Dubai: Ardeshir Zahedi, the Iranian ambassador who was flamboyant to the US during the Shah government charming Hollywood stars and politicians with their luxury parties until the 1979 Islamic Revolution, died on Thursday.
He was 93.
Is seen with Henry Kissinger or entertaining Barbra Streisand, Zahedi cut an unforgettable presence opposite the Washington social scene that a newspaper report called it “Playboy of the Western World” and the capital “Bachelor”.
He was associated with Romance to Elizabeth Taylor, Sirene of the Age.
But when the Revolution erupted and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, it was fatally ill with cancer, escaping the country, the Iranian embassy who hosted the zahedi-holy parties were abandoned and would stand up for the next 40 years.
The revolution swept the country, installing Islamic theocrations that regulate the nation to this day.
“Iran and America are needed and still need each other, and their interest in pursuing a new and constructive approach in their relationship,” Zahedi wrote in 2020 from Switzerland where he finally settled.
The Iranian news agency managed by the Iranian state links Zahedi’s death to “old age”.
The BBC Persian service, said he had just been sick.
Zahedi is the son of General Fazlollah Zahedi, a man who is a coup supported by the CIA 1953 against the elected PM in the country was installed with strength, strengthening the rules of young shah.
For those who will then overthrow the Shah and stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, the coup represents the original sin by America, which leads to four decades of hostilities who follow.
Zahedi will marry Shahnaz, Shah’s first daughter with Egyptian daughter Fawzia Fuad.
Although the marriage only lasted seven years, Shah considers Zahedi as another son and trusted advisor.
Zahedi will serve as an ambassador to the US and Britain, and Iranian Foreign Minister, before returning to Washington as Top Shah’s diplomat.
A single Zahedi threw himself into their social scene and maintained a close relationship with Nixon and Carter administration.
Along with the envoy from Egypt and Pakistan, he helped resolve the 1977 hostage crisis in Washington who saw two people killed and more than 140 prisoners were released.