, Checker-like sedan
-D.C. license DPL 4138-pulled from
Massachusetts Avenue into the embassy
drive. The doors swung open and four
men, one in a 'white suit, emerged. A
bodyguard scanned the street across
from the embassy and, seeing a photog-
rapher, grabbed the white-suited man,
whirling him around, his back to the
street. He moved quickly, back still to
the camera, from the drive to the am-
bassador's private entrance at the side
of the embassy residence. As he reached
the doorway, an Iranian emerged,
breathless, from the residence: They
conferred, the white-suited man. taking
a sheaf of papers from his briefcase. A
moment later, the second man dashed
for a waiting embassy car. With two
more steps the white-suited man was
in the residence. Moments later the
police supervisors arrived. They, too,
entered the residence through the am-,
bassador's private door.
The man in the white suit was Man-
sur Rafizadeh. As chief of station, he
heads SAVAK, the shah's secret police,
SAVAK-the Persian acronym for
the National Information and Security
Organization-has a sinister reputation.
International organizations, including
Amnesty International, have repeatedly
scored SAVAK for the repression and
even torture of dissidents in Iran. Some
knowledgeable Western observers have
gone so far as to claim that SAVAK
maintains greater control over the lives
of most Iranians than does the KGB
over citizens in the Soviet Union.
A pattern of SAVAK's torture and
execution of political prisoners, censor-
ship of the press, denial of dueprocess,
and surveillance of suspected oppo-
nents has been established by interna-
tional human-rights monitoring groups.
While the Iranian government asserts
that there are fewer than 1,000 politi-
cal prisoners in all Iran, SAVAK's
deputy director; Parviz Sabeti, has told
Western reporters that 1,000 political
prisoners are held in one prison alone,
just outside the city of Isfahan, and that
SAVAK maintains dozens of prisons
around the country. The best estimate
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of the number of officers and inform-
ants SAVAK maintains in Iran is 20,-
000. Sabeti would admit to 3,500 to
4,000; Prime Minister Hoveida claimed
2,500. The shah would admit to 1,500.
SAVAK's true strength, like 'the fate
of many of its prisoners, is a mystery.
Fora country in which the apparatus
0 The use of prostitutes and drugs
at parties attended by members of
Congress.
0 An extensive campaign of surveil-
lance and harassment of Iranian dissi-
dents and American opponents of the
shah in this country.
Many of these operations have been
of repression is so well developed, ,undertaken with the tacit approval of
tine opposition.
The opposition runs the gamut of
extreme left to extreme right, with the
majority falling in the camp of conser--
native Moslems disturbed by Shah Mo-
hammed Riza Pahievi's "White Revo-
lution," a complex of modernization
and economic-development measures
that has created serious social and
economic dislocation in Iran.
State Department experts have main-
tained in congressional testimony that
the Pahlevi dynasty could collapse
without the massive infusion of United
States military technology which a 25-
year relationship between the CIA-
Defense Department and the shah has
spawned. It is, in part, for. this rea-
son that the shah and his secret police
have shown considerable interest in the
opposition leaders and students in exile
in the United States, and that opposi-
tion figures have frequently alleged that
SAVAK has operated against them
within American borders.
Extensive investigation has disclosed
that SAVAK and its agents (known in
intelligence circles as "SAVAKs") are
operating with impunity in the United
States. Among the allegations are:
0 The payment of $1 million from
the shah's private Swiss bank account
by SAVAK to President Richard Nix-
on's Committee to Re-elect the Presi-
dent in early 1974.
Griffin Bell has since early this year
attempted to increase FBI attention to
violations of United.States. law by for-
eign intelligence services, they continue
with little effort by American authori-
ties to put a halt to them.
The Recruiting of
UhNilling Agents
Wallace' We turned. to the shah's
secret police force, his FBI and CIA
combined. They are called SAVAK, and
they have a reputation for brutality.
He acknowledged that he has SAVAK
agents on duty in the United States... .
