I was almost half way through the third grade in San Antonio, Texas when my parents told me our family was moving to Iran. Actually, I had no idea where that was, nor did I ever imagine what it would be like. My most vivid memory of the short period we had to prepare for a move was waiting in long lines of anxious and often crying children in a hot and humid hallway at the Brooke Army Hospital, with the very strong odor of rubbing alcohol. It was horrible. I had to get 48 shots in all, which I think was accomplished in four separate trips to the hospital. My little yellow shot record pamphlet was literally full.
My memory is not that great anymore, but certain events stand out, as if they were yesterday. I remember boarding a military transport aircraft at Westover Field, Massachusetts, and stopping in the Azores for fuel, then going on to Teheran. There may have been other stops, but I do not recall them. It was an older prop aircraft, and the pace was slow. I was very shy and insecure, not sure where “home” was. Such is the life of a military “brat,” and also for a career military officer. The closest thing we had to “home” was my grandfather’s house on Burr Road in the Terrill Hill’s neighborhood of San Antonio (right behind the hospital where I became a human pin cushion). And we never really lived there. But back to our Iranian adventure.
At least for a portion of a year, I attended an international school in downtown Teheran. There were children there from many countries, including the Soviet Union. My most vivid memory was trying to play soccer on the playground, and getting kicked as if my legs were the ball. This school was still operating when I visited Iran in 1997. One of our tour guides, Sassan, was a guy my age. He had been at the same school at the same time, even though we did not remember each other. This is as good a time as any to share that I really love the Iranian people. Believe it or not, they are a lot like us. They are not Arabs, but Indo-European people who looked, at the time, to my country and “the West” as friends and people with shared values. And believe me, despite bilateral government enmity, most Iranians still do.
Shortly after our arrival in Iran, there was a period of unrest. One of my dad’s drivers was shot and killed as they drove to his office. There was rioting in the streets. I did not know it at the time, but my country orchestrated, in partnership with the British, a coup that displaced the democratically elected Prime Minister, a professor named Mohammed Mossadegh. He was liberal when it came to human rights, women’s rights, democracy, and religious freedom, but when he started to nationalize the British owned oil operations in Iran, we evidently chose a reliable dictator over a liberal democrat. The Shah had fled to Baghdad after trying without success to remove Mossadegh. So we (the CIA and the British MI-6) hired mobs to take to the streets calling for the Shah’s return, and then brought him back in triumph. This was the first time we had ever orchestrated and funded a coup in a friendly foreign country. Apparently, Eisenhower felt Mossadegh and his political party were too friendly with the communists. All this was classified, so the American public had no idea what we had done—stolen from the Iranian people their one and only shot at a democracy in the 20th Century, or perhaps in any century. This is why our people were so surprised when students took over our embassy in Teheran in the late 1970’s. Iranians knew what we had done. Our own people hadn’t a clue.
I don’t know whether my father, who was an Army Attaché at the time, knew of the CIA plot, or had any involvement. I would like to think he didn’t. I do know that he was a personal friend of the Shah, designed the first real golf course in Iran (dad was an avid golfer), and years later we had royal guests in our apartment in Arlington, Virginia. I remember the man who led the group carried no money, and having the group in our apartment was kept low key. My father had a way of making good friends and not worrying about political correctness.
This is a good exercise for me, trying to record old memories of our time in Iran. One day I was walking near our school, and saw a man drowning puppies in a large bucket of water. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I pleaded with the man to give me one of the puppies, and he did. That’s how “Jolly” came into my life. At the time, my family lived in a large house on a main bus line. Actually the house was on the corner of two streets, and our “yard” was an entire block, bordered by a tall mud and brick wall. We had a pool that we seldom used. There were large gardens. We had five servants to help maintain the house and grounds. Our main housekeeper did not like Jolly at all. In Iran, dogs never enter homes. Jolly was a “jube dog,” literally a dog who roamed the streets and frequented the ditches through which waste of all kinds flowed. At some point, Jolly just happened to be eating his lunch in the middle of the street when a bus came by and ran him down. Our housekeeper had starved the dog for days and then took his food bowl to the street just moments before the bus was due to come by. I cannot recall if anything ever happened to her. But Jolly was no more.
