Yazdi: "Capitalism Kills"
Iran's tough-talking Foreign Minister Ibrahim Yazdi, 47, is an American-trained microbiologist who lived and worked in the U.S. for 18 years before joining the Ayatullah Khomeini's entourage in Paris last October. In a candid interview last week, he discussed the prospect of an "Irangate" scandal, the fate of his country's F-14s and other topics with TIME Tehran Bureau Chief Bruce van Voorst. Excerpts:
On U.S. military hardware in Iran. We've already begun negotiations to sell back the F-14s. We have started talks with the intention of selling all of them--the whole system. We have no problems with other systems and will not be trying to sell off other military hardware.
On evidence of payoffs to U.S. Congressmen, officials and journalists by the Shah. The Washington embassy files were bare, with the exception of lists of people who received mundane things--champagne, perfume, caviar--for Christmas. However, we are determined to track down huge amounts of money which went to Washington, and we have asked the FBI to help us. Some $19 million was spent by the ex-Shah's secret police [SAVAK] in 1976-77. The FBI wants to know whether the Alien Registration Act has been violated, and we want to know what SAVAK Chief Mansur Rafizadeh did with $8 million in 1976. There's no record of how it was spent or who got it. Another $11 million was transferred to the embassy during the imperial couple's mid-November visit to Washington in 1977. We gave the FBI considerable evidence on both cases some six weeks ago, and are waiting for results. [The FBI confirmed last week that the Iranian government had asked for its help in tracking down the money and said it was still investigating.]
On the possibility of an "Irangate." The presumption is that the really sensitive secret documents relating to the Shah's dealings with foreigners are in the imperial court archives. We have asked for these documents and I would expect the truly explosive materials would be among them. [There is one] document in which former Iranian Ambassador to the U.S. Ardeshir Zahedi recorded the support of such prominent figures as [Zbigniew] Brzezinski, [Henry] Kissinger, [Nelson] Rockefeller and Senators [Howard] Baker and [Abraham] Ribicoff for the Shah's move in setting up a military government in the fall of 1978.
This is the document in which Zahedi quotes Kissinger* as arguing for a "stiff stand against" opposition figures and adding that "my view is that all the political prisoners released earlier should be arrested and put back in jail." We didn't release it, but I can assure you the document is genuine. Some Americans must be squirming at the thought of what's in the other documents.
On reports of "foreign agitation" in Khuzistan and Kurdistan. Do you think the Israelis, the greatest losers in the revolution, will sit there and do nothing? If you are looking for signed receipts for equipment sent across the border, I do not have them. Persons engaged in covert operations do not leave behind documents. But the logic is that these same people [the Israelis and Americans] will not sit and do nothing about the loss of their interests in Iran. The Americans, the Israelis, the Zionists had great influence here before the revolution. The remnants of that influence are still here.
We know capitalism stops at nothing. It kills. It destroys. It did so in Iran in 1953, in Chile, Viet Nam, and would try again here if we don't stay alert.
* The former Secretary of State believes that the document may have been fabricated to "blacken his mime." Last week Kissinger told TIME that on the date of that alleged conversation I was not even in Washington. Secondly, I have no recollection whatever of any such conversation It is not true. The only thing which I can't say is by whom it was invented "
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