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Only the President of the United States can solve the present crisis, and I believe all Americans, of whatever party or persuasion, owe him our support and our prayers.

I have made no criticism of the President's handling of the crisis. My public comments in New York on November 7, in Dallas on November 10 and in Los Angeles on November 11 all called for national unity behind the President. A senior White House official told me at breakfast on November 21 that, on the basis of fragmentary news ticker reports, remarks I had made in Austin on the foreign policy challenges of the 1980's were subject to misinterpretation. I offered to put out an immediate clarifying statement expressing support for the President in this crisis and calling for unity. (Indeed I suggested that Jody Powell draft it.) The offer was ignored. Since then I have read and heard myself described by high White House officials as acting deviously and dishonorably; as advising the Shah--strangely enough--to seek

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the advice of our government about whether to stay or leave
this country; and as having exerted pressure to get him
here in the first place.

This campaign struck me as all the more remarkable
against the background of a call by me on the first day
of the crisis to Deputy UnderSecretary of State Ben Read
in which I told him that I would not criticize the
Administration for its handling of the crisis either during
its course or afterwards; it could be sure that I would
do my utmost to keep the crisis and its aftermath
insulated from partisan controversy. The Administration was
well aware that from the first I have been calling Congressional
and other leaders urging restraint in comment. In short is not
I who has been courting controversy in the middle of a national crisis.

As for my own involvement in recent events, ironically
it began at the Administration's initiative. In the first
week of January 1979, a senior official of the State
Department asked my help in finding a residence for the

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Shah in the United States. Our government had concluded, I was informed, that the Shah must leave Iran if the Bakhtiar government were to survive the efforts of the Ayatollah Khomeini to obtain total power. If I could find a suitable domicile in America, the Shah might overcome his hesitation and hasten his departure. I doubted the analysis but acceded to the request. I called David Rockefeller for help. Mr. Rockefeller expressed his personal sympathy for the Shah but also his reluctance to become involved in an enterprise which might jeopardize the Chase Manhattan Bank's financial relationships with Iranian governmental or quasi-governmental organs. I then appealed to his brother Nelson; with his help, a suitable residence was located. A week later the Shah left Iran. Two weeks afterwards Nelson Rockefeller died.

Thus David Rockefeller's later role was hardly spurred by economic considerations as has been alleged; it ran,

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in fact, contrary to his commercial interests. He was
motivated by his desire to carry out the legacy of his
late brother and his devotion to the principle that our
nation owed loyalty to an ally who had been loyal to us.
This was my view as well, and remains so.

Less than two months later--in mid-March--another
senior official of the Department of State urged me to
dissuade the Shah, who had spent the intervening period
in Morocco, from asking for a U.S. visa until matters
settled down in Teheran. I refused with some indignation;
David Rockefeller was then approached. He too refused.
When Rockefeller and I inquired whether our government
would help the Shah find asylum in another country, we were
told that no official assistance of any kind was contemplated.

This I considered deeply wrong and still do.

Every American President for nearly four decades had
eagerly accepted the Shah's assistance and proclaimed him

CYD

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as an important friend of the United States. President

Truman in 1947 awarded the Shah the Legion of Merit for

his support of the allied cause during World War II, and

in 1949 praised him for his "courage and farsightedness"

and his "earnestness and sincerity in the welfare of his

people." President Eisenhower in 1954 paid tribute to the

Shah for his "enlightened leadership." President Kennedy

in 1962 hailed the Shah for "identifying himself with the

best aspirations of his people." President Johnson in 1964

lauded the Shah as a "reformist twentieth century monarch"

and in 1965 praised his "wisdom and compassion,...perception

and statesmanship." President Nixon in 1969 declared that the

Shah had brought about "a revolution in terms of social and

economic and political progress." President Ford in 1975

called the Shah "one of the world's great statesmen."

President Carter in 1977 praised Iran as "a very stabilizing

force in the world at large" and in 1978 lauded the Shah

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for his "progressive attitude" which was "the source of much of the opposition to him in Iran." Such quotations could be multiplied endlessly.

