SAVAK
Encyclopedia
SAVAK was the secret police
, domestic security and intelligence service established by Iran
's Mohammad Reza
Shah on the recommendation of the British Government and with the help of the United States
' Central Intelligence Agency
(the CIA). SAVAK operated from 1957 to 1979, when the Pahlavi dynasty
was overthrown. SAVAK has been described as Iran's "most hated and feared institution" prior to the revolution of 1979
because of its practice of torturing
and executing opponents of the Pahlavi regime. At its peak, the organization had as many as 60,000 agents serving in its ranks according to one source, although Gholam Reza Afkhami
, whose work on the Shah has been described as a "sympathetic biography", estimates SAVAK staffing at between 4,000 and 6,000.
, established an intelligence service with police powers. The Shah's goal was to strengthen his regime by placing political opponents under surveillance and repress dissident movements. According to Encyclopædia Iranica
:
In March 1955, the Army colonel was "replaced with a more permanent team of five career CIA officers, including specialists in covert operations, intelligence analysis, and counterintelligence, including Major General
Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf who "trained virtually all of the first generation of SAVAK personnel."
In 1956 this agency was reorganized and given the name Sazeman-e Ettela'at va Amniyat-e Keshvar (SAVAK). These in turn were replaced by SAVAK’s own instructors in 1965. Chief CIA Iran
analyst Jesse Leaf in an interview on 6th Jan. 1979 stated that the CIA taught Nazi torture techniques to SAVAK.
SAVAK had the power to censor the media, screen applicants for government jobs, "and according to reliable Western source, use all means necessary, including torture, to hunt down dissidents".
The CIA provided SAVAK with lists of Communists to torture and murder. These lists originated with KGB defectors working for the CIA.
After 1963, the Shah expanded his security organizations, including SAVAK, which grew to over 5300 full-time agents and a large but unknown number of part-time informers.
In 1961 the Iranian authorities dismissed the agency's first director, General Teymur Bakhtiar; he later became a political dissident. In 1970 SAVAK agents assassinated him, disguising the deed as an accident.
General
Hassan Pakravan
, Director of Savak from 1961–1965, had an almost benevolent reputation, for example dining with the Ayatollah Khomeini while Khomeini was under house arrest on a weekly basis, and later intervened to prevent Khomeini's execution, on the grounds it would "anger the common people of Iran". After the Iranian Revolution
, however, Pakravan was among the first of the Shah's officials to be executed by the Khomeini regime.
Pakravan was replaced in 1965 by General Nematollah Nassiri
, a close associate of the Shah, and the service was reorganized and became increasingly active in the face of rising Shia and communist militancy and political unrest.
According to Iranian political historian Ervand Abrahamian
, after this attack SAVAK interrogators were sent abroad for "scientific training to prevent unwanted deaths from 'brute force.' Brute force was supplemented with the bastinado; sleep deprivation; extensive solitary confinement; glaring searchlights; standing in one place for hours on end; nail extractions; snakes (favored for use with women); electrical shocks with cattle prods, often into the rectum; cigarette burns; sitting on hot grills; acid dripped into nostrils; near-drownings; mock executions; and an electric chair with a large metal mask to muffle screams while amplifying them for the victim. This latter contraption was dubbed the Apollo—an allusion to the American space capsules. Prisoners were also humiliated by being raped, urinated on, and forced to stand naked. Despite the new 'scientific' methods, the torture
of choice remained the traditional bastinado used to beat soles of the feet. The "primary goal" of those using the bastinados "was to locate arms caches, safe houses and accomplices ..."
Abrahamian estimates that SAVAK (and other police and military) killed 368 guerrillas between 1971–1977 and executed something less than 100 political prisoners between 1971 and 1979 - the most violent era of the SAVAK's existence.
