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The Shah's week of decision included, appropriately enough, a pitched battle at the funeral of a 27-year-old civil engineering professor who had been shot by soldiers during a sit-in at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. As a procession of 7,000 people escorted the body through downtown Tehran, a unit of American-trained Iranian Rangers opened fire, scattering the mourners and leaving several wounded in the street. Some witnesses said that the troops also killed their own commander, though this was never verified. For the next hour, soldiers and demonstrators fought to the accompaniment of gunfire and exploding tear gas grenades. When it was all over, four protesters lay dead and at least 30 injured.
Like a fierce contagion, the violence broke out in other cities. Thousands of rock-throwing protesters shouting "Death to the Shah!" poured into the streets of Isfahan, Tabriz, Zanjan and Kerman, setting fire to buses, trucks and buildings. And for the first time the rioting took on a strongly anti-American tone. In Tehran, students and teachers, ignoring the decision of the military regime to reopen public schools that have been shut down since September, converged on the U.S. embassy. Marine guards fired tear gas to turn back the demonstrators, some of whom managed to scale the high stone wall surrounding the compound. A U.S. cultural center in Tabriz was fire bombed. Following the murder of American Oil Executive Paul E. Grimm on the outskirts of Ahwaz, hundreds of U.S. technicians boarded chartered evacuation flights to safe havens outside the country. The U.S. carrier Constellation, accompanied by two destroyers, steamed from the Philippines toward Singapore, a staging area from which the vessels could reach Iran's waters in seven days. U.S. officials said that the naval task force had been dispatched for a dual purpose: possible use in a rescue of the 30,000 U.S. citizens who remain in Iran and as an unmistakable signal that the U.S. would not tolerate Soviet intervention in the crisis.
The departure of the American technicians added to the Shah's main peril: the oilfield strike, which clamped a tourniquet on the nation's petroleum lifeline. In one week, production from Iran's vast fields plummeted to virtually zero from the already constricted 900,000 bbl. a day (normal daily production: 6 million bbl.). Exports to foreign customers were halted and Iran's refineries, which usually provide 910,000 bbl. of gasoline and fuel oil a day, were shut down. As temperatures dropped below the freezing point in some areas, the government invoked stringent rationing to conserve fuel. Long lines of cars formed at service stations, and customers were forced to wait for up to twelve hours to buy kerosene for cooking and heating.
The fuel shortage brought the normal flow of business and transportation to a standstill. Garbage began to pile up in the streets after collections were halted as an economy measure. The price of groceries soared. Eggs, once 4¢ apiece, tripled in price. A jar of instant coffee that sold for $3.85 a month ago rose to $5.44. Officials warned that if the oil strike continued, bakeries would have to close, leaving the country without bread. "You can escape the shooting by staying inside," said a Western diplomat, "but what happens if you can't go to work, you're freezing, and there's nothing to buy?"