And they were correct. In my own experience the Shah never failed to stand by us. In the 1973 Mideast war Iran was the sole American ally adjoining the Soviet Union which did not permit the overflight of Soviet transport planes into the Middle East. In 1973-74, Iran was the only Middle East oil-producing country that did not join the oil embargo against us; it continued to sell oil to the U.S., to Israel and to our other allies. Iran kept its oil production at maximum capacity (thus helping stabilize the price) and never used oil as a political weapon. The Shah was a source of assistance and encouragement to the forces of moderation in the Middle East, Africa and Asia; he used his own military power to ensure the security of the Persian Gulf and to discourage adventures by radicals. He firmly supported the

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peace process that culminated in the Egyptian-Israeli treaty;
he was a defender of President Sadat against radical forces
in the area. After his initial advocacy of higher prices
in 1973, he used his influence to keep the prices steady so
that the real price of oil actually declined over the
period from 1973 to 1978 (due to inflation).

The crisis we face in 1979--the 65% hike in oil prices,
the cutback of Middle East oil production, the radical
challenges to the peace process, and the rise of anti-
American fanaticism in the whole area--is the price we
are paying for the absence of a friendly regime in Iran.
The conclusion is inescapable that many of the Shah's
opponents in Iran hate him not only for what he did wrong,
but also for what he did right--his friendship for the United
States, his support for Mideast peace, his rapid moderniza-
tion, his land reform, his support for public education and
women's rights, in short his effort to bring Iran into the

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twentieth century as an ally of the free world.

I do not doubt that wrongs were committed by the
Shah's government in his long rule; the question is how
appropriate it is to raise them, after four decades of
close association, in the period of the Shah's travail.

I, have been deeply worried about the foreign policy consequences
of spurning him. What will other friends of the United
States in the area, in comparably perilous situations and
perhaps even more complex domestic circumstances--leaders
essential for a moderate evolution of the whole region--
conclude if we turn against a man whom seven American
Presidents had lauded as a loyal ally and a progressive leader?

My conviction that on the human level we owed the Shah a place
of refuge had nothing to do with a scheme of restoring him
to power. I have stated publicly that we should seek the
best relations possible with the new authorities in Teheran.

I simply assert that it is incompatible with our national
honor to turn our back on a leader who cooperated with us

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for a generation. Never before have we given foreign
governments a veto over who could enter our country as a
private citizen.

Between early April and early July I put these
considerations before three senior officials in phone
conversations. And I called twice on Secretary of State
Vance in the same period. The upshot was a refusal to issue a VISA
explained by the tenseness of the situation in Iran.

In April I delivered a public speech stating that I thought
in morally wrong to treat the Shah as a "flying Dutchman
looking for a port of call."

In other words, I made five private approaches on this
subject to the government--none after July. Such was the
"obnoxious" pressure, as George Ball has called it, to which
our government was subjected.

When it became apparent that our government would not
help the Shah and that he was unable to stay any longer in

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Morocco, David Rockefeller and I did what we could to find
him a place of refuge. David Rockefeller was able to
arrange a temporary stay in the Bahamas. In April and May,
I appealed to the government of Mexico. To its enormous
credit, it had the courage to extend a visa even though--
as one official pointed out to me--Mexico was being asked
to run risks on behalf of a friend of the United States
that we were not willing to assume ourselves.

Once the Shah was in Mexico, David Rockefeller, John
McCloy and I tried to be helpful with private matters on a
personal basis. The education of his children in America
was the principal issue. We did our best to find appropriate
schooling; this raised the issue of visas. Contacts with
our government were handled by Mr. Rockefeller's assistant,
Joseph Reed, and John McCloy. Mr. McCloy repeatedly urged
the Department of State to designate an official with whom
the Shah's entourage could communicate on such matters without

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using our group as intermediaries. Such a contact point
was never established.

This was the state of affairs when the Shah fell ill
early in October. As it happened, I was out of the country
from October 9 to 23 and had no communication with any level
of the government about the matter. While in Europe I kept
in touch with the Rockefeller office but did not intercede
personally with any official or agency of the government--
though I would have had it been necessary. My understanding
is that Joseph Reed presented the medical records to Under
Secretary Newsom and on the basis of those records the
Administration admitted the Shah for treatment. I am not
aware that there was any hesitation. To the Administration's
credit, no pressure was needed or exercised; I gather that
the medical facts spoke for themselves. All of us conceived
that the reaction in Teheran would have to be evaluated
by the Administration which alone had the relevant facts.

