Amir-Abbas Hoveyda (18 February 1919 – 7 April 1979) was an Iranian economist and politician who served as Prime Minister of Iran from 1965 to 1977 and Secretary-General of the Rastakhiz Party from 1975 to 1976. He was the longest-serving prime minister in Iran's history, serving in office for over 12 years. He also served as deputy prime minister and minister of finance in the cabinet of his predecessor, Hassan Ali Mansur.
Early life and education
Amir-Abbas Hoveyda was born on 18 February 1919 in Tehran to Habibollah Hoveyda, a senior diplomat, and Afsar ol-Moluk, a descendant of the Qajar dynasty. Through his maternal family, he was the nephew of Abdol Hossein Sardari, later known as the "Iranian Schindler". Hoveyda's father was a lapsed adherent of the Baháʼí Faith; as a result, the family was secular.
At the time of his father's death in 1933, Hoveyda was living in Beirut, Lebanon, where he attended the Grand Lycée Franco-Libanais, a private school affiliated with the French government. As a teenager, he reportedly became a Francophile, enjoying literary works by the likes of Gide, Malraux, Molière, and Baudelaire. This influenced his choice to attend a French university in 1938, but amid a brewing diplomatic dispute between the French government and Reza Shah, he transferred to the Free University of Brussels in Belgium a year later. Hoveyda's studies were then disrupted by the outbreak of World War II and the subsequent German invasion of Belgium in May 1940. After a period of displacement, he was able to return to the university, obtaining a degree in political science in 1941 while the country remained under German occupation. Besides his native Persian, he learned to communicate in several languages, including French, English, German, Italian, and Arabic.
Military and civil service (1942–1958)
Upon his return to Iran in 1942, Hoveyda rested for a few months before enlisting as a soldier in Iran's armed forces. Despite his aristocratic background, his plan at the time was to use his experience as a conscript to supplement his seniority at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he applied for employment prior to being drafted and was later confirmed. Because of his higher education, Hoveyda was able to bypass boot camp and directly enter the Officer's School.
During his time working for the Foreign Ministry, Hoveyda befriended many elements of Iranian high society, including the likes of Sadegh Hedayat and Sadegh Choubak. In August 1944, he accepted a position to accompany Zeinolabedin Rahnema, Iran's minister plenipotentiary, to France, and to stay at the Iranian embassy there. In 1947, while working in Stuttgart, Hoveyda was assigned the task of negotiating over deals made between Iran and West Germany. While there, he became friends with Abdollah Entezam, a diplomat with ties to the royal family.
In 1950, Hoveyda returned to Iran, to work as assistant director of the public relations office at the Foreign Ministry and executive secretary for Entezam, who was appointed the new chief minister. His tenure did not last long, however, as Mohammad Mossadegh was appointed prime minister, and dismissed all cabinet members. Leaving Iran once again in 1952 amid political violence, Hoveyda was able to secure a position with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees through the help of his European contacts. As a liaison officer, he was given the task of visiting various continents, including Asia, Africa, and the Americas, publicizing the plight of refugees and in effect receiving several commendations from high ranking United Nations officials. Upon Mossadegh's removal in 1953, the Embassy of Iran in Turkey would serve to be Hoveyda's final diplomatic position.
Rise to power (1958–1965) 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 (NIOC) in 1958 at the behest of his patron Abdullah Entezam, who had by then assumed a high ranking position at the company. As managing director and special assistant to Entezam, Hoveyda used his experiences in the West to transform management-worker relations. As an example, he introduced innovative methods by which workers filed grievances in regard to any aspect of the working environment they deemed unsatisfactory, and helped to figuratively enmesh the roles of management and the labourers into a collective entity. One way he went about doing this was by eating many of his meals alongside wage labourers in the cafeteria. Although he advocated the emulation of Western models to improve overall productivity and worker relations, Hoveyda was very outspoken in favour of expelling foreign technicians and attracting indigenous sources of labour. The NIOC's periodical, Kavosh, was first published during his tenure. What is unique about this magazine is that it was, initially, virtually void of any semblance of the growing cult of personality which surrounded the Shah.
Continuing his duties as managing director at the NIOC, Hoveyda also helped Hassan Ali Mansour in establishing a semi-independent group of highly trained, Western educated, and young technocrats. The organization's main goal was to devise methods of rectifying the nation's ailing economy. Known as the Progressive Circle, this government-sponsored dowreh ("Persian for a gathering held at regular intervals") was a deliberate attempt by the shah to thin out the older generation of politicians with a new 'progressive' crop. With its inception in 1959, the Circle acted in conjunction with a similar government commission called the Plan Organization. Hoveyda would play a major leadership role in the Circle and would be the catalyst behind much of its recruitment efforts.
