38 Facts About Amir-Abbas Hoveyda

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was an Iranian economist and politician who served as Prime Minister of Iran from 27 January 1965 to 7 August 1977.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was the longest serving prime minister in Iran's history.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in Mansur's cabinet.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was the nephew of Abdol Hossein Sardari, known as "Schindler of Iran".

French literary works by the likes of Andre Gide, Andre Malraux, Moliere, and Baudelaire, captivated the young Amir-Abbas Hoveyda and gave way for his intellectual growth.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda's stay at the university would be markedly ephemeral because of the effects of the German Blitzkrieg which used Belgian territory as an entry route into France.

Hedayat and others never distanced themselves from Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, symbolizing the latter's authenticity.

In 1950, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda returned to an ever-changing Iran .

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda's tenure did not last long before Mossadegh was appointed Prime Minister, dissolving the former cabinet along with Hoveyda's job.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda's rise to power involved many years of service within the ministry of foreign affairs, but this path took on a whole new approach once he joined the board of directors of the National Iranian Oil Company in 1958 at the behest of his patron Abdullah Entezam, who had by then assumed a high ranking position at the company.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda became a freemason in 1960 believing that his mere association with the organization would help propel him into the national spotlight.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda would replace the deceased Mansour as the longest running premier in Iran's modern history.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda became a household name in Iran through the constant character assassination he received by Towfigh Magazine, Iran's most popular political satire magazine.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was largely unknown among the population of Iran before Towfigh publicized him.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was caricatured in Towfighs weekly magazine carrying a cane, wearing one carnation in his suit jacket pocket, and smoking a pipe.

The first half of Amir-Abbas Hoveyda's premiership is marked by a sense of optimism.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda resumed many of the reform initiatives set out by the Mansour administration.

Publicly, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda assumed the notion that the regime in its current state would eventually reform on its own, and that political liberalization was only a small issue in the grand scheme of modernization.

In private, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda often lamented over Iran's conditions, admitting to insufficiencies of the state and his own political impotence.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda had an intensely rough relationship with the likes of Asadollah Alam and Ardeshir Zahedi, son of the famed participant in the 1953 coup against Mossadegh, General Fazlollah Zahedi.

In relation to Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, it is believed that the shah was being threatened by the growing influence wielded by party officials, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda being the most notable.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was alleged to have been the author of an article which attacked the opposition figure the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as being a British agent and a liar, which was anyonymously published in Kayhan newspaper in January 1978 on the Shah's orders.

Since Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was widely seen as a major cause of the revolution due to much of the bad press he had generated throughout the years by newspapers that wanted to indirectly attack the Shah's policies, they reasoned that the public would be appeased.

On 7 November 1978, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was arrested together with other 60 former officials.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda would be held under house arrest in an upper-Tehran residence often affiliated with SAVAK activity, and the Shah assumed that he would be put on trial, and freed after publicly vindicating himself.

However, once the Shah fled the country, the SAVAK agents assigned with the task of guarding Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, absconded from their posts, leaving Hoveida open to arrest by revolutionary forces.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda refused requests by friends and relatives to flee Iran before it was too late, and instead turned himself over to the new authorities.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda believed that as the trial would be before an Islamic court, and that he personally had done nothing wrong, he would be acquitted.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was taken to the Refah School, a temporary headquarters for the revolution's vanguard.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was interviewed by Belgian journalist Christine Ockrent, a now infamous interview in which Hoveyda was subject to near accusatory questions by the interviewer.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was the head of the tribunal that had assembled to try the former prime minister.

On 7 April 1979, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was transported to Qasr Prison, once a getaway palace for monarchs of the Qajar dynasty, but converted into a prison during the 1920s.

In defiance, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda denounced Khalkhali and informed him that he had no intention of defending himself any longer in front of a sham court.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was left on the ground in agony, begging for the executioners to "finish him off".

Seconds before the coup de grace was at last given, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda is said to have gasped to the guard standing over him: "It wasn't supposed to end like this".

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda's corpse was held in Tehran's morgue for several months after his execution, before it was secretly released to his immediate family and buried in Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran as an unknown deceased.

On 19 July 1966, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda married Laila Emami in a small ceremony.

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was awarded the French title of Commander of the Legion of Honour after his death.