And they are therefor the purpose of
checking tip on Iranian students?
Shah: Checking tip on anybody who
becomes affiliated with circles, organi-
zations hostile. to my country, which
is the role of any intelligence organi-
zation.
-"The Shah of Iran," 60 Minutes,
October 24, 1976
Ahmed looks older than his nearly
30 years. His forehead is deeply creased
and his hair, already thinning, has
begun to gray. His. eyes, moist `with
fear, scan the restaurant where we
meet. He has, good reason to be afraid:
He is one of hundreds of Iranians who
have spied for SAVAK on Iranians and
Americans alike in the United States,
and he, fears for his life if SAVAK
learns that. he has talked.
"I was recruited by SAVAK in Teh-
ran,". Ahmed begins, lighting another
cigarette from the one he just finished.
'.'I was arrested in a mosque for taking
a leaflet that criticized the shah. After
that, I lost my job. For months I would
be fired from a job days after I was
hired. No explanation was ever given.
I wanted to leave' the country, to come
to America to. find work, but they
wouldn't give me a passport. They
pointed to my record. I was practically
penniless. Finally, SAVAK called me
in and one of their officers said, 'You
want to go to America? Good. We will
see that you get to America. But you
must help us.' He told me that I must
spy on Iranian students in America. I
didn't have any choice. -
"When I got to America, I took a job
as a waiter in an expensive restaurant.
1. reported to Mansur Rafizadeh at the
embassy. Officially he works at the
United Nations, but he is really a pow-
erful SAVAK. When he wanted, to see
me, the embassy would call. A man
would only say,'Come to the embassy.'
And I would go." Ahmed can barely control his anger
when he speaks of Rafizadeh. "He is an
animal, a pig. He cares for nothing. 'I
have heard agents beg him to leave
them alone. They begged him and still
he made them work for him. Once I
knew a man and his wife who went to
the embassy to tell Rafizadeh that he
wouldn't work for him anymore. Rafi-
zadeh sent the man downstairs and
then tried to rape his wife..Rafizadeh
is an animal.. He dares for nothing."
. Ahmed was used primarily to inform
on Iranian students'groups opposed to
the shah. He reports a well-organized
campaign to infiltrate and disrupt these
organizations with a chilling sophisti.
cation. "It was my'duty to report-on
the student groups. SAVAK sometimes
told you what to say. They would give
you a line that you were to say only
after you heard another line said. It
was funny to be in the radical groups'
meetings. I remember one time I had
my line to say, after I heard someone
else say his. Suddenly, the worst anti.,
regime, radical, hot-tempered *Commu--
nist student stood up and shouted. And
I realized that he had said the line
I was waiting for. He was a SAVAK.
It took me totally by surprise."
Often, Ahmed relates, these pre-ar-
ranged scripts included provocations
aimed at inciting violence. SAVAK
would use any such violence to per-
suade local U.S. authorities to take
action against the student leaders.
At times, Ahmed was required to
travel to New York on SAVAK's orders.
"Once I was sent to New York to cover
a huge gathering of Iranian students.
I went with an Iranian woman from
San Francisco. She was a SAVAK
too. We flew to New York from Wash
in-ton and stayed there in a college
dormitory. We attended the meetings
all day, taking notes on who said what,
and reported in the evening to Rafi-
zadeh at a safe-house apartment in the
East Eighties. That night, some of the
students thought they recognized the
woman who had come with me. They
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found notes in her room. The whole
place went into a frenzy. 'Search every
room,' they shouted. I had to get to
my room quickly. My notes were hid-
den in my suitcase, and I had to get
to them before they did. I ran like
you couldn't believe and went into my
room and shut the door. I didn't know
what to do. I tried to sneak out, but
I heard them coming down the hall.
I finally burned my notes in an ash-
tray and scattered them on the rug.
Suddenly the students burst in. I didn't
have any notes, but they smelled the
smoke-there was a lot of it and were
suspicious. I tried to explain that I had
accidentally set the rug on fire with a
Security:
Farraneh sees
that SAVAK
operations stay
undercover.
cigarette. Just then some other students
caught the woman SAVAK. They ran
out of my room to question her. They
beat her badly. She was almost killed."
