American journalist Robin Wright, in her book The Last Great
Revolution, contrasted visits she made to Iran in 1973, at the
height of the shah’s regime, and shortly after the revolution.
“Iran was then an openly inviting place for an American woman,”
she wrote of her first trip. “I felt as relaxed about traveling
throughout the country as I did in Europe. I could go most places,
do virtually anything, talk to anyone and dress in whatever
apparel I chose. Short skirts were acceptable.” Less than a decade
later, she was introduced to a very different lifestyle before her
plane even touched down at the airport: “Before we landed
in Tehran, the flight’s lone stewardess helped me tighten a big
headscarf and button up a baggy ankle-length coat known as a
roopooshto better cover my hair and neck. She also gave me ten
Band-Aids to cover the nail polish I’d forgotten to remove.”^38
At the airport, among Wright’s personal belongings seized and
ritually destroyed by customs officials was her deck of playing cards.
As for Iran’s own news media, it was brought under tight
government control. Any statements Khomeini and his followers
considered critical or even questionable were censored.
Such measures alarmed many Iranians. They had supported
Khomeini in deposing the shah, but they did not realize his
new government would rule with such a heavy hand. Khomeini
himself stated that the brand of political suppression practiced
by the Pahlavi regime was unacceptable. “Our people have been
in prison for 35 years; no government is going to put them in
prison again,” the ayatollah proclaimed. “They must be given a
chance to express themselves as they wish, even if it means a
certain degree of chaos.”^39
Violent opposition groups launched a reign of terror, assassi-
nating some of the ayatollah’s lieutenants. Government forces
brutally put down the resistance. They also dealt violently with
rebellious Kurds and other ethnic groups.
In November 1979, radicals turned their revolution into a major
international event. Some four hundred militant young Iranians
seized the sprawling U.S. Embassy compound in Tehran. It was
their second attempt to do so; a violent attack earlier that year had
Khomeini in Power 61