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The Shah, the Islamic Revolution and the United States pp 195–206Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Abadan File

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Abstract

The cataclysmic arson in Abadan in August 1978 that killed more than 400 people is examined in all its aspects. The crime was part of the strategy of destabilization plotted by a pro-Khomeini cell in Abadan in liaison with the society of Qom seminary teachers. The perpetrators managed to throw the onus of the crime onto the Shah, who failed to rise to the occasion to change the revolutionary tide. The bulk of opinion in Iran as well as abroad fell for a cover-up scheme hatched by radical clerics. Moderate Qom ulama wished to keep the image of the clergy immaculate, hence not keen to encourage indepth inquests. The overriding factor in the conduct of the Shah and his new prime minister was to avoid alienating the top Qom ulama presumed able to help the regime out of the wider crisis.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Report by forensic team in Ettela’at, 5 Shahrivar 1357/August 27, 1978.

  2. 2.

    Figures range from 417 (Nahavandi and Bomati, Le dernier Shah, 460) to 430 by the American Embassy (cable, 08012, August 22, 1978 DNSA), to 470 (Sabeti/Qanee-Fard, 432); the Abadan cemetery officials have gone as far 600.

  3. 3.

    Names and dates in Agheli, Roozshomar, 2.228–32, 2.282.

  4. 4.

    Daryoush Homayoon, dirooz va farda, 63; Gholam-Reza Afkhami, The Life and the Times of the Shah, 458; Parham and Taubmann, Histoire Secrète, 260; Mohsen Rezaei (IRGC commander-in-chief 1981–86), quoted, “Some fifty cinemas were burned in revolutionary zeal”, in Nahavandi and Bomati, Le dernier Shah, 470–1.

  5. 5.

    Agheli, Roozshomar, 2.354; Cinema Arya in Mashhad, reported in US Embassy cable 07900, August 20, 1978 DNSA.

  6. 6.

    Daryoush Homayoon, dirooz va farda, 65; Kayhan, 28 Mordad, 1357/19 August, 1978.

  7. 7.

    Minou Reeves (a personal aide to Queen Farah) in James Buchan, Days of God, 162–3.

  8. 8.

    Queen Farah, An Enduring Love, 280–1; Afkhami, Life and Times of the Shah, 459; Nahavandi and Bomati, Le dernier Shah, 469.

  9. 9.

    Photocopy and contents of the handwritten tract in Enqelab Eslami [in Exile], Paris, parts II–III.

  10. 10.

    Statement of August 22, 1978 by Ayatollah Khomeini in Sahifeh Emam (Nur), vol. III, in Khomeini’s official Jamaran website https://www.jamaran.ir/; Shayda Nabavi, “Abadan 28 Mordad 1357, Cinema Rex”. Chashm’andaz Quarterly, no. 20 (1378/1999), 163. Reprint in http://www.gozargah.com/wp-content/themes/gozargah/library/cinema-rex.pdf.\; Agheli, Roozshomar, 2.354.

  11. 11.

    Agheli, Roozshomar, 2–355; Buchan, Days of God, 163.

  12. 12.

    Parham and Taubmann, Histoire Secrète, 261; Mehdi Bazargan, enqelab Iran dar do harakat 14; “Mosabbebin’e Vaqeei fajeeh’e cinema rex che kesani hastand?” [Who were the real perpetrators of Rex Cinema tragedy?], Enqelab Eslami Daily (Paris) (27 September–11 October 1985), in Enqelab Eslami [in Exile], Paris, part II, https://www.enghelabe-eslami.com/uncategorised-publisher/21-didgagha/tarikhi/3453-2013-08-17-15-10-48.html.

  13. 13.

    « La rumeur d’Abadan », Libération, August 22, 1978.

  14. 14.

    Ettela’at, 1, 6 Sharivar 1357/ August23–28, 1978.

  15. 15.

    Ettela’at, 7 Sharivar 1357/August 29, 1978.

  16. 16.

    Agheli, Roozshomar, 2.354.

  17. 17.

    Pahlavi, Réponse à l’Histoire, 233.

  18. 18.

    Homayoon, dirouz va farda, in http://bonyadhomayoun.com/?cat=55; Nahavandi and Bomati, Le Dernier Shah, 469; Sabeti/Qanee-Fard, 434; Afkhami, The Life and the Times of the Shah, 459.

  19. 19.

    His name was given as Abdolreza Ashur; see Sabeti/Qanee-Fard, 434; Nahavandi and Bomati, Le dernier Shah, 470; Homayoon, dirouz va farda, 65; for the opposite opinion, see ‘Mosabbebin’e vaqe’ei”, Engelab-Eslami, Paris, part VII.

  20. 20.

    Nabavi, “Abadan 28 Mordad 1357, Cinema Rex”.

  21. 21.

    Enqlelab Eslami [in Exile], “Mosabbebin”, part V; Chubineh, Posht Pardeh’hay’e Enqelab Eslami, 83; Sheyda Nabavi, “Abadan 28 Mordad 1357, Cinema Rex”.

  22. 22.

    Nabavi, “Abadan 28 Mordad 1357, Cinema Rex”; Ebrahim Zadeh, Tarikh’e Irani.

  23. 23.

    Court proceeding in Nabavi, “Abadan 28 Mordad 1357, Cinema Rex”.

  24. 24.

    Text of the Takbalizadeh letter and response by Imam’s office in Enqelab Eslami [in Exile], “Mosabbebin”, part VI; Nabavi, “Abadan 28 Mordad 1357, Cinema Rex”.

