IRAN: There Is a Contract on the Shah

Revolutionary trials are curbed, but so is the press

At least 213 defendants—including businessmen and news commentators as well as generals and politicians who served the old regime—have been executed by Iran's revolutionary tribunals, which pay little attention to such legal niceties as providing counsel for the accused. Last week the spiritual leader of Iran's revolution, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, belatedly took action to curb the killings. Khomeini issued an edict limiting the death sentence to those found guilty of murder, torture leading to death or the ordering of a massacre.

Khomeini's reprieve could spare many of the 1,500 political prisoners now...