IICHS - Institute for Iranian Contemporary Historical Studies

Fatemeh Moezzi

GholamReza Azhari was born in Shiraz, 1909. Following primary and secondary education, he entered the officer’s college, 1933. One year later he joined the imperial army as a second lieutenant. He was promoted colonel and became the deputy commandant of central military police. He left for USA to attend a higher course, 1959. On his return, he passed a one year term of staff commandant in the war college, and became brigadier general.

Two years later, he left for USA to attend the higher course of the staff. He became the commandant of the eleventh infantry battalion, 1957, and the commandant of the War College, 1959. He was transferred to the commandant staff of the army. The next year he was promoted the commandant of the first army. He was the military representative of Iran in the CENTO military treaty. For two years he was the deputy supreme commander of the staff and since 1971 he was the chief of the staff as field martial for six years.

Following the failure of many governments in handling of the revolution, Mohammad Reza Shah decided to appoint a military figure as the head of the cabinet to stop the course of the revolution. So field martial GholamReza Azhari was appointed and introduced his military cabinet. In his cabinet GholamAli Oveissi was appointed to the ministry of the labor and social affairs, lieutenant general AmirHossein Rabiei to the ministry of housing and urbanization, and lieutenant general Qarabaghi as the minister of interior. The arrest of the journalists and some statesmen including Nematollah Nassiri, Manucher Azmun, AbdolAzim Valian, Dariush Homayun, GholamReza Nikpey and AmirAbbass Hoveida happened at his time of premiership.

Azhari invited major Ansari, Iranian military attaché in Pakistan to interrogate the above people. He also sent some military figures as the governor of the provinces of Khorassan, Kermanshah, and the western

Azerbaijan

which was of no use.



Field Martial Azhari granting the Army’s cooperating orders to AbdolAzim Valian	Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s meeting with the army commanders

Azhari did not believe the revolution and announced in a senate session in 6^th Dec. 1987 that the voices heard in Tehran streets are played by tapes. However, he understood that he has failed to deal with the problems and declared his wish to keep away and rest due to ill health. Then he left for the United States. He died in November 2001.

During his years of services, he received many orders including the first and second order of Homayun, orders of competence, honor, service, labor, sport, gratitude, pas and 19^th August and an order from the SENTO.

There are about 200 records related to Azhari’s military career and his family documents in IICHS which would be helpful for the researchers and the historians to refer to.

Field Martial Azhari in the company of two US army officers