The Khaibar Khan, And What He Saw: Part One[Original version posted on my blog on 18 May 2014 as "Muhammad Ali, Mr. Goody, The Khaibar Khan, And What He Saw: Part I"]There once was a man known as the Khaibar Khan; that is, he was known as not just any old Khaibar Khan but as THE Khaibar Khan. In some circles in the late 1950s and early 60s, he seemed to personify stereotypical Western ideas about "Middle East princes." "Ames [Iowa] Daily Tribune," 30 September 1961 [now requiring sign-up to read-dwd]: Most of this reputation as a cosmopolitan fashion plate seems to have come from successful self-manufactured propaganda, as he even garnered a certificate of sartorial approval as "The World's Best Dressed Man." More investigation might lead one to wonder how much of the propaganda was self-manufactured (for example, as in the letter to the editor above). In any event, his real name was Khaibar Gudarzian (also spelled Goodarzian), with the honorific title of Khan presumably added as he claimed to be the leader of an Iranian tribe known as the Bakhtiari. Gudarzian proved to be a diplomatic distraction for the United States in its relations with the Shah of Iran. The issue revolved around allegations of corruption involving US foreign aid to Iran. In May of 1963, Gudarzian brought this to the attention of US Senator John L. McClellan, Chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (see pp. 2-10 of linked pdf). In subsequent months and years, a great deal of time and ink was devoted to the subject on the diplomatic level, mostly due to the Shah's frustration with the slow course of justice in the United States. FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1964-1968, VOLUME XXII, IRAN Some idea of how much of an "irritant" this was is at FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1964-1968, Volume XXII; Iran: document numbers 57, 62, 69, 71, 74, 92, 100, 106, 108, etc. I stopped looking after #108 because that only brought me up to January of 1966! (And the more compelling reading by far had nothing to do with the Gudarzian crisis but with the Ayatollah Khomeini, and with the Shah's "White Revolution" and lust for the most advanced weaponry without having enough trained military personnel to operate the damn things.) [At this point in my original (May 2014), I had provided three links for further background consideration, two from a blog and another from an associated site linked from that blog. The latter gave accounts of various difficulties the Iranian royal family had with Gudarzian. It has since reverted to what its original title led one to expect in the first place: a "Guide to Antique Persian Rugs & Carpets." The blog entry about Gudarzian's insurance fraud case shows the court brief on that case, without comment. I can't recall if that was what was in the original entry (solely or in part). Very strange, however, is the other blog link. It originally provided some general background on Gudarzian and his various issues. Now there's a blog entry consisting of the second half of the State Department document I quoted in full above (from "Gudarzian Case" forward), but prefaced by a paragraph claiming that Gudarzian "is alleged to have concocted an elaborate ruse to cheat the Iranian royal family....{and later} pops up as a person of interest in the Robert Kennedy assassination....{and his} daughter Shirin is thought to be the girl in the polka dot dress who was with Sirhan B. Sirhan." It could be that Gudarzian was "cheating" the Iranian royal family (as opposed to exposing them). But the idea that his daughter "is thought to be the girl in the polka dot dress who was with Sirhan B. Sirhan" is mistaken (at best). The most significant witnesses, Sandra Serrano and Vincent DiPierro, reported seeing a young Caucasian woman (almost certainly an American) who was very attractive -- which happens to be the description Gudarzian himself related (below). It would be an elaborate ruse indeed to describe such a woman in the company of Sirhan Sirhan if Gudarzian was referring to his own daughter-dwd] Sara Ehsani-Nia more recently offered an alternative perspective in "'Go Forth And Do Good': US-Iranian Relations During the Cold War Through the Lens of Public Diplomacy" (Penn History Review, Volume 19, Issue 1, Fall 2011). Ehsani-Nia wrote [p. 29] that Gudarzian was formerly both a confidant to the Shah and a member of British military intelligence. Via a spy network in the Imperial Palace, allegedly, he broke into the Shah's office safe in mid-February of 1962 and found checks linked to the Shah's Swiss bank account for $29 million. These "were to be distributed on behalf of the Pahlavi Foundation to members of the royal family as well as foreign personalities such as the American Ambassador to Iran Julius Holmes, CIA Director Allen Dulles, and financier David Rockefeller." The origin of these funds was from US Agency for International Development money. It was allegedly found [p. 30] that Gudarzian's photocopies of these records cross-checked against US Department of Treasury records (for aid payments to Iran) "show that in repeated instances, multi-million-dollar checks to Iran were followed swiftly by multi million-dollar deposits in the