Born: October 26, 1919 in Tehran, Iran

Died: July 27, 1980 in Cairo, Egypt

Reign: September 26, 1941 - February 11, 1979

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi came to power during the turmoil of World War II, and his rule ended in similarly tumultuous circumstances.  He would be the last shah of Iran, after 2,500 years of continuous monarchy.

Early Life:

Mohammad Reza and his twin sister Ashraf were born on October 26, 1919 to Reza Pahlavi and his second wife, Tadj ol-Molouk.

  Mohammad was the third of eleven children, and the eldest son.  The boy was five years old when, with British assistance, his father overthrew the Qajar Dynasty, founded the Pahlavi Dynasty, and became the Shah of Iran in 1925.

In 1931, Shah Pahlavi sent his eleven-year-old son abroad for school.  He was the first Iranian heir apparent to study overseas; Mohammad went to the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland for four years.  In 1936, the young man graduated from a high school in Iran.  He spent the following two years at the military academy in Tehran, and then married Princess Fawzia, a sister of Egypt's sultan, in 1939.

War and Succession:

Reza Shah Pahlavi pursued a foreign policy of building alliances with Germany and the Soviet Union, in order to counteract the pervasive influence of Britain and of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in his country.  When World War II broke out, and Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Iran declared itself neutral.  Fearful that Iran's vast oil supply would fall into Nazi hands, the British and Soviets accused the Shah of collaborating with Hitler, and forced him to step down on September 16, 1941.

After they deposed his father, the Allies looked to the 22-year-old Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to serve as a puppet ruler of Iran during the war.  The three occupying powers divided Iran into spheres of influence, pledging to leave within six months of the war's conclusion.  When World War II ended in 1945, the US and Britain withdrew from their spheres, but the Soviets refused to leave.  They declared that their sphere, which was majority ethnic-Azeri, was now the People's Republic of Azerbaijan.  The new shah, still in his mid-20s, faced a Soviet-sponsored separatist faction in the north of his country.

With considerable American help, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's government was able to pressure the Soviet into withdrawing from northern Iran.  The leaders of the separatist movement fled across the border to the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.  Soviet troops withdrew in April of 1946; the Iranian Majlis (legislature) then refused to ratify a Soviet oil lease that had been signed under coercion, as well.

In 1949, the Shah survived an assassination attempt at Tehran University that was attributed to the communist Tudeh Party.  He banned that party and expanded his own constitutional powers in the aftermath of the shooting.

Mosaddeq and Oil Nationalization:

In 1951, Mohammad Mosaddeq became the new Prime Minister of Iran.  He urged the Majlis to nationalize Iran's oil fields, shutting out the incredibly powerful Anglo-Persian Oil Company.  Britain convinced the US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that this was a move toward communism, so in 1953, the CIA and Britain's SIS carried out a plot called Operation Ajax, aiming to depose Mosaddeq. 

The Shah agreed to the plot, under threat of also being deposed, but had to flee to Iraq and then Italy when the coup failed.  Fortunately for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a second coup attempt succeeded, and the western powers replaced Mosaddeq with Fazlollah Zahedi.  The Shah was able to return home, with a new respect for American power and a deep distaste for Britain.  The Iranian people, however, resented both the US and Britain for meddling in Iran's internal politics.

Negotiating the Cold War:

Shah Pahlavi's relationship with the Americans was not always smooth.  In 1957, he heard rumors that the CIA was organizing opposition to his rule among the urban middle class.  By 1959, he was frustrated enough with the US that he proposed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.  Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev eagerly sent a top-level diplomatic team to Tehran to hammer out the details.  The British and Americans got word of this development, and rushed to confront the king, who backed out of the Soviet pact.

In response to this reversal, a furious Khrushchev ordered the Shah's assassination.  The KGB agent in charge filled a Volkswagen with explosives and rigged a TV remote as the trigger.  When the Shah went past on his way to Parliament, the agent pushed a button on the remote and... nothing happened.