By 1976, this repression was softened considerably thanks to publicity and scrutiny by "numerous international organizations and foreign newspapers." In 1976, Jimmy Carter
was elected President of the United States
and he "raised the issue of human rights
in Iran as well as in the Soviet Union
. Overnight prison conditions changed. Inmates dubbed this the dawn of `jimmykrasy.`
After the Iranian Revolution
of 1979, former directors Pakravan, Nassiri, and Moghadam were tried by Revolutionary Courts and executed by the Revolutionary Guard.
. In addition to domestic security the service's tasks extended to the surveillance of Iranians abroad, notably in the United States
, France
, and the United Kingdom
, and especially students on government stipend
s. The agency also closely collaborated with the American CIA by sending their agents to an air force base in New York
to share and discuss interrogation tactics. The CIA used the SAVAK as it's proxy. Many of the SAVAK staff were paid off by the CIA to be brutal towards Communists.
Teymur Bakhtiar
was assassinated by SAVAK agents in 1970, and Mansur Rafizadeh, SAVAK's United States director during the 1970s, reported that General Nassiri's phone was tapped. Mansur Rafizadeh later published his life as a SAVAK man and detailed the human rights violations of the Shah in his book Witness: From the Shah to the Secret Arms Deal: An Insider's Account of U.S. Involvement in Iran. Mansur Rafizadeh was suspected to have been a double agent also working for the CIA. T
According to Polish author Ryszard Kapuściński
, SAVAK was responsible for
described SAVAK as having "long been Iran's most hated and feared institution" which had "tortured and murdered thousands of the Shah's opponents." The Federation of American Scientists
also found it guilty of "the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners" and symbolizing "the Shah's rule from 1963-79." The FAS list of SAVAK torture methods included "electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails." According to a former CIA analyst on Iran, Jesse J. Leaf, SAVAK was trained in torture techniques by the CIA.
in the February 1979 Iranian Revolution
. Following the departure of the Shah in January 1979, SAVAK's 3,000+ central staff and its agents were targeted for reprisals; almost all of them that were in Iran at the time of the Iranian Revolution were hunted down and executed, only a few who were on missions outside of Iran managed to survive.
SAVAK was replaced by the "much larger" SAVAMA, Sazman-e Ettela'at va Amniat-e Melli-e Iran, also known as the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran.
According to author Charles Kurzman, SAVAK was never dismantled but rather changed its name and leadership and continued on with the same codes of operation, and a relatively unchanged "staff."
Hossein Fardoust
, a former classmate of the Shah, was a deputy director of SAVAK until he was appointed head of the Imperial Inspectorate, also known as the Special Intelligence Bureau, to watch over high-level government officials, including SAVAK directors. Fardust later is rumoured to have become director of SAVAMA, the post-revolution incarnation of the original SAVAK organization. (Robert Dreyfuss, Hostage to Khomeini 1981 and The Devils Game: How the United States Unleashed Fundamentalist Islam,2004)
After the victory of the Islamic revolution, a museum was opened in a former prison in central Tehran
called "Ebrat". The museum displays and exhibits the documented atrocities of SAVAK.
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
, domestic security and intelligence service established by Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
's Mohammad Reza
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
Shah on the recommendation of the British Government and with the help of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
' Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
(the CIA). SAVAK operated from 1957 to 1979, when the Pahlavi dynasty
Pahlavi dynasty
The Pahlavi dynasty consisted of two Iranian/Persian monarchs, father and son Reza Shah Pahlavi and Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi The Pahlavi dynasty consisted of two Iranian/Persian monarchs, father and son Reza Shah Pahlavi (reg. 1925–1941) and Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi The Pahlavi dynasty ...
was overthrown. SAVAK has been described as Iran's "most hated and feared institution" prior to the revolution of 1979
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
because of its practice of torturing
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
and executing opponents of the Pahlavi regime. At its peak, the organization had as many as 60,000 agents serving in its ranks according to one source, although Gholam Reza Afkhami
Gholam Reza Afkhami
Gholam Reza Afkhami is senior scholar and director of Social Science Research and International Studies at the , a Washington based research institution dedicated to the study of Iranian history, culture, economy and politics,created with the financial support from the twin sister of the Shah of...
