On Depraved "Royals" And Real Kings

“The anger, violence and death threats against Rafizadeh are not the result of his career with SAVAK, a secret intelligence service that was renowned for its bloody tortures (although Rafizadeh says that being stationed in the United States, he took no part in such torture).

And the callers to the radio program appeared to have beenonly slightly bothered by Rafizadeh’s admission in his book that he also worked for the CIA starting in 1965.

What really got the callers and the demonstraters going is the graphic descriptions of the late shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi in the book as a corrupt pervert who had a homosexual liaison with his own prime minister, a vacillating paranoiac who toasted the assassination of John F. Kennedy and who may have had his own brother killed.

As Rafizadeh describes the shah’s family, there was a long history of sexual licentiousness, drug use and general decadence. Nothing was beyond him, according to the book, including having one noisy political opponent literally thrown to the savage lions in his private zoo.

And yet, according to the book, the shah was pathetically insecure, anguishing over unfavorable articles in American newspapers and spending as much time currying favor with ABC-TV’s Barbara Walters as he did trying to cultivate European heads of state.” – Jim Anderson, “Former Iranian agent fears for his life” UPI Archives, April 26, 1987.

If I remember correctly, one of the more disturbing revelations in Mansur Rafizadeh’s 1987 book, “Witness: From the Shah to the Secret Arms Deal, An Insider’s Account of U.S. Involvement in Iran” was that the Shah raped his childhood friend and deputy head of SAVAK, Hossein Fardoust, in the early 1950s while they were on a hunting trip together in Switzerland, where they both went to school. 

Fardoust later returned the favour by stabbing the Shah in the back during the critical period when the Islamic revolutionaries were at the gates and the military officially requested support from key government personnel to contain the revolt. After siding with the Ayatollah he later went on to become the new head of the Islamic Republic’s successor to SAVAK called the SAVAMA.

Rafizadeh was the head of SAVAK in the United States so his claims could be credible or they could be fiction. But I think they’re plausible because it explains Fardoust’s sudden betrayal during the Shah’s hour of greatest need. Some transgressions can never be forgiven or let go. Plus, payback’s a sweet bitch.

It’s also not difficult to believe that royals, particularly maladjusted ones like forever princes, engage in behaviour that would shock the conscience of normal people. I just read the other day on Twitter that the Shah’s son, the one who wants to be the new king, raped his brother’s wife. And we all know about Prince Andrew’s debauchery on Rothschild island.

They are far from unique. The world elite is full of sick rapists and that includes, above all, royalty.