The Two Day Exile
By JENNY NICHOLSON PERSIAN who has been very close to the Shah during his brief exile last week, said that although the Shah must support the Persian oil nationalisation, the country is in such economic straits that, if the Anglo-Iranian Oil Com- pany should repeat their last offer which was turned down by Moussadek, he would probably urge General Zahedi to accept it. The Shah's confidant said that the Shah himself considered it a reasonable compromise at the time. He further divulged ' that at least $300,000 were needed immediately to keep the government machine going—to keep the home fires quenched. Members of the Iranian Legation here complain that they have not been paid for six months, and that they have had to approach the Italian Foreign Office to appeal to Teheran on their behalf for funds.
Iranian diplomats on the route of the Shah's flight are not only in the red but also in the Royal black books. What line was Mr. Khadje Noury, the Iranian Chargé d'Affaires in Rome, to take ? If be formally greeted the ex-Emperor, sooner or later Moussadek would have taken his revenge. He decided on a diplomatic retreat to Ostia, Rome's seaside resort. One of his secretaries, Abdollah Khosrovi, was royalist (and lucky) enough to present himself at once at the Excelsior Hotel to announce hiss allegiance. Presumably he had little to lose financially, though no doubt he was risking an unfriendly recall to Persia. The discomfort of Mr. Noury was doubled when he hurried with his wife to the Shah's hotel two hours after the news of the Royalist coup had broken, and was greeted in the lounge by his ex-minor secretary, Mr. Khosrovi, now transparently his successor.
His Majesty happened to be upstairs in his bedroom recovering from the emotional impact of the news that he had a throne again. Although he was reported to have brought with him jewels and large sums of money, he and his wife were living modestly enough without a private sitting room.
So, during the exile days all the royal business was conducted in the public lounge. It was at their reserved corner table near the entrance to the bar that they read the news of the Royalist uprising from the snaking rolls of newstape torn from Agency teleprinters and rushed to them every few minutes by excited newspapermen. It was at the same table that the Empress was sitting with her German mother when Farouk came across the lounge with the obvious hope of greeting her.
But she had turned her head and begun to chat to her mother with unnatural energy. Farouk was obliged to continue to the bar as if all he wanted was a nice iced drink after covering the three hot paces between his car and the hotel lobby. It was at another table that the Shah had read aloud the telegrams he had received from his loyal subjects for the benefit of the Press and any hotel guests who happened to be passing, and there that he composed the replies.
During the anxious hours that he was trying to discover an airline that could charter him an aircraft for his triumphal return flight to Teheran (BOAC offered him a Comet but he decided it was impolitic to fly British) he 'stood looking lonely and fragile by one of the writing desks while his old school friend Mr. Sadek and. Mr. Khosrovi hurried back and forth to the hotel telephone booths. A bustling Detroit businessman bore down on the desk to write some cables. The Shah smiled politely and stepped aside. The businessman was soon shaking his pen over the carpet near the Shah's feet complaining loudly of pens that were falsely advertised as proof against high- altitude flying.
Princess Ashraff, the Shah's intelligent and beautiful twin sister, animatedly discussed the news with Charles Fawcett, the avuncular American film actor, over tea in the lounge. And throughout three days and nights it was in the lounge that the news from Persia repercussed. Newspapermen sat at tables drinking beer and coffee, never taking their eyes from the main characters in the drama, international oil men intrigued in the deep armchairs, hotel staff paged journalists and intriguers for long-distance telephone calls, plain clothes detectives tried to look like hotel guests, and except during the siesta hours the conditioned air was gay with the cheerful cries of rich American tourists who, unaware that plans were being made to annex more of their dollars in the fight against Communism, were planning Deluxe Nite Tours of Rome and just-wonderful audiences with the Pope and their Ambassadress, Mrs. Clare Booth Luce.
So it was in the lounge that the Chargé d'Affaires sat unhappily with his wife beside him nervously wiping the palms of her hands with her handkerchief. On the next sofa sat the Shah's handsome young pilot, the Shah's chief huntsman and an unidentified Persian carpet seller, who showed n8 interest in them. Mr. Khosrovi came down from the Shah's bedroom : " His Majesty would like to know why you have • not presented yourselves before."
" Please inform His Majesty that knowing nothing of His Majesty's visit to Rome, we have been at Ostia. I must ask you to repeat that His Majesty's loyal servant the Chargé d'Affaires in Rome and Madame Noury would like to pay their respects to His Majesty and the Empress." Though he remained stony-faced, it must have given Mr. Khosrovi pleasure to deliver the Shah's reply : " His Majesty regrets that he no longer has a Chargé d'Affaires in Rome and suggests that Mr. Noury returns from whence he dragged himself."
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