, whose work on the Shah has been described as a "sympathetic biography", estimates SAVAK staffing at between 4,000 and 6,000.
1957-1970
After removing the populist regime of Mohammad Mosaddeq (which was originally focused on nationalizing Iran's oil industry but also set out to weaken the Shah's power) from power on 19 August 1953, in a coup, the monarch, Mohammad Reza ShahMohammad Reza Pahlavi
Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
, established an intelligence service with police powers. The Shah's goal was to strengthen his regime by placing political opponents under surveillance and repress dissident movements. According to Encyclopædia Iranica
Encyclopædia Iranica
Encyclopædia Iranica is a project whose goal is to create a comprehensive and authoritative English language encyclopedia about the history, culture, and civilization of Iranian peoples from prehistory to modern times...
:
In March 1955, the Army colonel was "replaced with a more permanent team of five career CIA officers, including specialists in covert operations, intelligence analysis, and counterintelligence, including Major General
Major general (United States)
In the United States Army, United States Marine Corps, and United States Air Force, major general is a two-star general-officer rank, with the pay grade of O-8. Major general ranks above brigadier general and below lieutenant general...
Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf who "trained virtually all of the first generation of SAVAK personnel."
In 1956 this agency was reorganized and given the name Sazeman-e Ettela'at va Amniyat-e Keshvar (SAVAK). These in turn were replaced by SAVAK’s own instructors in 1965. Chief CIA Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
analyst Jesse Leaf in an interview on 6th Jan. 1979 stated that the CIA taught Nazi torture techniques to SAVAK.
SAVAK had the power to censor the media, screen applicants for government jobs, "and according to reliable Western source, use all means necessary, including torture, to hunt down dissidents".
The CIA provided SAVAK with lists of Communists to torture and murder. These lists originated with KGB defectors working for the CIA.
After 1963, the Shah expanded his security organizations, including SAVAK, which grew to over 5300 full-time agents and a large but unknown number of part-time informers.
In 1961 the Iranian authorities dismissed the agency's first director, General Teymur Bakhtiar; he later became a political dissident. In 1970 SAVAK agents assassinated him, disguising the deed as an accident.
General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
Hassan Pakravan
Hassan Pakravan
Hassan Pakravan was a well known diplomat and minister in the Pahlavi pre-revolutionary government of Iran...
, Director of Savak from 1961–1965, had an almost benevolent reputation, for example dining with the Ayatollah Khomeini while Khomeini was under house arrest on a weekly basis, and later intervened to prevent Khomeini's execution, on the grounds it would "anger the common people of Iran". After the Iranian Revolution
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
, however, Pakravan was among the first of the Shah's officials to be executed by the Khomeini regime.
Pakravan was replaced in 1965 by General Nematollah Nassiri
Nematollah Nassiri
General Nematollah Nassiri , was the director of SAVAK, the Iranian intelligence agency during the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah. A personal friend of the Shah, he had gained notoriety for removing democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from power...
, a close associate of the Shah, and the service was reorganized and became increasingly active in the face of rising Shia and communist militancy and political unrest.
Siahkal attack and after
A turning point in SAVAK's reputation for ruthless brutality was reportedly an attack on a gendarmerie post in the Caspian village of Siahkal by a small band of armed Marxists in February 1971, although it is also reported to have tortured to death a Shia cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Reza Sa'idi, in 1970.According to Iranian political historian Ervand Abrahamian
Ervand Abrahamian
Ervand Abrahamian is a historian of Middle Eastern and particularly Iranian history.An Armenian born in Iran and raised in England, he received his M.A. at Oxford University and his Ph.D. at Columbia University. He teaches at the City University of New York where he is Distinguished Professor of...
