Shah Of Persia’s Plans For Son

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29389, 16 December 1960, Page 24

Shah Of Persia’s Plans For Son

[From a Special Correspondent in London] Persia’s crown Prince was only 24 hours old when his father set a pattern for his future. As the baby, dark-haired, pinkfaced, and squealing, lay in his plastic hospital cot, the Shah was receiving congratulations on his birth from the Prime Minister, Sharif Emami, and members of his Cabinet. Thanking them, the Shah said: “Like my father, Reza Shah, and myself, my son will be brought up in the knowledge that at all times his country comes first and if necessary he must sacrifice his life for it.”

That makes a pretty grim future for a baby prince who may one day sit on Persia’s Peacock Throne and he can no more expect an easy life than his father did.

The present Shah’s father, Reza Shah, was a tough oldjnan who in the twenties planned a modern Persia with skill and determination. A former soldier, he set great store by army education and his son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was sent to a military school as well as studying with private tutors, when he was seven. The second phase of his education was in Switzerland, where he learnt to speak fluent French, English, studied history, literature, mathematics, physics, chemistry. When he returned to Persia, Reza Shah once more decided he must be toughened up and he went back to military college. He became Shah when his proGerman father at the “request” of the Allies, abdicated in 1941,

This background has inevitably influenced his ideas on the future of his own son. Because he knows how important it is to control an army in any Middle East country, he will send the boy to military college, but both he and his wife are determined he will also be as westernised as possible. Queen Farah, partly educated in Paris, has already said she wants her son to hqve a modern liberal education. This indicates Schooling either in France or Switzerland, probably the latter, where he can learn extra languages essential to his life as a king. Before the serious business of education begins, however, the baby Prince will have a few carefree years, much less hedged around with protocol than, say, England’s baby Prince Andrew. He will spend his summers up in the hills behind Teheran in the family’s palace where the grounds are wooded, cool, where there are swimming pools, volleyball and tennis courts.

Around it are the palaces of his uncles and aunts, such as the king’s brother, Prince Golam Reza, Princess Ashraf, the Shah’s twin sister, and the Queen Mother. Here he will be looked after principally by a French nurse, Jeanne Guyon, who will give him his first grounding in the French language. In the winters, when the snow caps the hills,, the royal family moves down into Teheran, the private palace, a charming place looking little, more impressive than a big white mansion. The Prince’s own quarters were all ready for him to move into when,

with the Queen, he goes there from the hospital where he was bom. The rooms are a kind of miniature house a little apart from the main palace. May Be Spoiled

There are indications that the baby might be in danger of being spoiled. The Shah is so infatuated with him that this week he has scarcely left the hospital, and actually set up bis office there the day after the Crown Prince was bom. He has seen him for several hours each day ever since and on November 4 was present at his circumcision—a requirement of Moslem faith within a few days of any baby’s birth. The Shah will certainly be the greatest influence on his son and will instill in him some of his own pride in the Pahlevi Dynasty. The dynasty is a new one, founded only when Reza Shah overthrew the former corrupt Qajars in the twenties. The Shah is so determined it will continue that he sacrificed two marriages in an effort to beget the son he now has.

The baby will probably see more of his father than many royal children because though he is very busy the Shah’s duties are generally within the borders of his own country. On unofficial occasions he moved around Teheran with little ceremony, driving one of his own cars, which range from a Cadillac convertible to a Rolls Royce.

He hopes the child will be athletic for he loyes sports and in the winter makes hunting and ski-ing trips into the mountains. When the Prince is old enough he will certainly be taken with his parents to Europe for both like to visit friends there when they have time. i Shah’s Coronation

Probably the first national occasion in which the baby will participate is one for which he is virtually responsible:* his father’s coronation. Now that the Shah has an heir he is free to go ahead and organise this final confirmation of his sovereignty and two days after the birth this week he said it would be held next year. This is a suitable year since it coincides with the 2500th anniversary of the foundation of Persia’s monarchy. Then the Peacock Throne will be secure as it can be for the Crown Prince. But will he ever sit on it? In an era where monarchies are crumbling and many consider their function obsolete, Persia so far has remained stable. The country is going ahead fast, but there still are enormous problems to be overcome and until they are there will always remain a slight doubt about the monarchy’s future.

The present Shah is carrying on his father’s development programmes. Roads, dams and airports are being built and attempts are being made to wipe out corruption in all stratas of society, which has been dry rot at the core of Persia’s economic and social system. He is also determined to curb rising prices and give Persia’s poor a fairer deal. If his aims can be achieved, the Crown Prince will grow up in a country with the most impressive twentieth century development in the Middle East. Like his father he will be able to apply Western knowledge and training to local difficulties and will be expected to dedicate his life to solving them. One advantage over the present Shah he will have extra freedom in choosing his own wife. The Shah’s first wife, Fawzia of Egypt, was chosen for him by Reza Shah and the young couple had scarcely met before they were married. The marriage was not unexpectedly a failure. But in his resignation to endure anything which might be for his country’s good—including the later divorce of his second wife. Soraya, whom he loved—the Shah gave an example he obviously expects his son to follow.—(Associated Newspaper Feature Service.)