Iran: Big Brother Moves In

Soviets are influencing security, military and economic affairs

On a cold, starlit night last month a group of 36 strangers was ushered into the Tehran Hilton with all the security precautions that once attended the transfer of the Iranian crown jewels. While plainclothesmen and a detachment of Islamic Guards armed with machine guns hustled the group through the lobby, hotel staffers were amazed to hear the foreigners address one another, and their Iranian hosts, as baradar (brother), in the best tradition of Islamic revolutionaries, while they chatted in flawless, idiomatic Farsi.

The group...

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