Асадоллаһ Әлем: Иранның бұрынғы премьер-министрі

Prime minister of Iran from 1962 to 1964

Asadollah Alam (اسدالله علم; 24 July 1919 – 14 April 1978) was an Iranian politician who was prime minister during the Shah's regime from 1962 to 1964. He was also minister of Royal Court, president of Pahlavi University and governor of Sistan and Baluchestan Province.

Alam was born on 24 July 1919 in Birjand and was educated at a British school in Iran. By a royal order from Reza Shah, Alam married Malektaj, the daughter of Qavam Al Molk Shirazi. The son of Qavam ol molk was then married to a sister of the Shah, Ashraf Pahlavi. Shortly after deposing the Qajar dynasty, Reza Shah intended to unite Iran's non Qajar nobility through inter marriage. At the age of 26, he was appointed governor of Sistan and Baluchestan Province. At the age of 29, he became Minister of Agriculture in the cabinet of Mohammad Sa'ed. He early displayed what an American acquaintance describes as a combination of native toughness and Y. M. C. A. dedication. Assadollah Alam became the main landowner of Birjand after his father's death. He was one of Iran's first big landowners to distribute his holdings to the peasants, insisting that his servants eat the same food as his family. Once, when a would be assassin was nabbed outside his door, Alam gave the man $40, then had him thrashed and sent into the street without his pants. Alam was subsequently made the director of the Pahlavi Foundation, a charitable trust worth at least $133 million, set up by the Shah to finance social welfare plans out of the profits from royal holdings in banks, industries, hotels. In 1962, he became prime minister at the age of 43. As prime minister, Assadollah Alam pledged to undertake "an anticorruption campaign with great diligence and all severity." Though the cynical snickered, Alam got free rein from the Shah, and carefully began building airtight cases against suspected grafters among Iran's leading bureaucrats and government leaders. His first major target was General Mohammed Ali Khazai, the Iranian army's chief of ordnance, who had parlayed his $6,000 salary into three houses in the suburbs of Tehran, four apartment houses in France, five automobiles, $100,000 in European banks and $200,000 in cash. A military court convicted Khazai of taking a cut out of government contracts and sentenced him to five years of solitary confinement. In May 1963, Alam's anti corruption drive was in full swing. In Tehran, a military tribunal sentenced General Abdullah Hedayat, Iran's first four star general and once a close advisor of the Shah, to two years in prison for embezzling money on military housing contracts, brushed aside his plea for appeal with the brusque explanation that "more charges are pending." The former boss of the Tehran Electricity Board was in solitary confinement for five years; cases were in preparation against an ex war minister and twelve other generals for graft. Screaming "Down with the Shah", 10,000 people, swept through the capital, carrying pictures of Khomeini. Though the whereabouts of the Shah were kept secret, rows of white helmeted troops, backed by tanks, immediately sealed off access to royal palaces in the city and suburbs. In the heart of town green, they fired for 40 minutes. When the mobs entered government buildings, the troops opened up at point blank range. The crowd fell back in confusion, regrouped, and raced down main avenues. For the first time in a decade, martial law was imposed on the city, along with a dusk to dawn curfew. Hoping to preserve quiet for a while, Alam also announced that troops would remain on emergency duty. Their orders: shoot to kill.

In 1964, he was appointed as chancellor of Shiraz University and a few years later served host to the King of Belgium in his visit to Fars Province. Beginning in December 1966 he was the minister of court for many years. Furthermore, he was the head and bursar of the Pahlavi Foundation. He was also a supporter of the campaign of Richard Nixon, during the United States presidential elections. As the minister of the Royal Court he was the closest man to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who now ran the country autocratically. Therefore, Alam became the channel through which most of the daily affairs of the country passed. Alam's memoirs, published posthumously, are exceptionally detailed documents on the life and the deeds of the Shah as perceived by an insider.

Asadollah Alam was diagnosed with cancer in the late 1960s. He died at New York University Hospital in New York City in 1978, less than a year before the Revolution in Iran.