  25. 25.

    Ibid.

  26. 26.

    Nabavi, “Abadan 28 Mordad 1357, Cinema Rex”.

  27. 27.

    Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Mousavi-Tabrizi, Tarikh’e Irani oral history interview with Sergey Barqasian, 5 Shahrivar 1391/August 26, 2012.

  28. 28.

    Ibid.; Buchan, Days of God, 161; Farzaneh Ebrahim Zadeh, Tarikh’e Irani, 12 Shahrivar 1391/September 2, 2012. [To be noted that later in the trial, Takbalizadeh changed his version, claiming that the incendiary substance was high octane gasoline, an unlikely choice in view of the odor from the substance that would have instantly alerted the cinema crowd.]

  29. 29.

    Takbalizadeh trial confessions in Ettela’at, 6 shahrivar 1359/August 28, 1980.

  30. 30.

    Enqelab Eslami [in Exile], “Mosabbebin”, parts V and IX.

  31. 31.

    A leaked account of the events by an informed insider was first published in 1964 in Enqelab Eslami (published by the former president of the Islamic Republic in exile in Paris) under the title “Mosabbebin’e Vaqeei fajeeh’e cinema rex che kesani hastand?” [Who were the real perpetrators of Rex Cinema tragedy?]. The piece was digitalized in 2013 and published in nine parts, https://www.enghelabe-eslami.com/component/content/article/21-didgagha/tarikhi/2890-2013-07-19-15-46-56.html?Itemid=0. Citations in this book are from the digitalized version. A second investigative piece is authored by Sheyda Nabavi, “Abadan 28 Mordad 1357, Cinema Rex”; see also Buchan, Days of God, 159–64.

  32. 32.

    Bahram Chubineh and Hossein Boroujerdi, Posht Pardeh’hay’e Enqelab Eslami; Eterafat’e Hossein Boroujerdi. Nima Publishers, Hamburg, Germany, 2002.

  33. 33.

    See the introduction chapter by the author, Dr. Bahram Chubineh, who accompanied Boroujerdi through that exercise.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 77.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 71–72.

  36. 36.

    Shahab had withheld the identity of the cleric with spec and pipe but Boroujerdi claimed to have identified him a few weeks after the victory of the revolution when he was in charge of assigning bodyguards to personalities of the new regime. He named Seyyed Ali Khamenei the future Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic (ibid., 82). The assertion not corroborated by other concrete evidence, cannot be independently verified.

  37. 37.

    Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Mousavi-Tabrizi, Tarik’e Irani Oral History interview with Sergey Barqasian, 6 Shahrivar 1391/ 26 August 2012. http://tarikhirani.ir/fa/files/52/bodyView/544.

  38. 38.

    Chubineh, Posht Pardeh’hay’e Enqelab Eslami, 83.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., 83–84.

  40. 40.

    Admiral Ahmad Madani in HIOHP with Zia Sedghi, Paris, April 1984, tape transcript 2.15–17.

  41. 41.

    “Iranian Jurist Questions Legality of Ex-Deputy Premier’s Spy Trial”, The New York Times, April 15, 1981.

  42. 42.

    Sheikh Ali Tehrani in interview carried in Nimrouz, 21 Mordad 1373/August 12, 1994, cited also in Nabavi, “Abadan 28 Mordad 1357, Cinema Rex”.

  43. 43.

    Enqelab Eslami [in Exile], “Mosabbebin”, part. IV.

  44. 44.

    Oral History interview with Sergey Barqasian, 6 Shahrivar 1391/ August 26, 2012 in Tarik’e Irani.

  45. 45.

    Buchan, Days of God, 165–6; Afkhami, Life and Times of the Shah, 459; Milani, The Shah, 387; Bill, The Eagle and the, 240–1; Abrahamian: 514; Keddie, Modern Iran, 231; Stemple, Inside the Iranian Revolution, 113; Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran, 62; Hamid Ansari, hadis’e bidari, zendeginameh emam Khomeini [Tale of awakening: the (authorized) biography of Imam Khomeini], 204, Black Friday in Jamaran website, www.jamaran.ir/fa/NewsContent-id_12959.aspx; Axworthy, Revolutionary Iran, 112. For coverage in memoirs of direct protagonists, see Parsons, The Pride and the Fall, 68–72; Sullivan, Mission to Iran, 165–7; Nahavandi, Carnets Secrets, 117–40 Nahavandi and Bomati, Le Dernier Shah, 472–3.

  46. 46.

    Le Monde, 5 September 1978.

  47. 47.

    Nahavandi and Bomati. Le Dernier Shah, 472.

  48. 48.

    Biography of Sharif-Emami in Agheli, sharh’e hal’e…, 2.872.

  49. 49.

    Mehdi Bazargan, enghelab Iran dar do harakat, 15.

  50. 50.

    Chargé Naas to DOS, cable 07890, August 17, 1978. DNSA.

  51. 51.

    The information must have been leaked to the American Embassy by Hedayat Eslami-Nia who was linkman between high officials and top clerics in Qom. For confirmation of this role, see Fardoust memoirs, 1–577–8.

  52. 52.

    Sullivan to DOS, cable 08187, August 28, 1978, DSWL.

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    Darioush Bayandor

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Bayandor, D. (2019). The Abadan File. In: The Shah, the Islamic Revolution and the United States. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96119-4_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96119-4_9

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