Ahmed's other targets included
United States government and business
figures who dined at the restaurants
where he worked. He reports a net-
work of Iranian waiters and restaurant
owners in Washington, D.C., who work
as SAVAK informers. "Every week a
SAVAK officer comes in and sits at
your table. He asks if you need any
money or other help. Then he asks if
you've overheard anything interesting.
Colonel Farivari runs this network. He
is a very big SAVAK at the embassy.
xrzrE~~'Ai~ts sera
Through various sources an inside view of SAVAK's spy
apparatus in the United States has been obtained. This in-
formation has been checked with former SAVAKs, well-
placed Western journalists, Senate Foreign Relations Com-
mittee staffers, and State Department and FBI sources.
Nothing has been included for which cross-confirmation
was not obtained.
SAVAK in the United States is headed by Mansur Rafi-
zadeh, officially an attache in the Iranian Mission to the
United Nations. Sources describe him as ruthless and cal-
culating, an operator who plays on his subordinates' fears
and vices to retain his grasp on SAVAK's network. Wary
of public exposure, Rafizadeh has been known to use a
double to attend many embassy functions.
Rafizadeh chairs SAVAK's Security Committee in the
United States, a body that sets priorities and supervises
operations throughout the country. Other members of this
Security Committee include Ahmad Moshavegh-Zade, a
political counselor of the embassy in D.C.; Mohammad
Farzaneh, an embassy attache; and Farouk Parsi and
Bahmen Esfandiri, both of the U.N. Mission.
At the Iranian Embassy in D.C. the SAVAK station is
organized into four sections: financial, press liaison and
dissident-groups surveillance, political liaison, and visa
clearance.
The financial section handles payments to SAVAK
agents and, sources allege, U.S. politicians, including some
members of Congress. It consists of Youssef Akbar, head
of the embassy's economic and petroleum section; Colonel
A. A. Farivari, who handles most payments to agents and
informants; and Malektaj Javan, an embassy secretary.
The press-liaison and dissident-groups-surveillance sec-
tion is responsible for monitoring the United States press
Visas: Kazemian
maintains a list
of Iran's friends
and enemies.
for any comment on Iran and keeping tabs on Iranian
dissidents, especially students, and American opponents of
the shah. This section is headed by Manoutchehr Ardalan,
press-and-information-affair counselor. He is assisted by
Nasrollah Soltani and Farhad Vakil.
Congress and the White House are the main targets of
the political-liaison section, headed by Nasser Ghoush-
beigui, a political counselor. Other targets include the De-
partments of Energy,Commerce, and the Treasury. Ghoush
beigui is assisted in these operations by Zahed Dadash-
Rashidi and Abdol K. Adibpour.
The visa-clearance section is headed by Dr. Gholam
Kazemian, the embassy's minister for cultural affairs.
Sources report that he retains a list of United States citi-
zens who are to be refused visas to Iran and Iranian
nationals whose passports are not to be renewed. When-
ever an American citizen requests a visa at the embassy
or one of the Iranian consulates, his or her name must
be checked again Kazemian's list. Kazemian is assisted by
Anoushirvan Ashraf, cultural-affairs counselor.
Each of the Iranian consulates has a SAVAK base,
controlled by the Security Committee.
At the consulate in New York, the SAVAK base
headed by Parsi and Esfandiri. Other SAVAKs staNcned
here are Zia Niaverani and Mokhtar Saed, both attached
to the U.N. Mission, and Mohammad-Reza Modjtahedza-
deh, a vice-consul.
In Houston, the Iranian consulate shelters SAVAK offi-
cers Hossein Haji-Jafari and Hamid Parviz, both vice-
consuls.
The consulate in Chicago is the base of operations for
SAVAKs Abbas Sharifi Tehrani and Mohammad Ali
Izadi-Seradj. -GFR
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He keeps files on Iranians in Washing-
ton."
