Nation: Who Helped the Shah How Much?

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In a long Op-Ed page article in the Washington Post, Kissinger pointed out that he had also "called for national unity behind the President" in all his recent public comments on Iran in New York, Dallas and Los Angeles. But he concentrated on reports in the press that he had pushed the Administration to take in the Shah. He said his involvement began at the Administration's urging last January to help find a residence in the U.S. for the Shah, who was then under heavy pressure at home to leave Iran. Kissinger said he asked David Rockefeller to join in the search for a U.S. home, but Rockefeller was reluctant, not wanting to jeopardize his bank's relations with any of the contending factions in Iran. So Kissinger turned to Nelson Rockefeller, his old friend and mentor. Just two weeks before Rockefeller died, he helped find a suitable residence: the Palm Springs estate of Walter H. Annenberg, former Ambassador to Britain. The Shah, however, did not seek a U.S. visa; instead, he went to Egypt and then Morocco.

In mid-March, said Kissinger, a State Department official asked him to advise the Shah not to seek admittance to the U.S. until emotions calmed in Tehran. Said Kissinger: "I refused with some indignation." Kissinger and David Rockefeller thereupon both asked the Government to help the Shah seek asylum in another country. Says Kissinger: "We were told that no official assistance of any kind was contemplated. This I considered deeply wrong and still do."

Kissinger concedes that he then made telephone calls to "three senior officials" and paid two personal visits to Vance to argue that a U.S. visa should be granted the Shah. He expressed that view volubly in private conversations with many people, including journalists. He said that the last of his direct pleas was made in July. He and Rockefeller then sought to find asylum elsewhere for the Shah. Rockefeller found a temporary residence in the Bahamas, and Kissinger persuaded the government of Mexico to admit the Shah on a tourist visa.

On the key point, Kissinger insisted that he had nothing to do with seeking medical help for the Shah in the U.S. Kissinger was in Europe from Oct. 9 to Oct. 23, when the Shah's illness became a backstage diplomatic issue. Kissinger said he kept in touch with Rockefeller's office while traveling and acknowledged that he would have sought the Shah's admittance for medical treatment if he had been in the U.S.

Rockefeller was clearly the man who alerted Administration officials to the Shah's medical problems. The banker has conceded that he helped arrange for the examination of the Shah in Mexico by Dr. Benjamin Kean, a New York specialist in tropical diseases. Rockefeller said that Kean "confirmed the gravity of the Shah's condition," and that "I insisted on having the results of that examination brought to the attention of the State Department." Some officials there were skeptical and suggested that a Government doctor should examine the Shah. Rockefeller then called Vance and expressed his anger at the doubts about the Shah's condition.