SOMETHING out of the Arabian nights" was what Mohammed Reza Pahlevi commanded—and when Iran's Shah of Shahs orders something, he generally gets it. The cost was $100 million, more or less, and the cast included a reigning Emperor (Haile Selassie of Ethiopia), nine Kings, five Queens, 13 Princes, eight Princesses, 16 Presidents, three Premiers, four Vice Presidents, two Governor Generals, two Foreign Ministers, nine sheiks and two sultans. That clearly made last week's shindig in Iran's ancient ceremonial center of Persepolis one of the biggest bashes in all history. Whether it was also "the most wonderful thing the world has ever seen," as the Shahanshah described it, is another question.
Representatives from 69 states, including assorted sheikdoms, poured into Iran for the monumental Jash'n (celebration) marking the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great. Awaiting the guests on a dusty, windswept, 5,000-ft.-high plain next to the ruins of Persepolis was a city that even Scheherazade could never have imagined: a 160-acre oasis studded with three huge royal "tents" and 59 lesser ones arranged in a star pattern. The tents were more or less permanent structures of synthetic fabric, with cement bases and wooden partitions; they were built to withstand fire, rot, and winds of up to 70 m.p.h. Decorated by Jansen of Paris, the firm that helped Jacqueline Kennedy redo the White House, the tents were completely air-conditioned and furnished with Baccarat crystal, Ceralene Limoges china and Porthault linens.
Providing the trappings kept Paris merchants—who supplied everything —busy for a whole year. Bimonthly flights of aircraft and convoys of trucks that made the overland trip from Paris with relays of drivers transported the wares to the desert.
Cigars and Roses. As the party date approached, the Shah came under increasing criticism on the grounds of expense and taste. Peasants in nearby villages may have been impressed—but not exactly pleased—that the government had spent $50,000 on 50 Lanvin-designed uniforms for the royal court, each requiring one mile of gold thread. As for taste, even the Empress Farah said in an unguarded moment, "There have been a lot of mistakes and lapses" —one of which might have been the choice of pink roses and cigars for signs on rest-room doors. Many Iranians also resented that the extravaganza evolved from a festival of their national culture into a celebration of the monarchy. "This was the Shah's ego coming in," said a Western diplomat. "He is idealistic and patriotic, and he works 18 hours a day running this country all by himself. But he also has a heavy dose of megalomania."
Nonetheless, the Shah was determined to stage his show of shows as "a sign to the rest of the world that Iran is again a nation equal to all the others —and much finer than many." Cyrus the Great provided a handy peg. Iran ("home of the Aryans") was settled by an Aryan tribe from what is now southern Russia. Cyrus, a leader of the Achaemenian dynasty of the tribe, accepted Babylon's surrender in 539 B.C., and by the next year had founded an empire that at its height stretched from present-day India to the Aegean, and from the Danube to the Nile.