, after this attack SAVAK interrogators were sent abroad for "scientific training to prevent unwanted deaths from 'brute force.' Brute force was supplemented with the bastinado; sleep deprivation; extensive solitary confinement; glaring searchlights; standing in one place for hours on end; nail extractions; snakes (favored for use with women); electrical shocks with cattle prods, often into the rectum; cigarette burns; sitting on hot grills; acid dripped into nostrils; near-drownings; mock executions; and an electric chair with a large metal mask to muffle screams while amplifying them for the victim. This latter contraption was dubbed the Apollo—an allusion to the American space capsules. Prisoners were also humiliated by being raped, urinated on, and forced to stand naked. Despite the new 'scientific' methods, the torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
of choice remained the traditional bastinado used to beat soles of the feet. The "primary goal" of those using the bastinados "was to locate arms caches, safe houses and accomplices ..."
Abrahamian estimates that SAVAK (and other police and military) killed 368 guerrillas between 1971–1977 and executed something less than 100 political prisoners between 1971 and 1979 - the most violent era of the SAVAK's existence.
By 1976, this repression was softened considerably thanks to publicity and scrutiny by "numerous international organizations and foreign newspapers." In 1976, Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
was elected President of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and he "raised the issue of human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
in Iran as well as in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Overnight prison conditions changed. Inmates dubbed this the dawn of `jimmykrasy.`
After the Iranian Revolution
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
of 1979, former directors Pakravan, Nassiri, and Moghadam were tried by Revolutionary Courts and executed by the Revolutionary Guard.
Operations
During the height of its power, SAVAK had virtually unlimited powers of arrest and detention. It operated its own detention centers, like Evin PrisonEvin Prison
Evin House of Detention is a prison in Iran, located in Evin, northwestern Tehran. It is noted for its political prisoners' wing, where prisoners have been held both before and after the 1979 Iranian Revolution...
. In addition to domestic security the service's tasks extended to the surveillance of Iranians abroad, notably in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and especially students on government stipend
Stipend
A stipend is a form of salary, such as for an internship or apprenticeship. It is often distinct from a wage or a salary because it does not necessarily represent payment for work performed, instead it represents a payment that enables somebody to be exempt partly or wholly from waged or salaried...
s. The agency also closely collaborated with the American CIA by sending their agents to an air force base in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
to share and discuss interrogation tactics. The CIA used the SAVAK as it's proxy. Many of the SAVAK staff were paid off by the CIA to be brutal towards Communists.
Teymur Bakhtiar
Teymur Bakhtiar
Teymur Bakhtiar was an Iranian general and the founder and head of SAVAK from 1958 to 1961, when he was dismissed by the Shah. In 1970, SAVAK agents assassinated him in Iraq.-Early life:...
was assassinated by SAVAK agents in 1970, and Mansur Rafizadeh, SAVAK's United States director during the 1970s, reported that General Nassiri's phone was tapped. Mansur Rafizadeh later published his life as a SAVAK man and detailed the human rights violations of the Shah in his book Witness: From the Shah to the Secret Arms Deal: An Insider's Account of U.S. Involvement in Iran. Mansur Rafizadeh was suspected to have been a double agent also working for the CIA. T
According to Polish author Ryszard Kapuściński
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Ryszard Kapuściński was a Polish journalist and writer whose dispatches in book form brought him a global reputation. Also a photographer and poet, he was born in Pińsknow in Belarusin the Kresy Wschodnie or eastern borderlands of the second Polish Republic, into poverty: he would say later that...
, SAVAK was responsible for
- Censorship of press, books and films.
