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By morning the Iranian guards were in control of most of Doshan Tappeh, although scattered firing continued. Some 70 U.S. military and civilian technicians assigned to the training base, who had been trapped there by the fighting, were airlifted to safety by Iranian helicopters. The U.S. embassy, meanwhile, warned the 7,000 Americans still in Iran to remain indoors. Even though a 4:30 p.m. curfew was put in effect, many pro-Khomeini fighters ignored it to mount scattered attacks on Tehran police stations; the sound of machine-gun fire could be heard in all parts of the city. Residents of the capital, wise by now in the ways of survival, lined up at gasoline stations to fill their automobile tanks before the stations shut down once more.
The bloody round of fighting between soldiers and armed civilians introduced two troubling new factors into Iran's political situation. One factor was that militant Marxist forces—notably the long outlawed Communist (Tudeh) Party —may be stronger than outside observers had thought. The other was the possibility that Khomeini was not in total control of a revolution that until then he had orchestrated with considerable skill. The Ayatullah had not issued any calls to arms; indeed, many mullahs at the scene of the fighting pleaded that it was not time for armed revolution. Sound trucks, reportedly supplied by Khomeini, toured the area near the air-base urging demonstrators to go home; the loudspeakers were drowned out by the sound of battle and the klaxons of ambulances.
The army's Sunday announcement that it supported "the wishes of the people" presumably meant that it was prepared to live with Mehdi Bazargan, 71, a human rights activist and devout Muslim whom Khomeini last week chose as Prime Minister of his provisional government. An engineer by training, Bazargan is widely respected in Iran for his long record of opposition to the Shah; his friendship with Bakhtiar dates back to the early '50s, when both men served in the government of the late Mohammed Mossadegh, who was eventually ousted in a CIA-inspired coup. The day before the Doshan Tappeh confrontation, more than a million people paraded through the Tehran plaza that has been renamed Freedom Square chanting a new revolutionary slogan, "Dorood Bar Khomeini! Salaam Bar Bazargan!" (Hail to Khomeini! Greetings to Bazargan!)
Later, in a speech before 100,000 people at Tehran University, Bazargan called on his old friend Bakhtiar to step down, and announced a six-point program for a transfer of power. It would begin with a yes-no referendum on the creation of an Islamic republic and lead in stages to the turnover of governmental responsibility to Bazargan. Significantly, he stopped short of naming members of his Cabinet, an action that might have forced an immediate showdown with Bakhtiar.
Bazargan, whom one Tehran newspaper called "a political mullah without a turban," also tried to defuse the army. Blaming "sadistic" elements in the military for perpetrating violence "unheard of since Genghis Khan," he last week implored the armed forces to recognize that their oaths to the Shah had been overtaken by events. "The mandate to the