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FASCliiT, i Editor's Note: Here, The Spectrum unveils its newest feature: a section that in some ways is a real departure from our standard fare and in other ways fils snugly within oligarchy have grown too far from the American people; that ive know very lilt If about how our political and economic systems actually work: and that the media, as institution and oligarchy, is not telling us what we need to know to make intelligent, informed lodgements about our our writers a chance to lurch out into new territory. And it gives you, the readers, more oj what we hope you look for in The Spectrum, a different, hut informed perspective on issues that matter. 5 f veteran staff writer Charles Haviland traces jg the chilling of the divestiture movement on & college campuses, placing it in the < historical context of student movements in this country. «_ what we have been attempting to do this year. EASCINATION will be a weekly section devoted to national issues. When we say devoted, we do not mean blanket ■Vovi then, for this week. Below is a piece hy new National Editor Rob Cohen analyzing the turmoil in Iran and the . I mcrican handling t rom lime to time, articles from Pacific News Service on national topics will appear in TASCINATION. The service stems to share our perspective on America and its reporting has relentlessly at lacked media breaking news. Rather, we art lives. This perspective, which is a great portion of what The Spectrum is all about, will he visible and active. It will not he coverage tiling at issues that may have been largely I it noth in ignorei iv I e national media (sometimes cloaked in clever phrasing or beaten from Washington and in the Media. Of special note here is the twisted view of reality the the media will, itself be at issue): issues our prose by rigid conformity to style. And American press has relied on in reporting about the Shah. The New York Times is not God. we keep finding out. On the following page. Managing Editor Denise Stumpo continues her pursuit of the larger truth in Nuclear Tower, explaining that the nuclear reactor industry is now virtually at a standstill in the United Stales. An editorial acompanies that piece. Finally, myths about topics oj true significance in this country and abroad. hat have rea, msequence (at the expense more importantly, it is a perspective that the reader cannot ignore, but must adopt or challenge. In the process, he will add to his understanding, regardless of whether he has altered his views. And hopefully, we will sec articles from you, the reader. Rob Cohen will always be looking for material and we welcome anyone who wants to take a shot at perhaps. their sensational valm ssues that we can tackle with some degret and sophistication. The goal of FASCINATION, is to provide readers with another perspective: a perspective routed in the belief that government institutions and corporate political analysis or social commentary to contact him at 831-5455. An active FASCINATION gives us a chance to editorialize on national topics in the place where national topics are displayed It gives newspaper needs an active readership JR Consider it. ‘Mohammed Riza Pahlevi, the Shah of Iran’ is gone for the second time in 25 years, but unlike his first departure of three days this one seems permanent. For months the world watched, mouths agape, as mass demonstrations and strikes plunged the country into near anarchy, leaving 3000 or more dead in the streets, shot down in confrontations with the Shah’s troops. But tear gas and bullets would not quell the popular insurrection. With each massacre, millions more \v Shah of Iran to be on extended vacation under sunny skies of Southern California ' * , * ' '-fWL poured into the gutter — more determined than ever to topple the hated monarchy from his throne ’ by Robbie Cohen National Editor Reducing the anti-Shah movement to conservative opposition to the Shah’s dubious modernization drive might make for a neat the tyrant’s downfall but it’s totally misleading. Proclaimed in 1963, the modernization drive purported to redistribute private and church-owned lands into the hands of Iran’s impoverished peasant population, grant social equality to women' by allowing them admission to universities and no longer requiring them to wear the ubiquitous veil of traditional Moslem societies like Saudi Arabia, and finally to initiate an ambitious industrialization program that would tap Western industrial expertise. With the billions of dollars in Iranian oil renevues the Shah had grandeoise visions of making his country an advanced industrialized nation force in the world power equation. After a lull of two milleniums Persia would rise once again as a world military power armed to the teeth with highly sophisticated advanced technology weapons of largely American make. demonstrators marching in Iranian cities. American policy regarding Iran has been one of unremitting support for the Shah. Only at the eleventh hour when the situation was hopeless did the U.S. advise the/ Shah to leave, calling for all elements to support the regency government of former opposition figure Prime Minister Shahpour Bahktiar. By that time the decision was but all made up for the embattled monarch. Sunny Southern California beckons many from colder and more inclement climes at this time of year. From all over the nation and even points overseas, sun-starved vacationers hit the surf beaten beaches: making jaunts to Hollywood or Disneyland. To he sure, the steep decline in the price of airline tickets over the last year has made it possible for many to get to the West Coast. But one well-heeled vacationer, who’ll be arriving at the Palm Springs estate of media multi-millionaire Waller Anneneberg soon for an extended vacation, needn't give a whit about reduced airline fares, nor docs he have to worry his head oyer hotel accommodations or any other bothersome details. You see, this man firmly believes in traveling first class, whether it’s taking a ski vacation in the Alps or making a quick exit from the land he ruled with an iron fist for three decades. The exceedingly comfortable life that this Near Eastern potentate has led up until recently in his,native Tehran is not about to be abandoned now, despite the fact that he has been chased from his throne and country by a mass movement, probably never to return. Considering the vital geo-political importance of Iran, American policy regarding