One of the best ways for anyone to learn a foreign language is to watch American shows on local television. It was through such programs and cartoons that we learned some very basic Farsi. Woody Woodpecker taught us that “zoot bash” meant really quick. And so on.
One less than pleasant memory is my dad carrying my ailing mother through our house when she contracted a severe case of arthritis. I am not sure how she caught it, but for the rest of her life, she was in pain. She had numerous joint replacement surgeries at Mayo Clinic. Through it all, she maintained her dignity and was a very good Army wife. I know she missed her native Australia at times, but she was strong, and never complained. My dad was one of the best golfers in the Army, and when he was not off on duty or in the field, he was on the golf course. A quarter of a century later, I was a Major in the US Air Force briefing a four star Army General in Heidelberg, Germany, when he stopped me in mid-sentence, and said: “Matt C C Bristol III, you must be the son of Colonel Matt C C Bristol, Jr.” I replied “why yes, I am.” He laughed and said my dad was the best gambler he ever knew, whether it was poker or golf. That reminded me of my dad’s telling me that he had won the bed on which I was conceived in a poker game with an Army buddy named Hobecki. Suffice it to say, I never gambled with my father, nor could I compete with him in golf.
Another vivid memory of Iran is the number of beggars in the streets, often crippled. The Shah took care of the upper echelons of society, but the poor were pretty much on their own. Fast forward to 1997, when I visited half a dozen cities and several rural towns. The Islamic Republic, for all its many faults and horrific human rights abuses, managed to bring housing and electricity to the poor, along with television and health care. It was quite a contrast. There was a vibrant middle class, and very few beggars on the streets. Many women walked the streets with brief cases; they were lawyers, business leaders, doctors. A very large percentage of Iranian boys died serving as human minesweepers during the decade long Iran-Iraq War, and women naturally filled that void. By the way, the dumbest thing we ever did was invade Iraq and displace Saddam Hussein. Iraq was the main counterforce that constrained Iran.
The Iranian people were warm and friendly during my time in their country, both in 1952-55 and later in 1997. Our group boarded a domestic flight from Teheran to Rasht during my 1997 visit. This was the same airline whose flight was accidentally shot down by our Navy, killing all on board. As we boarded, the Captain announced over the public address system that we were the first American group to visit Iran in many years. The passengers all applauded us! That was a pleasant surprise. But, on the other side, our young Iranian tour guide, who lived in England, was detained briefly on arrival as she had been taking pictures of some of the passengers, and the government authorities confiscated her film. Everywhere we went, we met with friendly people, smiling, engaging, but, on the other hand, we were always followed by the security services, who interviewed most everybody we had engaged. This is the contrast: warm and friendly people, highly suspicious and repressive government authorities.
Another image from my time in Iran during the early 1950’s: streets filled with people selling all kinds of things, even chickens. Chickens summarily executed by cutting their heads off, then running headless down the street, with blood spattering everywhere. Quite a sight for a young boy who had never lived on a farm or in a rural area.
Today, living in Central Virginia, I have many dear Iranian friends. Some are descendants of families that fled Iran in the wake of the Islamic revolution, others more recent refugees from oppression by the Iranian authorities. Young people are the great majority of Iran’s population, and many have chosen to leave Islam and follow Jesus. There are vibrant networks of house churches. When they are discovered by the authorities, the leaders are prosecuted, tortured and imprisoned. These brothers and sisters know the high costs of exercising religious freedom, the same freedom that was available when Mossadegh was the nation’s leader.
Hospitality in Iran, and throughout the Turko-Persian World, or what I fondly remember as Central Asia, is awesome. Tea served in small glass cups graces every social encounter. Food is over the top wonderful. If you are blessed enough to have Iranian friends, you know this is true. Chai (tea) is the lubricant that gets it all started.
I pray that one day soon, political change will free the beautiful Iranian people from oppression, and our two countries can be reconciled. We cannot look back and complain, we have done far more to them than they to us. Let’s try to build a bridge based on mutual respect and the natural affinity of our peoples. I know it is a tough challenge, but that is my prayer.
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