Who Helped the Shah How Much?

Pinning down the roles of Kissinger and Rockefeller

As the Administration struggled to extricate the hostages--and the U.S. --from the Iranian blackmail abroad, a bitter, backbiting controversy arose at home. It revolved around three questions: 1) Had the deposed Shah's two most prominent American friends, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman David Rockefeller, exerted excessive pressure to get the Shah into the U.S.? 2) After long advocating that the Shah be given sanctuary in the U.S., had Kissinger then tried to score political points by publicly criticizing the Administration for appearing weak in a crisis that he had helped to create? 3) Had the Administration been duped into believing that the Shah was more gravely ill than in fact he was?

What especially angered Kissinger's critics was a speech he made on Nov. 20 in Austin to a conference of the Republican Governors Association. He had concluded in a conciliatory spirit by saying: "I think all anyone can do is support the Administration and present the picture of a united America in the face of that challenge." But what caused resentment were other remarks that seemed to question the Administration's wisdom and will. "The biggest foreign policy debacle for the United States in a generation was the collapse of the government and of the Shah of Iran without support or even understanding by the United States of what was involved." Kissinger derided the use of "impotence" as "the ruling principle of our foreign policy" and said that the response of Americans to the seizure of the embassy showed that "they are sick and tired of getting pushed around and they're sick and tired of seeing America forever on the defensive."

Harsh words, and they drew harsh words in reply. The Chicago Tribune accused Kissinger of "Machiavellian self-promotion" and of making "use of the crisis for political purposes." The New York Times termed Kissinger's speechmaking "reckless" and "repellent." On NBC'S Meet the Press, former Under Secretary of State George Ball claimed that the pressure on the Administration to permit the Shah to enter the U.S. had come from "Mr. Kissinger and a few others" and had been "enormously obnoxious."

The White House also bridled at Kissinger's statements. "He is a devious and dishonorable man," one top Carter aide told reporters. "He'll go off and make cheap political statements and then call up privately and assure us that he supports the way the President is handling the crisis."

Feelings grew so hot that Kissinger and Secretary of State Vance met on Monday last week for an extraordinary 70-min. conversation. Both men got their grievances off their chests--Vance complaining that Kissinger was gratuitously running down the Administration and Kissinger accusing the White House of unfairly impugning his character. The two men struck a truce: the Administration would stop criticizing Kissinger to newsmen, and Kissinger would tell his side of the story, once and for all.

In a long Op-Ed page article in the Washington Post, Kissinger pointed out that he had also "called for national unity behind the President" in all his recent public comments on Iran in New York, Dallas and Los Angeles. But he concentrated on reports in the press that he had pushed the Administration to take in the Shah. He said his involvement began at the Administration's urging last January to help find a residence in the U.S. for the Shah, who was then under heavy pressure at home to leave Iran. Kissinger said he asked David Rockefeller to join in the search for a U.S. home, but Rockefeller was reluctant, not wanting to jeopardize his bank's relations with any of the contending factions in Iran. So Kissinger turned to Nelson Rockefeller, his old friend and mentor. Just two weeks before Rockefeller died, he helped find a suitable residence: the Palm Springs estate of Walter H. Annenberg, former Ambassador to Britain. The Shah, however, did not seek a U.S. visa; instead, he went to Egypt and then Morocco.

In mid-March, said Kissinger, a State Department official asked him to advise the Shah not to seek admittance to the U.S. until emotions calmed in Tehran. Said Kissinger: "I refused with some indignation." Kissinger and David Rockefeller thereupon both asked the Government to help the Shah seek asylum in another country. Says Kissinger: "We were told that no official assistance of any kind was contemplated. This I considered deeply wrong and still do."

Kissinger concedes that he then made telephone calls to "three senior officials" and paid two personal visits to Vance to argue that a U.S. visa should be granted the Shah. He expressed that view volubly in private conversations with many people, including journalists. He said that the last of his direct pleas was made in July. He and Rockefeller then sought to find asylum elsewhere for the Shah. Rockefeller found a temporary residence in the Bahamas, and Kissinger persuaded the government of Mexico to admit the Shah on a tourist visa.

On the key point, Kissinger insisted that he had nothing to do with seeking medical help for the Shah in the U.S. Kissinger was in Europe from Oct. 9 to Oct. 23, when the Shah's illness became a backstage diplomatic issue. Kissinger said he kept in touch with Rockefeller's office while traveling and acknowledged that he would have sought the Shah's admittance for medical treatment if he had been in the U.S.

Rockefeller was clearly the man who alerted Administration officials to the Shah's medical problems. The banker has conceded that he helped arrange for the examination of the Shah in Mexico by Dr. Benjamin Kean, a New York specialist in tropical diseases. Rockefeller said that Kean "confirmed the gravity of the Shah's condition," and that "I insisted on having the results of that examination brought to the attention of the State Department." Some officials there were skeptical and suggested that a Government doctor should examine the Shah. Rockefeller then called Vance and expressed his anger at the doubts about the Shah's condition.

Although U.S. embassy officials in Tehran and State Department officials warned Vance that admitting the Shah could inflame passions in Iran and endanger the embassy, the Secretary urged Carter to let the Shah enter the U.S. for medical treatment. Carter, somewhat reluctantly, according to some aides, agreed.

Admitting that he had been unfair, George Ball apologized for declaring that Kissinger's pressure on the White House was "obnoxious." Ball said that his remarks had reflected "what I had heard around Washington" and read in the press. Noted he: "I'm a little sorry for what I've said. I had my facts screwed up."

In his press conference last week, President Carter said that "in previous weeks and months since the Shah was deposed, Kissinger and many others have let it be known that they thought we should provide a haven for the Shah." But in the days when the White House was deciding whether or not to admit the Shah for medical treatment, said the President, "Kissinger played no role in my decision." Carter added he had acted "personally and without pressure from anyone."

As the Kissinger-White House firefight cooled last week, a related controversy developed over just how sick the Shah was in the first place. When he arrived at New York Hospital on Oct. 22, he did look seriously ill, particularly since his blocked bile duct had caused jaundice and given his skin a yellow tinge. But as treatment continued, some of the doctors at the hospital became increasingly concerned that the seriousness of his condition had been vastly exaggerated.

After tests on the Shah, Dr. Hibbard Williams described the Shah's cancer as a "widely disseminated histiocytic lym-phoma." But other doctors at the hospital insisted that, as one stated, "it's a very localized lymphoma," which was largely confined to the Shah's neck. Indeed, the radiation treatment given the Shah is only useful for such a restricted condition. As for the Shah's enlarged spleen, this was found to be a long-term condition that may be unrelated to his cancer problem. The Shah did have a gallstone that untreated would have been extremely serious. But the New York doctors say this treatment was readily available in Mexico. Maintains one angry official at New York Hospital: "We've been had, and it's our own damned fault. We should have had this out with the State Department before the Shah even got here."

At his press conference, President Carter made it clear that he thought he had done the right thing, medically as well as morally, by admitting the Shah. Said he: "I have no regrets about it, no apologies to make, because it did help to save a man's life." The debate over the seriousness of the Shah's illness, like discussions of the role of Henry Kissinger in the affair, is likely to linger.

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