66. Terror in Tehran (Part 1)

Some months ago, I wrote a blog post (no. 58) about my early experiences in Iran, a country which I visited several times in the 1950s and in the 1980s. I mentioned in that post that, although I was fascinated by what I saw and that I was impressed by the young people there, this did not mean that I knew very much about that country.

I don’t speak the Persian (Fārsī) language, and I have only very limited knowledge about its old and its recent history. However, I do happen to have had some unusual personal experiences in Iran. In post 58 I wrote about very unexpectedly meeting up with a childhood friend there in 1955, during a visit to the port of Bandar Shahpour. At the time I was only 19 years of age.

In post 58 I also briefly referred to some of the major developments in Iran between my early visits in the 1950s and my later visits in the 1980s, such as the departure of the Shah, the arrival of Ayatollah Khomeini, the American Embassy hostage crisis and the Iran-Iraq war. I wrote about these events because they were relevant to what I experienced in 1981.

In June 1981, when the Islamic Republic of Iran was at war with neighbouring Iraq, I was asked by an American company and an Australian Bank to go to Tehran, the capital of Iran, to have face-to-face discussions with Iranian officials to try to resolve a commercial dispute.

The American hostages had only just been freed and the country was fighting for its survival. It was extremely suspicious of foreigners and, with justification, was paranoid about internal threats of sabotage. I left Australia for Tehran on 25 June 1981. I’m glad that I did not know then what was to follow!

I had been given very little advance notice of this trip and, not wanting Sue to worry, I had told her that I would be going to Athens in Greece, which was partially true. Athens was my first stop. The Iranian authorities had been made aware of my visit and I had obtained the necessary visa documentation from them. Although I was a little apprehensive about travelling there during a war, I did not really expect to be in any personal danger.

I left Sydney on the afternoon of 25 June, on a Qantas flight, and I arrived in Athens early the following morning. My hotel there was the Athenee Palace Hotel. I know all this because I still have a copy of my original itinerary. My connecting flight to Tehran was scheduled to leave at 3 a.m. the next morning.

Although I was tired, I had a pleasant day in Athens. The travel desk at the hotel had arranged to book me on a group tour of the Acropolis and surrounding areas and the tour finished in a restaurant where we drank some ouzo, a popular anise-flavoured alcoholic drink. I did try to have some rest in my room in the hotel in the evening, but this was difficult as I had to get up at midnight and leave at 1 a.m. to catch my flight.

It was very quiet in the airport. There were no obvious signs of increased security and at the departure desk there were very few passengers waiting to board.  I think the flight originated from somewhere else in Europe. I vividly remember all these details because at that time I was acutely aware that I was about to embark on something that was out of my comfort zone.

The plane I boarded in Athens was a Boeing 747, owned and operated by Iran National Airline. I think Iran Air may have been the only airline still flying to Iran during the war with Iraq. They did not have many of their former large fleet of 747s still in operation. One of the main reasons for this may have been that Boeing was probably no longer providing maintenance support or spare parts.

Although I had a business-class ticket I was waved into what looked like the economy section and basically left there to find a spare seat. It was the middle of the night. Some people were sprawled across several seats. The flight attendants were mainly male and a few females, dressed in black. No one talked to me and I just sat down somewhere in the middle and unsuccessfully tried to get some sleep. The plane made a stop in Istanbul, Turkey. As far as I could see, no one got up and I don’t think any new passengers got on. From Istanbul we flew straight to Tehran, where we arrived at 7.30 in the morning.

Upon arrival, I had no trouble getting through immigration and customs and I was met in the arrival hall by the Australian Chargé d’Affaires. I seem to remember that the Australian Embassy was still operating but possibly without an ambassador. Kevin escorted me past the crowd of people in the arrival hall, took me to his car and drove me to my hotel. On the way he invited me to a cocktail party, which was to take place later in the week. I never made it!

The hotel was quite modern. I went to my room and had a shower, after which I was ready to go to a meeting, where I met with some well-dressed and obviously intelligent young men, who all spoke English. They appeared to be well informed as to why I was there, and they were keen to be of assistance. I later met some of them again, in meetings in Vienna and Tehran.

In the afternoon, accompanied by an interpreter, I was driven to a government building in the city, where I had a meeting with a person who I believed to be a minister of the Iranian Government. He was a polite elderly gentleman, neatly dressed in khaki army uniform, who appeared to be willing to listen to my case. Not in my wildest imagination could I have suspected that he would be dead a few hours later.

Afterwards, I was relieved and happy that the meeting had gone as well as it did. I was driven back to my hotel and, after having dinner on my own, I went to bed very early (after taking 2 sleeping tablets). I realised that I was adrenalized and I wanted to make sure I would sleep. The tablets did their job and I slept solidly, waking up the following morning feeling a lot more rested, blissfully unaware of the drama awaiting me.

The next instalment of this story, which will describe the bomb blast and my hurried departure, will be published next month, on 16 March (68. Terror in Tehran – Part 2).

Part 2 will also include a surprising twist to this tale. It concerns a newsflash which I noticed on BBC news, six years ago, in January 2019. In this newsflash I read that the European Union had announced fresh sanctions on a unit of the Iranian Intelligence Agency, over an alleged assassination plot.  These sanctions were made in response to an incident in which several men, dressed head-to-toe in black, had opened fire and killed an Iranian man in front of his house, in the town of Almere, in The Netherlands. The person murdered had allegedly been directly involved in the bombing in Tehran in 1981.

Now that I am living in beautiful Sandgate, it is hard to believe that I experienced all this in Iran, 44 years ago. My life at that time was quite eventful and almost bizarre at times. It’s therefore no wonder that I now love my regular peaceful walks along the waterfront of Moreton Bay and that I highly value the companionship of my fellow walkers.

O.P.

P.S. On Sunday, 2 March 2025, we’ll return to more pleasant memories. Sue has written a fascinating sequel to her post 64 (Autumn – New England) in which she describes our travel from Newport to Georgetown and Washington DC.