SAVAK's attempts to recruit inform-
ants like Ahmed have often been di-
rected at Iranian students.already en-
rolled in American colleges. Between
22,000 and 50,000 Iranians attend U.S.
schools, and the shah's policy of heav-
ily endowing many of these institutions
has raised questions as to the degree to
which American universities have en-
tered into tacit agreements to police
Iranian students as a condition of fund-
ing. Published reports of the Reza Zan-
janifer case highlight the dangers of
collusion that these endowments pre=
sent.
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sident groups. A cable labeled "Top
Secret," signed by Deputy Sabeti, de-
clares: "You must intensify these dif-
ferences [between dissident student
groups] by all possible means with an
aim to provoking some severe actions
against each other." Another cable in-
structs all SAVAK bases to acquire
information on "demonstrations of dis-
sident Iranians, strikes, students' calls
to imperial embassies and consulates,
holding of meetings, publishing of pub-
lications, conventions and seminars,
and activities of pro-government stu-
dents." Reports were to be transmitted
by diplomatic courier to Tehran.
Professor Richard Cottam, an Ira-
nian specialist at the University of Pitts-
burgh and former foreign-service offi-
cer in Tehran, says of these docu-
ments, "Although they were, gathered
in Geneva, they bear markings which
indicate their applicability to all
SAVAK stations. Their authenticity is
unquestionable. '
Th
t
f SAVAK'
ill
e exten
o
s surve
ance ~r
and harassment operations in the United . Co esmen
States is suggested by a set of events
in upstate New York in late 1976.
Alerted to the purchase by Iranians
of farmland near Boonville, Iranian
dissidents went to the farm to find
what its owners called" the world's larg-
est dairy barn" under construction. The
purchasers of the farm, Mansur's Farms,
Inc., included Houshang Namvar Teh-
rani, identified as a New Jersey phar-
macist. Tehrani was also Mansur Rafi-
zadeh's brother-in-law. Reza Baraheni,
an Iranian dissident poet and novelist,
is said to have told U.S. Senate investi-
gators in April 1977 that he believed
Tehrani was one of the SAVAK in-
vestigators who tortured him in an
Iranian prison. Iranian dissidents as-
serted that SAVAK had purchased the
Boonville farm for a "torture cen-
ter" in the United' States. There was
no corroboration at the time for these
allegations.
Now, however, former SAVAKs and
United States government sources have
disclosed the story behind the Boon-
ville-farm affair. These sources report
that Tehrani bought the farm with
SAVAK money provided by Rafizadeh.
It was to have served as SAVAK's
U.S. Canadian operations center, hous-
ing computerized files on Iranians in
America and Iranians and American
opponents of the shah, as well as a
communications center to connect
SAVAK's bases with SAVAK head-
quarters in Tehran. Preliminary con-
tact was made with Rockwell Inter-
national to obtain electronic equipment.
critical to the facility (a Rockwell
spokesman refused comment). When
the farm's existence was reported. in
the press, Tehran vetoed the operation.
"Christ. if you think Koreagate's bad,
just hope they never start poking around
in Tehran."-
-House ethics-committee staffer
For months rumors of sex and opium
available to select VIP's at Ambassa-
dor Ardeshir Zahedi's Massachusetts
Avenue residence have bounced around
the Washington cocktail circuit. These
stories were attributed by many to
Zahedi's reputation as an international
swinger.
However, it has been learned that
many of these parties were in fact
organized by Manoutchehr Ardalan,
officially the embassy's press-and-in-
formation counselor, who has been
identified by numerous sources as a
senior officer of SAVAK's Washington
QQQT1$
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Zanjanifer. an otherwise apolitical
George Washington University student,
was photographed by SAVAK at his
first and only demonstration in March
1976. In August of that year, his faculty
adviser, Professor Philip D. Grub, an
American, informed Zanjanifer on be-
half of the Iranian Embassy that his
scholarship was being canceled. Grub's
role as embassy messenger was charac-
terized by university officials as "un-
heard of." However, as Ayramehr
professor of multinational manage-
ment, Grub owed his chair to the
shah's endowment and boasted of his
Iranian-cabinet connections.