- Interrogation and often torture of prisoners
- Surveillance of political opponents.
| Name | First year of operation | Last year of operation |
|---|---|---|
| Teymur Bakhtiar Teymur Bakhtiar Teymur Bakhtiar was an Iranian general and the founder and head of SAVAK from 1958 to 1961, when he was dismissed by the Shah. In 1970, SAVAK agents assassinated him in Iraq.-Early life:... |
1957 | 1961 |
| Hassan Pakravan Hassan Pakravan Hassan Pakravan was a well known diplomat and minister in the Pahlavi pre-revolutionary government of Iran... |
1961 | 1965 |
| Nematollah Nassiri Nematollah Nassiri General Nematollah Nassiri , was the director of SAVAK, the Iranian intelligence agency during the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah. A personal friend of the Shah, he had gained notoriety for removing democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh from power... |
1965 | 1978 |
| Nasser Moghadam Nasser Moghadam Lieutenant General Nasser Moghadam was the fourth and last chief of SAVAK . He succeeded General Nematollah Nassiri, who was arrested by the Shah's order in 1978... |
1978 | 1979 |
Victims
Sources disagree over how many victims SAVAK had and how inhumane its techniques were. Writing at the time of the Shah's overthrow, TIME magazineTime (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
described SAVAK as having "long been Iran's most hated and feared institution" which had "tortured and murdered thousands of the Shah's opponents." The Federation of American Scientists
Federation of American Scientists
The Federation of American Scientists is a nonpartisan, 501 organization intent on using science and scientific analysis to attempt make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1945 by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs...
also found it guilty of "the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners" and symbolizing "the Shah's rule from 1963-79." The FAS list of SAVAK torture methods included "electric shock, whipping, beating, inserting broken glass and pouring boiling water into the rectum, tying weights to the testicles, and the extraction of teeth and nails." According to a former CIA analyst on Iran, Jesse J. Leaf, SAVAK was trained in torture techniques by the CIA.
Fardoust and security and intelligence after the revolution
SAVAK was closed down shortly before the overthrow of the monarchy and the coming to power of Ayatollah Ruhollah KhomeiniRuhollah Khomeini
Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini was an Iranian religious leader and politician, and leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran...
in the February 1979 Iranian Revolution
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
. Following the departure of the Shah in January 1979, SAVAK's 3,000+ central staff and its agents were targeted for reprisals; almost all of them that were in Iran at the time of the Iranian Revolution were hunted down and executed, only a few who were on missions outside of Iran managed to survive.
SAVAK was replaced by the "much larger" SAVAMA, Sazman-e Ettela'at va Amniat-e Melli-e Iran, also known as the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran.
According to author Charles Kurzman, SAVAK was never dismantled but rather changed its name and leadership and continued on with the same codes of operation, and a relatively unchanged "staff."
Hossein Fardoust
Hossein Fardoust
General Hossein Fardoust was a childhood friend of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and served for ten years as deputy head of SAVAK, the powerful Iranian intelligence agency....
, a former classmate of the Shah, was a deputy director of SAVAK until he was appointed head of the Imperial Inspectorate, also known as the Special Intelligence Bureau, to watch over high-level government officials, including SAVAK directors. Fardust later is rumoured to have become director of SAVAMA, the post-revolution incarnation of the original SAVAK organization. (Robert Dreyfuss, Hostage to Khomeini 1981 and The Devils Game: How the United States Unleashed Fundamentalist Islam,2004)
After the victory of the Islamic revolution, a museum was opened in a former prison in central Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
called "Ebrat". The museum displays and exhibits the documented atrocities of SAVAK.
See also
- Mohammad Reza PahlaviMohammad Reza PahlaviMohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi, Shah of Iran, Shah of Persia , ruled Iran from 16 September 1941 until his overthrow by the Iranian Revolution on 11 February 1979...
- Ministry of Intelligence and National Security of Iran
- Iranian RevolutionIranian RevolutionThe Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
- Human rights in Islamic Republic of IranHuman rights in Islamic Republic of IranThe state of human rights in Iran has been criticized both by Iranians and international human right activists, writers, and NGOs. The United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Commission have condemned prior and ongoing abuses in Iran in published critiques and several resolutions.The...
External links
- Ministry of Intelligence and Security VEVAK - Iran Intelligence Agencies at website of Federation of American Scientists