THE gleaming white Vickers Viscount had taken off in bright moonlight from Teheran. Now, some ten hours later, escorted by a squadron of Italian jet fighters, it touched down on Rome's Ciampino airport. Wearing a blue air marshal's uniform with gold pilot's wings.
Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, the handsome, greying Shah of Iran, stepped from the plane one day last week, exchanged greetings with Italy's President Giovanni Gronchi, Premier Amintore Fanfani and six Cabinet ministers.
A small cluster of Iranian citizens resident in Italy set up a shout of "Zendibad Shahanshah [Long live the King of Kings]!" The Shah made a the brief speech commenting on the good relations between Italy and Iran, which, he said, "were reinforced by the oil agreement." Oil and the influence of the Shah are perhaps the two most important factors in the slow but certain awakening of the Iranian nation from the sleep of decadent centuries.
Fight Against Corruption
Without its oil, pouring from the ground at a rate of 1,000,000 barrels a day and earning the nation an estimated $250 million this year, Iran would simply be another semi-arid pastoral and agricultural nation like its neighbor Afghanistan. Without the special qualities of its 19 million people, who have been taught cleverness and patience by history, are generally more devoted to their kinsmen than their nation, and are suspicious of every move by those in power, Iran would be an easier country to govern. For example, Iranian slum dwellers have been known to refuse to move into newly completed low-cost housing because they were sure that there must be a trick to it.
In the Shah's absence in Europe, his Prime Minister Manouchehr Eghbal last week rammed through the docile Majlis the Shah's anticorruption bill which requires all government officials, civil or military, to file an inventory of their properties, as well as those of their wives and children. An earlier bill forbade ministers, government officials, Deputies, Senators or members of the royal family from dealing in any way with companies having or seeking contracts from the government.
A skeptical public waits to see whether anything will happen. The Shah is considered personally honest. The Queen Mother, Tajul-Moluk, and the Shah's twin sister, sinuous Princess Ashraf, are acknowledged to have great commercial acumen. When, last month, Princess Ashraf was caught by French customs officials as she left France with 800,000 francs in her handbag after declaring only 10,000, many wondered how this could happen to so wealthy a woman. Cracked an old Teheran hand: "Probably habit."
Thousand Families