Hassan Ali Mansur

Hassan Ali Mansur - Prime Minister of Iran, 1964

Hassan Ali Mansur ( Persian حسنعلی منصور, also Hasan Ali Mansour ; * April 1923 in Tehran ; † January 27, 1965 ) was Prime Minister of Iran from 1964 to 1965 . He took office at the time of Mohammad Reza Shah's White Revolution and was murdered on January 27, 1965 by a member of the Fedayeen Islam .

Life

Hassan Ali was born in Tehran in April 1923 as the son of Prime Minister Rajab Ali Mansur (Mansour-al-Molk) and his wife Zahir-ol-Molk Raiss. He attended school in Tehran and graduated from Firooz-Bahram School . During the Second World War he studied law and political science at the University of Tehran and graduated with a degree in political science .

He began his career after the Second World War as an official in the State Department. Together with Amir Abbas Hoveyda , Mansur worked in the newly established Iranian embassy in Germany. The embassy was located in Stuttgart in the American zone. In Germany, Mansur became friends with the then High Commissioner John McCloy .

At the age of 30 he became head of the Prime Minister's office. In 1957 Mansur was appointed by Prime Minister Manutschehr Eghbal as chairman of the economic committee and deputy prime minister. Then Mansur became Minister of Labor and Minister of Economics. Under Prime Minister Asadollah Alam , Mansur took over the chairmanship of the state health insurance of Iran ( Bimeh Iran ).

Hassan Ali Mansur founded the “Progressive Party” ( Kanoon Motaraghion ) as a political platform . In 1962, Mansur applied for a seat in parliament and was elected as a member of the Tehran District. Mansur formed a coalition with other MPs and founded the “ New Iran ” ( Iran Novin ) party.

After the resignation of the incumbent Prime Minister Alam in 1964, Mohammad Reza Shah Hassan Ali Mansur proposed to parliament as the new Prime Minister. With Hassan Ali Mansur, a new generation of politicians had taken power in Iran. Mohammad Reza Shah was 44 and his new prime minister was 40 years old. Together they wanted to lead Iran into a new era. With Mansur took Amir Abbas Hoveyda , Jamshid Amusegar , Ataollah Chosravani, Dr. Nahavandi, Alinaghi Alichani and Manutschehr Rohani political responsibility. Since most of his ministers had studied in the United States, it was only natural to expand cooperation with the United States. In addition, a young politician, President Kennedy, had also come to power in the USA, so that understanding between the USA and Iran should have been without problems.

Mohammad Reza Shah had developed the basic features of the White Revolution , and Hassan Ali Mansur was to implement them with the help of American advisors. However, the US refused to send advisors to Iran until the Status of Forces Agreement negotiated with the previous government had been adopted. In this agreement, the US had enforced that the advisors and their family members enjoyed diplomatic immunity. In doing so, the Americans had demanded a regulation from Iran, as they had enforced under the Qajars Russia and Great Britain for their citizens and which had only been abolished under Reza Shah . The Status of Forces Agreement was upheld by parliament , but Mansur and the Shah were to pay a heavy price for it.

The sharpest critic of the Agreement was Ayatollah Khomeini . Khomeini criticized the Shah and accused the US and Israel of wanting to "enslave" Iran. In June 1963, Khomeini was arrested for speaking out against reforms of the White Revolution . At that time, Seyyed Kazem Schariatmadari , the highest-ranking clergyman in Iran, mediated the dispute. The first thing he did was appoint Khomeini an ayatollah to save him from a possible death sentence. Then he pleaded with the Shah, promising to see that Khomeini would hold back politically from now on, to secure his release. Mansur also tried to convince the Shah that it was better to set Khomeini free than to make a martyr out of him. Khomeini was released, but continued his radical criticism of the government unabated.

Mansur decided that it was enough now and that Khomeini would have to leave Iran after his speech against the Status of Forces agreement. On November 4, 1964, after his arrest, Khomeini was taken to Mehrabad Airport and deported to Turkey. The wrong decision not to bring Khomeini to justice cost Mansur his life and fourteen years later the Shah lost his throne. The inexorable rise of Ayatollah Khomeini had begun.

Hassan Ali Mansur was briefly engaged to Nuschin Teymurtash, but then married Fariedeh Emami, a granddaughter of Hassan Vosough and niece of Ahmad Qavam . The marriage produced a son. Fariedeh's sister Leyla Ememi married the future Prime Minister Amir Abbas Hoveyda .

assassination

On January 22, 1965, a few days before the second anniversary of the White Revolution, the Mansur car stopped in front of the parliament building at around 10 a.m. Mansur wanted to deliver his first State of the Union address to parliament. Mansur got out of the car and Mohammad Bocharai, a member of the Fedayeen-e Islam , stepped up to Mansur from the crowd of waiting spectators and shot three times. Mansur was put back in the car and driven to the hospital, where he died five days later. Mohammad Reza Shah appointed Mansur's close confidante Amir Abbas Hoveyda as acting prime minister pending his approval by parliament. Hoveyda would remain Prime Minister for the next 13 years.

The Fedajin-e Islam had murdered Prime Minister Ali Razmara a few years earlier . At that time it was about the nationalization of the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company . As with the murder of Razmara, this time too the client was to be found in the conservative clergy. Khomeini was an avowed opponent of the White Revolution promoted by Mansur. The later President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Akbar Hāschemi Rafsanjāni later admitted that he and others had given orders to assassinate Mansur. He got hold of the pistol that was used in Mansur's murder. To prove it, he presented the pistol he had taken as a personal memento .

Mansur was buried in Shah-Abdol-Azim near the mausoleum of Reza Shah . An eternal flame burned on his grave.

After the Islamic Revolution, the tomb was broken open and the remains of Mansur "scattered" on behalf of Ayatollah Sadegh Chalkhali . The grave monument has now been completely removed.

literature

• Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. The men and women who made modern Iran, 1941–1979. Volume 1. Syracus University Press et al. a., Syracus NY et al. a. 2008, ISBN 978-0-8156-0907-0 , pp. 229-235.

See also

• Assassination attempt on Ahmad Kasravi
• Assassination attempt on Ali Razmara
• Assassinations of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi