We begin to night’s program with Dr Alireza Nourizadeh reading one of his poems from his collected works.
Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh:
I remember the day forty years ago today when I met with the prominent Iranian nationalist politician Dr. Ghulamhossein Sadighi.
He had just met with Mohammad Reza Shah with a view to form a government to take Iran out of its social turmoil.
He said the Shah had asked him to take up this post and save the country from any further crisis.
I asked Sadighi what had he replied to the Shah and he said:
“Of course I did agree to his offer as I did not wish to take my dream of a free and prosperous Iran into my grave. “
He even asked me to provide him with the list those officials who had been arrested and imprisoned to calm the public, including Hoveyda, because he wanted to free them and make use of them for rebuilding a new Iran based on tolerance and national solidarity.
However, as we were talking, the late Dariush Forouhar and his wife Parvaneh arrived and carried a letter from the National Front party that had fired Sadighi from their ranks and opposed his acceptance of forming a cabinet as long as the Shah was in Iran.
Sadighi told the Forouhars that he does not belong to the party and does not feel obliged to accept their instruction. However, he had added that in the interest of the country’s future and avoiding any further political turmoil he would not accept the Shah’s offer. But he warned by saying:
“If the Shah leaves the country as told by the ambassador of a foreign country then the army will collapse snd Bakhtiar’s government will fail. You have accepted Khomeini’s leadership and along with the nation will pay a huge price for this in years to come”.