Hussein Fardust

Hossein Fardust

Hossein Fardust ( Persian حسین فردوست; * 1917 in Tehran ; † 1987 ) was a close personal friend and confidante of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , deputy director of SAVAK and head of the Imperial Inspectorate Organization . After the Islamic Revolution , he was commissioned by the Revolutionary Council to set up the successor organization to the SAVAK, the SAVAMA, later renamed VEVAK , and to act as its first director.

Life

Hossein was born in 1917 to a lieutenant in the Iranian army. At the age of eight he attended elementary school that prepared military children for a later career in the army. When Reza Shah decided to set up a school class on the palace grounds, which his son Mohammad Reza should also attend, Hossein Fardust was chosen as one of Mohammad Reza's classmates. Mohammad Reza and Hossein quickly became friends, and from 1931 Hossein Fardust, a close school friend of the young prince, attended the Swiss boarding school Le Rosey together with Mohammad Reza . The farm took over the school fees and all other expenses. After five years, Hossein and Mohammad Reza returned to Iran.

After his return to Iran, Hossein Fardust enrolled in the officers' academy of the Iranian army and again attended the same class as Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Hossein Fardust's life changed completely when Mohammad Reza Pahlavi succeeded his father as Shah. As Mohammad Reza later confirmed, Hossein Fardust enjoyed his complete confidence . He acquired his current position solely through his services.

When Mohammad Mossadegh became Prime Minister of Iran in 1951 , Hossein Fardust was one of the first to be forced to leave Iran on Mossadegh's orders. He went to Paris and began studying law. In Paris, Fardust turned to an Iranian carpet dealer named Saberi to borrow money for his further stay in France. Saberi was considered a point of contact for Iranians stranded in France and helped generously with money. Fardust also lent money to Saberi and made friends with him. As it turned out later, Saberi worked for the Soviet secret service KGB . If it is true that Hossein Fardust later worked for the KGB, it was probably Saberi who recruited him.

After the fall of Mossadegh, Fardust returned to Iran and resumed his position as confidante of the Shah. Prime Minister Fazlollah Zahedi received a credible report from the Iranian military intelligence service that Fardust was working with foreign intelligence agencies. Zahedi presented the report to the Shah, who angrily rejected it and complained that the government would not even allow him a single personal friend.

When SAVAK was founded in 1957, Hossein Fardust became head of the coordination office of the Iranian intelligence services ( Daftār-e Vijeh (special office)). All secret reports were received in this office and were evaluated and summarized by Fardust for the Shah. From the coordination office, another control office developed later, the Imperial Inspectorate Organization , an organization with almost 200 employees, which was only accountable to the Shah and which had the option of obtaining all documents and information about each person. Fardust held this position until the overthrow of the Shah.

Until the mid-1970s, Fardust met the Shah daily to inform him personally about the most important details of the intelligence reports. It is still unclear why Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi no longer wanted to receive Hossein Fardust in person two to three years before his fall. Fardust kept his position, but was now forced to submit daily written reports to the Shah. The personal friendship that had linked Mohammad Reza and Hossein for so many years was visibly broken. Some of the most important generals in the Iranian army worked for some time under the leadership of Hossein Fardust in Daftār-e Vijeh , including General Abbas Garabagi , who was the chief commander of the Iranian armed forces when the Shah left Iran in January 1979 and the contributed to the success of the revolution with his decision not to continue to support the last Prime Minister, Shapur Bakhtiar , who was proposed by the Shah and confirmed by parliament, against Prime Minister Mehdi Bāzargān , who was appointed by Khomeini in parallel to Bakhtiar . Fardust obviously used the last years of his office to forge close ties with generals in the Iranian armed forces who were critical of the Shah and who were to play a decisive role in the dissolution of the old power structures of the constitutional monarchy of Iran in the first phase of the Islamic Revolution . The mere fact that Generals Hossein Fardust and Abbas Garabagi survived the Islamic Revolution unscathed, even though they had worked with the Shah for many years, is seen by many as evidence of their involvement in the Islamic Revolution. When protests against the Shah intensified in 1978 and Fardust was approached by officers and politicians to finally do something to stop Khomeini, Fardust declared: It is completely useless to do anything now. The Shah was guilty of breaking justice and law a long time ago. It is high time he paid the price.

Colonel-General Fardust survived the overthrow of the Shah - his capital transfer abroad amounted to only 12 million DM by the end of 1978 - by contacting the Revolutionary Council in good time and being recruited. Until 1985 he found the grace of Khomeini . Fardust Khomeini is said to have warned of attacks once or twice, thereby saving his life. A connection to Moscow, allegedly on the KGB payroll , meant the end of his career. In 1987 he allegedly died of heart failure.

literature

• The Rise and Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty: Memoirs of Former General Hossein Fardust. Motilal Banarsidass. India (Dec 1998). - ISBN 978-81-208-1642-8 .
• Gérard de Villiers : The Shah. 1975, ISBN 3-453-00632-1 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 441.
2. ^ Gérard de Villiers: The Shah. 1975, p. 438.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 442.
4. ^ Gérard de Villiers: The Shah. 1975, p. 420.
5. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 444.
6. ^ Ulrich Tilgner : Upheaval in Iran. 1979, p. 178.