Page:Documents from the Den of Espionage.djvu/114

 UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

TO: POL - Mr. ?

THRU: POL - Mr. Bolster

FROM: POL - Escudero

SUBJECT: Background Data: Mosafar Baqa'i

In view of his recent open letter to the Shah criticizing the establishment of the Iran Resurgence Party as both illegal and unwise, I thought you might find a little background date on Mosafar Baqa'i to be of use.

A congenital oppositionist, Baqa'i has been active in Iranian politics since the mid-1940's. He has espoused various leftist viewpoints but always with a sizeable dose of personal opportunities. He was briefly a member of the Tudeh Party, later joined the National Front and after his 1951 founding of the Toilers Party he became the second most important man in the National Front. He broke with Mossadegh in 1952 and lost considerable support for his Party in the process. Later he first supported, and then opposed, General Zahedi and has generally been in opposition to every prime minister since. As a result of his constant opposition he has few friends among the establishment but many powerful enemies. These have imprisoned or exiled him a number of times but he has always rebounded in one way or another. He has been accused, for example, of complicity in the assassination of General Razmara, the murder o fMossadegh's Chief of Police General Afshartus and a variety of lesser crimes but has usually been acquitted on appeal. As the Shah's power grew, Baqa'i's prominence decreased and he pretty much faded from sight with the rise of the Iran Novin Party.

Despite a long and tempestuous career he has had little influence on government policy except as a leader of the movement to nullify the rigged 1960 general elections. His position has been consistently nationalist, very anti-British and, perhaps beginning with the 1964 Status of Forces Agreement, rather anti-American as well. Though ambitious and opportunistic, he is regarded as honest where money is concerned, lives very simply in south Tehran and is respected by some for this.

He has used the open letter tactic at least twice in the past. Once in 1949 to criticize controls instituted by then Chief of Staff General Razmara, and again in 1953 when