Besides experience and patronage, Freemasonry was seen by many politicians at the time as a supplemental credit toward obtaining high-ranking government positions. There is no doubt that many members of the Foroughi Lodge, the chapter Hoveyda would eventually join, harboured and produced many influential politicians of Iran's modern era. Hoveyda became a freemason in 1960 believing that his mere association with the organization would help propel him into the national spotlight. Hoveyda would succeed in this regard, but the attention he received was anything but positive. Freemasonry in Iran has always been seen as an extension of British imperialism, and with rumours surrounding Hoveyda's religious persuasion, opportunities to attack Hoveyda's character were not taken for granted by his political adversaries during his years as head of foreign policy and Prime Minister. It is well documented that Court Minister Asadollah Alam and General Nasiri of SAVAK, Iran's domestic security and intelligence service, helped expedite the publication of key controversial books against Freemasonry, referencing Hoveyda in each piece. Rumours were also spread by his detractors that he was a Baháʼí, a persecuted religion in Iran, but both he and the Shah denied that he was a Baháʼí.
Prime Minister of Iran (1965–1977)
When the Progressive Circle soon became a political entity in the form of the Iran Novin (New Iran) Party in 1963, Hoveyda would be thrust into the national scene. Serving as Minister of Finance under Prime Minister Hassan Ali Mansour in 1964, the now well seasoned Hoveyda would make his mark by acting as the cabinet's intellectual center. Many observers, both within and outside Iran, would take note of Hoveyda's prudent behaviour and shrewdness. To many, he embodied the archetypical statesman. Hoveyda's positive attributes would again be shrouded by scandal and gossip. During the early months of Mansour's premiership, the government was attacked for ratifying a bill which allowed foreigners extraterritorial rights. More specifically, those who benefited from the law were U.S. military personnel and their dependents. These "capitulation rights" would have a negative impact on the way government at the time was seen by the populace. Because the actions of the government were, by law, reflective of the sitting cabinet at the time, disregarding individual ministerial involvement, hoveyda was also blamed for the bill's implementation even though he was not directly involved in its drafting.
An attempt on Mansour's life on 21 January 1965, by a seventeen-year-old devotee of the Fada'yan-e Islam, and Mansour's death in hospital five days later, would completely alter Hoveyda's future. As he personally reported the news to an obviously distraught shah, he was ordered to formulate a cabinet. Hoveyda would replace the deceased Mansour as the longest serving premier in Iran's modern history. The sense of autonomy seen among past prime ministers such as Ali Amini, Haj Ali Razmara, and Mohammad Mosaddegh, had been systematically marginalized by the autocratic Mohammad Reza Shah. In his rather successful campaign at consolidating power, the king maintained his international image as a constitutional monarch, but Hoveyda's tenure as PM attests to how this portrayal was not an objective reflection of circumstances. Hoveyda's premiership would be the pivot behind his resistance to such powerlessness. Hoveyda became a household name in Iran through the constant character assassination he received by Towfigh Magazine, Iran's most popular political satire magazine. Hoveyda was largely unknown among the population of Iran before Towfigh publicized him. He was caricatured in Towfighs weekly magazine carrying a cane (caused by a traffic accident in which he was involved), wearing one carnation in his suit jacket pocket, and smoking a pipe. Towfigh Magazine referred to him as "The Caned One" and even devoted an entire book dedicated to exposing his flaws as a premier entitled "Assa-Nameh". The magazine (and Iranian media in general) frequently criticized and lampooned Hoveyda, primarily because they intended to criticize the Shah himself, but were unable to directly do so due to censorship. Eventually Hoveyda, by order of the Shah, forever shut down Towfigh Magazine in 1971 due to Towfigh Magazine's heavy criticism of the Shah's corruption and policies. This was despite the fact that Hoveyda publicly claimed that criticism of the government was to be encouraged, and whereby any restriction of press freedoms had to be by court order through the judiciary and not by unilateral orders of the government.
The first half of Hoveyda's premiership is marked by a sense of optimism. As already mentioned, in 1966, Hoveyda attempted to allure many elements of the intellectual community, as well as the opposition, into an informal agreement with the regime. Although talks between the two sides eventually broke down, Hoveyda never lost sight of what a partnership between the two could have accomplished. His pragmatic approach to politics allowed him to envision an incremental reform process that could be carried out through action. This is contrary to the path assumed by many Iranian intellectuals at the time, which involved quixotic solutions to problems such as electoral corruption and media censorship. Hoveyda resumed many of the reform initiatives set out by the Mansour administration. In particular, reform plans that were laid out by the Shah in the White Revolution. Although a secularist, he would even allocate government revenue to the clerical establishment. The clerical establishment was seen as a bulwark against Communism by the Shah, and was constantly reinforced (a policy that the Shah would later regret).