Anonymous phone calls followed
cancellation of Zanjanifer's scholar-
ship. The callers said: "If you want
to be `forgiven,' write in detail the
names of your friends, any meetings
you may have gone to, the people you
saw there." Zanjanifer refused. The
calls continued.- "If you want your
scholarship reinstated, you must work
for SAVAK, you must infiltrate student
groups at GWU and report on them."
Again he refused. SAVAK tried to.
reach him three more times over the
next two months. Zanjanifer refused.
That SAVAK is actively recruiting
informants to compromise anti-regime
dissidents in the United States is a fact.
However, certain SAVAK documents
obtained by Iranian students occupying
the Iranian consulate in. Geneva point
to break-ins of dissidents' homes as
another universally applied SAVAK
technique.
One document, tagged "confidential,"
is a cable from SAVAK headquarters
to Geneva ordering:
Clandestine entries to opposition
homes should be preceded by an
operations plan (such as complete
information on the subject, loca-
tion of his or her residence, time
of his or her leaving home and
returning, emergency avenues of
exit in case of unpredictable inci-
dents, etc.). Please instruct your
officers that in any future case. of
clandestine entry of an opposition
residence, the full plan must be
forwarded to headquarters for ap-
proval.
It was signed by. Parviz Sabeti,
SAVAK's deputy director. and was
accompanied by two pages of de-
tailed instructions on copying keys
using a substance called "Plastilin,"
molding new keys, and various tools
for opening locks. This document con-
cluded, "If you send us pictures of
different locks and keys, or sample
keys, more guidance will be given."
These documents also corroborate
Ahmed's allegations about SAVAK's
Enterta
bimi ; Eey
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station. Other senior SAVAKs attended
these parties where, witnesses report,
members of Congress engaged in ac-
tivities which could well be character-
ized as seriously compromising.
"It was like something out of The
Arabian Nights," recalls a member of
the embassy's staff, witness to one such
party at the embassy residence in Oc-
tober 1977. "There would be caviar
in crystal bowls on the tables around
the room and wine and liquor. After
an hour or so of socializing, Zahedi
would call to his bodyguard, who
would bring out an opium pipe and
hashish. Everyone would sit on pillows
in a circle and pass the pipes around.
After a while, Zahedi would tell one
of the women there-they were mainly
prostitutes; Ardalan procured. them
but some of them were female embassy
employees-to dance. She would strip
in the center of the room while the
Iranians and their guests watched and
shouted obscenities. When she had fin.
ished, the men would fall on the
women and f - - k with them for the rest
of the night. Zahedi, is a man with-
out culture, without humanity."
Among the SAVAKs who attended
these orgies were Mansur Rafizadeh,
Manoutchehr Ardalan, Nasser Ghoush-
beigui, and Gholam Kazemian. A wit-
ness places an eastern senator and a
midwestern congressman as other par-
ticipants.
"At one of the parties I attended, I
saw Congressman X. He was the guest
of honor and sat next to Zahedi," this
source reports. "He didn't smoke the
opium, but he shared some hashish
with Zahedi's bodyguard. Zahedi pa-
raded the women in front of the con-
gressman and gave him the first choice.
He chose one of the Iranian woman.
I watched them have sex.
"At another party I saw Senator Y
smoke opium with Zahedi. Later in
the evening I saw him making love
with two of the prostitutes." The con-
gressman and the senator, for their
part, have both denied the allegations.
Other sources, independently ap-
proached, have confirmed this account.
A bizarre set of events occurred
while this article was being checked.
Two hours after this reporter spoke
to Congressman X, one of the sources
-an embassy officer-called the maga-
zine, said that the embassy was
aware of the story and that a senior
SAVAK officer had called an 8:30
meeting the following morning at the
embassy to deal with the situation.