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As for advice to the Shah about whether or not to
leave--the subject of other strange stories--the situation
was as follows. With conflicting threats emanating from
Teheran as to the impact on the safety of the hostages of a
movement by the Shah, Rockefeller, McCloy and I
concluded that it was inappropriate for us to advise
the Shah. Rockefeller called the President on November
15 to ask once again for the designation of an individual
who could accurately convey the government's recommendations
to the Shah's entourage. McCloy stressed the need for this
to the Deputy Secretary of State on November 20; I repeated it
to a senior White House official on November 21. We were told
the Administration agreed with our approach. No such point
of contact has yet been established. We were given no
guidance; therefore we made no recommendations
to the Shah as to what he should do when and if his medical
condition permits him to leave the United States.

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I reaffirm my support for the effort to assure a
measure of decency towards a fallen friend of this country.
The issue of the Shah's asylum goes not only to the moral
stature of our nation but also to our ability to elicit
trust and support among other nations--especially other
moderate regimes in the area. I do not condone all the
practices of the Shah's government, though they must be
assessed by the standards of his region and even more the
practices of those who will sit in judgment. Yes, we must
seek the best relations which are possible with the new
dispensation in Iran. But we shall impress no one by
engaging in retrospective denigration of an ally of a
generation in his hour of need. We cannot always assure the
future of our friends; we have a better chance of assuring
our own future if we remember who our friends are, and
acknowledge what human debts we owe those who stood by us in
*our* hours of need.

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I hope this ends the controversy. I think it is imperative that all Americans close ranks. Nothing will more strengthen the President's hand in pursuit of an honorable outcome than a continuing demonstration of national unity now and in the aftermath of the crisis. I shall do all I can to contribute to this end.

The agony of the hostages in Tehran has evoked the usual
leaks as to who was responsible. Unnamed officials have
asserted that David Rockefeller and I persuaded the
Administration to admit the Shah for medical treatment.
Even though this is the kind of decision entirely within
the discretion of an Administration which has proved itself
reasonably immune to my advice heretofore, these leaks have
not hesitated to assign us responsibility for the subsequent
drama. It is amazing that an administration insistently
proclaiming its devotion to human rights should hide behind
two private individuals when taking a position so obviously
correct, humane and necessary in the light of our country's
association of forty years with the Shah. And one would
think that experienced leaders would hesitate before such a
confession of weakness.

Be that as it may, an account of my involvement may be
useful.

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Ironically my first involvement with the Shah's domicile occurred on the Administration's initiative. In the first week of January, a senior official of the State Department asked my help in finding a suitable residence for the Shah in the United States. Our government had concluded, I was informed, that the Shah must leave the country if the Bakhtiar government were to survive and Khomeini to be kept from power. If I could find a domicile in America the Shah might overcome his hesitating and hasten his departure. I doubted the analysis but acceded to the request. Since I had no machinery for finding a residence, I called David Rockefeller for help. David answered by expressing his personal sympathy for the Shah but also his reluctance to become involved in an enterprise which might jeopardize the Chase bank's interests in Iran. I then appealed to his brother Nelson; he used the Rockefeller administrative apparatus to locate a suitable residence. A week later the

Shah left Iran. I do not know to what extent the promise
of a residence in the United States affected his decision.

Two weeks later Nelson Rockefeller died.

I mention this conversation for two reasons. My first
involvement with a domicile for the Shah in America was at
the request of our own government. Secondly David
Rockefeller's later role was not caused by economic motives
as has been alleged; it ran in fact contrary to his
commercial interests. He was motivated by his characteristic
devotion to our national values; above all I am convinced
of what he would never assume, that he fulfilled the legacy
of his dead brother regardless of the material disadvantages it
might cause him.

Eight weeks after these events another senior official
called me with a new proposition regarding the Shah who was by
now in Morocco. I was urged to dissuade the Shah from
asking for a visa; he was no longer welcome in America--at

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least until matters settled down in Teheran. When I refused with some indignation David Rockefeller was approached. He too refused. Rockefeller and I exchanged impressions and decided to inquire whether our government, having withdrawn its earlier offer of a domicile, would help the Shah find asylum somewhere else. We were told that no official assistance of any kind was contemplated.

This I could not accept. For since Truman successive American Presidents of both parties had readily accepted the Shah's assistance while reciprocally extending our own. It would be easy to fill pages with quotations of eight American Presidents of both parties praising the Shah for his friendship, modernization and, yes, liberal and humane rule. In my experience the Shah had never failed to stand by us. In 1972 he turned over to us his entire inventory of F-5 airplanes in order to permit a rapid reinforcement of South Vietnam. In 1973 his was the only Middle East oil-producing