the Shah is to be expected. The Shah upheld American interests in a strategic region, one that borders on the Soviet Union and presides over the political powder keg that is the Middle East. With the world’s largest oil producer securely in the Western camp, nations like Israel and South Africa, which up until now received most of their oil from Iran, could breathe easier. Oil shipments to South Africa and Israel have been cut off in the wake of the crippling nationwide strikes that, among other things, have reduced Iranian oil output to half the country's domestic needs. The shipments are not likely to resume when the country returns to normalcy; especially if Ayotollah Khomeni, the dominant opposition religious leader, is successful in installing his government at the helm. Most of the nation regards these ’shipments as an unconscionable outrage. No trickle And this is exactly where the Shah’s petrodollars went - to the purchase of American F-15 air superiority jet fighers, massive British Chieftain tanks, advanced troop carrying French hydrofoils and an endless shopping list of other assorted weapons. Meanwhile, except for a small body of elite and a middle class that numbered maybe in the hundreds of thousands out of a country of 30 million, none of this new prosperity trickled down to the masses. Of course, the widespread corruption that ran rampant around the Shah, involving bribes and extortions by royal officials and high military officers that ran into many millions, was not of benefit to the average peasant either. There was a land redistribution program but by and large the lands redistributed went to industrial concerns, many of them American and members of the royal entourage. With the debacle of 1953 in mind, the Shah, with CIA help, created a ruthless secret police, SAVAK, that quashed all political dissent - communist, socialist and liberal — becoming the envy of totalitarian regimes the world over. ‘ . Mohammed Riza Pahlevi, the Shah of Iran, is gone for the second time in 25 years, but unlike his first departure of three days - following the popular uprising of 1953 led by the venerable national figure the late Prime Minister Mossadeq - this one seems permanent. For months the world watched, mouths agape, as mass demonstrations and Strikes plunged the country into near anarchy, leaving 3000 or more dead in the streets, shot down in confrontations with the Shah’s troops. But tear gas and bullets would not quell the popular insurrection. With each massacre, millions more poured into the gutter — more determined than ever to topple the hated monarch from his throne. Obviously American interests are in severe jeopardy. The fast moving developments have forced a major revision in the State Department Iranian stand. While we were once one thousand per cent behind the Shah, now we’ll support any non-communist regime and of course that heading includes the Ayotollah. The change in attitude is also reflected in the more, objective news reporting of the Iranian crisis, although the supposedly liberal New Republic for one feels that the Shah’s totalitarian paternalism is preferable to a government of fanatic Moslem traditionalists. Although it has been excruciatingly slow in coming, the American news media has belatedly recognized that the anti-Shah forces are not a diabolical cabal of communists, communist sympathizers and fanatics. American news accounts of the Iranian turmoil over the last year have been hopelessly naive and unobjective, a fact well documented in an incisive article by William A. Dorfman and Hhsan Ommed in the current issue of The Columbia Journalism Review. The authors point out that American reportage of the Iranian crisis was, and to a large extent still is, markedly slanted in the Shah’s favor. Learning lessons In a larger sense the Iranian crisis demonstrates that America has still not learned the lessons of Vietnam. Failing to perceiveUhe deep seated domestic unrest, we backed a despotic ruler, essentially to further our strategic interests in the Persian Gulf. As in Vietnam, the American media largely went along with this sham, misleading the American people on the nature of the crisis. Now it seems the crisis is not as grave as it was only a month ago. The alarms of the installment of a pro-Soviet Iranian regime appear totally unfounded. The opposition forces are just as hostile toward the Russians as they as to American “imperialism” — perhaps even more so. Now that U.S. foreign policy makers have come around to that realization, the situation horror or Iran doesn’t seem so horrible. Weak opposition When the Shah’s modernization program is put into its larger context it becomes cleat what it actually means. When Americans read that the Shah is for modernization, they reasoned that the monarch was a progressive innovator battling against the dark forces of reaction, for American prejudice regards Eastern traditionalism with fear and suspicion;, the twin vanguards of modernization and industrialization can only come to good. The wrenching Iranian turmoil took the U.S. by surprise. CIA reports did not so much as apprise the chances of the Shah being ousted; according to the intelligence experts he was respected and loved by his people. The opposition was weak, fragmented and without a grassroots base. Subsequent events have proved how far off the mark these naive assessments were. The Shah’s opposition is broad based, a coalition of workers, peasants, religious leaders, technocrats, the middle class and even soldiers in the largely loyal army. On several occasions over the last few months, soldiers refused orders to fire upon Torture and jailing A consistent refrain of newspaper and television accounts is that the Shah is in trouble because reactionary forces, largely the Shi’ite clergy (the majority Iranian Moslem sect) are utterly opposed to his vaunted modernization drive. Almost as an afterthought, these accounts add that the Shah’s arbitrary and despotic rule, characterized by the wide use of torture and the jailing of thousands of political prisoners, was a constant source of outrage to the people. Right now the Shah is travelling in Egypt and Morrocco visiting friends Anwar Sadat and King Hassan. Within the next few weeks he will be visiting his best friend, the U.S. The Shah is sure to be greeted by the rancor of anti-Shah Iranian demonstrators demanding that the Shah be put on trial for State crimes. Crimes of state or no. he’ll probably be here to stay.