The source begged this reporter never
to contact him again and hung up.
Other sources around SAVAK have
independently confirmed that SAVAK
informants were being asked if they
had. been contacted by this reporter.
A call to the senior SAVAK at 8:30 the
next morning revealed that he was in
a meeting and could not be disturbed.
One week later, Manoutchehr Arda-
lan-the SAVAK who is said to have
procured prostitutes for Congressman
X and Senator Y-was suddenly ap-
pointed consul general in San Fran.
cisco after five years at the Washington
embassy. A source close to Ardalan's
wife reports her saying, "This has
happened so fast we've had no time to
pack." Ten days later they were gone.
It is not possible to determine whether
the sudden transfer is directly connect-
ed to this magazine's investigation, but
such haste is not usual. '
The danger posed by alleged partici-
pation of members of Congress in these
Iranian Embassy sex-and-drug parties
is political rather than moral. At the
very least their activities open them to
compromise by SAVAK. The use of
sexual favors, entrapment; and black-
mail have been long favored by intelli-
gence services as means of recruiting
agents, especially agents of influence.
Both the senator and the congress-
man have been firm proponents of
Iranian-supported legislation, as their
voting records on the floor and in com-
mittee show. It is reasonable to ques-
tion whether a relationship can be in-
ferred from their participation in these
parties and their voting records on mat-
ters dear to SAVAK and the shah.
However, evidence of graver SAVAK
tampering with the American political
process has been obtained-evidence
which points to the buying of the sup?
port of a president of the United States
by the shah and his secret police.
In early 1974 a SAVAK operation
transported $1 million from the shah's
private Swiss bank account to the
Committee to Re-elect the President-
Nixon-via a Mexico City bank. A
telegram from Geneva banking sources
confirms that this transfer from Geneva
to Mexico City occurred.
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A participant described the opera- ton Jr., assistant secretary of state for
tion this way: Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs,
,,In February or March 1974, a mil- paid a visit to Ambassador Zahedi to
lion dollars was transferred from the
shah's account at the Schweizerische
Bankgesellschaft to the Banco de
Londres y Mexico in Mexico City.
[Iranian] Ambassador Amir-Aslan Af-
shar, who was then ambassador to
Mexico as well as the United States,
went down to pick it up. A mem-
ber of his staff who accompanied
him brought the money up to the
embassy in Washington in the dip-
lomatic pouch. Afshar counted the
money himself in his office and then
put it in a suitcase. He and his body-
guard drove to the Committee to Re-
elect the President and gave it to offi-
cials. I don't know precisely who."
A witness reports that when Ambas-
sador Afshar recounted this story to a
group of Iranians at the embassy, he
added, tellingly, "Now we own Nixon."
;T A Special
T_ he (
ANOM
relationship
"We do not 'make agreements for
their [SAVAK's] activities in our coun-
try."
-CIA Director Stansfield Turner,
March 9, 1977
"There is a tacit agreement between
our ttvo governments about our opera-
Lions here and yours in my country. On
the basis of a 1959 bilateral security
agreement between Iran and the United
States, we are obligated to. exchange
information regarding the national se-
curity interests of both parties. .
Your CIA has been very helpful in
these matters."
-Manoutchehr Ardalan, Iranian
Embassy press-and-information
counselor, July 26, 1978
The shah's matter-of-fact admission
to Mike Wallace in October of 1976
that SAVAK operates. in the United
States with the. knowledge and con-
sent of the United States government
touched off a controversy which left a
secretary of state, a State Department
spokesman, and a director of the CIA
looking very much like liars.
At an October 27 press conference,
a grave Henry Kissinger, then secre-
tary of state, responded, "It is not
correct that the United States is aware
of the fact that Iranian intelligence
personnel are checking on individuals
living in the United States or keeping
them under surveillance." He an-
nounced that a State Department in-
vestigation of Iranian activities would
be undertaken.