account of the Pahlavi Foundation." Naturally, that put a halt to US foreign aid to Iran for the duration. Ehsani-Nia concluded, "The investigation continued until it was finally dropped in 1967; with continuous pressure from the State Department, Senator McClellan finally repudiated the allegations [and] additionally discrediting and deporting Khan.84 [84: 'Foreign Relations of the United States 1964-1968, Volume XXII: Iran,' State Department Files, accessed November 2011....]" So it seems the issue was not necessarily a case of wild allegations made by a buffoon. Maybe it was more along the lines of something needing to be swept under the rug to continue in good graces with a corrupt, dictatorial regime that ruled a country in an area of critical importance to US Cold War foreign policy and national security interests (geo-strategically speaking). Anyone wanting to learn more about these issues should find some interesting reading in Matthew K. Shannon's 2009 thesis, "AN AUGURY OF REVOLUTION: THE IRANIAN STUDENT MOVEMENT AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY, 1960-1972." In his second chapter, starting at p. 28, Shannon provided a great deal of information regarding the sour relations between the Kennedy Administration and the Shah, including the fact that the Shah was happy to learn of the demise of President John F. Kennedy. Also noted are significant tensions that developed between the State Department and Justice Department, due in particular to Attorney General Robert Kennedy's tendency to listen to complaints of young Iranians studying in the US. In the third chapter (p. 51), Shannon noted that relations improved markedly during the Johnson Administration, as Lyndon Johnson was more interested in how loyal foreign governments were to the United States than in how they ran their countries. But his withdrawal from the presidential race in 1968 seems to have been a heavy blow to the Shah, as the Democratic Party's remaining contenders were known to be no friends to his regime (especially Robert Kennedy). Fortunately, his luck improved during the year. Robert Kennedy was dead by the time the Shah visited the US in June of 1968, where he gave Harvard University's commencement speech and received yet another honorary degree. And later in the year, his old friend Richard Nixon was elected to the presidency. This digression into the realm of foreign affairs actually does have some relevance. For instance, in a report of phone calls to Rampart detectives on 5 June 1968 [p. 11], some fellows of a military intelligence persuasion got the word out that one of their tribe had known Sirhan Sirhan back in the day. 5:50 p.m. White What "the organization to gain support for the Shah of Iran" might be is unclear. And if the allegation is true, it might remind some of the seemingly extremely flexible political allegiances of Lee Harvey Oswald. What a young Palestinian refugee living in the United States would find to support in the Pahlavi regime in Iran is anyone's guess. A more significant issue is that on the first day of June in 1968, the Khaibar Khan began serving as a volunteer at Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign headquarters in Los Angeles (presumably on Wilshire Boulevard). Attention was drawn to this because Khan signed up many volunteers in a questionable fashion: he wrote the same address for each (that of his ex-wife), even people who telephoned to volunteer. He also apparently claimed all these newly-arriving young volunteers were "with his group." Upon being interviewed by police, it turned out he had some other information to share. In an interview report [pp. 2, 10] dated "6-18-68," handwritten in all capital letters, the Person Reporting (P/R) is identified as Khaibar Khan Goodarzian. P/R STATED HE WAS AT HOTEL ON JUNE 2 [crossed out and "3" indicated above in the pdf's page 2 copy-dwd] AND WAS INTRODUCED TO WALTER SHERATON [sic-Sheridan?] & PIERRE SALINGER. HE WAS WITH HIS DAUGHTER (SHERRY) & HIS SISTER (MARIUM). HE FIRST OBS[erved] SUSP[ect -- i.e., person he believed might be Sirhan Sirhan-dwd] OUTSIDE REAR EXIT WITH 1 OTHER MALE AND A GIRL SITTING IN A BLUE V/W [Volkswagen]. In his next-day interview [p. 4], Gudarzian provided more detailed information about his volunteer work and his allegations. 6-19-68 AT 4 P.M. KHAIBAR KHAN alias (KHAIBAR KHAN GOODARZIAN; MOHAMMAD ALI); OCEAN PALMS HOTEL, 1215 OCEAN AVE # 201, SANTA MONICA; TEL EX 3-0227; LA # 825 805 ; RE-INTERVIEW A few days later, on 24 June 1968, there was an inevitable attempt to square things away by the usual method as another re-interview [p. 3] took place. OFC'S RE-INT[terviewed] AND SUGGESTED THAT P/R TAKE A POLYGRAPH SINCE P/R STATED HE OBS [written over "SEEN"-dwd] SIRHAN TWICE AT HEADQUARTERS [written above crossed out "HOTEL"]. HE STATED HE COULDN'T UNTIL HE WAS 100% SURE OF ID. OFC'S SUGGESTED THAT IF THEY COULD SHOW THE SUSP IN A LINE [up] WOULD THE P/R THEN GO ON THE POLYGRAPH. P/R STATED HE WOULDN'T AT THIS TIME. OFC'S THEN INTERVIEW P/R TWO SONS; AMIR BAKHTEAR KHAN & AMIR HOSSEIN KHAN. [in different, cursive handwriting: "Subj. is unsure of his prev. ID of Sirhan at Kennedy H/Q"-dwd] Continue to Part Two Return to Table of Contents |