General Hassan Pakravan, director of SAVAK from 1961 to 1966, had an almost benevolent reputation, for example dining on a weekly basis with Ayatollah Khomeini while Khomeini was under house arrest, and later intervened to prevent Khomeini's execution on the grounds that 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.