Shah set to go to Mexico

Press, 24 November 1979, Page 8

Shah set to go to Mexico

NZPA-Reuter New York The deposed Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi hopes to leave the United States within the next two weeks, an American Broadcasting Company correspondent, Barbara Walters, has reported. Miss Walters, who spoke to the ousted monarch in the room at New York Hospital where he is being treated for cancer, quoted him as saying he wanted to return to his exile home in Mexico as soon as possible. She said he had expressed sadness at current events in Iran, but had refused to comment on the Islamic revolution or the occupation of the United States Embassy in Teheran by students demanding his extradition to stand trial. He said he would talk when he left the United States, not before. He hoped to go back to Mexico in two weeks when efforts to remove a gallstone might be completed, Miss Walters said. Asked if he would return to Iran, the deposed Shah was quoted as saying: “I rrr.y be many things, but I’m not stupid.” Miss Walters said he had told her he had never wanted to move to the United States, but had been i persuaded to do so for mediI cal treatment. Sources at New York Hos- ; pital said he had nearly completed radiation treatment for cancer of the lymph nodes from which he has suffered for six years.

Miss Walters said he was very alert, sitting in a chair and watching television to keep up-to-date on news from Iran. The wall of his room had a picture, given him by one of his daughters, of a gorilla iwith a hand up to its head, she said. The caption read: “Don’t be hard on me, I’ve ihad a bad day."