SAVAK

The Bureau for Intelligence and Security of the State, shortened to SAVAK or S.A.V.A.K., was the intelligence agency and secret police of the Imperial State of Iran from 1957 to 1979.

SAVAK was established in Tehran in 1957 by national security law. The French intelligence service, the SDECE, assisted in establishing and training SAVAK during its formative years in the mid-1950s and early 1960s. French instructors provided courses in surveillance, counter-subversion, interrogation techniques, and political intelligence gatheringexpertise refined during the Algerian War.

According to a declassified CIA memo citing a classified U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report, the CIA played a significant role in establishing SAVAK, providing both funding and training. The organization became notorious for its extensive surveillance, repression, and torture of political dissidents. The Shah used SAVAK to arrest, imprison, exile, and torture his opponents, leading to widespread public resentment. This discontent was leveraged by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then in exile, to build popular support for his Islamic philosophy.

At its peak, SAVAK reportedly employed approximately 5,000 agents operating under the Pahlavi dynasty. Iranian-American scholar and ex-politician Gholam Reza Afkhami estimates that SAVAK had between 4,000 and 6,000 members,Gholam Reza Afkhami, Life and Times of the Shah (University of California Press, 2009, ), p. 386. while TIME stated in a publication on 19 February 1979 that the agency had 5,000 members.SAVAK: "Like the CIA". Feb. 19, 1979 .

History

1957–1971 After the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was removed. He was originally focused on nationalizing Iran's oil industry but had also set out to weaken the Shah's power. After the coup, the monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah, established an intelligence service with police powers. The Shah's goal was to strengthen his regime by placing political opponents under surveillance and repressing dissident movements.Nikki R. Keddie and Yann Richard, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (Yale University Press, 2006), p. 134. According to Encyclopædia Iranica:

In March 1955, the Army colonel was "replaced with a more permanent team of five career Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers, including specialists in covert operations, intelligence analysis, and counterintelligence, including Major General Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf who "trained virtually all of the first generation of SAVAK personnel". In October 1956, news of the intended establishment of an agency was reported by state media and in 1965, this agency was reorganized and given the name Sazeman-e Ettela'at va Amniyat-e Keshvar (SAVAK). These in turn were replaced by SAVAK's own instructors in 1965.N. R. Keddie and M. J. Gasiorowski, eds., Neither East Nor West: Iran, the United States, and the Soviet Union (New Haven, 1990), pp. 154–55; personal interviews.Profile: Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. History Commons

SAVAK had the power to censor the media, screen applicants for government jobs, and "according to a reliable Western source,New York Times, 21 September 1972. use all means necessary, including torture, to hunt down dissidents".Ervand Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions, p. 437 After 1963, the Shah expanded his security organizations, including SAVAK, which grew to over 5,300 full-time agents and a large but unknown number of part-time informers.

In 1961, the Iranian authorities dismissed the agency's first director, Lieutenant General Teymur Bakhtiar, and he later became a political dissident. In 1970, SAVAK agents assassinated him, disguising it as an accident.

Major General Hassan Pakravan was director of SAVAK from 1961 to 1965.Harvard Iranian Oral History Project Transcript of interview with Fatemeh Pakravan conducted by Habib Ladjevardi 3 March 1983. Pakravan was replaced in 1965 by General Nematollah Nassiri, a close associate of the Shah.

Throughout the 1960s, some agents in SAVAK started to consider financial corruption as a matter of financial security and monitored not only the fiscal activities of the political and economic elite of Iran, but also the royal family. Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was reportedly angered by these SAVAK reports due to its contents and the belief that the security agents were prying into private matters beyond their purview.

Siahkal attack and after A turning point in SAVAK's reputation for ruthless brutality was reportedly an attack on a gendarmerie post in the Caspian village of Siahkal by a small band of armed Marxists in February 1971, although it is also reported to have tortured to death a Shia cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Reza Sa'idi, in 1970.Momen, Moojan, An Introduction to Shi'i Islam (Yale University Press, 1985), p. 255.Bill, James A., Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (Yale University Press, 1989), pp. 181–82 According to Iranian political historian Ervand Abrahamian, after this attack SAVAK interrogators were sent abroad for "scientific training to prevent unwanted deaths from 'brute force.'" Brute force was supplemented with the bastinado; sleep deprivation; extensive solitary confinement; glaring searchlights; standing in one place for hours on end; nail extractions; snakes (favored for use with women); electrical shocks with cattle prods, often into the rectum; cigarette burns; sitting on hot grills; acid dripped into nostrils; near-drownings; mock executions; and an electric chair with a large metal mask to muffle screams while amplifying them for the victim. This latter contraption was dubbed the Apollo—an allusion to the American spacecraft of the same name. Prisoners were also humiliated by being raped, urinated on, and forced to stand naked.Ervand Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions (University of California Press, 1999), p. 106. Despite the new 'scientific' methods, the torture of choice remained the traditional bastinado used to beat soles of the feet. The "primary goal" of those using the bastinados "was to locate arms caches, safe houses and accomplices ..."Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, p. 106.

Abrahamian estimates that SAVAK (and other police and military) killed 368 guerrillas including the leadership of the major urban guerrilla organizations (Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas, People's Mojahedin of Iran) such as Hamid Ashraf between 1971–1977 and executed up to 100 political prisoners between 1971 and 1979the most violent era of the SAVAK's existence.Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, pp. 103, 169.

