An Heir at Last

Like any expectant father, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi himself drove his young wife to the hospital. It was early morning, but the Teheran streets were already thick with traffic, and the royal couple were quickly noticed. When the car stopped at the Mother's Aid Society Hospital, a crowd gathered outside. Just before noon, Queen Farah Diba, a robust, 22-year-old commoner who still holds the Iranian schoolgirls' record for the high and standing broad jump, gave birth. "Your Majesty, it's a boy!" cried Dr. Jahanshah Saleh, who is both the Queen's obstetrician and Iran's Minister of Health. The Shah raised his hands over his head in thanks to Allah for the heir for whom he had been hoping 21 years.

To a crowd of clamoring reporters, Dr. Saleh described the baby. "It's big. He has the soft black eyes of Queen Farah, the mouth and chin of the Shah." The Shah himself took a look and exclaimed: "God Almighty, it's a good boy." To celebrate, he declared a two-day national holiday, a 20% cut in income taxes and amnesty for 98 prisoners. Cannons boomed a 41-gun salute, and Teheran residents poured into the streets. When the Shah tried to leave the hospital that afternoon, a shouting, jostling mob surrounded his car and forced it to a halt. Police had to unlimber fire hoses to restore order. Farah Diba had succeeded where two before her had failed. The Shah's first wife, Fawzia, sister of Egypt's then King Farouk, bore him a daughter but no son, and he divorced her in 1948. His seven-year marriage to Soraya, handsome daughter of a German-Iranian family, proved barren. His throne is none too secure, and the Shah and his advisers were convinced that a male heir was imperative if the monarchy was to survive. Regretfully, he divorced Soraya in 1958 and last year married Farah Diba, who had caught his eye while a blue-jean-clad student of architecture in Paris. The baby came ten months later. Even the day was lucky; it was the 34th anniversary of the day the Shah's father, a onetime army non-com named Reza Khan, seized the throne by military coup and established the Pahlevi dynasty.

In his recently published memoirs, My Mission to My Country, the Shah criticized his own upbringing as too harsh and promised that he would give his son a democratic education. But as long as the Shah hangs onto his throne, the boy will not escape the trappings of royalty. Some time within a year or so, when the Shah celebrates his own much delayed coronation, young Prince Reza Cyrus will be perched atop his father's knee on the Peacock Throne.

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