The Young Shah: He Returns to a New Popularity

QUEEN SORAYA: IRANIANS LIKE A HOEBODY WIFE

THE Shah is not the man his father was--but he never wanted to be. His father, an illiterate Cossack officer who founded a dynasty and unified and modernized Iran, was cruel and extravagant. When he slept in a town, all its dogs were killed lest one bark; he jailed his opponents, hung them by their heels and kicked out their teeth. With an army crop he once whipped a mullah. On the plus side, he reorganized the army, ended child marriage, unveiled the women, codified the civil law.

Simultaneously barbaric and benevolent, he treated his oldest son the same way. The boy liked and was liked at private school in Switzerland; after five happy years, his father brought him home, consoled him with mistresses and sent him to the military academy with strict orders that he be treated roughly. Mohammed Reza Pahlevi grew into a mild and friendly youth, somewhat unsure of himself, who played with fast cars, fast women and fast planes. In 1941, when the British exiled his father from his throne for trafficking with the Nazis, Mohammed Reza, at 21, became the Shahinshah.

He promptly set free his father's political prisoners, and announced that he would break up his father's vast estates into small parcels for sale to the landless. He told an interviewer that dictatorships are dangerous "because no one man can always make the proper decision; democracy permits the pooling of ideas for checks and balances." Unfortunately, he was checked more often than he balanced; he was never forceful enough in advocating his own good ideas.

His first wife (whom he divorced after nine years, one daughter, and no son) was Farouk's handsome sister Fawzia. The Shah asked his older sister, Princess Chams, to find him a new wife, and the princess began a search that spread to Europe. A friend one day suggested an Iranian girl to the princess, followed it up by bringing along her photo. The girl was 19-year-old Soraya Esfandiari, the beautiful commoner daughter of a chief of the powerful Bakhtiari tribe. The Shah looked, said: "If Soraya is as good as her pictures, I'll take her." The princess met Soraya in Paris, sent back glowing reports. They were married in February 1951.

The young royal couple get along fine together. High strung, she does not enjoy queenly functions, preferring to be alone with her husband. She has taken up his favorite sports, horseback riding and skiing. Soraya loves expensive clothes, has lots of them, wears them well. Iranians like their women to stay quietly in the background; she is therefore popular. So far the Shah and his wife have no children.

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