February 5, 1949

Ruler of Iran Is Wounded Slightly by Two Bullets Fired by Assassin

By THE UNITED PRESS

EHERAN, Iran, Feb. 4 -- Shah Mohammed Riza Pahlevi was shot and wounded today in an unsuccessful assassination attempt.

A reporter-photographer fired five shots at the ruler, who assumed the throne in 1941.

Martial law and a curfew immediately were imposed at Teheran and were expected to be extended to other provinces.

The Shah's Court reported that he had told visitors at his bedside that "a few shots won't deter my duties to my beloved country."

The Court proclaimed that five shots had been fired at the Shah, one entering his face but passing through without injuring any bone, and another shot superficially wounding him in the back.

It was said his condition was not serious.

The reporter-photographer, pretending to take the Shah's picture, fired at point blank range, when the Shah got out of his car on the steps of Teheran University.

One bullet entered his body and another his mouth. The other three went through his hat.

The Shah's aides and the police immediately pounced on the assassin and beat him so seriously he had to be hospitalized.

The Cabinet and the police and army chiefs immediately convened at the Foreign Ministry to discuss the attempted slaying and to take emergency action.

Riza Pahlevi was proclaimed Shah on Sept. 17, 1941, after his father, Reza Shah Pahlevi, had abdicated under Allied pressure. He is 30.

The Shah recently divorced Queen Fawzia, eldest sister of King Farouk of Egypt, and considered one of the world's most beautiful women. They were married in 1939.

Reza Shah Pahlevi abdicated the throne in favor of his son as Russian armored cars approached Teheran in 1941 and British forces prepared to occupy the capital.

The curly haired, darkly handsome Crown Prince was favored by the British to succeed his father as a means of preserving a government in Iran until the Allies were able to settle some of that country's post-war problems.

The young Shah, tall and slender, was schooled as a soldier in Switzerland.

The assassination attempt came one day after 2,000 students marched around the Majlis (Parliament) building and demanded cancellation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company's concession to take oil out of Iran.

[A Soviet Tass news agency report, received in London, said the students also demanded that the British Imperial Bank of Persia be closed. Tass said an Iranian Parliament member condemned "the unlawful and invalid nature of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company's concession" in a speech before the Majlis.]

The students scattered leaflets charging that the concession had been renewed under duress. They demanded the trial of officials responsible for renewing the concession.

"We cannot surrender the most precious resources nature prepared for us for over 50,000,000 years gratis to foreigners and die of hunger over a sea of black gold," the leaflets said.

Inside the Majlis the Finance and Foreign Ministers told the Chamber of Deputies that the Government was doing all in its power to recover its "legitimate rights" from the company.

Iran Beset by Unrest

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

EHERAN, Iran, Feb. 4 -- The attempted assassination occurred as the Shah arrived at the university to take part in a celebration marking the anniversary of the institution's founding.

Mohammed Riza Pahlevi, upon his succession, was recognized immediately by the Allies and at once set out to put his country into the Allied column.

It was through the railway and highways built from the Persian Gulf to the Russian border of Iran and operated by Allied troops that vast quantities of lend-lease supplies reached the Soviet Union after the United States entered the war.

The young Shah entertained Wendell Wilkie when the latter made his round-the-world trip in September, 1942, and late in 1943 was host to President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin at their Teheran conference.

Iran has been the scene of unrest since the end of the war. Its vast oil resources have been a bone of contention between the Soviet Union, which has demanded concessions, and the Western powers, which have resisted Russian entrance into the oil fields where they have long dominated. This has led to violent political battles between Iranian supporters of both sides.

The anti-Russian party took complete control Nov. 16, 1948, when Mohammed Maraghei Said was made Premier. He had made his reputation by resisting wartime Russian demands for oil leases.