Lieutenant General Nasser Moqaddam (the last chief of SAVAK)

Tahereh Shokuhi

 

Son of Yaqub, Nasser Moqaddam was born in 1918. He was educated in the cadet school and staff college. Further he studied law in Tehran University. He was a leading officer of the “special bureau of intelligence” working under Hossein Fardust. Simultaneous with Fardust carrier in SAVAK, he entered the organization as its acting chief and started his work in the third bureau which was responsible for the internal security. After the uprising of 5th June, he became the head of the third bureau until 1970. He tried to gather information related to the revolutionary groups in a bulletin to offer to Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. After Nassiri he became the chief of SAVAK, and one of the first rate agents of CIA in the Middle East. Many street arrests of the opposition groups were carried through his direct orders. He imposed many severe corporal punishments in Iran after modern Israeli and American models.

 

He returned to the military in 1971 and became the chief of the second office of the common staff and was in charge of intelligence and counter intelligence section of army and became a lieutenant general. He held specific relationship with the Americans. Earlier he had a frugal life, but gradually he turned to lead a life of luxury.

 

On the rise of Islamic revolution, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi decided to make some reforms to divert the minds of the people. So he replaced Nematollah Nassiri by Moqaddam as the head of SAVAK.

 

To prevent the spread of demonstrations and to restore order and security in the country, Moqaddam proposed to impose martial law in Tehran and ten big cities, but it resulted in the coherence of the opposition groups.

 

His control over SAVAK was simultaneous with the expansion of the revolution and the fall of the cabinets. He became a tool to find a prime minister for the Shah; he provided a meeting between Karim Sanjabi and the Shah. He tried to connect the Shah to Mehdi Bazargan but it was rejected by the latter. When disappointed, he turned to Shapur Bakhtiar and asked for the American support of him.

 

In all sessions formed to overcome the crisis of revolution, he advocated the violent methods and encouraged the Shah and the army commanders to deploy harsh ways towards people. The main reason for this was his not having right impression of the nature of Islamic revolution, and persisted on his wrong ideas. Hypocritically made overtures to the moderate revolutionaries, and was among the first officials that signed the neutrality of the Imperial army.

 

After the success of the Islamic revolution, he went into hiding, but was arrested very soon. He was found guilty of corruption and was condemned to death. The verdict was carried out in March 11^th, 1979.