Twelve days later, Alfred L. Ather-
inform Zahedi that the United States
would tolerate no illegal activities by
SAVAKs in the United States. A State
Department spokesman reported the
next day that no evidence had been
found to confirm "allegations of any
illegal or improper activity and the
Iranian embassy has assured.us that
none of its officials are committing
any such activities." Official explana-
tion: The shah had made a mistake.
Case closed.
While a request under the Freedom
of Information Act for a copy of the
Kissinger report was denied by State
Department officials, new documentary
evidence of State Department and other
United States-agency collusion with
the Iranian government in an opera-
tion against a United States citizen was
obtained.
. Nasser Afshar, a United States citi-
zen since the early 1950s, is an Iranian
dissident, the publisher of the Iran Free
Press. Documents he has won.through
a Freedom of Information Act suit es-
tablish State Department cooperation
with SAVAK at the time Henry Kis-
singer was secretary of state.
One document labeled "confiden-
tial" is a cable from the United States
Embassy in Tehran to the secretary
of state, dated May 1973, three years
prior to Kissinger's denial. It requests
further information for transmission to
the Iranian government on the issu-
ance of a passport to Afshar. Four
paragraphs of the cable were deleted.
The remainder reads:
5. DCM [deputy chief of mission]
said .that embassy was generally
aware of Afshar's activities in
U.S., including Iran Free Press,
and agreed that Afshar's perform-
ance was scandalous and his ef-
forts to mount. anti-Iranian cam-
paign in U.S.. extremely unfortu-
nate. In fact in last two years em-
bassy had several times raised
with Department question whether
Iran Free Press could be closed
down.. Matter had been carefully
studied but lawyers had concluded
that under U.S. laws there was
regrettably no basis for such ac-
tion. As for U.S. passport, embas-
sy was not informed on this as-
pect of case and would ask De-
partment for full report.
6. FYI embassy files include
message (Tehran 2932, Jan. 19.
1967) indicating Afshar had U.S.
passport in 1967. End FYI.
7. Comment: In dredging un
this case it occurs to us that GOT
[government of Iran] is putting
us on notice and indirectly sug-
gesting that we tidy up as much
as possible anti-Shah elements in
U.S. to reduce or avoid untoward
incidents or anti-Shah demonstra=tions during his forthcoming visit
to U.S.
. 8. Action requested: All rele-
vant information on circumstances
leading to issuance of U.S. pass-
port to Afshar which we can pass
to GOI.
The document was sent by Richard
Helms, the U.S. ambassador and for-
mer CIA director.
The involvement of other agencies
is suggested by the routing instructions
which appear at the top of the cable.
Copies were sent to the CIA, Depart-
ment of Defense, National Security
Agency, the United States Informa-
tion Agency, and the National Security
Council.
Sources report that this "special re-
lationship" between U.S. government
agencies and SAVAK continues to the
present. Nowhere is this better illus-
trated than in the CIA's continuing
liaison with the Iranian service.
Since SAVAK's inception in 1956,
the CIA has trained, equipped, and
advised SAVAK officers.
A State Departtnritj:spokesman con-
firmed that 175 SAVAKs are current-
ly undergoing training at the CIA's
McLean, Virginia, facilities. This is
down from the last five years' average
of 400 per year. CIA officials refused
to comment.
Some ' sensitivity to the dangers
SAVAK . operations in the United States.
present can be found in the Depart-
ment of Justice. Senior Justice aides
report that Attorney General Griffin
Bell, early this year, gave orders to the
FBI to investigate activities of so-called
"friendly intelligence services" in the
? United States. An investigation of alle-
gations that the Iranian Embassy pro-
vided plane tickets and hotel rooms
for pro-shah demonstrators in Wash-
ington in November 1977 is under way.
If the allegations are true. the activity
would be prosecutable under the For-
eign Agents Registration Act. ..
Approved For Release 2004/07/08 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R000600050015-5 CO.iTIx13ED
 Approved For Release 2004/07/08 : CIA-RDP81 M00980R000600050015-5
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