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The seating arrangement at the 235-ft. solid mahogany table paired a few improbable dinner guests, such as a robed Gulf sheik, complete with kaffiyeh, next to Maximilien Cardinal de Furstenberg, the representative of the Vatican. Podigorny was seated alongside Mme. Nicolae Ceausescu, whose husband, the President of Rumania, is not Moscow's favorite chief of state. The Shah sat between Queens Fabiola of Belgium and Ingrid of Denmark. Agnew sat at the end of the table with a small American contingent, including a bejeweled Mrs. Henry Ford II. The banquet was scheduled to last three hours but ran 51.
Afterward, the guests trooped into the chill desert night and sat wrapped in blankets at the foot of the ruins to watch fireworks and a son et lumière display of Persian history. After an hour the Shah, noticing some royal yawns and glazed eyes, mercifully rose from his chair and almost everybody took the welcome exit cue. The guests trooped back to their tents and had a whole morning to sleep before getting up for lunch, a parade and another dinner with the regal couple before flying home.