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For all the torture tales, U.S. experts estimate the number of political executions under the Shah at about 150 per year. By far the greatest bloodshed under the Shah occurred in the demonstrations that convulsed the country in 1978 and early 1979. The Shah's troops several times opened fire on crowds. Khomeini claims that 100,000 people died; the best guess probably is around 5,000 to 10,000.
Khomeini's demagoguery notwithstanding, even after that slaughter, the total number of the Shah's victims simply cannot be compared to the millions killed by Hitler and Stalin; nor can the tenor of his regime be likened to that of Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union. Even among contemporary despots, the Shah is not the worst. One prominent member of the International Commission of Jurists classifies the Shah as in a "second league" of tyrants, below Uganda's Idi Amin, Cambodia's Pol Pot and Central African Emperor Jean Bokassa I. One Iranian expert notes that the Shah often exiled enemies rather than killing them. He adds: "Khomeini himself is the living embodiment of that policy."
Even in this grim area, rational distinctions must be made. Is there justification for calling the Shah a criminal and treating him as one? If so, the same would have to apply to scores of other rulers, rightist or leftist. Moreover, Iran, like many developing countries, has never known any really free institutions. And cruelty, by whatever regime, has always been a fact of life there and in many other countries the U.S. must live with. These considerations do not exonerate the Shah, but they must be kept in mind by the U.S. as it tries to cope with the real world. Besides, whatever the Shah's offenses, they do not justify the taking of hostages in order to force his surrender to his enemies, which strikes at all international practice and order.
The facts about the Shah's alleged corruption are also difficult to pin down, especially because in Iran, as in other Middle Eastern monarchies, there traditionally has been little distinction drawn between the treasures of the ruler and those of the nation. A lawsuit filed in New York last week on behalf of the revolutionary government accuses the Shah of diverting $20 billion in national assets to his own use, and charges Empress Farah with taking $5 billion. But it offers no evidence and indeed admits that the sums are pretty much a guess. The Shah's own figure for the size of his fortune, given to Barbara Walters of ABC, is $50 million to $100 million. Even that would represent a spectacular increase over the years.