The repression was softened thanks to publicity and scrutiny by "numerous international organizations and foreign newspapers." Jimmy Carter became president of the United States and he raised the issue of human rights in Pahlavi Iran. Overnight prison conditions changed. Inmates dubbed this the dawn of "jimmykrasy".Abrahamian, Tortured Confessions, p. 119.

Directors

Timeline

Deputy Directors

Timeline

Directors of SAVAK Directorates First Directorate Colonel Manoochehr Zarabi (12 March 1957 – July 1961) Brigadier General Abolhassan Sa'adatmand (July 1961 – March 1965) Brigadier General Seifollah Forouzin (March 1965 – July 1978) Colonel Naser Zarabi (July 1978 – 12 February 1979) Second Directorate Abdul-Hossein Larijani (12 March 1957 – February 1958) Rear Admiral Ahmad Azima (February 1958 – September 1960) Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Ansari (October 1960 – February 1961) Brigadier General Ali Motazed (August 1961 – October 1962) Brigadier General (October 1962 – September 1963) Colonel Mansour Negahbani (November 1963 – January 1964) Brigadier General Ali Akbar Farazian (March 1968 – December 1978) Brigadier General Mohammad Khani (January 1979 – 12 February 1979) Third Directorate Brigadier General Abdolali Mahoutian (1957) Brigadier General Samad Samadianpour (1957 – 1959) Brigadier General Baba Amjadi (1959 – July 9 1960) Brigadier General (July 9 1960 – 5 June 1963) Brigadier General Nasser Moghaddam (5 June 1963 – 12 April 1973) Parviz Sabeti (12 April 1973 – 31 October 1978) Ali Tabatabaei (31 October 1978 – 12 February 1979) Fourth Directorate Brigadier General Hassan Heydari Zanganeh (12 March 1957 – February 1959) Brigadier General (February 1959 – July 1960) Brigadier General Moradian (August 1960 – March 1962) Brigadier General Eyni Zaltash (July 1962 – April 1966) Brigadier General Asghar Kangarloo (July 1966 – July 1978) Seifollah Shahab (July 1978 – 12 February 1979) Fifth Directorate Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Ansari (12 March 1957 – September 1963) Brigadier General Mohammad Ayromlou (October 1963 – November 1964) Brigadier General Ahmad Ali Mohagheghi (November 1964 – November 1965) Brigadier General Mehdi Saedi (November 1965 – 12 February 1979) Sixth Directorate Colonel Ali Asghar Fararian (12 March 1957 – August 1961) Brigadier General Hassan Heydari Zanganeh (August 1961 – June 1978) Major General Mahmoud Vaziri Hamedani (October 1978 – 12 February 1979) Seventh Directorate Rear Admiral Farajollah Rasaei (12 March 1957 – September 1959) Brigadier General Mohammad Ayromlou (September 1959 – September 1960) Rear Admiral Ahmad Azima (September 1960 – May 1961) Colonel Ebrahim Mahdavi (June 1961 – January 1965) Brigadier General Ali Mohammad Kaveh (February 1965 – July 1978) Brigadier General Reza Parvaresh (November 1978 – 12 February 1979) Eighth Directorate Colonel Ali Ghafouri (12 March 1957 – September 1961) Brigadier General Naser Nomani (September 1961 – September 1963) Brigadier General Manouchehr Hashemi (September 1963 – October 1978) Ali Asefi (October 1978 – 12 February 1979) Ninth Directorate Brigadier General Naser Nomani (October 1963 – February 1966) Brigadier General Asghar Kangarloo (February 1966 – July 1967) Colonel Naser Zarabi (July 1967 – September 1978) Dr. Malek (September 1978 – 12 February 1979) Health & Medical Directorate Dr. Mohammad Baghaei Yazdi (1957 – 1960) Colonel Dr. Farhad (1961 – 1962) Brigadier General Mehdi Latifi (1962 – June 1978) Brigadier General Dr. Alavizadeh (June 1978 – 1978) Brigadier General Dr. Hossein Emami (1978 – 12 February 1979) Education Directorate Colonel Nooraei (1957 – 1962) Colonel Pir Shafiee (1962 – June 1967) Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Keyvani (June 1967 – January 1979) Jabal Ameli (January 1979 – 12 February 1979)

Organization SAVAK was divided into 9 directorates:Harald Irnberger. S. 29 First General Directorate: Cadres, Courses, Ceremonies, Correspondence and Secretariat Second General Directorate: Foreign Intelligence Third General Directorate: Internal Security Fourth General Directorate: Security Within SAVAK Fifth General Directorate: Technical Affairs Sixth General Directorate: Administration Seventh General Directorate: Liaison with other Agencies Eighth General Directorate: Counterintelligence The Ninth General Directorate: Archives, Passport Department

Number of employees Over the years, the question of the number of employees of SAVAK has been the subject of debate by many historians and researchers. Given the fact that Iran has never disclosed data on the number of employees of the secret agencymany historians gave conflicting figures for the number of SAVAK personnel6,000,Sullivan, William H., Mission to Iran, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981, pp. 96–97. 20,000,Sullivan, William H., Mission to Iran, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, (1981), p. 97. 30,000 and 60,000.Graham, Robert, Iran: The Illusion of Power, New York: St. Martin's Press, (1978), p. 146.