Emperor Pahlavi:

In the 1960s, Iran grew increasingly wealthy due to oil sales, so the Shah embarked on a reform program.  He instituted a "White Revolution," modernizing the country.  He redistributed extensive land holdings from the wealthiest, dividing them among four million small-holder farmers.  The Shah also supported new schools and adult literacy programs in small villages, initiated a free school lunch program for children, and gave women the right to vote.  In the cities, he sponsored new manufacturing plants and universities.

By 1967, Shah Pahlavi felt that Iran was in a much more secure political and economic position than it had been a quarter-century earlier when he took the throne.  He held an extravagant coronation ceremony for himself and his third wife, Farah, in which they took the ancient titles of Shahanshah ("King of kings" or "Emperor") and Shahbanu ("Empress").

The new emperor began to exert more diplomatic power in the Middle East, assisting the monarchs of Yemen and Oman in putting down uprisings in 1970 and 1971, and leading negotiations for Bahrain's independence from Great Britain.  Domestically, the power began to go to the Shah's head, however. 

Shah Pahlavi began to chafe at the constitutional limitations of his rule.  He grew increasingly autocratic, and started to promote a cult of personality.  Large portraits of the Shahanshah went up all over the country.  In 1975, he took the extreme measure of outlawing all political parties except for his own favored Rastakhiz Party, thus abolishing the multi-party system.  On that occasion, the Shah announced, "A person who does not enter the new political party... is not Iranian, he has no nation, and his activities are illegal and punishable according to the law."

In the later 1970s, the Shah used his hated secret police, the SAVAK, to spy out and crush dissidents.  The SAVAK was widely accused of disappearing, torturing, and murdering opponents of the regime.

Opposition and Overthrow:

As Shah Pahlavi grew more dictatorial, opposition to his rule increased despite the SAVAK threat.  Dissidents blamed Great Britain for putting him on the throne, and the US for propping him up.  They also decried his lavish spending, such as the estimated $100 million US dedicated to a celebration of the Iranian monarchy's 2,500 anniversary in 1971.

Some of the Shah's reforms also angered conservative Shi'a clerics.  These included his grant of rights like education and suffrage to women, as well as his decision in 1976 to change the calendar from the Islamic calendar to an imperial calendar.  From 1976 (western calendar), Iran would measure the year from Cyrus the Great's conquest of Babylon, rather than from Muhammad's hijra to Medina.  The ayatollahs were incensed. 

Displeasure with the Shah's rule grew, and soon his opponents began to hold strikes and street rallies.  Shah Pahlavi responded by deploying the army on the streets of Tehran.  On September 8, 1978, they opened fire on a demonstration by religious dissidents, killing 88 people.  This event, known as "Black Friday," would turn out to be the beginning of the end for the Shah.

Shaken by public outrage, the Shah tried to appease the opposition by granting amnesty to exiled dissidents including the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei.  Nonetheless, by December of that year, incredibly massive protests shook all of Iran's cities.  As many as nine million citizens took to the streets simultaneously, calling for the Shah to go. 

On January 16, 1979, the Shah and his family left Iran, intending to go only into temporary exile.  Former opposition leader Shapour Bakhtiar remained behind as Prime Minister, dissolving the hated SAVAK and freeing political prisoners.  Meanwhile, however, Ayatollah Khomenei was busy assembling a theocratic government based in the conservative city of Qom.  By February of 1979, the Islamists were in control of the Iranian Revolution.  They formally deposed the Shah and ended 2,500 years of monarchy on February 11, 1979.

Muhammad Reza Pahlavi and his family fled first to Egypt, then moving on the Morocco, the Bahamas, and Mexico within the first six months.  The former Shah was growing ill, by this point, and appealed to US President Jimmy Carter to allow him a US visa so that he could seek medical treatment.  President Carter reluctantly granted him permission, and Pahlavi ended up spending nearly two months in a New York hospital.

After a brief and contentious stay in Panama, the Pahlavi family returned to Egypt.  In March of 1980, the former Shah underwent treatment in Cairo for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.  He died on July 27, 1980 at the age of 60, and was honored with an Egyptian state funeral.  He was mourned by his third wife, former empress Farah, and five children.