EX-SHAH OF PERSIA DEAD

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 23, 27 July 1944, Page 4

EX-SHAH OF PERSIA DEAD

Rec. 10 a.m. LONDON, July 26. The death has occurred at Johannesburg of Riza Khan Pahlevi, former

Shah of Persia, aged 66, who abdicated in 1941 in favour of his son. Riza Knan Pahlevi took control in Persia in 1921 as a result of a coup d'etat and was Prime Minister in 1923. Two years later he was crowned Shah. A man of great energy, he did much in the early days of his reign to build up a centralised administration and develop .Persian industry and communications, including the construction of the Trans-Iranian railway, numerous roads, and telegraph and postal facilities. The constitutional organisation through ivhich he professed to govern was, hoAvever, a mere facade, behind ivhich he exercised complete and autocratic dictatorial power. His vacillating attitude toivards the Nazi menace, despite frequent Allied warnings, and his unAvillingncss or inability lo control the movement of Germans in Iran led to his abdication, under pressure of British propaganda, in September, 1941, "on account of failing health," and he left the country. His estates Avere con-r"""-'w1 ;