Tremor from the Top

The Shah of Iran, jolted by the murder of his neighbor, the King of Iraq, has been looking anxiously at his country's need for reform. Iran's rich, rigid and feudal-minded landowners in turn have been looking nervously at the Shah's designs on them. When the Shah's Prime Minister Manouchehr Eghbal strolled in the Majlis grounds last week, Deputies waiting for the Assembly session to begin asked him jokingly what ill wind brought him to the Chamber. "You'll see shortly," responded Eghbal.

Fifteen minutes later, the Deputies listened in stunned silence as the Premier introduced a bill forbidding ministers, government officials, Deputies, Senators, and members of the royal family from dealing in any way with companies having or seeking contracts from the government. They would also be banned from getting involved in arbitration in any government case, and Deputies who were attorneys would be barred from practicing law during their term of office. The penalty for any violations: two to four years' solitary confinement.

Since an estimated 80% of the 136 Majlis members would be affected by the new law, Deputies had the choice of resigning their seats or giving up their cut. Their dilemma: if they resign, they will no longer have any value to the contractors, who hired them solely because of their chance to influence contracts.

Before the Deputies had recovered from the first blow, they were struck another. Eghbal introduced a second bill requiring all government officials, civil or military, to file an inventory of their movable and immovable properties, as well as those of their wives and children. If any should make false statements or refuse to answer, their properties would be confiscated by the government. The idea, he explained, is to "chuck out all corrupt officials." And he promised future bills, probably including a long overdue one for limiting land ownership in Iran and breaking up the vast feudal properties. Why was the Shah doing this to them? demanded the harassed and injured politicians. The Shah's reply: "I have a ten-year program of reforms. My object is to make our country a model country where basic freedoms will be extended. But one freedom cannot be tolerated--the freedom of betraying the country."

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